A very English cricket blog by Patrick Kidd. Subscribe to a feed of this Times Online blog at http://timesonline.typepad.com/line_and_length/rss.xml
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Reading the small print of Ranjan Madugalle's analysis of the mystery of the scratched ball, two lines stand out:
- None of the four Umpires, nor the Match Referee, saw any tampering with the ball. Nor is there any video footage or other photographic evidence which shows any such conduct.
- The witnesses do not suggest that the way the ball was playing establishes ball-tampering.
It has been well established that the umpires had possession of the ball after the fall of Alastair Cook's wicket and that it was only four overs, or 18 minutes, later that they raised concerns about the state of the ball. We should assume that they inspected the ball properly after Cook was dismissed and saw nothing untoward. Why, then, did they decide to re-examine the ball only four overs later if they neither saw anyone tamper with it nor detected any change in the way the ball was playing?
I suspect the umpires have been very careful with their evidence. They may have seen what looked like a player tampering with the ball, but not wanted directly to accuse someone when they knew that there was no TV evidence or even any clear-cut damage to the ball to back them up. Had they done so, this row could have turned even more nasty, with individual players suing for slander.
Remember the TV footage of Darrell Hair looking very closely at one of the Pakistan bowlers (I think it was Muhammad Asif) as he vigorously polished the ball. Recall too the way that Asif turned his back on Hair as he did it, knowing he was being watched. That in itself is no evidence for ball-tampering but it may have put doubt in Hair's mind.
Still, if Hair won't say what his reasons for changing the ball were, then he can hardly complain at Pakistani shouts of vindication. What this does show, however, is that Billy Doctrove, by some way the junior umpire in the middle, may have shown the greater maturity by advising Hair to wait a few overs and try to spot real evidence of tampering.
While all eyes were on the Oval this afternoon, the ECB saw it as a good moment to slip out a press release about Dominic Cork receiving a one-match suspended ban and a £1,500 fine (plus £1,000 costs) for swearing at a doping officer after the C&G Trophy final last month. Line and Length sees it as its duty that this story should not go unremarked.
Cork, you will recall, had batted for an hour and a half at Lord's, making 35 not out, in a valiant attempt to resurrect Lancashire's chase of a small Sussex total. When the last Lancashire wicket fell, and Sussex had won by 15 runs, Cork was understandably a bit emotional and not all that interested in urinating into a bottle.
I don't know how impolitely Cork told the doping officer that he wouldn't undergo the test, or where he told him to put his bottle, but surely a bit of leniency could have been observed. Cork's action will have been done in private and will not have brought the game into disrepute (I wasn't even aware that there had been a row until today). The ECB disciplinary panel was upset that no one in the Lancashire dressing-room had tried to defuse the situation. Can you blame them?
So the verdict most people suspected has been reached by Ranjan Madugalle: there is no evidence of ball-tampering (note that Pakistan are not totally absolved of this: Madugalle simply said there was as much chance that the damage to the ball was done by normal wear and tear as by human intervention) and Inzamam brought the game into disrepute by refusing to play after tea. The punishment of missing the Champions Trophy is lenient enough for Inzamam not to appeal, and the final fudge to satisfy all sides is that Darrell Hair has been removed from the Champions Trophy ("for his own safety") but will continue as an elite umpire.
All done and dusted? Possibly, it all depends on whether the umpires keep their counsel (a future Hair autobiography after he retires could be interesting) and whether both sides accept the fudge - that Pakistan may not have cheated but the umpires were within their rights to suggest they did.
And what's the betting on Hair standing in the first game of the World Cup, West Indies v Pakistan?
 This is Anthony Albanese, a little-known Australian politician and the Shadow Environment Minister Down Under. I can't see anyone in David Cameron's Shadow Cabinet over here wearing an England rugby shirt, but Mr Albanese is a man who likes his sport and is keen on slipping it into debates. Such as this recent one on climate change:
"What Labor would do is cut Australia's greenhouse pollution by 60 per cent by 2050. We know that, if you have a target, it is like a one-day cricket target: you do not bat out the first 30 overs; you send out Adam Gilchrist to get some runs on the board early because it makes it easy to get to the target later on."
I confess that I don't spend my nights trawling the Canberra Hansard for quotes like that, it came via Rick Eyre's website. Albanese's point in a global context has merit - no point hanging around waiting for the spinners to come on when you've got a world cup to rescue - although he doesn't explain what environmentalists should do if they lose early wickets, or indeed how best to handle the power plays. And what about using Duckworth/Lewis in the event of rain? I don't think he has thought this one through properly. Wouldn't the best way to counter global warming be to stop all the hot air coming out of the ICC?
Cricket rarely mixes with politics, although famously John Major left office saying that he was off to the Oval for the rest of the day, and Margaret Thatcher was done for after Geoffrey Howe made his not very amusing gag about her being the captain who had broken her team's bats. At least, unlike in the English county game, Westminster has long been awash with top-quality spinners.
That Younis Khan is not just an excellent judge of which balls to leave and which to clobber to the extra cover boundary, he is also a fine judge of a quality bowler. Writing a column for Big Star Cricket, he pays compliments to Monty Panesar, who bowled him with what Younis says was "the ball of the series" at Headingley last month. But Younis goes on to express surprise that the Northamptonshire spinner is not in England's Champions Trophy squad, on the grounds that he can take wickets but rarely bowls a loose ball.
Now I know that I am a bit biased about Monty, captivated not only by those deep brown eyes and the Tiggerish zest for the game but also by the amount of dip and turn he gets on the ball, but I think Younis's argument is a bit flawed. All those doubts that Duncan Fletcher has about Panesar's fielding and batting (largely irrelevant in the longer game) will be amplified in one-day cricket. And Panesar's bowling is not all that hot in one-day games for Northants: 11 wickets in 11 matches (five of them in one game) at an economy rate of more than four an over.
I'm a firm believer in horses for courses. Jamie Dalrymple and Michael Yardy have so far been excellent spinners-cum-batsmen for England in one-day cricket. Keep Panesar's powder dry for the Ashes.
While the ICC bigwigs and their lawyers are wrangling over scratched balls and plots to stage a sit-in hatched over a fag in the showers, it is nice to read on Will Luke's Corridor blog that a bit of sanity has prevailed in the world of cricket: Australians are still allowed to abuse England fans. The term "pom" is not racist abuse and it will be allowed to rain down upon the Barmy Army this winter. Whether Australians can use the phrase "pommy bastard" is a grey area, as is the continued use of "Aussie convicts" by the Barmies in response.
 Thank heavens for that. I feared that the ultra-PC lobby in the ICC were going to ban all freedom of expression, along with all alcohol purchased outside the ground, all instruments, flags and any other trappings that suggest that watching cricket is meant to be pleasurable.
Racism is, of course, a thoroughly unpleasant disease, but it is not as virulent in cricket as the ICC would claim. A few unsavoury incidents in the Australia v South Africa series apart, it has not been an issue, but now the ICC wants to turn it into one with an anti-racism code of conduct.
Why can this not just be left to the individual countries (or even the individual grounds) to police? Why should bureaucrats in Dubai know more about crowd control at, say, Headingley than Yorkshire CCC and the West Yorkshire Constabulary?
Among the odious elements in the new code, the ICC plans to "commission an eminent qualified lawyer" (gosh, you mean rather than some back-alley shyster with a mail-order degree?) "to draft legislation dealing with racist behavior at cricket matches". We already have legislation dealing with that in this country, surely? Isn't that what all those Sky programmes on ASBOs are about? Is the law of England not good enough for the ICC?
Then there is: "the adoption of a text message or telephone hotline at venues allowing spectators to report offensive behaviour in confidence". Fine, although surely the phalanxes of stewards that you get these days are meant to notice any offensive behaviour. But still, if the ICC wants to create an Orwellian culture of snitching on your neighbour then that is fine, as long as I can report any tribal and banal chanting that I find offensive. Or do crimes against civilisation not count?
Not to mention: "The holding of diversity days to emphasise the way cricket continues to break down barriers of race, colour, religion and culture." Cripes, can't we just concentrate on the cricket? If the ICC wants to make the game more multicultural might it not be a better idea to bring down ticket prices and allow fans to bring in flags, banners and instruments? The Oval used to be the most multicultural place to watch cricket, now you barely see a black face in there. They've been priced out and driven away by the bureaucrats. Still, a diversity day when they can come and eat jerk chicken and talk to the members (on a non-match day, obviously) will soften the blow of being unable to get tickets for next summer's Tests, won't it?
As two Test umpires come under the spotlight at the Brit Oval today, with the ICC inquiry into the "Hairgate scandal", Line and Length brings a happier story about umpires. Meet the youngest man to stand in a first-class game...
THE mental pressure heaped on cricketers who shine in their teens and struggle in their twenties can be enough to make some send for the men in white coats to cart them away. For Michael Gough, however, an England A player as a 19-year-old in 1999, his collapse in form led to him throwing away his bat and donning the white coat himself. He went from being Marcus Trescothick's room-mate on tour to a first-class umpire in six and a half years.
Gough, pictured here playing for England Under-19, qualified for the ECB's reserve list of umpires three weeks before this season started and was the first umpire to give a Sri Lankan out this summer, in the game against British Universities at Fenner's. Yet at the age of 26 he was barely older than the students and younger than half the touring side. "All sports officials are getting younger," Gough said. "It is no longer for old guys in white jackets."
He is believed to be the youngest first-class umpire in the history of the game, a year younger than either David Constant, whose 38-year career ended last week, or the legendary interwar umpire, Frank Chester.
Continue reading "The finger of fate" »
 It is time for a bit of springautumn cleaning and a last chance to dust down those cricket features that got bumped out of the paper by some football competition in Germany. Today, meet Howard, England's long-serving scorer who picks the next generation of Ashes winners. Tomorrow, the youngest first-class umpire.
DARREN GOUGH had just scored a fifty against Australia and the first thing he did on leaving the field was to run to the scorer's hut to ask Howard Clayton for the evidence of his feat to wave under his coach's nose. Gough was only 19 but the amiable cockiness that is so well known in the Essex bowler and ballroom dancer today was already well-developed, Clayton recalls.
Clayton has been the scorer for England Under-19 since 1990 and has kept the books in 82 international matches. He has seen a whole generation of cricketers live out their lifespan from the pupa stage to retirement and believes that the present under-19 crop is the least experienced squad in terms of first-class cricket he has seen, which makes their close-fought series with a strong India side [which ended 1-0 last month] all the more worthy of praise.
Continue reading "Back to the future" »
So farewell to 2006 as we head immediately into what the record books will call "2006-07". It has been an interesting summer. Not a classic one, but that was perhaps inevitable after last year, but still one packed with drama and, of course, controversy. The last rites will be read over the England v Pakistan series this week, while England's capitulation against Sri Lanka in the first Test series of the summer seems a disturbingly long time ago.
Sussex were clinical in winning the final game of the season, but any year in which the championship title comes down to the last match is clearly a good one. Congratulations, too, to Worcestershire for snatching the final promotion spot from Essex when I was out of the country and unable to grouse about it. All the papers will look back only at the two Test series when they do end-of-year reviews of the cricketing summer, so instead Line and Length is proud to announce our 2006 county awards:
The Darrell Hair award for race relations
Never mind simmering Islamochristian tension or even the fallout from Hairgate at the Oval, peace, love and tolerance were born again at Hove, also known as Lahore-on-Sea, after Mushtaq Ahmed, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and Yasir Arafat did more than most to win Sussex the title, the C&G Trophy and, perhaps more important, Line and Length's title of Team of the Year.
The Steve McQueen award for a great escape
Worcestershire were bottom of the second division of the county championship after two matches, having lost heavily at home to Somerset and Derbyshire. Things did not look good when they travelled to the Oval for their next game and conceded 501 runs to Surrey's first innings. Rain threatened to spoil the game but Surrey gamely set Worcs 285 to win in 32 overs. Thanks to Phil Jaques's 107 off 69 balls they made it and the march towards promotion was under way.
Continue reading "Awards time" »
As expected, Sussex have beaten Notts and wrapped up the county championship before lunch on the third day. The only disappointment is that Mushtaq Ahmed - by a long chalk Sussex's player of the season - could not finish this final innings with all ten wickets. He took the first six to fall before James Kirtley disappointingly snared Paul Franks leg-before. Mushy then took the last three wickets to finish with 9-48 and 13 wickets in the match.
Lancashire might bleat about rain having disrupted their title hopes - and how ironic that they should be thwarted again by rain this morning even on the South Coast - but Sussex have won so many games within three days that Lancs can hardly complain. Even if Hove had had as much rain as Old Trafford, it is likely that Mushy would have had enough time to win all the games.
Notts will be anxiously watching events at Headingley, where Durham have added 170 runs for their seventh wicket and are 38 runs away from reaching 400, securing maximum batting points and ensuring that, if their game with Yorkshire is drawn, Notts are relegated. In the other battle that matters, Essex will be delighted by news of rain this morning at Northampton where Worcestershire were already struggling.
I'll be away from this blog for a couple of days. I'm heading off to Dublin this afternoon where some golf competition is taking place, but please pop back and visit on Monday when I reveal Line and Length's awards of the season. And if you are a Sussex fan and want to crow, click on the comments button below and let us know what you think.
Two days to go in the cricket season, a bit of rain predicted tomorrow and Saturday, but it looks as if Sussex have sewn up the title. Only poor weather at Trent Bridge - and good weather at Southampton - can stop them after Mushtaq Ahmed took eight wickets in 22 overs to leave Notts reeling on 46-4, still 349 runs behind, following on. Lancashire are doing their best to win their final game - although it is odd that they didn't enforce the follow-on having bowled out Hampshire for a first-innings lead of 223 - but it could be all in vain.
Meanwhile, Notts's failure to accrue any batting points could have counted against them in the relegation battle, but Durham, closing on 203-6 against Yorks, look unlikely to get the 400 runs and full batting points that they would have needed to pull last year's champions down in a drawn match.
Meanwhile, Leicestershire's fifth wicket is holding up Essex's push for victory but the visiting side still lead by 260 runs and with Worcestershire struggling, 85 runs behind at the close with all ten Northants wickets standing, it looks good for Ronnie Irani.
Session by session, the final placings in the championship are being worked out. Sussex have taken seven Notts wickets at Trent Bridge and still lead by more than 400 runs; Lancashire are in a similarly strong position, having taken three Hants wickets and lead by 306 runs at tea; Yorkshire declared on 677-7 against Durham and have taken the first of the 20 wickets they need to be sure of staying in the first division (actually, they should just need to take six Durham wickets and draw the match to be safe).
In the second division, Essex lead Leics by 385 runs and have taken two wickets; while Worcs are struggling against the spin of Northants. They have lost six wickets and are still 106 runs adrift.
Hirst's record is safe. Just after lunch, Paul Wiseman, a New Zealand off-break bowler, got one through Darren Lehmann's guard and he was out for 339, two shy of Hirst. It was, however, the first triple hundred by a Yorkshire batsman since Herbert Sutcliffe at Leyton in 1932.
So a nine-year relationship with Yorkshire, which began when he was bowled for nine by Phil Newport of Worcestershire in 1997, has come to an end. In 88 first-class matches, Lehmann scored 26 first-class hundreds for the county, 8,532 runs and has an average of 68.77. Hirst, for all his records, scored his 32,000 runs for Yorkshire in 633 more matches at an average of barely 35.
This shows that Lehmann has finished his career with the highest average of any Yorkshire batsman (save a couple who played only a few games), although the averages of Boycott, Hutton and Sutcliffe (all of whom finished in the fifties) would have been much higher if they had sprung fully developed into the side as Lehmann did.
Darren Lehmann likes batting at Headingley so much that he just doesn't want to leave. The former Australia batsman, playing his final match for Yorkshire, began what will surely be his final innings at 11.25 yesterday morning and he is still there, more than seven hours later, on 338. Yorkshire have reached 608-6 in their crucial relegation decider with Durham.
Lehmann is four runs away from passing George Hirst's 101-year-old record score for Yorkshire, set against Leicestershire, and eights runs from beating Charlie McCartney's highest score by an Australian (345) in England. Justin Langer came within one boundary of breaking McCartney's record when he played briefly for Somerset in July. Lehmann is one year older than Langer and has a similar Test average of 45, yet he will be watching the Ashes from his sofa while Langer is opening the innings. England must be relieved, particularly Stephen Harmison who would have been bowling against Lehmann today if it wasn't for his latest injury.
The other lunchtime scores: Lancs were bowled out for 438 and Hants are 13-0 in reply; Sussex declared on 560-5 and Notts are 10-0; Essex are 446-9 against Leics and Worcs are 112-4 chasing Northants' 342 (all wickets to spin). Sussex and Essex are in tasting distance of their title and promotion triumphs.
At the close of Day 1 of the final round of championship matches: Sussex 420-5 (Goodwin 99); Lancs 333-7 (Law 79); Essex 322-6 (Foster 94*); Northants 342ao v Worcs (Sales 96, Batty 4-109) and Yorks 473-3 v Durham (Lehmann 261*)
Advantage Surrey in the battle for the title, then. Yorkshire have also taken a big step towards assuring their survival. Durham have 26 overs tomorrow in which to take six wickets and get maximum bowling points (before having to make 400 runs themselves) otherwise Yorkshire will be favourites to stay in the first division. No comment can be made on the second division promotion battle until Essex have had a bowl and Worcestershire a bat. More tomorrow.
We don't often get an opportunity to report on village cricket, so I was delighted to receive a phone call from a Mr Grewcock, of Leicestershire, drawing attention to the fixture this Saturday between Barwell, who play in Leicestershire division one, and Coventry & North Warwick, of the Birmingham premier league. These two sides first competed in 1807 and they have been playing every year since, making it, Mr Grewcock claims, the oldest continuous annual fixture in the history of the game.
Next year will be the 200th meeting of the clubs at Barwell's ground, which hosted a few Leicestershire county championship matches in the 1940s, and they are hoping to attract some big names to a festival week. Darren Maddy, the Leicestershire and former England opener, once played for Barwell on a retainer of £1 a run (he made a hundred), while Coventry's alumni include Neil Smith, the former Warwickshire and England all-rounder, Steve Ogrizovic, the FA Cup-winning goalkeeper and former minor counties cricketer, and Ian Bell. If they can lure the latter away from England next summer then it should attract a few extra spectators.
As far as I can ascertain, the most famous player for Barwell (population: 6,400) was George Geary, who played 14 Tests for England in the 1920s and 1930s, the last in 1934 when he was 41. Of his 46 Test wickets, he dismissed Don Bradman three times. On the first occasion, at Melbourne in 1929, Geary also hit the runs that won the Ashes series for Percy Chapman's England.
Latest scores at tea in the crucial championship games: Essex 209-4 v Leics (Cook 120*); Yorks 316-3 v Durham (Lehmann 164*); Lancs 231-4 v Hants (Law 65*); Northants 261-5 v Worcs (Sales 88*) and Sussex 272-3 v Notts (Yardy 119).
As things stand in the three battles, Essex remain four points ahead of Worcs, Yorkshire have moved one and a half points ahead of Durham and out of the relegation zone, and Sussex have increased their lead over Lancs at the top of the championship to nine points. But it still remains winners take all.
The ECB has just announced the award of 12-month central contracts to 13 players: Bell, Collingwood, Cook, Giles, Flintoff, Harmison, Hoggard, S Jones, Pietersen, Panesar, Strauss, Trescothick and Vaughan. So essentially it's the side who played in the Ashes last year, minus Geraint Jones and plus Cook and Panesar.
What is the logic in this? Four of the 13 have barely played this summer and there is no guarantee that they will be fit either for this winter's Ashes series or next summer's Tests. Michael Vaughan and Simon Jones are not even in the Ashes squad. Yet they get one of these exclusive club cards that carries a substantial salary. The amount is undisclosed but you can bet it is a fair sight better than what the likes of Sajid Mahmood, Liam Plunkett, Jon Lewis or any of the other players who have actually been, er, playing for England get. The salaries of injured players may be covered by the ECB's insurers, but that is beside the point: this list effectively says "here are the best 13 players in England" and some are nowhere near pulling on their flannels again.
The biggest anomaly is in the lack of a wicketkeeper. David Graveney said that this was because of the "intense competition for places". If I were Chris Read, I'd be rather upset by that. Two Tests of immaculate glovework and more than 120 runs in three innings since being recalled is clearly not as impressive to the selectors as Geraint Jones's scratching around for single-figure scores. Maybe Read should spend next summer hobbling around on crutches?
Nice touch, too, that the ECB should announce this to coincide with the start of the most vital round of matches in the county championship when seven of the 13 are not in action. Why not take away some column inches from those who are actually playing the game?
I've not done a scores round-up for some time, largely because they took too long and I suspected that no one cared. But if you don't care about what is going on at Trent Bridge, Southampton, Headingley, Grace Road and Northampton, then you must really be an uncaring soul. The sort of person who doesn't cry when Bambi's mother is shot, perhaps, or who watches Brief Encounter for the gags.
For the rest of you, here are the lunchtime scores in the day's most vital games: Lancashire are 94-2 against Hampshire; Sussex are 94-1 v Notts; Yorkshire are 156-2 v Durham; Essex are 94-4 v Leics (Cook on 49 not out) and Northants are 105-3 v Worcs (Gareth Batty taking all the wickets).
Early days, too early for the champagne to go on ice in the Sussex dressing-room, but they will be happy with that. Essex need to pull their fingers out, although the fact that it is already taking spin at Northampton, with Panesar to bowl last, might terrify Worcestershire, who really have to win to take the last promotion spot from Ronnie Irani's boys. More to come at tea...
Twenty years ago this morning (or more likely yesterday morning by the time you read this) one of the greatest feats of endurance batting came to a close. Dean Jones, batting for Australia in the first innings of what would eventually be a tied Test with India, struggled with the heat in Madras, but he soldiered on and eventually was dismissed for 210.
For an indication of the discomfort he went through, you don't get better than the words of the man himself: "Look, I was completely out of it. By the time I reached 130-140, I was starting to vomit, and the dehydration was setting in badly. I had pins and needles all over my body, I couldn't bend to sweep, and I was struggling even to get down the pitch, as I couldn't move my legs. And then I started to urinate involuntarily..." And he goes on.
Rather makes England's aches, pains and mental wobbles look just a bit nancy, doesn't it?
Well after we had talked up Mark Ramprakash's chances of finishing the season with a higher average than Don Bradman's record for an English summer in 1938, the lazy little so-and-so has decided to bunk off Surrey's final fixture against Derbyshire. "Ramprakash is being rested," says Surrey. Rested for what? Surely not for his winter appearances in Strictly Come Dancing. Surrey members might be entitled to ask questions about this, especially after Ramprakash also skipped the game against Essex at Colchester recently for "personal reasons" that some said were related to his contract negotiations.
Could his need for peace be anything to do with Ramprakash wanting to preserve his end-of-term average of more than 100? After all, he'd have needed 122 runs in two innings against the feared Derbyshire bowling attack to maintain his three-figure average. Could the thought of facing Steffan Jones have made him pause and consider whether it might be better to go to B&Q instead?
Imagine if Bradman, at the Oval back in 1948, had said to his Australia team-mates, "Sorry guys, don't fancy playing today. I only need four runs to retire with a Test average above 100 but I don't like the look of that pitch. Give someone else a game."
Back at the start of the season, we lamented the lack of all-rounders in the English game and pledged a big round of applause to whichever players could score 1,000 runs and take 50 wickets in the first-class game this summer. Clearly our applause was not sufficient incentive for, with one match to go, it appears that no one will reach the landmark.
Some 43 batsmen have made 1,000 runs and another ten or so are within one good knock of joining them. Only 16 bowlers have taken 50 wickets, but there are 15 who have taken more than 40. Yet no one appears in both lists. Batsmen who bowl, such as Lance Klusener (1,227 runs, 19 wickets) and Rikki Clarke (1,027 runs, 22 wickets) have let their second skill slip, likewise bowlers who bat such as Shane Warne (341 runs, 57 wickets). The closest by a street seems to be Mark Ealham, who played his last Test in 1998 and has made 692 runs while taking 46 wickets.
The prize should go to him, but maybe the award for best all-rounder should be given instead to Steven Davies, the young Worcestershire wicketkeeper, who so far has scored 1,039 runs, taken 64 catches and stumpings and earned himself a place at the age of 20 in England's back-up squad for the Ashes.
This e-mail from Tim Rice (no, not that one but a former Saturday sports editor of The Times, now a bigwig in our comment team) made me chuckle:
I thought the headline on BBC Sport "Given out after stomach surgery" was a bizarre cricket story. Long delay while the TV umpire watched the operation then relayed the message out to the middle. Actually it's about the Newcastle United goalkeeper.
On Friday, Kent sportingly colluded with Warwickshire to arrange a declaration that gave Nick Knight enough time to score the 15 runs he needed in his final first-class innings to retire with an average of 50. I wonder if Derbyshire will be so generous this week: Mark Ramprakash, far and away the most successful batsman this summer, needs to score 267 not out (or 383 for once out) in Surrey's final championship game to finish with a higher season's average than Don Bradman's record of 115.66, set in 1938. "Some guy called Don Bradman", as Ramps, not noted for his appreciation of history, would no doubt call him.
Cricinfo reports the rumours that Darren Gough is to play for Maharashtra, the Indian state, in the Ranji Trophy this winter, to get himself fit for one last attempt at England's World Cup squad. Gough flannels when Cricinfo ask him about it, which probably means that they just haven't worked out how much to pay him yet, but am I being mischievous in thinking that Goughy has an ulterior motive in wanting to go to India? After his successful cabaret act last winter, is he planning a new career as a Bollywood star?
 Glory be, as Thora Hird was fond of saying before she took one last stairlift ride to the great tea-room in the sky, Essex have won the Pro40 league, by virtue of Sussex being stuffed at Trent Bridge. It was disappointing that they couldn't seal the victory by beating Durham this afternoon but no doubt they were tired out by their exertions in winning the Twenty20 Floodlit Cup last night.
Not to be confused with the Twenty20 Cup, which Leicestershire won some time ago, the TTFC is for just four teams - Essex, Sussex, Derbyshire and Glamorgan - and the mighty Eagles showed how seriously they take the competition by playing almost a first XI in beating Derbyshire in the final. No wonder Ronnie Irani was looking tired and listless today. Even more tired and listless than usual.
So that's two trophies Essex have won this year, a fact I pointed out to my Sussex-supporting colleague Walter Gammie, who takes an unhealthy delight in Essex losing. "That's one more trophy than you have so far this season," I told him. "Nonsense," he replied. "Sid the Shark won the mascots' race for Sussex at Trent Bridge earlier this season."
If Sussex, as expected, win the County Championship this week, Essex may have to ask if they fancy a game of Howzat, the cricket-based card game from the 1980s, to settle who is the best.
It's an old joke but worth adapting: why do most people form an instant dislike of Kevin Pietersen? Answer: to save time.
Yes, he is a great batsman whose innings of 158 at the Oval won the Ashes a year ago. Yes, he is the sort of player, like Andrew Flintoff, who can take cricket into unknown parts of the country. He is doing great work with the Urban Cricket initiative. But he is still a prat. For some reason, his interview with The Guardian today particularly gets my goat because he starts laying into Monty Panesar. Not only am I one of Monty's cheerleaders, but it strikes me that these comments are verging on treachery:
"I really don't know how Monty will cope [with the Australia crowds]", Pietersen said. "I hope he will but each individual is different. We're all going to cop it but he's going to cop it big time." The Guardian then quotes Pietersen describing Panesar's fielding as "hysterical" and "comical", although he admits that his team-mate is hard-working.
I suppose I should respect a player for speaking his mind. It beats the banalities you usually get from the likes of Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss, who would no doubt have trotted out the usual cliche about people putting their hands up and coming to the party, but I feel Panesar is deserved a bit more loyalty. Of course his fielding is poor, but Pietersen shouldn't forget that he dropped six catches last summer and it was his sixth Test before he held one. Panesar's record of two catches and three drops looks more respectable. I'm sure he will silence the Australian crowds with his wicket-taking.
Here's KP showing Panesar how not to do it (click on the photo): 
Is Pietersen just taking a leaf out of his good friend Shane Warne's book? Warne sees nothing wrong in undermining the Australia coach on the eve of the Ashes. Perhaps instead of worrying about whether Strauss or Flintoff should be captain, England should have given the job to Pietersen. When it comes to seeking a perfect tosser, there is no one more appropriate than KP.
There is a saying at some golf courses that you need to make your score on the front nine, because all those birdies will leak away as you come back home. The same probably applies for the County Championship if you are Lancashire. Yet again, Lancashire come to the end of the season in contention for their first title since bodyline was the big issue of the day. Yet again, the rain is likely to frustrate them with all today's play at Old Trafford being washed out.
 Having lost the C&G final to Sussex, it looks as if the championship is heading south too. When I brought up with my colleague Mark Giles the chances of his county winning the title three weeks ago, he grunted and said that there was more chance of Oldham getting promoted. Lancashire needed to be a good 20 points ahead of Sussex with two games to go to be in with a chance of winning. The club is considering moving from Old Trafford. Might Cairo make a better, less wetter location?
Lancashire are considering loaning James Anderson to Glamorgan for the last match of the season. It's probably the only chance he has of getting a game.
Barely had the Ashes squad been announced than Matthew Hoggard was pulled out of Yorkshire's match against Notts with a side strain. Now Stephen Harmison has been pulled out of Durham's match against Yorkshire next week to give his ailing back more time to recover before the ordeals of a 12-hour flight to India.
These injuries are on top of the four players (Flintoff, Giles, Plunkett and Anderson) who England are taking to Australia who have spent most of this summer on the physio's table. Simon Jones can feel hard done by: given that a lack of fitness (or indeed ability to walk) is no obstacle to being in the Ashes squad, he has clearly been dropped.
Still, at least the Australians have their own walking wounded. Here's Shane Warne showing us the wrong way to play a hook shot against Worcestershire's Matt Mason yesterday. It's probably not enough to keep him out of the Ashes, sadly. (pics by Jason Dawson, click on them to make them bigger)
 
The Corridor carries the shocking news that Mark Ramprakash will be spending this winter wearing sequins and bell-bottomed trousers. Yes, he is following in the foxtrotting footsteps of Darren Gough and will be starring in the next series of Strictly Come Dancing.
I know he must have been disappointed not to be part of the 30-man party that England are taking to Australia this winter but isn't it a rather drastic piece of attention-grabbing to seek a share in the limelight with the likes of Jimmy Tarbuck and Emma Bunton? After all, if David Graveney ignores Ramps when he has scored 900 more championship runs than the next best Englishman this season then I hardly think Bruce Forsyth's verdict on his samba is going to be more compelling.
A tentative prod outside off stump, the ball flying to the hands of Mark Ealham off an edge and thus the one-day career of Nick Knight came to an end last night. He has one more first-class game before he hangs up his gloves and heads for the great commentary box in the Sky, but Knight will always be remembered primarily as a dashing one-day opener and so now is the appropriate moment to pay tribute to one of the finest English batsmen in the short form of the game.
Knight played in exactly 100 one-day internationals, averaging a smidgin over 40 opening the innings (about the same as Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Gary Kirsten and Matthew Hayden, and rather better than Graeme Smith, Saeed Anwar or Chris Gayle). He began with two hundreds in his first three innings, against Pakistan in 1996, and became an established member of the side but was bafflingly left out of the 1999 World Cup squad. He shone on England's tour of Australia three years later, scoring a hundred and two 80s, and played during the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, but passed 50 only once in seven games and called time on his international career once England were knocked out.
Warwickshire, with whom he won two County Championships, polished him, but he began his career with Essex, leaving the county during the turmoil of the summer of 1994, when Essex came 17th in the Sunday League. It is perhaps ironic that having lost one of the greatest one-day batsmen, Essex have gone on to win three one-day titles (and are favourites to win a fourth on Sunday) while Warwickshire have won only two - the 1995 Nat West Trophy and 2002 Benson & Hedges Cup. In the latter, they played Essex in the final and Knight was subjected to shouts of "Judas" from some sections of the Essex crowd before being caught behind for 9. It was needless and senseless, and perhaps confirmed in his mind that he had been right to leave Chelmsford.
As an Essex fan who remembers watching Knight twice hit a Lancashire bowler (possibly Peter Martin) out of the ground at Castle Park, Colchester, sometime around 1993, I apologise to Knight for the boorish behaviour of my fellow Eagles supporters.
...England's 16 men to defend the Ashes are:
Andrew Flintoff, Andrew Strauss, Marcus Trescothick, Alastair Cook, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Chris Read, Geraint Jones, Matthew Hoggard, Steve Harmison, Sajid Mahmood. Monty Panesar, James Anderson, Liam Plunkett, Ashley Giles.
What, no place for Ronnie Irani? Hope they remember to pack their sun hats, not to mention a gallon or two of luck.
You have to admire Australians sometimes, just sometimes. Earlier today they were on the rack against West Indies in the first game of a Mickey Mouse tournament in Malaysia. Chasing Australia's 279, West Indies were 172 for one with more than half their innings still to be played and everything seeming rosy. With England about to name their Ashes squad, it looked as if we could run a nice piece alongside it about how hopeless Australia are.
Enter Shane Watson to ignite what Henry Blofeld would call a Calypso collapso. The Queensland all-rounder took four for 42, Nathan Bracken grabbed a couple and even Mark Cosgrove took a wicket in his sole over. From 172 for one to 201 all out in the space of 11 overs. Shocking.
How strong is the first-class game in England? If the Ashes party were based purely on the averages this season, these might be the 16 names on the plane to Australia (I'm including only England-qualified players and those who have batted in, say, 20 innings and/or bowled 100 overs):
M Ramprakash, J Crawley, R Irani, A McGrath, C White, A Brown, R Clarke, P Nixon, J Foster, M Ealham, J Lewis, C Shreck, J Lewry, C Tremlett, R Croft, M Panesar.
It's not bad, but hardly likely to cause sleepless nights in Adelaide. The interesting thing is how many former England players it contains, especially all-rounders who no longer bowl (Irani, McGrath, White), and how old many of them are. It is clear that, with the exception of Panesar and maybe Foster and Tremlett, the Ashes side for 2009 won't come from the county stars of 2006.
But compare that with Australia's second team in the Top End Series this summer: Watson, Haddin, Cosgrove, Birt, Marsh, Jaques, Hopes, Johnson, Dorey, Cullen and Hilfenhaus. Hardly household names most of them, and of the five to have played in the County Championship only Jaques has cut it. Birt and Cosgrove are averaging about 50 this season for Derbyshire and Glamorgan (but Clarke, the weakest of the seven England batsmen above is averaging 57, as is Nixon, the wicketkeeper). Watson and Cullen were unimpressive for Hampshire and Somerset.
Australia are in danger of letting their established players run on too long. After this winter, win or lose, it might be time to say goodbye to half the side, otherwise the rookies of the Top End Series might find they are still rookies come 2009.
It's a quiet day in the cricketing blogosphere with everyone gearing up for the announcement of the Ashes squad tomorrow. Christopher Martin-Jenkins gave his tuppeny's-worth here this morning. It seems that England will be taking 16 players, despite Duncan Fletcher, the coach, saying earlier in the season that they would take 18. But up to half a dozen spares will be based in Perth as emergency substitutes.
It seems that 12 names are inked in, with four places up for grabs. Flintoff, Trescothick, Strauss, Cook, Pietersen, Collingwood, Bell, Read, Mahmood, Hoggard, Harmison and Panesar are the certainties, which leaves a wicketkeeper, spin bowler, and either a batsman and one fast bowler or two quicks to find.
For what it's worth, I suspect G Jones, Giles, Broad and Anderson will get taken, although I would prefer Jon Lewis to be rewarded for making the best of his rare chances this summer. I've never seen Sajid Mahmood as an international bowler, but Fletcher's famous stubborness will probably ensure that the Lancashireman goes on tour. I'm not sure about Anderson after his lack of bowling this year, but he is also a Fletcher favourite. And who would we rather have? An unfit Chris Tremlett or a still raw Liam Plunkett? Ed Joyce and Owais Shah would fight over the last batting spot if England took an extra batsman, although part of me would like to see Mark Butcher, who has batted well this summer, on the plane.
Who do you think should be in the side? Let us know by clicking comments below. We'll find out the truth at 3pm tomorrow.
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While down in Devon I caught sight of the Exmouth Journal, which was heralding Budleigh Salterton's victory in the Devon League Premier Division. Budleigh had had a nervous final weekend, with their game against Barton rained off, but Exeter did them a favour in beating Paignton, ensuring that Budleigh would win the title for the first time in their 76-year history.
There were fireworks over the ground, on the southeast Devon coast, and much rejoicing, but perhaps the newspaper went a little far in the way it proclaimed the achievement, saying that the Devon League Premier Division was "cricket's version of football's Barclays Premiership".
Actually, that seems a perfectly fair description of the competitions' relative importance.
So I was driving back to London this lunchtime from a weekend in Devon and my wife was flicking through the radio stations, as is her wont, and somewhere between a Celine Dion number and the Orchard FM report of the Frome Cheese Festival, I caught a news announcer say "54 for nine". Of course by the time I'd clocked this, the radio dial was heading off in the direction of something rather schmaltzy by Phil Collins, and by the time I'd persuaded Mrs K to backtrack, the news bulletin had moved on.
It was an anxious time, trying to find another station that did news. My car radio only has FM, so there was no Henry Blofeld to help me out. Were England 54 for nine? Surely Pakistan weren't. Maybe it was just a report of a county game. Of course, as I eventually found out, it was Pakistan who were in trouble, but I had missed the "one hundred and..." before the score.
Still, a great effort by England's bowlers and despite some wobbles it was a deserved win. I got back in time to watch Yardy and Mahmood eke out the runs. Was it only four days ago that I was making bad jokes about the even worse joke that is English one-day cricket? How have they managed to pull a draw out of the embers off this series? Is Michael Yardy the man who will win the World Cup for England? Have I been harsh on Sajid Mahmood all this time? Is Younis Khan not one of the finest batsmen even when Pakistan's backs are to the wall?
I am almost - almost - looking forward to the Champions Trophy now.
237-2, easy. Never doubted them. Honest. Cripes, we can still draw the series...
So the discussion in the office, with Pakistan on 144 for seven and ten overs remaining, was what score they would be likely to reach. 200? Maybe 210? Maybe with only three wickets left, Pakistan would be bowled out for 180? I think my colleague Mark Burton summed it up best, though: "whatever they make will be 20 runs too steep". After Razzaq's pyrotechnics took Pakistan to 235 for eight, then, expect England to struggle to pass 220 under lights.
It sounds like the name for a downmarket ITV cops series, but could Yardy and Lewis be the answer to England's one-day conundrums? The pair have achieved something that was hitherto thought impossible: namely getting rid of five batsmen (make that six!) with 20 overs still to go. With Inzy, Yousuf and Younis back in the hutch, Pakistan might struggle to reach 200.
I know England aren'[t keen on using two spinners in a match, but it seems that Yardy and Dalrymple complement each other nicely. Dalrymple also offers middle-order solidity with the bat. And Lewis has now taken wickets with the new ball in his past three internationals (four if you include his three wickets on Test debut against Sri Lanka in June). And yet why does Duncan Fletcher say he is surprised that Lewis is doing so well?
The ICC has rather pompously declared that the Champions Trophy next month will be dedicated to "the Spirit of Cricket" and has appointed 11 players and coaches as ambassadors for said spirit. I understand the purpose, particularly after the Oval kerfuffle, but it does strike me as a load of sentimental guff. Cricketers should always try to pursue fair play and respect for others, regardless of whether a tournament is designated as particularly "spirit-worthy"
Am I being a cynic, or could there be a marketing ploy behind this? Surely not even the ICC would strike up a deal with a distillery to sponsor this new ethos of fair play. Will we soon see adverts for "McTampers: the real spirit of cricket"?
The rugby season is here and my fortnightly dalliance in the gentlemen's toilets at Blackheath with CB can resume. No, I've not gone all George Michael, merely looking forward to seeing the portrait of CB Fry, England's greatest all-round sportsman, which hangs above the second urinal from the left. Fry, who died 50 years ago today, played rugby for Blackheath, then one of the finest clubs in the country, and the Barbarians. He also played association football for Southampton and England, held the world long jump record and was a more than useful huntsman and fisherman. He naturally excelled at cricket.
His aggregate of almost 31,000 runs for Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey at an average of more than 50 is good enough, but some of his milestones along the way are as impressive as any cricketer. In 1901 he scored 3,147 runs at an average of almost 80. That season he scored hundreds in six successive innings, a record matched only by Bradman. In six matches as England captain, he never lost and won four. If his overall Test average of 32 was disappointing it was perhaps because he regarded playing for himself the greater ambition.
At Oxford he won first-class honours in Classics; he would later be a writer and author, a failed parliamentary candidate and a delegate (for India) to the League of Nations. Famously he was offered the throne of Albania but turned it down because they wanted him to pay for the privilege. Perhaps he wanted to be best known for his 40 years of charity work in command of the training-ship Mercury. He was also regrettably enthusiastic about the Nazi movement and failed to persuade Von Ribbentrop that Germany should take up Test cricket.
For all his achievements, perhaps in honour of the half-century of Fry's death, the BBC should suspend its Sports Personality of the Year award. None of today's sportsmen are as talented or have as much personality as Fry.
This is my favourite story about him, quoted from Wisden: After he had passed his seventieth birthday, he one day entered his club, saw his friend Denzil Batchelor, and said he had done most things but was now sighing for a new world to conquer, and proposed to interest himself in racing, attach himself to a stable, and then set up on his own. And Batchelor summed up his genius in a flash of wit: "What as, Charles? Trainer, jockey, or horse?"
...that WG Grace told the world to play. He's been going in and out of style, but he's guaranteed to raise a smile. Etc.
On September 6, 1880, England started their first Test match in this country against Australia at the Oval. And they say that the Ashes season began late last summer. Dr Grace marked his debut with an innings of 152. Bless him. The sad coda to this Test was the fate of WG's younger brother Fred, one of three Graces in the England side. He was out for a duck to the second ball he faced in both innings but held a stunning catch on the boundary as England won by five wickets. The batsmen had turned for a third run before the ball settled in Fred's hands.
Two weeks later, GF Grace was dead after contracting pneumonia.
The ICC have announced their long lists for the end-of-year awards, to be held in Bombay towards the end of October. There are seven categories of award, for Test player, one-day player, emerging player, cricketer of the year, umpire of the year, captain of the year and women's player of the year. They will be voted for by panels of illustrious internationals, but we'd like to hear who you think should win the awards by clicking on comments below.
For what it's worth, here are my picks:
Test player: it is hard to argue against Ricky Ponting's 802 runs at an average of 89, but I'm going to nominate Mohammed Yousuf, 1,123 runs at 86. Mike Hussey gets an honourable mention for his runs, Muttiah Muralitharan for his 73 wickets.
One-day player: Irfan Pathan, for 29 wickets at 21, has to be worth a shout, but Hussey's average of more than 50 might win him the vote over Yuvraj Singh's average of 60.
Emerging player: very tempting to give it to Monty Panesar. Heck, yes, give it to him. Sorry Alastair.
Cricketer of the year: Sadly I think Hussey might have the best chance of winning this for his success in both forms of the game.
Captain of the year: I'm not quite sure why Michael Vaughan is in the long list as he hardly shone in Pakistan last winter and has not played since. Mahela Jayawardena might be worth a bet for drawing with England and beating South Africa.
Umpire of the year: no, not Darrell. I can't stand Simon Taufel so it has to go to Rudi Koertzen.
Women: Claire Taylor, for her 156 at Lord's against India.
I didn't post on Pakistan's innings last night because I was at the National Theatre watching Chekhov's The Seagull. It was a rather mediocre production that dealt with loss and insecurity and in which the participants scurried around busily without actually achieving much.
But enough about the cricket, what was the play like?
Sorry. Bad jokes are the only refuge when England are struggling like this. I suspected that 271 might not be enough, even though it was an above-par score for the Rose Bowl and that Pakistan were batting under lights. But when they have a middle order of such brilliance as Younis, Yousuf and Inzamam, what can we expect?
Sky tried to drum up a story out of Shoaib Akhtar's fiddling with the ball, but their pictures were inconclusive. Inviting watchers to e-mail in their thoughts was surely pouring oil on the embers of the recent controversy. Pakistan bowlers are entitled to an assumption of innocence. We shall just have to be |
