Skip to main content

Missing the woods for the tree (and the unfortunate Strauss)

As the battle rages on between the dunce (KP) and the idiots (the ECB and the England team management), its hard to shake off the feeling that England are trying their best to bring back their dark days of the 90s. I have never been the biggest fan of English cricket (not least because of the media here) but I was genuinely beginning to believe that they were progressing to be a consistently solid team that had charted out a course for being the best team they could be in all formats of the game. As that lovely blog Leg Side Filth points out (more eloquently than I ever could), things are falling apart faster than a routine service hold from Roger Federer. The best thing that can happen to England now is for them to get thrashed at the World T20 and then in India, patch up with KP and get on with the business of being a solid cricket team. An ounce of flexibility from Flower wouldn't be bad either.

Amidst all this (as noted in the blog post as well), its remarkable how little coverage the departure of Strauss has received. As a batsman, he would fall into the good rather than great category given he averaged less than 45 which in the modern day is somewhat middling. He did play several match-winning knocks though and significantly, averaged more away than home which is something of a rarity for post 1980s English batsmen. Of far greater note though was his record as captain which reached its highpoint in the 3-1 win in Australia followed by a 4-0 swamping of India in 2011 to herald England's rise to the #1 ranking. In doing this, he helmed Ashes victories home and away (the first to do so since Brearley) and in addition was part of the team in another seminal Ashes win in 2005. His last year in charge of the Test match team was a difficult one but he certainly deserved a better send-off than he received. But I guess its a fact of life (and not just sports) that the quiet, determined, no-frills folks always get less coverage than the more flamboyant, flighty ones. The last year has seen the departure from the game of three of the best in the former category (Dravid, Strauss, and Laxman). Tendulkar, Kallis, and Jayawardene are also getting ever closer to the exit so its not long before the game will largely be totally bereft of the type. Sometime back, the romantic in me might have said that it would be bad for the sport, but I've changed in the way I think. Partly because I think everything needs to change to keep up with the times, and partly because things go in circles and no doubt there will come a time again when the hard working, soft spoken cricketer (who's not so good at T20) will rise again. The dude abides :-)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Et tu?

As a single sport website, I think Cricinfo has brought about a revolution and the fact that they were bought by ESPN is testament to how highly valued they've become. Their editing and approach to articles/opinion has been refreshing to say the least and even though they seem to have had a lot of editorial staff movement they've usually maintained very high standards. Off late though, both in their headline styles as well as in actual content, there seems to be an occasional slippage of standards and an inching towards the modern media sensationalism which is a bit of a pity. This piece  by Siddharth Monga is a classic example. Granted that the last two press conferences by Dhoni and Sehwag  indicated clearly that the captain and his deputy did not agree on this aspect of selection but "discord", "dissent", "public sniping" feels rather presumptuous and heavy handed. Yes, it is a team sport but there is no reason why everyone on the team needs ...

Much ado about a run-out

Judging by the amount that's been said and written about Ian Bell's run-out-that-wasn't at Trent Bridge, you would think that it has been the most significant occurrence of the series so far when nothing could be further from the truth. Andrew Miller  and Samir Chopra seem to be of the opinion that it was the crucial turning point in the match, which I completely disagree with (the post-tea sessions on days one and two were far more critical and momentum shifting). Andy Flower says that if Tendulkar had been run-out similarly in Bombay, it would have caused an international incident. He's clearly feeling the effects of having been in the England cricket set-up for too long given that a) its very improbable that Tendulkar would do something as daft as Bell did, and b) when a controversial run-out (but within the laws) did happen to him (against Pakistan at Eden Gardens no less), Tendulkar went out to the crowd and appealed to them to calm down and let the game proceed...

First thoughts on the Ashes

The only minor surprise for me in the 2013 Australian Ashes squad announced last week was the selection of James Faulkner ahead of Moises Henriques as the second all-rounder. Minor because given  the Shane Watson shenanigans of recent times, I would have thought that Inverarity and co would have opted for a second batting all-rounder (which is what Henriques clearly is). Instead they've gone with a bowling all-rounder in Faulkner and it'll be interesting to see what happens if Watson's batting woes in Test match cricket continue in the first two Tests. As for the rest of the squad, given the way the inexperienced batting performed in India, Rogers and Haddin were always going to make it in to the team and the choice of Khawaja over Smith appears sound too given that the latter's strength is in playing spin bowling. The batting still looks as unsettled and shaky as the Indian fast bowling line-up and its here that the series will be won or lost for the Aussies. The retu...