The Winter Game

 Enjoying the cricket? I am

You can just picture the scene can’t you? Saturday, soon after noon, the Last of Perennial Whine meet up; the Strawberry Blond Sturmabteiler on his high horse, the Bong Eyed simpleton doing it doggy style and the silent Schweinhund at the rear, conjoin for the rambling complaint Olympics at their usual rendezvous, outside a bijou, detached £400k pit cottage in proletarian NE3. A glass of flat, tepid Old Hogwash in their hands, they tramp the equine excrement carpeted lanes and moan.  According to them, the Labour Party, for whom they’ve neither delivered a leaflet nor attended a branch meeting, has betrayed them. In addition, lifelong medical conditions that do not affect vision or cranial size are by definition fictitious, especially if the person suffering is cleverer than them. Professional football is finished, though they’ve not seen a game in a dozen years, amateur football only exists in a place they’d have struggled to find with both hands a decade back and now cricket, whether it be the international game on the telly, a county they don’t live in or a club plagued by sugar apes, is far too accessible these days. This free to air broadcasting of the India versus England series doesn’t meet with their approval; after all, it’s far too easy to set your alarm then sit on the sofa watching it. Where’s the challenge in that?

The challenge is to wake up, get up and stay sentient during the day’s play. I have to admit, my initial commitment to the early stages of the Sri Lanka tour is not what it could have been. Influenced by the cancellation of both the tour of South Africa before Christmas and Tynemouth’s annual heroic progression to the North of England indoor 6 a side Championships, only to fall at the final hurdle a game before Lords, I left my alarm on its usual 7.30 setting, prioritising sleep over sport. The great thing for we office drones is top quality broadband and razor-sharp monitors mean you can follow it all on line, from the comfort of your desk, providing you keep the sound down.  Two tests won in a straightforward fashion, with captain Root back among the runs, solid slow (rather than spin) bowling by Bess and Leach and a ferocious cameo from Jimmy Anderson in the second test, sent the lads on to India in good spirits. Now I realise in all probability that the World Test Championship, as unwieldy and confusing tournament as her ever been imagined, will end up as a contest between the two rightful giants of the current test game, India and New Zealand, but maddening old England are an entertaining side to watch.

 Of course India had secured a stunning series win in Australia, once they’d got Kohli out the picture for the last 3 tests anyway, which was particularly enjoyable on account of Warner’s continuing wretched form. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke, could it? If his endless string of failures sees him replaced in the test side by Josh Phillipe, I’ll be more than happy. The lad had a wonderful summer in the NEPL with Newcastle in 2018 and his award of player of the series in the Big Bash is not only an amazing achievement, but surely an indication they’ve got a young lad waiting in the wings who can give the ball a more than respectable clout against the cream of the world’s game. Those of us who were there will always remember that sparkling 162* in the Banks final against the Hill at Jesmond. Some knock it was, even if he was desperately out of touch until he was in the 40s that day.

 

And so to India. I don’t pretend to be a scholarly student of the game, because you’d need a PhD in logic to understand the rationale behind the various squads that England have assembled and almost immediately demolished so far this series. Frankly, there’s players in there I’ve not even heard of and others I’d thought had packed in years ago. It’s more a case of rampant egalitarianism than the Benson and Hedges desperation of Mike Bassett, but the sheer complexity of the exercise knocks the Battle of Kohima into a cocked hat. Still, as they’re out there until the end of next month for a further two tests, half a dozen 20/20s and then a clutch of ODIs, they’ll probably need a few spare hands to check the laundry and help out with humping the gear. By the time England arrive home, the NEPL season will be almost on us. First games take place on April 17^th, but I’m getting ahead of myself and will timeously return to that in another blog that will detail the most exciting developments in recreational, midweek cricket ever recorded.

After the first test, Joss Buttler, who had played a superb supporting role behind Root in that eye-catching win, went home, as planned, with Chris Foakes replacing him. Jimmy Anderson, whose appearance on the Sri Lanka tour was one of the more eccentric, if not incomprehensible selections we’ve seen in recent times but who bowled an over at Chennai in the first test that was worthy of an Oscar, a knighthood and the Nobel Peace Prize, was rested for Stuart Broad who predictably contributed Jack Shit (he isn’t a player btw). Dom Bess, despite taking 17 wickets at a shade over 25 in 3 tests this year was dropped, with a rather public admonishment to go with it. While this was a baffling decision, it didn’t exactly backfire as his replacement Mooen Ali, having spent most of the tour enacting a kind of cricketing tribute to Howard Hughes, self-isolating and then recovering from COVID, emerged from his hotel room, Kleenex boxes on his feet and a pint of Baskin-Robbins banana nut under his arm, earning a morsel of credit from the wreckage of a 317-run hammering. Having taken 8 wickets and made a breezy 43 from 18 balls as the second innings crumbled pitifully, he checked out at close of play and took a flight back home; probably not on the Spruce Goose I must admit. Oh, and he’ll also be back for the 20/20s next month. With Joss Buttler as well… Confusing innit?

Much of the noise surrounding the supposed dreadful strip in Chennai sought not to praise the magnificence of the Indian bowling, but instead focussed on the kind of patronising bellyaching that could have been spoken at the end of the Raj. This was unpleasant to listen to, with an element of residual colonial xenophobia at its heart. The idiots who emailed TMS claiming the Indian authorities had deliberately prepared an unplayable pitch and should be censured for this, obviously didn’t see the aforementioned Kohli, now extra grumpy on account of the parental insomnia occasioned by the presence of  a new bairn,  or Ashwin playing beautifully in the second innings. It’s a fact of life. Other loonies on Twitter who say it is beholden of the ECB to try and prepare our players for Indian conditions may like to reflect on the fact that climactic alterations are beyond the gift of any administrative body. Otherwise, gusty winds, 14 degrees in the shade and blanket cloud scraping the rooftops of Burley and Hyde Park wouldn’t be the sole preserve of the legendary Yorkshire experience at Headingley, would they?

The series moves on to Ahmedabad for two further tests, the first of which being a day / night contest with a pink ball. Whether this was added to the schedule as a sop to England, who knows, but I’m looking forward to it. We should also welcome Jonny Bairstow and Mark Wood who (I think) went home after Sri Lanka who are joining the party. If anyone asks you what is the essential difference between test cricket and 20/20, you can point out that in the former England have a player called Jonny Bairstow, while in the later we have Jonathan Bairstow.