The continuing story of Kevin Pietersen

A few weeks ago, Kevin Pietersen announced that he was retiring from ODIs and, by necessity due to a clause in his contract, T20s. He was also unhappy with the ECB not allowing him to continue to play T20s. At the time I defended him and I stand by that. England’s ODI schedule is insane and KP is one of the few players to compete in all three formats. I think the ECB could have been more flexible. Unfortunately, it was reported in the Telegraph today that Pietersen has dropped his seemingly reasonable position and instead gone with a crazy egomaniacal one.

There is no conceivable justification for wanting to miss two Test matches to play in the IPL. He cannot claim that he needs a rest, he cannot claim that he needs to spend time with his family. The IPL may be a Mickey Mouse tournament where luck plays a larger role than skill, but it still cannot be classified as a ‘rest’. And unless his family move to India I think it will mean more time away from them for KP. This is all about the fact that he wants more money and more time in the ‘glamour’ of the IPL. It also shows a vastly inflated sense of his own importance if he at all thinks that Flower and co will even consider it. They were happy enough to cut him loose from the T20 side the first time; what on earth makes KP think they will agree to take him back at the cost of a ridiculous demand? His arrogance is simply breathtaking; he would do well to remember that it is only because of his career with England that he is at all valuable in the IPL.

Taking it as a certainty that Flower will only delay in refusing Pietersen’s demand for as long as it takes him to stop laughing, it will be interesting to see what Pietersen’s next move is. There would seem to be every chance that he will take a leaf out of Gayle’s book and refuse to sign a central contract with England later this year. Whilst it would be disappointing to lose out on such a talented batsman, Pietersen is rapidly starting to become more trouble than he is worth. If he decides that he can get the fame and adulation which he values so highly in the IPL alone then I would simply say ‘good riddance’. He is also more than welcome to go back to South Africa, they seldom if ever play matches that conflict with the IPL. However this saga ends, I think we will soon see exactly where Pietersen’s loyalties lie.

LV=CC week eleven roundup

It seems like it has been ages since there has been any Championship cricket. In fact it has only been a month, but a month of only white ball cricket at both the domestic and international level is a long time. Unfortunately it ended up a fairly uneventful week with all four first division matches finishing as draws and so far two of the three second division matches have also been drawn with Northants’ match against Glamorgan only through the second day.

There has been some movement in the tables, however, with Warwickshire getting enough bonus points to move into the top spot of Division One. The Bears have managed this with a match in hand against second-placed Nottinghamshire. Middlesex also picked up enough points to become the third side to 100 in the year, despite being bowled out for an Australia-esque 98 in their first innings. Whilst still outsiders for the title; they remain in the hunt. There was no movement at the bottom of the table with Worcestershire drawing with Durham and both sides remaining in the relegation zone. Division Two leaders Derbyshire did not play this week but Yorkshire, despite a brilliant 222* from Joe Root, did not have time to significantly close the gap. Their draw against Hampshire coupled with Kent also not playing this week was enough to keep Yorkshire in the promotion zone, though they are not secure there. Kent are only seven points behind having played one fewer match and both Hampshire and Northants (who are 336-5 after two days against Glamorgan) are also within a victory of going second. That should make for a very interesting battle over the last two months of the season.

For Lancashire it was another week of disappointment. There was some worry that the month long break may have broken the good form that they had started to show, but fortunately this proved not to be the case. Lancashire put up their highest score of the season with 485-7 against Surrey at Guildford including centuries from Paul Horton and Steven Croft, the latter an unbeaten 154. Lancs made a good start to the bowling as well, with Chapple hitting Rory Burns’ off stump with the first ball of the innings. But with Surrey on 49-2, Lancs ran into Kevin Pietersen. With a fairly flat pitch and small boundaries he hit an absolutely staggering 234* off only 190 deliveries. Whilst Lancashire have had some trouble finishing sides off this year, this time it was not something that can be put at the feet of the bowlers; Pietersen was simply in unbelievable form. It is still a bit troubling for Lancashire, however, that we have now been in very good positions in each of our last four matches and have only managed to win one of them. The weather has been a factor, but our bowling has been surprisingly flat and it has cost us a good chance to move up the table. We still have some good opportunities coming up, but there are now only six matches left in the season and we still sit sixth in the table (and have played more matches than every other team).

KP’s knock was, of course, the highlight of the week, but it was a good round overall for England players. Andrew Strauss scored exactly fifty of Middlesex’s 98 all out in the first innings (the only other double digit score was Gareth Berg’s 32) and 127 not out in the second. Certainly worrying form for the South Africans ahead of the first Test. Ian Bell also scored 57 for Warwickshire.

Why are we still talking about Bopara?

The England squad for the first Test against South Africa is set to be announced tomorrow morning at 09.30 BST. There is not much of note, England are untroubled by injury, and the only discussion is about whether Ravi Bopara will be included. The media seem to think it is a fait accompli that he will and I fear they may be right. The apparent reason for this is utterly absurd, however: it seems that Ravi Bopara will be given what will now be a fourth chance due to a combination on Jonny Bairstow’s failure (note that Bopara has three of those to Bairstow’s one) and Bopara’s good form in the ODIs.

The notion that ODI form should be a reason for Test selection is utterly maddening, yet it is seemingly very common. The England selectors seem to have overlooked the fact that there is no number six at the moment precisely because the first person they tried there, Eoin Morgan, failed at the Test level after excelling at ODIs! In fact, Morgan was picked almost purely on his ODI record; his first class record is distinctly average. The fact that he is not batting at six himself shows the folly of picking players on limited overs runs. It is all well and good to say that a player looks ‘assured’ or whatever adjective one prefers, but the fact is that the styles of batting are very different and ought to be incomparable. Just look at how England (and Cook and KP in particular) fared against Pakistan’s bowling in the Tests and ODIs in the UAE in January and February. They are different games.

The other argument for why Bopara ought to be picked is a more reasonable, but still flawed, one. It is that he has done well in the County Championship this season, which he has. He averages 66 from five matches with two hundreds. However, this must be balanced against his previous Test failures and the fact that he is playing against second division attacks this season. There are two players in the first division, and even Joe Root in D2, with a better average than Bopara and who have not yet had a chance at Test cricket. Nick Compton is the obvious one with his incredible start to the season and Rikki Clarke even averages 70. Slightly below Bopara, Joe Denly averages 57 for Middlesex. There is no reason why one should give a fourth chance to Bopara when there are better qualified candidates who have never had a single chance. In fact, there is little reason to even drop Bairstow. Morgan was given over a year to prove himself; it would be very harsh on the much more talented Bairstow to discard him after only three real innings.

If Bopara is selected, as seems very likely, I will hope he does well. I would like him to repay the selectors seemingly insane faith in him and prove me wrong. But I am not at all confident and I think it is very unfair on other players. We will have to see what happens starting on 19 July, but if Bopara fails again, this has to be his last chance.

ODI success

England have now managed to win ten consecutive ODIs, not counting two that were rained off. Even though it comes on the back of losing five in a row in India, it is still quite remarkable. England are not renown for being a successful ODI side and whilst there is still some way yet to go the odds on them winning the Champions Trophy next year are likely fairly short. England still need to show they can perform over the long term (it was not so long ago that we were being hammered in Australia and the World Cup) but this is still promising as this success comes after England seemingly switched to a new ODI tactic.

It is this which is particularly interesting about England’s ODI improvement because they almost seem to be turning back the clock and playing an early nineties style of ODIs. Whilst England have never been particularly good at the format it is with the modern style of having big hitters at the top of the order at which England have really struggled. (There is, of course, the factor of actual team skill to be considered, but it is worth noting that England went to the semi-finals or final of every World Cup before Sri Lanka started the big hitting trend in in the 1996 tournament and have not gone past the quarter-finals since.) Instead, England have at the top of the order two players in Bell and Cook who are technically sound enough to score fairly quickly against the two new balls without taking a lot of risks. England do not score quite as quickly in the powerplay as perhaps they would if they were constantly trying to hit the ball over the top, but they do a very good job at scoring quickly enough whilst keeping wickets in hand. During their winning run, England have never lost more than one wicket during the initial ten over powerplay and usually scored around fifty runs. They have been remarkably consistent about this too; there is almost no change in the scores before and after KP retired. The openers also average over sixty in that time, meaning that England are very consistently going into the second half of their innings with quite a few runs on the board and almost all of their wickets in hand. This plays very well to England’s strengths and I think is a very intelligent strategy. It is almost a Test style of play and in fact England have eight Test players in their first choice ODI XI with two of the absences being enforced due to retirement. It is a strategy does not usually result in huge scores, but rather consistently above average ones. With England’s great strength across all formats being their bowling they are very seldom going to concede more than 275 in an innings.

There has been some question as to whether England can keep this up in the subcontinent, but it is worth pointing out that actually the first four matches in this winning streak were in the subcontinent-esque conditions of the UAE. A more important question, I think, is whether England can keep it up at all. I used the word ‘consistently’ a lot above and I think it has been a huge factor in England’s success (their consistency, not my use of the word). If that continues I think England will continue to regularly win, but the problem is that England have tended to be an incredibly mercurial ODI team. If something throws the team off their stride, an injury to one of the top order for instance, I really don’t know how they would react. The retirement of KP does not seem to have shaken them at all, however, which is promising. On the whole, I think we can expect a strong showing from England in the Champions Trophy next year, but I would not want to venture any sort of prediction beyond that.

Schadenfreude

Major victories do not come often for the Royals. As far as relatively recent history goes, we mostly just have that time we swept the Cardinals in St Louis. The next best thing is for the Yankees to lose. If we are the ones to beat them then so much the better, but watching the Yankees lose when it really matters almost literally leaves a sweet taste in one’s mouth. There are many things to hate about the Yankees: their arrogance, their selfishness, the fact that they think they are entitled to victories and the fact that their glory hunters fill Kauffman Stadium every time they come to town. Robinson Cano recently added another one by snubbing Billy Butler for the Home Run Derby. Billy is not quite a bona fide home run hitter it is true, but he is having a very good year and has actually hit more home runs than Prince Fielder right now. More importantly, however, the Home Run Derby is there to put on a show for the fans and the show would have been a lot nicer with Billy Butler playing in front of his home town crowd. It does not matter which league wins, in fact more than a few Royals fans were cheering for Carlos Beltran of the National League!

But Cano, after hinting that he might choose Butler, chose Mark Trumbo instead. He decided that his league winning a meaningless contest was more important than entertaining the fans who were paying to watch. It was a very typically Yankee thing to do; he may as well have actually stuck two fingers up at the fans. But Royals fans are a mostly knowledgeable bunch. They recognised the snub and responded appropriately: they booed Cano in batting practice, they booed Cano when he was announced and they booed him when he came to the plate whilst mixing in some ‘Billy Butler’ chants. All that was to be expected, but where they really shone was that they never let up. It would have been easy to throw some boos at him and then return to ‘normal service’, but they did not. They booed every pitch to him and roared every time he failed to hit a home run. It clearly got ot Cano who stepped out twice to towel himself off and take another drink of Gatorade. No other player had stepped out at all as far as I had seen. His reception continued and Cano did not manage to hit a single home run, the only player to so fail. Cano snubbed Kansas City and was brought to his knees by our fans. It almost tastes as good as Alex Rodriguez striking out to end the Yankees season last October. I have never been prouder to be a Royals fan; we may be few but we are the best in baseball.

Problems with the All-Star Game

I have been following the build up to the All-Star Game this year as it is taking place in Kansas City. I’m really happy about it being in KC and I’m quite looking forward to Kauffman Stadium being shown off in a major event (hoping there are more than a few appearances in October over the next few years too) but that is the extent of my joy. The reasons why I have stopped following the All-Star Game over the past few years have been rather forcefully brought back home.

The first is one on which I have touched already: the fan vote. I could accept the fans voting for the reserves, but they are simply not well enough informed to make the choice of starters. Prince Fielder at first base? Derek Jeter at short? David Ortiz at designated hitter? The ignorance on show is breathtaking. ESPN have a lot for which to answer, but in the end the fans should not be voting if they cannot distinguish fame from talent.

But it seems that the managers are little better. I was already unhappy with the Rangers’ manager Ron Washington after picking Aaron Crow as the Royals’ one All-Star last year. Make no mistake, Crow was having a terrific year and was not undeserving. But he was not more deserving than Alex Gordon who has having a career year and would go on to win a gold glove. This year Washington chose Billy Butler, an excellent choice, and no one else. Not one other Royal in the year we are hosting the All-Star Game. I know we are a sub .500 team, but I am not asking for a large number of players. Just some recognition that we do have quite a few good ones and that now would be the time to give our players the benefit! But Washington decided to choose his own shortstop, Elvis Andrus, over Alcides Escobar despite Escobar having a higher batting average (the highest of all AL shortstops at the time of the decision), having hit more home runs and being one of the two best defensive shortstops in the league with Asdrubal Cabrera (who did get picked) being the other one. It is an obvious and appalling show of bias. Washington also picked three more of his own players despite already getting three voted in. As I said, I did not really like him anyway, but after this bit of selfishness I am furious. I very much hope that not only do his Rangers not only blow their lead in the AL West, but that they are hit by a major scandal and that Washington has to resign in disgrace.

My annoyance does not end there, though that is its apex. Major League Baseball has finally moved away from the ‘this time it counts’ slogan for the All-Star Game, presumably deciding that everyone has managed to work that out now almost ten years after it first ‘counted’. Unfortunately they only stopped using the slogan, not the ridiculous practice itself. For those unfamiliar, currently the league that wins the All-Star Game gets home advantage in the World Series. This means that managers are supposed to make a special effort to win the game despite the entire set up making it hard to do so! No sane manager would approach a game he wants to win by having the best starting pitcher in the league go only two innings; he would expect at least seven out of the pitcher and be hoping for nine. I also doubt he would pick the best player at each position (or even make a misguided attempt to do so) for the rest of the lineup. Rather, one would want to pick the group of players who best fit together as a team. The set up the whole game is that of an exhibition for the fans, not one where winning is the primary goal. To make it otherwise decreases the spectacle.

It is a few years since I last followed the All-Star Game. As much as I am enjoying having Kansas City and Kauffman Stadium in the spotlight, (and I am very much enjoying it) I am rather looking forward to ignoring the whole ridiculous affair again next year.

Wimbledon finals

Later today is the Wimbledon ladies’ final with the gentlemen’s title being decided tomorrow. More on the gentlemen’s final below, but of the two the ladies’ final looks like it could be the more interesting match. Serena Williams upset both Petra Kvitova and Victoria Azarenka en route to the final and will face Agnieszka Radwanska, who has managed to advance fairly quietly to the final. Being the incredibly partial person that I am, the most notice I took of her up to now was probably when she beat Heather Watson in the third round. Her path was somewhat cleared ahead of time by Sharapova losing, however, and she never really seemed to have a ‘big’ match up to now.

Radwanska and Williams should make for an interesting match because they have very contrasting styles. Williams is a powerful striker of the ball, to use some parlance usually reserved for T20. She is almost a tennis version of a T20 player, though; her game almost begins and ends at hitting the cover off the ball. She serves very hard and hits a lot of aces, whereas Radwanska is more defensive and focuses on cutting out errors. To continue the cricketing analogy, Radwanska is one who plays tennis in a manner reminiscent of Jonathan Trott or Alastair Cook playing cricket. It’s not terribly flashy or expansive, but it tends to be very technically correct and without a lot of risk of errors. Williams has defeated Radwanska in both of their previous head to head matches, but both were four years ago. In this tournament at least, I think the contrast of style favours Radwanska.

Looking at the stats from their first six matches, it is quickly clear that Radwanska has won a lot of matches through her opponents errors, whilst Williams has won hers with aces and winners. Radwanska has got this far despite conceding more winners than she has hit, but her opponents have committed twice the number of unforced errors that she has. For Williams, the inverse is true: she has committed one more unforced error than her opponents, but has hit close to twice the number of winners. It is certainly possible for Williams to overpower Radwanska. However, Radwanska will not give Williams very much at all and Williams is going to have to be fairly accurate with her shots. If she starts to have a comparable number of unforced errors to winners then Radwanska will find herself in a very comfortable position. It is on that point that I expect the match will turn and for two reasons I think Radwanska goes into it with an advantage. The first reason is the simple one of adrenaline: Williams is a seasoned competitor, but she has been away from the top for some time and I would be quite surprised if there is not a bit more zip to her shots. This can lead to inaccuracy at the best of times, but especially when combined with the other factor: weariness. Williams has also reached the doubles final with her sister and has thus been playing every day all week, sometimes more than once due to the rain. Tired players in any sport tend to be less precise and Williams’ schedule could be her undoing.

I would not want to be nailed into a firm prediction, but that is how I think the odds favour and I do hope that I am correct as I very much dislike the way Serena Williams plays. It is an awful, ugly ‘brute force’ style of tennis and one that I very much do not want to be rewarded. If she finds success it will simply encourage other players to follow that style. Already the women’s game is showing signs of turning into a game of errors and Williams winning will only worsen it. Furthermore, her attitude toward the officials bears a striking similarity to that of a New York Yankee. We saw it most clearly at the US Open last year; there is a strong sense of entitled smugness and I hate it. Beyond any desire for my analysis to be correct, I simply hate watching her play tennis and I hope she loses and loses badly.

Of course, it is the final on Sunday on which most will focus their attention. Regardless of the winner, some sort of history will be made: either Andy Murray will become the first British man to win Wimbledon since 1936 (and he has already become the first one into the final since then) or Roger Federer will return to the number one ranking and break the record for most weeks at number one. The former would certainly be more dramatic, but it is the latter which is far more likely. Djokovic may have been a bit below his best in the semi-final, but Federer was still extremely impressive. Murray has had the benefit of Nadal going out early and has never really looked convincing. He has certainly done well, Tonga and Ferrer are not pushovers, but still he has never really looked dominant against the opponents he has faced. One very strongly gets the impression that Federer will not let Murray off the hook if the latter slips a bit, but that Murray might let Federer off if the reverse happens. Britain has ended her wait for a gentlemen’s finalist at Wimbledon, but I expect her wait for a gentlemen’s champion will go on for a bit yet.

Poor preparation

With now exactly two weeks before the start of the abbreviated series against South Africa, I have been thinking about scheduling again. Obviously I am cross and have been for some time that the series is only three matches. Even without questioning the ECB’s rationale in playing five ODIs against Australia (though it is a very foolish rationale) the scheduling is poor.

That the series against South Africa is too short is not in doubt. It is the number one side in the world playing the number two side with the winner getting the top spot. To play it only over three matches is lunacy; it ought to be at least four. What is maddening is that the schedule could have easily accommodated a full length Test series and the ECB’s desired ODIs. Even if there were no way to squeeze in seven Tests and 13 ODIs (and the only reason that there is not is because of the World T20 and even then it’s close) then the arrangement could have and should have been different. For one thing, there was no need for a third Test against the West Indies. Whilst no one could have predicted so far ahead of time that it would have been a washout anyway, almost everyone managed to predict that it was going to be a dead rubber. I am no fan of two Test series, but in this case it would have been very much the lesser of two evils. A far better option, however, would have been to simply reduce the number of ODIs being played against South Africa and the West Indies. We are playing a combined eight matches against them, it would have been very easy to cut out three and play a usual seven Test/ten ODI summer.

Those solutions assume we have to play those five ODIs against Australia this summer for the ECB to accomplish its goal of preparing England for the World Cup, but that is not even true. These ODIs are actually supposed to be more for Australia’s benefit than England’s; it is allowing them to prepare for the Champions Trophy in reciprocation for England playing in Australia ahead of the World Cup. But the Champions Trophy is next year and we are playing the normal Ashes related ODIs against Australia then anyway. Surely Australia would prepare better by simply having those ODIs moved in front of the Champions Trophy, just as England’s matches in Oz will immediately precede the World Cup. This seems like a solution that would not only allow us to play four (or five) Tests against South Africa like we ought to, but also to allow the ECB to get their desired pre-World Cup preparation and actually improve Australia’s pre-Champions Trophy preparation.

It is, of course, a bit late to be complaining about fixtures that were set over a year ago, but the reason I bring it up is because I think England may not only have robbed the fans of a good series, but also put themselves at a bit of a disadvantage by playing so much white ball cricket ahead of an important Test series. England will go into the first Test against South Africa with many of their players having played seven limited overs matches and no significant red ball cricket since the end of the second Test. Strauss at least will play a bit for Somerset and I am hoping Jimmy and KP (both of whom are missing some or all of the series against Oz) will play in the Surrey v Lancashire match at Guildford the week before the Test series starts, though I am not optimistic. It probably won’t be a massive problem for England, but it is a bit troubling especially given how good at preparation Flower and Strauss usually are. It is worth remembering that when England were playing warmup matches before the 2010/11 Ashes, Australia were playing ODIs against Sri Lanka. This was not the difference in the series, England were always going to be far too good for Australia, but it was another advantage given to England. With the series against South Africa looking like it may be a very close one and every difference magnified due to the shortness of the series, this is certainly an area where England should have done better.

An improvement for T20s

This is not a rant about T20; as I believe I have said before I do not mind the format per se but rather some (indeed many) of its applications. So my suggestion for improving it does not involve scrapping it entirely or anything radical such as that. It instead deals with the problem of rain shortened matches such as the one we saw today between Nottinghamshire and Lancashire. Lancs batted for twenty overs as set Notts 179 to win. The rains came with Notts 7-0 after one over and left them a D/L target of 49 off five overs which they chased comfortably. The obvious problem was that the D/L revised target was quite low. Notts had all of their wickets in hand and could go for it. One big over against Arafat was enough to all but end the match as a contest. However, I think to blame D/L misses a deeper and more important point.

The D/L discrepancy was a problem, but I actually think it is a very minor one. Theoretically the system can be tweaked (and I believe that it is tweaked as new data comes in), but I do not think there is any adjustment that could have helped in this situation. No matter what total is set over five overs it will not have the same dynamic of a full chase and more importantly I don’t think there is any ‘fair’ way to do it. Only playing five overs means two things: that wickets are entirely irrelevant, run rate is all that matters, and that the required rate will almost always jump to either unobtainable heights or drop so low that it becomes easy. In effect then it is a one over contest. Today, Notts got 18 off a single over to render the required rate miniscule. The low target and wickets in hand made it easier for them to do that then the corollary of Lancs bowling a very tight over, but if Lancs had done so it would have come close to ending the match in their favour as well. And that would apply even if the D/L target had been higher; it would have just made it easier for Lancs to have a good over than Notts. Either way though it isn’t a proper contest. Five overs is simply too few.

The best way to improve T20s then is not to tweak D/L (though I still think that should happen, it just isn’t the most important thing to do) but to increase the minimum number of overs for matches interrupted halfway by rain and more flexibility in shortening matches before the rain starts. Most people suspected ahead of time that today’s match would be rain-affected and if they had decided ahead of time to play ten, or even five, overs a side instead of Lancs getting a full twenty and Notts getting five it would have been a perfectly fair contest. In situations where that is not feasible, however, the minimum number of overs has to be increased. If start times are brought forward and cutoff times moved back (as well as being made more flexible) I believe this can be done without a considerable increase in the number of matches without a result. Even if there is some increase, however, I think the majority of fans will understand the logic though I concede that is speculation. Certainly there should be some sort of effort to get the most overs in as possible. The current system does not produce a proper contest.