Ten best sporting moments of 2011

I know the sporting year isn’t over yet. I actually had a conversation on Twitter about whether I ought to write a ‘year end’ style post or save it for after the Test. I decided to save my full year in review post for later, but at the same time I would be very surprised if anything happened that warranted an inclusion on this list. If I’m wrong I can always write a revision as well, so with that in mind here are my top ten sporting moments of 2011:

10 – New Zealand winning the Hobart Test
I know my Aussie readers won’t like this, but it was a pretty important moment. New Zealanders probably care more about winning the Rugby World Cup, but they had not won a Test in Australia for 26 years before this. Doug Bracewell may be a great find for the Kiwis and the conclusion of the match was one of the most thrilling you will see.

9 – Tigers winning Game 5 of the ALDS
I love watching the Yankees lose. I love watching the Yankees lose deciding games in the playoffs even more. But most of all I love watching Alex Rodriguez strike out to lose a deciding game in the playoffs in front of a very put out Yankee Stadium crowd.

8 – Royals winning a three game series in New York
The Royals spent most of the month of April this year in or near first place. (It’s true, look it up.) Whilst losing six in a row to the Rangers and Indians at the end of April basically put an end to any notion of contending, there were still bright spots after that. In the second week of May the Royals travelled to New York and won two out of three against the Yankees. The deciding game of the series saw the Royals score six runs in the second inning, including Eric Hosmer’s second major league home run and some terrible defensive mistakes by the Yankees. It was the Royals first series win in New York since 1999.

7 – Manchester United 1-6 Manchester City
It was the match that that caused the media to accept City as genuine title contenders. More importantly it was the match that made United supporters very cross and thus made Liverpool supporters like myself very happy.

6 – Australia reduced to 21-9 at Cape Town
With apologies to my Australian readers. Though as much as I enjoyed this I was more astonished to watch the innings unfold. On no fewer than three occasions I thought there must surely be a recovery, surely they couldn’t lose another wicket. I was wrong on all three occasions, as by the time the recovery did come I had stopped expecting it. Almost as amazing as the innings itself was the shot selection of Brad Haddin and the fact that he wasn’t immediately dropped because of it. Both defy belief.

5 – England winning the Cardiff Test
I already used this in my best moments in English cricket this year, so there isn’t a lot more to say. Nonetheless, it was incredible watching England go from just wanting a few wickets to Sri Lanka not even coming close to saving the Test and certainly belongs on this list as well.

4 – Virender Sehwag making a king pair at Edgbaton/Stuart Broad’s Trent Bridge hat trick
I’ve included these together for their similarity, not only because they both involve Indian wickets falling cheaply. Broad’s hat trick marked the end of the last time India would have an advantage in the series, but I think Sehwag’s king pair marked the last time India had any real hope. It was also a moment of personal pleasure, because Sehwag is massively overrated. He has a good record on the flat pitches of the subcontinent and that is it; his aggression is not suited for English conditions or anywhere the ball does a bit. After the second Test I read about and saw Indians claiming that he would save the series for them and I rather enjoyed being vindicated.

3 – Cardinals winning Game 6 of the World Series
I’m a Royals fan, but years of living amongst Cardinals fans in Kirksville made me rather sympathetic to them. (Though I always hated when they would gripe about ‘barely being .500’ or some such.) Add that to the fact that I hate the Texas Rangers and I was definitely cheering for the Cardinals in the last World Series. Even if I hadn’t, however, I think their multiple comebacks in Game 6 would have had to rank high on a list of best sporting moments, as it was absolutely astonishing.

2 & 1 – Lancashire winning the County Championship and England winning the Ashes
How could I not copy these from my first list? England winning the Ashes in Australia is the only thing that could possibly trump Lancashire winning the title outright. Neither had ever happened before in my lifetime and for them both to happen this year is almost an embarrassment of riches. I have little doubt they will be on a list of best moments in the decade should I make one in 2020.

Edited to add: The Guardian have produced their list of cricketing moments, but there is a lot of World Cup stuff at the expense of Lancs.

Saturday review – 17 Dec

After the thrilling start to the week with New Zealand winning in Hobart, it’s been pretty dull. I haven’t watched the start of the Big Bash; it starts at 02.00 here and in any case last time I watched Shane Warne bowl I had nightmares for about four years. (They stopped just over a year ago.) India played a warmup match against players of whom I have never heard and probably encouraged Australia with their performance. Outside Oz England announced their tour match opponents and Sri Lanka, still missing Murali (who has the third highest wickets per match ratio in history), lost the first Test against South Africa by an innings and 81 runs.

My favourite two articles this week were about Lancashire legend Roy Tattersall, who died late last week. Andrew Hignell in the Cricketer wrote primarily about Tatt’s role in helping Lancs share the 1950 title and Paul Edwards in Cricinfo wrote more broadly about Tatt’s life and career, both during and after his time at Lancashire. Both are fantastic articles.

There is an excellent ‘letter’ posted at King Cricket this week. The writers make some very good points and I’ll certainly try to bring my blog in line with their recommendations.

In Cricinfo, Harsha Bhogle has a good look at Australia’s recent captains and the differing tasks facing Dhoni and Clarke for Boxing Day. I found the historic look the most interesting of almost anything I read this week.

Also in Cricinfo (I spend a lot of my time there) Andy Zaltzman looks in his own almost indescribable way at Australia’s recent batting woes and at the form of dolphins hunting in the Tasman Sea.

AM XI v England XI

England’s opponents for the warmup matches in the UAE were finally announced today and the first match will be against a combined Associates and Affiliate XI led by Irish captain William Porterfield. It’ll only be a warmup match, of course, but it’s still a rather interesting matchup. There are three Irish players in the AM XI, Boyd Rankin and George Dockrell are playing alongside their national captain, and all played in Ireland’s World Cup victory over England last march. (And it wouldn’t be impossible for all three to play for England at some point in the future.) Thee are also two Scotsmen in the side, so the home nations are well represented. The match will be in Dubai and will be followed by a match against a PCB XI at a venue still to be decided.

The AM XI looks like a pretty strong side compared to the usual opponents in a tour match, which is a good thing I think. England have not played Test cricket in some time and it would not do for them to be rusty going into a series against a side who have been playing very well recently. It’s also nice to see the tour fixtures sorted at all since it’s only a month now until the first Test. I can hardly wait.

Pakistan v England stats

I always rather enjoy going through Statsguru on Cricinfo, and after looking at some of Sri Lanka’s stats yesterday, today I thought I’d look at Pakistan’s and England’s statistics over the last twelve months and how they compare going into next month’s Test series.

England and Pakistan have been the two best sides over the past twelve months by a considerable distance. England have won seven and lost just one Test in that time and Pakistan have won five and lost one. No other side has a win-loss ratio above 1.00 and no other side has won more than four Tests in that time. (Australia have won four and lost four, India have won four and lost five.)

England have been in dominating form. The twelve month period began with the defeat at Perth, but then included a pair of innings victories over Australia and India each and one over Sri Lanka. The gulf between England and the rest of the world with the bat is astonishing. England average 48.30 with 17 centuries (five of them unbeaten) both numbers easily the best in the world. The next best average is Pakistan’s 39.56 and the overall average for the rest of the world is 29.57. In other words England average almost 200 runs more in a completed innings than the rest of the world. There were 57 centuries hit in the past twelve months by teams other than England, with the most for any one team being India’s ten. England’s 17 centuries come at an average or 1.7 per match (fairly easy maths there), whilst the rest of the world average 0.84 centuries per Test and that is not even accounting for the number of times England have only needed to bat once! There is less of a gap with the ball, as England’s bowling average of 26.58 is only the second best in the world, behind Pakistan’s 26.14. The average amongst other sides in this case is 34.78 so England are still comfortably better, but not by as much. England have also done well bowling sides out. They did so in eight of their ten matches over the past year and averaged 18.7 wickets per match (as a fielding side, i.e. including run outs). Only Pakistan at 19.4 fared better and the average amongst all other sides was 15.8.

Statistically then it should be a fantastic series in January. The best attack against the best batting order and the second best attack against the second best batting order. England’s stats have come against stronger sides than Pakistan’s in that time, but both sides beat Sri Lanka 1-0 at home. England have also never played in the UAE, so an analysis adjusted for home field advantage cannot be made. I’m very much looking forward to seeing how things play out come 17 January.

Test squad for UAE tour

England have announced the squad for the three test series against Pakistan in the UAE in January. In a sign of not only unusual but almost unprecedented stability there is only one chance from the Ashes squad with Ravi Bopara replacing the retired Paul Collingwood. The selection probably closest to a surprise is that Steve Davies retains his place as reserve keeper for the test matches. There was a strong suggestion that he’d fallen behind Bairstow in the pecking order, but it seems that was only for limited overs matches. Hopefully it won’t be relevant, of course. Matt Prior has a strong case for being the best wicket keeper in the world right now and if England have to field any reserve it will be a huge blow. Monty Panesar retains his place as the second spinner, which is not a huge surprise. It was not so long ago that he was the first choice and the other possible selections don’t look like challenging him at the moment. Samit Patel still has a lot of work to do to get into the test side, even if he is moving in the right direction, and Simon Kerrigan is still unproven, even at county level. There wasn’t any place in the squad for Graham Onions, putting a swift end to my suggestion that he play as a fourth seamer.

The squad announcement doesn’t leave much room for speculation about the starting XI in Dubai. Barring any late injuries, nine of the order are set in stone and a tenth, Eoin Morgan, is almost a certainty given the selectors’ preference for six batsmen. (With which I disagree, given the batting abilities of Prior and Broad, but that cause is long lost.) That leaves Bresnan, Tremlett, Finn and Panesar competing for the last bowling spot. I’ve said before that I’d give it to Bresnan and I still would, despite the lure of playing a second spinner. We saw in the Pakistan v Sri Lanka series that pace can be effective in the UAE, and Bresnan is a better bowler overall than Monty.

Pakistan have been playing very good cricket recently, and if they keep it up (a pretty big ‘if’ I know) they will be a huge challenge for England. It’s a strong squad though, there are no injuries (as much as I hate going six months without any cricket there are fitness advantages) so it should be a stronger side than the one that beat India so comprehensively at Edgbaston and the Oval last summer. It is shaping up to be a fantastic series and I’m starting to wish it too had a fourth test.

Euro 2012 draw etc

I was away doing actual work for most of the afternoon, but since then I have caught up on the details of he Euro 2012 draw. England were drawn in group D, alongside Ukraine, Sweden and France. It’s a pretty good draw, I think, though all of the group matches will be in Ukraine and England’s base is in Poland. (Surely it would have made more sense to find accommodations after the fixtures were set?) In fact, only if England win the group (unlikely) will they play a match in Poland (the semi-final).

England’s campaign will begin on the 11th of June against France. It will be an opportunity for revenge for the defeat at Wembley last year and the rugby players’ defeat in New Zealand, but more likely it will be a chance for another humiliating loss to France. It will probably also be the match that decides the group winner, although neither Ukraine or Sweden will be walkovers. If England finish as runners up their quarter final opponents will likely be Spain, so there will be a strong incentive to win the group, though the desire to not play Germany didn’t help in South Africa. If England do win the group they will probably play Italy, though there’s an outside chance that they would play the Republic of Ireland. That would be fun, but pretty unlikely. Either way I don’t see England going to the semi-final. Even less likely than a semi-final berth for England is one for a side from Group A. The quarter-final arrangements mean that two of Poland, Greece, Russia and the Czech Republic will face two of Holland, Denmark, Germany and Portugal.

It would be remiss of me if I didn’t look at those teams, make some vague and only partly accurate appraisals of their skills and use that to predict the course of the tournament. I’ll revise, or at least add specifics to this closer to the tournament, but for now my prediction is:
Group A
Greece
Czech Republic (Could easily switch with Greece)
Russia
Poland

Group B
Holland
Germany (Holland v Germany is 13 June, can’t wait)
Portugal
Denmark

Group C
Spain (duh)
Ireland (I am required to include at least one upset)
Italy
Croatia

Group D
France (I’m realistic)
England
Sweden
Ukraine

QFs:
Germany def Greece
Holland def Czech Republic
Spain def England
France def Ireland (via handball)

SFs:
Spain def Germany (probably)
Holland def France (easily)

Final: See 2010 World Cup. (Though I’d prefer a Holland v Germany final. What a match that would be.)

Samit Patel and the IPL

I’m very glad that Samit Patel declined to play in the IPL this year. He says that he needs to focus on Championship cricket to improve his chances of selection to the Test side. It would be easy for him to try to get some of the money on offer in the IPL with the knowledge that he is very unlikely to get a Test place anyway, but I am glad that he has chosen to fight for that slim chance all the same.

Right now his best chance of getting into the Test squad is probably as a second spinner for subcontinental tours. He’s probably still behind Monty Panesar for that spot and may soon be behind Simon Kerrigan, but he can bat better than either of them. It’s probably too late for him to get into this winter’s tours, but a full season next summer could boost his chances for selection against India, where he performed well in the recent ODIs. I’m not sure how much going to the IPL may have jeapordised those chances (it didn’t really hurt Eoin Morgan), but it would have caused him to miss almost half of the Championship. It probably can’t hurt for him to make his priorities clear to the England management though and a good season will ensure that his name is at least mentioned.

SPOTY shortlist

The BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist has been announced and both Strauss and Cook are in the running for the award. I’m hoping one of them wins, of course. I’m leaning toward Cook, he had the better year on the field. (Though since it’s the sports personality award I fail to see how Graeme Swann, or at least Jimmy Anderson, doesn’t win every single year. It should at least go to someone with a Twitter account.) The full list is on the BBC website. It’s been noted that it is not a particularly diverse list, there are no women on it at all this year. There also aren’t any footballers or rugby players in the running, though that’s less surprising given the state of the national teams.

There is also an award for team of the year, which must surely either go to the England cricket team or to Lancashire. I’d give it to Lancs. We all knew England were good at the start of the year, if not that they were so good as to beat India 4-0. No one expected Lancashire to win the County Championship though; some even predicted we would be relegated! We had a team comprised almost entirely of homegrown talent, mostly very young and inexperienced. Lancashire were a team in that they were greater than the sum of their parts this year. To an extent this was also true of England, but the national side had the services of the second best fast bowler in the world a lot more often than the Red Rose. I think Lancashire are clearly the most deserving team.

Saturday review – 26 Nov

My weekly look at my favourite stories and blogs starts with one that I saw just after finishing last week’s review. Sky Sports’ Dave Tickner argues that Test cricket is not dying, but changing for the worse. The statistics about the rise of two Test ‘series’ like the one we saw in South Africa are troubling, if not outright alarming. It’s an analysis with which I am inclined to agree, for the most part.

Giles Clarke today wrote a piece reaffirming the ECB’s commitment to Test cricket. It’s a response to a piece in the Telegraph yesterday and it’s a pretty good one. Although I still don’t agree with the logic of having extra World Cup preparation instead of a Test match, he does well to explain why the decision is not all about money. Oddly though, he also says that international cricket is not allowed to clash with the Olympics, despite the fact that the second Test against South Africa is scheduled to do just that. I assume some part of that is mistaken, but I don’t know what.

At Cricinfo, Anantha Narayanan has a piece looking at the most significant hundreds under a variety of conditions. It’s a very good read if you like statistics. (And who doesn’t like statistics?)

Andy Bull writes for the Guardian about a WWI naval battle and cricketers who have read their own obituaries. After one of the better introductions to a cricket article, it eventually gets around to a discussion about the possibly premature obituaries for Ricky Ponting’s career.

The Lancashire website has a lovely story about the scorer for the club. I’m not sure exactly when it popped up, but I didn’t see it until this week (Tuesday I think) and it’s a very good read.

Anyone who regularly reads these will have noticed that I tend to follow cricket more closely than the other sports about which I blog. I don’t read cricket blogs exclusively though and this week there was an amusing post by Bath Rugby’s Sam Vesty on Living Rugby. (Living Rugby is an excellent site all round, it should be noted.)

Who are England’s best bowlers?

It’s been a common question over the last several years, but for once it’s because of a surplus of talent rather than a dearth. Assuming everyone is fit (and there are question marks about Chris Tremlett and Stuart Broad) the contenders for probably three (maybe four) fast bowling places are James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Tim Bresnan, Chris Tremlett, Steve Finn and Graham Onions. Anderson is guaranteed his place and Broad, if fit, probably is too. Bresnan and Tremlett have matched each other with excellent performances in Australia and at home against India. Finn is one of the fastest bowlers to take fifty Test wickets and Onions had a very good start to his career before being injured.

Onions is probably the least likely to get a game considering for how long he’s been out of the side. Finn is a wicket taker, but an expensive one which doesn’t fit in with the ethos of the side. One of the major improvements that Strauss and Flower have implemented is to cut off runs and bore batsmen out, and Finn tends to haemorrhage runs whilst taking wickets. (He still has a fairly low average, but a very high economy rate.) It’s probably a shootout then between Tremlett and Bresnan. Bresnan has an edge in that he is almost an all rounder. We saw against India his ability to score lower order runs. There’s a possibility that they could both play; England have been obstinate in only picking four bowlers, but on the slow pitches of the UAE England might finally change the balance of the side. One imagines that a fifth bowler would probably be a spinner (probably Monty Panesar), but it’s not guaranteed.

I would actually go down a different route to what I think Flower and co will. If I were picking the attack I’d go with five bowlers, but only one spinner. I like Monty, of course (everyone does), but he’s been out of form for a while and I’m not sure he is going to be effective. I’d rather see four quicks who can operate opposite Swann. I quite like the bowling of Finn, but for the UAE and Sri Lanka I’d leave him and Tremlett out. They are both tall hit-the-deck bowlers and I don’t think that will be very effective on the slower pitches. I’d definitely give Bresnan the third quick bowling place. His bowling may be better suited to English pitches, but I think he can prosper in the UAE. His style is not too dissimilar to Junaid Khan. They both bowl quickly and accurately and can swing the ball late. Khan is probably the better bowler, but it was not thought that he would succeed in the UAE. For a similar reason I’d give Onions a chance, at least for the first Test. He won’t get as much swing as he would in England, but he is accurate and will pitch the ball up which I think will work better than banging it in. My bowling unit (assuming fitness) would thus be Anderson, Broad, Bresnan, Onions and Swann.