Category: Uncategorized

Tomorrow: Test cricket returns.

Sure, it was back a few weeks ago with Zimbabwe vs Bangladesh, but for all intents and purposes, Test cricket has been on hiatus since England’s brilliant draw with New Zealand at Auckland on the 26th of March.

Sure, it has been less than two months, but it feels like it has been an incredibly long time.

A lot has happened in the last month and three quarters.

March the 26th was pre-Boston bombing, pre-Bangladeshi building collapse, pre-Pakistani elections…

On March the 26th: Margaret Thatcher was still alive; so was Roger Ebert, Jonathon Winters, Richie Havens, and George Jones.

On March the 26th, gay marriage was illegal in New Zealand and Minnesota. Now it is not.

On March the 26th, there were 1,428 Americans who were alive but would die over the next 50 days as a result of gun related violence.

On March the 26th, Yemen had experienced 51 fewer US drone strikes.

On March the 26th, Arsenal was four points behind Tottenham in the league table. Today they are one point ahead of them.

WWWDWDWW = Arsenal Football Club’s record since 26 March.

WDWDWDW = Tottenham Hotspur’s record since 26 March.

On March 26, there had been zero sixes hit in IPL6.

Today there have been 574.

574.

I guess what I am trying to say is: it’s been a while, and I am ready for it to be back.

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The first Test is at Lord’s. It is going to be cool, cloudy, and there are really good chances of rain both tomorrow and Saturday.

As such, my prediction is a rain shortened draw.

And that’s my prediction for the series, too.

That’s not to say that it will not be entertaining. Both teams left something on the table in New Zealand last March – and both have something to prove.

Is England still a potential world number one?

Is New Zealand’s recent resurgence for real?

I guess we will find out.

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The picture in the masthead above, and the picture of me on the About page of this blog, were both taken on the same day: 1 March 2011. It was my one and only trip to London. My wife and I walked from our hotel in Trafalgar Square up to 221b Baker Street, Lord’s, Abbey Road Studios, and Regent’s park. It was one of the more perfect days of my entire life.

And so I love when matches are at Lord’s – as they always remind me of that magnificent day.

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First ball tomorrow is at 5am Minneapolis time. I hope to see all of you on Twitter.

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Northamptonshire vs Susssex at County Ground, Yorkshire Bank 40
Sussex 215-7; Northamptonshire 122-9
Sussex won by 61 runs (D/L method)

I love baseball. Always have; probably always will. But one of the things I love about cricket is that it is the opposite of baseball. In cricket, a bowler can turn a match on its head with one delivery; that is impossible in baseball. However, in baseball, a batter can turn a game around with one swing, something that cricket batsmen simply are not capable of doing.

In order to truly affect a match, positively, a batsman must take his time, guard his wicket, remain patient, take his shots when they come, and build slowly toward a decent total.

And that’s just what Sussex got from Ed Joyce and Chris Nash at the County Ground on Friday afternoon. Joyce joined opener Nash when Sussex were 12-3 and collapsing their way toward another poor YB40 showing. But the two experienced batsmen settled in and built a 30 over, 173 run partnership; which, along with some rain and some sloppy batting from Northamptonshire, saved the game for their club.

And in a lot of ways, saved their team’s YB40 campaign, too. Collapsing to naught-for-two this early in this season might have been the proverbial bullet in their season.

Warwickshire vs Sussex at Edgbaston, Yorkshire Bank 40
Match abandoned w/o a ball bowled

There are 12 regular season matches in the YB40 season. Losing just one match to rain means Sussex has lost fully 8% of their season. If they lose four matches to the elements (like they did last year), that’s 34% of their season wiped out.

That sort of schedule decimation simply does not exist in other sports. Most play through the elements or have the game rescheduled. But county cricket already has such a jam packed season, what with four day Championship matches, and the FLt20, and exhibition matches, that there simply is not room.

Furthermore, in the only other sport where play is simply impossible in the rain, baseball, the season is 162 games long, and so losing one or two along the way is not going to matter all that much in the end.

It’s a shame, really, because County Cricket’s one day tournaments have enjoyed and long and entertaining history, but the format is really taking a back seat these days, similar to what is happening on the international level, and the tournament has simultaneously become a bit of a farce thanks in large part to all of the no-results. Northamptonshire lost five matches to rain last year, for instance. FIVE. How can a tournament maintain any sort of respectability when teams are unable to play almost half of their matches?

I am not the first person to suggest that changes need to happen at the domestic level in England, and I know the fixture list is already packed to the gunwales, but I really do hope that next year when the new 50 over format starts that the ECB will find a way to finish the matches postponed due to rain. I think it is obviously important to the format overall, but also to England’s success in 50 over World Cups, and to the future of County Cricket.

Also, again: bloody rain. The ultimate cricket killer.

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Next up for Sussex: At Derbyshire for a County Championship match starting 15 May.

Today Wigan beat Manchester City 1-0 to win the FA Cup. It is a massive upset. Lowly Wigan, who are about to be relegated and who play their home matches on a rugby pitch, beat the richest team on the planet save maybe PSG.

It just goes to show that “any given Saturday” still exists in football – that the idea of the upset, of the giant killing, is not extinct. Wigan were organized, they made their runs, they scored a good goal despite wasting earlier chances, and they surprised us all.

Manchester City showed us something most of us know already: it takes more than money to win championships. Passion is still important. So is playing as a team.

I am reminded of Cree Indian proverb:

Only when the last tree has withered, and the last fish caught, and the last river been poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.

Someone should post that in Manchester City’s locker room.

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I am also reminded of this passage from Gideon Haigh’s “Ashes 2005”:

“…for all the blah about glorious uncertainty, Test cricket is utterly, massively, viciously fair.

Over four innings, five days, fifteen sessions and a maximum of 450 overs, virtually every player has the opportunity to make an impact, and usually several chances to do so, so that in only the most exceptional circumstances does the superior outfit not prevail.”

Test cricket will never deliver days like we had today. Even the rare upsets are not entirely without some indication of a tide turning (Kolkata 2001, for instance). So while I love a game that can deliver moments like we saw today at Wembley, I simultaneously love that there is Test cricket where 99 out of 100 times, the better team wins. There are no freak goals, no shady red cards, no dubious penalties that decide a match. You can’t set up shot and hope to grab one on the break. You can’t put 11 men behind the ball and cross your fingers. Sure there are poor lbw calls, and defensive strategies, but rarely, rarely, do they turn a match on its head or even affect the outcome.

The best way I can put it is to keep using football as an example. For me, personally, the European football league format is the fairest way to crown a champion. Every team plays every other team twice, once home and once away. You get three points for a win, one point for a draw, and zero for loss. The team with the most points at the end wins. It is the single best away to ensure that the best team gets the trophy.

And that is Test cricket. It is a true Test of which team is better.

Sure, you might never get a Wigan winning the Cup, but you also will never get a Greece winning a European Championship. A fair trade in my book.

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Match report on the YB 40 match between Northamptonshire and Sussex tomorrow.

1. England to Host Cricket Tournament
2. Smith out of Champions Trophy
3. Board Member Corrupt
4. IPL Team Loses (sub-headline: Other Team Wins)
5. Sri Lanka…
6. Sachin Tendulkar to Retire from Tests (sub-headline: At Some Point)

Actual Headline: 2
Fake Headline: 1,3,4,5, and 6

For those of you that missed the news on Twitter, the 2013 Champions Trophy will be carried live and in its entirety in the USA on ESPN3. I would like to thank Twitter user @shrivastavrahul for passing on the news.

I looked around for a press release from the Worldwide Leader, but found nothing. The matches are showing up on ESPN3’s site though, so I am of course confident that this is actually happening.

Now, I know it is not everyone’s favorite tournament, but having the option to watch it is better than not having the option to watch it.

I will be updating the World Cricket Internet Schedule when the tournament is closer. In the meantime, here is a link to Cricinfo’s match schedule.

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This is just further proof that ESPN believes that there is a market for cricket in America – whether the audience is ex-pats or not does not matter. And once ESPN latches onto something, they really tend to run with it. This could be an interesting few years.

I get asked the question “why cricket?” a lot. And as I mentioned over on Twitter last night, the answer, while meandering, invariably includes something along the lines of: because it inspires such great writing.

The Tweet last night was after I had read this story from Jon Hotten, aka The Old Batsman. It is everything I am talking about when I talk about cricket and writing.

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I often think about the “chicken or the egg” situation when it comes to cricket and writing, or at least a variation of it. Does cricket inspire great writing? Or does does it attract great writers? I have always thought it was probably the former, but now I am starting to think it might be the latter, and that I have been wrong this whole time. The fact that in the story linked to above there is a team known as The Authors XI is further confirmation.

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In today’s blog post, Mr. Hotten refers to the sadness inherent in cricket:

Somewhere within it, cricket has a deep, maybe unending, payload of sadness. It’s there in its history, in its psychology and perhaps more than that, it’s part of what the game acually is.

By sadness, I don’t mean melancholy or unhappiness: they are something different. It’s not about tragedy, although the game has had its share of those. Rather, it’s an emotion that cricket in some way seems designed to evoke.

And maybe that’s what it is. Maybe cricket, for good or for bad, attracts those of us that enjoy a bout of sadness, find it cleansing. And those kind of people also, invariably, tend to be writers. Maybe the game itself does not inspire the writing, but attracts those that can write. It would explain the active and brilliant blogosphere, and it would explain how libraries have been filled and emptied and filled again with words written about a game for children played by grown men.

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“Sad is happy for deep people” is a quote from a Doctor Who episode. And while that might be a tad too groan inducing to stomach, there is something in the statement that makes me think of cricket.

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I talked in an older post about why I write about cricket, and how I came to it as a fan first and a writer second. And that’s why I think I was able to stick with this for so long, because I actually enjoyed the game. But I also talk a lot about why I started this blog: because I wanted to write. Every day. And with that as my impetus, I could have chosen any topic: art, books, bicycles, Arsenal, dogs, a daily journal, music, politics, anything. But I didn’t. I chose cricket. Not because I was a fan of the game, I think, now, but because the game attracts those few among us that want to write.

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Now, I understand that this is a lot of hyperbole. That every topic on earth attracts people who want to write about it. But I think cricket is different. I think people come to cricket writing via a different path than those that end up writing about cars. I see a passion in the bloggers and a love for the written word that I don’t see in the non-cricket blogs I read.

And while no one will disagree that there are a lot of great cricket writers, and that the great writing is a great perk to being a fan of the game, there is another chicken or egg situation here: is it the game that attracts the writers, or is it the writing that came beforehand? A snowball effect, in other words. Does the game inspire the writing? Or the previous writing about the game?

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I am just riffing here. But it is something I think about a lot. Especially when I read the two posts linked to above. And I understand that there is no right answer to any of this, that everyone comes to the game differently. But when you look at the wonderful and supportive cricket blogging community that exists, it confirms that there is something different about us. Whether we think sad is happy for deep people, or that we were born to write, or that we love the written word, or that we simply enjoy taking in this amazing and spacious and anachronistic bat and ball sport…or maybe all of the above or maybe none of the above…something sets us apart.

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And for the record: When I talk about great cricket writers, I talk about all of us, and I talk about all of the formats. There is great writing about the IPL, and there is great writing about the Ashes.

County Cricket does not have a monopoly on great cricket writing, despite what some might think.

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And so I ask, dear reader: why do you write?

Sussex vs Worcestershire at Hove, Yorkshire Bank 40
Worcestershire 245-9; Sussex 154 all out
Worcestershire won by 91 runs

And what do you have to say about that?

6,500 fans, your home patch, Sunday afternoon, first match after a successful 40 over campaign last season, and you get absolutely bloody hammered.

There were no bright spots, only worries about what could be a very long summer for Sussex. This is a team that should be battling on all three fronts; yet at this moment they look mid-table at best in both the Championship and the YB 40.

To lose four wickets in 11 overs when chasing a catchable total is simply unforgivable. As is letting Daryl Mitchell, of all people, he of a 31 List A average, score at over a run a ball for almost three hours.

On your home patch. On a Sunday afternoon. In front of a full house.

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Next up for Sussex: another YB 40 match at Northamptonshire on May the 10th.

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These match reports have filled in a nice dry spell here on Limited Overs. I also have a HUGE social media post that I am working on inbetween posts and it is nearly killing me. I don’t know if it will ever see the light of day.

I have not, despite my vow, been watching the Indian Premier League. It’s been a busy month and I just have not found the time. And this brings me to a bit of a whinge: I hate how Willow TV posts the scores on its YouTube page.

I have a hard time watching the games because they are on during the work day here in the States, but I would watch them “on demand” if Willow would not post the scores where they were so visible.

Now, I understand that we live in a world full of “spoilers” and complaining about being spoiled I think is silly and juvenile. But at the same time, as a service to its subscribers, Willow TV should not post the scores on its YouTube page. Just as ESPN3 doesn’t and just as FoxSoccer2Go doesn’t.

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Back to my earlier point: I have not been watching the IPL, and while I have been paying attention to County Cricket and the Zimbabwe-Bangladesh series, I feel like cricket is in a bit of a lull, a bit of an off season. I think when the English summer really starts to kick off, I will have be writing more interesting posts than the occasional match report.

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Finally, I wanted to pass along this great article about cricket in the Bronx, NY. Worth your time. Cheers to Brett Graham for sending it my way.

Sussex vs Warwickshire at Hove, County Championship
Warwickshire 453, Sussex 421
Match Drawn

Not a great deal to say about this one, because not a great deal happened.

Warwickshire won the toss and chose to bat. And then batted for 145 overs. Then Sussex batted for 145 overs. And then on day four there was rain. And that was that.

Again, Sussex let their opponent get out early with a big lead, and again they failed to score quick enough to force a result (though the rain was partially to blame for that, too).

Bell, Wright, Trott, and Ambrose all fell in a blistering ten over spell on the morning of day two, but other than that, Sussex’s attack just let them bat on and on and on. Jordan’s 28-8-73-4 was really the only highlight.

When the home team did finally get a chance to bat on the afternoon of day two, no one really took charge, with the exception of Matt Prior’s blazing 42 off of 40 balls, and the match just sort of fizzled out.

The draw drops the south coasters down to fifth in the table. Next up is their first Yorkshire Bank 40 match vs Worcestershire tomorrow.

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And now a word about pitch.

Warwickshire coach, Dougie Brown, called it a “disgrace.”

What’s interesting however is that I have not heard a peep from any of the players, either positive or negative, about the playing conditions.

The article I link to above agrees with Brown’s assessment, describing the three days’ play as “turgid”, but putting the blame squarely on the pitch feels a little misguided.

I am not informed enough to make an opinion either way. Though complaints of county pitches are rather common so far this season, and it is shame that the pitches are being cultivated to recreate Test conditions instead of to inspire thrilling cricket. But the point of the County Championship is, for better or for worse, to prepare English players for Tests. And if England retain the Ashes this summer, people will probably stop complaining.

Hopefully, some middle ground can be found in the end.

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I mentioned in my last review that the idea of a draw will always confound Americans. The fact that the pitch can have such a profound impact on the outcome of a match, however, I think would pique the interest of American sports fans.

Sports in America are very rigid. Every hockey rink is exactly the same; as is every basketball court. Conditions matter in baseball and football, of course, but in no other sport, other than cricket, does the playing surface play such a large role in the game. Some pitches are roads, some swing on day one if it is cloudy but don’t if the sun is out, some have a slope, some crumble on day three, and so on. It is an infinitely fascinating part of the game. One that I am just starting to understand.

And so while it is a disappointment that the pitch was what it was this weekend at Hove, I think it speaks to how infinitely interesting this game really is. It is so very much more than “throw ball, hit ball”.

Quick post tonight:

I would like to thank the proprietor of Deepbackwardpoint.com for passing on this article from the Guardian’s Barney Ronay over to me this morning.

The whole thing is worth your time, but here is the money quote:

Strip away the fear and the spin and this is a golden age to be a cricket lover, a golden age for watching the game. By now the conjoined worlds of Gayle and Godleman should be feeding off one another, a mutually beneficial pincer movement, the be-bop fecundity of the new world and enduring trad of the old. As it happens, the summer after that crowning Beaulieu jazz riot the Rolling Stones started appearing on festival bills. Pop was coming, and within three years the whole self‑contained furore had been pretty much washed away. Who knows, cricket too may not get this chance again. Align the schedules. Dismount from that high horse. Give in to the commercial inevitability. Let’s stop the jazz wars now.

That’s it. That’s all of it.

I have opined on several occasions that we are in a golden age of cricket. But reading Ronay’s column made me realize I was only half right. We are on the cusp of a golden age, but it will happen only if we choose to let it happen.

I truly believe that all three formats can coexist peacefully, and that if we can find a way to make that happen, cricket will be around for generations.

And so I, along with Ronay, implore my fellow cricket fans the world over: stop the infighting, we are all friends here, we all love this silly old bat and ball sport in our own unique way, no one format is better than any other format, and for the sake of the game, let’s all try to get a long, shall we?

That is not to say that the debate should stop completely, but the vitriol and the accusations need to be removed from it. That is not to say that we should allow T20 to run ramshod over first class domestic tournaments, but the Big Bash League needs to have its place, too. And that is not to say that there are not serious problems in the game that need debate and solution, there are, and we need to work on fixing them. All I am saying is: we are not enemies, we are friends, so let’s start acting like.

There is room for both Chris Gayle and Billy Godleman. Room for both the County Championship and the IPL. Room for both the Champions Trophy and the Ashes.

Plenty of room even.

So let’s allow the golden age of cricket to happen. For if we don’t, not only will the golden age never transpire, but the sport might very well do what everyone claims it will do: die.

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In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that long stands at the crease in Tests lead to victories, while similarily long stands in First Class, four day, cricket, lead to draws.

Like most of my stats, I was shooting from the hip, so I decided to test out my theory.

Now, of course, English County Championship stats are not entirely easy to come by. Plus, there is just so…much…data. It would be impossible to go through them all. (Wally Hammond had 36 double centuries for Gloucestershire all by himself, to give you an idea of the mountain of data I would be staring at.)

Furthermore, not all first class domestic matches were four days long. There are have been many tournaments, in Australia particularly, where domestic first class cricket matches were five day matches or even timeless. (Not so much anymore though.)

And, finally, Cricinfo counts Test matches as First Class matches, so the data is not just massive, but also, in a way, tainted.

And so I decided to take a smaller sample size: the 10 highest scores in the 2012 County Championship season compared to the 10 highest scores in Test cricket during the 2012 calendar year.

In the County Championship, there was KP’s 234* for Surrey; Nick Compton’s 204 for Somerset; Riki Wessels’ 199 for Nottinghamshire; and so on.

Of those 10 scores, eight of the matches they took place ended in draws, while only two ended in victory for the batsman’s side (there were no losses for the batsman’s team.)

The 10 highest scores took place in nine different matches: there was one duplicate: Michael Lumb’s 171 and James Taylor’s 163 both took place against Sussex in July at Trent Bridge.

But the fact remains: of the ten highest scores from last County Championship season, eight of them happened in matches that ended in draws.

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In Test cricket, the opposite was true.

Of the 10 highest Test scores during the 2012 calendar year, only two of the matches they took place in ended in draws, while EIGHT ended in victories for the batsman’s side.

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Again, it’s a small sample size, admittedly, but still it goes to show that Test cricket’s one extra day rewards batsmen for stretching their legs a bit, while four day cricket does not.

Of course, it has always been this way in England, so I do not think it can be used as an example of how County Cricket should change to better feed the International squad in the same way the 40 over game was moved to 50 overs for next season, for instance, but I do think it is an interesting tidbit on the four game day’s affect on its longer cousin.

Batting in tight spaces requires far more discipline than when batting unfettered. So in the end, it might be a good thing. Like when you ride with studded tires on your bicycle all winter and then when take them off in the spring you are stronger, faster, and fitter because of having to ride with a handicap for six months.

Also, again, small sample size, but I think the data proves me right too.

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In my research, I came across a couple fun exceptions to the above rule.

Somerset vs Worcestershire in 1988. A four day match at Taunton. Worcestershire won the toss and decided to have a bat. And bat they did. 189.5 overs later, they had piled up a veritable shedload of runs. 628 to be exact. Their score included two ducks, a seven, and a massive quadruple century from Graeme Hick: 405 runs, 555 minutes, 469 balls.

They then bowled out Somerset for 222, enforced the follow-on, and bowled them out again for 192; winning the match just after tea on the fourth day by an innings and 214 runs.

Hick played County Cricket for 25 years; retiring just three years ago. He is the most prolific run scorer in all of cricket: over 64,000 in all formats and in all competitions.

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Somerset vs Lancashire in 1895. A three day match also at Taunton. Lancashire chose to bat, and did so for 222 overs amassing an incredible 801 runs including a 424 from Archie MacLaren. They bowled out their hosts late on the second day, and then bowled them out again on day three a few overs before the close of play.

MacLaren’s Wisden obituary is worth every minute of your time. And I am glad to see his 424 runs were not in vain.

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Ah, cricket. So many interesting characters, so many interesting matches. These posts are by far the most fun for me to write because they teach me so much about the game’s history. While I enjoy stats as much as the next cricket fan, it’s the tidbits such as the above two matches that keep me coming back. Stats are a door to a bigger world, not the world itself, in other words.

Or not a door, more of a window. Stats are a window to cricket’s past. And there ya go.