Andy Zaltzman's Blog, page 10

The Losers XI Part 2

After the exertions of 1983-84 series against West Indies, Kapil checked into an army boot camp for some much-needed R&R
© AFP



Welcome to Part 2 of the Official & Unarguable Confectionery Stall All-Time Great Series Performances In Comprehensively Defeated Teams XI ‒ The Bowlers. Please note that, for the sake of clarity, I have added the word "comprehensively" to the team name, thus ruling out, for example, Warne's mesmeric 2005 Ashes, Imran Khan's brilliance in narrowly failing to haul his Pakistan team to victory in England in 1982 (17 wickets at 14, 200 runs at 67, in the two defeats in a 2-1 loss), and Courtney Walsh's 34 wickets at a nostalgia-fuelled average of 12 in a close-fought 3-1 defeat to England in 2000. All brilliant performances, all ultimately unsuccessful. But none for teams that were being battered like a suicidal haddock in a chip shop.

There was much deliberation around the family breakfast table over the make-up of the bowling attack. My four-year-old daughter eloquently put the case for Alec Bedser's 1950-51 Ashes heroics earning him a place in this most illustrious of XIs, but was shouted down by my two-year-old son, who thought that having the 1924-25 Maurice Tate alongside his team-mates Hobbs and Sutcliffe would help engender a suitably defiant team spirit, and made his point forcibly, and with projectile baked beans. The final selection, to add to England's long-dead opening legends, Dravid, Lara, Walcott and Flower (wk) is as follows:

No. 7 and captain: Kapil Dev, India v West Indies, 1983-84

The stats: 29 wickets in six Tests, average 18. Next highest Indian wicket-taker: Shastri (12 at 47); next best average: Maninder Singh (10 at 33). Result: clonked 3-0. In the three defeats, Kapil took 18 wickets at 18; no other Indian bowler managed more than six. In the West Indies batting line-up: Greenidge, Haynes, Gomes, Richards, Lloyd, Dujon, and more.

As a bowler, Kapil Dev was often magnificent in defeat – 10 of his 23 five-wicket Test hauls came in the 31 matches he lost with India (placing him third on the all-time list of five-wicket innings in losing causes, behind Murali (15) and Richard Hadlee (11)). By comparison, Kapil took five wickets three times in 24 wins, on 10 occasions in 75 draws, and a forgivable zero in one tie. (Hang on, Dr Fact, that is a large number of draws, isn't it?) (What was cricket trying to do to itself at that time?) (Was there a curious belief that the best way to nurture Test cricket was to slowly pile-drive spectators into a numbed torpor of listlessness, whence all they could think about was the endless glories of their team not losing and the ultimate pointlessness of life?) (75 draws in 131 Tests.) (That is utterly ridiculous.) (I digress.)

He never galloped down a more magnificent road to defeat than when leading India to a 3-0 home clubbing by the mighty West Indies in 1983-84, most especially in the third Test in Ahmedabad. With India 1-0 down in the series and 40 runs behind after the first innings, Kapil took 9 for 83 in an unbroken 30-over spell that winched his team into contention. Any fast bowler attempting a 30-over spell in the current 21st-century science-enhanced era would be surrounded by physios, coaches, agents, psychiatrists, biomechanical gurus and mothers screaming at him to pull himself together and feign a chin injury in order to escape the field of play for a rubdown, a chinwag and a cup of tea. But Kapil bowled West Indies out for 201, and India were left needing just 242 to win.

Unfortunately for Kapil, the key missing words in that last sentence are (a) "off the bowling of Marshall, Holding, Daniel and Davis". And (b) "on a pitch so spicy even a drunken British stag party wouldn't eat it". Meaning that the word "just" had no business appearing in this blog. India duly sank to 39 for 7, then 63 for 9, before Maninder Singh's greatest day as a batsman – scoring 15, holding out for 81 minutes against a barrage of high-octane mega-pace, heroically bumping his career average up from the disappointing low-to-mid-3s to solidly into the entirely respectable high-3s, and being described by no less an authority than Wisden as being "relatively undaunted") ‒ edged his team over 100.

Kapil was left with some sore legs, a princely moustache, the consolation of having pocketed the best Test innings figures by a losing player, and the comforting knowledge that, in the next Test, his opening bowling partner would be the fire-breathing bouncer-flinging monster that was Ravi Shastri.

The curious case of Michael Hussey

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Test runs scored by Mike Hussey in since he began the 2010-11 Ashes, sharing a hotel room with a noisy gaggle of question marks over his place in the Baggy Green team. Those question marks had earned the right to rifle through Hussey's minibar, dance in his jacuzzi bath, and snooze groggily on his couch. In his , over almost three years, he had scored just three hundreds and averaged 34 - 56th in the world (of players who had played five or more Tests in that time), and the tenth-best Australian. Having averaged over 35 in only three of his last 11 series, Hussey could have had no complaints that the writing was on the wall, nor that the writing was not entirely complimentary in tone, and contained the words "You are selectorial toast" in especially lurid paint. But rather than accept this unwanted decor, he whipped out his old set of paintbrushes, and covered over that writing with a high-class mural depicting himself waving his bat around, celebrating. In eight Tests since then, he has hit five hundreds and five more half-centuries, and posted an average of 73 - the fourth highest in that period, behind Bell, Cook and Misbah, and almost double the average of the next-best Australian, Shane Watson. Hussey's fallow period had followed one of the most remarkable starts to any Test career. In 20 Tests, he had scored 2120 runs, including eight centuries, at an eye-ballooning average of 84 - the best in the world in the November 2005 to January 2008 time slab. During his two Himalayan peak periods, therefore, he has hit 12 hundreds in 28 Tests and averaged 80 - midway between Graeme Pollock and Bradman - whilst in the rift valley in between, he nestled in amidst the statistical likes of Brendan Nash, Wasim Jaffer and Greg Ritchie. For a player and a man who seems to be the embodiment of consistent reliability, Hussey has had a barkingly odd career.

Also: The last year in which there were no recorded disputes about umpiring in top-level cricket.

Also: Virender Sehwag's close-of-play score whenever he visualises himself batting undefeated throughout the first day of a Test.

An XI of total losers

Andy Flower recounts the horror of watching Gary Kirsten bat from two feet away
© Getty Images



A rather bizarre English international summer concluded with a nostalgia-fuelled display of English incompetence at The Oval, skittled by a rookie West Indian team amidst a flurry of schoolboy errors – a curious bookend to a season in which they had often struck perfection and seldom dipped below excellence. England's cricketing present and future have seldom seemed rosier. Helped by the fact that several other countries' cricketing presents and futures, in the Test arena at least, seem as rosy as a concrete car park.

My personal highlight of the season was the colossal showdown between England's unceasingly incisive pace attack and the majestic throwback batsmanship of Rahul Dravid, who presented the only significant barrier to one of the finest team series bowling performances of recent years. The Bangalore Bulwark became the sixth man to score his team's only three centuries in a series, and the third to do so in a losing cause, after Lara in Sri Lanka in 2001-02 and HW Taylor for South Africa against England in 1922-23.

It is often said that in professional sport winning is the only thing that matters. This is patently rubbish. For fans, if not for players. In tribute to Dravid's heroics in a team that was so conclusively routed, therefore, here is the Confectionery Stall Great Series Performances in Defeated Teams XI.

Criteria for selection: candidates must have performed wonders over the course of a losing series, ideally with minimal or non-existent support, and even more ideally whilst his team was being ground to a pulp like a piece of garlic in a recently divorced French chef's kitchen.

Stats for ginger lovers

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Johnny Bairstow's ODI career strike rate after one match. The Yorkshireman's debut innings of was the fastest innings of over 40 on an ODI debut in the history of the known universe. Constable Combustible Shahid Afridi famously splattered 102 off 40 balls (strike rate: 255) in his maiden ODI innings, but it was in his second match, after he registered a disappointingly sedate Did Not Bat in his first. Surprisingly for a nation not universally renowned for the innate flamboyance of its strokeplay, there are five England players in the understandably-seldom-consulted Top Six Fastest ODI Debut Innings Of 40-Plus chart. Not only did Bairstow supplant the previous record holder (Afghanistan's Noor Ali Zadran, who smote 45 off 28 in his first ODI in 2009), but he also overtook his countrymen Luke Wright (50 off 39), Ben Hollioake (63 off 48), Roland Butcher (52 off 38) and John Morris (63 not out off 45). However, before England supporters, redhead fans, and those who see the success of Yorkshire cricketers as inextricably linked to a universally acceptable solution to the Middle East situation, become too excited at Bairstow's brilliant match-clinching debut, it should be noted that Butcher, Morris and Hollioake never surpassed their debut scores, and Wright has reached 50 only once more since his 2007 debut, scoring 52 against New Zealand in 2008.

Also: Balls faced by Peter Burge in scoring 53 in the between Australia and West Indies in 1960-61, and by Paul Collingwood during his 135 against South Africa in 2008. Burge's innings lasted two hours 35 minutes; Collingwood's took four hours 56 minutes. Admittedly, Burge predominantly faced spin, and Collingwood largely encountered pace, but it remains an oddity that, as cricketers have become fitter, stronger and better prepared, aided by modern nutrition and scientific advances, and prompted by the incessant demands of television for non-stop action, they have become increasingly proficient at dawdling back to their bowling markers as if suffering from advanced all-body arthritis. Perhaps cricket's biomechnical experts should be focusing their energies on the brisk walk rather than the repeatable bowling action.

Also: The speed, in miles per hour, at which Andre Nel was convinced he was going to bowl the ball, every time he ran to the wicket. Judging by the look on his face.

England's wins cause ailments to their middle-aged fans

"Players these days are just happy with OBEs and MBEs. In our time, winning a Test meant getting to hand out smelling salts round the ground"
© Getty Images



Welcome back, Confectionery Stallers, just in time for the official Confectionery Stall preview of the end of the 2011 Indian tour of England. The final match in a damply curious ODI series will bring the curtain of mercy down on one of the most unsuccessful tours ever to fail to grace these shores. It might be a good game, it might not be, and either side could win it and/or lose it. Duckworth-Lewis, in fine form after their spectacular win at Lord's, cannot be ruled out. No one will mind very much either way, I imagine. The schedule of the English international summer is specifically designed to maximise the chances of a prolonged anti-climax, and the weather has chirped in this year to assist the achieving of this oddly conceived goal.

On then to the official Confectionery Stall review of the 2011 Indian tour of England.

At the start of the summer, there had been rich anticipation for a titanic showdown between two of Test cricket's leading forces. Titanic showdowns, however, as early-20th-century maritime historians will vociferously testify, can end with something that was widely lauded as indestructible and magnificent sinking rapidly and disastrously. The good ship India rammed repeatedly into Iceberg England, and the rest is now statistically alarming history that will be sifted over by curious students in decades to come. (If there are any curious students of Test cricket in decades to come.)

Back in April, as India briefly celebrated their iconic triumph in Mumbai before looking at their fixture schedules and thinking that they had better get some kip whilst they had the chance, and England recuperated from their Ashes megavictory and their barking-mad World Cup campaign, some mesmerising contests loomed – Zaheer against England's batting machine; Sehwag against England's demon swing attack; Tendulkar versus Statistical History.

The first flickered tantalisingly on the first day at Lord's before Zaheer's not overwhelmingly well-honed body rebelled. The second began (a) too late, as injury ruled out the Evel Knievel Of Opening The Batting from the first two Tests, and (b) too early, as he rushed back with insufficient preparation to face brilliant, in-form swing bowlers in swingy conditions. I am sure even Albert Einstein after a prolonged break from science needed to ease himself back into things with some basic physics - a couple of frames of snooker, at least, or juggling some tomatoes – before launching into the serious quantum stuff. The third saw Statistical History fighting a brave rearguard against the Little Master (whilst taking its eye off the majestic Dravid, allowing him to put on one of the finest displays of batsmanship in a losing cause and become only the second player after Bradman to twice score three centuries in a series in England).

India were underprepared, knackered and unlucky, but their response to their misfortunes is unlikely to have the world's poets wielding their quills in excitement, ready to poet out some stirring tales of steadfast heroism in the face of adversity.

England's secret weapon

Clarrie Grimmett: the first-choice spinner for Australia in Sri Lanka if not for his "foreign" status
© PA Photos



I am fairly confident that there were not any actual champagne corks popped in the England dressing room at the sight of Zaheer Khan limbering up in practice so gingerly that a Nottingham Chinese takeaway reportedly inquired whether they could use him in a stir-fry with some spring onions, or at the news that India's lynchpin would, as expected, miss the second Test due to his misbehaving hamstring. However, England's batsmen must have been mentally high-fiving themselves at the prospect of not having to face the man who tormented them on the same ground four years ago. Seven of England's current team played in that series-deciding 2007 defeat, in which Zaheer took 9 for 134, with eight of his victims being top-six batsmen.

Lord's was a very good Test, richly speckled superb individual performances and driven by a fluctuating narrative, but it could have been a great one had Zaheer stayed fit (or at least not injured). England's bowlers applied remorseless pressure, led by Broad's extraordinary and brilliant renaissance – after 18 months of largely ineffectual toil, he found his 2009-Ashes-winning length, took 7 for 94 in the match, had three catches shelled off his bowling (including a Strauss blooper so simple that he could, should and probably would have taken in his sleep, as the ball would likely have lodged in his pyjama pocket), and had two lbw appeals refused that were so plumb they were last seen heading off in overalls with a tool-kit to fix some broken piping in the Lord's bathroom. It was a startling performance, and vindication for England's selectors. Slightly belated vindication, perhaps, but vindication nonetheless.

Broad's bowling might have touched perfection at times at Lord's, but he still needs to do some major work to refine his appealing technique which remains a counterproductive caterwaul of almost Viking intransigence, and it seems a bizarre oversight that England have not invested in a backroom appealing coach. England are famously well prepared by their large and well-honed support team. Zaheer's injury – to add to the ones suffered by, amongst others, McGrath in 2005, and Steyn in 2008 and 2009-10 - suggests that amongst that backroom staff is a high-quality voodoo practitioner, who has been working overtime to give England that crucial extra edge.

Is Agarkar a better batsman than Tendulkar?

Will India miss Sehwag like the deserts miss the rain? Or merely like a child with attention-deficit syndrome does an uncle who occasionally pops around with a bar of chocolate?
© AP



Greetings, Confectionery Stallers. As a preview before the salivatingly anticipated first England v India Test at Lord's, here is a multiple-choice quiz for you. No conferring. No looking up the answers on the internet. No hacking into my telephone, computer or brain to see if you can gain an unfair advantage on other readers.

Question 1: Who is going to win the England v India series?
(a) England. When the ICC Reliance player rankings for both teams are totted up, England have an advantage in batting (mostly arising from Sehwag's absence), and bowling (mostly through Anderson's superiority over Sreesanth/Praveen). They have not lost a series for two and a half years, and have in Cook a batsman in form so prime you could griddle it and serve it as a steak in a Michelin-starred restaurant. They are confident, settled, in form with bat and ball, and ambitious.

(b) India. Lord's looks set to be rudely rained on, and – brace yourselves, stats fans ‒ India have not lost anything other than the first Test in a series in England since being unceremoniously splattered like a catapulted tomato on a granite snooker table in 1974. India have not been overwhelmingly impressive in Tests in the last year, but they are tough. They won two tight Tests against Australia, recovered from a first-Test flambéing by South Africa to draw an away series, and won in West Indies without several first-choice players. They won a World Cup under unprecedented pressure of expectation. They won here in 2007. They have lost only one of their last 10 Tests against England, and only three of their last 30 against anyone.

(c) No one. It's going to be a draw. They are both very good but not flawless teams, and both are hard to beat. Besides, it is going to rain solidly for the next six weeks. It will be snowing by the time of the Oval Test. It's the end of the world, I tell you. Alastair Cook turning into the world's most unstoppable batsmen is one of the cast-iron signs of the apocalypse. It's in the Book of Revelations. If you read it backwards after a couple of bottles of whisky.

The mystery of the ripped-out last page

MS Dhoni collects the Healthy Hearts Association's Man of the Year award for prudently having shielded millions of spectators and 22 players from the damage a tense last session could potentially have inflicted
© AFP





Dominica's first-ever Test match was an old-style twister, a game that wound and ground an undulating course towards a tense climax. With 15 overs remaining – more than 4% of a rain-interrupted match ‒ India were well set to press on for victory, to confirm their pre-eminence in the world game by ruthlessly completing a 2-0 series triumph, 86 runs required from 90 balls. Two greats of the game at the crease. Two World-Cup-winning batsmen still to come, plus a useful tail, but they would have to make those runs on a slow-scoring pitch against a defiant West Indies striving to suggest their latest improvements might have more longevity than other recent false dawns. All was in readiness for a rousing conclusion to an intriguing series, which had had a touch of the 1950s about it in terms of scoring rates, but which tested the batsmen throughout, and saw the welcome return to form of Ishant Sharma and Fidel Edwards. A titanic hour's cricket was imminent.

And then everyone just wandered off.

As anti-climaxes go, this was not quite as disappointing as it would have been had Hillary and Tensing reached 50 metres from the summit of Mount Everest in 1953, then simultaneously pulled hamstrings and decided not to risk aggravating their injuries by going any further, potentially ruling themselves out of mountaineering for between four and six months; nor as much of a let-down as when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin opened the door of their magic space rocket in 1969, took one look at the moon, and scuttled back inside muttering something about being scared of rocks. (Fortunately they were persuaded by Houston ground control to "have another go, or find your own way home".)

However, it was a dismal end to a cricket match, a wasteful, negative, dispiriting cop-out, using a needless and bone-headed loophole in the sport's regulations to chicken out of a potentially thrilling endgame. India were content not to run a miniscule risk of defeat in exchange for a highly possible victory. West Indies were content to have their brave batting rearguard of Chanderpaul and the Edwardses rewarded with a drawn match and a series defeat by an acceptable margin of just one Test to nil. Cricket was unquestionably the loser. And cricket should be asked some stroppy questions in its post-match press conference.

Randomness rocks raucously

Lily-livered MP Abrahams decided she'd rather kiss babies than front up to Malinga at The Oval
© Getty Images



MS Dhoni has had little to complain about of late. If he had eaten a fried breakfast every time he had received a trophy, an accolade or a blast of public adulation this year, he would now be the size of 18 Inzamams. However, he received a minor setback in the current Barbados Test, when a blooper in the TV umpiring box led to him being dismissed on the rogue evidence of the wrong ball.

As an Englishman, I cannot help but regret that this new strain of dismissal was not available to umpires during my nation's dark days of Ashes humiliation in the 1990s and early 2000s. "That's out, Hayden. Technically, you smashed that wide long hop for four, but I'm going to judge you on the evidence of the ball Warne bowled to Hussain yesterday afternoon. Out. Plumb in front. Hitting the middle of middle. On your way, sunshine. 0 for 1."

The prancing stride of technological progress is supposed to be ridding the cricketing world of the vicissitudes of umpiring error, yet it frequently adds an entertaining element of random injustice to proceedings. Players are given out or not-out when technology suggests they were in fact respectively not-out and out, on the grounds that they were only marginally not-out and out, and therefore should remain out and not out. Players are given not-out despite technology suggesting they were definitely out, because someone in a suit somewhere doesn't like one of the bits of technology used. Players are given out when they were clearly not-out, because one of their team-mates had earlier pretended he was not-out even though he must have known he was out. Catches are denied because the tip of an unusually curious blade of grass could theoretically have been protruding through a fielder's fingers. And now Dhoni has been despatched back to the pavilion because someone put the wrong roll of cine film into the projector in the TV umpire's private cinema (I admit I am not entire up to speed with what technology the ICC is using these days).

Test cricket needs man-eating tigers

The author poses with yet another satisified celebrity customer at his cricket clinic
© Andy Zaltzman



It is unlikely that, if asked what single luxury they would take with them to an isolated desert island, many people would excitedly respond: "Oh, well, that's a tough question, but of all the things in the world, I'd have to go with a copy of the commemorative DVD containing extended highlights of the 2011 England v Sri Lanka Test series. Yes, I would definitely choose that, ahead of other possible luxuries and life-enhancements, such as a vintage gramophone equipped with the complete works of Mozart, or a cast of Rodin's smash-hit sculpture The Thinker, or a lifetime supply of high-class milkshakes, or a rocket pack like the one that guy flew into the stadium with at the opening ceremony of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles in a moment that really should by now have presaged an age of universally available rocket packs for all, or an illustrated teach-yourself-to-pole-vault book, or an Aleem Dar Hair Care Kit, or Aleem Dar."

It was an autumn-weekend-in-Aberdeen-with-your-in-laws of a series ‒ damp, grey and frustrating. There was plenty of good cricket, but The Weather came away with two wins out of three, and will be disappointed that it did not claim a 3-0 series wetwash, after having done all the hard work in Cardiff before leaving Sri Lanka a tiny window of opportunity from which to tumble to defeat, a window out of which England promptly defenestrated them.

Sri Lanka were never close to forging a winning position in any of the three Tests, against an England batting line-up that, after a couple of years of individual and collective inconsistency, has hit a rare and statistically mind-bending tranche of form. Strauss apart, they were seldom inconvenienced by a game but limited bowling attack. Ian Bell has reportedly commissioned a set of curtains depicting Sri Lanka's bowlers to make himself feel invincible when he wakes up in the morning. England mostly played well, consolidating their stellar Test winter, but cricket – like most sports, as well as arguments, divorce proceedings and space races ‒ is seldom at its best when only one side has a realistic prospect of victory.

Nevertheless, three important things have been learnt from this series.