The winter of our discontent

In the end, it was Jonathan Liew of the Daily Telegraph who came up with the best analysis.

“This is defeat as performance art, a  Fibonacci sequence of horror, the final flourish of a side that have become so thoroughly addicted to losing that they have placed every fibre of their being into its service”.

The artistic parallel is telling, because yesterday’s defeat to Holland served as the set-closing encore to a winter-long England performance which would defy even the most unhinged creative imagination.

The last six months for our cricket team have been a story of dystopian surrealism and tragi-comedy, laced with slapstick. Wagnerian in its scale and tortuous narratives, it blended the plot-lines of Franz Kafka with the unrelenting sorrow of Thomas Hardy, and climaxed with Jim Dale crashing down the stairs on a hospital trolley – the whole thing directed by Ken Russell after a particularly feverish nightmare, and set to music by Leonard Cohen in a bad mood.

Never before have England found so many ways to lose, and for so long. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, and then things which couldn’t go wrong went wrong as well.

At first it seemed we were merely unlucky. Then we looked hapless. Next came incompetence. But then everything turned darker. As defeat followed defeat, the entire veneer of Team England unravelled, revealing a culture of insularity, paranoia and mis-placed arrogance. Acrimony and in-fighting took hold, but gave way, in the final act, to pure comedy.

As recently as last October, we had won in India, reached the Champions Trophy final, and beaten Australia three-nil. Since then, we have lost eighteen international matches – including an Ashes whitewash – and won only five.

During that time we have been dismissed in tests for 136, 170, 172, 179, 155, 166, and then for 88 yesterday by Holland.

Trott went home. Swann gave up. Steve Finn got the yips, Michael Carberry’s bat snapped in half and Ben Stokes broke his hand on a door. James Whitaker’s phone went off during a TV interview and we were bowled out by a guy from Burger King. The only surprise is that, during the New Zealand match last week, we weren’t actually struck by lightning.

In between times, a stockbroker took charge and sacked the best player without explanation. He also fired the coach, but then promoted him to coach the other coaches.

Every single player and coach has had their reputation tarnished or diminished. As captain, Alastair Cook was exposed and humiliated. Ian Bell lost his form, Jonathan Trott lost his career, and Joe Root lost his place. Kevin Pietersen faced accusations of all kinds, while on-field Matt Prior’s game imploded and off-field he resorted to tawdry jibes.

Of the bowlers, Graeme Swann’s abrupt retirement appeared selfish and James Anderson appeared finished. Tim Bresnan, Monty Panesar and Chris Tremlett seemed no longer fit for purpose, while Boyd Rankin joined the one-cap-wonder club – as in, wonder why on earth they picked him. Stuart Broad, the one bowler who shone in Australia, then saw his captaincy ambitions go down the pan after presiding over eight defeats in ten T20s.

As for the coaches, Andy Flower’s previously superb record became overshadowed by the picture which began to emerge of his crumbling regime, a fractured Team England, and an inflexible, autocratic managerial style which made him appear the cricketing version of North Korea – except a bit less touchy-feely.

From top to bottom, the management turned good players into mediocre ones, ruined several careers, and left everyone feeling knackered and sad. Graham Gooch saw to it that all the batting averages declined and Richard Halsall ensured everyone dropped their catches, while David Saker performed reverse alchemy on Steve Finn. Ashley Giles has won only eighteen of his forty seven matches in charge, and taken us from first in the ODI rankings to fifth, and in T20s, to eighth.

Back at Lord’s, the ECB responded to the shambles by declaring war on their own supporters, constantly whinging about “unpleasant criticism” and telling everyone to shut up. Anyone “outside cricket” was forbidden to speak their minds. Giles Clarke – for whom the English public is an irksome distraction from the real business of pandering to the BCCI – ordered disgruntled fans to “move on”, before whizzing off to raise ticket prices.

And then we lost to Holland.

The really striking thing about yesterday’s defeat is how obviously it was going to happen. It was as predictable as Atherton c Healy b McGrath. Had a soap writer offered it up at a script conference, they’d have it roundly thrown out as far too corny.

But no one expected that we wouldn’t just lose, but get thrashed. We lost by 45 runs, which in a T20, as Vic Marks observed on TMS, is like losing by an innings. Paul Downton, you’ll remember, has set out to “rebuild…the team ethic and philosophy”. So how’s it going, Paul?

From the smoking wreckage emerges the lumbering form of Ashley Giles, inspiring about as much confidence as Trigger from Only Fools And Horses tasked with defusing a bomb. To Giles goes the last word, thanks to an insightful post-Holland press conference at which he gallantly tried to take the positives out of an ignominious defeat by stressing that “I thought we warmed up pretty well”.

What went wrong? “I can’t tell you why it happened”, said Giles, before adding, pricelessly, “we prepared the same way”.

It’s good to see that, despite everything, he hasn’t lost his sense of humour.

Maxie Allen