No. It’s not Batman. It’s everyone’s favourite technical director of elite coaching, Mr Andy Flower. Oh, hang on a sec, to ‘come back’ necessitates actually going away in the first place … which Flower didn’t. Yesterday’s breaking news that Flower will lead the England Lions in their upcoming triangular series against New Zealand A and Sri Lanka A is rather interesting to say the least. When Flower stepped down as England head coach after the Ashes disaster – when it was apparent to...
The Long Road Ahead
Usually I can’t wait to update this blog. But this time its different. I can barely summon the energy. The England cricket team has reached it’s nadir: being whitewashed in the Ashes, losing the early summer series to Sri Lanka, and now thrashed at home by an Indian team that hadn’t won away from home for three years. Imagine how ugly it would have been if we’d lost the toss. It’s time to face facts folks … We have a toothless bowling attack. We have a brittle batting line-up without a single...
While fans debate KP, Rome burns
I read a lot of sports blogs. I’m a below the line addict. I’ve seen fans polarised before – most notably footballs fans arguing over the merits of certain managers – but I’ve never, ever, seen English cricket supporters at each others’ throats like this. It’s a war. Over the last few days I’ve tried to stand back from the cacophony and understand events from a detached perspective. Obviously, one’s position on the Strauss / KP doos-gate depends entirely on whether you think KP is a...
Time to Move On
They say moving on is hard to do. They’re wrong. It’s bloody hard. But, alas, we must. Moaning isn’t fun anymore and it won’t do us any good – unless someone, somewhere, does actually have a plan to storm the barricades at ECB headquarters. The uncomfortable truth is the ECB have got away with their dastardly deeds and there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s not the first calamity the ECB have overseen and it won’t be the last. What’s more, now the initial anger has relented I can actually see...
The ECB’s new friends at Conservative Central Office
Few topics reveal the warped nature of ECB cricketing logic more vividly than their desperation to avoid returning The Ashes to terrestrial TV. And now Lord’s top brass will be pinning their hopes on a Conservative election victory in May. The party’s sports spokesman Hugh Robertson this week implied that a Tory government would not enforce the David Davies review’s recommendations – namely, that home Ashes series be ‘listed’, and available only on free-to-air channels. Robertson’s analysis of...
