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The Federal Activity Project.

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In 1936, the fella Roosevelt instigated the Works Progress Administration, to revitalise an America ravaged by the Great Depression. Rather wonderfully, this included the Federal Art Project, designed to support and rejuvenate the creative soul of the nation, by bunging artists a few quid to stir and create and colo(u)r up the gaff. (Sir, I doff my cap).

Over the next handful of years, a who’s who of the Thrillingly Important Americans of the period a) survived financially and b) poured their paints and their energies into a kind of communal creativity kitty, from which a brighter, prouder, dreamier world might emerge. Pollock, Rothko, Gorky and others found a rare degree of security in the government wedge, plus the opportunity to beautifully and spectacularly indulge and develop their craft.

Whatever the pretext or the motives, there is a powerful sense that this was a rare and civilised moment: one where government actually, ambitiously enacted economic policy based on cultural good. It was stimulating; it was faithful. The fact that within ten years the world was brilliantly ablaze with American genius is at least in part attributable to Roosevelt’s inspired gift.

Historically, stuff like this never seems to happen, though, eh? – governments being typically peopled by the soulless, the myopic, the cynical. Real love of art rarely finds a way through the committees or the careering. The Federal Art Project was the diamond in the dungheap, a uniquely generous response to the national emergency and a hearty punt on the value of the search for meaning in a dark, dark world.

I call out for thinking like this. Not only in response to challenges to our capacity for creativity and spirit but also because of the threat to our physical wellbeing. We’ve too many of us gotten lazy. Fat; inactive; unwilling or unable or unskilled at moving.

We all know this. The information is out there, is shared. In our Primary Schools, in our halls and meeting places and leisure centres and doctors’ surgeries. Online, on the back of the bus, on the telly – fair warnings. We still get worse.

I have strong views on this (UK) government but let’s keep party politics out of this. The point I want to make goes waaay past that. In brief I say we need a Federal Activity Project, a massive, revolutionary, all-encompassing, irresistible national surge towards activity.

Of course I say this partly because this sporty/educational zone is My Territory. (I work as a Community Coach for Cricket Wales). I’m in the business of lighting up people – very often youngish children – for a game, for movement, for development-through-action.

I don’t want to be a sports bore and I get that our project needs to factor-in the allegedly non-sporty, the ‘difficult to reach’. In fact, they may need to be its focus. However, much of this is about scale – about levels of ambition. I say again, this project must happen and it must be MASSIVE.

I know we’re in (yawn) austere times. I know the purse-strings are allegedly tight. But masses of subsidised or free delivery of fabulous multitudes of activity would transform, over time, the physical and mental health of the nation. There is nothing that we need that is more important than this transformation.

I’m bawling here rather than making a case but I would argue that the NHS can only be made viable, in an era of ageing citizenry, through enormous cultural changes in the population. In brutal terms, we can’t afford folks to be obese, to have asthma, to have diabetes; we need them fitter.

In a way, kids are easy. If you give me zillions of coaches, I will transform them – make them livelier in every sense. They will be better listeners, better behaved, more creative, better citizens as well as infinitely more mobile. Good coaching does this.

However I absolutely acknowledge the ethical and the practical issues around persuading/compelling unwilling or unconvinced adults that society needs them to get moving. At some stage I may get into arguments over what ‘reasonable expectations’, what ‘buy-in’ might look like… but not here. Feels more urgent to strike out for healthy revolution than concede to practicalities before we’ve begun. This is a roar for change not a negotiation – not yet.

Ideally, I’d like an unthinkably humungous Federal Art Project as well as a Federal Activity Project. We clearly need to open our hearts and our senses to art and culture every bit as much as we need to run three times round the block. (And by the way, I know we ain’t a Federation but gimme some slack on that. This is about free ideas, imaginative nay truly wonderfully radical shifts in intellectual and physical norms or possibilities). But I’m calling out for sport to start with, for activity; for a spectacular charge towards health.

There will be more on this but meantimes chew on the soundbite. We must transform, we must get moving. We need somebody to fearlessly chuck paint around – to search. We need inspired government.

 

What do we call this?

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Okay. Maybe you’re centre-midfield on a parks pitch in North Lincolnshire and it’s down to you. This. The ball plummeting towards, their grizzly number six feeling for your presence, aware you’re the one who can head. You’re gonna not so much head as clear out the universe, power through, make the most intimidating statement ever made in sport.

This only works if you bawl something as you leap; something kinda specific. Something like ‘RICKY’S UP!’ – which may on the page sound cheesy but in the moment, no. The two syllables of the name project, control, make real the intervention in a way that RICK just couldn’t. It would be ricdiculous. The words, the sound, the something… decide.

Everybody who knows footie – knows sport – understands this. The words in the event are massive. What you call yourself, what you get called, how you’re spoken of , is critical. Not possible to be bona fide without (weirdly, mainly) two syllables.

Of course this is why we get Gazzas and Glendas and (don’t worry I’m coming to cricket now) Rootys, Cookies, Jimmys. Cobblers to any other cultural-sociological considerations, it’s about what naturally fits, then. So I can be as Rick as I want but if I plant the ball majestically wide of cover’s left hand somebody on the boundary’s going to mutter ‘shot, Ricky!’ If the England number three does that beautiful unfurling thing through extra-cover, Farbrace is going to rumble ‘played, Vincey!’ as he’s stirred to his feet.

How else, though, is the gorgeous-but-infuriating Hants bat spoken to, or of?

When he strides back to pavilion, eyes down, caught at slip, what else could it be from Bayliss but ‘what the **** was that, Vincey?’

Actually it could be lots of things. It could be silence, for one. Bayliss may choose a later opportunity, maybe to ask a wiser, more searching question. Like ‘where do you think we are with the dismissals, Vincey*? In terms of pattern?’ And then they together choose what to work on.

*Could be of course that in the real world moment there’s another nickname. Not in there – don’t know. I’m betting it’s two syllables, mind. Vince is worth talking about; with yaknow, words.

Clearly there’s a lot of chat around all those starts, all those frustrating, demoralising finishes. (Sometimes I wonder if they’re worse for us poor buggers watching than for him!) Plus a rich vein of psycho-gubbins around personality, freedom, responsibility and yes, that coaching framework. There’s a documentary series, never mind a blog around What, Exactly, Vincey Should Do: for now, I’ll stick with the former.

Some are fascinatingly clear that what they deem a ‘failure to learn’ simply disqualifies him already; however he might purr, this cat ain’t suitable for Test Cricket. Others argue that the problem isn’t so much centred on poor choices as kindof disproportionately fiercely-punished non or near-execution. Failing to execute shots he very often plays. Outside off-stump. Imperiously.

From memory I think I’ve only seen one media name blame technical issues for Vince’s predicament. Chiefly he’s getting slaughtered for going there at all, given we’re under, or about to be pitifully legs and arms akimbo under the cosh. There may actually be something comical about the level and intensity of verbals aimed at the rather serene-looking strokemaker but head-in-talons at the unbe-leeee-vably serial transgression across the Don’t Play Eet Less Ya’ve To Principle, us nighthawks – Yorkie nighthawks? – have typically stooped full-tilt into raging fury. Perspective? Proportion? Intelligent Investment? Na.

Here’s a thing, though. Plenty of us have woken the dog – quite possibly immediately before the offending nick of the wide-ish one behind – with a snortaciously approving ‘Yesss, Vincey’ as the ball raced to the off-side fence. We’ve muttered something about ‘class’ – and I don’t mean his private schooling in medium-luxurious Wiltshire. Thus many a dark, dark December night has felt defined (or possibly caricatured?) by the cruel see-sawing between expressive pomp and dumb, tribal humiliation.

Incidentally, I wonder how many of us have marked a beautifully squeezed J.V. drive with a follow-up aimed (in increasing order of spitefulness) at Starc(k)y, Smithy or War-ner? And is there something else about doubling up – going bi? Bitterness? Bile? Emphasis? Certainty?

See, I am more sure of my two syllable hypothesis than any of the Vince cricket-things. He’s a fabulously gifted player – milky, honeyed, rich, pure. And yet we wonder either if no-one’s home, if nothing’s been said or if our fears about the empowerment of players through (ahem) *personal discovery* have in his case reached an epic high, or low?

Freedom for learning is a gift and a blessing. It’s also very much at the forefront of contemporary coaching philosophies. They change. The need to decide stuff arguably doesn’t.

Vincey, come out and tell us: what’s been said?

 

 

It’s huge.

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New Year. Darkness, with a soundtrack of ghoulish gales. Red wine territory, or maybe Guinness – Guinness in a low-slung, fire-lit pub. Waiting and (I think subconsciously) gathering.

At home: flick through the blogs. Another year of wild fauvism, with the usual daft daubing about the Miracle of Sport or the colour of a Cricket Moment… or rain. Or stuff even more indulgent than that.

Maybe another post about work might be appropriate?

For those just joining, work is Cricket Wales, is mainly a gift, a privilege; coaching kids. As Community Cricket Coach for Pembrokeshire – yup PEMBROKESHIRE, as if the blessings weren’t sufficient before that geographical cherry-on-top! – in dreamy West Wales.

Currently, I’m waiting on a wee bit more training before delivering Chance2Shine/All Stars Cricket sessions into schools. Then full-on to the summer. You’re welcome.

In this real world, then, my annually-surging effort will be yet more closely linked to the All Stars project, as it charges in for its second season. Feels good to be storing up some hoipla to energise a zillion kids because I know I will properly use it. We surely do things differently but my way is generally to enthuse through infectiousnesss and energy: I’m getting mildly pumped even thinking about it.

Dunno about you but I’m somewhere between fascinated and mortally offended at the debate around All Stars. Faaar too many folks appear to view it as ‘another money-making scheme’ by the ECB, when this is plainly absurd. The ECB is not making money out of All Stars – how could it, when the kit and the admin/promotion costs are so massive?

On the contrary, once-in-a-generation style wedges are going out on this because the ECB now knows radical, sustained, innovative action is needed to really change where cricket’s at in terms of profile, relevance, access. Those of us who have happily assumed for thirty years that the ECB is endlessly snobby and soporific have to stir ourselves from our own idle prejudice because (get this!) a bonfire has been burning underneath the Old Farts and maan they are jumping. Having to.

Cricket Unleashed is a slogan, for sure. We’re historically within our rights to be cynical about a) this b) the cycle of ‘innovation’ bu-ut the administration leading the game has never been so D.Y.N.A.M.I.C. so the unleashed thing isn’t entirely preposterous. Honest. It’s not just another tweak – or even just another re-brand. It’s huge.

All Stars actively seeks to re-positon the game in the consciousness of the public by welcoming in thousands of new families – people who just never got cricket before – by entertaining their youngsters imaginatively, appropriately and with some style. (Actively seeks? Sorry, sounds like a brochure. I mean really really really. Like I believe it really, really does. That help?)

The idea that cricket (i.e. the ECB) accepts the need to *actually address* issues around accessibility/class/opportunity is strikingly, stormingly, break-down-the-doorsingly encouraging. Whatever the reasons, the thinking is radically healthy and it does represent the unleashing of something. Something which is meant to add a new dimension to the truly precious, traditional club & family stuff.

All Stars is MASSIVE and bright and extremely cute in almost every sense: it’s here to COMPETE, to challenge footie in the playgrounds, to capture kids from waaaaay beyond the range of our previously rather narrow range of influence. We can and should argue about the finer points of how and where and at what cost the show goes out but the fact that it’s designed to be genuinely popular, almost universally available and respected in schools is excitingly, emphatically, rightly beyond dispute.

I have two days training coming up, to fine-tune my knowledge of the All Stars curriculum and inhale expectations around delivery into schools. Having no problems either with the change of emphasis (towards a six week course for each class) or with that whole notion that the branding and jargon may change again next year – I look forward to it. I’m neither faking my commitment to the wider Cricket Wales cause nor faking my support for the intention to burst cricket’s middle-class bubble. Both feel bloody good.

All of us in cricket have strong views on everything from The Way Ahead to future of Test Cricket – of course we do. So inevitably there are moans about All Stars ‘not addressing the real issue(s)’. But by powerfully confronting the problem of too few young people getting or knowing cricket, or having it in their vocabulary of thinkable, do-able things, a key barrier is surely being tackled? And the feeling from (almost) the inside is that the barrier is really being tackled, not merely faffed about with. I’ve written before about the perils of another weedy intervention: this, my friends, is not that.

Effectively, a parallel Chance2Shine/All Stars is being taken in to the classroom, or schoolyard, before the clubs roll out their own programme (again with ECB support) in May or beyond. Obviously those of us leading sessions in schools will be signposting children to their local clubs – and not exclusively those clubs offering eight weeks of All Stars Cricket. The whole game should benefit.

The six lessons I will be delivering per year group or class will be heavily supported by online material for the schools. This is a rather skilful extension of our existing mentoring of teachers: until now this has been good but maybe too informal, maybe less impactful than it might have been. Consider how much more influential limited Cricket Wales resources (like me) might be if teachers themselves took on the role of cricket advocate, year on year? This is the very clear intention of the brilliant Chance2Shine resources being offered into schools and  it’s also indicative of the good-quality thinking and support around the whole All Stars phenomenon.

I’m pretty sure the people who have designed and built All Stars know it ain’t a panacea. I reckon they’ve noticed teenagers leaving the game and drawn games or long games being a major turn-off for many clubbies. Because this is 20018, the challenges, like the cultural context, change all the time. We need to get on top of stuff: make bold decisions.

The ECB and their partners may (shock horror) be flawed. But I am spookily clear that the general thrust of the developments they are leading in grassroots cricket are really worth getting behind.

More kids will play. More kids will know who Joe Root and Heather Knight are.

Beyond the 5-8s in All Stars, more kids will be active, will feel they are in the game when they play their cricket, as formats change, pitches shorten, opportunities at younger age-groups widen. If we develop a fabulous Big Happy Pool of young cricketers and offer them more of what they want and value the stuff that’s great about our existing club cricket, then that’s a decent start, right?

 

We All Know Better Than The England Coach.

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Chemistry. The blend. Knowing the human, knowing that stats aren’t everything – but, yes, that they are something. Understanding (without the thesis) the stuff about gathering the group; how there has to be both freedom and hierarchy. How there’s no algorithm for genius or leadership; nothing which stands above your feeling for the game, for the individual.

Sure, there’s process: it’s the elite coach’s mode, their first point of reference. So you attend to the process, in every respect. Players are developed, through contact, through care, through challenge. You just don’t personally buy the need for process as safety net.

You’re good; they see that you get it. They don’t need to disentangle how but later – years later, pre the book – they might talk warmly of your intuition. About how they weren’t sure what it was, at the time.

This is the picture. You carry it around. It’s palpable.

In training there’s a sustained intensity: lungs are bursting, eyes ablaze, minds trimmed and alive. You’re easy but spikily funny. You measure out – but again by instinct – the qualities of your staff. The right people are working with the right people: there’s no coasting, no wastage, no boredom. You ask the right questions. There are laughs.

You deal generously but without ego, with the media. Pretty soon – did they even notice? – there’s no flak to draw, no eyes averting, no knives. The scoops, the intimate words, the cheery beers together get shared around. When the tensions come, you snaffle them with a joke; with self-effacement; with impregnable good will. The journo’s use words like ‘remarkable’.

Everywhere, you build trust. And nobody betrays it. If they did you would judge the transgression supremely fairly, with flawless discretion and then you would act. Without bitterness or favour. Decisively.

The key is, you make things work: the environment you’ve built breeds results. Not that the team is unbeatable but it’s improving, it’s ‘ahead of the curve’ – way better than folks imagined. The players come to love you and the fans respect you. The Barmies sing songs; musically, metaphorically and whenever the chance arises, they man-hug you. You can enjoy it; we can all enjoy it.

If there was time, you’d reflect. You could’ve managed KP. And Botham. You could put Bairstow in at three, now – could make that possible by just a few words. The black dogs who’ve skulked around for aeons… you would have anticipated every raw moment. Over the years. Words would have been found.

You could get round the counties, too. Sure, there’d be moans but it would be clear; no-one’s missing, there’s no diamond left out in the sticks. You know them, you’ve watched, you’ve said hello, seen them, been in their company just enough to fix them and select.

Friends, it’s a quiet, shared, redemptive joy. Whilst we *actually work* in schools, or ‘at The Council’, or for Leyton & Co. by the bus stop on the river, this is the thing: we all know better than the England Coach.

 

This Blokey Universe.

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Let’s watch. The volume of negativity (either overt or less so) around this might be interesting. It might tell us a good deal about things – that and the quality of the arguments raised.

Let me, crass, or’nary bloke wot I am, unleash a coupla looseners about how This Blokey Universe might have affected or conspired or coloured all judgements, pretty much, around and against this one and only Day-Night Test: then maybe – maybe perversely? – finish by saying I enjoyed it. Despite the draw.

  • The pitch was dead. Deader than a very dead thing. So dead I wondered if it was patronisingly pacific because *somebody* thought it needed to be ultra-safe… cos this was for wimmin? Wimmin who might not last on or cope with a lively one.
  • The result – or rather one result? Nineteen wickets only, fell.
  • The context. There is almost no Test Match context, because there is no Test Cricket… for women. And, shockingly, Heather Knight and Ellyse Perry may have two years to wait, now, for their next opportunity to don the whites.
  • The implications. The implications of having almost no competitive tests are several but they include a complete lack of opportunity to rehearse innings-building or preserving or countering strategies, in this format, when (for example) under Ellyse Perry’s boot. Such opportunities might, let’s be honest, be handy.
  • Small wonder then, that England, in their second knock, had little more to fall back on than the general, conservative imperative.

Charles Dagnall, a solidly decent citizen, tweeted mid-final day that it was ‘dreary’… and he had a point. And he may have said that about a men’s test which was ambling towards anti-climax too.

(In case you’re wondering, in no way am I targeting the tall, northern seamer; he does seem a good, intelligent fella and he can bowl a half-decent outswinger 😉. I have no doubt his comment was neutral.)

With Elwiss and Knight on the steady side of steadfast, the game was shall-we-say uneventful. A fair, consensual view of the contest at this stage might indeed have been that it was dreary. But this is what Test Cricket is.

Test cricket is the England captain batting and batting and batting, without offering encouragement to the opposition. It’s Elwiss doing that annoyingly-held, forward defensive pose-thing. It’s the very suffocation of drama – sometimes.

It’s dull of me to remind you of that which you already know but… it’s okaay when this stuff happens. We don’t want it all the time but it’s okay when you read the paper for a bit because the game’s gone to sleep. It may be part of it. There may even be an argument that it’s important, this as a statement; so tremendously against-the-grain-of-the-psychotically-immediate now, so philosophically gentle, so redolent of the value of the (remember this word?) pastime.

Absurdly but maybe wonderfully and preciously it may not matter if you miss a wicket because the essences of what’s happening are readable, feelable from the long-format ether: you know what you need to know.

This is an experience over time, where the unique daftnesses or voids are ab-so-lutely central – whilst being obviously also undeniably gert hig black-holes of glorious inactivity. Here, I loved the non-battle of it, the knowing nullifications: Ar Heather saying to Your Shooter ‘you’ll have to show me more, girl’. It was proper Test Cricket.

Live, I wrote this…

Day-Night, Pink-ball Test. Easing towards a likely draw. Australia having been utterly dominant – essentially through the brilliance of their shining star, Ellyse Perry. England still behind on the numbers as the final session begins but just the two wickets down.

So, like a zillion Test Matches before (and hopefully a zillion after) this is winding down to no result. Unless the Day-Night, pink ball, festival-of-carnage explodes from nowhere.

The pitch is slow and flat; there have been very few false shots from England skipper Heather Knight and her batting partner Elwiss. Nerves do not appear to be a factor.

As I write Knight has gone past her fifty and Elwiss has seen out 150 balls for her 30-odd. The numbers don’t seem critical. The crowd has drifted; we have spin-twins twirling away; the faint possibility that Schutt or Perry might take a rapid 6-fer seems invisible ink faint.

There have been moments but after the dinner-break the assumption is there may be no more. The Worldie of a delivery from Wellington that bamboozled the previously immovable Beaumont may have to suffice. (People will be saying that was Warnesque.) The toe-ender from Winfield that saw her fall to McGrath, leg before, likewise. Otherwise, no dramas.

It was the middle session of the day that settled this: Knight and Elwiss coming through unscathed.

In doing so – rather brilliantly, in my view – they recalibrated the possibilities back to the draw, only. England now know they must win all three of the upcoming it20s, the first of which will take place at the very same North Sydney Oval, god-willing, on a brand new, zoomer-boomer of a track.

(In fact there was talk – EEEK! – on social media that the same pitch might be re-used. Fascinating to see if the verbals around this duvet can influence, belatedly, that process).

Maybe – I wrote, as the minutes ticked away – in the face of this wicket-worry, we need to get back to Things To Like about this Test Match. Because I, for one, have really enjoyed it.

Let’s do that. Most obviously, this has been (one individual aside) an even contest; as were the One-Dayers. This has already made for a really good series.

Beaumont and Winfield have been mostly excellent against the Australian opening bowlers, getting their side into the Ashes event. (Imagine how things might have been if England had had flaky starts against Schutt and Perry. Hats doffed to the top two, for that: absorbing clash).

England’s seamers, meanwhile, have seemed relatively impotent but there have been spells where Shrubsole and Brunt have executed that Plan B – for containment – well. Importantly, the spinners backed them up competently on this, even when Perry was a) well in and b) ideally, surely, looking to accelerate away. That she didn’t, entirely, was down to decent, competitive work from England… and that pitch.

However let’s get real. Most reflections on this match, now and in the future, will rightly focus on Ellyse Perry. Because genius; because all-time great.

She’s a gift to the sport – to us all. Athlete par excellence. Batswoman and strike bowler, with the fabulous, natural movement and proper elite-level sporting temperament that sets her apart, above. She with everything.

One example, maybe the least obvious. With the draw already almost sealed, Perry’s plan deep into the game to bowl short and sharp to Elwiss, made for great viewing – made me smile, in fact. Digging it in to try to prompt some fear or anger or reaction from the batter; this after the bowler has spent a lifetime batting herself. Impressive, hearty.

At one stage hopes were raised as Elwiss rather weakly patted one over her shoulder towards deep backward square. No joy, but great, great effort from the Australian superstar.

Perversely, perhaps, given all the talk around dourness, I also enjoyed (on this occasion) England’s boldness re their use of the sweep. Although there will be a certain level of flak going their way due to the dullish nature of their rearguard action, England strategically used the sweep, if not to aggressively counter, then to ask a polite question or two. Knight in particular used the shot to make a wee statement about confidence, deliver the occasional boundary and force changes in the field.

The attendance – 12,674 over the four days – was also encouraging, without being a triumph.

Many if not most of them will have queued for Perry’s autograph after those final handshakes but I hope some supporters sought out Wellington, too. She’s been good to watch, really turned the ball. As she flipped them out and over and down, the threat never really went away, the frisson never really died, even on a lifeless pitch.

Through to the final session she got edges – thick and thin – which might have yielded wickets. When Wellington develops some variations (which she surely will) the young leggie will be both a force and a profound source of entertainment, for years to come.

Having criticised her previously I’m pleased to report I liked too, the work with the bat from Knight. Firstly with her quality and circumspection – under real pressure, remember – then, late in the game, sensing she might even nick a test century! As the universe nodded off, Jonassen was suddenly dispatched for a couple of emphatic fours, bringing up 75 for the Western Storm skipper… and it seemed, briefly, that her eyes twinkled. (Knight finished unbeaten, on 79.)

This threatened to lead, in fact, to a discordantly spicy conundrum. As we entered the negotiable final hour at 8.30p.m. local, it appeared that Knight disagreed with an instruction from the boundary to carry on – this being technically possible.

Minutes later, as the captains shook hands on a draw, we could only speculate on what was said by England Coach Mark Robinson. Did he want to grind the tired Aussie bowlers down as well as offer Knight the opportunity to chase a rare ton? Would he be that mean? Who knows?

Finally, us Poms laughed more or less good-naturedly at the inevitable Ozziness of Megan Schutt being affectionately known as Shooter. (Accent required: if you missed it, Shooter/Shoodah hung in there for a crucial 1 not out, in the Perry 200 story.) Bless.

Resting, before acting.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I’m not much of an actor but I have been resting; between performances, or bundles of performances.

Pretentious? Moi? Well, that’s kindof what our sessions in schools are; more-or-less theatrical projections or expressions of strategy, policy, faith in our sport. And I have been waiting for the next launch, the next tour of our Community Cricket show to begin, so it’s felt like a rather welcome lay-off as well as a time to gather, before going again.

As I guess there must be for the average thesp, so there’s a weirdly seductive tension around my own downtime. Part of this arises from the fever going on in the background, as a discreet fury of discussion over strategy rises or rages to its conclusions. It feels as threatening as it does exciting. It feels big.

I mean of course the ECB/Chance to Shine/All Stars/Player Pathway stuff that has occupied the lives of most Cricket Development people over the last two years or more. The Seminally (Semenally?) Sexy Questions about how cricket needs to be, to be bubble-burstingly present for the next generation.

Hard to imagine? The sweeptastic revolutions on the pitch being mirrored by off-the-fullest-run-imaginable stylee pow-wows for admin staff and cricket people at all levels?

It’s been happening. It’s been spicy – and probably, I’m guessing still is – but given the preciousness of the raw material and the (honestly!) radical nature of some of the ECB proposals, no surprises that opinions might veer towards the antagonistic.

I’m at arms length from most of this, admittedly, being Coach rather than Development Officer. But I’m close enough to know that massive calls are being or have been made on everything from player pathways to All Stars to Coach Education. Big Stuff around the recreational game. Big Stuff around re-inforcing the rationale and execution of All Stars. Big Investments in change; a) because the belief is change is right and b) because the confident expectation is that there will be money. All this llus arguably Even Bigger Stuff in relation to the professional game, which I will all but ignore, here.

Year 2 All Stars is almost upon us. If you’re not clear what this is or means, here’s a view, or review, of some of the whats and whys.

All Stars Cricket is the ECB headline project for young children, begun this year, enacted through clubs. For 5-8 year-olds, very much aimed at boys and girls, very often via their mums, after shedloads of research showed this was the way to attract new families into the cricket universe.

All Stars is bold and welcoming and new: it represents a break away and forward (arguably – your choice) because Matt Dwyer, the Australian guru/driver/leader-in-possession of The Rationale has a) done this successfully before (in Aus) and b) believes only this level of ambition and dynamism can keep pace with or make sense with the kaleidoscope of change around the pro game. All Stars is defiantly in your face: not just an extraordinary investment but also a considered (and therefore philosophical) commitment to breaking out from the narrow heartland of the status quo towards something simply but strikingly more popular.

I have no doubt that there are one or two key words in that last paragraph that put the beejeeebers up some good cricket folks. But there’s no going back on this. All Stars is populist, yet the powers that be (or enough of them to back it, ultimately) plainly view it as essential to delivering new blood, new impetus. Resources are flowing that way again.

However, Roadshows to support the project and answer questions were delayed: I can’t honestly tell you whether this was due to alarm bells ringing or logistical stuff re kit or accessories or what. I can tell you that in a striking departure for us Community Coaches, our work in schools (as of any minute now) will be aimed primarily at a kind of parallel All Stars course, heavily linked to the general Primary curriculum and that we will be coaching the younger age-groups – Years 1 &  2. This is significant.

In previous years, the objective was more about enthusing 7-11 year-olds for the game and ‘signposting’ them into clubs ready to receive and support a new Under 11 side. The switch of focus to All Stars at 5-8 was initially to gather a new audience earlier, compete earlier with other sports and plant the cricket flag more visibly into school playgrounds: Dwyer (not entirely wisely, in my view) openly talks about ‘winning the battle of the playgrounds’.

All Stars has always been more sophisticated than might appear at first glance – probably as a result of the huge lump of research that preceded it. Year 2 will build on this by being ver-ry savvy in relation to what Dwyer & co. have understood to be the aspirations of the broader curriculum. In other words, the crossovers between mere cricket and all manner of learning skills (over and above the obvious developments in physical literacy) are being strongly emphasised.

Cynics might fear this is driven by box-ticking rather than the joy or brilliance or undeniable value of ‘games’ in itself: it certainly appears to cosy up to contemporary notions of what’s good educationally, as opposed to what makes wonderful and enriching sport. The All Stars proponents – and I am largely though not uncritically in this camp – would say that the project can deliver Big on the physical and the educational side.

You may not believe me when I tell you that I/we Community Coaches probably do need a rest between tours: I think we do. I know I’m pouring most of the bestest, truest, most generous-personal energy I can muster into trying to light up kids (mainly) through cricket-based games. Honestly, at the end – not during, not for me anyway – you do find the battery has run a tad flat.

Right now, then, I’m waiting, before doing some re-training or further training specific to the All Stars delivery. Then I’m on it.

In fact I may start with some work with Secondary School Girls, as we’ve run a really successful Lady Taverners competition here in Pembs, for some years. If logistics allow – and there can be issues around travelling for matches or clashes with other sports – all eight of our Secondary Schools try to enter teams. I try to get round the schools to lead some sessions and encourage, as well as attending the matches themselves.

Always sounds a bit corny when some bloke says something like ‘I really do want to make girls feel like they can and should be playing cricket’ but… that’s the way I feel. Indoor, festival-type cricket can be a great way in.

Two new teams were set up last season in the Pembs Ladies League. Having led pre-2017 season training sessions, I was struck by the proper keenness and quality and pride (actually) amongst the cricketing women. I am really hopeful and optimistic that more girls will step up as the opportunities feel more real – and as the role-models become yet more visible. In all the turmoil and change, the profound development of women and girls’ cricket will surely be a constant; undeniable and undeniably good?

Over to you, Sarah Taylor, Nat Sciver…

 

 

Don’t say Knight Knight.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Must win? For England, you would think so. Six points down if they lose, Robinson’s side must collect the two points on offer at Coffs Harbour tonight or face the prospect of either utter humiliation in the series or a climb of the vertical-ascent, ropeless and in the dark variety, to make the event remotely competitive. So no hiding from the disappointments and only one way to go – upwards, onwards, with determination.

The England coach, however, does seem well-equipped to steer through challenges to his (and by implication his squad’s) resilience; it’s a word he uses a fair bit, although not entirely without that corporate-sounding vibe so prevalent in interview, these days. Whatever, it’s refreshingly and unavoidably plain that this is action time, for England.

My previous coverage suggested the differing contributions of the two captains has been important. It would be wrong, I think to overstate this but Knight’s relative passivity with the bat so far, coupled with the sense that Haynes has been arguably more proactive in the field has surely contributed to where we’re at – with the home side dominating.

The Australian skipper has impressed, with a broadly dynamic contribution, having been flung rather surprisingly into the spotlight. Haynes was fabulous with bat in hand in game two but has also been positive and intuitive around bowling changes and field placement. She has that knack of anticipating and making things happen. Gratifying for her, then, that it is widely appreciated things have gone well partly because Australia have been led well.

Schutt starts with a maiden to Winfield. Attempted in-duckers with two genuine yorkers. Then Perry gets some away swing to Beaumont, before trapping Winfield playing marginally but fatally across one on middle and leg.

Enter Taylor, who seems scrambled, early on  – playing a weak attempted ramp-shot and two horrible wafts, half-charging, outside off, in the first handful of overs. 5 for 1 after 4 overs feels like an intimidatingly good start from the home side.

It’s risky but Taylor does seem intent on a reaction – ‘breaking the shackles’.

Schutt’s going well – getting some more of that trademark inswing and finding the blockhole with regularity. Both batters do seem to happy to play through to leg (which may, as it were, use that swing) but this may bring lbw into play again. Certainly, in the first six overs, almost nothing is driven to off. With Beaumont and Taylor batting well outside the crease, Healy comes up to the sticks – initially to the out-of-sorts opener.

After 7, Beaumont has managed only 2 off 11 balls, Taylor 10 off 22, confirming the strength of the Australian start. Signs, though, that Taylor may be settling as she puts Perry away twice, in the 8th, either side of a wide and a full-toss. Next over Healy comes up to Taylor, too.

Beaumont finally strikes one from Schutt through extra for four: the outfield looks slick in the sunshine. With McGrath replacing Perry and Taylor finding another level of timing now, runs do begin to come. After 10, we are 45 for 1. Haynes responds, right on cue, by introducing Wellington.

The young leggie again drops beautifully into her full, loopy groove and concedes just the one from the over; getting a little turn in the process: great contest breaking out.

McGrath backs this up with some very full stuff, getting some away-shape as Perry had done before her. An important time as both teams wrestle for momentum: or rather Australia contest this with Taylor, as Beaumont is doing little more than hanging on in there whilst her partner takes it to the bowlers.

That is, until she throws the hands through at McGrath – clouting one straight at mid-on then the next for four over mid-wicket. Thought strikes that somebody in the contest will get big runs very quickly – not sure that will Beaumont, despite her increasing conviction. Three hundred seems do-able again, here: eleven come off  Wellington in the 15th, as England move to 73 for 1.

Jonassen replaces McGrath for the eighteenth; again you sense that Haynes has the timing of this just right. England rotate, within themselves, for four singles from the over: acceptable to both sides but merely a stalling before a further surge? Gardner replaces Wellington.

Taylor deflects Jonassen down behind square leg to reach her 50 off 55 balls: she’s been excellent, fluent and expansive, after that unconvincing start. After 20, England are 97 for 1; they break the hundred as Taylor thrashes Gardner through midwicket and the hundred partnership comes up soon after.

The visitors, then, are nicely set but the necessary ‘kicking on’ must be emphatic and sustained, you suspect, as a) the pitch is again a beauty and b) Australia have batters who can hurt you; Healy, Perry, Haynes, Gardner. Etc. A genuinely big score is imperative; could be a great game then, this.

With the opposition now having some measure of control, Haynes turns back to Schutt. Taylor reverse-sweeps her for four first up but then cuts aerially to backward point next ball. Unforced error but good captaincy again – huge moment. Now, can Knight maintain or build the momentum of the innings? Previously, she’s failed to do that.

Beaumont’s contribution continues to develop – albeit slowly. She has 43 off 66 – good enough for a supporting role but England will need her either to change gear or bat through whilst Knight and possibly Sciver really launch. Perry returns for the 26th and Beaumont continues to pick out the fielders. 133 for 2 and now more from Wellington.

Beaumont gets to a determined fifty: both she and her captain have the necessary experience to read the game situation and judge what the target should be. For me, looking at the strip, outfield and the (un)likelihood of England taking bundles of wickets, they have to be going over 300.

Jonassen contributes to the surge by dropping short twice and getting duly punished. Eleven come from the 30th as England get to 160.

Knight and Beaumont are comfortable but not yet explosive, at drinks on the 32 over mark. They are running well and rotating notably coolly, given the heat and that series pressure. Strike rates are decent – meaning 70-80% – and there have been few false-shots, until Beaumont mistimes one over the keeper from Wellington.

It’s absolutely the kind of platform England would have aspired to. So when? When will they go boom? Or will they decide that just the one of them goes? My reservations against Knight – who, let’s be clear, is a quality player and is batting well now – centre on exactly this kind of scenario. Is she bold enough, free enough to make the decisive bolt for glory?

Whilst I contemplate this one, Beaumont is slightly freakishly stumped, falling forward. Great work, from Healy but does this change the situation vis a vis that target? Hardly.  Hardly, that is, until the impressive Schutt cleans out Sciver.

The question around Knight daring to (as the hashtag said) #goboldly (enough) may be becoming less relevant as England transit from 192 for 3, to 200 for 4 and crisis looms.

Ah. It becomes 201 for 5 as Fran Wilson is given lbw to a peach of a yorker from Perry. Sadly for her, she edged it. 3 wickets have fallen for 9 runs – a horror show for England.

All of this may relieve the captain from the responsibility of leading the charge – or a prolonged charge. It feels spookily clear right now – 01.47 a.m. Pembrokeshire time – that Australia will again go on and win this and that the series may be gone. Just do not see Knight plundering enough runs quickly enough from here or leading a dismantling of the Australian batting. Pitch is too good, Australia are too good and Knight is insufficiently inspirational to overthrow the odds. It’s over.

All this may sound unwise or unfair when followed by the fact that Knight has (at this moment) made 50 from 54 balls. Still I stand by it, miserablist or not.

England are 234 for 5 after 43. A brilliant finish gets them to 300, still but 280 is more likely. My gut feeling is that even though this would be a half-decent total, Australia would get 320 on this strip, today, if necessary. Hence the Morrissey-like disposition. Did I say, by the way, Brunt just holed-out to Perry?

So let’s examine this negativity. Part of it is around Haynes’s dynamism trumping Knight’s relative lack of spark. In addition, my hunch is that Shrubsole and Brunt may not do quite the damage (in Australia) that Schutt and Perry will or have done. Plus – despite her lack of wickets – I reckon Wellington is the best spin bowler on the two sides…

Knight strikes the first six of the innings, going powerfully over straight midwicket.

First ball of the 49th and Gunn is caught behind by Healy, who is standing up to Schutt. Early candidate for player of the series, the squat-then-run-in seamer finishes with 4 for 34. Shrubsole is then taken by Schutt, in the outfield, off Jonassen for 1.

Knight finishes on 88 from 80. I can’t fault her for that. Disproportionately, for me, the Aus commentators on BT Sport talk up the ‘pressure on Australia’: it’s clearly a goodish score… but surely 40 short of where it might be – where it needed to be.

There is unforeseen rain during the break.

Brunt inevitably opens up for England. Healy cracks her powerfully through the covers for four. Shrubsole then draws a sloppy cut from the wicketkeeper-batter but Wilson fails to take a regulation catch at point… ouch.

(Note that it was raining… then insert own cliche about ‘taking every chance’).

Brunt is getting some shape away but Healy smoothes her over mid-on then through extra cover for successive fours. Impressive timing, impressively bold.

Bolton gets in on the act with four but it’s her partner who’s making the statement here. She races to 25 from 33 for 0 after 5 overs. Will Knight change something early?

Bolton, pushing hard, edges towards but short of third man. It may be that the aggression of the batters could be more of a threat than the bowling – not because the bowling is especially wayward but because the boldness is pret-ty remarkable. Knight does withdraw Brunt, for Gunn but rain reappears: could be better for the visitors than the home side, who are racing away…

After a break of forty minutes or so, we have a revised target of 278 off 48 overs, which, as we go again, feels like it makes little difference. Gunn continues. Healy again wastes no time in lifting one carefully to the midwicket boundary. It’s great cricket; positive but not wild; challenging. At the 8 over mark, Australia are 46 for 0.

Shrubsole is bowling reasonably tightly but there seems no threat, until Bolton misreads a single badly and offers Danii Wyatt (on for the injured Beaumont) a viable shy at the stumps. Missed. Similarly, Healy almost gifts Gunn her wicket by spooning one towards mid-off. It may, to be fair, have stuck slightly in the pitch. The flow of runs has checked very slightly but Australia are 63 for 0 after 11- so bossing it.

Ecclestone replaces Shrubsole but starts with a rank full toss. She gets away with that but not with the third, slanted well down leg and dismissed.

Gunn continues. She may contain but will she take wickets? Not convinced and England need a break. Healy reaches 50 off 44. Gunn does get one to lift and cut away from Bolton but only gains the dot ball.

Ecclestone flights the ball nicely but lacks turn and therefore threat, tonight. Healy, in the 14th decides to put her away. Holding her form superbly, the Australian creams her left and right; Knight has to act and next over, Ecclestone is withdrawn in favour of Hartley.

Sciver replaces Gunn – good, from Knight. Just 3 from the over. *That picture* in my head – that Australian will win, with something to spare – remains but as Sciver puts down a sharp chance at midwicket, the universe reminds us that this is not over. Australia get to 100 off 18.4 overs.

England need a period of pressure. Hartley and Sciver suggest they may just offer that: the game is statistically closer – Aus 108 for 0 where England were 106 for 1 at 21 overs completed – and there is the sense that the batters, maybe for the first time, feel cramped.

Bolton, this time, breaks out, with two fours off Hartley but Healy, in trying to follow suit – rather unecessarily(?) – is caught by Brunt in the outfield. That’s the good news for our lot. The bad news is the incoming bat is Perry.

Bolton, absurdly for this potentially key moment, swooshes hard at Sciver towards midwicket. Gunn misjudges it: it was catchable, she parries it away. Poor cricket all round and another low-point for England, whose fielding is moving into the dodgy-to-embarrassing spectrum now. Brunt will come in to bowl the 25th.

A warning comes in via social media that more rain is heading in: in fact we have no further interruptions.

Bolton has drifted into a strange phase of her innings, despite having gathered fifty. She may be trying too hard to bully the rate: the result is a series of mishits which may contribute to Perry’s slow start. There may be edginess.

Brunt is going well – tight and with variation. However even she offers a shortish one just outside leg, which Bolton accepts. The opener finally does run out of luck though, when miscuing Ecclestone – this time fatally – to mid-on. It’s been an important but rather dysfunctional innings, yielding 62 important but hardly stylish runs.

Perry has 19 from 28 when Villani joins her in the 30th. Are there more signs of nerves, when the former lofts Shrubsole rather weakly towards mid-off… but escapes?

The superstar quick and number three goes soon after, caught – just – by a weirdly wooden-looking Gunn. Not sure if the England veteran didn’t see the ball ’til late; whatever, it was another oddish submission suggestive of tension in both camps. 106 are needed of 93 deliveries. Enter the captain. (To prove my theory, right?)

Now we do get weird. Villani offers more catching practice to Winfield at deep mid-off… and she’s gone. Poor, poor match sense from Australia to be going aerial so often when the moment is so charged. I did not think they would give England a sniff. I still think England’s total was markedly short. Alex Blackwell, with an astonishing 250 games to her credit, has joined Haynes to try to sort out the mess. 104 from 83 needed; can Australia gather?.

Sciver returns and backs up the previous wicket maiden (Hartley’s) with a maiden. Meaning England are really battling. We enter the powerplay but the runrate required has just topped 8. Sciver has bowled 5 overs for 11. I do not mind if my earlier,confident prediction of a straight-forward and series-defining win for Australia turns to poop. I really do not.

In the previous game at this ground, Haynes batted superbly and aggressively; she found a higher level: she has to find that again.

Hartley dives over one in the 38th – concedes four. Then Sciver claims the wicket of Haynes, attempting to clear the midwicket boundary – Brunt coolly taking the catch.

England become strong favourites – my favourites, even! Gardner, who can hit, as we’ve seen in Brisbane, has joined Blackwell but the flow is truly against them, extraordinarily. As we enter the 40th over, with Gunn’s slow medium-pacers denying pace off the ball, the required runrate is 8.8 and rising again.

The stats on telly are showing that after that stunning start, the Australians failed to build. Despite England gifting them three or four lives, scoring stalled and continued to stall. Without being unplayably good, the England attack ground away. Shrubsole and Brunt were okaaaay rather than threatening, Sciver and Hartley good.

Hartley claims a third wicket – that of Jonassen – caught and bowled. Blackwell, with all her experience, remains, but she has looked doughty and skilled rather than explosive. Australia need explosive. By the time McGrath and Blackwell get themselves to the last (48th) over, they need the small matter of 31 runs. Blackwell picks out Sciver off Gunn, Taylor stumps Wellington brilliantly and Australia finish on 257 for 9.

Is it ironic then that the strategic boldness exemplified by Healy, early doors, proved so costly? She broke open the game, or so it seemed, chiefly by going over the top – straight or wide. She steered the ball around the place to bring England’s total back into sharp focus. (Of course it was good but by no means inviolable).

Healy’s team members did not necessarily all freeze, but there was some brain-freeze out there. Too many blows into the outfield lacked direction or real power or both. Or they were played at manifestly the wrong time. England could then build on that profligacy.

Knight led with the bat and managed in the field. The series – alleilujah! – is alive and the England skipper’s role… was key.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outplayed.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

This is the second of two posts covering the 2nd One Day International between Aus and England, at Coffs Harbour. For the Australian batting innings, go back one post!

 

The reply. We start with Schutt to Winfield, who batted nicely in the first game. Gets two, to mid-off but then plays across one ducking into her and is given out lbw. May have been doing too much, was my first thought. Schutt succeeding early, then, where Shrubsole’s inswing failed – by beating the bat, fatally for the England opener.

Perry gets some shape away from Beaumont in the second over then has a committed, worthwhile appeal for one that goes a shade to leg. Umpire Claire Polosak unmoved.

Rain-break on 2.4 overs. Bit harsh, this, for those of us who’ve been up since 4.25 a.m.

So. General. Haynes bossing it over Knight in terms of team dynamism and personal performance – although the England skipper did take a blinding catch in the Aus innings.

Haynes batted well today (89 off 56 balls) and with some power, to drive her side to close to 300. Knight was poor or certainly lacked spirit, with the bat, in the first encounter. Beyond this I expect Australia to be pro-active in the field a) because their batters have put in them in an attacking position and b) because their captain will insist on that: I think that’s how she is.

After the rain delay, there is an overs reduction: England now needing 285 off 46. Looks increasingly challenging, as Beaumont, like Winfield is lb, falling across to off and failing to make contact.  Immediately it feels like Taylor in particular – or maybe Sciver? – must find something special for England to have any chance.

The visitors are 26 off 5.4 as Perry bowls two major beamers – surely because the ball is wet? Controversially, she is withdrawn from the attack by the umpire. Big, or would be, if Australia weren’t already so- o far ahead. Haynes, understandably, pleads with Polosak.

Following the disappointment Haynes makes a brilliant stop to deny Taylor four past mid-off. Note Schutt still getting some meaningful inswing, after 6. McGrath in fact follows with a touch of outswing, drawing Knight into a miss. 36 for 2 off 8.

England still settling, with strike-rates around 70-odd. Taylor can really go higher; her partner, the captain, in time, will have to join her.

Beams in to bowl the eleventh. Offers something different – though less spin than Wellington, I reckon. Taylor, inventing, is almost bowled, almost stumped.

England will be happy enough that the game goes quietish: in the twelfth, a platform is gently but reasonably authoritatively being established. They are, at this moment, marginally ahead of the run-rate. Taylor misses out, though, on a poor, short one from Beams.

Incredibly tight run-out call goes in Taylor’s favour. Given she was involved in a shocker in the first game, that’s a major relief for Robinsonand his camp. 55 for 2 off 12. England just about managing that surviving/thriving thing… but will need to raise this soonish.

Enter Wellington, who really impressed in the first match. Will this damp ball bite, for her? She goes boldly full and draws a thick outside-edge from Taylor before offering a loose one, which the England no. 3 carts for four.

Next over, calamity as a really innocuous delivery from McGrath claims Taylor caught behind. It was shortish and cuttable but only finds the edge; might have been four past point… might be terminal?

But in comes the highly-rated Sciver: athletic and plainly gifted. She may be one of the few players who could turn a game at this level around: clearly she will have to. Jonassen is sweetly dispatched over mid-wicket but then Sciver throws the game – the series? – with a mishit straight to mid-on.

That may be excessively negative. But that dismissal was sloppy, was unecessary, was ill-judged and it utterly gifted  the momentum back to Australia. They are surely too competent to lose it from here?

The pommie mood plummets yet further as Knight – again disappointing – sweeps across Wellington and is gone, lbw. It transpires that she there was a clear under-edge, so she is cruelly unfortunate. However the feeling persists that again the England skipper had occupied the crease rather than developed or actively countered. Either way, England are gone, at 91 for 5.

Brunt – who for me is unconvincing with the bat – is in, needing to make substantially more than her average of 14. Wilson is skilful but (you suspect) insufficiently powerful to haul her side back into this, even in partnership with a more belligerent striker of the ball. We’re at 119 for 5 off 25, with the England quick claiming successive fours off Wellington.

Wilson plays a rather ugly false-shot off Jonassen with the run-rate at eight – survives. Can feel the frustration building for the visitors with every ball, now. Brunt not patient by nature, you suspect: she’ll have to harness the anger. Haynes mixing things, as Beams, the second legspinner, returns.

Tellingly, even when Wilson ‘goes big’, the ball plugs short of the boundary. Jonassen and Beams have checked the run-making again: no sign at all that England can get near the 157 runs off 108 balls that they need. Predict that Brunt will get angry and get out. (Am proved wrong – fair play to her).

Wilson can’t pierce the field. Solid from Australia and solid will be good enough – credit them for smothering England once more. However, it is surprising that Wilson and Brunt opt to remain chanceless – and relatively boundary-free – rather than chasing. Not their fault where they’ve finished up but surely they must target an unlikely win?

Finally Wilson drives aerially but convincingly past the bowler for four. But the run-rate is close to 10. Brunt has barely timed a thing and is noticeably trying to heave everything into leg, now. She may be tired, or dispirited; she must know, really that England have to charge. Re-gathering, Brunt battles on, bravely and I salute her for that.

Perry, though, takes an outstanding catch, claiming Wilson in the deep, racing forward. Few others would have gotten there.

In the 38th, Brunt finally succumbs on 52, bowled by Schutt whilst attempting to paddle over her left shoulder. England, as Shrubsole enters the fray, are 182 for 7 – a hundred runs short, give or take. Schutt has a four-fer.

Gunn plays complicatedly around a straightish one from Beams and is bowled, leaving England on 198 for 8. We went past the death throes some time ago, I fear but of course both sides must see this out – England to salvage something, Australia to #beatEngland as humiliatingly as possible.

I spoke of a fizzle-out in the first one-dayer and this has been (as an England fan) rather depressingly similar. Game going inevitably one way from somewhere around twenty overs, with disappointingly little defiant thrashing around from our lot.

Wisely, the locals amongst the commentators on BT Sport have counselled for caution in terms of the series result but as Shrubsole heaves to long-on to bring in Hartley, the efficient Australians have banked four precious points… or have when Ecclestone skies to deepish midwicket. A comprehensive, comprehensive win. 75 runs the difference on DLS, as England are skittled for 209.

Toughish to find too many positives. Brunt’s 50 was determined but a worryingly isolated comeback to Australian superiority. With the ball, nobody stood out: Brunt and Shrubsole made no inroads, the spinners were mixed and Sciver and Gunn unthreatening.

Crucially, again, the fielding display was average, with Beaumont’s drop a low point. The coaching team have real work to do to repair fragile confidences and re-invigorate a World Cup-winning team that is being outplayed.

Chanceless at Coffs Harbour.

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This is the first of two posts, covering Coffs Harbour in the 2nd AusvEng One Day International. For the England batting innings, go to ‘Outplayed’…

 

Australia, in the middle of our night. On the telly. Deep dark quiet: nerves. What feels like inevitable sunshine – although (seemingly ludicrously from my settee) rumours of a possible thundershower later. The dog stretches. Shrubsole to open, off a short-looking run.

A nervy, wide one – not called. Healy and Bolton for the Australians. Two runs off the third ball, which is short and steered easily through the covers. No great pace.

Brunt looks sharper but her first delivery is dispatched through cover for four by Healy. There is a little away swing for Brunt, who thought she may have a decent lb shout… but no.

Nine off the first two overs. Pitch looking good, the ball just doing a little in the air. Shrubsole beats the left-handed Bolton but then strays marginally down leg and is clipped neatly for four more. Australia appear generally untroubled.

Brunt staying full, looking to draw that swing but offering some hittable stuff off the pads. 16 for 0 off the first four and no dramas for the home side. The inswing/outswing (Shrubsole/Brunt) combination looking more threatening on paper than in reality.

England going to have to stay patient, by the looks of the early overs: Australia move untroubled to 21 for 0.

Brunt bowling notably fewer slower balls, today. Took the pace off a good deal more, in the first game. She applies herself, as always but to little effect: good strip, this.

Gunn to bowl the ninth. Tall, slightly awkward-looking arms into the delivery but hugely experienced and patient, you would hope. Good call by Knight  – England doing okay but it was time for a change. Gunn, as so often, drops nicely onto a line and length. Double-change, in fact, as Sciver replaces Brunt.

The bespectacled (do we still say that?) Bolton shows first sign of frustration, having been stalled for some time: miscues a pull off Sciver. England now applying some pressure – 30 for 0 off 9.

Healy answers with a four to square-leg, off Gunn. Entirely chanceless game, so far but with the run-rate below four, England may not mind the lack of penetration.

Sciver bowls wide of off and Bolton – whom Alison Mitchell feels is ‘struggling to get the ball off the square’ – flukes one to third man for four. A rare boundary – only five scored, from the first twelve overs. Game yet to find an urgent gear and therefore feeling even enough. Bolton has 24 only off 50 balls at the end of the 13th.

Healy fires the first shot in anger. Or rather simply goes for the first big shot. Succeeds beautifully, straight-driving    Sciver for six. Rightly, she backs that up with four more to leg then a two. Sciver, rattled, bowls a pie of a full-toss and this is also smashed over midwicket for four. Important over yields 17 much-needed runs and changes the energy.

66 for 0 off 16. Drinks. Lack of wickets clearly put the home side in a strong position… but they will be looking, naturally, to dominate from here. Healy looking well capable of that – Bolton less so.

Ecclestone, the eighteen-year-old spinner, brought in. Arguable that Knight might have shuffled things more, earlier: presumably the England skipper content enough with the run-rate remaining below four? Three off the over, backed up by a further change – Hartley from the other end.

Immediately she draws Healy into a rash shot – a rather clubbed effort falls narrowly short of mid-on. The intent is there, though; Healy collects two boundaries, one of which Gunn should surely have stopped at the boundary. Mixed, at best from, Hartley: runs look easier to come by with the reduction in pace. Knight would have wanted more. Healy reaches 50.

Another misfield yields four off a wide on from Ecclestone. England cannot afford sloppiness in the field, in a game they have to win, with wickets looking hard to come by.

Run-rate at 4.83 after 18. No wickets down, the innings remaining chanceless.

Bolton has been out of sorts, but reverse-sweeps Hartley for four. Challenge seems to be about whether or not England can remain calm and focused. They plainly lack a threat, here. ; will be fascinating to see if Australia are similarly blunted by the pitch. Early days but the signs are the home side should get into the high 200s.

From nowhere, Ecclestone’s arm-ball bowls Healy. Huge moment, as the right-hahder had seemed much more bullish than her lartner. 100 up, though, in the 21st, as Perry has joined Bolton.

Flight, now but some width, from Ecclestone. She’s drifting to leg a tad but Australia’s burst has been checked by the wicket.

Shocker from Hartley – almost a foot down leg – is rightly and easily clipped for four by Perry. Skipper will be having words, you suspect. Frustrating. Not enough control and very little in the way of meaningful spin – from either end.

Knight may be a less dynamic captain than her opposite number, judging by the first game and a half. Haynes was busy and pro-active first-up. Sense is Knight letting things ‘take their course’. 112 for 1 off 24.

Hartley misfields a drive off her own bowling – Perry gets four. England average in the field, as they were in the opening match. Work to do, there.

Shrubsole back for the 27th. Feels right, with Aus too comfortable (albeit non-dynamic) against the two left-arm orthodox spinners. Bolton’s relative lack of fluency the chief plus-point for England.

Ecclestone persists. Has flight but still minimal turn. Suspicion is she might vary things a tad more. Horrible pie absolutely boomed over midwicket for six by a grateful Perry, who has moved to 30 in goodish time.

Next over Shrubsole oversteps but negates the free hit to Perry with a fine yorker: one of few moral victories for the England attack. Big fan of Anya Shrubsole but she is is very much in containing mode here.

Re-enter Sciver, for the 30th. Bolton finally claims her 50: welcome but slowish and rather scratchy. 90 balls. Signs, now, that Australia looking to go; Bolton flays Shrubsole straight for four. 300 on? England may be in trouble – not unreasonably alarmist to suggest the series may be on the line here. Meaning real pressure.

Bolton is suddenly, post mid-pitch conflab, looking to hit everything – most of it through leg. Sciver coming round to her, which may be making the left-hander’s job easier. England need to find something.

Hartley bowls Bolton; a simple case of agressive run-chasing gifting the wicket. The opener’s contributed 66 off 100, 63 of these alongside a very controlled-looking Perry – so two strongish partnerships.

Villani is next. England have bowled two out but still failed to produce any further clearcut chances. May be reading too much into this but gut feeling is this doesn’t augur well: not for now, not for the Ashes.

Write that sentence and Knight dives to her left to clutch a fine catch, off Gunn. Villani. Can England now capitalise? 143 for 3, in the 35th.

Another *monent* Brunt, returning, fails to take a catchable caught and bowled. Perry clonked one straight back at her: Brunt will hate that! 187 for 3 off 37, first clear opportunity engineered… and missed.

With Aus skipper Haynes starting brightly alongside Perry, the home side may be targetting 280 plus, now. Reckon they’ll get 260, no problem but weather may become a factor – social media full of dark warnings re the cloudcover. England must claim wickets, you feel.

Brunt drops just a little short and Haynes pulls her disdainfully to the square-leg boundary. Exhibit K – good pitch, this. Charlotte Edwards joins the chorus of those wondering why England opted to bowl. My hunch is that Knight may be happier chasing, because she’s by nature somewhat conservative. Her team need a lift.

Perry, meanwhile, has another fifty – and the 200 is up, in the 40th. She never fails.

Into the last ten, all the pressure on the fielding side. 7.24 a.m. here in sleepy Pembrokeshire – and the pitch dark just coming alive with grey-pink and birdsong. Magic time.  I have porridge on the go.

13 off Shrubsole’s over – the 43rd. Haynes has 46 from 30, including a towering, sweetly-struck six off a fullish delivery from England’s World Cup-winning heroine. Australia get back on a charge and 285 is absolutely gettable.

Brunt is in and mixing it. Predictably taking the pace off but also bowling those looping attempted cutters. Tremendous competitor.

Gunn is back, too and also ‘looping.’ Perry charges, misses and is stumped, sharply, by Taylor, who has stayed up throughout. 250 for 4 in the 46th. Haynes is hit on the neck by an incoming throw that Taylor cannot gather. Only a flesh-wound; the skipper barely flinches.

Another drop – a shocker, I’m afraid – from Beaumont in the deep costs four… as well as Haynes’s wicket. (The Australia captain has been outstanding again, here – going 4,6,4 but that was awful, for England).

The controversy around Haynes’s appointment being dismissed as easily as the England bowlers now. Haynes batting inventively, dynamically and with power – none of which could be said about her opposite number, Knight, in the opening match of the series. Australia looking way ahead on 285 for 4 off 48.

Blackwell balloons one out to Brunt, off Gunn, in the last over but that loss feels meaningless. As does the wicket of McGrath who joins Haynes with four balls remaining but is caught off a top edge two balls later. Haynes drives the last for two and Australia finish on 296 for 6. As if things weren’t looking tough enough, for England, rain seems imminent…

 

 

 

 

 

Patterns of play.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

In the depths of our night the feeling that there was some pattern at work was discomfiting – but maybe it did help to keep me awake.

England had started in good then dominating style, with both Beaumont and Winfield looking comfortable against the Australian attack, establishing something spookily close to a measure of control. However – do I need to say ‘this being England?’ – the calm authority of the opening exchanges was fairly promptly pret-ty profoundly undermined, almost shockingly.

In short Beaumont swished to mid-off then Taylor and/or Winfield contrived to leave the latter absolutely stranded for the most infuriating of self-inflicted run-outs: just as utter control had been re-established, just as Australia approached peak Where Do We Go From Here?

This happens, in sport, I know. You’re cruising then you’re stomping off inconsolable towards a bollocking or an icy stare. And okay maybe Beaumont had taken herself beyond criticism because of the statement she made – which stands. And Taylor and Winfield were hardly failures, eh? But this is The Ashes and we’re in pursuit not just of excellence but momentum… because that will get us through the long nights and ma’an we wanna win this!

At about 1.30 a.m. our time, England had a real chance to crack on with some style towards the dreamland of unanswerable primacy. If Beaumont hadn’t reached and slapped; if Taylor had merely called with any degree of sureness and watchfulness; if England had continued to make good choices.

Watching live, even from a zillion miles away, the sense that these key wickets were against the grain of things was palpable. Sure the young leg-spinner Wellington turned the ball thrillingly and testingly, but one way or another – and there were times when this was pure good fortune – England were surviving it. Schutt and Perry had been playable.

It seemed (unless I was dreaming?) that any one from Beaumont, Winfield and/or Taylor might go on and dismiss the home side’s leading threats… and then some. Winfield’s presentation of the bat had been notably beautiful: Beaumont had played confidently and with intermittent aggression.

Because this is sport and this is England, things changed; the pattern developed. The killer touch – or more exactly the killer mentality to see this out was lost. Australia capitalised.

Heather Knight may need to look pretty hard at her own contribution with the bat. Along with the obviously gifted Sciver she underachieved, failing to read the mood or counter in any way Australia’s resurgence: worse, making that resurgence possible. Contrast this with Haynes’s dynamic fielding and skippering of her own side: the middle-late overs were something of a walkover in favour of Lanning’s medium-surprising replacement.

It was galling stuff because England had earned the right to go on, to release the flow genuinely and decisively early. More – they had the luxury of doing this in a measured way. Taylor and Sciver really might have feasted on a true pitch, as the bowling unit blunted itself against their patience then their power.

In fact as things progressed that tendency to allow the opposition back in overtook any English ebullience. Clearly we need to credit the Australians for their persistence and their cool, but the English middle order rather shrank from the task. Wickets predictably fell. I rate Brunt for her bullishness, maturity and spark but as she strode to the crease I could not see anything other than a fizzle-out. So it was.

(Before England’s spikiest quick strode out there I tweeted as follows;

Strong hunch is that #Brunch won’t go well & that #Eng may really underachieve. Really hope I’m wrong.

#WomensAshes

Took no pleasure in that).

Hey let’s look at the positives. For England, chiefly that half the team got in and should therefore be less nervy next time around. For Australia and for cricket, great that we may have another star leg-spinner to enjoy and (in Gardner) more stylish-but-undeniably-punchy positivity to appreciate. Plus the match was evenly-matched, meaning the series may be tense and competitive. Let’s hope so. This was a good opener.