Anyway, it’s World Cup time again – those six months or so when bookmakers over here gather in billions of pounds from gullible fools wagering small fortunes on an English victory in the one tournament that continues to elude them. Fourth favourites they were the last time I looked – something like 8-1. Now assuming those are the odds that Mr Power is offering for a single win that’s perhaps not too bad – after all, they do have upcoming games against Afghanistan and Scotland – but I somehow think that it is to win the whole thing.

Two days into the tournament, it looked to some as though a pattern was beginning to emerge – one that Lucky Eddie described as a “sure fire winner”. He is rather impulsive, and once his mind is made up, there’s no stopping him. “Trust me”, he said, before he turned in for the night. “We’ll make a fortune.” Apparently he had noticed that the team batting first score over 300 every time, then the team batting second get nowhere near. And so it was that he lumped everything he had on the (and I quote) “Mighty West Indies to thrash Ireland”.

Let’s leave that there for a moment to sink in, shall we? If I were a betting duck, which I’m not, I would put some bread on LE buying a few razor blades later, when he discovers that he’s not quite as rich as he thought he would be, and his planned trip over to Clontarf, Dublin, in three months time to see “England put the Irish in their place for once and for all” might suffer for lack of drinking money.

The contrast between England and Ireland could hardly be greater. England, or ‘Surrey’ as they used to be known, are deadly serious and can call on talent from England, Wales, South Africa, India, Australia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Italy, New Zealand, Antarctica and Ireland. The Irish, on the other hand, are in it ‘for the craic’, and are now reduced to selecting their side from players who drink in the three pubs that England haven’t found yet.

A clever tactic that England have recently taken to employing in order to further stymie the Irish is that of selecting every club cricketer seen with a glass in his han?d for one or two token ODIs against Denmark or Iceland, then discarding them, never to be seen again until a few years later when they turn up in the Irish side again under an assumed name. For instance, Ed Joyce. He is, we are assured, definitely the same person as the Edmund Christopher Joyce who once played for England. Not a chance.

Up to 2006, and since 2010, Ed was a brilliant batsman. The sorry shell of a man who swapped the rugged mountains of the Emerald Isle for the marbled halls of Lords cannot be the same person, surely? If my theory is correct, ?expect Ireland to unearth a fast bowler going by the name of Royd Bankin in a couple of years time. I would put money on Mowin Organ making a triumphant return to form too, but not for a few years yet. England have only half destroyed his doppelgänger as a cricketer so far.

Coaching is another area of stark contrast. England’s head coach is none other than Peter Moores, who is the answer to the riddle “If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well, but if you want to do one badly, twice, who’s your man?”. Now Peter is a thoroughly nice chap, but he’d be a better coach if you took his teeth out and put seats in. Ireland, on the other hand, have no coaching at all – everything is completely natural and Phil Simmons is merely employed as a drinks waiter. In fact, Brett Lee has recently employed the entire Irish cricket team to be HIS drinking coach.

Is it no surprise therefore, given all of the above indisputable and absolute truths, that in their opening games, England were beaten before they started and Ireland couldn’t lose? Even before Chris Woakes had decided, in best WG Grace style, that the crowd had come to see Aaron Finch and not him and duly let him off on the grounds that he didn’t want to disappoint thousands, England were doomed. Contrast that horrible drop with the sheer awesomeness and exuberance of the Irish fielding against the Windies. To them, every moment on the cricket field is a moment to be enjoyed.

It’s the English players, you see – their hearts are no longer in it. They know that a couple of years of dreadful form, dropped catches, wides and ignominious dismissals will see them out of the England side. This will then give them time to check ancestry.com and discover an Irish grandmother, or even an old photograph of themselves clutching a bag of Tayto crisps. A swift phone call to Dublin and they will be able to enjoy life again.

Incidentally, in contrast with LE’s ‘bad luck’ with the bookies, I have decided to have a go on the National Lottery. If I win, I’m going to buy his silly football team. All I need is those three numbers!

Toodle quack.

Devil Ducky

New Zealand’s call-up of the aptly-named Jesse ‘Wider’ Ryder to their one-day squad to face England may have been a surprise to some, but he follows in the knee-deep footsteps of a number of players of equally epic proportions who have made a considerable impact on the game – and on the ground when they landed on it.

The part-time Irishman with a taste for high living, together with a reputation for not bothering to turn up for games when selected, made his international debut i??n the recent Twenty20 game against England at Eden Park, Auckland, and he wa??s unsurprisingly run out when he slipped, fell and was unable to clamber out of his own crater in time to regain his ground.

The hard-hitting Ryder, as well as bei??ng a more than useful useful seam-up trundler, has actually been picked for his ??fielding as much as anything else. World-renowned sports scientist, DeVille Ducky, takes up the story:

“Jesse has a lot of natural ability, and the ball finds its way to him more often than not. In close, he looks every bit the equal of those other great – in the volumetric sense of the word – slip fielders, Phil Sharpe and Robert Key, and no ball heading in his vicinity seems to be out of his colossal reach.

“This is hardly surprising, as he possesses sufficient mass to generate his own gravitational field, and anything passing close enough to his centre of gravity inevitably goes into temporary orbit – sheep, the entire tray of cakes in the restaurant at teatime and, of course, cricket balls.

“On the occasions when he is called upon to field in the deep, his very presence actually creates a momentary indentation in the space-time continuum, and this gives him those extra few seconds in order to be able to haul the ball in towards his event-horizon and prevent those vital boundaries.

“It’s a trade-off, though – on a couple of occasions recently, Jesse has played back to the short ball and the bails have actually been sucked off the top of the stumps by his very proximity. Also once, in practice, one of wicket-keeper Brendon McCullum’s gauntlets became so firmly lodged between his buttocks that we had to use the ‘Jaws of Life’ to cut it free.”

There is one other advantage to the inclusion of Jesse Ryder, and it’s something that will be welcomed by environmentalists the world over. Heavy, petrol-driven rollers will no longer be required between innings where he is playing. Five minutes of Jesse lying on the strip will render even the stickiest turner as hard and bouncy as the WACA in its heyday.

Mr Cricket

Mr Cricket was feeling somewhat out of sorts. He lay in bed with his eyes tightly shut, trying to make the daytime go away. He thought back to the previous evening – it had been a very good night because the Cricket-Writers Guild of Cricket-town had just presented him with an award for being a very good cricketer indeed.

He had eaten a lot of jelly and drank quite a few bottles of lemonade – especially after he had sat down with Mr Warne and Mr Marsh – and everyone had talked about what a really, really good cricketer Mr Cricket was, and that he was getting better all the time.

Someone even said that Mr Cricket was the second-best cricketer who had ever lived in Cricket-town, and Mr Cricket was very pleased with that. Then Mr Marsh had laughed – as loudly as you would have done if Mr Tickle had tickled you in a very ticklish place. That laugh hadn’t worried Mr Cricket at the time, but lying in bed as the morning ebbed away, it worried him a lot. Was he not as good as people had said?

Mr Cricket finally got out of bed just before lunch time, washed his face and oiled his bat. He thought that perhaps Mr Marsh was laughing because he had drunk even more lemonade than Mr Cricket had, but he couldn’t be certain. Cricket-town’s special book of very good cricketers, written by Mr Wisden, said he was really very good, but not one of the best five – not even during the last year. He decided to go for a walk.

After Mr Cricket had been walking for a few minutes, he saw Mr Bump on the other side of the road. He said “Hello, Mr Bump. Why are there two of you?” Harbhajan Singh and Monty Panesar replied in unison “These are not bandages, Mr Cricket – they are patkas. And neither of us is Mr Bump – we are Sikhs.”

Mr Cricket was very confused – he was sure there were two of them, not one – and certainly not six. He decided that he needed another glass of lemonade, so he headed straight for The Bucknor’s Arms. Even more confusingly, the real Mr Bump, who seldom uses his full name because it is treble-barrelled and makes him sound very posh and un-Australian, was playing darts when Mr Cricket asked him, “Am I the second-best cricketer who has ever lived in Cricket-town?”

The pub went very quiet. A dart fell out of the board and Mr Bump-Ball-Clarke, to give him his full name, bent down to pick it up. He hadn’t heard Mr Cricket’s question properly so he said, “How’s that?” The landlord, Mr Wrong, without looking, sucked his teeth and simply said “Out!”

It was the same story wherever Mr Cricket went – he couldn’t get a straight answer out of any of his friends. Mr Topsy-Turvy-Elbow agreed that Mr Cricket had played very well indeed against Sri Lanka, averaging nearly 150 in the test matches, but it was too early to say, whereas Mr Dizzy had simply said, “I’m not sure. How many double-hundreds did you say you had scored again? I have one.”

Mr Messy-Hair said “What was that you said about monkeys?”, Mr Angry-Nel laughed and laughed and mentioned something about Nicky Boje getting him out twice in Johannesburg so how good did he think that made him, and Mr Rush merely said “BetterThanRickyPontingCaptainOfStraya?”

Mr Cricket was just about to give up and go back home when he saw Mr Jelly, who was running up and down the road, trying to get away from his own shadow. As Mr Jelly shot past, Mr Cricket shouted, “Mr Jelly, do you think I am the second-best cricketer who has ever lived in Cricket-town?”

Mr Jelly stopped running for a minute and said, “No, but I know exactly how you can be.” Mr Cricket asked him to explain. “Just do what I do” replied Marcus Trescothick. “Be poorly every time you are picked to play away against the good teams.”

Next Week – Devil Ducky’s Guide to French Cricket

Toodle quack

His sun hat has fallen off the peg and lies buried beneath the vacuum cleaner attachments in the cubby-hole under the stairs, the new cricket score-book he purchased in order to record Rikki Clarke’s maiden Derbyshire century – in 2012 for the Second XI – has long since disappeared, and he wears that permanent, glazed expression of the broken alcoholic.

Not today, though. Today, he was pottering around in the greenhouse with the broken window – the window he broke practicing his forward defensive ten years ago – when he let out a whoop of joy. For the first time since last September, he seemed happy, and his broad, toothless smile seemed to roll away the clouds and melt the snow.

Apparently he had been tending his one pot plant – no, not that sort of pot plant – when fate gave him a timely reminder that no matter how bleak the winter, summer really is only just around the corner. For there, on the bench between the watering can with no sprinkler and the broken trowel, he saw a cricket ball.

He didn’t say anything about the rest of the cricket though. Perhaps the cat had eaten it.

– – – – –

Clarkewatch 08 – Dateline 27 January 2008, Adelaide

Still tired after his century earlier in the game, Pup is allowed to hide at second slip as Brett Lee steams in to Virender Sehwag. The wide one is just what the Indian opener needs to get his innings moving again after being bogged down on one for the last ball, and predictably he thr?ows the bat at it.

The ball predictably arcs off the toe-end of the bat, straight to our Antipodean hero who equally predictably, promptly drops it. Quick as a flash, he picks the ball up on the third bounce and looks first to the heavens, then to? Lee and fina?lly, in turn, to both umpires. Seeing only Billy Bowden and Asad Rauf and not Steve Bucknor, to his eternal credit Michael manages to stifle his appeal.

– – – – –

Building The Winning Mentality

Last week, I told you that I was going to explain why Pakistan were rubbish at one-day internationals. Well, apparently I did them a disservice because clearly they are improving, as their recent whitewash over Z??imbabwe only goes to prove.

I learned that t??heir recent success? is all down to former Australian spearhead, coach Geoff Lawson. Even allowing for the absence of Inzamam ul-Haq, having recently retired from cricket in order to concentrate on international pie-eating contests, Lawson realised that there was a soft under-belly that needed toughening up.

Drawing on his years of experience as a successful player, Lawson decided to introduce radical new training techniques, specifically designed to improve shot selection when batting and a more dynamic approach when fielding. He said “When you think that someone as good as Shahid Afridi has been dismissed for a duck on 20 occasions, it’s obvious that something is badly wrong.

“Nets are fine, but there is no substitute for being out in the middle and so we play matches, matches and more matches. Today, to sharpen the players up, we played a fast and furious Twenty20 game. When we were batting, I got a load of bright orange washing baskets and positioned them where a traditional one-day field would be, and used a bowling machine to fire the balls down. The batsmen only have an instant to make up their mind where to play their strokes – the aim is to make shot selection instinctive.

“As for the bowling and fielding, I positioned another washing basket to one side of the popping crease, stuck a turntable on top of it, tied a couple of bats to that and we just took it from there. The bowlers would run in as normal, try to hit the stumps and our fielders had to more-or-less anticipate where the ball would go.”

I asked Geoff how the players went on today. He replied, “The washing baskets won by seven wickets.”

– – – – –

Hobart Shenanigans

The love affair between Muttiah Muralitharan and the great Australian public continues, with international cricket’s first ‘drive-by egging’. Sri Lanka’s manager, Shriyan Samararatne, takes up the story: “Murali and a few other members of the party were walking back from a restaurant to the team hotel when they were shelled from a black car.

“I don’t know eggsactly what happened, but the players are not going to be beaten by this kind of nonsense. As the first egg broke, the players scrambled into the hotel foyer and were quickly whisked away. There were no witnesses, so I’m a fried that no action can be taken at this time, but don’t think omeletting it go. And there is no truth in the rumour that Murali was pickled.”

– – – – –

Sporting Injuries

Last week, I suggested that Andrew Flintoff ought to consider cycling as a possible way of speeding up his recovery. Well, it appears to be working because he is going to be joining The Lions in India next week, although he has to be careful, so he’s only going in a drinking capacity.

Eddie tells me that he had a similar ankle injury many years ago, and after his operation and many hours of painful physiotherapy, he went to see his doctor and asked him if he could play cricket. The doctor said “No, I’m afraid not.”

He must have seen him in the nets.

– – – – –

Toodle quack.

Next week – Cricket’s latest heavyweight

In the first, the continued repercussions of the collapse of the American ‘sub-prime’ market caused Stock Exchanges from London to Beijing to hit the floor more times than the average chance heading in the general direction of Michael Clarke.

In the second, the price of beer in Eddie’s local went up faster than Steve Bucknor’s finger upon hearing an appeal coming from the general direction of Michael Clarke after he’d picked up said ball.

The third, of course, is much more significant. I finally cracked Eddie’s password, stole his laptop and offered my services once more to Cricket Web. James naturally declined, but as I am in possession of certain incriminating photographs of him and Scott Styris, negotiations eventually proved fruitful, so you now have me to put up with.

– – – – –

Many sportsmen nowadays supplement their meagre earnings by appearing on ‘Reality Television’ – remember Tuffers up the jungle, Goughie tripping the light fantastic and so on?

Well, apparently His Royal Left-handedness, Saurav Ganguly, is thinking of doing the same thing, especially seeing as he is going to have ra?ther a lot of time on his hands at the end of the current Test series in Australia.

I am told that he is thinking of making a special guest appearance on ‘Stars in Their Eyes’, performing a Bangra rendition of the old Human League classic, ‘Dhoni You Want Me, Baby?’

– – – – –

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since we last spoke – most of which is now covering New Road, Worcester, to the depth of about six feet. In other news, Andrew Flintoff has failed to win a place on the England Lions tour of India because of continuing worries over his ankle and his liver.

The two facts might not be unrelated. I understand from many instances in the past that the big man is not the greatest of trainers, but I do know for a fact that bike ?ridin?g, whether on the road or indeed in the gym, is one of the best things to build up those muscles again.

So all Freddie has to do is pop down to Worcester and use the awful English weather to his best advantage. A few laps of the outfield on his Pedalo and he’ll be as right as the rain which shows no sign of abating this side of Ashes 2009.

– – – – –

Or rather, as I should say, ‘npower Ashes Series 2009’. Yes, a year and a half away, we are already being reminded by the Media, and especially Sky TV, that ‘The Big One’ is just around the corner.

The adverts for it are already being aired, together with all the usual images of Ricky Ponting being run out by a village cricketer, Ricky Ponting regaling everyone prepared to listen that it was unfair that he was run ??out by a village cricketer, Ricky Ponting looking sulkily on whilst The Urn was being held aloft by a triumphant Michael Vau?ghan surrounded by a dozen Members of the British Empire and a village cricketer.

‘Pomp and Circumstance’, ‘Jerusalem’, ‘Engerland’, ‘You’re Gonna Get Your Fu…’ well, maybe not that one, and other great patriotic numbers are being constantly played at every occasion. 2007 is fading already, like a bad dream.

– – – – –

Speaking of bad dreams, Rikki Clarke must think he’s had one. He went to bed a Surrey superstar and future saviour of England, and woke up, Rip Van Winkle-like, several years later – as captain of England’s most cash-strapped side, Derbyshire.

Yes, the man with the biggest smile in world cricket – measured from top to bottom – is the man charged with the responsibility of leading Eddie’s favourite county to future glories. Or perhaps it was the fabulous pies that enticed him to venture north of Watford.

Cricket Web will be there, naturally, to bring you ‘Clarkewatch 08’, which this year will not only feature the one-time ‘future captain of England’, but also the one-time ‘future captain of Australia’. Yes, the puppy and his occasional little ‘accidents’ will be scrutinised as never before.

– – – – –

What really happened at Sydney the other week? One minute all was sweetness and light with Killer Harbhajan smearing the Aussie bowlers to all parts, and the next – mayhem with people running around waving their arms in the air, umpires covering their lips and so on.

You don’t know for sure? Well, I’ll tell you. Not for nothing did I invent the ‘Devil Ducky Stump Mic’, not to be confused with the sub-standard nonsense the ICC bought on the cheap from Currys. For the first time, the conversation between Harby and Andrew Symonds can be revealed in all its banality:

G’Day, Harby.

Hello, Mr Symonds, sir?. It is an ho??nour to be facing such a polite representative of Antipodean culture.

(whack! Umpire signals boundary)

Shot! Bet you can’t do it four times on the trot.

Bet you I can.

(whack! Umpire signals another boundary)

How much?

A full set of DVD’s, winner gets to choose his favourite TV programme.

(whack! Umpire’s arm aches)

You’re on!

Done!

(whack! Umpire calls for a ‘signaller’ – similar to a batsman calling for a runner but used rarely nowadays)

OK, you win. What’s your favourite programme?

Monkey

– – – – –

I understand that a ‘Clear the Air’ meeting happened quite accidentally last week, in a local supermarket. Harby was taking advantage of a week off and he nipped down to the shop to buy a few Indian treats from the delicatessen counter to share among his team-mates.

Shortly after play ended on day one, Ricky Ponting happened to visit exactly the same supermarket to buy some DVD’s as a favour for one of his own team. He saw Harby next to the sports department and the following conversation took place:

HiHarbyHowYouGoing?

I’m sorry?

(slower) Hi, Harby. How are you going?

Do I know you?

It’s me, Ricky

What are you doing so far from Derbyshire?

No, Not Rikki. Ricky.

Ricky who?

Rick?y Ponting quickly picked up a bat from the display and mimed his famous off-drive.

I’m really sorry, you’ll have to tell me.

Ricky Ponting, captain of Straya. You’ve played against me often enough.

I’m sorry, I didn’t recognise you. It’s hardly surprising, though. I only ever see you for two or three balls a match when I’m bowling.

– – – – –

See you soon.

Toodle-quack.

Next week – why Pakistan are rubbish at one-day cricket

Introduction

Benjamin Franklin was reputed to have said: ‘Only two things in life are certain – death and taxes’. To those inevitabilities, it seems, can be added a third – controversy in relation to the Pakistan cricket team. Seldom can a side burgeoning with so much natural talent have had such a propensity for hitting the self-destruct button, but it hasn’t always been so.
Oh, wait – yes it has.

Lead-up to the Tournament

Pakistan’s run-up to the tournament has been long and full of incident. A comfortable whitewash against the West Indies in 2005 seemed to confirm Shahid Afridi as a true match-winning all-rounder with both bat and ball, but six months later events surrounding an impromptu mid-wicket Fandango in a test series against England saw him have to sit out the first two one-dayers. Despite this setback, Pakistan were rather more comfortable victors than the eventual 3-2 scoreline suggested.

Defeat at home to India in early ??2006 was balanced out by a comfortable victory in Sri Lanka and they more than held their own in England, but this, sadly, was a tour overshadowed by further controversy. Greatly weakened by the absence of Inzamam-ul-Haq, Pakistan were hugely disappointing in the ICC Champions Trophy, and results since then have been largely overshadowed by drug allegations, bans, the overthrowing of bans, injuries real or alleged, and Hair problems.

Afridi maddeningly made the new?s for all the wrong reasons again recently when his remonstration with a spectator at Centurion Park went a little too far. His subsequent four-match ban sees him missing the first two World Cup group matches, one of which is a potential make-or-break ??opener against the West Indies.

On the eve of the 2007 World Cup, it is decidedly unfortunate too that the Pakistan Cricket Board once again find themselves embroiled in a bitter row, this time with Malcolm Speed of the ICC, over a knee, an elbow and two players who had been banned over a failed drugs test before being reinstated, but who now find themselves removed from of the squad because of ?fitness problems’. Harbouring a sense of injustice could work in Pakistan’s favour if the rage is channelled, but equally it could completely overwhelm them if it isn’t. Only time will tell.

Key Players

Shahid Afridi

If one man epitomises everything about Pakistan cricket, it is the mercurial Afridi. Outrageously talented with both bat and ball, he can be magnificently belligerent one moment and decidedly fragile the next. On the one hand a world record holder for recording a 37-ball century, on the other a chronic under-achiever whose typical innings lasts just 21 deliveries on average. His absence from Pakistan’s first two group games, certainly from a batting perspective, might mean everything – or nothing. His leg-spin, however, has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years, and the notable bowling absentees from Pakistan’s squad mean that he will be vital in this department.

Inzamam-ul-Haq

The Pakistan captain’s average of a little under 40 might well be on the wane in recent years, but he still retains the capability to dominate the middle stages of an innings. An extremely subtle and wristy batsman for one of such bulky physique, he can be quite destructive when the mood takes him, especially through the midwicket region. As the sands of time inexorably run down for the immensely proud leader, World Cup 2007 might well be his final curtain call. A first century for three years is not beyond him though, even at this late stage in his career.

Kamran Akmal

Successive centuries against England more than a year ago seemed to indicate that Kamran Akmal had arrived on the world stage as a potential ??match-winner with the bat. Since those heady days, a single fifty from his last 27 innings has not contributed enough to outweigh his frequent frailties when called upon to don the gauntlets. It is when keeping wicket that his most significant moments of World Cup 2007 might well arise. A plethora of dropped chances or missed stumpings could have far-reaching consequences. On the other hand, if the catches are held and the runs flow, Pakistan will benefit.

Mohammad Yousuf

The middle element of arguably the most talented middle order in One Day International cricket is not renowned as a flamboyant player; rather he is an extremely adept accumulator using what many consider to be ‘old-fashioned’ orthodox techniques. A round dozen one-day tons are scant reward for such a prodigious talent, but his record-breaking form in the longer version of the game indicates that there is much more in the locker. He is seen almost universally as captain-elect, ready to step into Inzamam-ul-Haq’s boots when the big man decides it’s time to hang them up.

Strengths

In years gone by, Pakistan have traditionally been seen as one of, if not the strongest side with the new ball in one-day cricket, but the achievements of Waqar and Wasim are now distant memories. Recent events have conspired to deprive them of their latter-day spearhead, but in reality Pakistan have seldom threatened to bowl sides out of late. Afridi’s leg-spin is a huge plus, both in terms of economy and taking wickets, but it is the top six in the batting order that accommodates the majority of the match-winners.

Pakistan’s greatest strength, though, might well be the ‘Millwall Factor’, a sense of collective injustice that pulls them together into a cohesive force against all the odds.

Weaknesses

Pakistan in the field are one of the least athletic sides that world cricket has witnessed in recent years, but it is far from their only weakness. In Kamran Akmal they have a wicketkeeper who can spurn the simplest chance – especially when he has time to think about it – and there is no natural backup glove man in the squad.

Pakistan’s greatest strength over the last 15-20 years has been the balance of the side – a mix of swashbuckling batters, grafters, a high quality spin department and one, usually two, searing pacers. Although Mohammad Sami has been known to fire the odd rocket down, his better days have been as the foil to a firing-on-all-cylinders Shoaib Akhtar. The lack of a real talismanic spearhead leaves the attack looking decidedly threadbare.

Factors on the periphery of the game, coupled with how the side’s reaction to them affects the often-temperamental Pakistanis, might well prove to be the biggest weakness of all though – on the other hand, it might not. See ‘Strengths’.

Previous World Cups

A succession of semi-final defeats during the early years of the competition was followed by victory in Australia in 1992 when Imran Khan led Pakistan to a 22-run win in the final against perennial bridesmaids England. They reached the final again in 1999 but on this occasion were well beaten by an Australia side who were just beginning to dominate the shorter version of the game, although the result the world remembers from that competition was an ignominious defeat at the hands of lowly Bangladesh that caused tongues to wag. The last World Cup saw the weather intervene to wash out Pakistan’s ‘Group of Death’ game against Zimbabwe in Bulowayo, a non-result that saw the Africans progress.

1975 – Group Stage
1979 – Semi-Finalists – lost to West Indies
1983 – Semi-Finalists – lost to West Indies
1987 – Semi-Finalists – lost to Australia
1992 – Winners
1996 – Quarter-Finalists – lost to India
1999 – Finalists – lost to Australia
2003 – Group Stage

Predicted Finish for this World Cup
Pick a number

Pakistan World Cup Squad
Inzamam-ul-Haq (captain), Younis Khan, Azhar Mahmood, Danish Kaneria, Iftikhar Anjum, Imran Nazir, Kamran Akmal (wicketkeeper), Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Sami, Mohammad Yousuf, Naved-ul-Hasan,? Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Umar Gul, Yasir Arafat

For the scientifically-minded, hyperactive inhabitants of this modern world, time is measured by the oscillation of caesium atoms. There are those of us however for whom life takes on a quieter, less frantic pace, and a more leisurely periodic measure is applicable to our sedentary lifestyle – such as the frequency of Ashes series.

Come?? back with me then, less than the twinkling of an eye, to Kennington Oval, London, and the wild celebrations that reverberated around a country starved for so long of real success on the cricket field. The series win assured, the euphoria palpable, England exploded with joy.

One young player could have been forgiven for feeling that his own series contributions had been somewhat below par – an average the wrong side of twenty, seven single-figure scores and a growing reputation for resembling a rabbit trapped in the headlights of an approaching juggernaut suggested that there was one on the open-topped bus, perhaps, on borrowed time.

Twelve months on, Ian Bell’s place in England’s test and one-day sides seems assured. The occasional failures are still there, but more than anyone else in the team comes the confidence that once that first half an hour has been negotiated, a flutter on him being England’s major contributor with the bat is as likely as not to pay dividends.

August 2006 was highly significant for Bell for one reason and one reason alone – his third century in successive test matches assured his place in the record books for all time. Bell becomes the tenth Englishman to have achieved the feat, equalling some all-time greats whose numbers include Sir Jack Hobbs, Denis Compton and the incomparably immovable Geoff Boycott.

Only Ken Barrington has gone one better than Bell for England – twice embarking on a four-game ton-scoring streak – but putting matters into perspective, the great Sir Don Bradman notched up a round half dozen before the Second Worlld War. Of the current Aussies, Matthew Hayden, almost unnoticed, found his feet at last and embarked on the first tottering steps of his own four-game trot at The Oval last year.

Which brings us full-circle, as we are but a heartbeat away from the next Ashes series. A year ago, Bell’s form was such that he was in danger of falling a long way down the pecking-order. Injuries and the personal demons of others have given him the chance to cement his place in the side to such an extent that the name of Ian Ronald Bell will be one of the first to find its way on to the selectors’ sheets when they sit down next Tuesday.

Cricketweb Player of the Month

August, 2006

Ian Bell

The venue was the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo, and the contest in question was the first test match between a revitalised Sri Lanka, fresh from drawing their recent seri??es in England, and a South African side lacking Smith, Pollock and Kallis.

For? the first half of the first day, the ball was most definitely in the ascendancy as wickets fell at the rate of one every twenty minutes, and with the visitors dismissed for 155 at tea?, Sri Lanka started their own reply shakily.

Dale Steyn had taken a wicket in each on his first two overs and by doing so had reduced the home side to a far from secure 14-2 when captain Ma??hela J?ayawardene joined Kumar Sangakkara in the middle. The partnership nearly ended as quickly as it began with both batsmen particularly fortunate to survive long enough for the number 5 to get his pads on.

Within half an hour, Jayawardene had come within an ace of running himsel?f out and almost holed out on the? hook, but he was by far the surer of the pair. Sangakkara in the space of four balls had seen Jacques Rudolph grass the most straightforward of chances before he dragged a no-ball on to his own stumps.

South Africa had a day and a session to reflect on Steyn’s misfortune and Rudolph’s profligacy. Only when the batsmen had taken their partnership on to 467, and in the process equalled the old world record for the third wicket in test cricket, did another fleeting chance arrive and depart with the blink of an eye. This time, it was wicketkeeper Mark Boucher who would have slept uneasily.

Day three dawned with Jayawardene and Sangakkara barely 100 shy of immortality. The luncheon interval saw the partnership within single figures of the pinnacle of pinnacles, and it is fitting that neither batsman can claim to have hit the shot?? that relegated the 577 made by the immortal Vijay Hazare a??nd Gul Mohammed in March 1947 to the second row in the table. That honour goes to Nicky Boje, Mark Boucher and four byes wide down the leg side.

The party ended after the pair had added 624 exhausting runs when Kumar Sangakkara, 13 light of his first ‘triple’, was undone be Andrew Hall. Mahela Jayawardene eventually moved up to fourth in the individual scores table before he departed with 374 alongside his name. It is worth noting that the previous test record, the 577 compiled by Sanath Jayasuriya and Roshan Mahanama, was made in Jayawardene’s debut test.

Cricket Web Players of the Month
July 2006

Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene

Vaughan almost fell into the England captaincy in 2003 after Nasser Hussain first resigned the one-day position and then that of the test side. His first task was to pour ointment over the mental scars inflicted by Graeme Smith’s double hundreds that marked the end of Hussain’s tenure and the beginning of his own.

It soon became obvious to all that Vaughan was that rarest of birds, a ‘lucky’ skipper, able to pull enough rabbits out of the hat to ensure that a draw was salvaged against a strong South Africa side as first James Kirtley and then Marcus Trescothick produced match-winning performances.

There was a certain swagger about England, and the West Indies felt the full weight of a four-pronged seam attack that was the integral part of a side pulling together for each other. England’s modus operandi was straightforward – keep pushing at the door until a chink of light was visible, then all charge through.

Vaughan’s captaincy was full of imagination, and whenever England seemed to be heading for trouble, an opportunist field placing or an astute bowling change would invariably pay dividends. One thing was lacking, though, that one decisive factor that sets a good captain apart from a great one – how would he lead the side in an Ashes series?

The answer was simply: very well indeed. Vaughan’s decisions had the happy knack of paying off, and everything Ricky Ponting touched seemed to go bad. Whether it was brilliance – or luck – on Vaughan’s part didn’t matter. The 2005 Ashes series belonged to England, and the captain’s favourable position in the pages of history was assured.

Michael Vaughan’s position at the helm as England sailed serenely from strength to strength seemed assured, but one by one key personnel were sidelined by injury. Vaughan’s chronic knee problem required surgery, then Simon Jones, Ashley Giles, Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison also fell by the wayside one by one.

The golden touch for Vaughan had all but disappeared during the 2005-6 winter tours, as first an emphatic defeat in Pakistan and then an early return home from India for further surgery raised more worries ?with another Ashes series and the Cricket World Cup around the corner.

Another setback whilst playing for Yorkshire at the end of June this year revealed that the problem is not one to be mended by orthroscopy. Far from it – the problem has now been diagnosed as a hole in the kneecap and the prognosis is not good – at least not for the immediate future.

England now have a very difficult decision to make with winter 2006-7 in mind. It’s all well and good hoping against hope that the skipper will make a full recovery in time, but the nettle has to grasped. Who is the man to lead the side after Vaughan?

As recently as November last year, the answer was both simple and obvious – Marcus Trescothick had led the test side twice and the ODI team ten times in Vaughan’s absence, and he deputised regularly whenever the captain had to leave the field of play. A domestic crisis however saw Trescothick flying home from India and out of the frame – at least for a while.

Andrew Flintoff, the man who had gone toe-to-toe with Shane Warne before winning the accolade of having his name inexorably linked with the 2005 Ashes, was the next to be thrust forward. Many would like Flintoff to be wrapped in tissue paper and stored care??fully away, only to be wheeled out whenever the Australians are in town.

The fear is always there that Flintoff’s heart is too big for his own good, and he will always take too much on to his broad shoulders. He had surgery himself to repair a bone spur problem in his ankle before the 2005 Ashes series, and recently he has experienced pain in the same joint, causing him to be sidelined for a month. Drawn series against India and Sri Lanka possibly say more about England’s depleted squad than the success or otherwise of Freddie’s laid-back style.

There is a third and final candidate – Andrew Strauss. A winning start to his leadership career in Jamshedpur has been swiftly succeeded by an ignominious whitewash at home to Sri Lanka, but once again it is unfair to judge his captaincy credentials without making some reference to an attack that has seen boys striving to do a man’s job.

There is a world of difference however lying between the semi-automatic responses to One-Day International situations and the careful planning and inspired thinking required to lead a test side, so the choice of who fills Vaughan’s boots in my mind comes down to a choice between Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Flintoff.

My own choice for the job would be Trescothick, but that’s because I’m old enough to remember the hot seat coming close to destroying Ian Botham. When England’s last great all-rounder was freed from the shackles following on from his pair at Lord’s exactly a quarter of a century ago, the relief was palpable and Australia were put to the sword. I’m glad the decision is not going to be mine.

The Scott XI was born in the winter of 1978, the brainchild of a group of Oxford undergraduates that included Thompson and Marcus Berkmann who would eventually pen ‘Rain Men’, the first novel to cover some of the extraordinary exploits of the ?Scotties?, published a decade ago.

Thompson and Berkmann were boyhood chums who lived for cricket, but constant rebuffs on the grounds of general hopelessness and ‘wetness’ precluded them from ever representing House, School or University. Consequently, in the finest of English traditions, they formed their own club, a club where ability (or rather the lack of it) was less an obstacle, more a positive boon – at least at first.

Early recruits to the club rapidly earning a reputation as ‘the worst in Oxfordshire’ included Hugh Grant, described as ‘A foppish and elegant bat who never scored any runs’, and Ian Hislop who once hilariously hopped over a fence to retrieve a ball, only to end up waist-deep in liquid manure. Sadly, fame took its toll and the pair featured fleetingly in the early days of the club.

The opening chapter bears witness to Thompson valiantly staring down a fearsome vermilion cagoule-wearing New Zealander, oar in hand, desperate to preserve his purple rucksack during an impromptu cricket match on the sea ice in the shadow of Mt Erebus. The spectators include a pod of killer whales and a leopard seal – more leopard than seal – together with hundreds of penguins who eventually ignore all protocol and everything that is Holy by invading the pitch.

The yearning to be ‘part of a normal cricket team’ is a catalyst to the inevitable schism that tears the team apart and sees two clubs emerge – Berkmann’s ‘layabouts’ who depart the scene and Thompson’s keener fellows who set off on a whirlwind three week world tour with the intention of playing a cricket match on each continent, and it is this tour that constitutes the body of the book.

It is perhaps to the detriment of the memory of Harry Thompson that he chooses his final work to seemingly settle a few old scores – perhaps it is because he felt that some things needed to be said and he needed to clear his conscience, but there is an element of futility in a dying man taking such action.

Notwithstanding that small criticism, it is a wonderful read that had me both laughing and crying at the same time on more than one occasion, gut-wrenchingly hilarious and yet at times poignant to the extreme. The final words are those of Harry’s wife Lisa (the pair wed just a few hours before the writer’s untimely death) as she describes how she heard an unmistakeable ?glunk? as one of his friends tossed a cricket ball onto his coffin. ‘Harry would have liked that.’

The Captain Scott XI did once beat a country.

On a Tuesday.

1. Michael Vaughan (Yorkshire) (Captain) 29.10.74
2. Ian Bell (Warwickshire) 11.4.82
3. Paul Collingwood (Durham) 26.5.76
4. Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire) 6.12.77
5. Ashley Giles (Warwickshire) 19.3.73
6. Stephen Harmison (Durham) 23.10.78
7. Matthew Hoggard (Yorkshire) 31.12.76
8. Geraint Jones (Kent) 14.7.76
9. Simon Jones (Glamorgan) 25.12.78
10. Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire) 27.6.80
11. Liam Plunkett (Durham) 6.4.85
12. Matthew Prior (Sussex) 26.2.82
13. Andrew Strauss (Middlesex) 2.3.77
14 Marcus Trescothick (Somerset) 25.12.75
15. Shaun Udal (Hampshire) 18.3.69

One day squad

1. Michael Vaughan (Yorkshire) (Captain) 29.10.74
2. Kabir Ali (Worcestershire) 24.11.80
3. James Anderson (Lancashire) 30.7.82
4. Ian Bell (Warwickshire) 11.4.82
5. Ian Blackwell (Somerset) 10.6.78
6. Paul Collingwood (Durham) 26.5.76
7. Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire) 6.12.77
8. Ashley Giles (Warwickshire) 19.3.73
9. Stephen Harmison (Durham) 23.10.78
10. Geraint Jones (Kent) 14.7.76
11. Simon Jones (Glamorgan) 25.12.78
12. Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire) 27.6.80
13. Matthew Prior (Sussex) 26.2.82
14. Liam Plunkett (Durham) 6.4.85
15. Andrew Strauss (Middlesex) 2.3.77
16. Marcus Trescothick (Somerset) 25.12.75

England’s tour dates:

Feb 12: Depart London Heathrow
Feb 13 – Arrive in Mumbai
Feb 18-20 – three-day practice match, CCI Mumbai (involving all England players in the squad)
Feb 23-25 – three-day first class match, Baroda v President’s XI
March 1-5 – 1st Test, Nagpur
March 9-13 – 2nd Test, Mohali
March 18-22 – 3rd Test, Mumbai
March 25 – one-day tour match, Jaipur
March 28 – 1st ODI, Delhi
March 31 – 2nd ODI, Faridabad
April 3 – 3rd ODI, Goa
April 6 – 4th ODI, Cochin
April 9 – 5th ODI, Guwahati
April 12 – 6th ODI, Jamshedpur
April 15 – 7th ODI, Indore

One notable omission from the test squad is that of James Anderson – it appears that Liam Plunkett has now firmly leap-frogged above him in the pecking-order. Another is Darren Gough – his omission suggests that the sun may well have set on his international career.

Doubts abound regarding the fitness of Ashley Giles – he is currently recovering from a hip operation – and the selectors have kept their options open. A third spinner may well be named nearer to the departure date, bringing the test squad up to 16 in number. Names suggested include that of left arm Northants spinner Monty Panesar, widely tipped of late to have a big future in the game.