The Cowdrey lecture

It's a long listen of an hour, but you can listen to Kumar Sangakkara's Cowdrey lecture and apparently it's captivating (not that I've had the time to listen myself yet!).

Dravid avoids World Cup euphoria

No doubt Rahul Dravid could have been at home in India earning loads of money for commentating or writing about the World Cup. Instead, he's left the country altogether to go and play for the MCC in Dubai and score the match-defining century that helped win the match for MCC. He'll be fighting hard for his international Test place but having seen Virat Kohli bat in the World Cup he could be struggling. Both Kohli and Raina are nipping at his heels but to me Kohli looks the classier player, especially in relation to Test cricket as he looks like he has the tighter technique. And of course Yuvraj has been revitalised by this World Cup.

An Indian Test line up of Sehwag, Gambhir, Kohli, Tendulkar, Laxman, Yuvraj, Dhoni gives extra bowling options and would strike fear into all opposition bowling attacks....Dravid has his work cut out but he's going about fighting for his place in the right way.

Lord's was nearly sold as a building estate....

...back in 1825 apparently. There's mention of it in this article from Friday marking the 190th anniversary of the first Norfolk XI match against the MCC.

Dining like a Lord

Another weekend, another formal dinner for a delegation of Cricket Burblers. A draining but necessary consequence of the glitz and glamour of the Burble lifestyle, you doubtless suspect. It's true that the constant whirlwind of film premieres, backstage passes and celebrity after-parties takes its toll after a while (and that night on Beefy's yacht with Rod Hull, Ronnie Irani and the missing Duran Duran album will live long in the memory). But Friday's dinner in the Long Room at Lords was particularly special.

The occasion was the annual black-tie dinner of the Old Merchant Taylors' Society, and guests were greeted by the words 'Lords welcomes the Old Merchant Taylors Society' on the digital screens around the ground (perhaps the closest an OMT has come to featuring on the Lords scoreboard recently). The evening commenced with a tour of the pavilion and ground, taking in the home dressing room, the Ashes urn and the new media centre. After a pre-prandial glass of champagne a fine four-course dinner was served in the historic Long Room overlooking the pitch. An entertaining after-dinner speech was made by the former MCC secretary, Roger Knight.

Some photos of the evening are below.

The home dressing room and batting honours board:

The media centre:


















The Ashes Urn (for the benefit of our Australian readership!):


















The Long Room:














Helpful instructions on the doors:

How dare you show extreme talent Pietersen!

I've never known such a load of fuss over such a non-issue as Pietersen's left-handed shots he played in the ODI versus New Zealand on Sunday. If he had got out playing them, would have anyone have said they had to be made illegal? I doubt it.

Several years ago, back in the days when Channel 4 had rights to cricket, they did a morning show before play one Sunday. I remember watching Dermot Reeve explain the 3 versions of the reverse sweep - one way of playing it was to turn around and play it left-handed while switching the hands (for a right-hander). That was many years ago and not one of the pros raised an issue. Mark Nicholas was presenting and (as always) was gushing in his praise for Reeve and the innovations he and Warwickshire had brought to the game.

All of a sudden, because someone does something extremely well, the MCC are apparently meeting to discuss if it should be allowed. Why not just let the bowlers sort it out by getting him out as David Lloyd argues - he only plays the shot because it gets runs and as soon as it doesn't he and others will stop. I wonder if one of the reasons they are concerned is that Pietersen's reverse sweeping (I love the fact that now it goes for 6 it's called "switch hitting" where as the same shot for a single down to 3rd man was a reverse sweep) is coming under scrutiny is, in part, one of the reasons he gave for it. He mentioned that the leg side boundary was massive while the off-side one was short, so it made sense to aim for the shorter boundary. It does make sense, but it also raises questions as to why an international match wasn't played with proper size boundaries both sides and further scrutiny on that point wouldn't be welcomed.

Some idiotic questions have been asked by some seasoned cricket commentators and journalists on this issue. How does the LBW law work? Exactly as it does at the moment - for Pietersen who is right-handed when the bowler starts his run up, he is treated as a right-hander whether he turns around and plays left-handed, or if he does a hand stand or forward roll for that matter. Do 3 fielders behind square on the off-side mean that when he turns round, the ball should be called a no-ball? Of course not Mike Selvey - what a strange comment to make! What is a wide now that the batsman has changed position? The umpire simply uses common sense as he does at the moment when a player moves to the leg-side to make room to hit over the off-side.

I hope the MCC don't stifle new shots (or in this case an old shot just played better) - it smacks of WG Grace putting the bails back on and telling the bowler that the crowd had come to see him bat. If they make a mess of their decision, they may find that unofficial games of "real cricket" start to get played where some common sense is used and the laws are made to benefit the players (including the bowlers who have a greater chance of getting a wicket when the batsman turns round as Pietersen did) and spectators, rather than for the benefit of jobsworths somewhere who would like to add yet more laws to an already complicated game.

Pink Balls - good idea but wrong reason

Pink balls instead of the white ones that lose their colour (we know what they mean) seems a good idea particularly if it gets rid of the tedious ball changing routines and it certainly shows that someone at The MCC is thinking 'outside the box' (never expected to say that).

But it's supposed to be to help batsman - Wow!, name the last rule change that was designed to help the bowler.

What they should have concentrated on is helping the spectator to pick up the ball and reduce the opportunities for bad light to interfere. Now that would be worthy of applause.

Seriously when was the last Law Change to help the bowler - the third stump in The Eighteenth Century?

Whatever Next?

I am intrigued to read today that the MCC are testing pink balls, and fluorescent at that!

The excuse seems to be that they may be able to be seen more clearly in fading light. Perhaps the experiment could be extended to other colours dependent on the level of the light and taking into account the various coloured clothing worn these days.

I can just imagine the commentary from the Test Match Special team when they change from pink to lime green to .......

I understand that the experiment is being conducted by Imperial College so this may lead me to the source?!

Less ODIs urge MCC

I agree entirely with the view from the MCC that there are too many ODIs, although we differ a little on the detail. As has already been burbled about on this site (Why is Abu Dhabi hosting international cricket?), I don't think that any ODIs should be played outside of the home country of one of the home sides. So no games in Abu Dhabi, Scotland or Ireland unless the home nation is playing. Where games like these are arranged, the ICC should not recognise these matches as official ODI matches.

The MCC urge further change though - they want best of 3 series to be the maximum ODI series length. This I completely disagree with for one very simple reason - the shorter the series the greater the chances of the worse team winning. Again this has been burbled about before (May the best team win?). The problem is that an ODI is part way towards the lottery that is a penalty shoot out in football, and the best of 5 or even best of 7 series ensure that the best team is almost certain to win, even if they are dogged by bad luck or bad umpiring etc.

So, yes MCC, less random ODIs scheduled by greedy Cricket Boards trying to cash in, but no to shorter ODI series.