Thanks

 

More amusement on the clapping batsmen in front yesterday. New man half way to the crease received the applause and raised his bat to acknowledge it ! To be fair he did score 50 so it was just a journey in space-time.

 

Super-polite

 

I'm from the generation old enough to know that the belief of the next two generations that clapping in a new batsman is a time honoured tradition is incorrect. But it can't be wrong to be over polite, particularly in contrast to the quantity of inane noise that goes on on cricket pitches these days.

 

Anyway yesterdays oppo had a practice, quite a good one maybe, of having one of their team umpire at the bowlers end whilst the next man in stood at square leg ( dodgy if you're batting and have fallen out with him).

 

This let to the bizarre situation of several of my colleagues applauding the incoming umpire ! 

 

Backing your verbal-sparring mates

As a skipper it's always tricky to keep players (a) from doing something that will mean an umpire reporting them, and (b) saying things that create unnecessary animosity with the opposition. When I say unnecessary, I'm working on the assumption that anything said on the field should be said with the intention of increasing your chances of winning. If it doesn't increase your chances of winning why say it?

I've failed on both counts this season so far with a player reported for questioning a caught behind when he was convinced it came off his elbow, opposition spectators complaining to me about the loud swearing coming from the Steyning changing room after a dismissal, and unnecessary animosity created by comments made to the batsmen while we're fielding. But I don't think the captain has any chance at all of stopping these type of things, because they're all done in the spur of the moment....there's no chance for the captain to do anything apart from stop it escalating.

It has got me thinking about how players back, or don't back, their team mates when it comes to heated verbal exchanges. In Duncan Fletcher's book he talks about his concerns about Chris Read in terms of being combative with the opposition, and mentions the example of Paul Collingwood's verbal assault on Shane Warne from slip in the 2006/07 Ashes, where Read remained silent throughout rather than chirping support for his mate. Fletcher saw this as a weakness in Read but elsewhere in his book, Fletcher explains that different approaches are needed for different batsmen and Collingwood's verbal assault was probably ill-advised as Warne is the type of player who is spurred on by sledging.

Last Saturday we were very much on the back foot as Bognor Regis coasted to a 7 wicket win. Our (Aussie - not really relevant but just thought I'd mention it!) keeper shouted out encouragement and after a few dot balls shouted that they couldn't afford too many dot balls as there was under 10 overs left. I glanced at the scoreboard from next to him at slip and could see there were 11 overs to go but didn't correct him. A couple more dot balls and he repeated the comment, only for the batsman to turn around and correct him.

The reply from our keeper was something like "Don't you ****ing talk to me you ****. **** off and concentrate on your own ****ing game". There definitely would have been more said, but I stepped in as soon as I could. My gut feel was that the comments made it less likely we'd win as the batsman would knuckle down to ensure he was there right to the end rather than potentially play a loose shot as victory was close.

The question is, should you back your verbal-sparring mates even when you don't agree with their comments? Fletcher would seem to suggest you should, and I'm sure our keeper would argue that we had nothing to lose and his comments could have induced an adrenaline-filled false stroke. But it's still something that I feel incredibly uncomfortable with....perhaps I need to field somewhere other than slip so that I can't hear it all!

Cricket moves closer to football

No, I'm not talking about Twenty20 crowds, or this complaint about drunken behaviour at a recent Glamorgan match....I'm talking about use of physios. Wahab Riaz had to dive to try to make his ground on day 2 at the Oval, and grazed his arm slightly on the square. Instead of getting up and getting on with the match, he had to call for the physio! I'm not even sure footballers would call on a physio for a slight graze. Please don't let that become the norm!

Cricket net etiquette

Indoor cricket nets are over for another year, for most teams atleast. Discussing nets etiquette with fellow Cricket Burbler Dave McCabe, I decided that there are certain things that a man needs to do to get noticed in competitive nets. By competitive I mean nets where one or two people are observing and your chances of selection rest on how you perform in those nets.

When Dave and I attended Cricketer Cup nets - you remember, the competition in which I went for 44 off 2 overs last year! - we were both keen for the captain and other selectors to see our skills so that we'd be selected. I did my bit by getting out to the part-time bowling of the skipper a few times, thus no doubt putting my selection in even greater doubt.

Dave on the other hand played well, in particular enducing an edge from one of the new potential star players who have joined the squad this year. But the problem with nets is that an edge or enducing an uppish shot off a slower ball gain no credit. Even an LBW rarely gains any creidt. No, in nets, the key to success as a bowler is to bowl people. Only that noise of the stumps falling over attracts any attention ensuring that the coach and manager register your success.

I've never really desired selection enough, but if my life depended on it any LBW shout in the nets would be shouted just as if I were outdoors. And any uppish shot would require a loud "ooh, catch"....and of course, an edge would be followed by me running down the wicket screaming "got him"!

Only by acting like an idiot do bowlers get any credit for their non-bowled dismissals during nets. I wonder if the skipper or manager noticed that Dave had the new opener caught behind?

Cricketers' Tan

Yes, he's scored a couple of hundred runs in the match or thereabouts. And he's almost single handedly giving England the chance of winning the match. But Cricket Burble prides itself on picking up on the biggest issues in cricket....in this case, that means Andrew Strauss' cricketers' tan!

If you take a look at the photo on Cricinfo, Strauss shows the tell tale line just above his elbow....I can't imagine image conscious KP allowing that to happen! A little more sun cream or a long sleeve shirt might be called for....

Told you so !

Did you see that article in The Independent 'Cricket brings calm to state classrooms'?

It seems that one of the side effects of the wonderful 'Chance to Shine' scheme has been that, in schools involved, the standards of behaviour we're used to on cricket pitches is replacing that seen on football pitches.

Well I for one am not surprised and I speak as one who would never use the 'it's not cricket' expression except as a joke. Any student of the game knows that gambling played a huge part in the establishment of the game and that the shenanigans that go with that were therefore there almost from the beginning. We also know that sledging and general fielding-side chatter are more common than they once were but we're still a long way from what the multi-millionaires get up to. (Perhaps the credit crunch will have some effect in bringing fotball and its players back to reality but that's the subject of another rant another day).

Times don't change that much

On Saturday a player in one of the sides in the game I was playing in (I'll not say which side but those in the game will remember the incident) middled the ball to the keeper and failed to walk. I was glad to note that the behaviour was greeted with as much displeasure as it would have done 40 years ago when I first started playing club cricket.

Leave the ball alone!

I spent a large part of Saturday's batting (and therefore umpiring ) session watching, with amusement, the antics of an opponent fielding in the gully. Most times the ball went through his hands on its way back to the bowler he'd lick a finger and then apply the moisture to a point on the ball - it was often a random part because he'd not always look at the ball. Then the ball would continue its route to the bowler who was usually by then waiting at the end of his run and almost without exception the throw was short so the ball bounced and undid the work.

All done with the best of intentions I'm sure but odd that none of his team mates pointed out the waste of effort and of time. Additionally as a bowler I'd prefer not to receive a ball with somebody elses saliva on it.

A rant before a week off....

It's the week that I, and some other Cricket Burbler's spend each year, drinking too much Brakspears in the Thames Valley with the pretence of playing cricket all week. That means you're unlikely to see too many Cricket Burble posts for a week.

But before we go, a quick rant. Paul Collingwood was right not to withdraw the appeal against Grant Elliott in the 4th ODI - there's no doubt about that in my mind. That's depite the many people all suggesting he should have recalled Elliott - only in England! The batsman can run at any angle to get up to the other end - the fielder can run in only one to get the ball.....the batsman needs to get out of the way of the fielder. If he deliberately runs in the line that the fielder needs to run in to get to the ball (as a team mate of mine used to do regularly and was often warned by umpires for), then he can expect to be barged out of the way. It is the batsman's choice - if he wants to have a better chance of making his ground, he should not run directly at the fielder - he can run at any angle, the fielder can't.

Being English, we concern ourselves with the spirit of cricket. I would argue that the spirit of cricket is not to deliberately run in the way of the fielder (which is what Elliott did) who is trying to field the ball.

A lot has been said about what Australia would have done, and also what New Zealand did when they ran out Murali as he went to celebrate Sangakkara's 200 in a Test in December 2006. Let's be clear - Australia's last 2 captains, Waugh and Ponting would have sent Elliott on his way, and rightly so. (Incidentally, Ponting has just been fined for words said to an umpire after a decision.) Of the two pieces of play, which was the more "unsporting" - the Elliott wicket or the Murali wicket? I would argue the Murali wicket because he was clearly not trying to complete a run, so New Zealand have no moral high ground to argue from. Both were given out, and correct decisions were made.

Setting the field - how difficult can it be?

So you've done the difficult bit and chosen who you want where, now all you have to do is communicate that to your men. One veteran slow bowler in our club has recently selected a new method of doing this, which is to point in several different directions very quickly without making any sort of contact, eye or verbal, with anybody he wants to move. I hope it convinces the batsmen that he knows what he's doing because it doesn't half cause confusion in his team mates, particularly when he's pointing in one direction and looking in another.

Yesterday I saw another example of confusion when the skipper at deep mid wicket was trying to get deep extra into a precisely chosen location against the noise of a steady stream of traffic behind the sight screen - no chance.

All it needs is four signals, wider, straighter, deeper and closer - perhaps we should invent them. On Sunday, when I've got to captain my local pub, I'm sure I'm going to see super eager fielders settting out to move from fine leg to fine leg and from deep extra to deep extra at the end of the first over - yet another type of chaos!

1925: Hobbs makes his 125th and 126th century

This is an interesting little piece of cricketing history that I didn't know about. For those equally in the dark as me about the way Jack Hobbs overtook WG Grace's 125 centuries, read this article on Cricinfo.

I found this comment intriguing "...on 97 he danced down the pitch, missed the ball but Mervyn Hill failed - or chose not to - complete the stumping." Surely, even back then when cricket was played in the most fair of spirits, a keeper wouldn't deliberately miss a stumping in a 1st class game?

Lots of Yakka

I umpired "officially" for the first time on Saturday and, apart from calling no ball when a batsman was caught, it was quite uneventful.

Except..... having only been peripherally involved in the game over the last few years (cricket tour does not really count) I was surprised at the amount of chatter on the pitch that I suppose is called motivational. At times this bordered on sledging with comments such as "we are amongst the rabbits now" and "shame his shots are not as elegant as his designer pads". I appreciate that times change but it does become rather tiresome and the only thing that really surprised me was that the batsmen just seemed to accept it.

Indian views...

Unsurprisingly, Indian readers of Cricket Burble have been sending us quite a few emails given the various controversies in the 2nd Test match at Trent Bridge. Here is just one, written by Kirit Parikh (and slightly edited):

Umpiring decisions

The Captain, Coach and the Player should be able to challenge an umpire's decision.

This is done in America in National Football league. If the Umpire's decision stays then the challenging team may be charged five runs or ten or some other number.

The umpire should be allowed to reverse his decision after reviewing the tape. The unpire made a mistake in giving Sachin Tendulkar out at 91. How will he pay for an important statistical century mile stone? India could have made 600 runs.

Looking at Collingwood and Prior you could tell they were surprised at the umpire's decision. It was an half hearted appeal done out of frustration. Big money is involved and both the teams want to win or force a draw. We need to modify rules so that it is fair to both the teams.

There is no such thing like a gentlemen's game

If that was the case why was the English team throwing Jelly beans on the wicket when Zaheer batted? They got away with it. They should be fined half the match fee as they did for Shreesanth.

What are your views? Do you agree with Kirit?

Sreesanth escapes huge no ball

Is it really possible to bowl a no ball by the amount that Sreesanth bowled it, and not realise? He was already fined half his match fee for his shoulder brush with Vaughan, but I would argue that was the lesser incident of the two. Everyone that has ever bowled knows that you just pull out of your run up if you are going to bowl a no ball by that amount - it is not possible to over step by that much without it being deliberate in my opinion.

You would have thought that with so many ex-players involved in the administration of the game, one of them might have pointed this out?

Drinks

What is it with drinks? This summer has been very cool and wet so we've been lucky to be playing, if we are playing at all. And yet, as the clouds loom, in club cricket you hear the two captains discussing drinks and whether one set or two is appropriate! It's an afternoon game - no sets of drinks is what is required!

Perhaps, we (as in Club players) have learnt this from the hourly drinks breaks in Test matches? In club cricket the batsmen may need a quick drink between overs if they bat through the innings, but apart from that, do we really need to continue this obsession with drinks? We all have things to do in the evening....

Walking...and various other things

Christopher Martin-Jenkins has written a piece for The Times that is very far-reaching in it's approach to varius problems with the game of cricket, and it makes for a short interesting read.

I've got a few issues/comments with what he says:

He suggests that everyone should walk. I would argue that if only we used technology to give caught behind decisions or bat pad catches, this would happen by default. Just like a batsman who knows he is out after a run out appeal is referred to the 3rd umpire walks to the pavilion without waiting for the decision, so a batsman waiting for the decision when he has nicked it would to. It's more of a stick rather than a carrot approach, granted, but it would work.

He also argues that a catch near the boundary edge should be a catch as long as the ball stays in the field of play, irrespective of whethere the fielder's body touches the rope, but this would need a lot of technology to sort out. You have to be able to draw a virtual line upwards vertically from the rope to the height of the catch to understand if the ball is over the line or not and surely that isn't practical. Achievable yes, but practical now, no.

4 days test matches made up of four 100 over days are also on CMJ's agenda - surely something too far reaching to have any realistic chance of being taken up (and forgetting how many days are cut short due to bad light anyway)? But I do agree with one of the reasons that he wants to condense games to 4 days - he would like to have a spare day that can be used to make up time lost earlier in the match....this is something I agree with.

Having found a point I agree with I'll leave you to read the piece for yourselves.

Clapping the batsman in

As far as I know "clapping the batsman in" is something that you are taught to do as a child, but then soon forget as soon as you get past about 10 years of age. After all the batsman hasn't achieved anything yet so why clap him in?

So it comes as a surprise to me that clapping the batsman in is making a comeback in friendly cricket around the UK apparently. We played a team on Sunday who gave a veritable ovation each time a new batsman came to the wicket...I can't see the same happening in club cricket in Australia.

Why are youngsters taught to clap the batsman in, and does it happen around the world? Answers on a postcard please...or in the comments box...