Buying wickets - a lost art?

Is buying wickets a skill that's dying out of the game? It certainly feels like that to me. Years ago the standard club cricket game was to get 250+ and declare, and then toss the ball up to ensure that a result was inevitable, taking wickets as the batting side pushed for victory. Time and time again, we won fielding second with the opposition 10 or 20 short.

These days I'm not sure a young player would know the term "buying wickets". I don't think it's about denying the opposition batting points - it's more about not risking a loss. How disappointing! For me declaration cricket is all about the tactics required to force a result but somehow that seems to be a declining part of the game.

There is a reason I've turned to this topic - our game yesterday! We won the toss and fielded, which of course means that you can't complain when the opposition doesn't let you into the game. But their tactics made a draw inevitable. Didn't they want to win? Having been in a decent position we lost 2 wickets in a few balls and two of us were at the crease on 0. One hit over the top and suddenly I was faced with deep square, deep mid-wicket, long on and long off. Not surprisingly the rate went up and up, but the field remained the same even with 10 an over needed.

It made a draw inevitable, and all we could do was play for the bonus point that came with 160, 180 and 200. But for our opposition Billingshurst it meant they had little chance of winning, even bringing back their opening medium pace bowler, rather than bowl spin from both ends. They took a wicket in the final over as we pushed for 180, but the game was over as a spectacle with 15 overs to go. They could have won the game had they been willing to risk losing it - hopefully they'll continue those tactics throughout the season when they're playing everyone else too!

Pakistan to self-destruct again?

If reports are right that Shahid Afridi and Waqar Younis can't see eye to eye then Pakistan cricket is in for another self-induced implosion.

The role of the coach and captain is really interesting...one that Duncan Fletcher, the new Indian coach, talks about in his book, Behind The Shades. He was absolutely clear that the main man is the captain, and the coach is there to support him and take as much pressure off him as possible. That's probably one of the reasons he got the Indian job - MS Dhoni is the main man there and when Greg Chappell tried dictatorial tactics it was a failure.

Can Waqar Younis work with his captains rather than dictate to them? Time will tell...

Michael Clarke moves house

Yes, apparently Michael Clarke moving is big news in Australia. It comes with accompanying photos so perhaps he sold the rights to covering his house move! He's made a good start to being Aussie captain wherever he's living....

You know you're getting old when...

...England have 3 captains. And 2 of them look like they should still be wearing shorts and going to school....

Cricket headline generator

I love this cricket headline generator....rings absurdly true sadly!

Please can we have our ball back?

It seems that Obama bin Laden bribed kids playing cricket so that they didn't come into his compound to get their ball back. Playing cricket must have become quite lucrative round there....

Just in case you missed it....

You can access the audio to commentator Edward Bevan getting hit by a ball hit by Peter Trego that's come through a glass window in front of him!

Bat maintenance

Having actually spent some money on a bat for the first time I can remember (rather than my traditional tight attitude) I'm actually having to do some bat maintenance. Takes ages when you have as much tape on your bat as I did, and you have to know to take the face off by pulling it across the face rather than down it. Found that out pretty quickly. Fingers crossed that the bat isn't ruined, but at least now it has a little bit of oil on it rather than disintegrating in my hands due to total dryness. Definitely ruined my hands though which are now blistered from the sanding as I used my thumb as the block. You live and learn!

A good toss to lose

Someone in the pub last night pointed out the closeness of the results in this years Middlesex v Surrey Match ( win for the good guys by an innings and 52 runs) to the result in the same match last year ( innings and 44 runs).
The other point is that of the 2010 match Wisden says " Hamilton - Brown must have questioned his decision to bat ". I don't suppose he was overjoyed this year about his decision to field. Sometimes you just can win!

All's well in Dartmouth

You may recall that prior to a weeks visit I was very concerned that there appeared to be no cricket club there. Happy to report, however, a very happy picture. 8ish pubs have each got a team and they play in a Sunday 20/20 league on the local rec. with a game in the morning and one in the afternoon so that's 4 teams drinking together between and after games and clearly a lot of fun and practice sessions during mid week. It's also nice to see a pitch marking machine being walked along the street and a (very old - DF 405) bat used as a door stop in the best pub in town. I can also report that there's a shop where you can buy an MCC tie with no questions asked ! Doesn't the chief burbler's dad live nearby?

Alviro Petersen makes poor start

You may remember that over the off-season I was critical of the way that the Glamorgan heirarchy were managing the County, as they pushed out Jamie Dalrymple and gave Matthew Maynard no option but to resign, after a season in which they were very close to securing promotion. Of course the 4 day game is not where the money comes from and Glamorgan's lack of limited overs success was given as the reason for the turmoil.

A season that looked like it would probably end in promotion before all the changes has now started badly, and more so as the management's choice of Alviro Petersen looks questionable at this early stage. First he made comments on Twitter about his struggles, and then seems to have responded negatively to the criticism of his comments on the Reverse Sweep.

It will be interesting to see if this is a blip or the start of a management-instigated decline at Glamorgan.

Batting with a runner

I don't remember having to use a runner before but that's what happened on Saturday and it was a bit of a surreal experience sitting on my bat handle at point as my runner and batting partner decided to do the old yes, no, sorry routine with my wicket at stake! Fortunately start, stop, start, stop, start resulted in one run successfully taken and I was able to resume my innings although I soon snicked off to first slip unfortunately.

A strained right quad meant that I was able to bowl and stand at slip but understandably there were question marks from the opposition after I'd needed the runner to bat. But the only thing I couldn't do was sprint, so fingers crossed, I'll be able to carry on playing as normal but perhaps have to deal in boundaries when batting! We got the win we needed to start the season though.

Thank goodness for the IPL

No, I never thought I'd say that either...we talk about World Cups being too long, but the IPL seems to be never-ending. But with the Royal Wedding taking over everything on Friday, it was a relief to know that I could turn to ITV4 and watch a bit of the IPL.

It seems there is a cricketing/royal wedding connection though, albeit a tenuous one. Apparently the bride's sister Pippa is going out with Alex Loudon, the early-retired England one-cap wonder. Perhaps the Middleton's will be on the sideline for Old Etonian Cricketer Cup matches? This year OMTs find ourselves in the other side of the Cricketer Cup draw to Eton and Eton will do well to go far with Cranleigh in the first round, then probably Stowe, Radley and then regular finalists Tonbridge all to overcome if they're to reach the final.

Youngest County player ever

It may only be a University game but this is still pretty special - 27 days into his 16th year Barney Gibson has become the youngest County cricketer ever, breaking a record that has stood for 144 years, by playing for Yorkshire against Durham University.

Fletcher and the Indian coaching job

While the World Cup was on I read Behind the Shades- the autobiography of the new Indian coach Duncan Fletcher. A few things stood out. The first was the fact that Fletcher can't agree to disagree....he holds grudges and the whole book is an exercise in score-settling. The second is that he holds Gary Kirsten in extremely high regard and they clearly have a good relationship (the book was written before Kirsten got the India job). The third is that he makes it clear the (negative) impact the England job had on his family. And the fourth is that he's ambitious and the book demonstrates that he's been successful in all his coaching roles and wants to continue to challenge himself.

The second point means that Kirsten would have put in a good word for him in relation to the Indian coaching role (once Fletcher said he was interested) and Kirsten's word would have been taken very seriously as following the World Cup win, he is now revered for life in India. The third about the impact on his family may have been a problem for him, but the fourth point - his ambitious nature - meant that he would never let his family stop him from taking the top (and toughest) coaching job in cricket, and as they understand him presumably they wouldn't want to stop him either.

But it's the first point that makes me worry for him. Indian cricket is full of politics and back-stabbing - right now there will be a group of people who wanted someone else to be coach who will be undermining him. And there will be numerous leaks of information, something that he mentions time and time again riles him, so unless he changes his attitude he's going to have only himself to speak to for fear of a leak. How he deals with the administrative challenges of the Indian coaching role will determine how successful he is...

Strange selection issues at Steyning

Sorting out the Steyning sides last night was a very strange experience. I'm used to discussing potential names that could be approached in a desperate attempt to fill out the bottom side, knowing that 9 is the minimum needed to get a side out. Once you have 9 the game can go ahead, and there's always the chance of finding someone from a pub, club etc (I remember getting my 11th for a Sunday match in a London night club about a decade ago).

Last night, the discussion at Steyning was all about who would get left out from the 3rd XI, the bottom side. Good honest club cricketers, available throughout the season, might not get a game this Saturday. What a problem to have! It's not quite as simple as just adding a side, although the numbers suggest we could, because Steyning have only one pitch. But as we have a thriving Colts section that just keeps churning out players good enough to play adult cricket, we're no doubt going to have to overcome that and create a 4th XI at some point.

Talking of the thriving Colts section, selecting the 1st XI involved picking two under 16s and narrowly leaving out an under 17. It comes to something when a player has the 95 extension to his email address to indicate the year in which he was born, and yet he isn't the youngest in a side selected entirely on merit. Rather than let anyone point it out I will make the point for you - yes, those two players are less than half my age!

Will Shafayat make it back?

I was amazed when I got The Spin yesterday and read about Bilal Shafayat, aged 26 and apparently on the County Cricket scrapheap, or the 1st XI scrapheap anyway. A teenage prodigy, I assumed that the very least Shafayat would make of his cricketing career was to be a regular County pro. I realised he was struggling to make the impression his talent suggested he should (I've now seen he has a first-class average of 30), but it didn't occur to me he might find it difficult to find a County.

Interesting then that he's trying to make it back into the County game via Sussex 2s, with some decent initial success. Owain Jones, a Steyning product who now plays his cricket at Horsham played in that match and he couldn't have been more complimentary about Shafayat's input. Such is Shafayat's experience and knowledge "he seemed more like 40 than 26" apparently. Only time will tell if Shafayat will make it back, but even if he doesn't it sounds like some of the Sussex 2's squad will benefit from his experience and be more likely to make it themselves as a result.

Duckworth-Lewis go up in my estimation

I know, I know, I'm a little behind. But hopefully I'll catch up over the next 48 hours. This piece in The Guardian about Duckworth-Lewis weekend before last completely changed my opinion of them - they insisted on meeting over a "pub lunch in semi-rural Oxfordshire"! I wonder if it's a pub known to Thames Tourists...

Considering criticism of the DL method, I'd have to say that criticism tends to come when the cricketing authorities try to use their calculations over too short-a-period. For example, can you shorten a Twenty20 match and get a fair result? Not really...why bother trying?

Anyway, DL are doing their best and anyone that runs meetings over lunch in semi-rural Oxfordshire goes up in my estimation. I trust they were drinking Brakspears....

[One final note - on going to the Brakspears site the rotating homepage image is of The Unicorn at Peppard and the King William at Hailey- pubs definitely known to Thames Tourists].

Bad luck for residents of Dartmouth

Off to spend a week in Dartmouth so do all the checking on the internet - pubs, pub quizzes, places to visit etc. Then you think 'wonder if I can watch some cricket?' Extraordinary - Dartmouth, population 5,512 has no cricket club! Having been raised in the rus and suburbs of the home counties it never occurred to me that such a prominent town wouldn't or couldn't have a cricket club.
Rugby Club yes as many burble readers know and soccer yes ( sine qua non) but no cricket club. It doesn't bear thinking about. There is something called The Dart and District Cricket Club but that seems to be a league of pub teams - better than nothing ; in fact better than most things. Oh and there's Dartmouth College Cricket Club, but that's in America.
I think I'll have to concentrate on drinking (closer to my skill level, anway)

Happy cricket reading....

Apologies for the low levels of Burbling lately - been pretty busy but I'll try to Burbletastic next week! In the mean time, have you seen that The Cricketer has a new look site now that the Wisden Cricketer magazine is overseen by the likes of Jonathan Agnew and CMJ? Alternatively you can read about Adil Rashid getting worse and Ben Stokes getting better at King Cricket. Or Reverse Sweep's piece about how we should look out for 17-year old Reece Topley following his wicket-taking antics for Essex. Happy cricket reading....