Interesting proposal from Keith Flett for a new module for university students on uncovered pitches in cricket. My own view is that the syllabus on this fascinating subject should also discuss the physics behind the variable bounce and turn such pitches produced.
In its issue of 21st January 2015 the Times Higher reported that the University of the Highlands and Islands is to offer a degree in professional golf.
I responded that it was surely time to offer a degree in cricket too (28th January 2015).
Subjects covered could well include the Laws of Cricket, the history of the game (a very substantial subject in itself) Gentleman v Players and class in cricket, Race and Imperialism in cricket. There is also scope for modules on cricket management and coaching and like many degrees no doubt students would select those areas of most relevance to their interests and future careers.
One area that must certainly should be covered however is that of Uncovered Pitches. To mark the start of the English cricket season and indeed the start at nearly the same time of a West Indies…
Just a short post to pay my respects to a great cricketing legend, Richie Benaud, who has died at the age of 84. It’s no surprise that the media are filled with tributes because he was admired by players and spectators alike. He retired as a player way back in 1964, so many would know him as a commentator, but he was a fine cricketer in his time. A shrewd tactician, he captained Australia with great distinction but was also an excellent leg-spinner, who took 248 wickets in Test matches, and a capable batsman. In fact he was the first cricketer in history to reach 2000 runs and 200 wickets at Test level, in an era when far fewer Test matches were played.
When he retired from the game as a player he turned to a career in broadcasting and soon established himself as a peerless comentator on the game. The deep knowledge of the game he acquired in his playing years helped of course, but he also had a natural feeling for when to comment and when to just let it happen. Too many commentators feel the urge to babble on during slower passages of play, but Richie Benaud understood the varying tempo of the game too much to spoil the experience with tittle-tattle. He was unfailingly courteous, generous and respectful, but never afraid to be critical when that was justified. His succinct and perceptive expert analyses during the intervals and after the close of play were especially good. I was going to describe him as a “class act” but I don’t think it was an act at all. I never met him in person, but I think he was as much of a gentleman in real life as he was in the commentary box or on the cricket field. His balanced, even-handed commentary won him as many admirers here as he had in his native Austrlia.
He was a regular commentator on English cricket during what passes for summer in the Northern hemisphere until the memorable Ashes series of 2005. He started his career in commentary in 1963, which was the year I was born, and he played a very big part Here are the last few moments of his last appearance as a commentator in England.
Rest in peace, Richie Benaud (1930-2015), and thank you for all you gave to the world of cricket.
Like any cricket fan I was horrified to hear last week of the death at the age of 25 of the Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes, three days after he received a head injury on the field of play during a Sheffield Shield match in Australia on Tuesday. Let me start by expressing my deepest condolences to his family and friends at what must be a terrible time for them. My thoughts also go to the bowler, Sean Abbott, whose delivery ended up causing the fatal injury. He should not be blamed and I’m sure he feels as bad as anyone about the incident.
What happened to Phillip Hughes is a reminder that cricket is a dangerous game. A cricket ball is hard – it is made of solid cork wrapped in leather – and can travel at speeds in excess of 90 mph when delivered by a fast bowler. When you get hit by one it really hurts. Thankfully serious injuries are relatively rare, but it nevertheless takes considerable physical and mental courage as well as great skill for a batsman to face up to fast bowling.
In this case it was Sean Abbott who bowled a short-pitched delivery (a “bouncer”) at Hughes. There’s nothing unusual about that – it’s a standard part of a fast bowler’s repertoire. Hughes saw it coming and got into position to play a hook shot, a cross-batted stroke played to a ball over waist height with the intent of sending it to the boundary. This is one of the most spectacular attacking shots in cricket but also one of the most dangerous. Often it involves playing the ball directly in front of the face, and if the batsman misses an injury is inevitable. On this occasion, Hughes seems to have misjudged the pace of the ball and went through with the shot too quickly. His upper body having swung around during the course of his attempted hook, when the ball missed the bat it thudded into the back of his head, underneath his protective helmet. The impact ruptured an artery and caused a massive flow of blood into his brain. He subsequently collapsed and was carried off the field, where he needed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He was taken to hospital, and a procedure carried out to reduce the pressure on his brain. Sadly he never recovered, and died three days later.
Of course the death of Phillip Hughes has led to a great deal of soul-searching in the cricket world. I think it’s quite right that a heart-breaking event like the death of a cricketer so make us redouble efforts to keep the game as safe as possible. I think that means looking very seriously at the design of the modern cricket helmet. Only this summer, England’s Stuart Broad was badly injured when he was hit by a ball that smashed through the faceguard on his helmet, which suggests to me that the design of the front of the standard helmet is faulty. The same type of helmet offers no protection to the lower part of the back of the skull, either. On the other hand, a helmet that was too bulky might restrict the movement of a batsman so much that it makes it more, not less, likely that they will get hit. One also has to try to maintain a reasonable perspective. The type of injury that killed Hughes – a vertebral artery dissection – is extremely rare, with only about 100 cases ever having been recorded at all, none which were on the cricket field. Not that long ago, nobody wore a helmet anyway; see below for an example.
Australians cricketers learn to play the game on pitches that are fast and hard, but generally of even bounce. That’s why the hook shoot is favoured more by Aussie batsman than by their English counterparts; pitches in England are generally slower and variable bounce is much more likely. Until relatively recently many English batsman didn’t play the hook shot at all, preferring instead to simply get out of the way of a bouncer than attempt to play it. After all, the ball isn’t going to hit the stumps if it’s bouncing around head height. Getting out of the way isn’t as easy as it sounds, however, because one’s instinctive reaction is either to try to protect your head with bat or gloves, to flinch away or try to duck. The proper technique, which requires practice to ingrain, is to keep your eye on the ball, drop the hands to keep the bat out of the way, and sway out of the path of the ball at the last minute. That may sound easy, but it certainly isn’t. I tried to do it in a school game years against a bowler a fraction of the pace of Sean Abbott, and ended up with the ball smacking me right on bridge of my nose. I had taken the “keep your eyes on the ball” advice a bit too literally…
Some have argued that bouncers should be banned. I think that would be a mistake. Part of the unique appeal of cricket is that the spectactors are aware not only of the skill of the players, but also their courage. A bouncer is a severe test of the mettle of a batsman, whether they choose to fight fire with fire by trying to hook, or simply standing firm and letting it go by. Some of the most enthralling passages of play I remember watching involved a demon fast bowler hurling down terrifying thunderbolts at batsman who could do little but get everything into line and try soak up whatever was thrown at him. Heroic defence is as much a part of the game as dashing strokeplay.
Take this example. Brian Close had been brought into open the England batting earlier in the 1976 series against the West Indies in an attempt to stiffen their resistance to the West Indian attack. He wasn’t the greatest player in the world nor the cricketing world’s most agreeable character, and as you can tell he wasn’t in the first flush of youth in 1976 either, but there is no denying his courage and determination. Here he is enduring a vicious battering at the hands of Michael Holding. One short-pitched delivery in this sequence came within a whisker of hitting him on the head; had it done so the consequences would have been horrendous as he was not wearing a helmet. As it was, he “only” had to take a succession of blows to his body. He scored 20 runs at Old Trafford, off 108 balls in 162 minutes, and was dropped for the next Test as was his opening partner John Edrich, although both had stood their ground and defended their wickets (and themselves) manfully.
Note that Michael Holding did get a warning here for excessive use of short-pitched deliveries, but the situation was very different from that faced by Phillip Hughes who was well set and trying to score runs rather than clinging on against a barrage aimed at his head and body.
The element of danger is not unique to the sport of cricket. Contact sports (e.g. rugby) also carry a risk of serious injury. Boxing is another, perhaps more extreme, example. Of course we should do everything we can to minimize the danger to the participants, but we can never remove the risk entirely. I’m not in favour of banning bouncers or boxing or other “dangerous sports”: as long as all concerned know the risks then they should be allowed to make the decision whether to expose themselves to those risks. In fact, everything we do in life carries an element of risk. If we’re not free to take chances, we’re not free to live at all.
R.I.P. Phillip Hughes (1988-2014).
POSTSCRIPT. In a touching gesture, the record of Phillip Hughes’s last innings has been changed to from “Retired Hurt 63” to “Not Out 63”.
Since there’s a Test Match going on right now at the Oval and I’ve got a few minutes before my next task, I thought I’d just do a brief post to mark the anniversary of a very special cricketing moment. On this day in 1964, also at the Oval, Sir Fred Trueman became the first bowler to take 300 wickets in test matches. In his test career overall he took 307 wickets at an astonishingly low average of 21.57. He twice bowled spells in Test matches in which he took five wickets without conceding a run.
Here’s a short video to remind us all of what a superb action Fiery Fred Trueman had:
p.s. Fred Trueman was born in Yorkshire which, as you all know, is part of the Midlands.
Important poll on the Beard Index for England’s cricketers..
My own vote went to Jimmy Anderson, a remark on whose performance yesterday by me on Twitter also led to me featuring on the BBC Sports Website:
Today is the 4th Day and England have just declared on 205-4, leaving India to score 445 to win in approximately 132 overs…
..and India close on 112-4. The ball is starting to turn and with another 331 to win off 90 overs (3.67 an over) the odds are firmly on England’s side.
UPDATE: And so it came to pass that England took India’s last 6 wickets for 66 runs in the first session of the final day to win by 266 runs.
Beard Liberation Front
Press release 29th July contact Keith Flett 07803 167266
Jimmy Anderson & Moeen split hairs in England Cricket Team Beard Index
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has issued an update to its England cricket Beard Index which shows Moeen Ali and Jimmy Anderson tied with Ian Bell and Alastair Cook moving up the rankings
Hirsute England players have only recently been a significant factor in the team’s performance but the campaigners say that facial hair on the pitch can have several, sometimes combined, impacts:
1] Beards can add gravitas and presence. Moeen is known as ‘the beard that’s feared’
2] Beards can influence aerodynamics both with bat and ball as a movement of the facial hair can cause subtle changes to air currents
Just back to Brighton from a short break, part of which (Saturday) I spent at Lords Cricket Ground watching Day 3 of the First Test between England and Sri Lanka.
England had been put in to bat on the first morning and has wobbled early on, but had rallied strongy with young Joe Root scoring 200 not out as they reached 575 for 9 before declaring on Day 2. Sri Lanka batted, needing 375 to avoid the follow-on.
The morning of Day 3 found Sri Lanka resuming on 140-1. Conditions were a bit murky and it drizzled for much of the morning, but not to the extent that it interrupted play. Sri Lanka, especially the excellent Sangakkara, batted with resilience and resourcefulness, as the England bowlers struggled to take wickets on a flat and rather lifeless pitch. The swing of Anderson didn’t threaten as much as I expected in the overcast conditions. The all-rounder Ali was reasonably tidy as a bowler but didn’t cause many alarms, though he did take the wicket of Sangakkara. Broad and Plunkett were fast and aggressive but the latter was a bit unlucky only to take one wicket.
Fortunately at Lords there are plenty of distractions during the intervals or when the cricket is slow, including jazz from The Outswingers and a school band at lunchtime.
The batsman passed the follow-on target for the loss of only six wickets and as I headed from the ground the game seemed to be heading for a high-scoring draw.
Sri Lanka were eventually out for 453 on Day 4 and England, batting again, wobbled again, in deep trouble at 123 for 6. A fine hundred from Ballance and some good batting from the lower order took them to 267 for 8 at the close, a lead of 389. England declared overnight.
There was talk about Alastair Cook’s captaincy over this, some suggesting he should have declared earlier. For what it’s worth I would have done exactly what Cook did. Sri Lanka are a good batting side, and well capable of scoring 300 in a day on such a good pitch.
So Day 5 saw Sri Lanka needing 390 to win off the 90 overs to be bowled or, more realistically, to bat all day to draw the game. They showed no inclination to go for the runs but batted well defensively for most of the day. A draw looked inevitable in mid-afternoon.
But then, as is so often the case in Test cricket, there was a dramatic twist. Wickets started to fall. Suddenly Sri Lanka were 170 for 5, with both their best batsmen (Sangakkara and Jayawardene) out. More wickets fell, but time was ticking away. Then came the last over, with Sri Lanka on 201 for 8. After five relatively sedate days everything now hinged on the final six balls.
Broad struck with the first ball. Sri Lanka 201 for 9. Only one wicket needed for England to win. Could Sri Lanka hang on!
Broad bowled to the tailender Herath. There was an appeal for lbw. Up went the umpire’s finger. England had won with just a few balls left of the day’s play.
Or had they? No. Sri Lanka used a review. Herath had hit the ball. Not out. Sri Lanka survived. Match drawn.
It’s hard to explain to people who don’t know cricket how a game can last for five days and end in a draw, and that can be exciting. But great Test match like this one prove that it is true. Credit to both teams for playing their parts.
A Test Match is like a Symphony in which the slow movement is just as important as the finale. Without the five days preceding it, the drama of that final over wouldn’t have been anything like as intense.
Following their comprehensive defeat to The Netherlands (yes, The Netherlands) today in the World Twenty20 Cricket after already having been knocked out of the competition, it seems appropriate to conduct an opinion poll on the subject of the performance of the England cricket team:
With no disrespect at all to the current presenters of Test Match Special, I don’t think listening to cricket on the radio has been quite the same since September 2nd 1980, the day that John Arlott gave his last commentary:
This brief post is just to point out that John Arlott was born on 25th February 1914, i.e. one hundred years ago today. He died in 1991 at his home in Alderney, but is remembered fondly not only for his wonderful gift for evocative descriptions of cricket, but for the warmth and humanity that shone through in his commentaries.
Big sporting news this morning was the decision by a panel representing the England and Wales Cricket Board to part company with Kevin Pietersen. In his Test career Pietersen has scored 8,181 runs at an average of 47 in 104 Tests, which is pretty outstanding – certainly compared with other current England batsmen. And at 33 he’s probably still got a few years of international cricket in him. Can England really afford to cast him aside just because some of his team-mates find him a bit difficult?
I’m perfectly well aware that Pietersen is not the kind of player who always puts the team first, and being such a maverick he must be a very frustrating player to captain, but he is clearly also a prodigiously talented batsmen. It’s true that he didn’t play well in Australia, but then who did (other than Ben Stokes)? In fact Pietersen averaged better with the bat than his Captain, so you could argue that it’s Alastair Cook who should be dropped if the problem is between the two of them (as some have suggested).
And then there’s the fact that – love them or hate them – it’s players like KP who are the crowd-pullers. It’s never just been about the ability to play the game. People like to see larger-than-life characters in sport.
Anyway, I know that opinions differ on this issue so I thought I’d try a quite poll:
I’m hoping that writing a blog post about the Ashes tour might provide some kind of catharsis, so here goes.
England lost the fifth and final Ashes test today by 281 runs and so have lost all five tests. It’s not that long ago that they suffered a similar fate on tour in Australia (2007, in fact) but I think this series has been a lot worse. None of the matches have been close-fought, as the following summary proves:
The final Test summed up the series. England briefly promised with the ball, having Australia in trouble at 97-5, but were unable to push home their advantage as the hosts recovered to 326. England’s batsmen then capitulated for a paltry 155 having been in danger (at 23-5) of being all out for their lowest-ever Ashes total of 45. The Australians amassed another 276 in only 61 overs and then watched England crumble again in pitiful fashion, for 166 in only 32 overs. Hopeless by England, but well played Australia.
So what has gone wrong? The obvious answer is England’s batting; they’ve scored under 200 in six innings in the series, and only one England batsman (Stokes) managed a century. Credit to the Australian bowlers, of course – Mitchell Johnson’s total of 37 wickets at an average of under 14 was truly outstanding – but good bowling can’t be the only factor. Experienced batsmen like Cook, Bell and Pietersen have all been found wanting. I know they had to hostile and determined fast bowling, but this is Test cricket. Top players have to stand up and be counted. The failures of less experienced players such as Carberry and Root are more forgivable, given the poor example set by senior batsmen, but I think they’re also symptomatic of something drastically wrong with the coaching system employed by the England team management. Good batsmen don’t spontaneously turn into bad ones.
The England bowling hasn’t been much to write home about either, with only Stuart Broad turning in a respectable statistic of 21 wickets at 27.52. Jimmy Anderson is a dangerous bowler when the ball swings, but that hasn’t happened for him on this tour and he only managed 14 wickets at an average of 43.92. Swann’s bowling average was a woeful 80 before he threw in the towel.
England coach Andy Flower has stated that this is the End of An Era for English cricket. I hope the powers that be have the courage and vision to take the steps needed to pull English cricket out of its calamitous downward spiral. That means rethinking the entire coaching set-up rather than just tinkering with the team selection.
It will, however, be interesting to see which survivors of this debacle will play Test cricket this summer. Trott and Swann are already out of contention. I’d be surprised if Cook remains as skipper, though he might keep his place as an opener if he shows form in county matches. Carberry does not look like a top class opener to me, and Root is no world class number 3 either. Let’s hope Bell can recover some form and provide some stability while the selectors look to blood new players. I think Pietersen should stay too, exasperating though he is.
The only ray of sunshine I can find is in the performance of young Ben Stokes, who topped the England batting averages with 34.87 and took 15 wickets at 32.80. It’s early days for him, as he is only 22, but has England at last found the genuine all-rounder that it has missed for so long?
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In the Dark 