That was the year that was – part four

tech-trends-2014

The final instalment of the story of 2014, as told through the lens of our posts and your comments.

October

5th. It’s now five days since the Pietersen-ECB gagging clause expired, but still the phoney war rages.

6th. The balloon goes up. Pietersen grants an interview to the Telegraph’s Paul Hayward, which reveals many of the key assertions from the book. An extraordinary fortnight gets underway. Over the course of the day, the book’s contents begin to emerge via review copies. We try our best to keep up with events.

7th. “The ECB attacked Pietersen and any dissenting voice, not to protect its good name from slanderous noises from outside cricket, but because it was attempting to conceal its treacherous, leak-ridden culture. But we all knew that, didn’t we?”. One of many analyses from Tregaskis as he reviews the Pietersen book. When the dust has settled slightly, James provides another perspective. Later still, we pick through some of the detail – here and here.

Meanwhile, the ECB’s “due diligence” dossier is leaked to the press, unwittingly confirming, in the ECB’s own words, the real reasons for Pietersen’s dismissal.

8th. We’d always been told by the ECB-ites – ‘well, just wait till you hear the other side of the Pietersen story’. It turns out that there isn’t one.

9th. The focus switches to the double standards between the desultory investigation into KP Genius-gate, and the ECB’s heavy-handed response to Pietersen’s texts. Plus we ask, is Paul Downton’s infatuation with Andy Flower at the root of the entire affair?

10th. It’s now ten days since the confidentiality agreement ended. And yet the ECB still remain silent.

11th. Alastair Cook speaks.

13th. One day in the life of Ivon Ivonovich.

14th. Andy Flower’s reputation remains in the spotlight. Put bluntly, did he try to make himself more important than the players?

15th. Mike Selvey’s first foray into the debate elicits a nuclear response.

17th. Make that seventeen days of silence, and counting.

20th. We decide to target the ECB through the only vessel which causes them pain – their wallets – and write an open letter to Waitrose, the England team sponsor. Here’s the eventual outcome.

21st. Pietersen week is becoming Pietersen month. Steve James blames it all on Pietersen’s greed.

23rd. Can England win the 2015 Ashes? And do we want them to?

26th. Jonathan Trott is selected for the England Lions.

28th. We pay tribute to Geraint Jones, and later, Syd Lawrence.

November

3rd. Australia are getting hammered by Pakistan in the UAE.

4th. Mark Ramprakash is appointed England’s new batting coach.

11th. The ECB’s obsession with rugby shows no signs of abating.

13th. Should umpires wear microphones? And has cricket forgotten about the north of England?

18th. We publish our one thousandth post.

19th. Alastair Cook’s secret weapon? A huge iron rod, says Andrew Strauss.

21st. The ECB’s National Cricket Playing Survey reveals a significant fall in participation.

26th. Moeen Ali’s century fails to prevent an England defeat to Sri Lanka in the first match of the ODI series.

27th Phillip Hughes passes away.

December

2nd. With England now 2-0 down in the ODI series, the pressure is mounting on Alastair Cook. Soon, his side are 3-1 down, pull another back, but then lose the series.

9th. It’s reported that Giles Clarke will be moved aside as ECB chairman.

14th. Peter Moores hints that Cook might be sacked, but then back-pedals. It’s announced that Paul Downton will face the media, and these are the questions the hacks must ask him.

16th. Unsurprisingly, the Dark Lord comes out with a load of old cobblers. His flannel requires several efforts to unpick, but here’s what he should have said.

18th. As the major match awards are announced, we look at who England will be playing over the next five years, and where.

19th. Tuesday: natural leader. Friday: P45. Cook is axed as ODI captain. Hate to say we told you so…

20th. The remainder of England’s World Cup squad is announced.

21st. Anglo-Irish TFT reader Simon Begley celebrates the appointment of England’s first full-time Irish captain.

22nd. James Whitaker tells us to be grateful for Alastair Cook.

23rd. But as a miserable year draws to a close, we look at the reasons to be cheerful.

21 comments

  • Well done Maxie, a marathon effort from you.

    No matter how many times I read through it all, it all seems to stem from Flower.
    His intense hatred of KP and his worryingly intense infatuation for Cook. Having said that, you have to hand it to Flower.
    What other coach could survive the 5 nil drubbing and the KP situation?
    He has manipulated a lot of influential people at the ECB, they not only promoted him upstairs but he has never had to give any explanation!

    Mind you some of them were very easy to manipulate if we think back to the Allen Stanford affair. They even had Mrs Prior photographed sitting on his lap. Strauss was right when he said Prior only ever put the team first.

  • Thank you Jenny. I have got to a stage in my life when I just don’t want to be diplomatic anymore. I call it as I see it.
    I hope you and your family had a great Christmas and New Year.

  • I hadn’t before seen this quote (courtesy of cricinfo):

    “Part of me would love to put my name into the mix, but I would want KP in the team and lose 10 support staff.”
    Shane Warne on being asked if he is interested in becoming the England coach

    So was it that his ‘disengagement’ was more from the backroom boys than from most of the actual players ?
    (Obviously true of Flower, but that ’10’ is suggestive.)

    • Interesting point! The resentment of KP internally could have come from all the support staff and others — the boys for whom the jobs are procured.

      It would come down to someone who is much richer and more successful in the sport than they saying that they were useless and not helping the team win … which would be one thing, but if this was putting in jeopardy a half dozen or a dozen sinecures, well, the prospect of having to get whatever real-world job would certainly motivate an individual to defend their situation however they could.

      I don’t expect that for instance Flower is wealthy to the degree KP is – e.g. having enough to retire on comfortably now and educate the kids, etc.

      It certainly /does/ explain the /emanations/ that have consistently come from specific /compass/ /points/ indicating (following the style of certain share offerings during the South Sea Bubble) that KP is an Awful, Awful, Awful Man, but ‘nobody to know what it is’.

      One guide to my whole opinion is that (in my perception anyway) is that of those who have been willing to assign their own name to their statements, those among them who had first hand knowledge but also no conflict of interest have generally declined to indicate any unacceptable sinfulness on the part of KP.

      • I think you’ve both nailed it there. While Downton has tried to argue that Pietersen was undermining and destabilising the other players, no evidence to support this idea has ever emerged. On the other hand, there was plenty of evidence – especially in the due diligence dossier – that Flower and his cohorts had a very personal grudge against Pietersen. On TMS, Downton said that he could find no support for Pietersen among the *management* and “quite a few senior players”.

        Quite simply, the ECB put an easy life for the managers ahead of the cricketing strength of the team.

  • I had to laugh at this (petty of me, I know)…

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/11323260/Make-bats-thinner-or-cricketers-will-die-and-the-ball-should-be-softer-for-women.html
    Television commentators officiating at presentation ceremonies to ask more probing questions of the captains and other players who are interviewed. “Were you pleased to win today?” and “Are you disappointed to have lost that one?” do the game a disservice and make the players look dumb.

    How hypocritical is this? You (Berry) and the vast majority of the print media have failed in the last year to seriously question anything the ECB has done. You have meekly toed the establishment line whilst they have stumbled from one shambles to another.
    You make a reasonable point about post match interviews but perhaps you should put your own house in order first!

  • A nice article on English cricket in 2014 from George Dobell:

    http://www.espncricinfo.com/review2014/content/current/story/813311.html

    “So what a shame that the England international season should finish with Moeen being booed by a far-from-insignificant number in the crowd at Edgbaston. To hear the poster boy for inclusion jeered by many of those he sought to represent and inspire was a depressing snapshot of modern multicultural Britain.

    Equally depressing was the ECB’s supine attitude to the incident. It did not so much as let out a tut. Buy a ticket from a tout, post a TV clip to YouTube or set up an online commentary service and the ECB will crack down on you with all the legal might it can muster. But boo a man for his race, his religion, his heritage or his views and the ECB looks the other way.”

    • This was an utter disgrace. Appalling behaviour from those who booed and from the ECB who issued nothing but a patronising and stupid statement along the lines that booing was some kind of compliment.

  • Stuart Broad ‘exclusive’ in the Mail:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-2895749/Stuart-Broad-Alastair-Cook-better-Tests-England-aren-t-old-school-win-World-Cup-hope-never-year-c-p-it.html

    I’m glad Broad seems to be recovering well from his op but this is so ‘on message’ it is painful. England may surprise people at the WC! Cooky’s great! Loughborough’s great! The schedule’s great! Put the past behind us! Not bothered if he’s T20 captain! No danger of him or Jimmy retiring! Like someone glued the current ECB crib sheet together and signed Broad’s name to it…..

    The only slight point of interest is the rave review for Mark Wood. I’ve not seen him – anyone who was have any thoughts?

  • “That conversation with Andy Flower back in 2010 was one of the best I have ever had. We didn’t have anything to lose. We drove into the lads that we would become more confident playing this way.” Paul Collingwood.
    http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jan/03/paul-collingwood-england-cricket-world-cup-2015-australia

    What happened to Andy Flower? How did he change from being this tough, challenging but adventurous motivator who was just what England needed, to being the petty, over-controlling manager who pushed players to play through injury, backed Cook no matter what, refused to accept responsibility for the Ashes whitewash and was clearly way too politically powerful for anyone’s good?

    I’m really interested in his story. Even if you discard everything to do with KP as being a one-off example of pure bad chemistry, there seems no doubt that Flower changed, especially in the last couple of years that he was in charge. I used to think he was a really good thing for England, but then the evidence of stifling micro-management just kept piling up and in this last year so many weird things have emerged that he seems almost Jekyll and Hyde.

    Did he set himself the task of dragging a not-great England side to number 1, and in the process come to hate them for never being quite as good as he wanted?
    After his cancer scare, did he deeply want to be at home with his family but was forcing himself to continue and feeling increasingly bitter about it?
    Did he find manipulating the England senior management was just too easy, and he didn’t realise what that manipulation was doing to him as a person? Or were they in fact manipulating him far more than he ever understood?

    I suppose no one will ever tell us, least of all the man himself, as we are outside cricket. But for me it’s been one of the nagging questions all through 2014.

    • You echo my thoughts, Zephirine. In truth, I suspect it was just burn – out. You cannot focus so intently on one thing for so long without risking becoming stale and inflexible. In rugby and football, the injuries are so frequent that you are always looking ahead. Every six nations, for example, Lancaster is without half of his team from the previous year. Ferguson and Mourinho are/were always managing around the losses of key players. Strauss and Flower never seemed to address this. At one time, it seemed we had bowling depth. Where did it go? It seems they kept hoping that Tremlett and Bresnan would come back, meanwhile ignoring Finn’s problems and the future.

    • It’s fairly simple.
      Morgan is a captain with his own ideas; Cook isn’t/wasn’t.

      And Morgan has the right instincts:
      “He’s very calm, he lets players breathe and that attitude will hopefully free up their minds …”

      Whereas, managers seek to manage – and if they have a captain without a strong mind, their worst instincts are given reign.

  • 2014 was the year in which we all finally realised:

    1) That giving a small number of institutions (the ICC, national cricket boards etc.) a global monopoly on the game of cricket is the perfect way to stop the sport growing globally, as those institutions deliberately stifle the growth of cricket in other countries in order to preserve their monopolies.

    2) Money speaks louder than cricket; the game of today is driven entirely by profit versus loss – not victory versus defeat.

    3) The IPL seems to be the only cricket organisation in the world where players are consistently selected on merit (or would be if it weren’t for the quotas regarding the number of Indian players on each team. But even that’s better than what happens in national teams).

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

copywriter copywriting