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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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Sad bastards.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I know, Chad, but have a heart. We are not as used to winning things as you are.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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England vs Pakistan
So the English fastmen are skittling them all morning. Lunch. We start off the afternoon with two spinners! The rationale? The fastmen have to be rested for the new ball in five overs time. Good grief, there are four of them, that's an over each. How tired have they got to be to prevent the batsmen getting their eye in after lunch? Joe Root worries me. He's not growing into the job.
Plus. In the old days, like last year, we'd spend the whole series questioning the keeper's fitness for office after a single muffed chance. This one's done three in an innings. Alec Stewart opines everyone has a bad day at the office. Bob Willis would have just put Buttler down with a single shot to the temple. That would have sharpened up his glove work.
Obviously we'll be giving them the first test for political reasons, as per West Indies.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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Why are bowlers rarely considered for the captaincy?
We always go for the best batsman (or all rounder) simply because he is guaranteed a place in the team, but more often than not, that comes with a dip in form, and you end up with an average player who may not be any good as a captain.
It would be better to leave your best player to get on with his job (winning test matches) and look elsewhere for your captain.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Chad wrote: | Why are bowlers rarely considered for the captaincy?
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Maybe because they are more prone to injury?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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There is one, not very decisive, consideration. Bowlers have to rest between stints, body and soul, by prowling the depths of cow corner. Captains have to be on the qui vive at the heart of the action, in the slips or, if they are prone to nodding off, mid off. Also, since choosing who bowls and from which end is the captain's most important duty, it is reasonable to argue the choice should be objective. Personally, I would like to see all these duties, especially now that calling for a review is so important, be spread through the team, horses-for-courses, but the captaincy is too sacrosanct to be yoked with efficiency.
Of course St Robert Willis was the last great bowler-captain but we shall not see his like again.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Maybe because they are more prone to injury? |
Doesn't stop them choosing allrounders.
Botham and Flintoff had their share of injuries, and both were failures as captains.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Of course St Robert Willis was the last great bowler-captain but we shall not see his like again. |
I was going to use Bob as an example of why we should try it more often.
We need to stop burdening our best batsmen.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Chad wrote: | | Maybe because they are more prone to injury? |
Doesn't stop them choosing allrounders.
Botham and Flintoff had their share of injuries, and both were failures as captains. |
Illingworth, an all rounder, was arguably England's greatest, but unlike the above duo he was not a swashbuckling risk taker.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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Coming back to Root. Does he bring enough to the captaincy to compensate for the ten runs per innings he has lost from his batting?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Illingworth, an all rounder, was arguably England's greatest, but unlike the above duo he was not a swashbuckling risk taker. |
This is a different but a good point. Illingworth was not worth his place as an all-rounder. He was worth his place as captain/all-rounder. Ditto with Mike Brearley as opener. In fact this used to be the norm in both county and test cricket when some naturally authoritative character would be captain, batting at number seven, and would turn his arm over for a few good-natured overs when nothing much was happening.
The Australians were the first to break with this tradition when they announced they were no longer going to appoint 'a captain' but instead choose their eleven best players and detail one of them to be captain. This was only half-adopted by everyone else (even by the Australians) because it was found that in cricket captaincy is too important to chop-and-change. Even in football, where captaincy is functionally insignificant, the captaincy is something of a permanency.
But the consequent problem -- what to do when the burden of captaincy is affecting the captain but you can't drop him for a game or two -- has never been solved. Worse, you can't strip him of the captaincy and still allow him to stalk the field muttering as his successor tries to bed in. Worser still, the captaincy can become so iconic that he ends up playing for whole seasons longer than he ought.
That is why I am urging he be downgraded to chairman of the onfield board. But now we come to the coach's ear piece. In American sports there are no captains because the coach makes all decisions. In cycling they sometimes do and sometimes do not allow the ear piece. So who made the decision when England came out after lunch and put two spinners on? The truth is that Root is psychologically senior to whoever is the England coach at the moment. They did say who he was but I didn't have my ear piece in at the time.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Coming back to Root. Does he bring enough to the captaincy to compensate for the ten runs per innings he has lost from his batting? |
Plus another ten runs having to come in at number three. Plus the twenty runs when he brings himself on to bowl. [Grossly unfair.] The real problem, as Hatty put it [her computer is at the menders so she can't post anything ... brain more likely, I said, but only to myself] is he looks so damned miserable. Yes, he's got Ole Gunnar Solskjaer syndrome I snapped back, after I'd put the phone down. Actually he's suffering from Dorian Gray syndrome but I've promised to keep my lips buttoned on that particular experiment.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Test Match Debate (Sky Sport)
I tried this post-Willis (and I realised ex-Charles Colville) again because I wanted to see what they would makes of Joss Buttler. Now Uncle Bob would just have excoriated him and said he will be dropped for the next Test, and should be. He might say it more in sorrow than in anger but he would say it. The twats they brought in just wittered on, and were allowed to witter on by the chairman, about how somebody should have put his arm round him, he shouldn't have been expected to be the cheerleader, he's just got to concentrate on his glove work, nobody works harder, there's nowhere to hide when you're behind the stumps. On and on and on. Why? Because these people are ex-cricketers. They've spent their whole lives talking PR tripe to cameras.
And then the usual staring-down-the-barrel predictions. Bob would have said, "All I want is a decent effort and we're still batting at tea tomorrow." This lot? It's all to do. Clear heads needed. Fatal to go into your shell. Play your normal game. If we want to be No 1 in the world, this is the time to step up to the mark. No reason we can't gouge out a result.
Yes there is. They've got ninety mile an hour bowlers on a pitch that's doing plenty, two leg spinners that are turning it square and we're a batsman short. You're ex-Test players, you must know that chasing two hundred and fifty is a losing proposition against E L Wisty's XI on a Scarborough shirt-front. We've got no chance tomorrow. So why not tell us? We can take it. We're all grown up. Remember there is a reason that Bob Willis was a fixture for several decades. There isn't a magic formula but being unkind about fellow-professional cricketers is a sine qua non. Are you grown up enough for that? There's a vacancy for the next few decades if you are.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Yes, I understand that Phil Foden is the greatest star since Sarah Bernhardt hung up her boots (boot, you didn't need to be two-footed in those days) but where is he going to fit in the England set-up? We've already got a world class false number nine in Harry Kane. He'll have to take over the False Messiah role from Sterling.
Talking of Great White Hopes what's going to be the kneel-down drill for England? Surely casual racism is a thing of the past.
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