West Indian cricketers are not supposed to fear anyone – except their mothers. So what must have happened is that when Chris Gayle got home with the Wisden Trophy, his mother took one look at it and told him that it wasn’t his and he was to give it back to the people it really belonged to as soon as possible or there would be trouble. And if the other boys’ mothers said similar things, then we can understand why their performances at Lord’s and the Riverside were so abject, and perhaps even forgive them.
All right, so it was pretty chilly out there in the middle and the ball moved in the air and off the seam at times, but international-level cricketers ought to be able to make a better fist than that of conditions other than idyllic. Fidel Edwards managed to make some good use of the moving ball but his colleagues did not even get the ball to whisper, let alone talk. The batsmen decided to play as if the ball was not moving at all and trust to luck for survival, a policy with predictably grim results.
It gives me no pleasure at all to have to write that whatever credit they justifiably accumulated with their gritty determination to win in the Caribbean, they squandered in seven days of rolling over and dying in an English spring. Unless they really were doing what their mamas told them to.
There is a feeling, then, that England were merely beating the air, but even that has its benefits. It does the heart and confidence a lot of good to record thumping victories if you haven’t had one for a year.
The bowlers especially will feel a lot better for knowing that they can bowl very well indeed if there is a little help from the pitch and weather: even Tim Bresnan looked a handy back-up bowler once he could get some movement while James Anderson bowled as well as any England swing bowler has these last twenty years. Stuart Broad bounced Ramnaresh Sarwan out and Graeme Swann gave left-handers a lot of trouble. Assuming Fred Flintoff comes back to replace Bresnan, that leaves Graham Onions fighting it out with Ryan Sidebottom and Monty Panesar for the fifth bowler’s spot, the question being which of them best complements the other four in the conditions anticipated.
But what encouraged me most about their performance was that they enjoyed being at work. The mid-week crowds may have stayed away (for all the concerned comment about small gates, the one Saturday of actual play was almost a sell-out) and the media may have spent large parts of every press conference wheedling about the Ashes, but the captain and team director had clearly managed to get them to concentrate on doing the job in hand as well as they could and worry about what comes next when it arrives. There was an enthusiasm and brio about their play which belied the lack of attention being paid by anyone else.
For a team which was in turmoil five months ago, this is an impressive tribute to the management skills of Strauss and Flower, hereafter to be known as the Andrews Brothers.
Their task, which they have no choice but to accept, is to reassemble the group after the interlude of the ODIs against West Indies and the ballyhoo and disappointment as teams more skilled at Twenty20 leave England standing at the World Cup and get them to carry on from where they left off. Since this is Mission Impossible, this post will self-destruct five seconds after you read it.
I for one do not understand the regular rant that makes the rounds after such victories; the other team wasn't upto scratch etc etc. I believe both teams showed up to play cricket, Both get paid to do so, there can be no other thoughts (or should not be ) on their minds. With that being the case, England thoroughly outplayed them. Stiffer competition be damned. This is the best sort of preparation for a "stiffer" challenge.
If the WI captain doesn't care for Test cricket, let him go his way and let another desrving cricketer take his chance. Anyway, well done England and wishing you all the best for the Ashes, you may be the underdogs, but hey everyone loves an underdog.
Posted by: Aditya Kumar Pidaparthy at May 22, 2009 3:29 AM
I think the series was a major joke. Organised at the drop of a hat, just to keep contractual obligations with sky. And to think people called Gayle being greedy. I guess nothing reeked more of greed than both ECB and WICB, tearing into existing commitments of the players (read IPL contracts and schedules drafted year back when the series did not exist). Bah!
Posted by: stephen kissoon at May 23, 2009 1:29 PM
yea man. England should be looking for a ashes white wash after this victory. surely the t20 world cup is up for grabs now !
Posted by: Vikram Maingi at June 5, 2009 8:07 AM
I agree with Aditya.
It is not only the players who are beeing greedy. It is actually the respective boards that are being more greedy.
Posted by: Anonymous at June 17, 2009 3:41 AM
I think ms Dhoni needa a little help from Shiv and sarwan on how to play 20/20 under stress
Samir Chopra lives in Brooklyn and teaches Computer Science and Philosophy at the City University of New York; his academic interests include the philosophical foundations of artificial intelligence and the politics of technology. In his third undergraduate year, he captained Mathematics in the departmental cricket competition (and lost to Chemistry in the first round). Samir played C-grade cricket in Sydney and makes guest appearances for his old club when possible (and desirable). Samir runs the blog Eye on Cricket and the cricket page at The Faster Times.
Paul Ford is a co-founder of the New Zealand cricket supporters' cult, the Beige Brigade. He was once described by a current New Zealand cricketer as "looking spastic" even mucking about with an Excalibur and a tennis ball in the backyard. Paul bowls right-armed Nathan Astlesque "nudes", his batting would make Ewen Chatfield look elegant, and he is a committed fielder. He sometimes grows a beard to hide his double chin and inhabits a periphery of cricket that Cricinfo is proud to be glimpsing through this blog.
Stephen Gelb grew up in Cape Town, a short walk from the beautiful Newlands ground. Always a better student of the game than player, his passion for cricket survived eight years as a student in Canada, where he learned to love baseball too. He lives in Johannesburg doing economic research at The EDGE Institute and teaching at Wits University.
Mike Holmans, a database consultant by profession, has spent thirty summers (and a few winters) going to the cricket. Brought up in one and working in the other, his dearest wish is for a season to end with Yorkshire winning the county championship by beating runners-up Middlesex by one wicket with five minutes to go. If it’s also a summer when England win the Ashes, so much the better.
Born in Colombo, educated at Oxford and now living in Brisbane - Michael Jeh (Fox) is a cricket lover with a global perspective on the game. An Oxford Blue who played first-class cricket, he is a Playing Member of the MCC and still plays grade cricket. His views on cricket might best be described as those of a "modern traditionalist". Michael now works closely with elite athletes in his job as a manager at Griffith University in Queensland.
Saad Shafqat takes special pride that his cricket-watching life began during the three-month interval between Javed Miandad's debut Test in Lahore and Imran Khan's 12-wicket haul at Sydney. Although a practicing neurologist based in Karachi, cricket has never been far from his activities. He has co-authored Javed Miandad’s autobiography Cutting Edge and has been a contributor to Cricinfo since 2005. His regular column Reverse Swing appears fortnightly in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English daily.
RSS Feed
