Topsy turvy is the new normal for England

What a strange series England are having with South Africa. One side dominates completely then the other only for it to switch again. I would say it was extraordinary except it isn’t: it matches the pattern of the Ashes series almost to a tee. We have had three thrashings with England currently leading 2:1.

England has shown some promise with the batting have an uncharacteristic solidity. Strauss continues to lead well, Trott and Morgan are cementing the places and Collingwood is back in form. Bowling was always going to be difficult on flat South African pitches but at least England managed to seize the opportunity today when it appeared.

South Africa has been pretty poor. They have had one good performance and although England did bowl poorly at Cape Town the statistics were against them batting second under lights. Smith was delighted when he won the toss and batted. Their batting looks fragile and their bowling almost non-existent. I expected South Africa to beat England easily, especially in the test matches. However South Africa are struggling to find a second opening bowler and if Stein isn’t fully fit they are in real trouble.

Crown Jewels get played with

Television in the UK is bit odd. For a start, you need a licence to own a TV. No, seriously – a licence. The licence largely pays for the BBC. In addition there are a set of sporting events that have to be shown on free-to-air television. This is called the 'Crown Jewels' sporting list. No cricket matches are currently on the list and so, predictably, there is no live cricket on free-to-air television in the UK. Sky has it all and it costs about £36 a month to watch it. It seems that this is to change in the future and that the Ashes (in England) series will be shown on free-to-air television – not until 2017 though.

The ECB are against this. They clearly do not want the general UK population watching cricket. After all, why would you want the grass roots of your sport being able to watch it? The ECB clearly puts it coffers above the populous. Of course we knew that anyway otherwise Sky wouldn’t have the current deal in the first place – but do they have to make it so obvious by complaining about a single series in six years time?

A few immediate thoughts:

1. Sky could do free-to-air TV if they wanted too. It would make them look like heroes
2. The ECB have shown themselves to be only concerned about money – so come on Sky screw them right down – you can clearly own them for much less money.
3. Expect lots of Sky people to hate the idea and say so publicly (Atherton, Warne, Hussain, Lloyd, Botham, Knight , Ward etc)

Personally I think the free-to-air list is a bit weird. Do we have a free market or not? I suppose the UK government supporting banks and train companies would suggest ‘not’.

South Africa Squads

England announced their squads to tour South Africa in November. The ‘headlines’ have been generated by the omission of Steve Harmison. His lack of form and maybe commitment on tour means that this is not really a surprise. Geoff Miller this lunch time made it fairly clear (to me anyway) that Harmison would never be picked again. His words said the opposite of course but he also mentioned that Harmison’s comments that he would not tour Australia in 2010 had a bearing on it. Translation: not going to pick you. Fair enough I think.

A few choices have raised a my eyebrows. In the Test squad they have picked Luke Wright. There is no way Wright is a test player, he is just good enough to play ODI cricket. In South Africa against Steyn etc he has no chance. They have picked the hopeless Ian Bell and dropped Bopara and Shah. Why do they persist with some mediocre players and insist that others are dropped at the first chance? Same story time after time. They have also picked a reserve wicketkeeper (Steven Davies) but no reserve opener. So we are stuck with the steadily declining Cook whatever happens...

In the one day squad they have picked, I kid you not, Alastair Cook and (wait for it) dropped Owais (destroyer of South Africa a week ago) Shah. What on earth is going on there? No Bopara either so the thinking must be that Cook is better than both of them. Bizarre.

Cramps

There has been a bit of a fuss about Andrew Strauss refusing Graeme Smith a runner for cramp in yesterday’s Champions Trophy match. There seems to be an implication that it is ‘unsportsmanlike’. Ridiculous. There is no way ‘cramp’ should be an excuse for a runner. Strauss was quite right to deny Smith a runner - what will be next ‘my legs are a bit tired’. I looked up the law and it states:

“If the umpires are satisfied that a player has been injured or become ill after the nomination of the players, they shall allow that player to have (ii) a runner when batting.
Any injury or illness that occurs at any time after the nomination of the players until the conclusion of the match shall be allowable, irrespective of whether play is in progress or not.”

Cramp is clearly not an injury or illness. If a player is incapable of batting he should either retire or grit his teeth and carry on. I think the ICC should take a positive stance here and add something to the laws that states quite clearly that fatigue or fatigue related ailments are not cause for a substitute or runner.

Of course, had South Africa won Smith may not have mentioned it.

Watching cricket legally online (please)

I am cricketless. Without cricket. No cricket is being viewed here. To be more specific I have had a little tiff with Sky and so while I wait for them to apologise I cannot see the Champions Trophy. Boo. So I decided to browse the Internet see what (legal) alternatives there are. Quite a bit of browsing later I am not that clear on my options and though maybe someone who was reading would comment and put me straight. There are sites that seem to offer legal broadband access to live cricket. The trouble is that despite trying to convince they are legal they all look really a bit suspect. 3000 channels for $19.99 looks way to good to be true. One off fee.... sounds like a scam. So, dear reader, what real alternatives are there?

Cricket is a product of the Popular Group

For my sins I haven’t seen any of the Sky Ashes coverage. Instead I have been forced to watch ‘streamed’ cricket. That is TV that has been captured from TV and rebroadcast. It may or may not be illegal (depending on where the originator and viewer are) but it seems to be almost always of suspect quality. It is a bit like watching cricket in the rain – that is that the TV is in the rain and the picture a bit blurry.

The quality of the picture however, is not the most irritating part; it is the actual coverage itself. I have watched Pakistani and Indian streams. They take the Sky feed and add their own adverts. When I say ‘add’ I mean spray liberally at all possible moments. The adverts start at the very instant the ball goes dead at the end of an over. The adverts end at some point after the bowler has started his run up to start the next over. Sometimes that point is after the ball has been bowled. Any break in play is met by adverts. The adverts themselves are repeated, endlessly. Over after over the same adverts are repeated, some as many as twenty times an hour. This is brainwashing at its most insidious. There is very little technical discussion and few replays because these are covered over with advert breaks. The show itself is a very pale imitation of the original Sky coverage and I can only feel sorry for people that have to put up with it as their native coverage. It just not cricket. They say that on the radio the pictures are better, well in this case, they are: TMS’s coverage was much more instructive than the TV pictures...

England's Ashes winners

In a shock move I decided to look at the positives for the England cricket team after the Ashes series. After all the won, so there should be lots! The side Australia sent to England was the worst for a long time but that should not detract from England’s performances; after all England can only play against the side sent. Who came out of the series with their reputation enhanced?

Andrew Strauss is a big winner. A year and a half ago his place in the England side was by no means certain and to some degree should not even have been picked. The captaincy seems to have been the making of him. His batting has improved out of sight and he is now back to his best. His captaincy whilst perhaps not of the very highest calibre is improving and shows considerable promise.

Matt Prior is a wicket keeper batsman whose wicket keeping has always been poor. In the West Indies last winter it was a laughing stock. There was a very real fear that he would give away hard fought opportunities in the Ashes with fumbled catches. Not so. Prior’s wicket keeping has improved considerably. He looks much less flustered behind the stumps and although the odd bye still gets past him the all important catches have stayed in his gloves. Prior’s batting too has been impressive finishing with a series average above Cook, Collingwood, Bell and Bopara.

Stuart Broad has come out of the Ashes as a national hero which is odd because two Test matches ago he was being widely tipped to be dropped. His bowling lacked penetration and control. By the end Broad topped the England bowling averages. A real boon with Broad is his batting, he ended up above Cook, Collingwood, Bell and Bopara in the averages. A fact that reflects well on Broad and terribly on the four batsmen.

That is about it, the others struggled one way or another. Trott of course made a century on debut and was a big winner, but he only played one match. He will have booked his place on tour though.

Some pruning required

After a summer of growth it is often a good idea to prune a tree. Remove the dead wood and make precise decisions about the direction you want the tree to grow in the future. Of course the tree will largely do what it wants but you can but try. So it is with cricket teams. England have just had their most important home series ... until the next Ashes battle, so it’s a good time to wield the axe make some space.

Bell and Collingwood must go. These have been on my personal hobby horse for quite some time, mainly because they are just, well, not very good. Okay, they are rubbish; there you dragged it out of me. People will always say things like ‘ah yes but Collingwood’s effort at Cardiff was instrumental in England saving the game and hence winning the series’, which is true. However, that is largely irrelevant because if you give anyone enough chances they will come up with significant innings. It is not the exceptional performances that matter it’s the everyday ones. Collingwood scored 250 runs at 27.77 and Bell made 140 runs (3 matches only) at 28. That is not only crap, it is what I expected! Put it this way, England have just beaten Australia. If there was a combined XI of the two sides, what are the chances of Bell or Collingwood appearing in it? Exactly.

Cook is one who England has to do something about. On paper he is just as poor as Bell or Collingwood (222 runs at 24.66). He had good series against the West Indies but that was very much the exception. England should consider removing Cook’s central contract and make him work for his place. As it stands he has to do nothing and giving him another year will change nothing.

Harmison, Panesar and Sidebottom should lose their central contract status. All are struggling to make the test side (if at all). Make them justify their place in the side with results as Harmison did recently.

Bopara looks to be a man with talent. He was excellent against the West Indies and awful against Australia. He doesn’t look a natural number three against quality bowling, so maybe he should come in at five (i.e. replace Collingwood). The guy had three consecutive Test centuries earlier in the year so he deserves a chance.

Pot, kettle, Shane Warne

I heard Shane Warne going on about the Oval pitch again today. He had changed his position slightly from “He (the curator) overbaked it a little bit to make sure there is a result” to “looks a little worn”. I wonder if the mellowing of his position is because someone pointed out that Warne himself had custom made, specially prepared wickets in Australia for a DECADE AND A HALF. Pitches that became raging turners and that looked like a tank battle had taken place within two naffing days. Talk about being hypocritical....

And so it ends

England winning the Ashes, who would have thunk it? Not me, that is for sure, I didn’t believe they were good enough. Heck, I still don’t and I just checked the sports to make sure I didn’t dream it. How does a side that scores two individual centuries beat a side that has eight? Or a side whose two best players have injuries that stop them playing a full part in the series beat a side with world class players that return to the side. Or a side that lost to West Indies a few months ago beat the Aussies who had just trashed South Africa in South Africa.

There seems little doubt that Andrew Strauss played a vital role both as opening batsman and captain. He has grown into the captaincy role and has a happy knack of getting good performances from himself and from unreliable bowlers. I think he summed it up best himself “when we are bad we are very bad, when we are good we are just good enough”. England were certainly just good enough today and it won them the biggest prize in cricket.