Cricket ground architecture

This might not appeal to you all, but I was interested by this article about cricket ground architecture in the Architect's Journal. I can't say I'm totally surprised that Lord's comes out at number 1 in a British piece! Interesting to see the other grounds that come into the top 6 - no country features more than once.

By the way, I realise this is sacrilege not to know, but is it Lord's - i.e. belonging to Thomas Lord - or is it now Lords in these days with less apostrophes?

American cricket

The good news story here is the health of the game in America in High Schools and Colleges. But I also wanted to draw your attention to the way cricket is reported in America...

"Hanging on to a 111-99 lead entering the 20th and final over of Sunday's PSAL cricket championship at Canarsie Park in Brooklyn, Newcomers placed its hopes in the hands of team captain Robin Das for six final deliveries against Adams.Das came through, allowing only six runs. The top-seeded Lions edged No. 2 Adams,111-105, sealing their second straight championship in the league's second year of existence."

They still haven't really understood that it's not baseball have they?

Thoughts on England's Twenty20 exit

Number 1: 80 off 9 doesn't seem like a fair ask when rain intervenes and the opposition have scored 161 off 20. 8 an over off 20 needs to be matched by at least 10 an over from 9 I would have thought. Of course that seems like sour grapes now England have lost, but believe me, I was thinking it as soon as the target was announced!!

Number 2: the value of a good keeper. Foster has made a couple of stumpings the likes of which England supporters haven't seen since Jack Russell was around and it's brilliant to see. He needs to play 50 over cricket for England even if he doesn't play Tests, and stand up as much as possible to all bowlers.

Number 3: Opinion is divided on Dimi Mascarenhas - for me he's a must pick in Twenty20. Yes, he hasn't come off this tournament, but it's about identifying the role you want from someone so that they understand what is required from them. Mascarenhas has been poorly managed, not playing at times, and moving up and down the batting and bowling order indiscriminately.

Oooh er....

Listening to Mike Atherton talk about the South African openers, Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis, he said during the rain break earlier "they're both big men, in more ways than one".

What could he have been referring to?

Shameless self-promotion...

Yes, I'm shamelessly showing off that my batting average seems to have made the Steyning Play Cricket homepage!!

What's slightly annoying is that I got out having a slog at the end of one of the games we batted first in, in the final over before we declared. A 3 figure average would have looked even better....

I can also claim to make OMT's Play Cricket homepage too, but that's for the far less well recognised feat of most catches - 116 catches since the site started. That's pretty inevitable if you play regularly and field slip to the seam bowlers and long on to the spinners!

A whole album about cricket?

The band "The Duckworth Lewis Method" seem to have caused a stir by releasing an album relating to cricket. The Duckworth Lewis Method is Neil Hannon of The Devine Comedy and Thomas Walsh of Irish band Pugwash, and I gather they sing about cricket in the 80's. Some people seem to think it's strange to devote a whole album to the subject of cricket!!

Have a listen and see what you think....

Horror films and cricket don't mix....

....or do they? It seems the Australians that produced this film think so. "I know how many runs you scored last summer" is out later this summer for those that want to see whether a cricketing horror can be a hit....

South Africa will win

Yes, they completely demolished England last night, but that's not why they will win. I spot a similarity to when England won the 2003 Rugby World Cup! Back then Clive Woodward raised the issue of dummy runners blocking potential tacklers from a position of strength, knowing that little things like that could be crucial.

Yesterday, Graeme Smith questioned the way that Stuart Broad points and gestures as he runs into bowl. It's not a big thing, and South Africa absolutely thrashed England anyway, but these little things could cause distraction come the knock out stages, so Smith wants clarification. That's why South Africa should win - they have the best team and the right mentality this time (having said that of course, Twenty20 has a huge capacity for upsets as you don't have to be the best team to win a one-off short game as has been discussed on Cricket Burble many times before!).

Personally, I'd prefer it if Broad concentrated on firing in yorkers....

Big hitters

With all the media focusing on Twenty20 at the moment, the Daily Mail (no - I don't normally ever read anything from the Daily Mail....oh, the shame!) has been running a series of articles about the biggest hitters in the game. This culminated in yesterday's numbers 1-10.

I can't say I agree that someone like Chris Gayle should be down at 18 or that Shahid Afridi isn't in the top 10, but there we go. I'll let you decide if you think there is any sense of reality to the rankings, while of course remembering that bats have got a lot better over the years....

Last words on Symonds and alcohol

As readers of Cricket Burble will know, I'm not entirely sure I agree with the way Andrew Symonds has been handled by Australia, so it was interesting to read a couple of recent articles relating to Symonds.

The first, from Australia and eloquently entitled "Cricket bosses are pompous wowsers", chastises the rest of the Australian team and management for not understanding that there is a life outside of cricket.

The second is an article from Mike Atherton in The Times, recognising just how closely linked alcohol and cricket are. He makes the point that Symonds thrived in the IPL under the stewardship of Darren Lehmann and Adam Gilchrist that like to enjoy their time outside cricket, while almost immediately falling foul of the Australian team management when he arrived in England. Atherton also reminds us that Ponting doesn't have a squeeky clean past when it comes to alcohol.

It's a pity Symonds didn't choose England. He would have played Test cricket much earlier in his career and I think he might have found it a little easier to play, despite the undoubted ultra-professional approach England have now, while still enjoying life outside cricket.

Over limit on younger bowlers bemusing....

We played in a hard fought game on Saturday which we ended up losing by 5 wickets, with the opposition chasing down 260odd with 2 overs to spare. We had a 16 year-old making his debut and he bowled brilliantly at the start, but had to come off after 6 overs. We then brought him back and he managed to get out Slinfold's overseas number 3 who would have made it a very comfortable win had he stayed in any longer.

With Slinfold needing 30ish off the last 4 overs, we were forced to take our 16 year-old out of the attack despite the fact he was bowling brilliantly, and our new bowler went for 20 off the over changing a very tight game to one where the opposition won relatively easily. The annoying thing is:
- what better opportunity to learn about bowling at the death for a young bowler, and yet we weren't able to give him the chance
- he'll happily bowl all night at nets....far more than 6 overs and without a break for bowling at the other end

So it seems to me the rule deprives youngsters of opportunities to advance their game and doesn't have the desired effect - to protect their bodies. Only some kind of bowling allowance that includes training could do that and clearly that would be idiotic.

Still, nice to play in a tight game, even if we did lose (again!).

Bah humbug

Well, our Saturday league game has been abandoned due to the rain, so I thought I'd have a whinge instead. Here goes...

Why did we have to accept the term 'Twenty-twenty' (or those ghastly hybrid derivatives 'Twenty20' and 'T20') so readily into the popular vernacular? I grudgingly accept that it is an unavoidable part of the branding of the format for such events as the IPL and the current World Cup, but why, for instance, did this have to carry over into any old random evening pub game?

For those of us who grew up playing colts cricket, it wasn't exactly a new format, but we called them 'twenty-over matches'. And, as a young colt, twenty overs was practically a test match so big totals and hitting out were hardly a feature (I still remember the first time I ever did anything useful in a cricket match, guiding my under-11 team through the chase of the formidable target of 45 thanks to my stellar 12 not out, including my first ever four - a straight drive to the shortest of short boundaries, thanks for asking...).

Anyway now, it seems, we casual cricketers call these things 'Twenty20', and even refer to 'Forty40' and the like. Given the slightly complicated over allocations for our Saturday afternoon club games, I wonder if we could rebrand our league as a 'Fifty-two48'? tournament?

Right, rant over. I feel much better now, thank you.

Disappointing!

Obviously disappointing to get rained off but at least some Twenty 20 to watch and for a time it looked as if Scotland might force New Zealand to share some of England's grief from yesterday. Not to be, and frankly my wish to see the jocks triumphant for a bit of schadenfreude was seriously reduced when I saw the actions of two of their 'bowlers' - shocking and how do they gt away with it - a definite flick of the elbow. Still it's not every day you see a hairy man in a kilt take a catch

A new life

Nine days ago a became a father for the first time. A momentous life changing event. An event which provokes alot of questions. What kind of father will I be? Will I be able to provide the guidance required for this little man to develop into a grounded, responsible adult? Will he follow in dad's footsteps and develop an obsessional interest in cricket? Of course I would love for this to be the case, but he may pursue other interests, in which case, I would of course support him. If he does turn to cricket what sort of player will he be? A swashbuckling wicketkeeper/opening batsman, a hostile fast bowler? A dour run accumulator (like his dad)? A wily legspinner? I will support any endeavor he chooses.........as long as he is not an off spinner.

conratulations aan de Nederlandse nationale team cricket

I have been wearing orange all day in honour of the achievements of The Netherlands cricket team.

Tactical errors by England...

Yes, we didn't bat well in the second half of the innings. And Stuart Broad seemed to use all his brain up when bowling each ball of the final over, meaning that when the ball came back to him he lost any sense of intelligence and missed the various chances to take a wicket (and therefore save a vital run). As an England supporter I can't help looking back on the "wide" given against Broad earlier which seemed incredibly harsh....on such harsh calls to close games hinge.

But the biggest tactical error by England was not using Foster as an attacking weapon behind the stumps. He's good enough to stand up to any of the bowlers, and the fact that he didn't must have been discussed and agreed. But, apart from the very early overs, it's wrong for 3 reasons - 1) we lose the option of stumpings, 2) he's not at the stumps for run out chances, and 3) as in the last over there is the chance to run a bye off what should be a dot ball.

When Foster decided not to stand up for the final ball of the innings (he seemed to want to but appeared to be told not to, implying that England were happy to go to the super over if the scores ended level as they were happy to accept one bye) it again cost England. Had he been up at the stumps Broad could have flicked the ball to him risk free and worst case for England, the game would have gone to the super over. Best case, they would have won by one run. I hope the idiot in the England camp (Collingwood as he's captain?) who came up with the bright idea of taking away one of our key fielding "attackers" recognises what an error they made and that it's put right against Pakistan on Sunday.

Symonds out

Symonds has been sent home so Australia will be weaker now in Twenty20 as well as Tests, but did they have to take that action? We'll never know without a full report of his behaviour, but what is public at the moment doesn't seem to warrant sending home. It appears he went for a few drinks while watching an Aussie rugby league match without telling the team management.

Why do they have to tell the management where they are at all times? That would drive me insane!

Not great timing !

From the start I've been a huge fan of Twenty20 cricket and have been to matches all over the South East. Not for me the notion that it's not 'proper cricket', indeed I'd argue that what we play at the weekend is proper cricket rather than what the moneyed guys get involved with (although I love that too).
The trouble is that on the threshold of a 20/20 World Cup I've just realised that I'm bored with it all and hanker for the subtlety of the longer games and judging by the numbers attending matches over the last fortnight I'm not alone.
Well, at least the football seasons finished,isn't it ?

Mongoose

I cannot believe that nobody has brought this up!

What a brilliant idea except that, if I have read it right, a decent yorker should account for the batsman. On the basis that a bat was never big enough or wide enough for me a more compact one would have been counter-productive?

Any thoughts?

New Cricinfo

That was a shock opening Cricinfo to find it all changed - no problem with that but I really don't want to be patronised by some illiterate nerd telling me not to be afraid of change.

'As Nietzsche said, love is more afraid of change than destruction. But to that, let's add this one from the Buddha: Everything changes; without change, nothing remains' Eh?