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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Thought I'd forgotten? Today's the final day of the month and, as happened on the last day of January, February and March, it's time to highlight the absurdities and silliness of cricket with our regular Pillock of the Month poll. Following in the clown-shaped footsteps of Andrew Symonds, Jesse Ryder and Stephen Harmison, here are a half-dozen hapless loons who made headlines for the wrong reasons this month. Pick the biggest pillock.
Adidas For getting rid of the traditional cable-knit woollen sweater that has been worn by England cricketers since time immemorial. Yes, the new England kit looks rather good and, yes, the new ClimaCool sweater will probably make them more comfortable and, indeed, could make them better players. But surely standards have to be upheld?
The Canadian women's team Given a stonking 81 wides and 11 other extras in a one-day match against Trinidad and Tobago, Canada still couldn't win. Not really pillocks as such, but pretty hopeless.
Carl Hopkinson Not a household name to many of our readers but the Sussex batsman committed the cardinal sin for an opener of being run out twice in the same game, against Kent. The first was the silliest, being run out going for an overthrow off a ricochet, but it was perhaps rash to run a risky single in the second innings.
Mohammad Shafiq, a Mohammad Yousuf "lookalike" who tried to use his resemblance to the Pakistan batsman to gain access to the home dressing-room at Multan during a one-day international with Bangladesh. Just one flaw: the real MoYo was fielding at the time, a fact that hadn't escaped the security staff's attention.
Harbhajan Singh Asked to captain Mumbai Indians in place of the legendary Sachin Tendulkar, not only does he lead his team to three straight losses (not wholly his fault admittedly) but then he goes and slaps an opponent, Sreesanth, after the third. Banned for the rest of this year's IPL
The West Indies outfitters. Against Sri Lanka in a one-day international this month, Jerome Taylor came out to field with his name spelt "Tayrol" on his back. Furthermore, Devon Smith had clearly mislaid his shirt as he fielded for all 50 overs with a fair bit of masking tape obscuring the rather long name of Sewnarine Chattergoon, the replacement player who had lent him his.
I've just come across this quote from Sreesanth on why he started blubbing like a girl after being whacked by Harbhajan on Friday: "It was like a WWF punch and I was so shocked that I started crying."
Now excuse me for pointing this out but I thought the whole point of the World Wrestling Federation (which I think has been recently rebranded as the WWE in any case) was that the punches were faked? Did Harbhajan shape to thump Sreesanth and instead just slap his own left hand to make it sound like he'd clocked Sreesanth one? In which case, did the fast bowler burst into tears because he expected more?
Or is he actually referring to the other WWF and was suggesting that Harbhajan punches like a panda? In which case, how surreal.
 The shy and retiring Andre Nel, a favourite of this blog, has played only four games for Essex so far this season but already he is two thirds of the way to a ban after picking up six penalty points under the ECB code of conduct during last week's match against Derbyshire.
Gentle Andre was reported by the umpires for two separate breaches of the code, one for using language or a gesture that is obscene or insulting and one for throwing the ball at a player or official in an inappropriate manner. Both are believed to have involved Steve Stubbings, who was struck on the legs in anger by Nel, although it is more than possible that Nel was actually aiming at the stumps.
Should he pick up another black mark, Nel will face an immediate suspension, something not to have happened to anyone since the ECB brought in the penalty points system. The dilemma, though, is that he only has five more games this season before giving way to Danish Kaneria. If he hasn't found some way of being reprimanded before his final game, against Middlesex, then his fans will feel rather let down. Mind you, with only 16 runs conceded in five overs, Nel was the main reason Essex beat Sussex yesterday.
 Matthew Hayden, as regular readers of L&L may recall, is a bit of a dab hand with an egg whisk and a wok. In fact, he loves cookery almost as much as he likes accumulating Test hundreds and dreaming about wrenching out Harbhajn Singh's appendix the hard way. And there is no reason why Hayden would let his IPL obligations get in the way of expanding his culinary horizons, as this story reveals. Hayden was in Madras recently and popped into the Sheraton to cook lobster curry and a potato/onions combo that he calls The Masala.
The most interesting revelation, however, is hidden away at the bottom of the piece. Hayden, it is claimed, never goes on a tour without packing his breadmaker. While other cricketers spend their down-time on the PlayStation or with a pack of cards, Hayden is always working on a new recipe for a walnut and raisin loaf or perhaps trying to get the right consistency for his bagels.
In fact, it is probably fair to say that if you asked Hayden about the dough he could make in the IPL, he would assume that you were referring to the new ghee-based bread-making opportunities rather than the vast pay packets.
Last Monday, I asked who should be England's No 6 for the forthcoming Test series against New Zealand and the answer, fairly conclusively, was that Paul Collingwood should stay in the job. Mark Ramprakash was your second favourite and Owais Shah your third. Few takers for Andrew Flintoff, who continues to look good with the ball and poor with the bat, or Ravi Bopara despite a run of form that has given him 499 runs in four completed innings for Essex.
This week, who should be England's opening pair? In the main this has been a settled area in recent years with Trescothick/Vaughan a successful pairing for 52 innings (averaging 52.35 runs together per stand), followed by Trescothick/Strauss for a similar period of time (average 48.76) and then Cook/Strauss and Cook/Vaughan (although oddly they have never tried Vaughan/Strauss).
Cook/Vaughan, the pairing over the winter, put on two hundred-partnerships in 12 innings together but the overall average is a slightly disappointing 44 given the opposition, while Cook/Strauss, a combination in 27 Test innings, averages 35.22 with no hundred partnerships.
One combination I imagine everyone has forgotten is Key/Vaughan, who had three innings together of 56, 67 and 28 against India in 2002. With Key back in the England development squad, might he be an option as an opener, rather than as first wicket down as he has generally been used? He made 178 not out today against the New Zealanders. There was also Bell/Strauss in one 2006 Test against India, where they made 52 and 9.
Who else would be in contention? Ed Joyce and Michael Carberry did well on the England Lions winter tour but with only 147 runs in five innings and 37 in four respectively this season they are hardly pushing their case, while those at the top of the early averages are surely too young (Mark Pettini) or too old (Mark Butcher) to be considered and in any case both, while former openers, are more at home lower down the order.
Have a vote, but if you do think it should be someone else, click on "comments" at the bottom of this post and let me know who I missed.
Nice to see that in these days of big-hitting not everyone wants to welcome the joy of six. The Sunday Telegraph has a front-page short story today about Harrogate Cricket Club, where players have been told that if they hit a six they will automatically be given out, after complaints from residents of the houses near the ground.
 Hilarious goings-on in India this weekend and (would you believe it?) Harbhajan Singh is again at the centre of a row. Apparently - and this is still under investigation - Harbhajan, the captain of the Mumbai Indians, took exception to being told "hard luck" by Sreesanth, his India team-mate who was playing for the victorious Punjab Kings XI in their IPL match, and Bhaji, model of sanity and decorum that he is, responded by slapping him one under an eye.
Sreesanth was later seen in tears. Although Harbhajan went to the dressing-room and apologised, he has been suspended pending an inquiry tomorrow and could face an ICC punishment even though this is a domestic tournament. Violence towards another player carries a possible ban of five Tests or ten ODIs.
This is hardly a first offence by Harbhajan, the obnoxious little weed, as Matthew Hayden called him, but there seems some irony in Sreesanth being the subject of his assault. The fast bowler is one of the most aggressive on the world stage, who is not above petulant staring, shoving or temper tantrums, which is a shame because he is also a fine bowler. If violence was to break out between two Indians, it would probably be those two: they have form after Harbhajan gave Sreesanth a volley of abuse for dropping a catch off him in the recent Test series.
Scyld Berry, the new Editor of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, has written of his fear that cricket is becoming more violent and that an assault will happen on the pitch at some point. How the BCCI, IPL and ICC respond to Harbhajan's latest action will say much about how they view it. Personally, I'd stick Harbhajan in a boxing ring with Sreesanth, Hayden and Andrew Symonds and let them sort out their grievances that way. I'm not sure that for all his big talk Harbhajan would last more than a couple of rounds.
Another Sunday, another Friends Provident Trophy match and the great thing about 50-over cricket as opposed to Twenty20 is it has enough lull periods for some light blogging. So, after last week's game at the Oval when Chris Lewis and Andrew Strauss were the main actors, today I'm back in God's Own County, at Chelmsford for Essex v Sussex. I'll post thoughts as they occur to me.
The interesting characters on display today are Alastair Cook, Ravi Bopara and, I suppose, Andre Nel for Essex, while it will be interesting to see whether Matt Prior and Luke Wright can push their England claims for Sussex. Bopara has been on astounding form this season - a fact overlooked by those of you who have rated him only fifth of the contenders to be the England No 6 in our poll. I know I'm something of a cheerleader for Rav the Chav, but his four innings for Essex this season have been 150, 99, 137 and 54 not out, a fairly convincing run of scores.
Anyway, Cook and Bopara were batting together after Wright picked up the first wicket of the day, Mark Pettini caught by Prior (yes, it does happen) for 26. The partnership didn't last, however, as Cook was leg-before for 12 leaving a ball from Robin Martin-Jenkins. Bopara then added 115 with Grant Flower before being caught on the boundary for 59, a relative failure by his latest standards. Wright's bowling looked nippy but expensive, going for 57 off eight overs.
Essex reached a respectable 291-8 thanks to 75 by Flower and 61 by Ryan ten Doeschate, but the latter was badly missed by Prior off the bowling of Wright. I say missed but Prior reacted so late to the thin edge that he only moved when the ball thumped into the boundary boards. Perhaps he was leaving it for the non-existent slip? He redeemed himself with two stumpings.
Rain hindered the Sussex reply. They reached 31-0 off eight overs with Prior on 21, having had a few angry exchanges with Nel. After a long break, they came back out needing 156 off 24 overs and although Prior made 50 before being caught, ironically, by Nel the rest of the team struggled with some good Essex fielding. Three men were run out, the most embarrassing of them Wright for 8 in a mix-up with Prior.
 For the first time in the ICC's 99-year history, the world governing body's annual conference will not take place under the aegis of MCC at Lord's. After the British Government refused a visa to Peter Chingoka, the head of Zimbabwe Cricket, the ICC was left with no alternative but to move the June meeting to its headquarters in Dubai.
Whatever your view of Zimbabwe and Chingoka - a dodgy man from a very dodgy country, I say - the ICC can hardly hold a meeting in a country to which one of its members is banned and I understand why they have moved it. It does raise all sorts of questions about the future, though, not least the planned centenary celebrations in 2009 and the World Twenty20 over here.
It would have been better if the ICC had stood up to Chingoka and Zimbabwe and said that he was "rested" from the board until the political situation in his country has been resolved. In any case it seems wrong that a man from a country that no longer plays Test cricket should have more say on the board than, say, Ireland's representative, but while the ICC continues to pander to Zimbabwe (mass financial irregularities swept under the carpet etc) then you can't blame them for wanting Chingoka to be allowed to attend the meeting.
It is a great shame that the meeting has been moved, but not because it represents another nail in the coffin of England's declining influence over the game. That has been disappearing for almost all the ICC's existence. Australia and South Africa, when they were the only other members of what was then the Imperial Cricket Conference, were hardly subservient to Lord's; when India won the 1983 World Cup they became a huge player in the game; there are now ten Test nations all with a valid say; and the ICC moving from Lord's to first Monaco in 2001 and then Dubai in 2005 (albeit for tax reasons more than anything else) ended any physical link between cricket governance and Lord's.
The MCC's role now is similar to that of the Royal and Ancient golf club at St Andrew's or the All-England Tennis Club in Wimbledon. The game is run, rightly, by the constituent boards through the ICC but MCC remains as a reminder of the game's heritage and its soul. The laws are set here and the fabled "spirit of cricket" springs from here - although no one would pretend that MCC does anything without the rest of the world's approval. That is not setting England and MCC up as superior to elsewhere, but simply that the game - all games - needs a grounding and a reminder of where they come from.
That is why it is a shame that the ICC will not be meeting at Lord's and why the centenary celebrations should be held there. Lord's reeks of cricket. You cannot walk into any cranny of the ground - not even the gent's lavatories - without being aware that this is a place where cricket is played and has been played for centuries. It is a temple to the great god Cricket and it is right that this is where the high priests should come for the most solemn occasions, in the same way that Catholic cardinals should hold their conclaves in Rome. Dubai cannot possibly create that sense of reverence for the game, that feeling of purpose and a grounding in what it is all about.
Dubai just makes you think of corporatism and lawyers and marketing men. OK, the cynical may say that those things are the modern game but I say that cricket should never forget its roots. Hold the annual meeting in the Long Room at Lord's under the gaze of Grace and Trumper and Gavaskar, with the Ashes round the corner and Old Father Time swinging in the distance. And let there be a game going on outside - even a Twenty20 match. All these things would remind the bureaucrats why they are meeting and to what they owe their salaries.
 Chris Gayle has been ruled out of this year's Indian Premier League after failing to recover from a groin strain that he got playing for West Indies against Sri Lanka. This raises a question about how much money he has lost as a result of this injury on international duty. Gayle was "bought" for $800,000 by Kolkata, although as he was going to be released on May 18 for the West Indies then he would have received pro-rata "only" about $600,000. Now, of course, he will probably get even less.
However, I understand that even if a signed player doesn't compete at all, for whatever reason, they still get a guaranteed 25 per cent of their bid price. So Gayle has lost about $400,000 as a result of his injury. Or another way of looking at it, he gets $200,000 just for hobbling around the boundary rope. No wonder Kolkata have asked him to "spend some time with the team" (ie, be used for marketing purposes) in early May.
Recently, Giles Clarke, the chairman of the ECB, said that he was opposed to England contracted players being in the IPL in case they got injured in action and missed international matches. However, as Sean Morris, the new chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, told me earlier today: "What about if an England player turned down a million-dollar contract with the IPL and then got a career-ending injury playing for England?" You can hardly blame some players for wanting to gather their rosebuds while they may.
Don't forget that if you are stuck in the office and want to keep tabs on the county matches, we are providing session-by-session and instant close-of-play reports on Times Online from our writers in the field.
 Two new names have been added to the panel of elite umpires today, bringing the total to 12. Steve Davis, sadly not the ginger-haired former world snooker champion but a London-born Australian, and Asoka De Silva, of Sri Lanka, have been nominated to the panel, joining Taufel, Hair, Dar, Rauf, Bowden, Koertzen, Harper, Doctrove, Bucknor and Benson.
That makes four Australians, two Pakistanis, two West Indians and one each from New Zealand, South Africa, England and Sri Lanka. Surprisingly given they control almost everything else in the ICC, there continue to be no Indians umpiring at the top level. And the two on the second-tier international panel, Suresh Shastri and Amish Saheba, are both in their fifties. Why is India doing nothing to develop their officials?
Of the elite panel, De Silva and Benson are the only ones to have played international cricket and Rauf and Dar are the only other ones to have played first-class cricket. That shouldn't matter, of course, and for all the criticism occasionally directed at umpires, the 12 men on the panel are generally of a very high standard.
Playing at the top level doesn't necessarily make you able to tell if the ball is missing the leg stump or to hear a faint edge, but nor does it make you able to interpret a rule book or act diplomatically. It strikes me as odd that so few of the elite umpires are cricketers by background, yet all seven of the ICC match referees played Test cricket. I don't know if that is a job requirement but maybe there would be fewer diplomatic rows if there were more men in the middle who had played in the middle and more match referees who were picked for their proven judgment in another sphere.
(Image courtesy of the Uncyclopedia)
For the first time in its 74-year history, the Walter Lawrence Trophy, traditionally awarded for the fastest first-class hundred of the English season (you get a £5,000 cheque this year too), will be open to all domestic county competitions, including Twenty20 matches. The leader so far is Martin van Jaarsveld, of Kent, who got to 100 in 78 balls against Essex in the Friends Provident Trophy on Sunday. Last year's winner, for first-class games only, was Marcus North of Gloucestershire, who got to his hundred in 73 balls.
Given the escalation in big-hitting these days, I suspect the winning score will be quite low this year although Mark Ealham's 100 off 45 balls in 2006 may be hard to beat even in a Twenty20 game. Astoundingly, Geoffrey Boycott once won the trophy, in 1970, but the notorious grinder benefited from a change in the rules that season when it was given to the "most meritorious" hundred, rather than the fastest. He took 222 balls over getting there.
 OK, after this morning's epic here's a shorter post for you to consider. England's first Test of the summer starts in just over three weeks' time and, as ever, the make-up of the team is in doubt. The key dilemma is over who to bat at No 6, with Paul Collingwood having done little to advance his case this winter. In his past 18 innings, Collingwood's highest score is 66. Collingwood was perhaps mindful of that when he told me last week that Test cricket was much more important to him than the IPL.
Most of the media are on persistent Flintoff-watch but Duncan Fletcher said at the weekend that the Lancashire all-rounder is no longer a good enough batsman to be at No 6. Some may argue that Tim Ambrose could bat No 6 with Flintoff at 7. In any case, I worry that Flintoff will be rushed back before he has proved himself. So who else could be in the frame? Assuming the top five is Cook, Vaughan, Strauss, Pietersen, Bell (and I'm not sure Vaughan or Bell should rest too easy) who will bat below them?
Here are the main contenders and how well they have done in all cricket in the past month, including friendlies. I'll update this each Monday and ask you to vote on who you want in.
Andrew Flintoff First-class: 23 in one innings, one wkt in 28 overs; one-day: 105 runs in three innings, three wkts in nine overs
Ravi Bopara First-class: 157 runs in two inns, six wkts in 48 ovs; one-day: 235 runs in five inns, four wkts in 31 ovs
Owais Shah First-class: 238 runs in three inns; one-day: 93 runs for once out
Mark Ramprakash First-class: 118 in one inns; Two-day game: 26 and 7; one-day: two ducks
Luke Wright First-class: 170 runs in two completed inns, 1 wkt in 32 ovs; one-day: 58 runs in four inns, four wkts in 14 ovs
Paul Collingwood Not played since New Zealand
[Apologies to those who prefer their blog posts to be nuggets rather than essays but I hope this stirs some debate]
An email came this morning from Homer, referring to William Rees-Mogg's agitated harrumphing about Twenty20 in this morning's Times. "While his objections to the premise of Twenty20 are laudable, I could not understand where the angst was when England launched Twenty20 five years ago," Homer writes. "I have yet to see an English writer who objects to the Pro Twenty competition between counties while having nothing but scorn for the IPL.
"If the objection is towards Twenty20, shouldn't the county Twenty20 league be the first to go? And if money is the object, how is no one saying anything about the obscene amounts Sir Allen Stanford is throwing towards the contests between his "All Stars" and the England team? Could you enlighten me as to why the English media is so intent on losing all credibility (before I start thinking race)?."
Fair points, Homer, and here's my take on the whole thing:
First, to deal with His Moggness's article, I don't think he is spurning the IPL specifically. It seems clear that Rees-Mogg dislikes all forms of Twenty20 and he doesn't mention India until halfway through. I don't know our former Editor, but imagine he was just as upset when the Twenty20 Cup was launched in England, it's just that the subject is at the top of the news agenda again right now because of the IPL.
Indeed, a year ago - before the IPL was even a daydream - Rees-Mogg wrote a piece in The Times criticising Twenty20 cricket, calling it "vulgar and meaningless". In 2001, two years before T20's birth, he wrote complaining about the meaninglessness of limited-overs cricket, a theme he also dallied on in 1997 and no doubt at various intervals going back into the dawn of time. There is nothing wrong with preferring your cricket in longer packages and I will defend Rees-Mogg on that. Like him, I prefer Tests to limited-overs.
Continue reading "My view of Twenty20" »
I'm at the Brit Oval today, reporting on Surrey's first match in the Friends Provident Trophy against Middlesex, a chance to see how 50-over cricket will be received in this shorter age of limited overs. Plenty of intrigue in the Middlesex side given that Ed Joyce, Andrew Strauss and Owais Shah will all be wanting to press their case for England selection this summer, but the player that most interests me is the familiar figure fielding at mid on right now for Surrey.
 Tall, thin, black, athletic-looking yet also giving off an air of complete casualness. Yes, it is the return to county cricket after an eight-year break of Chris Lewis - and his first game for Surrey since 1997. The former England all-rounder is now 40 and the last of his international appearances was ten years ago but Surrey have tempted him out of a retirement spent playing village cricket and coaching. He was meant to be here only for the Twenty20 Cup (a cheaper way of drawing attention than signing Andrew Symonds or MS Dhoni) but it appears that Surrey want to get more out of him.
It's good to see him back, not least for the comedy potential. This is after all the man dubbed "the prat without a hat" after getting sunstroke while playing unprotected for England and the fellow who got punished after showing up late for a county practice because of a burst tyre. He was also a more than useful bowling all-rounder, who really should have done better at the top level. I'll report later on how he looks when he has bat and ball in his hand.
UPDATE: Not the greatest of comebacks with the ball. After three overs, Lewis had conceded 32 runs, which makes his eventual figures of 0-51 off six look quite respectable. The main beneficiary was Andrew Strauss, who tucked into Lewis's short-pitched bowling to make 163 off 130 balls, the highest ever one-day score by a Middlesex batsman. It helped his team to 315-6 as well, which should be a winning total even though Surrey are 101-2 with more than 30 overs to go. Can Lewis rescue his comeback with the bat?
UPDAT 2: Better news with the bat. In a rain-affected second innings, Lewis made 33 off 30 balls but Surrey were well beaten.
Throughout today's first Indian Premier League fixture between the Bangalore Royal Challengers and the Kolkata Knight Riders, I'll be blogging live. Let me know what you think by clicking "comments" below
CLOSE: So that's that, then. Something of an anticlimax to kick off this groundbreaking tournament, but I'd far rather that such a one-sided match was completed early than it drifted onwards with one side just too far behind the rate for the full 20 overs. Full marks to Brendon McCullum for becoming an instant star but his record innings killed the contest and in the end I found the ease with which he made his runs rather dull. As an occasional novelty, the IPL has a certain appeal but it is hard to see how six weeks of this will hold much attraction. The competition now needs some close matches to reignite the passions.
Right, that's it for me. I'm off to the Cooperage pub in Southwark, where they serve pints of Old Wallop in pewter tankards. Ah, the way things were. Do pop in if you are about. And as for Murder, She Wrote, I think it was Patrick Macnee who did it. Good night.
6.25pm: WICKET Some marvellous bowling figures from Kolkaka. Dinda has taken two for nine in three overs; Sharma one for seven off three. Praveen Kumar, on 18, is the only Bangalore batsman to reach double figures but he has run out of partners as Joshi holes out in the deep. How appropriate that the fielder underneath the catch was Brendon McCullum. Kolkata win by 140 runs, the fourth heaviest margin of victory in Twenty20 history.
6.16pm: Ricky Ponting doesn't want to hit the showers just yet. That can be the only reason why he just dropped what would have been the match-winning catch just now at mid-off. Sloppy and uncharacteristic error. And the required run-rate creeps up to four per ball. 77-9 off 14 overs.
6.15pm: WICKET Zaheer Khan slogs and misses at a ball from Ganguly, which clips his off stump. 70-9 now. Incidentally, Ganguly looks less balding than he has in a while. I wonder if Shane Warne, who said one of the reasons he was doing the IPL was to promote his hair-restoration company, has given him some free samples?
6.10pm: Praveen Kumar, who started this match, wallops a six down the ground, but it is only the second scored by his team. 70-8 off 13 overs now.
Continue reading "IPL Live" »
 The umpires at Scarbrough, Tobago, must have had sore arms at the end of a women's match between Trinidad & Tobago and Canada this week. In the 40-over game, 129 wides were sent down by the bowlers on both sides, 81 of them by Trinidad's ladies. Yet the home side still won.
I don't know how many of those 81 wides went for more than one run, but let's assume that at least 60 were single wides - that's an extra ten overs that Trinidad had to bowl, yet Canada still only reached 167 for eight. There were 11 other extras too. So the entire Canada batting side made 75 runs in 50 overs and were still not bowled out. Way to go. In reply, Canada handed back only 48 wides and Trinidad won with two overs to spare.
According to Charlie Randall, one of the reasons for the difficulty in batting may have been the fact they were using a white ball, white clothing and white sightscreens.
 Women cricketers are too often overlooked by the media, which is ridiculous given that the England ladies are the best in the world at this game. So it is only fair that after showing you a pic of the boys in their new kit, you should see what an adidas-clad woman looks like. Here is Isa Guha, whose sparky bowling did for the Aussies over the winter.
Guha is modelling the new one-day kit, which has been developed with form-fitting technology to ensure that it matches a woman's body shape and ensures freedom of movement. I don't know about you, but if I put on a shirt that fits my body shape too closely I normally have to worry about breathing let alone running, necessitating the undoing of a button or two, but no doubt this new curvy kit will help the England women. It will certainly bring them some new fans.
 Scoop of the day (1): Bryan Pietersen blags free football off his more famous cricketing brother. Asked at the launch of the new adidas-designed England kit if he had yet subscribed to Setanta so that he could watch the Indian Premier League on TV, Kevin Pietersen said: "Actually, my brother subscribed to it two weeks ago in my house, using my bank card, because he wanted to watch Chelsea playing football." To be fair, I'm assuming it was Bryan, who has played a bit of second XI cricket over here, who did the dirty; if it was his other brother, Tony, that would almost be a scandal as TP is a church minister.
Scoop of the day (2): Pietersen was modelling the new collarless red England Twenty20 kit, which looks a bit like the 2005 Lions rugby shirt and fits the body better than the old one and will hopefully mean he stops doing that irritating pick-at-the-sleeve thing while he's batting. But the player who caused the loudest gasps at Lord's today was Ryan Sidebottom, who strode out wearing the new Test kit. Not only are the cricket whites "brilliant white" for the first time - as opposed to grubby white or cream - but the new England sweater is not made of cable-knit wool, but instead some man-made fabric that leaches the sweat to the surface. "It's very, very white, a lot whiter than before," was Pietersen's view on the new kit, while he described the new wool-free sweater as "very interesting". A career in fashion journalism awaits.
Incidentally, your blogger hasn't subscribed to Setanta to watch the IPL, which starts tomorrow. I'm sure it will be exciting enough, but it clashes with Murder She Wrote.
How quickly things go out of date. A few days ago I wrote this piece about Ramprakash being on 97 first-class hundreds as the season began. Well, we're one day into the new season and he is now on 98, having made 102 at the Oval today. Chances are probably quite high that he'll be on 99 by the end of the week.
Ramprakash's renaissance in the past couple of years has been astounding. To recap the basic facts for overseas readers and England selectors: since the start of the 2003 season he has scored 8,892 first-class runs, made 38 hundreds and averaged just under 85 runs per innings. In the 2006 and 2007 seasons he scored more than 2,000 runs and averaged more than 100 each time. His failings at the highest level are well known, but he has looked a different man since being dropped in 2002. If he doesn't get an England recall this summer, you have to wonder what else he could have done.
Today marks the start of Line and Length's third year in the blogosphere. A lot has changed since this humble effort was launched back in 2006 (Remember then? Ah, the clothes we used to wear, the silly haircuts, the fact that England held the Ashes...).
 Thank you to everyone who has dipped into L&L over the past two years, especially those who have become regular fixtures in the comments section. I think it is fair to say that this is the only blog to have Andre Nel and Oscar the Grouch as correspondents, and to judge from the votes for the Pillock of the Month this blog has readers in such unlikely places as Guatemala, Bahrain and Romania. I hope you all keep on coming back regularly and, as ever, do let me know what I'm doing wrong or right via the comments button beneath each post.
To mark the occasion, I have compiled a list of links to my favourite cricket websites, which you may want to save on your favourites (click the title of this post to get it as a separate webpage) and use as a portal to discover some gems all around the world.
The top ten, which I read almost every day, are listed below. Click "continue" to see the remainder. If I've missed anyone, let me know and if I have linked to your site, then perhaps you can return the favour. I haven't included any websites that haven't posted in a while, such as Nutley to Nagpur, but will update this if they resume.
Line and Length's Must-Read Cricket Websites
1. Cricinfo No denying that this is the big daddy. Great for news, profiles, ball-by-ball commentary, features, everything you could really need. Now owned by Disney, but fortunately that has not led to any dumbing-down. I could fill a Top 30 just with Cricinfo regular features but will limit myself to one...
2. Cricinfo's Statsguru Such a useful tool that it is worth having as a separate link. Geeks of the world rejoice, this website gives you access to just about any statistic you need. It takes a while to work out how to use the various menus, but once you've clicked it you can amaze your friends with just how sad you really are.
3. Cricket Archive Another stats website but one that offers a clear and easily-searchable database of first-class, limited overs and minor cricket records (Statsguru just does international matches). Want to know how many innings it took WG Grace to reach his 100th first-class hundred? The answer is here.
4. King Cricket Ticks all the right boxes: funny, anarchic, knowledgable and, most importantly, updated regularly. Alex, who writes it, supports Lancashire, so may become insufferable if they finally win the championship this year, but for some reason worships Rob Key. Famous for a series of photos of pets being indifferent to cricket.
5. The Corridor One of the longest-running cricket blogs out there. Run by Cricinfo's Will Luke, one of the bright young stars of cricket journalism (that'll be a pint of Guinness, Will), but with a string of occasional contributors who add their tuppence-worth. Occasionally drifts off into non-cricket matters, such as politics, transport traumas and the state of Britain today, which is welcome.
6. Test Match Special The BBC radio show is also a blog, with regular contributions from Jonathan Agnew and other reporters such as the admirable Kevin Howells. Also the home of the Ask Bill Frindall column, in which the Bearded Wonder shows off his statwonkery.
7. Are You A Left-Arm Chinaman? Juvenile, puerile and brilliantly done. Has a similar low-brow, anarchic approach to King Cricket, but the King doesn't recreate Test matches using plasticine. An opportunity missed, I think.
8. Stick Cricket An infuriatingly addictive game, apparently the second biggest reason for the economic recession in the City after Facebook.
9. Harrow Drive An impressively detailed coaching website that covers drills for batting, bowling and fielding, dietary advice, fitness tips and ways to improve the mental side of your game.
10. Cricket = Action = Art How to turn ordinary cricket photos into works of art with a bit of Photoshoppery. Not much more to this website than that, but it always pays a visit.
Continue reading "A portal to the world of cricket" »
The LV County Championship starts today and, for the first time, you will be able to read reports of the matches as they happen rather than having to wait until the next day to find out how Derbyshire did against Middlesex, or how Essex were skittled after lunch by Cheam Girls School.
Times Online has begged and cajoled its platoon of writers to arrive on time, stay sober and file a news report at lunchtime, teatime and at the very drawing of stumps for every championship match this season. You can read them by clicking here.
Times Online: it's just like being at the cricket only without the risk of sunburn.
And so the 2008 domestic season begins. The first matches in the LV County Championship start tomorrow, but I made my season debut at Fenner's yesterday for the final day of Cambridge University v Essex. In a rain-troubled match that was always heading for a draw, there were a few moments of brightness, not least the aggressive hitting of Jason Gallian, Essex's new signing and the former England opener, who made 79 off 59 balls.
Yet Gallian's batting was one of the few areas where a comparison could be drawn with the brave new world of the Indian Premier League. The players still wore white, there was scarcely any advertising (one billboard advertising the Spirit of Cricket was broken in half and just said "Spirit"), the crowd numbered little more than a dozen and the players happily mingled with them in the Pavilion during the intervals and when they were waiting to bat. Technology was more or less absent - no wireless internet for the two journalists present (in fact, there wasn't even a press box) and if I wanted to plug my laptop in I was told to use the socket in the umpires' room but not when they were using it.
I know I'm an archaic old dinosaur, but isn't this what cricket is all about and what makes it wonderful? The modern world can go hang, with its cheerleaders, music and razzmatazz. Give me an open field, a well-stocked bar and 22 men in white and I'll be happy.
 For those who shrewdly invest a small portion of their monthly salary in subscribing to The Wisden Cricketer, a treat is in store this month: some ten pages of the latest issue have been devoted to the runs-machine that is Mark Ramprakash, who starts his nineteenth county season this week on 97 first-class hundreds. Those who don't subscribe really ought to dash out and buy the magazine. The fact that I wrote the article is only one reason.
As and when Ramps gets to the landmark, he will be the 25th cricketer in the history of the game to score 100 centuries and the first since Graeme Hick in 1998. I spoke to three of those in the 100 Club - Hick, Graham Gooch and Tom Graveney - about how they reached the landmark. Hick scored his 99th and 100th hundreds in the same game to avoid nerves; Graveney reached his with a mistimed hook over short leg; while Gooch had the agony of thinking he had reached the landmark only for the statisticians to dock one that he had scored on the South African rebel tour.
I also spoke to Dennis Amiss, who returned my call too late for it to make the magazine but his story is worth telling here. Amiss, the Warwickshire and England batsman, got his 100th hundred against Lancashire in 1987 on the last day of a drawn match. "The game was gone and we should have finished early but Clive Lloyd [the Lancs captain] was kind enough to let me have an extra 15 minutes to get the runs," Amiss said. A few matches earlier, when still on 99 hundreds, Amiss played another county and had got into the 80s. "Then a ball climbed on me, took the faintest edge and was caught by the wicketkeeper," he recalled. "I walked, but David Shepherd [the umpire] told me later, 'You should have stayed and got your hundred. I wouldn't have given you out.'"
 Ramprakash may well be the last to get to the landmark. Justin Langer has 80, Matthew Hayden 79 and Stuart Law, left, 78 but surely none of them will play for long enough to get to 100. Ricky Ponting has 68, but will have to play until he is 40 to score 32 more at his present rate. When you consider that Marcus Trescothick has only 28 first-class hundreds (14 for England), it is clear that anyone who is going to get to the landmark will have to spend a lot of time, like Ramprakash, not on international duty. There simply aren't the chances for international cricketers. Rob Key, who has scored 35 hundreds, may yet get there but at the age of 28 time is against even him.
Plenty of great batsmen with long careers never crossed the line. Mike Gatting, Maurice Leyland and Gordon Greenidge each played for more than 22 years but could not do it. Ramprakash, 38, has been helped by scoring 18 hundreds in the past two seasons, which twice gave him a season's average of more than 100. Some may say that he has been in such rich form that he should be in the England team.
Graveney told me that he certainly thinks so, but then he may be coloured by his own successful recall to England at the age of 39. That was 40 years ago and cricket was a different game. But how lovely it would be if Ramprakash got his hundredth 100, like Geoff Boycott and Zaheer Abbas, in a Test match. What do you think?
Awards ceremonies, a journalist from The Guardian told me earlier this week, are very important if you win, but if you don't then they clearly have no credibility. So it is with anything to do with the internet and statistics, but nonetheless I feel honour-bound to report to you that Line and Length is apparently the fourth most influential sports blog in Britain, according to Wikio, a no-doubt very discerning website.
I'm behind SoccerLens, Arseblog and F1 Fanatic. The Corridor and King Cricket, two of my favourite blogs, are at No 9 and No 11 respectively in a good list for cricket. How does Wikio rate influence? Apparently it's to do with the number of links you get from other websites (in which case, thanks to those of you who did - keep linking) but I'd like to think that part of it is to do with the head honchos at the ICC, ECB and other world governing bodies making it part of their breakfast reading material and quivering.
Headline writers were denied the ideal excuse for a bit of wit at Lord's today. "Aga too hot for Onions" would have been a good headline if Graham Onions, the MCC fast bowler, hadn't fallen to Ryan Harris instead. Rageb Aga, Sussex's fast-medium bowler, will have to wait for his day in the pun. Perhaps Will Beer, the young Sussex leg spinner, will be used in a headline instead if MCC crumble on a drying pitch on the final day. "Beer and sun prove too much for MCC"?
 Of course, the Sussex leg spinner that most fear is Mushtaq Ahmed, who will soon join the county for his sixth season with them, having taken 459 wickets in the previous five as Sussex won the championship three times. Yet Chris Adams, the Sussex captain, said that the club's success was due to more than just one man. "I'd like to think that Mushy relies on other players as much as we rely on him," he said. "Some of the catches Richard Montgomerie has taken off Mushy's bowling have been ridiculous. And while he has been a gift for us, if he went to another county it wouldn't mean they would win the championship." He's right: in Mushy's eight years with Somerset, they won diddly-squat.
Mushtaq could have missed this season after the row about him playing in the Indian Cricket League. At the eleventh hour the Pakistan and English boards agreed he could play. "The right decision has been made, but it's been a dramatic few weeks for everyone," Adams said. "Mushy has given so much to the championship and the game in general that it would have been a travesty if he had been banned."
 I missed the astonishing end to the first ODI between West Indies and Sri Lanka yesterday, but The King alerted me to Shivnarine Chanderpaul's brutal conclusion to the match. Ten runs needed, nine wickets down, two balls to go. Oh, and Chaminda Vaas to bowl them, a man with nearly 400 ODI wickets behind him and whose first nine overs had gone for 17 runs.
It was one of those situations like near the end of a First World War movie, when everyone in the trench knows that the task is impossible, that they will never be going home to their sweethearts, that Little Johnny won't get the hug from Pop that he was promised. Then the platoon commander tells his men "Best get it over and done with. Good luck and stout hearts" before blowing his whistle and going over the top.
That's how it was for Shiv Chanderpaul, only without the mustard gas and the trenchfoot. He blew his whistle and set off on a near-impossible task. And, by Jingo, he only went and did it. The fifth ball of the last over was smeared through mid-off for four and then he clubbed a full-toss over deep mid-wicket for six. Fifty-over cricket has been getting criticism for being dull after the advent of Twenty20, but there may be some life in this old dog yet.
Apologies for the paucity of posts this week but it has been a busy few days in my role as a general, rather than just cricket, sports reporter. On Monday evening, having been at Lord's earlier in the day for the cricket season's launch, it was off to Varese, in Italy, to visit the GB rowing squad's training camp, arriving at my hotel at 2am thanks to the ineptness of Heathrow Terminal 5 and then up four and a half hours later to sit in a boat on an Alpine lake. You can read the first report on that here if you like rowing stories.
Then it was back to London in time to attend the annual Wisden dinner on Wednesday, which marks the publication of the latest Cricketers' Almanack. Mike Brearley was the guest speaker, who spoke about the IPL and began by saying that he was asked by Wisden's editor for advice on "how to ride the Indian tiger". It was ironic, Brearley said, because some years earlier he had sought the same advice from the editor when he was about to marry his Asian wife, Mana.
(On the subject of jokes, Brearley was also guest speaker at the Cricket Society's dinner last Friday. I don't shy away from dinners, as the picture above shows. He began with a story about Kevin Pietersen's wedding night. Apparently, the new Mrs Pietersen got into bed with her husband and then suddenly pulled away, saying "God, your feet are freezing." To which, KP said: "Darling, in bed you can call me Kevin.")
Anyway... it was up at 6am on Thursday to fly to the Netherlands, this time for a piece with the British canoeists and an interview with the big Olympic hope, Campbell Walsh, before flying home last night. Today, I'm writing it all up and hoping for some space in the paper. And some light blogging, too.
So that's my week and a fairly knackering one too. Not that I'm complaining for one instant. But it did suddenly occur to me this morning that in the space of four days I went to Italy but didn't get the chance to drink a fine red wine or scoff some superb pasta and then went to Amsterdam without smoking anything or paying a woman for sexual favours. It's travel, but it's lacking something. Like going to Lord's without watching any cricket.
 Right, form an orderly queue. The fixture list for next summer has just been announced and England's attempt to wrest back that little urn from Australia will begin in Wales for the first time.
The first npower Test starts in Cardiff on July 8, which is a Wednesday rather than the usual Thursday (cue much harrumphing in the Shires). The second Test follows hard on its heels (back-to-back Ashes Tests? harrumph, harrumph, harrumph) at Lord's (at least nothing has changed there) on July 16 and then the third is at Edgbaston from July 30. The fourth Ashes Test starts on August 7 at Headingley (a Friday start and another back-to-back, harrumph again) before it all ends at the Oval with a Thursday start on August 20. Enjoy, but remember that I was in the queue first.
How do we get tickets, I hear you all yell. Here's how: Tickets for the Cardiff Test go on sale in October, with priority for Glamorgan members first; the same applies for Headingley. The Lord's ballot will be held on January 12 but you have to apply to be in it by clicking here in November. Edgbaston will be selling tickets from August 1 this year, with a priority period for Warwickshire members. Those who have bought international tickets at Edgbaston before can then buy tickets from September 1 with the rest being available later. Those who have bought tickets for the Oval before will be contacted in due course - or you can check this website from August - with Surrey members getting priority.
How much will tickets cost? God knows, but I suspect it will be very pricey as the marketing men eye up early retirement on the back of this. Budget at least £70 a day for the London Tests and £50 or so for the others. Or you can try visiting the npower website and win a hospitality box for 11 people, which includes travel in a limousine (how tacky) as well as a free bar.
And if all that fails, the ECB are again hosting five Cricket in the Park events, with a giant screen erected in a nearby green area for you to follow the game on, with the added bonus of being able to drink what you want, sing what you want and chuck around a beachball without a steward pouncing on you.
For those with short attention spans, who don't really like cricket that much but want the chance to see a pop star, there's the World Twenty20 shortly beforehand.
How to fill the gap between one Twenty20 competition in India — the unofficial Indian Cricket League (ICL), which finished on Sunday — and the next — the Indian Premier League (IPL), which starts on April 18? Simple: have another one in between.
 Today, the ICL World Series begins, a triangular tournament between the pick of the players from the eight ICL franchises. One team will represent India, one will play for Pakistan and the third will be made up of the rest and be coached by an Englishman, John Emburey, left. The hastily-arranged World Series has caught some of the players on the hoof. "It means staying around for another week and lots of the players had made arrangements to leave by now," Emburey said, "but there is a demand for it."
Emburey coached the Ahemdabad Rockets in the second ICL series. Despite winning their opening game, they finished last, which he blames on his international players underperforming. Murray Goodwin scored 43 runs in seven innings, Damien Martyn 83, Wavell Hinds averaged 21, while Heath Streak's bowling was expensive, yet Emburey says his less heralded young Indian players rose to the occasion.
"The lack of practice facilities has been the big problem," Emburey added. "The BCCI have made it very difficult for us to play at anything other than municipal grounds and the practice facilities have been shared between the teams, but hopefully this will improve."
The ICL staged its first Twenty20 tournament before Christmas, taking some of the wind out of the IPL, which is backed by the Indian board. Emburey said that crowds for the matches, played at only three grounds, have been "mixed but excellent at the games in Hyderabad with up to 20,000 watching". The former England off spinner added that the TV viewing figures for the ICL, helped by the partnership between Zee and Ten Sports, have been impressive. "There have been more people watching the ICL on TV than were watching the India v South Africa Test series," he said.
 Hyderabad Heroes won the ICL final series 2-0, beating the Lahore Badshahs by six runs on Friday and then winning the second final on a bowl-out on Sunday after both sides made 130 in 20 overs. Emburey said that the unofficial tournament was proving to be most popular with Pakistani fans, perhaps because of its stance against the Indian board and because the Badshahs, captained by Inzamam-ul-Haq, were made up solely of Pakistan internationals. "Most of the biggest crowds have been for Lahore and there have been as many Pakistani flags in the crowd as Indians," he said. With India making stacks of money from Twenty20, the ICL, it appears, has been Pakistan's way of restoring national pride.
They will have another chance to cheer on their heroes in the week-long World Series, in which the three sides play each other twice before a final on April 15. Chris Cairns will captain Emburey's Rest of the World XI and he has assembled a strong-looking side including Shane Bond, Ian Harvey, Marvan Atapattu and Lou Vincent. "All we need is a good spinner for the crucial middle overs," he said. "If only I was a bit younger."
 Ian Bell? Ian-frigging-Bell? Scyld Berry has a lot to answer for in part two of the Times Online special podcast to mark the publication of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack after the little yellow book's editor chose the little ginger batsman as one of his five cricketers of last year. Ryan Sidebottom, Shiv Chanderpaul, Ottis Gibson and Zaheer Khan are the more defensible selections, with Jacques Kallis earning the nod as the Leading Cricketer in the World.
Of course, it is the editor's decision and Scyld makes a strong case for Bell, largely on the basis of his one-day form. Our panel, which also features Simon Barnes, Christopher Martin-Jenkins and your humble blogger, then discuss some of the burning issues facing world cricket, such as the IPL, expensive tickets and why it won't be long before violence breaks out on the field of play. So click the link, download and enjoy. And let us know what you think.
[By the way, to those who asked, Scyld is pronounced "Shild". It's Anglo-Saxon and the name of Beowulf's father, who was a useful fast-medium left-armer in his day.]
 The Indian Cricket League, the unofficial one of the two Twenty20 tournaments in India, has not really crossed my radar in the past few weeks but I started to follow the semi-finals and three-match final series on Cricinfo at the end of last week and was again reminded how, in terms of excitement and unpredictability, Twenty20 is a superior game to 50-over cricket, which can too often drift aimlessly towards a conclusion that everyone foresaw an hour or more earlier.
Two examples of the twists and turns in Twenty20: in the first final on Friday, the all-Pakistani Lahore franchise, who had not lost a game to that point, looked out of it with five overs to go when they needed 57 runs. Things didn't improve when the 17th over yielded only five runs, but with some extravagant hitting they got it down to a target of seven runs off four balls, only for Abdul Razzaq, ironically another Pakistani, to take three wickets in four balls and seal the win for Hyderabad.
Then in the second final yesterday, Lahore looked in big trouble after making only 130. Hyderabad needed 67 to win in nine overs with plenty of wickets in hand, but then Rana Naved-ul-Hasan took three wickets in his penultimate over, the 18th, to make things interesting. As the last over started, Hyderabad needed 11 to win, so it was not the best time for Naved to start bowling front-foot no-balls, which allow a free hit as well as an extra. He sent down two of them, and a wide, but also got two wickets in the over so the match finished with Hyderabad also on 130.
"Great, a tie," I thought, "and they can go on to the third final with the series still alive." I assumed that if Lahore won today's third final then they would share the title. But no. We can't have such a thing as an honourable draw in Twenty20; the crowds, sponsors and money men demand a winner. So there was the stale dessert of a bowl-out, a test of luck rather than skill, to decide who should win. Hyderabad hit the stumps three times, Lahore didn't, so Hyderabad took the title 2-0.
It seems that as well as being condensed into less than three hours to replicate baseball, Twenty20 also borrows the "there must always be a winner" concept from the American sport. In baseball, actually, I find it all the more baffling that matches can't end in a tie, given how many league games they play. It fails to recognise some last-ditch act of heroism, whether it is great fielding that keeps the score down or an awesome hit to level the match. Extra innings or a bowl-out just reduce the importance of the match.
I've been in a bowl-out myself (well, I was twelfth man). It was in the Mobil Matchplay, a tournament for under-15s sides, and my club, Camul, had reached the final at Chelmsford, Essex's county ground. The match was rain-affected and a full game couldn't be staged so it was settled on a bowl-out, with my side losing. Fair enough, for a one-off final perhaps that was the best way to settle it (although I still think the title should have been shared). But when you have three finals, there should be scope for allowing a draw.
Remember the final of the NatWest Series at Lord's in 2005? England were chasing Australia's paltry 196 to win but at 33-5 things didn't look good for us. Then Paul Collingwood and Geraint Jones put on 116 together, the tail added some runs and England finished on 196-9. Some might say that we should have been given the silverware on the basis of losing fewer wickets, but instead it was decided that the match and the trophy should be shared. It was an appropriate end for a gripping match - a rare one in 50-over cricket. A bowl-out would have taken away something from both the winners and the losers.
So come on Twenty20, embrace the no-result. Sometimes winning isn't everything.
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