Season reflections, part 1

Looking back on the 2011 season, what will I remember best in 20 years time? I suppose taking my first wicket will be prominent, as will the car crash that was the game before. However, I'll leave all that for another post, and keep this post to my memories of following cricket rather than playing.

It's been a momentous year, that's for sure. England came back from a memorable winter during which they retained the Ashes for the first time in my memory, and off they went to the World Cup, where they avoided the kind of drubbings they have suffered in recent tournaments, but never really played their best. Somehow we managed to beat South Africa, tie with eventual winners India, and lose to Ireland. It really was rather a peculiar performance overall.

Sheer joy!

I was going to write a post utterly jam-packed full of bitterness at the way that, yet again, my captain didn't pick me on Saturday and gave me no explanation as to why, but I can't. Not today. Headquarters is a-buzz and packed to capacity, England have a very good chance of taking first blood against the best side in the world, and Tendulkar is at the crease hoping to make his century of centuries. The 2,000th Test is proving to be worthy of the title and my heart rejoices at just how magnificent it is to be a lover of cricket on a July day such as this. Test Match Special is blaring out of everything in the house capable of producing sound, if the atmosphere at Lord's is even 10% as good as it sounds it must be mightily impressive, and I'm making some pretty large sounds of my own every time an appeal goes up! It's lunch, we're six wickets from the win and we've got the best bowling attack on the planet. There's simply no way I could be in a bad mood today.

That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger

At last it's over. We can say goodbye to Pakistan and pretend the whole sorry saga never happened.

But we shouldn't, because in the midst of all that's gone on England have been genuinely impressive. It's not so much their actual cricketing skill that has impressed, although they have on the whole played very good cricket. It's more to do with the way they've coped with being innocent bystanders in one of the most toxic scandals ever to hit any sport, let alone cricket.

Preparing for an Ashes winter

Well obviously the only preparation I really have to do for the winter now that the Club have put the nets out of use (dammit!) is put my kitbag in the loft, but I haven't the heart to yet so I thought I'd give the blog a thorough tidy-up. As you'll have noticed, the scoreboard and bowling figures have gone. Not much point having them on display all winter, not least for my own sanity as I'm sick of that big fat zero, so instead I've totted up my season's figures. They make for pretty bleak reading it has to be said... The next thing you'll notice is my Twitter feed. I know Twitter can be pretty inane at times (trust me, I've seen the conversations between Anderson, Finn and Swann...) but I thought that when the Ashes are on this would be a better way of communicating my reactions to the world than clogging the blog up with comments like "Pietersen you muppet, you needn't fish at that one!"

I'm not sure yet how I'll follow the Ashes this year, last time round I tuned into Test Match Special but this time I'm tempted to get a Sky subscription on my computer. It's not cheap though and having tried it out for a month I found that my computer was inexplicably changing its identity, meaning that after a while Sky thought it was five different computers and cut me off. At least I got to see the Trott-Broad partnership at Lord's though. The TMS route is a pretty old-school option, although it has to be said cricket on the radio can be remarkably gripping.

In other news I've decided it's about time I nail a County's colours to my mast and I've decided it's Warwickshire for me. I took a few days agonising over it, since in Staffordshire there's no obvious choice. I looked at all the neighbouring counties - Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Worcestershire - plus Lancashire and Yorkshire. I had a big soft spot for Yorkshire because so many of my favourite players seem to have come from there, Hoggard, Vaughan and Rashid being the obvious examples, but in the end I decided Headingley was just too damn far away. I ruled out most of the neighbouring counties for one reason or another (I think I've only actually set foot in Notts once, for example), so I was left with either Lancashire or Warwickshire. What ultimately tipped the balance was the leg-spin connection, with a whole stand at Edgbaston named after Bradman's famous party-pooper Eric Hollies. Added to that we have Imran Tahir's match-winning spell in the CB40 final yesterday, and the fact that Edgbaston's a reasonable distance away, and it all fits snugly into place. Also a Liverpool fan such as myself can never think of Old Trafford with too much warmth!

A magnificent England performance - allegedly

The spot-fixing allegations hanging over the fourth test have left me feeling all sorts of emotions one should never have to feel in connection with a Test Match. I have to express them somehow and here's as good a place as any...

To play in a Test Match is the greatest honour a cricketer can have bestowed upon him. He has the chance to measure himself against the very best of his contemporaries, and these measurements are precisely chronicled in order that that cricketer can be evaluated alongside the rest of the chosen few who have reached this elevated status since the very first Test Match took place in 1877. A Test Match is just that: the ultimate test of a cricketer's ability. You owe it to yourself, and to the great game of cricket, to channel every fibre of your being into giving the very best performance you can at all times. But for some people, who were born with natural ability and have worked hard to hone their skills to the fullest extent, it seems like being a Test cricketer becomes an entitlement. This is understandable, but what is inexcusable is when they get to the point where they see it as their own plaything, to be played around with as they see fit.

Game on

I try not to spend too much time talking about "serious" cricket on this blog, but you have to say today's play at the Oval has been remarkable.

Take it easy, fellas!

Pakistan 37 for 6 at lunch on the first day at Edgebaston. I do wish our bowlers would take it easy - I've got tickets for Sunday and at this rate I'm wondering whether the match will still be in play...

UPDATE: This is just silly now. England have missed out on two wickets, the first a dropped catch and the second an LBW overturned by the DRS, and both times I've initially reacted with frustration, followed immediately by relief. At this rate I'm in danger of failing Norman Tebbit's Britishness test!
(Norman Tebbit said the test of Britishness for second generation Indian and Pakistani immigrants was who they supported when they played England at cricket) 

UPDATE: Pakistan all out for 72. Bollocks Oh good...

How not to bat

One of the great frustrations for me in following the England cricket team is that while I know what's going on, I can't actually see what's happening because I don't pay Murdoch his filthy lucre. More on this subject and the lunacy of the ECB later... For now though, I've just seen the highlights from the morning and afternoon sessions of yesterday's play at the Wanderers, and frankly I wasn't impressed.

I don't think Cook, Collingwood and Bell have too much share of the blame, but as for the rest... Well the shot selection was just woeful. I've exonerated the three I just mentioned because largely they were out to good balls and in each case they were trying to defend.