cricket with balls

There was once a play called “Six Characters in Search of an Author”, which was then parodied as “Six Characters in Search of a Plot”. Now, thanks to the global recession, we are now being brought the slimmed down version, “Two Captains in Search of a Plot”.

All we have learned from the Bangladesh/England Test series is that neither Alistair Cook nor Shakib Al Hasan has it in them to be an international captain.

Cook, for his part, appears to be going through the motions of captaincy. He doesn’t look to do anything interesting, he just moves players around with the absent-minded air of a chess player who doesn’t really understand the game. He doesn’t seem to encourage his troops, or indeed to interact with them in any meaningful way. For example, during yesterday’s play Jonathan Trott committed two of the sort of fielding howlers that would make even Monty Panesar blush, but not a word of consolation came his way from the captain – in fact, Cook simply shook his head and went back to biting his fingernails.

The most glaring example of his inadequacies came with the freak wicket of Junaid Siddique. You might think “How can you blame Cook on the back of one of the strangest dismissals of the last 25 years?”. But if you wind back a couple of balls, you see Cook setting the same field as for just about every over James Tredwell has bowled. And then Tredwell walking downt he pitch to him and making him move the extra cover fielder squarer. The result was that Siddique attempted to drive into the new gap, got it wrong and the rest will be repeated over and again on those cricket dvds that sell so well every December.

Cook’s saving grace is that he is nowhere near as appalling as Shakib, who has to be the least impressive international captain since Michael Atherton (who was, despite everything, shit). Shakib really does not know how to lead a team. He looks completely lost when it comes to setting a field, thinks that ‘leading by example’ means finding new and increasingly daft ways to give your wicket up, and has so little trust in his own team that he feels the only way to bowl the opposition out is to send down 1/3 of the overs yourself (and almost twice as many as any other bowler). That’s not the action of a good captain, it is the action of an egomaniac who thinks that no-one else is as good as him (admittedly this is true in the case of Naeem Islam, who isn’t even as good as Nathan Hauritz, but even Shakib could see that and only gave him seven overs of non-spin)

Clueless Cook is, mercifully, only a stand-in. Quite where Bangladesh go from Shakib Al Hopeless is another story, but they have to go somewhere or they have no chance of winning another Test for many years to come.

As the hours tick down towards the start of their oh-so-tricky first Test against Bangladesh, England’s selectors are apparently enduring sleepless hours wondering who to leave out from the side.

So far, the only people certain not to be in the starting XI are Luke Wright and Stephen Davies. Even Liam Plunkett might get a call, on the grounds that (a) Stuart Broad might not be fit and (b) he’s the next most-capped bowler in the side – which would mean adopting the age-old English policy of going for experience despite the player having been resolutely crap for the entire tour.

Which means that they have to play Broad, because otherwise they have to play someone slightly less threatening than Angelina Ballerina. Except they can’t play him as a part of a two man pace attack, in case his back goes again.

In which case they have to play Finn, despite his being likely to blow away at the first gust of wind, because they have to play Bresnan, if only to ensure that there is some food left come the intervals.

But if they play three seamers, they have to leave out either a spinner or a batsman. Which means either leaving out Swann (unthinkable), the leading wicket taker on this leg of the tour (Tredwell), the guy who scored a ton in the last game (Trott), the only specialist opener in the side other than the captain (Carberry) or Ian Bell, who hasn’t really done anything to justify being dropped. For once.

And before anyone starts, you’ve more chance of catching Andy Flower climbing out of the back entrance of Robert Mugabe than you have of him dropping KP.

Never fear, though. Because the Balls has the answer. There isn’t one England player who isn’t taller than any given member of the Bangladesh starting XI – even Bell. And when you get to a certain height, your features must just be fading into the distance, like mountain tops. Which means that England should just take advantage of their opponents being a bit on the short side and just play Broad. And then, if he starts falling apart again, slip Finn onto the field in his place. A bit of hair dye and no-one will ever know.

And then the selectors can get a decent night’s sleep and stop coming up with stupid ideas such as Trott opening, or dropping Tredwell on a track prepared for their opponents’ 1283 spinners.

When Australia were losing the Ashes there was a lot of talk of the statistical mugging Australia was giving England while still managing to quite beautifully lose the series.

This series has a similar story.

England had one batsman average over 45.

Even Bell and Cook who apparently came of age could only muster 44 and 41 between them.

Trott might be from South Africa, but there is no statistical proof that he even went, his average of 27 is even bad for an English number 3.

Then the two highest paid batsmen combined to average 49.

As world’s greatest hack Nigel Henderson pointed out to me, why are people talking about Daryl Harper.

Because it is funny and he is shit.

But once they stop chuckling at Daryl looking at the carnage of this series will not be pretty.

The bowling is not that much better, their bowling unit got more wickets than in the Ashes, but their averages do not inspire moans of pleasure.

Swann was the top wicket taker with 21, but his average was 31, Morkel took 19 wickets at 21.

Anderson took 16 wickets, which is respectable, at 34, Steyn took 15 at 23.

Had it not been for their new Jesus (I move on just that quick), the man who saved them twice and then was crucified, England could have gone down 3-1.

However, when you swim out of that faecic quagmire look at the actual scoreline. Not bad.  The Ashes scoreline worked for England as well. Had England been offered these two results going in they would have taken them.

Somehow England have invented a style of play that means that very few players have to do anything, the rest turn up for the food, and yet they still remain competitive.

That is something I really can admire.

Dis-organised shitness with positive results, sort of like this website.

In his new book, i don’t know what it is called, Michael Vaughan writes about how Jonathan Trott celebrated with the South African team after they beat the English.

Actually he says that he saw Trott pat South African players on the back.

Up until ‘97 that was a hanging offence in England.

You would think with a top order made from mostly South Africans this sort of stuff wouldn’t have drifted away.

Vaughan goes on to say,

“I suppose you might wish Trott was a bit more English, but after such a brilliant debut it appeared we had found another high-quality batsman.”

The question vaughan doesn’t seem to ask is that if Trott was more English would have had looked so good on debut.

For all Vaughan knows Trott could have been just slapping some ex team mates on the back for their deserved win.

Would people question Ravi Bopara’s Englishness if after India won a match he patted some guys he knew from the IPL on the back.

Trott isn’t about to transfer back to South Africa.

He might not be fighting for his country, but like Nash, Elliott and others, he looks like he will fight like hell to stay in International cricket. There are blokes who are born in England who don’t seem to fight that hard, maybe they are commies?

Even the daily telegraph are not so sure about Trott, look at their Freudian slip when typing out Trott’s rebuttal.

“My commitment to England is 10o per cent. I’ve spent seven years working hard to be able to wear the Three Lions and in that time my allegiance has never wavered.”

Perhaps Douggie Bollinger can help Trott with his “Teno” percent commitment.

What Trott should be doing is going around and slagging off all the South African boys like KP did, that is how you show your true Britishness.

It is not every day you play a match winning innings at home and away, but today Grant Elliot did.

Playing in his home town, for his club New Zealand, he timed his innings to perfection, even if he it didn’t always look like that.

New Zealand were trying to look nervous in their chase, but Elliot has a sea of calm singles as he let his skipper, New Zealand born, Daniel Vettori play the big shots.

The innings confused many seasoned cricket watchers as this was an important innings in a world wide ICC champion tournament, as a South African he was supposed to choke.

Instead he held firm, resolute, stoic, non-chokey.

Earlier this year in the Ashes South African born, bred, and accented Jonathan Trott played his debut in an Ashes deciding test and excelled.

Even the great KP, when not hampered by captaincy or injuries, handles the pressure better than the men in green.

So why then does the South African team melt under similar pressures?

Surely Trott and Elliott cannot be that special, because if they were they would be playing for their country and not be cricket mercenaries.

So the answer must be that South Africans don’t choke, the South African cricket team chokes.

For years, about 19 of them, we have just assumed that it is the nation and the way they play cricket, unlike other nations they have had no reason to use players from other countries, so we could never do a proper test on whether it was the team enviroment or the national identity.

Now we know, without Elliot’s steadfast innings, and his bowling against England, New Zealand would not be in the final of this oh so important ICC white jacket tournament.

I think South Africa should think about a re-branding for international tournaments.

Or a cricket exorcism, I think Navjot Sidhu does them.