The sound of summer: leather hitting Brian Close

OK, so the West Indies is not the force it once was, its batting is brittle (apart from Chanderpaul of course), its bowling wayward and its fielding too often lackadaisical in the extreme.  But there’s always a thrill about the Windies.  The first time I saw them properly was in 1991, with the fire already starting to die, but I remember Marshall steaming in to Graham Gooch, and Viv Richards still swaggering over his bat.  And that was nothing compared to how they had been in the 70s and 80s.

One session that comes to mind – and I know it’s a cliché so hush – is the evening session at Old Trafford in 1976, with Holding, Daniel and Roberts bouncing the shit out of Brian Close – aged 46 – and John Edrich – a stripling of 37 or so.  Look back at the video now, and it’s a miracle no-one was killed.  The bowlers were bowling at the batsmen's’ heads, and the pitch was spiteful.  Close particularly was bashed about all over the place.  But, as Viv Richards remembered:

"Close got hit in the chest by Wayne Daniel and sank to the floor. OK, I was playing for my country, but this was my county skipper on the ground in pain. So I went up to him, asked: 'Are you OK, skipper?' Closey eventually gathered himself together and bellowed, 'Fuck off.' What a man."

They don’t build ‘em like that any more – either for us or for them.

The sweet taste of ball-tampering

So, in Marcus Trescothick's new book, he has admitted that he used to suck Murray mints in order to keep the ball shiny. Cue predictable outrage from Damien Fleming, who says that this ball-tampering plain and simple - and thus contrary to the laws of the game. The laws aren't clear on this point - and it may be that sugary saliva is only a less obvious form of scratching the ball with a bottle top. I doubt it though.

It's a shadowy little area, and people have tried pretty much anything you can think of over the years. Sun cream or vaseline (to stop sweat from dripping into the eyes) have long been used for precisely this purpose. Even Brylcreem was supposed to be pretty effective, but don't tell KP for God's sake - his hair's only just got back to normal as it is.

At least England won by doing it I suppose. Mike Atherton tells a story about how, during the dog days of his England captaincy, he sent the twelfth man to provide sweets to the team to help keep the shine on the ball. He returned with Orbit chewing gum. Sugar-free. We couldn't even cheat properly in those days.

Leadership

So, after a string of disappointing results and after his previously impregnability began to look more and more like a liability to his team, he looked into his heart, found that not only was he no longer right for the job, but the job was no longer right for him and did the honourable thing.

Perhaps Gordon should have a word.

Poor old Michael Vaughan - proof that no matter how fine a leader you are, you need to maintain your personal performances or you're toast. His career will forever be marked by that glorious late summer of 2005, when he ran tactical rings around Ricky Ponting, and England deservedly won the Ashes. But there will be a lot more glories in the Michael Vaughan memory banks - that staggering series of eight consecutive test victories; consecutive series wins over the West Indies, New Zealand, West Indies, South Africa and Australia; taking the almighty Australian attack for three scintillating hundreds in 2001/2.

It might not quite be all over just yet - though it's hard to see him forcing his way back through weight of runs for Yorkshire, the hard grind of unwatched county cricket not exactly playing to his strengths. But if it is, it's best to remember him at his best - lacing the ball through extra cover with no apparent effort.

It's not the despair...

In the words of John Cleese from Clockwise, 'It's not the despair, I can cope with the despair - it's the hope I can't stand.' Watching England at cricket over the last few years has given new meaning to that. Today, while Kevin Pieterson was at the crease, looking a million dollars, there was a possibility that England might set South Africa at least a reasonable target.

And then he was out, miscueing a biggie over long-on, and it looked like a miserable capitulation was all set to happen. And then Paul Collingwood, who is in utterly miserable form, averaging about 9 in first class cricket this season and probably on his absolutely last chance as an England cricketer, played unquestionably the innings of his life - unbeaten on 100 at the close.

There are all kinds of courage, but one of the most impressive is standing up when your future is on the line and performing to the limit of your ability. I thought Collingwood's reselection was a great big blunder, and his first innings confirmed that to me. But I have been proved utterly wrong, and have been glad to have been proved wrong.

England v South Africa

These always seem to be fairly tasty series. The two teams are pretty evenly matched in terms of talent - one point separates them in the table - with neither being able consistently to dominate the other. South Africa are arriving as a fairly settled outfit, and one that will be based on deep fast bowling reserves with Dale Steyn, Andre Nel, Morne Morkel and Makhaya Ntini to choose from.

Bowling

England are probably going to be outgunned in the pace department - their quickest bowlers, Anderson and Broad are upper 80s bowlers whereas Steyn hits the mid 90s, with Morkel not far behind. This might not matter so much at Lords, especially if the weather continues as gloomy and overcast as it has recently. The control and swing offered by Sidebottom, as well as the pace and swing of Anderson should be equal to the skid and bounce that the South Africans have to offer. If, however, the weather improves and the pitches harden, England should be reconsidering their options. Anderson in particular should be vulnerable - when the ball stops swinging he can look like cannon fodder.

So, any new faces? Almost certainly not. In fact, there are three possible alternatives in the fast bowling department for England, and you'll have met all of them before.

1. Andrew Flintoff.

He's quick, accurate and aggressive - just the sort to keep an end tied up while wickets fall at the other end. He's also excellent at reverse-swing, and good at rushing through the tail. He has, of course, been injured, and is only just getting back into the swing of things. His batting, a half-century against Sussex notwithstanding, has been very poor this season and there is no way he can play at number six. On the other hand, can he really be trusted to take on the 20 overs a day workload of a frontline bowler? If Flintoff does play, it should be at eight, with Ambrose at seven - and that means that a frontline batsman is going to have to produce regular overs, whether that's Pieterson, Collingwood, or someone like Bopara is open to question.

2. Steven Harmison.

OK, I know that he's woefully inconsistent, I know that he has a tendency to bowl half-trackers at 70mph, I know that he can't bat or field. Big Steve Harmison still has the capacity to bowl at mid 90s from his 6'5 - and get top quality batsman out. If England are blown away by pace in the first games, then a recall for Harmy is not out of the question. It's nice to feel that you have some artillery to reply with.

3. Simon Jones.

Another blast from the past, only this time a comeback from horrific physical injury, rather than mental heeby-jeebies. Jones is back, bowling fast, swinging it late, and taking stacks of wickets for Worcestershire. He's not actually as quick as Harmison, but his full length and late swing make him just as hard to play. He'll probably only make it into the side if someone gets injured, but if he gets a chance, I'd expect him to grab it.

Batting

The batting for England looks settled. That's not necessarily a good thing. The top six have been underperforming for a while, and there needs to be definite improvement in this series.

Strauss: At the very top Strauss now looks secure - a mental break before the New Zealand series has seen him rediscover his natural role in the side - the opening accumulator. It's not his job to be Marcus Trescothick, and he looks much better for having realised it.

Cook: Slightly difficult times for Alistair Cook, the first he's experienced. His difficulties look a bit more technical - he's playing away from his body, and well in front of his eyes. That said, there's not yet a heap of replacements for the openers...

Vaughan: Injury's the doubt here. His captaincy is still good, and his batting reaches the sublime - sometimes. But that knee isn't looking so stable... Strauss should replace him as skipper if it does go.

Pieterson: Looks like he needs to rediscover some of the joy of batting - but should be energised by playing in a Test series against South Africa. An automatic selection, as England's best batsman.

Bell: At some point he's going to have to start regularly converting those pretty forties into serious hundreds. It's infuriating that he throws away promising starts so often. Selectorial patience must be getting a bit stretched.

Collingwood: Vulnerable I'd say. He's looked in terrible nick this summer, shuffling across the crease a lot. He may as well cut his left hand off for all the good it does his stroke play. On form though, he's an ideal number 6. He sticks around with the tail, and can accelerate when needed. Out of form...?

Ambrose: He'd just better play his Test game, not his one day game - because there are a lot of options for wicket keeper. Matt Prior, James Foster, Steven Davies, Phil Mustard - it's a long list...

Prediction

You would, of course, have to be a mug to make definite predictions on a series that is so often so close. South Africa, on paper, look stronger, especially in the bowling department (though England have undoubtedly the better spinner), but then they have always had problems in closing series down. On balance, I'll go for a drawn series (cop-out though it is). I'd pick the weather to win at least two of the games, and for the two teams to share the other two. Oh, and why the hell isn't this a five match series?

Chappelli

Ian Chappell has written in Cricinfo arguing that sledging should be abolished, and that captains and umpires should be the agents of that decision. Now, at first blush this looks extraordinary - it was Chappell's team of the 1970s, after all, that first won the soubriquet 'Ugly Australians' - but perhaps there might be something in it.

The ICC doesn't need to provide a definition. What they need to do is ask umpires to report any player guilty of abusing an opponent and then make sure the first offender receives a stiff penalty. Then they should demand that captains crack down on the amount of inane chatter indulged in by their players, and ensure that any batsman who takes the law into his own hands in quieting the fielding side is awarded a medal for doing the game a belated service, rather than be reported for a misdemeanour.

Chappell even provides an example of this:

In 1980 at the SCG, the Englishman Derek Randall's constant, "Well bowled, Deadly" from silly mid-off every time I played a Derek Underwood delivery with the middle of the bat, became rather tiresome. Consequently I politely pointed out to Randall that at the first opportunity I would cover-drive his head instead of the ball if he didn't shut up.

Hmm. It should be probably be put into the balance that it was under Chappell that the modern art of on-field chat really developed. That Lillee and Thomson routinely swore at opponents. Compared to that, saying 'well bowled' doesn't look so very bad.

Uncomfortable choices

There's a fascinating article on Cricinfo at the moment about the problem England faces with its batting. Put simply it is that, although the top six of Cook, Vaughan, Strauss, Pieterson, Bell and Collingwood look good on paper - all averaging 40 and over - they lack muscle. Only Pieterson is a truly quick scorer, and he's been out of form and out of sorts for a while. As I mentioned a while ago, Cook and Strauss are very similar in style - square of the wicket nurdlers - and the same is really true of Bell and Collingwood. England look one-paced.

A couple of years ago, with Trescothick opening and Flintoff in the middle order, England were if anything a little too buccaneering. They now look rather under-powered. But it seems a little hard to drop a batsman in particular, especially if he's got a good average and has been batting reasonably well. England have invested in Ian Bell, who is beginning to come good, they had thought that Andrew Strauss was the captain in waiting, and Paul Collingwood is the one-day captain, not to mention a brilliant fielder and a useful change bowler. So who to drop?

If the attitude to the bowlers is anything to go by, the selectors aren't averse to wholesale changes, but the potential replacements (Shah, Ramprakash, Ed Smith and so on) aren't really big hitters either. The best teams feature a combination of enforcers, grafters and stroke-makers. Think Gooch, Atherton and Gower. England have their fair share of the latter two categories but, without Pieterson in form, look decidedly light on the first.

A run-of-the-mill Heffer error

So, even though the last post wasn't really about Simon Heffer, his comment in today's Telegraph is so spectacularly wrong-headed that it's worth a little post all to itself. Taking as its premise the idea that 20-20 and other one day cricket is ruining the game, and that English county cricket is dull and unwatched he suggests a permanent and irrevocable split between 20-20 players and first class players, with cricketers having to choose between the two codes.

Heffer puts the blame for this terrible state of affairs on the fact that what we used to call the Third World took over the reins of the game. Fortunately there is a solution:

There would be two discrete groups of players. One would play first-class cricket. The other would play Twenty20. There could be a negotiation about which, or whether indeed both, would play the 50-over game. There would be little money in the first-class game, except from certain Test series.

The clubs that still engaged in it would have separate commercial entities that played Twenty20, would be the sole shareholders in those enterprises and would use the dividends to support the traditional game. Grounds could be shared between the two competitions: cricket grounds are among the world's most under-used resources.

This plan would enable some players to be Twenty20 cricketers and others to be first-class and perhaps Test players, with no possibility of a clash of loyalties. Within a fixed time period - maybe two or three years - no player who had appeared in one code would be allowed to appear in another. That would bring stability.

He further proposes that there should, since there will be little money in first-class cricket, be a re-introduction of the amateur game and pines for the days when men would come from the City to Lord's in time to turn out for Middlesex in the afternoon. It's a lovely idea, but I think I know where he got it from, and it doesn't quite support his vision.

One objection to it might be that the modern city is now far too fast-paced to allow its employees to wander off to Lords for the day. Perhaps more compelling is that, even in the glory days of the amateur, it still wasn't possible. Mike Jackson, schoolboy cricketer extraordinaire, and the greatest of the cricketing Jackson brothers, for example, found this out when he worked for the New Asiatic Bank.

'Look here, Mike, are you busy at the bank just now?'

'Not at the moment. There's never anything much going on before eleven.'

'I mean, are you busy today? Could you possibly manage to get off and play for us against Middlesex?'

Mike nearly dropped the receiver.

'What?' he cried.

'There's been the dickens of a mix-up. We're one short, and you're our only hope. We can't possibly get another man in the time. We start in half an hour. Can you play?'

So Mike rushed off to Lords and, despite compiling a beautiful 148 before being caught-and-bowled, his employers were not as forgiving as Heffer appears to predict. As Psmith says:

'No official pronouncement has been made to me as yet on the subject, but I think I should advise you, if you are offered another job in the course of the day, to accept it. I cannot say that you are precisely the pet of the management just at present.'

I suspect that, if something is considered too good to be true in a PG Wodehouse novel, then relying on it as the cornerstone of a new approach to cricket today might be veering a little bit on the side of optimism. On second thoughts then, this is a Fundamental Heffer error: he wants it to be possible so much that he ignores mundane reality.

Strauss down the order

So, Andrew Strauss has returned to the England Test line up, but, the management obviously having read my criticisms of his and Cook's incompatibility, he isn't playing as an opener but as number 3. Despite the fact that he's hardly ever played there,I think this is a sensible move for two reasons. The first is that it allows the Vaughan/Cook partnership, which is both a left/right combination and a combination of a stroke-player and an accumulator. The second is that it allows Ian Bell to bat down the order at five - where he has always looked more comfortable.

Bell, despite his obvious class (his stats are almost identical to Michael Clarke's) has a problem in international cricket in imposing himself. He looks almost self-effacing at the crease - not a trait that opposition fast bowlers are likely to miss. This is doubly handicapping at number 3 - where the fast bowlers have their tails up and there's nowhere to hide. Bell at five or six is more likely to score runs. Strauss is worth having in the side for more reasons than that, however. He catches well at slip, a position that, without Flintoff and Trescothick, England have been weak. He is also a sensible chap - a good team player. That said, he needs to repay the selectors' faith quickly, or this could be a brief return to the colours.

An opening problem

England were desperately unconvincing in the one-day series against New Zealand - primarily because their top and middle order failed as a unit far too often. Successful teams contrive it so that when someone fails, someone else steps up. Too often for England has been the total collapse. However, the first warm-up game was very encouraging: the batsmen scored runs and the quick bowlers took wickets. There remains one major question, however, regarding the Test match side, and that is the nature of the opening partnership.

Successful opening partnerships are an alliance of different styles. Gooch and Atherton, Atherton and Stewart, Strauss and Trescothick, Hayden and Langer. All of these contained, essentially, a free-scoring natural player and a more gritty accumulator. The problem England are currently facing is that the 'obvious' combination - that of Strauss and Cook - is a combination of two similar styles. Both look to accumulate, both look to score square of the wicket and both are less adept at scoring straight down the ground. This both allows the bowlers to settle into a rhythm and slows down the scoring rate. The reason that Strauss has struggled over the past couple of years is that this slowing has affected him mentally, making him try and force the pace in a way that isn't his natural game.

So, drop Strauss altogether and play Vaughan as an opener? Vaughan is better as an opener, and plays the sort of free, stylish game that would benefit Cook. But Strauss is an undoubtedly classy performer, solid against pace, improved against spin and with an admirable temperament. He is also the natural successor to Vaughan as skipper - a job he performed admirably at home in 2006. But Cook is also incredibly talented, and a star of the future. It's a tricky one for the selectors, and it might be worth asking if Strauss is prepared to attempt to turn into a Graham Thorpe type of middle order player. If not, he needs to find another gear in his batting in the early stages, or he risks losing the selectors' confidence permanently.

Have England really slumped?

Tim de Lisle writes a fascinating comparison between the current England cricket team and its equivalent in the late 1990s. In pure statistical terms, there is no question that there is an equivalence here. Since 2005, England have played eight series, winning two, losing four and drawing two. In the eight series before Duncan Fletcher took over they played eight series, winning two, losing five and drawing one. But have England really regressed that far?

I watched a lot of cricket in the years 1996-1999. School and university does that to you. What was noticeable, to me at least, was that England consistently underperformed. As de Lisle notes, it wasn't an untalented side. Atherton, Butcher, Hussain, Thorpe, Stewart - these are serious names. The bowling had the names too: Gough, Caddick, Fraser, Tufnell, Cork. What was lacking, and what is now far better, was consistency. The same side hardly ever played twice, and people were dropped for odd, often non-cricketing reasons. Since Fletcher England may occasionally have been too loyal to players - Ashley Giles or Geraint Jones perhaps - but that is preferable to the bizarre revolving-door of Team England in the 90s.

Despite the recent setbacks, England do now have the nucleus of a quality side. Strauss, Cook, Vaughan, Bell and Pietersen are all class players. There is strength in depth in the fast bowling, and even some in the spin department. If the two problems of Flintoff and the wicket-keeper can be settled, England look again like a contender. In a way that wasm't really the case before Fletcher, England look a solid, well-organised team. No need for panic just yet...

New signing

Monde Zondeki - best nickname ever

The standard of cricketing nicknames has definitely diminished of late. In the seventies you had greats like Graham 'Zapata' Gooch and Dennis 'Fot' Lillee (Fucking Old Tart apparently). In the eighties it seemed to get more inventive, Graeme 'Picca' Dilley, Alan 'Legga' Lamb, David 'Lubo' Gower (after a Sydney restaurant), and so on. But sadly, led by the Australians who have never been quite so hot at this, the quality of nicknames has steadily diminished into the current Straussy, Belly, Colly abyss.

That being said, it does the heart good to notice a good new nickname, and the possessor of arguably the finest current nick has signed for Warwickshire. Right ar fast bowler, and a useful tail-end batsman, he is Monde Zondeki. Known to friends (possibly) as 'Allhands'. There's the true spirit of invention.

Cricket, drinking and bribery

On the subject of tedious, pub bore style reminiscing, there's even nudity in this one - and it's not hairy male Afrikaner nudity either. While I was in Zambia I managed to be almost the opposite of my previous African trip. At 18 on my Gap year I went off to Zimbabwe to teach in a rural mission school for about six months. I was based 70 km out of Mutare in an old Tribal Trust Land (ie: dusty and waterless) called Marange, briefly famous since when they discovered diamonds there (along with thieving Belgians, light-fingered arresting officers and so on). Now's not the time to go into it much, but I was basically what the locals called a TWOG - a Third World Groupie. I had the messy long hair, the copper bracelets, the jade Africa on a leather thong round my neck - I was basically a smelly backpacker with a modicum of local knowledge.

When, 5 years and a degree later I returned to Africa - this time as a research student - I decided that I'd had enough of the backpacker routine, and became an expat instead. I bought a car, went to the British High Commission for drinks and football and even joined a country club - so that I could play cricket. Lusaka South Country Club is (or was) predominantly a polo and polocrosse club. For those of you that don't know, polocrosse is basically lacrosse played on horseback - and is every bit as insanely dangerous as that sounds. It takes an unusual degree of sang-froid to field at long off - next to the polo field, and concentrate on a high catch when you can hear thundering hoof beats charging towards you. Pretty soon I put my hand up for the slip cordon.

The cricket itself was surprisingly good - given that Zambia aren't going to be challenging for a place in Test cricket any time soon. The team I was playing for was made up mostly of white Zambians, exiled Zimbabweans and a few miscellaneous odds and sods, like a Sri Lankan leg spinner, a couple of African kids from the local school (Baobab College - a far cry from Marange High School) and me, the English one. I was played as a middle order batsman and off-spinner, and found the latter considerably easier than the former. Give me a pitch that hasn't been rained on for three months any time - the ball went practically square. The batting was less easy - you don't get that smooth English grass for one thing, for another the ground had been laid out to the same scale as the MCG - meaning an 80 yard straight carry. I didn't have the oomph to clear the boundary.

But there is something very special about playing proper cricket in Africa. You have to start at 9.30 because it gets dark so early. Taking a slip catch at that time in the morning leaves the hands stinging like they've been bitten. Drinks breaks are frequent, but owing to the weather-beaten nature of our lot, it was considered pretty wet to go for anything other than a cold beer.

Drinks Break?

But if the cricket was hard, it was as nothing to the drinking afterwards. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of the opposition were Muslim Asian sides, who didn't even eat with us, let alone have a pint after the game. So we were compelled to hold ludicrous numbers of awards and forfeits after the game. 'Acting like Douglas Jardine' was one new award that season, and there was only ever one winner...

Unfortunately, public transport in Africa being what it is, I had to drive home after these sessions. There are no drink-driving laws in Zambia. On the back of whisky bottles it says 'We do not recommend the operation of heavy machinery after excessive consumption of alcohol'. I presume light machinery is fine. The beer, coupled of course with the light-fragmentation/head-out-of-window thing I mentioned earlier, led to some slightly hairy drives home, but I always managed it. This was largely because, the one time I nearly didn't get home (because I was at a party) it only took until 11pm for the hostess to take all her clothes off. If I was going to go to a car key party, I thought I'd better have slightly better keys... Oh, and the girlfriend thing as well of course. This meant that I was the man who 'made his excuses and left' in fine old News of the World style.

But drink driving was a way of life out there - two quick stories illustrate this, one involving me. After another cricket match (we won, I scored 80 odd - these things are important) we all went clubbing in Lusaka, which was almost exactly the same as going clubbing in, say, Oxford. I heard one of the guys shout over.

'Hey Pommie' which was, originally, my usual form of address, 'we're lining up shots - you want one?'

'No thanks mate,' I yelled back, 'just get me a beer, I'm driving.' It's moment like that you realise that you've acclimatised too well.

The other, rather more extreme one happened on my first weekend in Lusaka, at a party at the High Commission. A tall, bald bloke called Kevs was holding forth about the braai he'd been to the day before.

'We got there for 11 man, and by 3 all the fuckin' beer had gone, so we had to go onto shorts. By 10 all there was left was tequila - I tell you man, I was so pissed that when I drove home I had to get someone to drive behind me to make sure I didn't go in a ditch!' I never got that bad - but give me a year...

Bodyline

Jardine: the finest defensive batsman of his generation

So, we're approaching the 75th anniversary of the most controversial of all cricket tours, the 1932/3 Ashes tour, generally known as the 'Bodyline tour'. It now seems to be generally accepted that the English team were unsporting, and out of order throughout the tour, and that Douglas Jardine, the England captain whose prosecution of bodyline tactics made him a hate figure in Australia, was, in the words of Leo McKinstrey in today's Telegraph, cynical, brutal and cold.

Bodyline was, however, an intellectual response to an intellectual problem. The deck was stacked in the batsman's favour in the early 1930s, even more than it is now. The lbw law was such that a batsman could not be given out if the ball pitched outside off stump - encouraging enormously negative pad play. Tactics and techniques had evolved around this, and the Australians in particular had developed some decided peculiarities in technique - of which more later.

As if this advantage weren't enough, Australia were blessed with a prodigy. The genius of Don Bradman should not be overlooked when looking at the origin of bodyline. In the 1930 Ashes he had proved the difference between the two sides scoring 974 runs in the series, at an average of 139.14. At Lords Bradman scored 254, and at Headingley he knocked up 334 - scoring 309* on the first day. England had no answer to the little genius from Bowral, and it wasn't until the final match at the Oval, when the Nottinghamshire fast bowler Harold Larwood got good pace and bounce off a true wicket, that Jardine, who didn't play in the series at all due to business committments, noticed Bradman hopping about a bit. It can't have been too drastic - Bradman scored 232.

Still, when Douglas Jardine was confirmed as England captain, the genesis of a plan was forming. England were strong in fast bowling. Harold Larwood would challenge for a place in any side in history, while Voce and Bowes were pretty rapid too. With support from Wally Hammond, no mean bowler, and Gubby Allen, who was decidedly quick, and with a proper fast bowler's mean streak too, England were heavily reliant on pace.

It was decided that off-theory, bowling on and outside the off stump hoping to induce an edge to slips, was only effective when the ball was swinging. In England, with overcast skies and lush outfields, that could last all day. In Australia conditions were such that swing could only be expected from the new ball for maybe 10 overs. After this it was straight up and down. England could choose to be cannon fodder, or change their line of attack.

Leg theory was simple in conception, but required enormous degrees of accuracy to carry off. Put simply, the idea was to bowl back of a length on the line of leg stump or just outside, with a ring of close catchers on the legside, and one or two men out on the boundary for the hook. Batsman are generally better at picking the line and length of balls on off-stump, and were thus vulnerable to variable bounce on the leg stump - if they tried to fend the ball off their hip, they were likely to offer a close catch, if they went on the hook they were vulnerable to the men in the deep.

The leg trap

Complaints that bodyline was, in effect, an endless stream of bouncers at the head of the batsman are a misunderstanding of the theory - a bouncer is much easier to play than a just short of a length ball that has the potential to bounce sharply. The ability of Larwood in particular to extract bounce from good length balls was the decisive factor in the success of bodyline as a tactic. When bodyline was tried in England, perhaps most notably in 1933 when the touring West Indians used it against England, it was necessary to bowl much shorter to get the required effect. It was not particularly effective as a wicket-taking tactic (Jardine scored his only test century against it) though it did slow the scoring.

The reason bodyline has proved so controversial was the pace of Larwood and the poor quality of the wickets. Though people point to the injuries sustained by Aussie captain Bill Woodfull and the 'keeper Bertie Oldfield, in neither case was bodyline being bowled - simply fast balls being missed by the batsman. It is here that we get to the unspoken truth about bodyline: the Australians were getting hit and getting out largely because their techniques were not up to a leg side attack. Match reports from this site make that rather clear.

Ponsford, after having been struck again, on the rump turning to evade a ball aimed at him, was bowled by Larwood.

Ponsford was cracked on the hand by Voce and ripped his gloves off in agony. Next ball he swayed out of the way of what he thought would be another bullet aimed at his body, only to see the ball smash into his leg stump.

Bowes ran in to bowl the first ball to Bradman. He pitched it short, but not short enough to be a true bouncer. Bradman stepped to the off side and swung a tremendous hook shot at it. The ball, not rising as high as Bradman judged, clipped the bottom of the bat and cannoned into the stumps.

Ponsford's chosen method of dealing with Bodyline was to turn his back to balls aimed at him, and take the blows on his rump and back. He was thus struck at least a dozen times, but thankfully never by a ball rising high enough to reach his head.

Larwood bowled Bradman, stepping back to leg to cut a ball pitched on leg stump.

Bodyline was more in evidence than in Brisbane, with Woodfull again hit several times on the back as he continued to deal with balls aimed at him by turning his back to them.

Larwood hit Woodfull between the shoulderblades, causing a delay as he recovered, then soon after hit him on the thigh

Quite simply the Australian batsman weren't watching the ball. In such circumstances, they were bound to get hit. For any cricketer to get hit between the shoulder baldes he would have had to have turned almost completely around and be looking at the wicket keeper! Look at Bradman's shot above - it was his first ball, and he's - what - two feet outside the offstump having a hook at a ball that's hit the stumps? Bodyline was essentially fast accurate bowling in the line of the batsman's leg stump.

The enormous furore that this caused was attributable in its essence to one thing: England had a strong fast bowling attack and Australia did not. For evidence of this, fast forward to 1948, when the Invincibles came over. As Neville Cardus remembered:

One of the most brightening exhibitions of fast bouncing bowling I have ever seen occurred at Old Trafford in 1948 during the England v. Australia Test match. Lindwall was awesome. He almost paralysed Compton's left arm, then, with a "no-ball" so much over the crease that he let the ball go its vicious way far down the pitch, he struck Compton's forehead as in fact Compton actually tried to hook (no running away!) and the missile flew off the edge of his bat.

The cries of outrage that followed the tactics of the 1948 Australians were less strident than those of the Australians in 1932, but their motive was the same. Bodyline (or 'bumpers' or Holding and Roberts' assaulton Brian Close) was 'unfair' because the fan's nation's batsmen were being hit without being able to retaliate. Woodfull didn't match bodyline tactics with Jardine because, disregarding moral reasons, he didn't have the bowlers. England was unhappy about Lillee and Thomson (who admitted bowling to hit the batsman) mainly because we didn't have a match for them.

One gets the impression reading the outraged cries of 'unsportsmanlike' 'contrary to the interests of the game' and so on, that what the Australian public wanted to see was Don Bradman scoring effortless and sublime centuries, while perspiring but gentlemanly England bowlers floated up gentle half volleys outside the off stump. When Bradman scored 309 in a day at Headingley, Percy Chapman the England skipper retained a silly mid off all day. It may have been jolly sporting, but it was poor cricket. Jardine was far too good a captain for that. He had a plan, and he ensured that it worked. Churchill said of Austen Chamberlain that 'he always played the game; and he always lost it.' Jardine played to the limits of the game; and he won.

Playing the game

A lot of fuss has been made about a rather baffling incident in the Indian first innings at Trent Bridge. What seems to have happened is that Alistair Cook scattered one or two jelly beans at the crease when Zaheer Khan came in to bat. This, apparently, was a reference to Khan's soft centre as a batsman. Given that India were some 200 runs ahead of England by the time Khan came in, you might think that the gesture was mis-directed. Perhaps Khan should have called to the dressing room for some pies for the England bowlers to throw to him, or maybe a powder puff.

Be that as it may, the incident has caused ruffled feathers in the Indian camp and a mild outbreak of 'what's the world coming to?' in the press. But it has to be said that, as sledging goes, this is absurdly low key. Another sledge was supposed to have been as follows:

“I’m driving a Porsche Carrera; what’s your car?” was one question picked up by the stump microphone this week when England were trying to unsettle an India batsman. That sort of tactic is not only not clever, or acceptable; it is also an illegal attempt to distract the batsman.

This is what passes for sledging these days? Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee would be turning in their graves. If either of them were dead that is. 'Mental disintegration' has a long and chequered history - with sledges ranging from the genuinely amusing, such as when Shane Warne asked for a fielder 'right under Nasser [Hussain's] nose' and proceeded to place him some 15 yards from the bat, to the tediously aggressive, such as, to be honest, most of the rest of it. Endless streams of swear words are dull and lowering - making the whole game less fun. This is becoming almost ubiquitous even in club cricket where most proponents lack the wit to say anything amusing and instead rely on abuse.

On the whole, therefore, I'd have to say that jelly beans are pretty trivial. Where the game in Trent Bridge got truly nasty was in the behaviour of Sreesanth. One incident of transgressive hostility can be regarded as an aberration, but Sreesanth had three strikes. First he bowled a beamer at Kevin Pietersen. Then he ran through the crease to bowl a bouncer at Collingwood. And finally he shoulder-barged England captain Michael Vaughan. He has forfeited half his match fee for the shoulder charge, but that was the least of his offences.

Beamers, head high full tosses from faster bowlers, are a serious offence, and risk causing serious injury. Batsman facing quick bowlers have between a quarter and a half of a second between the ball leaving the bowler's hand and it arriving. Consequently, the eyes are focused on the areas where the ball will pitch - there isn't time to allow for a high full toss. A beamer therefore comes out of the batsman's blind spot, giving him less than a fraction of a second to spot it. Couple that to the fact that the ball will not be slowed by contact with the pitch, and a beamer has the capacity seriously to injure the batsman. They are, of course, strictly against the laws of the game.

There is a good argument moreover, that should an injury to the batsman result, they are contrary to the laws of the land. In Australia recently, an amateur rugby player sued an opponent who badly injured him in an illegal spear tackle. The traditional line that, by taking part in a sporting occasion, the player had consented to the risk of injury was defeated by the fact that spear tackles, like beamers, are contrary to the laws of the game, and hence the player would not have consented to them. If Sreesanth had hit Pietersen and badly injured him, there would have been a good case for a civil case. This is serious stuff.

As for running through the crease to bowl short at Collingwood, this was almost certainly deliberate - it's not possible to go a yard over the bowling crease without being aware of it. It was designed to hit the batsman and, though not as serious as bowling beamers, is utterly contrary to both the laws and the spirit of the game. This isn't at all a targeted criticism of Indian cricket - many other teams are guilty of similar transgressions - but it seems odd that the focus of attention is on jelly beans, which whatever else they are are hardly life-threatening, when far more serious breaches of the game were taking place at the same time.

UPDATE: I should point out that Alistair Cook denies being the bean merchant, I am a fruit pastille man myself.

A spinner's lot

In my youth I ran in and trundled away at the finest military medium pace, pitching the ball up with a hint of outswing. I hardly ever got collared, and I usually picked up wickets - mostly through frustration. But I never felt like a medium pacer - I was mainly a batsman who could bowl a bit. When I went to Zambia in 2003 I started playing for a team (Lusaka South) awash with right arm medium pacers but without a regular spinner. Add to that a pitch showing the signs of a three month dry spell and I was sold on the idea of filling the gap. The first time I bowled a ball that turned appreciably off the straight, I was hooked. I love spin bowling.

There are a lot more pitfalls for the spinner than for the trundler. Batsmen's eyes light up like slot machines. Meaty bats and chunky forearms conspire to send good balls into the stratosphere. I was once hit over a spotlight. But there is nothing to match the satisfaction of out-thinking a batsman - holding one back for the caught and bowled; bowling a drifter to the batsman looking for turn; really putting a rip on one for the batsman looking to leave: it's much more strategic than pace bowling.

Since the level of physical exertion involved in bowling slow is significantly less than when bowling quick, more subtelty can be introduced into the action. Look at three examples of Robert Croft bowling to a left handed batsman.

By varying how wide on the crease he bowls, Croft alters the angle of the delivery and thereby the amount of turn he'll get. The idea might be to bowl tight to the stumps, with the spin taking it past the stumps, trying to encourage the batsman to leave the ball, and then go wide on the crease hoping the angle will take it onto the stumps. This sort of tactical bowling doesn't require the fancy doosras or top-spinners that most offies won't have in the locker.

To be honest, the spinner is now so rare in English cricket that simply coming in off a short run will have a lot of batsman fidgeting in the crease uncertain whether to stick or twist. because there isn't the pace on the ball, the safe deflection shots aren't available - to get runs the batsman has to put the pace on himself. Bowl full and just outside off stump and the only safe attacking shot is the straight drive - easily defended. To get runs the batsman has to take risks - and that's always a good time to be bowling.

But it's not as if spin bowling is easy - have a look at the three best English left arm spinners of the last 20 years, Phil Edmonds, Phil Tufnell and Monty Panesar:

Not exactly effortless...

A question of degree?

Muttiah Muralitharan, who has just passed 700 Test wickets to draw close to Shane Warne's world record haul, is doomed to be pursued by the allegation that he doesn't play fair: that, in short, he is a chucker. As the photo to the left demonstrates, it is quite easy to see why people think so. Watching with the naked eye it seems absolutely blatant, bent elbow, fizzy action, ludicrous turn: QED.

I certainly thought so. I bowl off spin myself, albeit at a less elevated level and have always thought it impossible to get as much turn as he does from mere finger spin. But Murali's tweak comes from the wrist action - as can be seen from the photo. Monty Panesar, on the other hand, bowls with a classic finger spinner's action, gaining turn from the revolutions he puts on the ball - helped by massive hands and long fingers. I saw Murali bowl in a full arm cast - designed to prevent any straightening of the arm at all, and it still looked as if he were throwing it, evidence surely that he isn't.

So what is he doing, and how does he get so much god-damned turn? The answer, I believe, is that he has a bent arm. This doesn't mean he throw it, which would require him to straighten the arm, but it still gives him a definite advantage. This is because you can put your wrist through a greater degree of twist with a bent elbow than with a straight elbow. Combined with his double-jointed wrist, Murali can put as much work on a ball as could Warne with his wrist spin.

With a traditional off-spinner like Robert Croft (left), the wrist can only turn about 90 degrees as the fingers rip across the seam. Murali, with hyper-extended elbow and double-jointed wrist, can put his wrist through more than twice that, at speed, imparting far more revolutions onto the ball, making it turn more and dip through the air. So Murali does have an unfair advantage - it's just not an illegal one. It doesn't hurt that he plays so much against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe either, but that's another story.

View from the boundary

Cricket is a game that lends itself very easily to metaphor and analogy. Yesterday, while gently toasting myself in the top tier of the Compton Stand, a number of, admittedly slighty tenuous, analogies between cricketers and politicians sprang alcoholically to mind. Bearing in mind that these always sound better at 5.30 after a long hot day here goes:

1. Andrew Strauss/David Cameron

After a meteoric start to his career, the young public-school educated opener has fallen on leaner times. Accused by some of lacklustre footwork and an infuriating habit of looking good without going on to deliver big scores, he is still one of England's classiest players and should be able to reverse his recent setbacks.

2. Steve Waugh/Gordon Brown

Universally believed to have a weakness against hostile and targeted bowling, but gritty, tenacious and, undeniably, consistently successful against both quality and second-rate opposition. The sort of player who can look ugly and unsettled at the crease, until you look up and see he has scored 35 not out in no time at all. Took over the best team in the world, and improved it...

3. Sourav Ganguly/Tony Blair

Aristocratic and imperious, the former Indian captain sometimes chafed at having to deal with mere mortals. Despite a reputation for arrogance he forged a winning team out of a side that had been famous for internal squabbling and wasted talent. Left the team rather under a cloud, but has since returned...

4. Graeme Hick/Michael Portillo

Oh the frustration! Blessed with a great degree of natural talent, and looking set for great things, Hick somehow never possessed sufficient mental toughness to succeed at the highest level. Eminently capable of better things, and successful by normal standards, Hick will sadly always be remembered as someone who never lived up to his potential.

5. Chris Cowdrey/Iain Duncan Smith

A good, solid cricketer elevated wildly beyond his capabilities, Cowdrey was raised to captain the struggling England side against a rampant West Indies. Barely worth his place as a batsman, let alone as a captain, Cowdrey was soon dropped and never again played at the top level.

6. Alistair Cook/David Miliband

Tall, dark and absurdly young, Cook has made a stellar start to his career. People are talking of him as a Future England Captain, even before he has had prolonged experience of life at the top. Potentially very good, but how well will he react to the inevitable challenges ahead?

In the spirit of evenhandedness, I suppose I ought to mention some Lib Dems...

7. David Boon/Charlie Kennedy

Australia's combative number three and short-leg specialist will be remembered in the annals of cricket history for two things: a moustache that threatened at times to escape into the wild, and an epic journey from Australia to England for the Ashes campaign of 1985. Determined to break the existing record (held by Rodney Marsh) for the largest number of beers consumed on the flight, Boony shattered Marsh's record (a measly 35) and, by the time the plane taxied across the runway was blowing the froth of his 52nd. Boon was carried through customs on a motorised buggy, and Australia lost the Ashes.

8. An MCC Member/Sir Menzies Campbell

In his youth, he was a pretty useful player but now he sits and dreams, jealously guarding his seat in the pavilion. Younger members refer to it as 'Death Row'. Mmm...Ranjitsinghji...Tich Freeman...problem with uncovered pitches...high elbow...mmm.

Nostalgia

...and over on channel 4, paint drying.

Ahh, it ain't what it used to be. Arf. As the West Indies gear up for another go, having been thoroughly trounced in the Test series I’ve been a bit surprised at the tone of the press coverage (particularly in the Guardian, unsurprisingly). A strong West Indian team is a great bonus for international cricket. A team as weak as the current lot does nobody any favours whatsoever. At best, they have one player who could have competed for a place in the side of the 1970s and 1980s, the obdurate and organised Shivnarine Chanderpaul – and even he is about as far removed from the swashbuckling big hitters of old as it’s possible to get.

England, in contrast, are confirming what they are: the second best team in the world. With Alistair Cook, Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pieterson, England have three of the world’s best batsmen; Matt Prior has solved the wicket-keeping problem; England have, in Monty Panesar, the world’s best orthodox finger spinner; and the fast bowling cupboard is less bare than we might have feared. England made the West Indies look even worse than they were – and that’s not easy.So why all the regretful nostalgia about days gone by? England have a consistently world-beating side in Test match cricket for the first time since the 1950s. The batting is explosive and elegant at the same time; we have a top-ten spinner for the first time since Derek Underwood and with Hoggard and Harmison we have a new ball attack that is actually capable of doing damage.

I see the point of articles like this, recalling Tony Greig’s ill-judged call to make the West Indies grovel, but frankly I’d rather be an England supporter now, when the main excitement is whether Pieterson can make a hundred in a session, not whether Sir Geoffrey can make it out of single figures.

Eh?

Variety is, of course, the spice of life and it's also fair to say that England's seam attack, shorn of its two most reliably accurate proponents were fairly woeful at Lords. Even so, the selectors have thrown an absolute curve ball (to misappropriate anoither sport's terminology) in their choice of squad for Friday's second Test.

The batting, once Shah had failed to live up to my billing (although he did get a snorter in the first innings) picked itself. Bell's demotion to 6 for the first game says more about where Vaughan sees himself batting than it does about Bell's long term prospects - he is quality and it shows. The buzz that Strauss might get dropped if Flintoff comes back should remain just that: buzz. He's been a wonderfully consistent performer for 3 years and should absolutely not be dropped for one bad series. If Flintoff is not fit enough to play the role of a third seamer, then he shouldn't play. His form with the bat isn't good enough for him to bat at 6, so he has to play as a bowling all rounder. If he does so, and bats at seven, with Prior at eight England have a solid tail for the first time in a long while.

Prior's performance was good enough to suggest that England have finally found a replacement for Alec Stewart - but there's a very long way to go. So we come to the bowling. With Hoggard injured and a slow pitch to contest with, England were always going to struggle. That Plunkett and Harmison struggled at times to hit the pitch should give grounds for alarm. That the selectors have decided that James Anderson (not notable for his discipline) and Ryan Sidebottom (pictured) are the answers is questionable. Sidebottom played one test in 2002, without causing much of a stir but, crucially, is a left-armer. One thing that both sides lacked in their pace department was variety - and the only successful bowler was a slow left armer.

England squad: Michael Vaughan (Yorkshire, captain), James Anderson (Lancashire), Ian Bell (Warwickshire), Paul Collingwood (Durham), Alastair Cook (Essex), Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire), Steve Harmison (Durham), Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire), Matt Prior (Sussex), Monty Panesar (Northants), Liam Plunkett (Durham), Ryan Sidebottom (Nottinghamshire), Andrew Strauss (Middlesex).