It’s a shame nobody could be bothered to go to yesterday’s deciding ODI at Edgbaston. They missed a game with plenty of talking points, not least Senanayake’s controversial run out of Jos Buttler. It was rather a shrewd move by the Sri Lankan spinner: it means nobody will be talking about his suspicious bowling action now.
I am, of course, being facetious. Senanayake was perfectly entitled to do what he did. For me, the key fact is that Buttler was warned twice beforehand, and had received similar warnings in the fourth ODI.
I don’t think it’s particularly sporting to run out an opponent in this fashion, as I don’t think Buttler was trying to gain an unfair advantage. However, the England keeper only has himself to blame. He was a bit dozy. You snooze; you lose. I can see both sides of the argument.
What we shouldn’t do is let this controversial incident disguise what was another heavy defeat (we would have been pulverised at Lord’s had it not been for Buttler’s amazing century).
The bottom line is that our top order batted too slowly, again, and gave the lower order too much to do. One wonders whether Ashley Giles is still in charge. Moores has changed nothing.
What’s more, whose stupid idea was it to take the power play when Cook was still at the crease? The captain’s I suppose. Sometimes I despair.
In the end, England’s meagre total was never going to be enough. The controversial run out probably cost us a few runs, but I believe the Lankans would have chased down a slightly larger total anyway. To focus on the Buttler incident is therefore a bit of a red herring.
Besides, Sri Lanka deserved to win the series. They are the better team – even in conditions foreign to them – and I doubt many England fans care too much about the result anyway.
As I said at the start of this piece, the pitiful attendance shows exactly how much fans care about this particular England team, in this form of the game, anyway. I’m sure Maxie, who went to Edgbaston yesterday, will discuss this in more detail tomorrow.
Ticket prices obviously play their part, but as a good friend said to me yesterday, who exactly would you pay to watch in this England team? There is no Botham, Flintoff or Pietersen to attract the crowds anymore.
Before I sign off, I’d just like to talk about the more pertinent Senanayake issue: his bowling action. I think it’s pretty obvious to anyone with two functioning eyes that he bowls with a bent arm. Whether you call this chucking or not is up to you.
Being a purist, I don’t like bowlers bowling with bent arms. I appreciate the argument that it makes the game more interesting, but I cannot agree: imagine if ALL cricketers bowled this way (realising it gave them an advantage).
Personally, I think this would be a tragedy. There are already too many bent armed spinners in the game. Give me Swann over someone like Botha every time
I do, however, have a lot of sympathy for Senanayake. Just put yourself in his shoes. He comes from a country where a guy who bowled with a bent arm is a national hero. He’s been playing international cricket for a while now without being banned, yet suddenly, without warning, and without changing his action, he’s suddenly in hot water with the authorities.
Senanayake’s whole career is suddenly in doubt. Above all he must be asking himself, “why now”? The poor bloke must be utterly confused. Why pick on him when there are so many other bowlers with dodgy actions bowling unimpeded around the world?
I was at The Oval yesterday watching Surrey versus my team, Worcestershire. Saeed Ajmal bowled a number of overs and his action looked terrible (in my humble opinion).
His regular off spinner looks just about ok – it’s obviously bowled with a bent arm that’s somewhere around 15 degrees, but I couldn’t detect much straightening.
Ajmal’s varieties, however, made me cringe. His quicker, flatter deliveries and his doosra were hurled at the batsman with an action that would make Steve Backley blush. Why has Senanayake been reported when others get away with it?
The ICC has ballsed up this whole issue. The system is riddled with inconsistencies, and the 15 degrees law has opened up pandora’s box. I really don’t know where cricket goes from here. Any ideas?
James Morgan
On yesterday’s game – we were woeful I agree. Think the Mankading of Buttler, like you, is another distraction fro what was another abysmal display.
He was warned, he can have no complaints. Equally, I’d rather we didn’t see bowlers doing this too often, purely from a specatcle point of view. England and some commnetators really need to calm down on this one.
I truly hope to never have to see that top 4 play together ever again – really only 2 of those 4 should be playing at the same time…currently those 2 should be Cook & Bell. Good to see Hales in the runs yesterday with 160 odd off of 120 odd.
On the bent arm thing, I think my view is slightly different from your James. Given that fast bowlers flext their arm quite often just as much (it’s just harder to see) I don’t really mind too much. I seem to recall some tests at the height of the Murali controversies that showed that all the top ranked bowlers hyper extended and then straightened their arms at hte point of delivery including the likes of McGrath, Freddie etc beyond the then 10% now 15% guideline.
I don’t know where you draw the line over the legality of actions, I haven’t a clue about bio-mechanics and human physiology, but I think the game is better for the variety provided by unorthodox spin. Certainly a better spectacle any way.
I suppose it comes down to the fact the England/Australia seem to be the only countries that care too much about bowling orthodoxies.
Some good points Mike. I accept that lots of bowlers flex to 10-15 degrees, but I think many of the mystery spinners around the world are pushing 20-30 degrees sometimes. I know the naked eye isn’t reliable, but Ajmal’s worst deliveries yesterday looked closer to baseball pitches than actual bowling. I hate criticising Ajmal, as he plays for my team Worcs and he wins matches for us. However, he looked to be 30-45 degrees at his worst (no kidding) but the umpires are too scared to do anything. It makes me very sad to be honest.
Good one James. Right on the money I should say. Don Bradman in his autobiography defended Mankad, saying:
‘For the life of me, I can’t understand why [the press] questioned his sportsmanship. The laws of cricket make it quite clear that the nonstriker must keep within his ground until the ball has been delivered. If not, why is the provision there which enables the bowler to run him out? By backing up too far or too early, the nonstriker is very obviously gaining an unfair advantage.’
It may not be seen as “sportsmanlike” but it is in the rules. It would have been very different had Buttler not be warned 3 times already. Hopefully he will learn from this and and not do it again. He’s young and very eager and very good. A real bright hope for the future.
The complaints from Cook and the rest is an excuse for poor play and poor decisions from the ECB in general. You are right Moores is no different from Flower. Nothing has changed has it? One could almost say that Buttler’s run out is yet another “scapegoat” for failure. KP cannot be blamed so blame someone else. England Cricket is in a very awful place. They need to look at themselves and analyse the whole game and their mistakes and change what they are doing. Sloppy play, slow batting, taking the batting power play at the wrong time and giving those who can hit the ball fast and furious too far down the order with too much to do. It’s all a bit grim. Cook should not be playing 50 overs. Not sure that Bell should be either, but no doubt they think other players can’t bat? Some of them certainly need a real kick up the backside.
Thank you so much for this. I have told a lot of folk on Guardian Sport and Telegraph about your blog. I’ve had thanks for passing it on. As I tell everyone it
is more than worth looking at, as best blog on cricket I have seen. A diet of Selvey and the appalling Derek Pringle is enough to give you permanent case of indigestion!!!
Cheers
Thanks! Very kind of you :-)
Thanks, Annie!
“imagine if ALL cricketers bowled this way ”
They do, that was the key empirical finding that led to the rules being changed.
No. They found that all bowlers straighten their arms somewhat. Swann and Tredwell couldn’t be more different to guys like Ajmal, Botha and Senanayake. To the naked eye, some bowlers are pushing 30 degrees in the heat of battle – which is why many do get reported. What gets me is the apparent inconsistencies in the reporting process.
Agree with everything here. I, and I believe many others, go along to watch special players – not to follow a team loyally. Delighted to have seen Botham, Gower, KP, McGrath, Warne, Ambrose & Walsh, Tresco, Monty, Sanga, Mahela etc etc etc. Once watched Sir Viv hit 100 in a morning at Hove. Yesterday, I watched Hales at Hove rather than the ODI on TV – more excited to see Hales, Taylor, Samit and the sublime Chris Read than Cook’s family.
Never saw any reason to read Selvey or Pringle. This blog and that of Dmitri Old make much more sense to me.
Couldn’t agree more. I do read Pringle, even tho he really is the most awful and predictable columnist going. Funny though that no matter what he writes he nearly always gets slaughtered by the commenters. Doesn’t change his attitude tho. Then of course Selvey. Blimey does he get out of his pram when you confront his pathetic excuse for a column. I wonder whether these people are blind, stupid or just getting paid to say what certain people want them to say.
This is the best and I was tipped off about it by one of the regulars via the Guardian and I, in turn, have tipped off others about how really good it is.
My husband played with Mike Brearley at school and said he was always good and won everything! He and his dad used to give my hubs a lift home and they were so nice. My husband became a very fine bowler and won a Jack Hobbs bat for his trouble. We both love cricket. I despair at this England cricket regime. ECB are a total waste of space. Selectors need a good kick up the backside and Cook needs to step down or made to step down. Still the ECB made their decision to stand by Cook against KP. You make your bed and you lie in it. The ECB and the whole bloody lot is making a real mess of our England Cricket. Until they all go our cricket will fall ever deeper down the hole it has dug for itself.
Thanks, Benny – and ditto re Dmitri Old, who is as distinctive, authentic and coruscating an observer of the cricket world as you’ll ever come across.
I think blogs and the mainstream cricket press have different roles. The likes of Pringle will usually be better placed to analyse the actual cricket, in pure cricketing terms, than people like me, who’ve never played the game to any kind of level.
But too many of those mainstream hacks have lost touch with life outside the press box. Not all of them, but too many of them. They live in a very cosy bubble – they know the players and administrators well, they’ve probably never paid to go a cricket match for decades, if ever, and all in all they have far more in common with each other than with the people they write for. They’ve either forgotten or never knew what it’s really like to follow the England team.
That’s where we bloggers and the rest of the BTL community come in.
KP-gate is a good case in point. The probable reason why few of the mainstream cricket press have got worked up about it is that they get drip-fed tittle tattle about KP off-the-record, which they can’t publish, So they end up saying ‘well, if you knew what we knew, but we can’t tell you, so just take our word for it’, and we feel patronised. For this reason, KP-gate has driven a wedge between the press and the public.
Pringle has become increasingly grumpy and reactionary as the years go by. Selvey has descended into outright unpleasantness.
When the English mob and commentators on Test Match special (TMS) unleashed their self righteous ‘spirit of cricket’ indignation on Sachitra Senanayake I felt the need to find out more about this unheard of cricketer who has caused a minor tempest in England’s favourite brew container.
So, I looked up his career stats to find out that Sachitra is 29 and had already played 1 Test, 34 ODIs and 17 T20Is. I also learnt that prior to his ‘Mankadding’ of Buttler, in earlier ODIs of the current series he had been reported for a faulty action and asked to report to Perth for a bio-mechanical examination about the degree of flex in his action.
I happened to listen to TMS at the time of Sachitra’s Mankadding incident and at the time the commentators were insistent that Sachitra had not warned Buttler earlier before running him out. The commentators also alleged that English bowlers, unlike Sachitra and Murali before him, were unable to bowl the doosra since it would be ironed out by coaches at the junior stages itself.
Personally, I feel any bowling action which does not threaten the life of a batsman should be permitted. This will balance the equation between bat and ball and make for interesting cricket.
In his book Lila, Robert Pirsig describes the English reaction when the first stuffed platypus was shipped there. At first, the traditionalists were aghast that nature had betrayed their classification. Also, they denied that platypi could lay eggs and then suckle their young. The traditionalists also tried to ban the platypus out of existence since it did not meet their classification code. It was only much later that the traditionalists accommodated the platypus in the field of biology.
At 29, Sachitra may feel like the stuffed platypus on its arrival in England. After investing so much time and effort in developing his skill, he is now being told that if he does not obtain a clearance from an Australian he will not be allowed to ply his trade. England may or may not have had a role in the reporting of Senanayake, but surely this could have been done discreetly at the end of the series so that the Sri Lankan team would not be compromised in the middle of the tour. Isn’t this a case of giving the home team an unfair advantage?
Yet, when Sachitra legitimately runs out Buttler after warning him twice against ‘cheating’, the umpires had the audacity to ask the Sri Lankan captain whether he wished to withdraw the appeal. The crowds aroused by a partisan TMS commentariat then boo the Sri Lankans and Sachitra in particular.
So, Sachitra you are not alone. I empathise with your situation. I also hope that you have an alternative career mapped out for I am not aware of any cricketer who has retained his wicket taking skills after his action has been re-modelled. So power to you.
Now do tell me are all these commentators on TMS and elsewhere the very same people who were saying that KP was the most exciting player they had seen since Botham a few years back, and are now saying that KP was always a problem in every dressing room he ever went in? I think they must have had mics plugged into the walls so these morons knew everything that went on! Pringle, Nicholas, Agnew, Corke, Fraser, Flower, Moyes, the miserable old git of cricket Willis and the ECB et al, are nothing more or less than bloody load of hypocrites. Their attacks are just full of crap that none of them have actually substantiated with any cast iron proof. Now these same people are all whinging about the run out. As if that was the only reason England lost. It’s a joke surely? Cook & Bell were too slow, a great deal of the batting in these 5 matches was abysmal; The Selectors don’t seem to be able to pick a team of winners and to cap it all they have taken five matches to see that this is not the way to win a game. And guess what? They still didn’t get it. ECB cannot keep its collective mouth shut and have made England Cricket a laughing stock. It’s a new era? Is that right Mr Clark and Mr Downton? Well from where I am sitting, it is the same old, same old only a damn sight worse than ever. Still as long as you all have a cosy rosy happy clappy dressing room and Cooky is happy with Mooresey then all is well with the world.
Good post Giffenman!
He’s a chucker, as is Ajmal. As was Murali. Not all the time but definitely when bowling the doosra and other ‘mystery’ balls. Murali’s case ameliorated by his dicky arm.
You are right that the ICC has ballsed this up, that’s for sure. For one thing, most of these guys will be able to bowl their deliveries with an acceptable degree of flex when tested, but can then chuck it in a match and subsequently claim – I’ve been vetted and cleared. It might have been better to have stuck with the judgement of the umpires as in the past. If it looks and quacks etc…
In my more tinfoil hat moments I wonder if the ICC decided to adjust the rules so Murali would be allowed to continue, in order that Sri Lanka had the chance to emerge as a test nation. And also because he does have a congenital arm defect so saying he’s a cheat because of the way he’s made felt a bit unkind, unsporting even.
Where that leaves us I don’t know. The ICC can’t rewrite history so maybe spin coaches should just encourage their players to learn some cheeky bent arm tricks?
.
When they test a player they compare his action under testing with images and video of his action in match situations – and specifically to the deliveries for which he was reported. Obviously this is not a perfect system but it is not as prone to abuse as you imply. The testers are aware of the possibility (probability) that bowlers will seek to bowl differently under examination and require the bowler to produce the same action.
Also, what would you recommend to replace the current system of report and review? Regardless of the degree of flex allowed, bowlers will bowl up to and beyond it. At that point they will have to be tested – which, with current technology, can only be done outside of a match situation. Until we have technology to allow testing in play there is no escaping the present conundrum. Indeed, it has always been with us. Its just that in the past, without any scientific basis for calling someone a chucker, the decision was simply made by the establishment – who are precisely the pricks who just sacked KP.
Quite a few bones to pick out of the match.
In my view there was nothing wrong with Senanayake mankading Buttler. First it was within the laws of cricket. Secondly, Buttler had been warned twice in the 42nd over – how many times is the bowler obliged to warn the offending batter before the spirit of cricket is sufficiently served? Thirdly, in my edition of the Laws of Cricket, the Preamble, which covers the Spirit of the Game, says that the umpires are the sole judges of fair and unfair play, and they are authorised to intervene and instruct the appropriate captain to take action in matters that they deem to be unfair. Angelo Mathews was give no instruction, so either the umpires got it wrong or they judged Senanayake’s run out, in context, to be within the spirit of the game. Fourthly, Buttler was a dozy daft ha’porth for ignoring the warnings, backing up too far yet again, and not even looking at the bowler. Again, was he silly or was this a ploy under instruction from the coaches?
George Dobell got it right calling into question England’s hollow self-righteousness about the spirit of cricket. To me, it came across as hypocritical at best and ugly colonialism at worst. England are serial offenders in playing the rules in their favour and Cook would not have dared accuse the Aussies or Saffers of crossing the line in similar circumstances for fear of ridicule. Though he should be used to ridicule by now.
This all amounts to a bit of a phoney war, and only serves to disguise England’s latent ODI failings. Peter Moores has to take a large part of the responsibility because the series was lost due to timid selection and timid batting, particularly by the top four. Two of the four have to go, and I would favour Hales and Vince to be given an opportunity. Sadly, Moores has lost the opportunity to blood them and still lost the series. No positives from that strategy. I read somewhere that Moores has now lost four ODIs in a row as England head coach. Glad to see the best coach of his generation is taking a fresh England side to new pastures.
For me Cook should not be in the team. He bats too slowly and he is a poor captain. The decision to call the early powerplay must have been pre-planned, yet Cook, unable to adjust to the circumstances of the game, went ahead and did it anyway, even though it was dumb. But he will remain the first name on the team sheet because he is now a political fixture.
On a slightly different point, I note that Mike Selvey, in an unexpected volte face, has joined the Jos-Buttler-for-test-keeper bandwagon. Now, I do not place Selvey in the progressive vanguard of cricket correspondents, so I can only think that he has been tipped the wink from someone in the ECB camp that Buttler has a shout. Not that I would object. I like Buttler and his natural instinct to take the game to the opposition. His fantastic hand-eye coordination and extremely quick hands serve his instincts extmely well. If only England had other players like that … wait a moment!
Oh very good Tregaskis.
‘Glad to see the best coach of his generation is taking a fresh England side to new pastures.’ Ooo so bitchy! I wish I had said that. LOL.
Now tell me Tregaskis, how could the selectors have chosen this team five times in a row and not understood that it had got in wrong? Is it me being a cricket fanatic of the female variety talking out of my rear end, or have the selectors gone blind? How many times do the top of the order have to get it wrong before the Selectors say: wait a minute this is not working. What a bunch of morons.
As you rightly say this is the new broom ushering a new era in England Cricket. Bunch of old farts should be given the boot and quick smart. They are all ruining our game. Cook will be there until Doomsday. As I said, they made their bed and now they are being forced to lie on it. I hope it is comfortable for them all.
And yes Buttler is very exciting and has a real talent. Just hope these pillocks do not ruin it with their regimented, one cap fits all, style! Not noticed any improvement with this “new style” yet. There must be lots of players out there who could play better than this lot. Still as said, as long as they have a nice friendly Dressing room where everyone is happy then alls well. Sod the cricket.
Annie, I reckon you are fast assuming national treasure status.
How have selectors got it wrong five matches in a row? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing continually expecting a different result!
“It came across as hypocritical at best and ugly colonialism at worst”.
As ever (the git) Tregaskis makes the point better than anyone.
For how long have England stretched the concept of fielding substitutes far beyond the intended purpose of the law? Every time a player wants a break, a drink, or a sit-down, they go off for a sub. It’s cheating, because the law only provides for injuries.
Team England’s reacting to the run-out was self-righteous in the extreme. In what way is repeatedly backing-up within either the spirit or letter of the law? The batsman is supposed to remain within his crease, and he leaves it, he is liable to being run out.
The creases are there for a reason – both batsmen must complete a 22 yard-run each to score a run. Otherwise, the non striker could stand five yards away from the batsman.
I also agree re the batting line-up. Moores approach appears to be to take Flower’s principles but apply them in an even more safety-first manner. His brave new world involves opening with Cook and Bell, neither of whom in a decade-long career has ever convinced at ODI level. The top four is dreadfull stodgy, as will our test XI be.
I suspect that this summer the England test side will sweatily assemble some reasonable totals against low-key bowling attacks, And Cook will tell us all’s right with the world. The team’s dullardry and lack of imagination – as exemplified by the captain – will then be put entirely into perspective by David Warner next summer.