He might be the leader of the most ineffectual England ODI team for some time, but good old chef has plans. We’re going to win the World Cup you know. And we’re going to do it in Australia! That’s the plan anyway. The problem, of course, is that we’re crap. Our batting is about as convincing as Alastair Darling’s recent performance in the Scottish independence debate, and the bowling looks almost as bad (which is just as damning as any other simile I might concoct). If Alastair’s cooking...
So what’s next? An update…
Last weekend we discussed the future of relations between disgruntled supporters and the ECB. How do we make our voice heard? How do we get our questions answered? How do we – to use Giles Clarke’s phrase – move on? You can see the original post here. The most suitable first tactic, it seemed to me, was to request an interview with Clarke. On Friday afternoon I sent this e-mail to ECB press chief Andrew Walpole. Andrew responded the following day: I then replied briefly to...
Start As You Mean To Go On
Well that was crap. We bowled like Muppets and batted like clowns. It was the Kermit and Krusty show. Where to begin? There are so many things wrong with the England ODI setup. We have the wrong captain (by which I mean the captain arguably shouldn’t be in the side) and the wrong coach too. Why on earth do the ECB expect a coach who’s never won a single limited overs trophy in his supposedly illustrious domestic career to win a World Cup? It’s a bit like asking a GCSE biology teacher to win the...
The masterplan
A common theme during the last six months has been the attempt to portray critics of ECB team management as (a) whingers and (b) paranoid conspiracy theorists. The problem is, time and again we’ve been proved right. As Arron said on our discussion boards recently, if we’d suggested in the wake of Pietersen’s sacking that Peter Moores would return as coach, we’d have been laughed off as delusional trolls. Many of us ‘below the line’ have argued that...
Anyone For a Bunch of Fives? (Belated) England Player Ratings for the Test Summer
I admit this has come a bit late. Every Tom, Del and Harry revealed their player ratings for this summer’s tests a while ago. But that’s the good thing about The Full Toss. We don’t give two hoots about things like punctuality. How anti-establishment of us (waits for groans of approval / disapproval) Anyway here goes … Alastair Cook 6 – Gets marks for determination but not a lot else. Captained terribly in the first half of the summer (Warne, Hussain, Boycott, Vaughan...
So what’s next?
The test match summer may be over, but there’s still plenty of unfinished business – and I don’t mean the one-day internationals. As the blogger Dmitri Old observed this week, “the disgraceful conduct of our governing body has caused a schism between fans and the ECB that may never be healed. In my lifetime I cannot remember feeling such antipathy towards a national team”. You only have to read the discussion boards, either here or any cricket site, to realise the...
