Category: Cricket
Stop The World Cup
As many of you will know, I am a huge cricket fan. If I had more time on my hands, I would gladly play the sport all day every day, with only small breaks to watch it instead. The world cup is meant to be a great, six week showcase of some of the world's best cricketers and a rare opportunity for up-and-coming nations to experience the formidable drubbings from the likes of Australia and South Africa. It provides some great moments, with surprise wins, such as Ireland against Pakistan and Bangladesh against India. It provides rivetting finishes to games, as was seen between Zimbabwe and Ireland. We see great personal feats, such as Brendon McCullum's half-century off of just twenty balls - a world cup record. We've also seen Herschelle Gibbs score six sixes in one over, for the first time in a one day international. Finally, we've also seen India score a record 413-5 against Bermuda, the only score over 400 in any world cup match, but they, like Pakistan, face a long trip home, having lost to embarrassingly to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. By this quick look, it's a world cup to remember.
However, everything that has been great about the world cup so far has been completely overshadowed this week with the death and assumed murder of the British coach of Pakistan, Bob Woolmer. This week, there has been virtually no talk of the games of cricket that have been played. Sri Lanka and India played today, but you wouldn't know it. It was a very important game, but it's faded into the background. Suddenly, the suspicious death of Bob Woolmer has deflected all attention away from cricket - and quite rightly so.
The trouble is, no-one is ever going to remember the cricket from this world cup, which, given some of the great cricket, is a crying shame. This world cup will be synonymous with Bob Woolmer's death. The eventual winners will take their trophy, speak sombrely about how insignificant it is in the context of this week and remain stuck in a limbo, not knowing whether to celebrate winning or to just escape as soon as they possibly can. The cricket has become virtually irrelevant.
It's true - Bob Woolmer may have wished for the world cup to have continued, but is it really worth it? I don't think so. The sooner it has gone and the investigations are complete, the better. It's bad enough just thinking about it.
England's Torture Is Finally Over
After a couple of months down under, England's abysmal Ashes tour in Australia is over, having been whitewashed in a series that never looked close. If it were Zimbabwe or Bangladesh playing against Australia, you'd expect that scoreline, but given that England are ranked second in the world Test rankings, this is an awful result. In the Test series, Australia overall beat England by one innings, 16 wickets and 582 runs - an awful result by any team's standards. However, whilst it is true to say that England were not at full strength - missing Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan and Simon Jones, it is equally true that the Australian team was the only team that ever looked like winning. The Australians were the only team that looked like they had the desire firing them on. They learned the lessons of losing in the 2005 Ashes series. Now England need to do the same.
It is also sad to now realise that we have now lost 4 great Australian players - Damien Martyn, Justin Langer, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. They will all be missed. All could have carried on had the wished and the game will not be the same without them. However, as Warne will still be playing for Lancashire, I will make sure I try my hardest to go to a Hampshire game this year, though probably not at the Rose Bowl. He is an exceptional talent with the ball - and he can knock it around the park fairly well too!
For England, the inquest must start. The best place to start is with Australia themselves - how did Australia respond to their own Ashes loss? Their response had paid huge dividends even before the Ashes began in November, so perhaps there is something to learn in their response to losing.
Ban The Sweep!
I am utterly disgusted this morning. England should not have lost the second Test in Adelaide - but they did! How? Well, I really struggle to work it out. Having scored so freely on the first couple of days, they declare on 551/6, a score which I didn't think was enough at the time (though having said this, I always maintain that you should bat until you're bowled out on first innings). Given the flat nature of the pitch, Australia find the score fairly easy to match, albeit with a little help from Ashley Giles dropping Ricky Ponting on 35, but England can't lose the match. No, it's a dead cert to be a draw.
WRONG! Why? Because England come out in the second innings and display the ability only they have to throw away a game that is impossible to lose. They decide not to play shots, but to just defend instead - not a good policy. I always find scoring runs is a better form of defence - it's called "attack" - and Collingwood scores only 1 run in his first hour at the crease.
That wasn't the worst of it, however. The worst of it was Kevin Pieterson's inability to turn his brain on and play a sensible innings. In his 158 in the first innings, he did not sweep the ball once. The first time he does in the second innings, he is clean bowled. You idiot. The sweep shot should be banned for all England players. They have a complete inability to play the shot well - and I'll admit, I'm a poor player of the sweep too - and it gets them out more times than they ever hit the ball cleanly. So, Duncan Fletcher, please duly fine your players every time they try and play the sweep shot. Leave it to players who can play it well. We sure can't.
While I'm handing out advice, however, I would like to reiterate this over team selection: Ashley Giles is not as good as Monty Panesar. I don't care about his batting - after all, he is a bowler. Do we pick James Anderson on his batting ability? No! So why should we pick any other of our bowlers on that basis? We shouldn't. He got a duck in the second innings, oh, the usefulness!
Secondly, the wicketkeeping position: Geriant Jones should not be picked, especially on his batting, and I've never rated his wicketkeeping either. He scored 11 with the bat in the match - giving him an average a number 11 could not be proud of, on a good batting pitch too. His wicketkeeping is not a good as Chris Read's, and Read's batting is much better than it used to be. Pick him instead, and listen to Shane Warne.
The first 6 players picked should be batters, though it's great if the number 6 can bowl too. Number 7 should be a wicketkeeper, and if he can bat, congratulations, give him a medal. Numbers 8 to 11 should be picked on their bowling ability, nothing else. If you have a problem with the strength of any of those departments on the basis of that selection procedure, maybe you need to invest more time and money into developing better players in the future.
So, there you have it: Noelinho's simple fix for the England cricket team. And yes, I know, it's meant to be Wales too, but face it, Geriant Jones is useless, I'd rather he was on the other team.
Disgraceful
So, England lose the third test match in Pakistan, and lose the test series 2-0. Although I may not have recorded my thoughts here, after the Ashes victory over Australia, I did tell many people that Pakistan would be a much greater test of just how good England are. If England really were the best cricket team in the world, they would show their mettle in the subcontinent. Only then could they show they are the best.
Granted, the subcontinent is not the easiest place to go, but the best team in the world does not go and lose 2-0, with a series of batting displays which belong in with the captaincy of Michael Atherton's time, and the shot selection of Jack Russell.
I think I am vindicated in maintaining that England cannot claim to be the best team in the world. Australia's reassertion of authority against the West Indies (despite Brian Lara's best efforts) in my opinion shows that they are still the best - not as good as they were in their peak, but still at the top, with a real killer instinct.
If England are to show that they really are approaching a team that could be called the 'best in the world', then they need to get their act together in time for the tour in India in three months. The batting needs to be much more solid - if we are going to go with 7 batsmen, we must have more than two or three of them making scores, it must be at least five, and really six.
Secondly, shot selection must also be much better. What's the point of trying to smash the ball out of the ground when you have five days to play a test match?
Thirdly, it's a tour on India. What do you need in India? A decent spinner. When can Shane Warne qualify for England?
Finally, we need to show we can remove difficult batsmen. In Pakistan, we failed to remove Inzamam-ul-Haq. If we struggle against him, what will we do with Sachin Tendulkar? If we cannot deal with him, we will have real difficulties.
England aren't the best yet. I'm not convinced they're even close.
Brian Lara Overtakes Allan Border
Brian Lara overtook Allan Border to hold the world record for most test runs overnight. He now has 11,187, featuring 8 double hundreds.
He holds the world record for most runs in a test innings (400, against England), alongside the third best, (an old record, 375*, against England), sandwiching Matthew Hayden's 380, which held the world record for two months before Lara became the first man to reclaim the world record.
He also holds the first class record (501* for Warwickshire). In one three-test tour against Sri Lanka, he scored 688 runs, 42% of all runs scored by the West Indies in the series.
His runs come at an average of 54.04, beaten in the modern game only by Sachin Tendulkar. Had he played for the West Indies in better times, he may well have an even better average.
A left-hander, he is unquestionably one of the very best batsmen ever to grace cricket, and only Tendulkar could question that. I has the great privilege of watching him in the Lords test of 2004, where he fell just 11 runs short of his 10,000 runs. It's a massive shame he didn't score well that day, for he is truly great. May he hit us English folk for even more runs in the future - it's worth it :)