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  • Over-rates

    I mentioned in some of my end of day posts during the last Test that the West Indies were bowling their overs very slowly. They finished four overs short, even after allocations were made for unavoidable delays and even after Sammy bowled Marlon Samuels just to try to increase the rate! This led to the players being fined 40 per cent of their match fee and Sammy being fined 80 per cent.

    It is good to see the ICC finally take proper action against a side (the fact that the West Indies were allowed to try to drag the Barbados Test to a halt on the final day two months ago remains a disgrace) but there is still more to be done. The West Indians were fined for their rate, but that is small consolation for the spectators who did not get to see a full day’s cricket. Although England looked well set for victory anyway, it also meant that the West Indies stopped trying to win the match in favour of trying to get the over rate back up. This is not at all fair on the spectators, but there is at least an easy solution to that: instead of handing out fines for over rates in the entire Test, hand them out for individual days. This is not only fair for those who can only come for one day per Test, but also will (ideally at least) reduce the number of overs lost at the end of a day’s play. As it is, a team can be so far behind the rate on one of the early days of a Test that overs are lost, but can avoid a fine by bowling very quickly on the last or penultimate day. Those overs that are lost cannot (or can very seldom be) recovered. Sanctioning teams on a day-by-day basis would provide an incentive not to lose overs.

    However, I am not convinced that the current sanctions are an appropriate deterrent. It clearly did not work in the most recent Test and looking farther back India never had a good over rate in England or Australia. Despite that, it took until the seventh of those eight Tests for MS Dhoni to be banned. It is simply not enough and too rarely applied to be effective. If one looks at the County Championship, overs are very rarely lost and there usually isn’t even very much time added at the end of the day. This despite there being more overs required per day than in the County Championship than in a Test match. I think there are two main reasons for this: according to the ECB regulations (section 16.4) there is no ‘retrospective negotiation’ about what is and is not an unavoidable delay. The umpires make a decision at the time, inform the captain and scorers and that’s it. Everyone knows, everyone can adjust the calculation (which is displayed on the scoreboard) and there can be no argument. There is no reason why this cannot be implemented in Test matches. The second, and probably more important reason, is that the penalty for a slow over-rate in a Championship match is the deduction of points. It is a clear reduction in what is the most important number at the end of the year.

    Unfortunately, that is not applicable to Test cricket because there is nothing analogous to Championship points. If something is done to make the ICC rankings properly important to the majority of fans and players, then there would be an ideal way to punish teams for a slow rate. However, I doubt such a thing will ever happen. Last summer, Geoffery Boycott suggested that teams be penalised runs in a Test as the nearest equivalent. The problem there is that it does not work properly in the last innings of the Test, so for fairness sake it would have to be applied only to the first two. There is, however, little reason why that could not happen: add five penalty runs to the batting side’s total for each over by which the bowling side is short at the end of the day/innings. As handy as that is, I think it would be preferable to have a system that could be equally applied to all days of the match. Which just leaves the current system of fines/bans. What I would suggest is getting rid of the fines and just automatically banning both the captain and one of the main quick bowlers (whoever takes the new ball in the first innings, say). This would be used in conjunction with the inability to debate what is and is not an acceptable delay and be applied on a day by day basis. Given all of the options, I think this one is the most feasible given the current Test set up and would provide teams with a strong incentive to get their overs in. Whatever happens, the ICC need to do something to address the current trend of slow over-rates, but I’m not holding my breath.

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  • LV=CC week seven roundup

    Last week in the County Championship saw only one positive result, but this time rain was only one of the factors. Very suddenly, batting conditions around the country appeared to get much easier this round and we had some big scores. This did mean that although we still only got one result, we at least got to see quite a bit of cricket before then and some close run finishes.

    Surrey drew with Somerset
    Warwickshire drew with Lancashire
    Worcestershire drew with Sussex
    Kent drew with Northamptonshire
    Leicestershire drew with Essex
    Yorkshire drew with Hampshire
    Derbyshire beat Glamorgan by eight wickets

    Warwickshire’s points from their drawn match were enough to put them at the top of the first division table without a lot of other movement in D1. Derbyshire’s victory extended their lead over Yorkshire in Division Two, which now stands at 14 points. Glamorgan are still at the foot of the second division and now have more losses than any county in either division.

    My player of the week, who I forgot to name the last few weeks, (might do so retroactively when I have more time) is Paul Horton. Lancashire looked headed for a certain defeat after following-on and he played an absolutely brilliant knock to make sure they got out of danger.

    Matches at the Oval and Edgbaston both involved the team batting first scoring over 500 and the other one having to fight to stay in the match. Somerset had centuries from Arul Suppiah and James Hildreth to set up their 512-9 declares whilst Warwickshire had tons by Varun Chopra and Rikki Clarke en route to 557-6 declared. Warwicks, however, took so long to get their runs that they only got three batting points. Surrey fought better than Lancashire, however, with a century at the top of the order from Steve Davies. Eight wickets for Stuart Meaker meant that Surrey had an outside chance of winning, whilst Lancs just needed to bat out a draw. The Red Rose got a brilliant, unbeaten century from Paul Horton to make it comfortable in the end. At New Road, the biggest contribution was probably from the groundsman after the flood waters had receded. Sussex managed to set Worcs a large target thanks to a first wicket stand of 189 in the second innings between Ed Joyce and Chris Nash (the former with an unbeaten century) but there was not enough time for a result.

    In the second division, Northamptonshire’s trip to Canterbury saw the visitors take a large first innings lead thanks to David Sales’ 140, but a flat pitch did not leave any time for a result. At Leicester the home side put up 372 in the first innings with 119 of them from Ramnaresh Sarwan, who also scored 98 in the second innings. When Essex responded with 409, however, and from there a result was always unlikely. The match at Headingley ultimately followed a similar story, but started with Hampshire 55-3 and 83-4 in their first innings. Simon Katich, however, scored 196 and with help from Michael Bates’ 103 sent Hants to a huge first innings score. Yorkshire needed a response and got it from Antony McGrath, putting up 399-9 in all. The only match with a result was at Derby where Glamorgan continued their poor run. Batting first, they could not do what so many other sides did only made 236. Martin Guptill and Wayne Madsen both scored centuries as Derbyshire showed just how far below par Glamorgan were. David Wainwright’s 5-51 in the second innings meant that they had an easy chase and won comfortably.

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  • England win by five wickets

    I got the margin of victory off by one wicket. And that wicket fell with two runs to win. I’m kind of annoyed about that, but otherwise my thought last night that it would be tricky for England at first but ultimately comfortable was fairly accurate. Cook and Bell progressed serenely in a partnership of 132 for the fifth wicket that all but won England the match.

    It was actually a pretty good, one might almost say ‘standard’, Test. Not particularly close, but not a blowout and a couple of sessions of negative bowling by England aside there was always something to watch. I don’t think either side will be too happy with the Test, however. England will be happy to have won, but did not ever seem to really play as well as they should and have a lot on which to work before the Trent Bridge Test on Friday. The West Indies overperformed, but if one had not expected them to be hammered one would probably not say they played particularly well, though it is a mark of how much they overperformed that one would also not say they played particularly poorly and certainly played as well as any average side would be expected to. They will also be disappointed to have lost.

    As mentioned on a previous day, England’s bowling in this Test was at best average and at worst poor. Even with the standard caveats of good batting by Chanderpaul; a flat pitch and not a lot of swing, one would have to say that England need to improve. Jimmy was certainly off his best, despite bowling better than his figures suggested. Broad bowled well, but was rather flattered by his figures. Bresnan was simply poor and Swann did not get a chance to feature heavily, but managed to get the prize wicket of Chanderpaul as well as the important one of Bravo in the second innings. I think they will improve, however. One of the problems was that, as far as I know, none of them had more than one or two county matches in which to prepare. I think Jimmy especially needs more than the one match he got to really find his rhythm for the summer. The same, to a lesser extent, applies to Broad as well and although he was good in this Test I think he will be better in the next one. I think, however, that Bresnan needs some more time with Yorkshire. He has not looked quite the same since he returned from injury and I think he just needs more time in the middle with bat and ball. We have enough bowling depth to play Finn and/or Onions for the rest of this series. In hindsight (and this is not meant as a criticism because it was not as clear before the match) Onions should have played in this Test where the conditions would have been very well suited to him.

    The West Indies need to work on their running between the wickets. A lot. They lost wickets in both innings to horrible mix-ups and could (arguably should) have had the Chanderpaul-Samuels partnership broken by one in the second innings. As important as that is, they also need to improve their batting in general. As mentioned above their performance was not in any way poor, but that does not mean that it does not need improvement. Especially in the first innings they still lost wickets to injudicious shots and the dismissal of Sammy in the second is almost cause enough to strip him of the captaincy. They did not collapse the way they could have (and did at home) and now their task is to build on that and improve. In the field they need to work on sustaining pressure. I never thought they were going to win today, but they did not put up much of a fight after dismissing KP. Even before then the field setting was odd (a problem we saw in Australia too) and there were always runs on offer. Despite losing two early wickets and being 57-4 (though one of those was a nightwatchman), England scored 121 runs in the morning session. It was a rate one would normally associate with well set batsman going effortlessly, not fighting through a difficult first hour. There was some poor bowling, only Roach was going really well, but a lot of very poor captaincy from Sammy. The field placing was terrible and the decision to bring the part time spinner on to bowl to Ian Bell was baffling.

    Looking ahead to Trent Bridge, I think both teams ought to make changes. England should bring in one of Finn or Onions for Bresnan. Right now I would lean toward Finn, but that is without seeing the conditions. If it is a relatively quick wicket then I would certainly prefer Finn’s pace and bounce, though if it is slow then Onions’ ability to bowl at the stumps and move the ball in the air might be preferable. That should be the only change; whilst Bairstow only made 16, he did so comfortably and deserves another go. The West Indies must bring in a proper spinner this time. Samuels might buy a couple of wickets, but we already saw Bell take him apart. Shillingford will presumably replace one of the quicks and I suspect it will be Gabriel, as promising as the debutant looked. It is worth noting, however, that Roach appeared to have a slight ankle problem. There is also an outside chance that Edwards will be dropped after being wayward once again. It would be a gamble to ask Gabriel to lead the attack, however. The bowler who probably should be replaced is Sammy, but as the captain that will not happen.

    The ball will almost certainly swing more at Trent Bridge than it did at Lord’s and it will be interesting to see if the West Indies can continue their fight. I may have mentioned it already, but in 2007 the West Indies batted very well at Lord’s before rain intervened. They then went to Headingley and lost by an innings and 283 runs, though there were some extenuating circumstances. I think the next Test will be more of a challenge for them than this one was; England will have likely improved and the conditions will be tougher. Weather permitting, England can expect to win. Whether the West Indies can make another good Test of it will tell us a lot about the nature of their improvement.

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  • Eng v WI, Lord’s, day four: Eng 10-2

    There will be a fifth day. I did not expect that, in fact I’m not sure anyone expected that. There was apparently more than one journalist who checked out of the hotel this morning. The West Indies fought well, but it has to be said that England bowled poorly. By England’s usual standards it was actually abysmal. Most of the morning was spent trying to contain Chanderpaul and Samuels. Strictly speaking it worked, as the run rate dropped, but it should come as no surprise that Chanderpaul was never tempted into an injudicious shot. As annoying as that was, it did at least seem to be leading up to a proper attack with the second new ball. Except once England got that second new ball, Broad and Anderson kept bowling wide! The length was also a bit too short and they were not making the batsmen play nearly enough. When Broad finally got one full and nipping away it was edged to slip, but the lesson did not seem to sink in. The West Indies fought well (and I do want to make it clear that I think Chanderpaul and Samuels batted very well when not trying to run themselves out), but it was poor bowling by England. For whatever reason, they looked toothless. To be fair, the pitch was flat and the old ball was not really swinging. (And the new one was only a bit.) The lack of swing was probably the biggest problem. Not only was it too cold for the ball to really swing, but England have to use the current (2012) Duke’s balls as they have run out of the 2010 models. For whatever reason (and the people at Duke’s need to find that reason out so they can replicate it) the 2010 balls swung much more than either the 2011 balls or this year’s balls. Last year England did not even use the 2011 balls, preferring the leftover 2010 models. With those gone, England have to work with the less helpful balls. Still, that is no excuse. The ball should not have swung at all in Sri Lanka at all, but they made it work there. At home with some runs with which to work they ought to have done much, much better.

    England batted for four overs before stumps. It’s always tricky to do so and I was not terribly surprised to see a wicket go down. It is a situation for the bowlers similar to that of a rugby side playing with a penalty advantage: they can attack unhesitatingly knowing that even if it fails they can just start again the next day. The wicket to fall came off a very good ball and there was very little Strauss could do about it. This did not prevent people from suggesting that it in some way negated his first innings century or that he was not back to form after all. (Both patently ridiculous, of course.) It also meant that there was something akin to panic on Twitter. England were blowing it again, collapsing to an ignominious defeat this time to a weak team at home. The subsequent dismissal of the nightwatchman confirmed this. One wicket was bad, but the loss of James Anderson was vital. One would think that he was key to the run chase and without him England were surely going to lose.

    Annoyance with the reaction aside, it really was a good four overs to watch. It’s not nearly often enough one sees the West Indies look like they think they can accomplish something. Roach bowled very well and we got much more lively cricket than when England were bowling negatively and the match was drifting a bit. Anderson’s wicket will not affect the result (except for that if England win the official margin will be different) but it did lead to the very exciting appeal and subsequent review for lbw against Trott. If he had been dismissed it would have put the match more in the balance. As it is, I do not think England have anything about which to worry. The pitch is still very flat, the West Indies do not have a spinner in the side, the forecast tomorrow is quite good and England only need 181 more with five specialist batsmen plus Prior not out. That’s not to say that England can’t lose, of course, but they are still strong favourites.

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  • Eng v WI, Lord’s, day three: WI 120-4

    On the face of it, today was certainly a much better day for the West Indies than the first two of the Test. They came out in the morning with a new ball in some of the best conditions of the Test and restricted England to 398 all out. I said yesterday that they had to prevent a partnership from forming with Bell and someone who would be able to increase the scoring rate and that is exactly what they did. With some poor weather forecast later in the Test, England did appear to be consciously trying to get some quick runs and the West Indies did very well to usually make sure it was at the cost of a wicket. Jonny Bairstow looked pretty comfortable on debut, but went for only 16 and Prior had looked set too before he missed a straight one trying to flick it through mid-wicket. Only Tim Bresnan looked uncertain and he made a very quick duck. The bowlers were not faultless, however. Ian Bell always looked like he wasn’t going to get out unless he was the last man and Graeme Swann, whilst a decent batsman, was hitting orthodox cover drives to the boundary. A decent batsman he may be, but he is not so good that he should be able to get to thirty off 25 without some help from the bowling. Still, it was a creditable effort and kept the West Indies in the match, albeit barely.

    They also managed a bit with the bat. It was not a fluent second innings to set a total, the scoreboard shows that much, but it was a far cry from the catastrophes they had at home. It was much more like what they did in the first innings: the bowlers on top for most of it, but not getting as many wickets as one would expect. By the end of the day they looked pretty comfortable. They in fact did exceedingly well (or were exceedingly lucky) to survive Jimmy Anderson’s spell with the new ball. They did show just a glimmer of their old form, however, and it was enough to cost them three wickets. After Bresnan got the first wicket, England all but telegraphed that they were going to bounce Powell. Broad came around the wicket with two men out on the hook. Between the capacity crowd at the ground and those watching on telly, there were no fewer than 100,000 people who knew what was coming. Powell was not amongst them. Broad’s bouncer was good, but Powell was surprised. He tried to hook, a bit half-heartedly, and could only get under it and sky an easy catch to Bell. That was bad. Worse was the horrible running mix-up on the stroke of tea. Bravo hit one to Bairstow and Edwards came halfway down the pitch before being sent back. It was one of the highlights of the day for England though as the debutant threw down the stumps directly.

    Despite the flaws, it was clearly a better day for the West Indies. They can at least show up tomorrow knowing that the match could have been over by now. Part of the reason it is not, however, is the over rate again. Today we played six and a half hours and still lost five overs. That is unacceptable and the fault is with the West Indies again. By my maths, England batted for a total of eight hours and 48 minutes in their innings. That gives a ‘raw’ rate of 12.90 overs/hour. The ICC Test regulations section 16.3 set out a minimum rate of 15 overs/hour with two minutes allotted per wicket (when a new batsman comes in) and four per drinks break. There is also an exemption for reviews and other ‘unavoidable’ delays. By my count, in this innings that gives 18 minutes for wickets, 16 for drinks and let’s say another ten for reviews etc. The revised over rate is still only 14.07, far too low. Put another way, in the eight hours and four minutes of ‘real’ batting time the West Indies were seven overs short of the minimum of 121. The good news for Darren Sammy is that it looks like England will bat again and give him a chance to make up for lost time.

    Tomorrow will probably see England win. The West Indies have done better than they might have and better than I thought they would, but the fact remains that they are in a pretty desperate position. Four down and still 35 runs in arrears means they will probably need to bat all day tomorrow and also probably won’t. They resisted today, but once again most of it was due to Chanderpaul and they are dependent on him staying around. If he does and they keep fighting the way they have done today they might last into the afternoon session, but that will still leave England with a fairly small target. My guess is that they will last past lunch, but only barely and England will knock the runs off around tea.

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  • Eng v WI, Lord’s, day two: Eng 259-3

    A great day for England, they’ve put themselves in charge of this Test. This highlight was, of course, Andrew Strauss’ unbeaten century, his fifth at Lord’s. He looked fluent almost all day (until he got into the nineties) and hit some of the best drives down the ground one can hope to see. Upon reaching the milestone, he got what sounded to me like an unusually sustained ovation from a packed Lord’s. Every second of it was absolutely deserved, one could see the determination writ across Strauss’ face during his innings and his delight was palpable when he got to his century. I noted three types of reactions. Most common was the delight. I think almost every England supporter wanted to see Strauss score a century and as noted above the appreciation shown by the Lord’s crowd was immense. The second, and rather amusing, reaction was from the people quickly covering themselves by explaining why all the previous ‘questions’ had still been warranted. As I mentioned the other day, I don’t think they were justified, but I do accept that if they were then this innings would not have changed that. It would simply have meant that he had answered the questions they had set. I still found it amusing to see how quickly people started to defend themselves, however. The reaction that was not amusing (but was at least in a small minority) was that of those who immediately said that a hundred against the West Indies was meaningless. I’ll be the first to admit that runs against a small side should be noted and treated as such, but if a batsman is poor enough to be dropped then he or she is not going to score a century against anyone. It’s especially ridiculous in the case of Strauss because the ‘problem’ has always been that he was getting starts and not going on. This time, however, he set himself and made sure that he did go on. The weakness of the attack was not relevant.

    Of course, there was another batsman at the crease during all this. For most of the day it was Trott, after Cook got a little bit careless in the morning session. Trott batted well, clipped the ball through mid-wicket a lot as usual and generally looked pretty untroubled until getting out to a bit of a rash shot. There had been a very unusual incident with his batting after lunch, however. With Fidel Edwards bowling, he fished at one outside off, there was a small noise and a stifled appeal by the Windies. The fieldsmen never acted as though they thought it was out and the umpire did not look like he really considered the half-appeal. Hot Spot and Snicko both subsequently showed, however, that the noise heard was definitely a faint outside edge! Trott was lucky there and he had also been lucky just prior to that as he survived an lbw shout and a review that had the ball just barely not hitting enough of leg to be overturned. Needless to say, there was no comment from those who claim that the DRS is unfairly increasing the odds of an lbw.

    For most of the day the West Indies were poor. England’s overnight score of 259-3 is one which may look a little bit low at first, I think especially with England one expects closer to 275-300 runs in a day, but this is not because the Windies kept the scoring rate down. It was around four an over in the morning and even though it dropped from there it still ended up well above three an over. The problem was the West Indies over rate. Even accounting for 2.5 overs lost in the morning to the change of innings, the West Indies only managed 80.2 overs before bad light stopped play after the scheduled close. They hardly have the excuse of wickets falling either. Their overall rate was an appalling 13.3 overs per hour and even assuming one minute for each wicket and two minutes for each drinks break it only goes up to 13.7 overs per hour. It had been clear for some time before bad light stopped play that even an extra half hour was not going to allow all of the overs to bowled. In the overs that they did manage to bowl, the ball did very little off the seam and very little in the air. But one gets the feeling that if England had been bowling the conditions would have appeared a lot more helpful. It was a bit like yesterday in that it was not the shambles it could have been, but nor was it ever close to enough.

    England go into tomorrow with their two most under-fire batsmen at the crease: Strauss and Bell. Strauss has already made his hundred and Bell made one in the County Championship as well. I don’t think he is nearly out of form as many people think (remember that he averaged 118 in 2011) and is up against an attack that suits him. I would not be at all surprised to see him get a hundred as well. Jonny Bairstow will finally get a chance to bat tomorrow once one of Strauss or Bell is out and I am looking forward to that. He has been doing well in the LV=CC and as I recall he looked pretty good in the handful of ODIs in which he played. He is also a pretty fast scorer and if he gets in along with Bell, Prior or Broad England have a chance to pile on the runs quickly. They already lead by 16, so the West Indies cannot afford to let that happen.

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  • Eng v WI, Lord’s, day one: WI 243-9

    There were two talking points today before play had even started: England’s team selection and Strauss’ decision to bowl first after winning his first toss in four matches. Whilst I understand the decision to play Bresnan, I would not have done so. He is a good bowler and he adds quite a bit to the side, but I don’t think this was the best occasion for him. The conditions actually most suited Graham Onions and I think Steven Finn would have added some very nice variation to the attack. Purely looking at the bowling, both would probably have been better selections, In a way, I think Bresnan’s main qualification is almost his batting. I can certainly see the argument for using batting skill as a tie-breaker of sorts for bowlers, but with Stuart Broad already in the side along with six batsmen and Matt Prior it is rather superfluous. With Bresnan in the side, we comfortably bat down to nine with Swann at ten. That sounds like an argument in favour of Bresnan, of course, and fact that we can bat so deep without seriously compromising our bowling is definitely a good thing. We have seen lower order partnerships either save us or break the back of the opposition many times before. Against the West Indies, however, it’s probably excessive. In my mind, the benefit of playing a stronger bowler is greater than the benefit of extra batting that is probably extraneous anyway. I’d have gone for Finn.

    I do, however, agree with Strauss’ decision to bowl first. The pitch is pretty flat, but there was some moisture in it, there was some cloud cover and there was already a strong indication that the West Indies were not going to play a spinner. The Lord’s pitch has been known to actually get better as the match goes on as well, so there was almost nothing to lose by bowling and an opportunity to see if the West Indies would implode.

    The Windies did not do so and it is a credit to them. Jimmy Anderson certainly did not make it easy, but the Windies showed some proper application this time and England had to work for a lot of the wickets. The only times we saw the Windies to which we are used was when Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Darren Bravo found themselves at the same end, glaring at each other. It was Shiv’s fault, but Bravo was the man out. Shiv is a great player, but he has had accusations of selfishness levelled at him before and I think we saw a bit of that today. Not only did he make sure he was not the one to pay for his failed calling, he exposed Fidel Edwards in the last over of the day. Edwards did not make it to stumps.

    There was also some discussion during the day of Chris Gayle and how much the West Indies theoretically miss him. One would get the impression from listening to people that he would be scoring a century by lunch and keeping the West Indies in the match single-handed. In fact, he only averages 36 in England with one century in 21 innings. In his last six Tests in England he has only passed fifty twice and last time he played at Lord’s he made 28 and nought against an attack that was not as good as the current one. The subject of where he ought to be playing is one for it’s own post, but there is no reason to suspect that the West Indies would be substantially better off in this Test or on this tour with him in the side.

    I don’t think the West Indies were particularly poor today. Certainly it was not like what we frequently saw from them against Australia. At the same time, England did not look quite at their best, particularly in the morning session. All the same, England are in the stronger position overnight and deservedly so. They may not have been at their best, but they did play the better cricket over the course of the day. Anderson looked lethal, though that’s nothing unusual, and Broad came back from a poor morning to blow away most of the tail with a combination of fortune and some brilliant deliveries. Today was a case of a very good side playing a fairly poor one. Given how it went, one shudders to think what will happen when England find their stride or the West Indies slip back into their old routine.

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  • Captaincy issues

    I have been having a very interesting discussion on Twitter about the merits of various styles of captaincy. This was born, probably fairly predictably, out of a different discussion about Andrew Strauss’ place in the current England side. There were two very interesting questions raised: is captaincy skill reason enough to justify selection and what skills are most important for a captain?

    With regard to the first question, I would answer ‘yes’ in almost all cases. The captaincy is almost a specialist position in itself and skill or lack thereof there can have as much an impact on the match as runs or wickets directly taken by the player. The best example of this is probably Mike Brearley. Brearley is rightly famous for his captaincy and boasts not only the fifth highest W/L ratio all time (amongst Englishmen he is behind only Douglas Jardine) but also a record of 11 wins and just one loss in 15 Ashes Tests. He also had a Test batting average just under 23. The goal of a Test match is to win and it is clear that a very good captain can increase the odds of winning even if he or she is a poor batsman. The question of selection is not then ‘pick the best five or six batsmen, a ‘keeper and four or five bowlers’, it is a more general matter of picking the eleven players whose combination of skills provide the best chance of winning a Test match. Depending on the circumstance, one might have a team with very skilled players who can carry a poor captain (eg: Ricky Ponting in the Warne/McGrath era) or one might have a team in which a very good captain causes his team to perform at a higher level than they would otherwise and is thus worth more to the team than a better batsman/bowler. I prefer the latter, but clearly both can work. It is a matter for the selectors to determine which course the situation of the team requires.

    How that relates to Strauss then ties into the second question of which skills are most important. As a captain, Strauss has been both lauded for his man-management and criticised for his negativity. The question is whether his captaincy is good enough to offset his form with the bat and I would say that it is. I have certainly not refrained from criticising Strauss when I have felt that it is warranted, but this does not mean I think he is anything other than a very good captain. He has the misfortune of being a captain whose weakest area, tactics, is the one most publicly visible. His work in uniting the dressing room, however, has been utterly astounding. Remember that he took over a very fractured one and managed to transition the ‘old guard’ out with a minimum of fuss whilst at the same time winning an Ashes series that we were not expected to. Since then he has managed to get the very most out of all the players (with the exception of Morgan) and has won the respect of the team. His influence has been visible in some of the ODI series where Cook has been in charge, most notably in India. Cook struggled to control the team when the results were not going their way, this is not something that happens when Strauss is in charge. His calm demeanour and the respect the players have for him has ensured that England have stayed professional even on the occasions where things have not gone their way.

    This is not to say that I think tactical ability is completely unnecessary, merely that one can compensate for it. I actually rate Michael Vaughan as one of the best ever England captains because of his tactical genius, but what he and Strauss both exhibit is a massive amount of skill in one area or the other. As with the first question, we have a situation where both man-management and tactics can be successful with the right people in the right circumstances. Finding someone who can do both would be ideal, of course, but a rare luxury. As to which is ‘better’ it is a matter of opinion, but I personally prefer a tactician. As important as it is to have all the players behind the captain, one needs to look no farther than the 2005 Ashes to see the benefits of a tactically astute captain. Cricket is a cerebral game and if a captain can outthink the opposition then the battle is halfway won already. Again, good management can adequately compensate for tactics, but given a straight choice I would choose a tactician.

    What does not work, however, is a ‘leader’. I have seen it suggested more than once and more than once have the selectors decided that the best player ought to get the captaincy. I almost think this is from people who watch too much football. In football, all the captain has to do is play well and ‘inspire’ the other ten men. Cricket is not the same, however. A cricket captain has to have something between his or her hears to succeed. To see that this does not work, one needs look no farther than Freddie Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen. (Though one is welcome to look back to Ian Botham too, if one wishes.) Both were unmitigated disasters. Both were captains who played very well, but were tactically inept and could not control the players.

    All of the above should give a good indication of why Strauss should have a very secure place in the side. He is not a perfect captain, but there are very few of those and he is a very good one. His captaincy provides more to the side than the runs of another batsman would (and that’s even assuming that Strauss’ contributions with the bat are and will continue to be negligible, neither of which I think are true), if he is dropped the side will be worse off overall.

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  • Injury woes

    The Royals announced today that Danny Duffy will very likely undergo Tommy John surgery after coming out of Sunday’s game after just 2/3 of an inning. He will thus join Soria in being out for the rest of the season and in Duffy’s case he will miss at least the first month of the 2013 season as well.

    This is a continuation of a bad trend for the Royals. As I type this, the 34th game of the year is being played in Texas. In Spring Training and those first 33 games of the season the Royals have sent six pitchers to the DL. Joakim Soria, Blake Wood, Felipe Paulino, Greg Holland and Jonathan Sanchez are the other five and their absences have all hurt the Royals. I have lost count of the number of roster moves we have made; there has been a revolving door between the bullpen and Omaha. Nate Adcock returned to the Royals today after spending less than 48 hours at Omaha. In addition to the pitchers there have also been two would-be starting position players, Salvador Perez and Lorenzo Cain, placed on the DL and a pair of reserves, Manny Pina and Yuniesky Betancourt, are also unavailable. (Though Betancourt’s injury is probably more of a benefit to the Royals than anything else.) It’s no excuse for our record, of course, (the Nationals and Orioles both have more injury concerns and are both in or near first place anyway) but it is a significant hurdle. For such a young side to lose a very promising catcher, an all-star closer and a large chunk of the pitching staff is to ask probably too much of those remaining.

    This could be bad luck, but the more injuries we see the less likely that is to be the case. It could also be something more worrying. Either the training staff need to look hard at what the problem could be or the front office need to look hard at the training staff. There was not a lot expected of the Royals this season and thus not a lot to be lost by these injuries, but in the upcoming years that stops being the case. We can still (theoretically) play over .500 with these injuries, but if we have to use the DL ten times before England play a Test in 2013 or 2014 it will likely scupper any hopes we may have of competing for the Central Division title.

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  • LV=CC week six roundup

    Another heavily rain-affected week in the County Championship last week finished with only one positive result. That result was in a contrived match at Bristol where Yorkshire managed to chase 400 in just over a day. There was very nearly another, however, as Surrey were forced to follow-on at New Road before managing to set the hosts 260 to win and reducing them to 150-8. There was not quite enough time for a memorable victory, however. There was also a contrived match at Leicester with the hosts nine down when time time ran out. The full results:

    Sussex drew with Lancashire
    Durham drew with Somerset
    Nottinghamshire drew with Middlesex
    Worcestershire drew with Surrey
    Essex drew with Kent
    Yorkshire beat Gloucestershire by four wickets
    Hampshire drew with Derbyshire
    Leicestershire drew with Northamptonshire

    Naturally, there has not been a great change in the table this week with only one result. The fact that Notts played and Warwicks didn’t has put the former on top of the division one table, but given that Warwickshire have two matches in hand I don’t think they will be worried. Yorkshire’s contrived victory in the second division has seen them fly up to second in the table. It is an interesting indication too of just how big of a difference even two victories can still make and one which will probably not be lost on Lancashire or Durham.

    Whilst there was not a lot of time, there were still some very notable performances. Standing out, of course, are the centuries for Phil Jaques (160) and Gary Ballance (121*) in Yorkshire’s improbable victory at Bristol. That match also featured 111 for Kane Williamson and 5-81 for Tim Bresnan in Gloucs’ first innings. The match at Trent Bridge saw 162 from Michael Lumb countered by 143* from Ollie Rayner as the match never came close to a result. Not nearly as large, but still notable was the unbeaten 43* for the England Captain in the second innings. Surrey’s escape/near victory at New Road naturally included some very impressive batting performances in the second innings, including 115 for Rory Hamilton-Brown and 143 for Tom Maynard. Smaller, but again notable, was KP’s 69 after coming in with Surrey on 11-2 after following-on. Kent’s first innings at Chelmsford saw five ducks and nine single digit scores. And 119 for Darren Stevens. He and Geriant Jones (88) put on 196 for the sixth wicket after coming together at 9-5. The main destroyer for Essex was Charl Willoughby who took 5-70 and four of Kent’s top five batsmen. Derbyshire retained their spot at the summit of Division Two in a tame draw at Southampton. Their first innings of 403-9 featured centuries from Wes Durston (121) and Dan Redfern (133). This was after Hants skipper Jimmy Adams scored 122 in the first innings.

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