Can’t We All Just Get Along?

So how are we all feeling? My 48-hour hangover is finally receding and it’s time to address the future with a clear head.

England’s Ashes win was surprising and most welcome, but we’re still only halfway through the year’s gruelling schedule. The are tough trips to the UAE and South Africa coming up. If you’re not knackered by the end of it, then our players certainly will.

Although I’d love to bask in our Ashes glory for a little longer, I’ve run out of analytical fuel. There’s nothing more I can add. All the stuff about English pitches and Australian batting techniques has been done to death now. Therefore I’d like to turn to the future.

Over the coming days we’ll discuss what the Ashes has taught us, what we can expect during the next six months, and where England need to improve to compete all around the world.

However, first of all I’d like to say a few words about the reaction to England’s brilliant Ashes win, and what it means for supporter relations and the media (both mainstream and social) moving forward.

The first thing to say – and I’m extremely sad to say it – is that I don’t think the Ashes victory is going to mend fences and rebuild relationships in the way I’d hoped. On reflection, I think my article on Saturday was a tad optimistic.

This is such a shame. I’ve personally done my best to see different points of view, present a balanced perspective, find a middle ground and move on. But it seems as though other people – which includes a few journalists who should know better – are more interested in settling scores than mending fences.

We’ve seen a number of childish articles in the mainstream media arguing that England’s win, which was achieved in the positive and free-spirited style that the critics had called for, somehow actually confutes the critics. Hmmm. They’ll have to explain that one to me again.

The fact that the team recognised the need to play more positively, and that Alastair Cook has become a more proactive captain, shows that even the team itself recognised that the critics were right to an extent and that a change in approach was needed.

And what exactly has this Ashes win got to do with Paul Downton? It’s got more to do with my cat than the Dark Lord. In fact, my cat contributed more to England’s Ashes win by not screwing everything up for a year.

The same goes for all the people that troll us on Twitter. My article on Saturday gave Strauss enormous credit for sacking Moores, appointing Bayliss, retaining Farbrace, and helping the team to adopt a more positive mindset – something I didn’t think was possible when he was appointed. I’m now extremely comfortable with the thought of Strauss navigating the good ship England. Like the skipper, he’s proved he can change.

But what have I got for my trouble and my attempts to find a middle-ground? A bunch of people calling me Piers – yes, very clever, you’ve noticed we share a surname – who wrongly assumed I wanted England to lose and thought they’d rub my nose in it. You can tell which people actually read the blog regularly and those that don’t.

One bloke actually went through two days worth of our tweets (which must have numbered over a hundred) to find one example of our apparent negativity. He ignored the pictures of me drinking champagne, and going generally going nuts, and retweeted an old tweet out of context instead …

When Warner and Rogers were scoring runs for fun in the second innings, I’d jokingly tweeted ‘only England can screw this up’! I didn’t realise that having a laugh made me a nefarious horsefly with no more right to an opinion than a serf or a Mycenaean slave.

Surely it would be more constructive for all concerned to admit that the critics were right about some things, but not about others, and move on in the spirit of reconciliation? Instead all we’ve had is a load of bollocks about mobs and egg on faces. Are these people for real?

Because of this immature and misplaced response to England’s win, I think the backbiting and name-calling will continue I’m afraid. When are supporters going to realise that the real problem in all this was / is the ECB? They’re the ones who have alienated so many people – as Maxie’s passionate and very carefully worded article on Sunday demonstrated.

At the end of the day, people are being told to move on by people who, err, refuse to move on themselves.

Let’s just think about the last two years. The ECB are the ones who shafted the smaller countries at the ICC and made many fans embarrassed to call themselves English; they’re the ones who have sold the family jewels to Sky; and they’re the ones that made a pig’s ears of Pietersen’s sacking.

The ECB are also, and I can’t emphasise this enough, the ones who built Alastair Cook up into some kind of messiah, put unbearable pressure on him, and almost ruined his career. Cook became a target for so many people’s unrest last year because of comments – “the right sort of family” – that a high profile ECB official made. The board basically put a target on the poor bloke’s back.

I have nothing against Cook personally (as I’ve said many times before). He seems like an honest chap and I’d love to have a beer with him. I’m also a great admirer of his undoubted grit – perhaps it’s because I’m a sturdy opener myself.

However, the constant adulation he receives – something I’ve referred to in the past as the Cult of Cook – is somewhat reminiscent of a party political broadcast sometimes. It turns someone who should be a universally respected and popular cricketer, into something of a nauseating pin-up boy. Surprisingly enough, not a lot of discerning cricket fans particularly care for One Direction or Justin Bieber.

The first thing that Nasser Hussain said when Mark Wood knocked over Nathan Lyon’s stumps to secure the Ashes was “Redemption for Cook”! I’m sorry Nasser, but what about the other ten players? Cook himself stressed it was a team effort, but other people outside his control predictably made the captain the big story.

What about redemption for Joe Root – who did far more than anyone else to win us the Ashes with the bat (and who was actually dropped for performing poorly eighteen months ago)? Root is now the number one ranked batsman in the world. Cook deserves a lot of credit for the way he’s worked on both his batting technique and his captaincy, but the praise shouldn’t come at the expense of other major contributors.

Over the last few days we’ve had numerous people comparing Cook with Mike Brearley and WG Grace, as Cook has become the first England captain to win the Ashes at home twice. This is obviously completely over the top. I don’t remember Andrew Strauss, who captained England to number one in the world and our first ashes win in Australia since 1986, receiving praise anything like this.

What grinds many people’s gears is these pundits’ failure to mention that Cook’s two ‘historic’ Ashes wins came within the space of just three years, and were separated by a painful 0-5 whitewash. They also ignore the fact that Cook has scored the same amount of half-centuries in the series as Adam Voges. In fact, Cook’s continued poor Ashes record at home (no tons in fourteen tests at an average of about 30) was one of the more disappointing aspects of the series.

Sometimes I think that people give Cook so much praise because he’s a likeable bloke. The media want him to do well because he’s polite and courteous to them. On the other hand, I can understand why some people, ridiculous though it may sound, believe pundits are encouraged to big him up by officials.

When Cook was batting at Trent Bridge, he looked out of sorts. His movements seemed a little jerky again, he edged numerous deliveries through the slips, and he was dropped in his twenties. A few people on Twitter remarked how he was struggling a bit – but not Sky’s commentary team of course. They kept saying how solid and composed he looked.

Sanity was only restored when the brilliant Ricky Ponting (what a pleasant surprise he’s been) came into the commentary box and called a spade a spade: “Cook has been fighting with his game this afternoon”. The difference in the two portrayals, or perhaps I should say perceptions, was marked. It’s something I don’t understand.

Even the article that discussed deer culling on his farm, and how Cook immediately framed the picture of him posing with the luckless dead fawn, presented him as some kind of macho man taming the wilderness. The angle was bizarre to say the least. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t mind Maxie publishing it, even if it seemed like an unnecessary dig.

Anyway, I digress. The point I’m trying to make is that going on about Cook all the time isn’t going to heal any wounds either. It just antagonises the discontented. There is still this ridiculous perception that you’re either a KP fanboy or a Cook groupie. I’m not sure where that leaves people like me who are ambivalent about both.

In years gone by it was possible to love both Gower and Gooch. Making you a fan of one didn’t necessarily mean you hated the other. And what happens if you think they’re both pillocks? Not that I did by the way.

The truth is that England supporters still seem very divided – more than I’d originally hoped for or expected. The emotions are still high, and one wonders whether the cracks will open up again once Australia leave these shores.

In some way, the Aussies were the common enemy that united the majority in a common cause. It will be interested to see if the team is backed so vociferously when we play poor Pakistan, one of the impoverished sides that will suffer most from the Big Three ICC stitch up. A cynic might say this is exactly what India wanted.

Consequently, in the spirt of John Lennon, Gandhi, Buddha and any other pacifist that immediately springs to mind, I’d like to propose a truce between the two warring parties. Just behave, ok people?

At the end of the day, all genuine cricket fans want the same things: a successful England team, affordable ticket prices, the ability to watch the team on TV without paying an arm and a leg, transparent administration, accountable administrators, and a sport that’s growing worldwide. If you don’t want these things you need serious help.

We’ll all have a better chance of getting these things if we stop fighting amongst ourselves, forget all the bollocks, and direct our anger and frustrations at the real villains of the piece.

James Morgan

@DoctorCopy