cricket with balls

That England deserved to win the World T20 Thingy is beyond doubt.

India can’t get their excuses right, South Africa’s retirement squad struggled, Sri Lanka had no form, West Indies waited for Gayle, Sri Lanka waited for Mahela, New Zealand under performed even for them and Australia were out played.

England was organised, worked hard, had no passengers, they got away with Wright at six and they played very sensible cricket when chasing targets.

That England did all this is the most surprising.

I saw them play in Stanford’s game under KP. That was less than 2 years ago.

I saw them lose to Holland. That was less than a year ago.

And I saw Abdul Razzaq smash them all around the ground this year.  This year.

But Flower is some coach.  England has no champions in any of their teams, they have class players, role players and people who should be cut looses, yet since he took over they keep getting better.

They have the Ashes, managed to draw with South Africa in South Africa, got to the semi finals of the Champion’s trophy and now have won the world T20 thingy.  They fight hard to win, and even harder to draw.  When looking at the stats and the end of series you can never understand how they won, but they do what is necessary.

They are a depressingly well drilled unit, everyone just does their job, no one steals the limelight (since Freddie left), and if one player is down it seems that more often than not there will be 9 or 10 others that will cover them all.

Good coaches leave impressions on their sides.  This team is the embodiment of Andy Flower right now.

Hardworking, mentally tough, compact, efficient, strong and better than you expect.

Flower is now the best coach in world cricket, and his team is now a genuine contender rather than the punchline they were before.

It is not hard to respect the man, he played in a cricket team who would have struggled to beat grade cricket sides if it were not for his stubbornness, he did his best to recruit overseas players to Zimbabwe just so they side had a spine and he then stood up to a dictator.

Flower did also play for South Australia, but no one is perfect.

While KP was man of the series and Kieswetter man of the final, Flower is the man of English cricket right now.  English cricket might not have been the sleeping giant that Indian cricket was, but it was a large lumbering idiot walking around and drooling on itself.

Flower saved it from itself; he was the Leon to its Matilda.  A fatherly figure from a different land who does things his own way but knows how to teach the skills he learnt.  Although that makes England Natalie Portman, but in this tournament they probably deserved to be.

I never thought England would earn a Natalie Portman from me for a performance in a white ball tournament, but andy Flower probably never thought he’d be compared to Jean Reno.

I’m not sure what kind of kid Michael Clarke was, but I doubt he was a brawler.

He looks like the sort of smooth adult that was also like Teflon in the play ground.

Perhaps people tried to abuse him, but he probably had team mates from various sporting teams who would step in for him.

Plus the teachers probably kept on eye on their golden boy, don’t want the local cricket star being found dead behind the portables.

With all that in mind yesterday was probably the first real beating he has ever taken.

And he was beaten, hard.

It was public too, while everyone was at lunch, crowded around as Clarke didn’t even try to defend himself.

He just sat there been moved by the force of England’s blows.  He was more a punching bag than a fighter.

There was nothing he could do to stop it, so perhaps he thought by hitting himself a few times he might confuse England and gain some respite.

Instead it just made the English beat him up harder.

Finally his lifeless body was put out of it’s misery well earlier than anyone had thought possible.

Battered and bruised he will be returned to Cricket Australia, who may not want him anymore.

I thought Clarke was unlucky, Kieswetter won the man of the match award, but surely no one did more for England’s victory than Clarke did.

The only good news for Australian cricket was that this might mean Australia don’t automatically turn to Clarke when they need their next captain, they might actually look at who would be the best captain, and not just the guy who speaks to media without saying anything and who grooms himself well for photoshoots.

England were nerdishly efficient and brutal on Australia all day. They still had some great luck, dropped catches finding other fielders, Haddin caught of the hip, but surely there biggest slice of luck was that Clarke was playing.

Swann and Collingwood are lucky their team won, because conspiring to get Clarke out could have been the worst thing either of them had ever done.

I cannot believe Australia won.

To defend such a low total, wow.

The batting might have been poor, but the bowling was outstanding.

The fielding was even better.

But special credit must go to the captain, what a special effort.

I have never been so proud.

Shame the men played like a team of busted assholes.

My retort to Daniel’s character assassination.

According to Daniel, test match sofa is an anarcho-syndecalist commune. This is his way of coming across as the lovable uncle you wish you had. When Ahmer was heart broken it was Daniel who comforted him, but not because he cares about Pakistanis (he rates all former colonies the same way, like that thing he found on his boot) but because he knows that appearing to be on Ahmer’s side will win him more fans. Test match sofa is not an anarcho-syndecalist commune it is a fascist dictatorship where he regularly beats the other commentators, especially Tom. His leadership style is styled on Lady Thatcher and Groucho Marx with a touch of Genghis Khan thrown in.

Even though Dan clearly sees himself as superior to most other people, he does share several traits with other English supporters, the “can’t lose” attitude. I don’t mean “can’t lose” in the way an Indian supporter who has the Indian flag painted on their face thinks can’t lose, I mean the way English supporters build themselves an emotional bunker so that no matter the result they end up winners.

Dan has already proclaimed that Australia will crush England. So if Australia crush England, he can say, “see I told you so, I’m pretty clever”. If England wins, he can streak naked through the streets of Tooting screaming about the power of the Empire. Either way, Dan is the winner. And this sort of defeated undefeatable loserism is how English fans shield themselves from ever having to look at their own ineptitude in sport.

I, on the other hand, believe Australia should win because they are the better side. I’ve studied this match with the asexual eagerness of a young Mike Hussey, and while I think England are a very cohesive unit, Australia should have the fire power with bat and ball to beat them.

When Australia does win, it will be the greatest win in the history of organized sport, over coming adversity, impossible obstacles and Bangladesh. . No team has overcome so much (including the Michael Clarke handicap) to be victorious.

If, and this is purely hypothetical, Australia do lose, it will be Michael Clarke’s fault. Because England couldn’t possibly play better than Australia to win.

Obviously.

Either way Dan wins, because he has chosen both sides as usual, like a proper Englishman should.

On Friday I watched the bewildered eyes of fellow commentator Ahmer widen, fill with embryonic tears and slam shut to block out the piercing light shining from Jarrod’s triumphant teeth and I was filled with a fearful dread. Finally Ahmer composed himself and said softly “why are they always such bastards?” It was impossible at this moment to know whether he referred to Australia, who had just, unimaginably from their parlous position, stolen Ahmer’s moment of glory, or his own players who had made him believe and then coshed him over the head with the stinking, putrefying wombat of reality. “God must have many places for Pakistani fans in heaven, because he puts us through hell on earth” was his ultimate summation. And then I realised it was my turn next.

Today England take on the Aussies. They’re in better form than the Pakistanis were. They are brilliantly coached, able to adapt their game to different conditions, as their stunning wins in both St. Lucia and Barbados attest, and have no pressure on their shoulders. Why shouldn’t we dream? We’ve won one of our two ODIs against them (albeit after losing the previous 6). Of all the teams in the tournament we probably relish fast bowling the most. We’ve got the bloody Ashes for heaven’s sake.

But believe me it’s not as simple as that. If you’d seen the encroaching smugness gather from the third last over of that semi on Jarrod’s widening chops. If you’d seen him lean ever so slightly further forward as the penultimate over yielded a succession of 2s, keeping Hussey on strike. If you’d watched with resignation and terror as he leaned back in his armchair, overwhelmed by a grin so mammoth his eyes disappeared into the flabby contours of his ecstatic face as the final apocalyptic six sailed over the mid wicket boundary, you’d know there is no hope. They always win. Because, Ahmer, they are always such bastards.