English cricket hasn’t had too many cult heroes in recent times. It’s all too professional these days. Tiger moths, late night piss ups, fat blokes and pedalos are a thing of the past.
It was a different story in the late 80s and early 90s though. Real characters still existed: there was Jack Russell and his borderline OCD, a bespectacled Devon Malcolm making his debut, Phil Tufnell cowering every time someone mentioned the word ‘bouncer’, and batting techniques so bizarre you had to pinch yourself; remember John Carr and Kim Barnett?
There were also players with huge personalities and ox-sized hearts. One that lingers long in the memory is Gloucestershire’s Syd Lawrence – a genuinely quick paceman with a build like Frank Bruno and a smile wider than Kriss Akabusi’s. He played five tests between 1988 and 1992 and made friends wherever he went.
Of course, his career was tragically cut short by the worst knee injury imaginable – he fractured his left kneecap in his delivery stride and collapsed in a heap. He attempted a brief comeback a few years later but he was never the same.
As his career ended so tragically, it warmed the heart to see Syd back in the news last week. At the age of fifty (that’s right, fifty!) he’s just become the National Amateur Body Building Association’s West of England champion in the over-40s category. Now he wants to compete in international competition.
The footage below (which is actually a year old) should shame us all. As you can see, Syd has an incredible physique these days. While many ex-cricketers pile on the pounds, and end up rounder than the victoria sponges they love scoffing (see Hughes, Merv), good old Syd has become cricket’s man of steel. Good luck to the bloke.
Now on to other news …
Unless you’ve been living in a nuclear bunker for the last few days, you’ll have heard that Rohit Sharma smashed a world record 264 (that’s right, two hundred and sixty four) in India’s fourth ODI against Sri Lanka. Not a bad effort I’m sure you’ll agree.
He faced precisely 173 balls in his knock – over half the deliveries faced by his team – and scored at a strike rate of 153. Pretty useful. Just for the record, India amassed 404-5. I think that’s what you call an above average total.
When interviewed after his innings, Sharma seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing: “I’m not really tired. I was ready to bat another 50 overs … once I got to 50, I knew I had to convert because it was a good wicket”. He made it sound like an ordinary day at the office.
Meanwhile, back at Lord’s, Alastair Cook faced the media before England’s tour of Sri Lanka.
Chef seemed pretty relaxed about Sharma’s innings too: “Those scores are made in sub-continental conditions … all four double-hundreds (in ODI history) have been made by Indian players batting in Indian conditions … Rohit was saying 350 was par on that wicket”.
So what’s happening elsewhere in the world is irrelevant apparently. When we get to Australia, Cook’s England will aim for 250-odd, confident in the knowledge that seeing off the new ball, and picking up singles in the middle-overs, will inevitably lead to glory. Who needs the likes of Rohit Sharma eh?!
Incidentally, Cook’s averages 37.62 in ODIs at a strike rate of 77.57. So if England had eleven Cooks in the side, we’d score 233-6 off 50 overs on average.
Hands up who thinks England are going to win the World Cup? Cue tumbleweed.
James Morgan
Where has this sudden optimism come from on Cook’s part? Didn’t he suggest in September that an England triumph would be far-fetched?
Not sure what has changed in the meantime…
Rohit’s innings on its own is higher than England’s average ODI score in the last five years and would have beaten England in 7 of the last 10 ODIs.
Still, according to this week’s Switch Hit, England have a computer programme that says if one of the top four makes a century in an ODI the team usually wins. Here’s our template:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/current/match/65121.html
They won the tournament you know!
What’s changed is he is relieved the KP furore is over, he didn’t come out too badly and that he has held onto a lucrative job that he isn’t remotely suitable for and it’s business as usual. But he still has face those bowlers at the stumps, when his anxieties and insecurities will come rushing back. He knows it and they know it, they will be all over him like cheap aftershave. No Cook it isn’t over until the overweight lady sings.
Morgan’s swupport for KP, literally nobody in team has said anything bad about KP so far tbh!
and i dont believe all of them would be behaving like saints if there were real issues with KP
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/current/story/799199.html
As for cult heroes, I enjoyed this from Vaughan’s ‘ultimate touring 11’ in the Telegraph:
Phil Mustard
Without doubt the first name on my team-sheet. There is a laugh a minute with the Colonel. He is the only England player I have seen fail to recognise Giles Clarke, the chairman of the ECB. Giles was wearing one of his bright coloured suits at a team function and the Colonel asked him “What have you come as?” He had no idea who he was…
(Though, to be fair, that might be a reasonable question to ask of Clarke even if you recognised him.)
Dear Leader…”Those scores are made in sub-continental conditions … all four double-hundreds (in ODI history) have been made by Indian players batting in Indian conditions … Rohit was saying 350 was par on that wicket”.
See, this is why I have never bought into the idea that Cook is a nice guy. Or as Brenkley would have you believe ….” A thoroughly nice guy, and a decent chap.”
No, Cook has always struck me as a spoiled brat dripping with entitlement and condescension to other people. Remember his whining about Warne…. “Something should be done.” Or “He’s had his say” on KPs book.,(after telling us he could not wait to give his side of the story.) or “he’s not ready for test cricket” about Butler. And now he arrogantly and in a typically high handed manner dismisses a fellow players achievement.
He is arrogant, and petulant and dismissive of others. A bit like his greatest fan Mike Selvey.
PS. If he thinks scoring 350 in the sub continent is so matter of fact and no big deal, why does the English computer think 230 is the par score to win games all round the world?
After reading, then re-reading Cook’s comments because I coudn’t believe my eyes first time, the thought dawned on me that Selfy’s writing his scripts!! Oh, by the by, I see his management guru has just lost his fifth match on the run! Yep, it’s all adding up! As Jonathan Liew wrote, “England can turn losing into an art form”
Yes Dave, but we must take the positives. Always the positives!
We need to up skill, and down dale; We need to do the hockey cokey and turn around. In out, in out shake it all about.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen
I am the walrus, goo goo goo joob goo goo goo joob
Goo goo goo joob goo goo goo joob
Goo gooooooooooo jooba jooba jooba jooba jooba jooba
Some of us at the Guardian took to calling him the dauphin. It’s spot on: he’s basically Pitt the Younger from the Dish and Dishonesty episode of Blackadder. I grew up thinking we English liked to see such pomposity and entitlement pricked by the likes of Edmund B. Either we’ve gone backwards as a society in the last twenty years, or this was never actually the case with cricket.
Or possibly both.
Arron that’s brilliant. I’m going to start calling him Pitt the Younger from now on.
There was a time when the Guardian would see its role as pricking the pompous and powerful English elites. But Alan Rushbridger and Mike Selvey seem to have gone all elitist in their old ages.
He’s even developing the requisite downy fluff, although it’s on his chin rather than his chest.
I wonder what the England computer thinks is the par-score to win on the sub continent? 264?
263.49999
Cook’s interview . .
Erm….
Urm…
Er….
*bland cliche*
*cliched blandishment*
Urm…
Look, urm…
*mixed metaphor*
Er…
*on-message platitude*
Erm
That’s it.
Really. The best we can do?
He isn’t even that “nice” as Mark points out. As if we hadn’t already noticed with the nonsense he indulged in during the SL tour this summer.
Can’t bat anymore. Can’t set a field. Can’t talk to the press without looking like a scared bunny.
What is the point of him again?
England’s ODI record in SL:
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/team/1.html?class=2;home_or_away=2;opposition=8;template=results;type=team;view=results
P14 W4 L10
(Two of the wins were by 5 runs and 2 wickets. Three of the losses were by 10 wickets and two by over a hundred runs – only one of the losses was close and that was in 1982).
Highest score: 234/8.
Well, seeing as Pitt The Younger sees scoring 350 in the sub continent as nothing special, I expect to see England breeze past 300 every match.
Slightly apropos of nothing here guys but i read J Etheridge’s latest piece of trivel in the Currant Bun today in which he has decreed that NOBODY is talking about KP now and that Alistair Cook has said his name is not mentioned in the England dressing room now – Next he’ll be saying England will win the World Cup Next Year – Oh sorry AS has already done so! Wonder what inducements Giles Clarke gave them to say so.
I would link Etheridge’s Article but it’s behind a paywall and I don’t want to increase Rupert Murdoch’s coffers anymore than I have to!
Ah, but Mr Etheridge fails to allow for his owned esteemed colleagues and peers. They won’t leave he Who Is Not Named in the Dressing-Room out of the headlines for a good long time yet. Especially not in the web editions of their papers, because as we all know, KP = clicks. For an example, pop over to the Observer, where a piece ostensibly about James Taylor has curiously become about Pietersen.
I am so, so, so bored with Cook. I can’t even raise the interest to call him by a funny name, though Pitt the Younger is good. I just want him to go away and captain the side properly and stop giving pathetic soundbite interviews like some wannabe politician.
Aye, all the recent Investec sponsored “interviews” have been a masterclass in blandness, only Eoin Morgan seems to have a bit of fire in his belly, which, I would imagine will not sit well?
As sacriligous as it sounds, I’m kind of hoping for seven monumental thrashings in Sri Lanka, maybe where one or two heroes stand up to be counted, and the whole rotten edifice collapses around them, then maybe a team and a captain we can all truly get behind may emerge, to play exciting winning cricket again?
I expect to be disappointed!
“NOBODY is talking about KP now and that Alistair Cook has said his name is not mentioned in the England dressing room now”
Which only goes to reinforce the Pitt the Younger nickname. Have England become so childish they have to resort to air brushing people out of history now? This is the actions of a Soviet or Nazi state.
Everything that comes out of England these days seems to have been written by spin doctors and PR consultants…………. “Let’s Tell the fans we are not talking about that nasty MR KP. That will go down well with our media mates.”…………………
I’m sure Morgan will be another one they will airbrush out soon if he keeps talking from the heart and not through Giles Clarke’s spin doctor. It’s a pity the England team can’t use ‘spin’ in their bowling on the field as much as they use it in their contrived utterances.
I prefer to believe that the astute and confident Morgan is keeping himself out of the running of being saddled with the permanent captaincy, while believing runs will keep him in the side.
Cook wants England to bring its test form to the World Cup. Over the last 12 months that form reads P12 W3 D2 L7. I suspect that Cook will get his wish.
I reckon Cook is being more than a little disingenuous when he brushes aside KP with the claim that no one in the dressing room is discussing the book. He might as well say no one in the dressing room is discussing Paul Downton’s incompetence. Some discussions are simply off limits through censorship of fear.
When Cook fastened his seat belt this morning as the team flew out to Abu Dhabi, he would have been forgiven for wondering whether he should stay strapped in over the next few months. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Another thing that has changed since the 80s is nicknames. David Lawrence, if I remember correctly, got his nickname from a big band leader – it was going back a bit even then. Can you imagine “Moira” Anderson, “Henry” Root or “Alexander Graham” Bell?
Which brings me to “Captain” Cook (inverted commas intended). How about “Can’t Won’t” ?
‘Alexander Graham’ rather suits Bell, I think, but difficult to call out during play.
If you did the thing of using famous names, it would be Thomas Cook, I suppose. But
‘Can’t Won’t’ would be very suitable.
I’ve just soothed my irritation with Cook by re-reading page 212 of Pietersen’s book. It’s the page that starts with the ECB’s requirements for a leader (“You have to be able to say the word yes. You have to be able to say it a lot.”) and continues with the Ned Flanders comparison and “It was as if he still writes to Santa Claus and puts his tooth under the pillow for the tooth fairy.” Said it far better than I could, KP, thanks.
Though reading that page you can see why Can’t Won’t wouldn’t want its author mentioned in the dressing-room.
But why are we not acknowledging Pitt the Younger ( I prefer to think of him as “Pitt The Glint in the Milkman’s Eye”, if we are to continue the Blackadder The Third analogy), as our saviour and Lord and Master of all he surveys?
After all, those who are critical of him are “Outside Cricket.” and thus only wothy to pay the £80-odd Tickets for the 2-3 Days whitewashes, I fear will happen next Year – It’s only Etheridge, Selvey, Pringle, Hughes and the like who churn out Giles Clarkes’ Press releases and who dislike KP because he’s a maverick and thus can think for himself- who know truly, the way forward LOL
Watching that video of Syd Lawrence reminded me of me…and then I woke up. ;-(
Of course I didn’t mean to be anonymous.
Interesting aricle by David Hopps on cricinfo regarding Morgan’s interview and the truths he made about England and the short format! He too expects the “Chinese whispers” to begin against Morgan. It will be interesting,and gut wrenching, to see if this comes to pass. I’m sure it will, and the embedded ones will duly play their scurrilous part!
Root’s interview was also enlightening regarding his comments on Cook, saying he has the respect of the dressing room (not that he’s a great captain and wonderful ODI player?) and goes on to say “we’ve got his back” ?? The implications of that statement are many and varied, but, in my view, the captain should be looking after the backs of his men??
It all reinforces my view, and maybe the view of many, that Cook is just a political “apparatchnik” of the ECB. Doubtless that one of his assigned tasks this tour is to weasel back to Downton about Morgan and stat compiling a dossier? I know you couldn’t make it up, but, I wouldn’t put it beyond this disgraceful administration and it’s pet muppet!!
To his immense credit, David Hopps (along with his headline writer) was on top of everything from the very, very start of this whole miserable business:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/717765.html
Surely on the shortlist for cricket article of the year.
Agreed Arron! This piece should be held up to the rest of his “cricket journalist” colleagues as something to aspire to!
Those of us ‘outside of cricket’ are constantly told that we are one issue wonders. Namely we are obsessed by KP. ” You’re all about KP, give it a rest.” Not true.
The moment Chinese whispers start on Morgan our critics prove themselves wrong. We are pissed off about how the game is run by the ECB. But increasingly for me another issue is the way the media is covering the game. So many journalists are nothing more than ECB mouthpieces. We know most of them don’t think Cook should be leading the ODI side. So when they write all this guff about Pitt the Younger coming back from the farm all refreshed,and talking about how England don’t have to change their approach, they show themselves as idiots.
I have never seen the English cricket media protect the captain from criticism like this bunch of lackeys. Their devotion to Pitt the Younger shows there is something rotten at the heart of the cricket media. Pitt knew all about ‘rotten boroughs.’ The English media is as rotten as it gets.
Those ‘inside cricket’ are one issue wonders. It’s all about Cook. They’re obsessed by Cook. No player is allowed to give an interview without mentioning Cook. Endlessly, repeatedly, they try to tell us that Alastair Cook is England cricket. Without him, it seems, we are as nothing; the team would ‘fade forgotten as a dream fades at the breaking day.’
One doesn’t like to wish injury on anyone, but really, if Cook got savaged by a sheep and couldn’t play for the next six months it would be very healthy for England cricket. A year would be even better.
And before anybody asks – Bell and Morgan.
what is a robber button?
My predictions for the World Cup.
– England will lose in the quarter finals.
– Cook will make a couple of dull 50s cementing his place as captain.
– Morgan will get out a couple of times playing shots which will later been deemed as reckless.
– The ECB will declare that we did ok and were unlucky to lose in the quarters so no changes in leadership are required.
I think what ever England do in the ODIs Cook will stand down at the end of the World Cup “to concentrate on test match cricket.”
This will be heralded by his media chums as a magnamiounois jesture. It will be no such thing of course. It will be a typical selfish move by a man who should have made the decision before the World Cup started.
Mark, will Cook’s wife permit him to stand down?
Yes,because he will be doing it for his own selfish reasons. Namely he has taken England to a World Cup, and got out of it as much as he can,and won’t probably be around in 4 years time.
If he was really making decisions for the best interests of England he would have already resigned from the ODI team.