coaching

Final Curtains.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Going to be ‘liveblogging’ this baybee – i.e. updating throughout the day/night. So check in every hour or four?

 

I have no idea whether I will retain or continue to seek accreditation. (The latter is likely… but uncertain). If I do, and we continue to share our cricket psycho-cobblers, please do cuff me violently round my ample lugs, should I ever get complacent about stuff like this; the walk into and round to the front of the Edgbaston Media Centre – and that first look out.

9.30-odd, on a perfect September morn, with the Bungee Bouncee Thing springing joyfully in the background, and the ground quiet but for the daft footie and earnest netting and diligent marking-out, it’s a revelation, a privilege, a seminal, enduring pleasure: so hit me if I drift, friends – hit me.

The skyline is crisp and dry and leafy, actually. To the extent that the trees – proper woody, British, deciduous jobbers – *just may be* wading towards us. (This could be something to do with our elevated position – four storeys up – fetching or distorting the angles. Maybe I need to drop down into the stadium and get down and dirty with the punters and players?) Sold. I will.

10.07. Still deliciously pre- everything. About a thousand in the ground, some already indulging, rather guiltily: long day ahead. Nasser and Wardy and Trescothick (I think) mooching and pre-discussing the necessary telly-themes. Pods of elite athletes looking disconcertingly dweeby and uncoordinated around wilfully unhelpful footballs. Sunshine.

Lancs win the toss and will field against Worcester Rapids. Less bright. Did I mention I’m looking straight down the pitch… and I love that? Well I am. It’s fabulous.

10.47 and the first Sweet Caroline. Bumble down there miming wee snippets as the gathering crowd smile or bawl their way through. Bittafun, early-doors.

Lester opens up for Lancs. To Clarke. Then Moeen. Left arm over, quickish, fullish. Mo benefits from a poor misfield at extra – first 4. Dances down and clatters the next, straighter – 4 more. 9 from the over.

(#FirstWorldProblems; am trying to add an I’m At Edgbaston header pic on the blog: ‘s not having it).

Just me, or something slightly naff about that red, Lancs are sporting? Weirdly thin, washing-powder-ad stylee, for me. Second misfield gifts Mo another 1. Nerves.

Early change as Livingstone brings more pace, from our end. More nerves as he hoists an absolute shocker of a full-toss, which Ali dispatches. Follows that with a classical straight 6, then adds 4… three times! How much would we love it if Moeen went BIG, BIG? (Answer – a lot).

Balance slightly restored as Faulkner bowls Clarke to bring us to 37 for 1, in the 4th. Moeen’s got that soft hands and plenty of time thing going on, though – looking great.

Wow. Coach going apoplectic (I imagine) as a third misfield means four more through the covers. Conditions sensational – must be nerves distracting. 56 for 1 at the conclusion of the power play. Mooen on 38 from 17.

11.28, ground almost full. Shirtsleeves. Wonderful.

Less wonderfully, Moeen slightly chops across a straight drive to mid-off. Caught, on 41, when looking comfortable.

Immediately, Two Big Moments as D’Oliveira is run out and then Fell is stumped. From nowhere, having done very little right, Lancs are back in this as Rapids drop to 71 for 4 – inexplicably.

Parkinson gets one to turn best part of a foot, then bowls Whiteley for 4. Wow. 83 for 5 after 11.

Lovely to see a leggie really turn the erm, albino cherry. (Might copyright that). Still that sense that this has all *just happened*, though – i.e. that Rapids have been subjected to something profoundly mysterious – but credit the Lancs spinners, Khan and Parkinson, who are a genuine threat, here.

Clark, coming in with good energy, gets Mitchell lbw and Lightning are 97 for 6, in the 15th. Relatively deepish trouble, for Worcs?

Cox and Barnard growing into this but the innings has to explode, late on, you feel. 133 for 6 after 18.

Cox fires off with a lusty blow for 6 then a ver-ry cute reverse tickle for 4. Lester under pressure as the seamer is clouted for a further 6 over midwicket. Then again, more monstrously, into the same block but further up. Much jumping, clutching and hollering in the Hollies.

It’s Cox who tows the Rapids to 169 for 6 at the close: he has 55 not out. Can only feel (having seen Moeen cruise so majestically earlier) that this may be a tad light.

Longish chat with one of the Sussex backroom guys. He’s as deeply impressed with Dizzy G as the rest of us. Hugely generous; cool and wise; utterly trusting. The kind of bloke who *actually does* all the stuff other coaches talk about doing. I want Dizzy’s lot to win today.

Wood races in to Davies. Again, evidence that’s there’s something in this for the bowlers –  several inches of cut for the left arm quick. Can’t protect him from two late boundaries, mind: a decent first over yields 8.

In the 3rd, Davies is rather unnecessarily run out, following a misfield then a sharp throw. Lilley joins Livingstone and we are now 22 for 1.

Wood switches ends and is gallivanting towards us. He part paws, part chests-down a brutal drive from Lilley, and the trainer is on. Ultimately, no doubt sore, Wood continues.

The light – always sympathetic – switches back on up to 11. Mooen, from mid-off, doing lots of talking to his bowlers. And shuffling his field. It may be working because so far Lightning are non-thunderous.

The thing about T20 is you don’t write things like that. Because the very next ball gets absolutely smashed. 6. Coulda been 10. 44 for 1 after 5.

Cruel world. Young Brown *really puts it in there* for the Rapids, only for Lilley to unceremoniously (or worse – horribly) swat him past mid-off for 4. Next ball is similarly dispatched and the power play closes at 55 for 1.

Barnard has Livingstone caught at third man. Deserved that, the bowler, having defeated him the previous ball with a sly, slow one. Enter Buttler… and also Moeen, with the ball.

The talisman in blue – fifth bowler in the first 7 overs – traps Lilley in front with a ball that didn’t appear to deviate. Lots of love for Mo at the end of the over, with Lancs at 67 for 3 but now with Jennings and Buttler out there. Crucial period, surely?

I can confirm that Jennings is tall… and upright at the crease – although he gets lower or more dynamic or something as his innings develops.

Weird phase where both batsmen seem obsessed with reversing Moeen, to little effect. 78 for 3 after 10 – just behind the Rapids score – 92 needed. D’Oliveira becomes the 6th bowler for the 11th: again, some turn present. Both batsmen circumspect, so far.

OOf. Buttler scuffs-on, from Mo, for 12. With Jennings looking okaay but rather one-dimensional, the incoming Vilas may have to bring some boom. Game in the balance at 91 for 4, D’Oliveira finding his flow and more spin; enjoyable. We may owe the groundsman a pint for an excellent, supportive pitch.

Jennings accelerates. Two consecutive boundaries, off Mitchell. Still playing within himself but a prudent gear-change, I’d say.

Risky run again proves fatal. Vilas dives but goes and with Clark joining Jennings, Lightning need 10-plus per over. Should be fun, should be close.

Mo finishes with 2 for 16 off his 4 overs: which is outstanding, right? Brown will bowl the 17th. When Clark is run out, Faulkner comes in, with Buttler acting as runner: would he could swing that bat. Lancs will need 30 off the last 2.

Brown for the penultimate. Has Faulkner caught in the deep. 140 for 7 with Lester now in; swishes unconvincingly across the first.

Then the young paceman has his man, with a lovely, slower number, rolled out of the wrist. When Parkinson goes clouting skywards next ball… it feels done. Khan and Jennings must engineer 29 from Parnell’s last over.

Second ball disappears, bringing Jennings to his half-century but the next two stay on the island. It’s the Rapids’ game. Lancashire Lightning finish on 149 for 9. Bring on MAJOR FOOD, please… and the next one!

Wright and Salt will open for Sussex, facing Waller. 10 off the 1st, with Salt snaring 9 of them. The powerful-looking Taylor offers right-arm quick to follow but Salt connects to square leg – 4 more. He then steers rather loosely to mid-off and is gone, replaced by Evans, who steers Taylor neatly wide of that same fielder.

Wright takes on the incoming Overton. More than that, he carves him left and right – successive sixes. Evans is lbw then Rawlins skies one almost nowhere and Sharks are  74 for 3, with Wright on 34 off 20, come the end of the 8th. The sun is peeping then hiding just a little but as September days go… we’ll take it.

Friendly Geezer from Sussex Marketing saying they’ve inevitably received ‘some earache’ re- the controversial ticket-allocation for Finals Day: 500 seems an oddly low number. Explanation given was apparently that there was a fear that if the four clubs were allocated many more, then half the stadium may go after the semi’s. Get that but surely 1,000 or 1500 a better shout?

Meanwhile, Wright goes to 52, hauling Overton to leg. A spiteful beamer follows… which means a free hit… and a further 6 over long-on. 200-plus well and truly on, as the Sharks number 10 and captain struts into that Star-Player-In-Sumptuous-Mode phase. 141 for 3, off 13. Exciting stuff.

*Meanwhile*, chefs appear to be chasing pigs around The Hollies.

Wright may be 85 off 46 but Wiese is suddenly flying and purring, too. Smoothes Gregory into the highest tier over long-on, then drives through off. Irresistible. 220 entirely possible. Incredibly, could see more.

Wiese cushions Anderson for 1 to claim 50, then Wright is caught, booming to long-off, for a superb 92. The bowler has been going hard into the pitch, sometimes short, with two out on the on-side: three, in fact – two for cross-batted clubbing, plus a man at a long-on.

Taylor to Burgess, who wastes a few balls before being caught by an in-rushing deep midwicket with the score at 197. Archer goes for the dreaded GD and Jordan will join Wiese for Gregory, and the final over. Jordan sacrifices himself, meaning Beer will join us – appropriately. 200 up, 2 balls to come.

After an umpire review nails Wiese (run out), Sharks finish at 202 for 8 – great score, but Wright might be forgiven for thinking his lower-order colleagues underachieved by about 15. Whatever, Somerset must launch at this from pretty early on.

I watch the start of the reply from inside the Media Lounge, where you could sprawl – or do a 30 metre dash – should the urge take you.

Jimmy Anderson steals quietly past. Athers, bespectacled and studious with his broadsheet, is between me and the telly, such that he might be fearing my intense leering is for him. (Not so, Michael; I was trying to stay abreast of all things Archer and Millsy, honest). That and eating again, like a horse, like a man who remembers from last year that this is a very long day – I reiterate, a long day of privileges, mainly.

After the cheese and biccies (and 6 overs) Somerset are 45 for 3, with Hildreth on 14 and Abell on 3. (I am bloated and baggy-eyed, already – thanks for your concern).

Wiese takes the Most Embarrassing Catch Ever Ever, to eventually snaffle Hildreth’s looping edge and the Sussex Posse next to me are looking for the sign saying ‘Dreamland’. 53 for 4, Somerset.

Our friends in The Hollies are having fun, and quite right too. But they are also slinging balls onto the outfield every few minutes. Which is not that funny if you’re fielding… and wondering what’s underneath your ankles. Perhaps this is why the fella Abell clatters the ball violently into that particular stand?

85 for 4 at the halfway mark. The aforementioned Abell has just played two consecutive reverse-sweeps with two fielders placed precisely for that shot. Overthunk it, methinks.

Wiese puts down a relatively straight-forward chance when swooping like a gawky erm… gosling. My Sussex friends are telling me he’s not normally the Villager in the Field but it kinda goes on, as the poor fella bowls two very different but consecutive wides. Win or lose, he’ll be the bloke dropping his pint, later.

You feel Abell and Anderson may be a threat, and they set out, in the 13th, to prove that. The 100 comes up – 4 down. Mills is in for the next.

Archer contributes a clanger to the Somerset cause; the ball scooting beneath him to the point boundary.

The Cider-drinkers need  72 off the remaining 6 overs but Abell goes – a tad unfortunate to be run-out by a faint touch from Brigg’s fingers as the ball hurried past the bowler. That could be big.

It *could be* but Gregory, the skipper and one of the players of the tournament is in. Archer returns to greet him. The sky is somehow less deep, less full. It’s greyer.

Series of fine yorkers from Jordan: three optimistic appeals yield nothing but press home the Sharks advantage. Somerset need 20 an over from the last 3.

A slightly controversial no ball (for height) saves Gregory then offers him a free hit, off Archer but there’s no sense that the striking is remotely dynamic enough to make this close. Anderson is caught, for 48, last ball of the over, and Somerset need 50, off 2.

Jordan impressively cleans out Gregory with yet another yorker; Van der Merwe in – thankless, hopeless task.

Mills bowls the last, disturbing Overton’s off-stick third ball. Impressive but not perfect performance from Sussex yields a 35 run win. They will rest up for a bit – won’t we all – and charge in again at 6.45p.m. for a Mo versus Dizzy final. Ex-cellent.

I can now exclusively reveal that Jimmy Anderson likes a bitta sauce: was just pursuing some in the Media Lounge. Weirdly, didn’t recognise me. Congratulated him anyway, on his recent milestone.

In other news, I watched Dizzy chatting away with his guys during the break. Quietish, undemonstrative, mirrored a couple of batting strokes. No passionate urging or chest-pumping; almost as though he really trusts his team to make it happen.

Lights are on, for the final. They need to be. It’s going to be coolish, soonish, too. Luke Wood will bowl to Phil Salt. Drilled to mid-off; dot ball.

Two singles turned off the hip. Then Salt drills a beauty on the deck through extra-cover. 6 for 0. And Parnell.

Greeted by two extraordinary shots – Salt lifting him then slapping him straightish-offish for a pair of sixes. But hold… the daft bugger’s then run out, for not sliding the bat, when looking comfortably home! Great throw came in but that was village and the departing, cursing batsman knows it. A gift for the Rapids. 24 for 1 after the 3rd.

Wood changes ends. Has square leg back and a long on. Has that characteristic, slightly counterintuitive stroll back to his mark, walking wrong-side, as it were, – presumably to keep his approach straight(?) The trend for 1-over spells continues, with Parnell running in away from us.

Evans, then Wright remain undistracted: two sixes the result. 42 for 1 after 5.

Good spell, for Worcester – Barnard taking some pace off. Mo will reduce that velocity further as the dusk descends.

Evans has to respond and does: 6 over midwicket. But after 8, Sussex are at 56 for 1… and surely down by a few? Wright club-drives Brown before swinging him straight – for 4 on both occasions – before underlining the gear-change with a 6. Sharks countering, and Evans and Wright now ‘in’.

Ah. Except that Wright is OUT, having been bowled by Moeen, swinging too wildly, for 33. The lights have upped their game; they sting now, if you stare.

D’Oliveira finds some spin… but then the very middle of Rawlin’s bat – twice, for successive 6s. 93 for 2 after 11; feels more competitive.

Mitchell is in, with some slowish-medium. Have no issue with that. However I’m not sure we can forgive him his two wides, at that pace. (The second a shocker). Wood, following, is looking focused and somehow manfully quick. He sends one past Rawlins’ nose. 110 for 2, with 13 gone.

We then, dear friends, have a Technical Hitch, meaning I have to switch from ancient, inherited Mac, to medium dodgy ipad. Fingers crossed.

Things have progressed. Mo has finished with 3 for not-that-many, Evans is beyond 50 and the we’ve just had our umpteenth Umpire’s Review for a possible no ball around the waist. Sharks are 147 for 5, after 18.

Brown bowls the 19th: finishes with 0 for 15 off his 4 overs: good work. Sussex gonna have to bowl well, too but that’s their strong suit, arguably.

Parnell will slap it in there for the last. Archer carts the final delivery to the midwicket boundary, where the fielder takes an easy catch. 158 required for the win.

As we prepare to go again, take a look at the skyline. There’s barely a city there. Just us… and this stadium: magic. Archer prepares.

The lad looks interestingly disconsolate on his walk back. A decent over offers 5.

Could be dewy out there; two minor fielding errors. Mills bustles in – arms wrapped as per. Half The Hollies is doing a kind of comatose conga… at walking-pace.

Archer’s body-language is similarly low-key. The *actual bowling* is fine – 2 overs for 12 – but he has the look of a slightly moody teenager. 22 for 0 after 3.

Rapids, of course, don’t have to be that rapid. And they know that. Barely a swipe in anger, so far, and they’re still ahead of the run-rate. Moeen can afford to bring out his finest forward defence, to Jordan. He does.

Moeen does pick the slower one, mind, too – and heaves it over midwicket for 4. Follows that up with a slightly inside-out spooning over long-off and a further haul to leg. Advantage to Worcester after 5: 44 for 0 wicket.

Wiese is in to conclude the powerplay: it’s mixed, a poor ball down leg is rightly dismissed.

When Moeen thwacks Briggs high over midwicket, we approach crunchtime early, it seems. But the spinner has Clarke caught behind for 33 and when the incoming Fell drives Beer directly to extra-cover we find ourselves at 62 for 2, in the 8th. Briggs returns for the 9th.

*Things we maybe thought we might not say at The Cricket*: the Human League are going down well. Onwards.

D’Oliveira is stumped, off Briggs, for 10, but Moeen persists. Calmly easing through. I’m guessing 82% of the crowd is still with us.

From nowhere, Ali is gone – caught miscuing to long-off by a more than slightly jubilant Salt. Important, clearly, but Wiese’s fielding clanger a few balls later still hurts. A sort of intermittent, mid-range squeeze is on.

Whiteley breaks out with a powerful cuff to leg, off Beer. 104 for 4, off 14, with 54 needed: re-enter Jordan. Slower ones and yorkers – goodish. With the Big Guns back into this (Mills is next) this could be close. We want that, yes?

42 required, off 4. Sitting comfortably? (The Lads to my left aren’t: Sharks Media Posse). Archer is in.

Beautifully deft reverse from Cox finds the boundary. Then he drives for 4 over mid-off’s leap. Drama cranks up as a HUGE no-ball call goes against Whiteley. 127 for 5, meaning 31 needed off 3.

Jordan has changed ends. Dot ball. Full-toss to leg for 4. Tangle-almost-played-on thing. Scurry-through with no contact. Straight 6! *Possible misjudgement in the field(?)*  Over over… and 141 for 5 on the board.

Ultimately, The Golden Boy bottles it! Archer flings a horrendous beamer past Cox’s left ear and waaay past the keeper! The free hit is likewise dispatched. The follow-up likewise. Cox is pipping… everybody! (Gets coat). Tremendous, nerveless effort to bring his side home – as he did in the semi.

So Moeen – our Moeen – will be collecting the trophy. I can feel the universe smiling. Fabulous finish.

 

Morning after. Was too exhausted last night to properly big up a) Edgbaston and all who sail and steer in that crazy-wonderful boat – thank you for your generous hospitality b) that bloke Cox. Stunning, extended, dramatic, luxurious day of sport you gave us. Bravo!

 

All Stars.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Pleased to see there’s been a reasonable lump of coverage for the All Stars Project over recent weeks; it really is significant, I think. Certainly in terms of bringing the precious ‘new families’ that we’ve heard so much about, into the game. Whatever we may think of, or read into that apparently central plank of the ECB strategy, All Stars has delivered strong numbers, for our sport: in Wales, 3,505 sign-ups over 118 centres.

A twitter-friend of mine and cricket-writer (Rob Johnston) wondered whether the project might indeed be more important than The Hundred? Interesting thought.

Whether you load that thought up with political/philosophical vitriol around the depth or quality of experience and the implications for Everything Else… is up to you. I want to keep this simple – or rather to leave you with a restoratively uncluttered message – that All Stars has been, will be, is really, really good. It’s All Stars I want to talk about, in the end.

You may know that much of the thinking behind All Stars came from a) large, hairy and fearless market research b) Australia. A particular bloke name of Dwyer was drafted in to brutally challenge the status quo and deliver a new vision. (Actually the first bit of that is untrue: he did brutally challenge but that was not necessarily the brief. Interestingly, possibly fascinatingly for those suspicious of the current direction of travel, Dwyer left – I believe before his contract was up).

It’s important, at the outset, in the wider context of so much controversy and opinion, that All Stars is recognised as merely a part of the whole re-invention of the Cricket Offer: part of Cricket Unleashed, part of the warp-factor-ten departure into the unknown. Theoretically and I think in reality, AS does have stand-alone qualities – the specific age-group, the immediacy, the impact of kitted-out kids – but it would surely be unwise to imagine it travelling radically solo. It’s not.

All Stars exists in and because of the context of more opportunities for girls and women. In the context of ‘community’ activity and retention projects for those teens drifting from the game. In the context of City Cricket/The Hundred.

I’m not wading in to the relative value, wisdom or centrality of any of these other things now: most of us have lived off those arguments for the last year. Instead I’m going to try to say why All Stars is pretty ace: in a bullet-point or two.

  • The prequel. Noting that All Stars has been generally supported by 4-6 weeks cricket-based activity in local Primary Schools, aimed at enthusing kids for the game (via the outstanding Chance to Shine curriculum) before offering that link to AS in clubs. Part of the generally impressive #joinedupthinking. But back to the activity proper…
  • It’s ace value. Despite blokes like me fearing that £40 was going to feel too much for most parents down our way, AS is undeniably good value – and parents forked out. The kids get kit worth about £20 and eight typically well-run, skilfully-themed sessions (which tend to be an absolute blast, for kids and coach alike). Those people still weirdly imagining this is an earner for the ECB need to get a grip, to be honest: it’s a massive investment in change and development, not at all – certainly in the short term – an ‘earner’. Costs have been set at a minimum, I imagine: of course there are some families who will regrettably be put off by the £40… but very few… and some clubs will underwrite that, if necessary.
  • The actual sessions are ver-ry cute – in a really good way. This has not been flung together. The target age-group (5-8, boys and girls) is guided through an hour or more (generally more) of movement, games and skills; the time fizzes and charges as much as the children do. It’s infectious and purposeful and liberating in a way that the three letters F.U.N. cannot do justice to: and yet it is precisely that – naive, anarchic, noisy, edgy fun. Brilliantly so, in my experience.
  • The quality of enjoyment thing. I may be repeating myself but what I saw, as an Activator and coach, was ace to the point of affecting – and I am clear most parents felt that too.
  • The family thing – 1. Okay, so if one of the key aspirations for the whole ECB cricket-makeover is to ‘burst the bubble’ in which cricket sits, vis-a-vis who knows, plays and gets the game, then obviously All Stars sits comfortably within that. The target group is children still finding stuff. Plainly, the ECB would be grateful if some of these children – perhaps the majority – emerge from non-cricketing families. That’s happening. Because of skilful marketing, smart imagery, the ‘non-threatening’, non-technical nature of the offer. Headline figures for AS in Wales last year suggested 71% coming from a non-cricketing background… which is not far short of phenomenal. I’m hearing also – also significantly – that around 35% of our Wales 2018 All Stars are girls.
  • The family thing – 2. Activators (i.e. those who led the AS sessions) were trained to encourage parents to take part. In fact a key part of the marketing whole was this idea that families might reclaim a special hour of family time through participating (at a level they were comfortable with). This interaction with non-qualified agents – hah! Mums, dads!! – was rightly to be gently monitored by the Activator, but opened up a new dimension to the proceedings. Our sessions started with family members ‘warming up’ their All Star; often mums or dads or siblings stayed involved, offering practical help and encouragement. This cuts right across the traditional practice of Level 2 Coaches ‘running things’. I am not remotely looking to undermine that practice or the quality thereof when I say that in my experience the active support of family members was not only essential in practical terms but absolutely key to the feel and the enjoyment of our sessions. I soon gathered five or six sub-Activators who were lovely, intelligent, generous, capable people and I hope and expect that they may support the project – and what is now their club! – next year. This ‘loosening-up’ was done by design, in the knowledge that it might/should work at this age-group; it did.
  • The gentle prod thing. Did you know you can pre-register for AS 2019? You can.

 

Finally, something minor-league weird. I am still wearing a rather faded rubber bangle – the kind we were giving out in schools during the Chance to Shine sessions which preceded our signposting of kids over to All Stars Cricket. I am still wearing it… since April, maybe?

This may mean something worrying about absence of a life in my life, but maybe only if we overthink stuff, eh? I’m not wistfully stroking it or anything. It’s just still there. It says ALL STARS CRICKET and ALLSTARSCRICKET.CO.UK.

I think of our sessions at Llanrhian CC and how crazy-but-happy the kids were… and how wonderful the families were… and how blessed we all were, with that sun. So I guess that’s the explanation? If we need one?

 

 

 

The Universe Podcast 3: Ian Herbert, on the ‘Quiet Genius’ of sport.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Hold the front page! The mighty cricketmanwales.com Multinational Media Corporation has diversified. In a good, un-shouty way.

Distinguished sports journo Ian Herbert joins us and we talk sports… journalism…a-and everything. We shuffle through football history from Shankly/Paisley to Fergie to Mourinho, Klopp and Guardiola.

There are nuggets, there is experience, there is a lorryload of humility and integrity – remember that? – and there are points of view. The fella @cricketmanwales sits back and listens because Herbs actually really does know how it is/was at Anfield, Old Trafford, Maine Road/wherever it is that City play at now.

I’ll say nothing more – the man was sparklingly lucid on everything from the hows and whys of writing (and the relative value of sports-journalism) to the impenetrable, infuriating cocoons around people in elite football. Have a listen.

 

 

Okaaaay. Listened back, more than once. Am struck by several things, the first and most significant being how brilliant Herbs was/is.

Yes (he knows) he’s working for a paper many of us regard as the most poisonous rag on the planet but I do still stand by my initial reaction; that he’s a profoundly good man, absolutely committed to grafting, honouring and taking pride in the role of professional journalist. If this makes him sound Old School, then I imagine he’d live with that; however in this case the phrase does not imply any retreat into sentimentality, smugness or that mild brutalism that can come with ‘experience in the trade’. Herbs is more Ronnie Whelan than Sounness, I reckon.

Strikes me Ian Herbert is a thinker and fan and has precious banks of knowledge; some of it about the subject (football, mainly) but much of it about the process, the art of sports-writing – of journalism. Crucially, he also has seemingly limitless, top-end stories.

Those of you who know me through cricketmanwales.com or bowlingatvincent.com will I hope enjoy, as I do, the ironies around me – of all people! – hosting Herbs’s mantra about ‘3 facts per piece’. (I’m the bloke who kinda revels in being described by some respected dramaturg in my distant past as a ‘freewheeling absurdist’ and yup, that’s a fair cop: I get absolutely that the word indulgent may well have been invented with me in mind).

What Ian says about this is brilliant; it’s a key reminder and a warning for anyone who writes anything, arguably. They are actually wise words. Tell us something new – this is where the value is.

I truly heard what Herbs was saying and will genuinely carry it with me but my arguments around this are very different… because I don’t see myself as a journalist. I don’t report on things, I take diabolical liberties with words en route to an honest response to the universe – honest in the sense of being accurate to how I understand it. My writing is a flush of the un-wise, the immediate and the daft-expressionistic – which I know brings us straight back to that indulgence thing. Don’t care: it’s how I see and feel the world so elegant, clipped, economic writing would be a lie.

(All that to offer that mind-blowing contrast suggested in the podcast. Differences and yet still everything shared).

Ian Herbert also rocked it around that whole access-to-the-stars malarkey – how the Prem in particular denies the truth by denying access and discussion. He describes this superbly – go listen again.

Interesting too, how clear he is that journalists do try (inevitably fairly unsuccessfully) to prick the Mourinho/Klopp/Guardiola bubbles. But the clubs are fiefdoms and the journo’s really are herded, gagged and dismissed. (Just me, or did you feel that this almost daily charade might be central to Herbert’s ongoing quandary over which kind of journalism he should be doing? Everywhere else you get a patent love for the game).

Overall, as well as providing a window into Paisley’s socialism and Mourinho’s mania, my guest made me think pret-ty hard about my own ways, views or assumptions; in fact he really has challenged me re that ‘What Is Writing, Really?’ thing. This is healthy.

Our conversation also made me realise that maybe I really am something of an extremist – possibly worse still, an extremist-traditionalist. (I don’t see myself that way but) I’ve drifted from football, love football markedly less because I hate that strikers want to draw a pen or get the centre-back sent off, not smash it the ferkin onion bag. I can’t stand  the deception, the diving, the pretending my face just got absolutely smashed-in when, no… it just didn’t.

Herbs can live with that; or he certainly hasn’t drifted, he certainly isn’t raging angry, because of what he sees as the context – a magnificent Premier League. I, meanwhile, have to think about this.

So where are you, sagacious listeners/readers, on this continuum? Drifted, or in love?

Tell me. It may help.

 

 

 

 

Crazy, I know.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Lunchtime in Wales. The twittersphere tells me Rashid Khan can’t play tonight for Sussex – a plus.

But given the Sharks (I kinda resent calling them that but let’s go with the faux I mean flow, eh?) have maybe the most fangtastic attack in the tournament in any case, the chances for a Middlesex win at Hove prolonging Glammy’s season remain slim, yes? Sussex still have Archer, Jordan and Mills and are therefore odds-on to endstop Eoin Morgan’s campaign with another emphatic disappointment.

Or are they?

T20 does have scope for that turn-on-a-tanneresque, wtf-acious, well I ne-ver in a-all my born days jolt. It’s arguably predicated on thrills and dramatic holy cows; lurid ones, inflatable ones – ones with a microphone or megaphone. Meaning it’s a rush. 

Me, I’m in a flush. Because if you didn’t know it, my lot – our lot – Glamorgan are scrambling. They must win tonight and hope Sussex lose.

Sussex are at home to the worst team in the division. Glam have Surrey at Sophia Gardens. There may even be a weather issue, possibly, in Cardiff, which could scupper that 2 points imperative. It’s feeling cruel and ecstatic and BIG, all this. We love it and it’s almost unbearable.

If you’re like me you start wondering fatally aloud and quite probably pontificating to people in bars, or caffs or kitchens. Trying to un-mist those memories around How, Exactly It Came To This.

We blame shot selection, rank amateurism, villageism, inexperience and the coach. We know we are right even when at our most nailed-on preposterous but our love of An Opinion drives us on. Our hunches become Mona Lisas; unshiftable and mighty and true; stars in the firmament of revelation.

This is the essence of supporting stuff: knowing that our professionals haven’t got a clue.

It’s ingloriously bastardly. It’s hilarious – it drives the coaches, players and opposition mad. The utter cobblers we come out with.

Ah but it’s rejuvenating and self-validating and joyfully daft, too. It’s the essential matrix – and you bloody coaches and CEOs and players better remember this! – without which public sport itself is dead. Fans mithering or bawling or making extraordinarily, brilliantly astute contributions. It’s the game.

Hey before I get into that pre-pre-game period – where it’s too early to get hyper and too late for calm – let me leave you with the wildest daftest contribution my own allegedly-plainly free-wheelingly absurdist cerebellum came up with the other day. During that massacre at Hove.

Staggering-but-true there was a moment in that Sussex v Glam game where the visitors were if not cruising then on that most delicious cusp. Chasing a reasonable lump, Donald and Meschede had gone in and made a magnificent start. Donald (I think) got out, bringing Ingram in. But Glam had been going at something close to 12 an over. And Ingram is almost god.

In my infinite but delusional, inexperienced, unreliable wisdom I was certain that the spectacular South African could play within himself for ten overs and still score at more than the required rate, thus guiding Glam to an uncomplicated but tremendously significant win. Instead, he crashed one to the fielder.

I tweeted something to the effect that Ingram – Glam’s rock and leader and inspiration – had arguably thrown away the campaign; right there. In a flashy, unnecessary moment. (To be fair I was careful not to accuse the man of anything but you get the drift).

I kinda love Colin Ingram but I still (secretly until now) believe he was wrong… and that my own intuit-o-cobblers was right. He’s so good he could have picked and cut and nurdled or watchfully-downwardly boomed his way to the win. He could: I believe that.

And that, my friends, is both a confession of sorts and a statement of my vain, inviolable prerogative – and yours. Over a season where eight zillion more obvious errors or misjudgements patently out-rank this embarrassing hunch of mine, we reach the last, fatal knockings with me wondering on this. Crazy, I know.

 

Come ON Glam!

 

 

The Universe Podcast 2: with Matt Thompson, Talent Programme Manager for Cricket Wales

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In the second of my amiable meanderings through what-might-turn-out-to-be the Definitive List of Movers & Shakers in Welsh Cricket, I chat to Matt Thompson, Talent Programme Manager for Cricket Wales.

Matt is a brilliant 26 year-old cricketer/lecturer/coach, with a ridiculous c.v.

Despite this, I kinda liked him. We talked the new job through – criminally unedited – plus all kinds of coach-feely other stuff.

Have a listen.

 

The Universe Podcast 1. @cricketmanwales meets Mark O’Leary… & talks MCC University Cricket.

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Please note that this post is very much a companion piece to the preceding feature – On #firstclasscricketersfirstclassdegrees.

I spent some time with Mark O’Leary – Head Coach at Cardiff MCCU.

It’s not what you might call hard-hitting journalism. In fact it’s not journalism. I like the bloke; we talked.

O’Leary is something of a rising star – ECB Elite Master Level 4 Coach, workshop maestro, deviser of wittily wicked drills – who combines the cricket role with teaching on the Cardiff Met academic staff.

We talk about everything from funding, to honoured alumini, to the future for the scheme. Have a listen.

The sharp-eared may notice mention of £76,000 at the ver-ry end of the discussion. This of course related to Mr O’Leary’s fee.

 

On #firstclasscricketersfirstclassdegrees.

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Friends we can be pretty sure that Messrs Bayliss and Farbrace don’t order the kit, sort the stop-overs, book the buses and the umpires. They don’t frame their work around ‘equally important’ other stuff – for the players, I mean – academic stuff. Mark O’Leary does.

He does because he’s the Head Coach at the Cardiff M.C.C. University Scheme. This as many of you will know is the project that for two decades has offered both a route in to professional cricket *and* the safety net of a university education.

Initiated by the inimitable Mr G Fowler Esquire of Durham and now based around six centres across England and Wales, the scheme has played a significant role in the careers and indeed the lives of (to take current figures) some 26% of county cricketers.

But even this apparently strong result in the value-for-money department has not rendered the project immune from the administrative/cultural/fiscal or accountability-driven revolutions carving and helicopter-shotting their way through the cricket landscape.

Recent features of that hypnotic but not always helpful flux include the M.C.C. pulling out after years of noble and very much-appreciated support, business (i.e. Deloitte) pulling in, and – within the last week or so – the E.C.B. confirming that they will bankroll things, post 2020.

There had for many us been a sense that after years of low-level uncertainty, a clear, bomb-proof structure needed to be in place and that if there can be such a thing, the ECB (the original funders) seemed the natural sponsor. However just how bomb-proof, how durable, how comforting on a day-to-day basis, is the future for the scheme looking?

As an outsider but interested party, I wanted to get a handle on how this felt from within: I scooted to the capital – to Cardiff.

Mark O’Leary is tall, tall and shaven-headed. If he lumbered a bit more you might place him somewhere rather worrying – like a tube-station, maybe, skulking with the rest of The Firm – but no.

He’s one of those big guys who gives off no darknesses. Refreshingly, there’s no ‘physicality’, no sense of a man asserting big-ness or power or dominance. He’s a light, open, smiley guy, welcoming me into a narrow, functional office, not some site-of-ambush.

I say this because O’Leary is a successful Head Coach, a team leader and a bloke about 6 foot five. One might expect a degree of machismo: I’m sensing none. He may not always be calm, quietish, affable and willing to listen… but he is now.

We talk and we go for a wander round the campus – Cardiff Met.

He describes the structure of the Cardiff Process and the responsibilities he has. He stresses the genuine gratitude he feels towards the now-departed M.C.C. for their central role, not just in having the vision to fund the scheme but also, more personally, the opportunity it has afforded him to develop himself over time, through experience.

O’Leary, like his counterparts at the other centres, really is everything from coach to logistics man to quality-controller of the whole cowabunga; even more so than his opposite numbers, as the Welshman also lectures on the academic curriculum.

Sure, certain specialist roles are delegated – for example to the Strength and Conditioning or Sports Psychology team – but the Head Coach is all over everything else.  He describes this epic multi-skilling modestly, in entirely philosophical fashion, free of any of the eye-rolling many of us coaches get drawn into when relating the menial stuff, the crèche-control-thing that most of us have to endure.

My guided tour is similarly conducted in an open, engagingly informative way. A friendly word to everybody; a quiet affirmation of respect for the S & C guys, ‘whom I really should meet’; a nod to the world class stat-analysis and athlete-monitoring systems, which O’Leary oversees but sidesteps any particular credit for.

We spend time in the gyms – where the 23 players do three, testing S & C sessions a week, starting at 7.30 a.m. We linger in the ungenerous office/corridor space that is the beating heart (lols) of the Strength & Conditioning Department. Peering out I imagine visiting sixth-former applicants gawping at the magnitude of both the facilities and the challenges they are applying themselves towards: ‘awesome’.

At the perimeter of the spectacular indoor tracks – yes, plural – Dai Watts (Lead) and Chris Edwards (S & C Coach) brief me, with just a touch of quiet pride, on personal training plans, scheduling etc etc.

Dai is employed by the university across a variety of sports. Dipping briefly into anorakdom, he nevertheless makes clear that a) the cricket at Cardiff Met is kosher, in terms of the integrity and commitment required for professional sport and b) that the O’Leary curriculum is fully fit for purpose in respect of the aspiration towards exceptional performance. Crucially, I also sense that these guys between them make sure that the House of Pain is also a House of Fun.

Without any whiff of sycophancy, Mr Watts plainly respects the cricket bloke: I suspect, given the S & C man’s demeanour and own, impeccably high standards of work, this is a privilege not always gifted.

A further detail from our tour. Outdoor facilities; immaculate 3G pitches, athletics field, track – all that – tick the boxes, emphatically. But look closer. Cameras.

O’Leary expands on this. The cameras are providing extraordinary levels of information for analysts, who then guide coaches and players on movement, discipline, tactics.

It escapes me at the time but on reflection this may be less relevant to the Cardiff M.C.C.U. than to their powerfully successful football and rugby equivalents: however I note it because the inference was absolutely that the cricketers benefit from precisely the same degree of support. That is, as O’Leary says, “world class”.

We retreat to The Office to chat further.

The Head Coach briefly recounts some salient, personal cricketty-info. He’s been coaching 26 years – implausibly, given I’d have stuck him in his late thirties – delivering across all age groups and abilities up to international (Wales) standard. He’s ECB Elite Master Level 4 qualified, has an MSc. in Sports Coaching and finds himself very much in demand; workshops, fielding sessions, playing for M.C.C. all this over and above the day-job.

Sparky, as he is known to friends and comrades, is perfectly content to discuss the state of the M.C.C.U. project and to reveal that over a period of time, the E.C.B’s hierarchy – in particular Mr Graveney – have been sounding out the current centres about plans for the future. (These talks have been somewhere between discreet and full-on secret).

O’Leary confirms that the E.C.B. have undertaken to take up the funding of the scheme in 2020 and that the talks have been encouraging in several ways. Firstly – dosh.

Figures have not been offered but O’Leary’s strong sense is that the E.C.B. want this to be professional and therefore to be funded adequately, at the very least. (“The aim is to develop professional cricketers”). They are consulting the Head Coaches to take a view on their individual university’s modus operandi, to keep them accountable but also very much to discuss the how and why of what works. Graveney is, to his credit, seeking guidance as well as preparing directives.

When I ask impertinently directly about money the reply is simply that Mark doesn’t know. There’s an assurance, a commitment but as yet no figures attached. O’Leary expects things to continue pretty much as they are but we talk about the possibility, raised in the media in the last few days, that other, probably additional centres may come in – that there may be a tender process.

Firstly, there is no sign of concern at this prospect; O’Leary being understandably quietly confident that the Cardiff M.C.C.U. should and indeed will thrive beyond any putative competitive scenario.

Secondly, the developments seem more about expansion than contraction, other centres being established at new venues. In our conversation the possibility is raised that funding may need to be spread more thinly over a bigger number of centres but… all hypothetical. O’Leary is planning to go on planning.

Guess what? I’m unashamedly a supporter of the scheme so offer the Cardiff man a freebie – the opportunity to make the case for his own process, his own course. Which brings us directly to the success stories, the names.

Or it would if either Mark O’Leary or myself accepted that this is just about transferring bodies into County Cricket. In a word, the Head Coach describes the rich combination of the whole Cardiff M.C.C University experience – education, discipline, bantz, performance-level sport – as “irreplaceable”.

Yes, the brief is to prepare able and talented cricketers specifically for a career in the sport but I imagine we’d all like to think (even?) the funders might get that this is bigger than cricket. (I know they do: the ECB are exploring possible community links to the scheme – prompting a diversion from yours truly, during our recorded conversation. Think Foxy Fowler; go listen).

A further brief note is in order, here. Mark O’Leary makes very clear in our podcast that there are three constituent parts to Cardiff MCCU – all of whom contribute significantly in terms of players and commitment. To give one example, Cardiff University – led by my old mucker Lee Herring won the British Universities & Colleges Cup (for cricket) last year and showed strongly in the Premier League South. The third element of the capital’s cricketing uni-scheme is the University of South Wales. I happened to visit Mark in his office at Cardiff Met. 

Heather Knight is maybe the highest profile name. World Cup Winner, world class player and captain: was at Cardiff. Jack Leach, who recently collected his first full England cap, likewise.

The trajectories, the angles vary. Jake Libby got into the scheme during his second year – it’s competitive and you have to re-compete, as it were, with every intake. Now has a three year contract at Notts.

Alex Thompson and Tom Cullen are particular sources of pride, for O’Leary, as they ‘came from nowhere’ and truly emerged during their time in Cardiff. Pro’ cricketers, former #crimsoncaps; i.e. part of the O’Leary Massive.

Of the current squad of 23, two are women. They work and train to the same level as the blokes, play in the university women’s team but are also involved at Western Storm (Taunton) where they get their elite cricket. It may be, incidentally, that one of the developments, come the ECB takeover, is a greater emphasis or investment in women players.

For obvious reasons there’s a strong, symbiotic relationship with Glamorgan. Many of the pictures adorning the O’Leary office feature past or present players, alumni of the scheme. Andrew Salter (formerly Cardiff Met.) has become a fixture in Robert Croft’s side; there will be more like him.Roughly a dozen of Glammy’s current first or second team squads are, or have been crimson caps.

To illustrate the diverse routes in and out we get to the example of Cameron Herring. Herring played three years of County Cricket before he entered Cardiff Met. He then brought an impressive and no doubt inspiring lump of nous and experience to the Cardiff side.

The stories go on; some tragic – Matt Hobden was a crimson cap – some hilarious and many which evidence both the completion of the Performance-Level Cricket Mission and the rich, holistic development we discuss in the podcast.

The whole points to a brilliant, well-executed programme borne aloft by the impressive and sustained commitment of students and staff alike. If the key aspiration for the man driving all this is to achieve Performance-Level Cricket Coaching, the box, for me is ticked.

However, I hear him noting that other boxes are available – are ‘irreplaceably’ a part of the Cardiff M.C.C. University package. O’Leary adds further that players may theoretically be temporarily dropped, if their academic work slips. So there is work, there is cricket work and there is camaraderie, fun: remember that?

As it happens, on the day of my visit, the universe, as so often, interveneth. Students are receiving their degree results. O’Leary politely absents himself in favour of the laptop screen, for a moment or two, as the scores come in. They’re really good.

 

 

The podcast/discussion around which this ramble is almost constructed, is on the way. Stay tuned! 

 

 

Great week.

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Been involved in two events this last week, with a particular character – or so you might think, when I put the labels on. S.E.N and #Disability, or #insportseries.

Unravel that with me.

S.E.N, as many will know, stands for Special Educational Needs and therefore referred, in our case, to Primary School children who have a range – an extraordinary, fascinating range – of issues or needs. (Written on this before, in particular this idea that somewhere in the cloud of embarrassment, prejudice, guilt(?) and awkwardness around ‘needs’ maybe there’s a rich opportunity for us Normal Folks to challenge our own complacency or sheer ignorance; our awarenesses and comfort around Special Needs being often woefully inadequate).

Having confirmed my own frailties in those terms – I, too am relatively twitchy or clumsy in this environment – I’m going to leave it to experts in the field to unpick the differences, subtle or otherwise, between S.E.N and Disability, because a) despite some really excellent and relevant Coach Education, I am not an expert or specialist in this field and b) in reality, as coaches, we don’t typically know very much about what kinds of issues the individuals attending are going to present: we live off our wits.

Before people start kicking off about dangerously inadequate preparation, I should say that what feels like a responsible and reasonable amount of information-sharing and risk-assessment does take place. We just don’t get much detail. So us coaches do inevitably experience that ‘okaaaay, how do I need to pitch this game to this individual?’ moment as the participants arrive. It’s a brilliant, energising test for us; one that hopefully transfers into sharply-focused but engaging (and seemingly relaxed) sessions.

In absolutely glorious sunshine, at Haverfordwest CC, we Cricket Wales people, in tandem with our colleagues at Sport Pembrokeshire, hosted an event for the S.E.N. Units of the county: Primary.

We were well-staffed. We gathered in good time and set up five or six possible areas with different challenges, games or themes. We talked quite a lot about what was going to feel appropriate, how we might rotate groups through, how big those groups might be or ideally should be. We checked for flexibility within games – for the capacity to recalibrate higher or lower – for both difficulty and to accommodate talent and ambition. Then groups arrived.

I recognised a few children from previous events but generally we were into  New Territory – all of us. There was a certain delay as schools arrived separately and (given the epic sunshine) awnings or gazebos and/or similar were set up. There was too much drift so I cut through the formalities, grabbed a group of children and bundled them over to my throwing game. We were off.

I think maybe you set out on days like these, with the fear of making a calamitous and deeply patronising error; or twelve. There is certainly scope for that, right? So what you do (I do) is get the antennae up. Get looking, get listening. Talk the same way, act the same way but get the antennae up for issues of understanding and movement. Get right on all that and offer somebody something different – quietly – if that’s necessary.

We had a laugh. The kids were great; engaged, smiling, contributing to the banter, the shape of the game. ‘Course they were. There were children that could launch an overarm throw, there were those that wandered in and out of the playing area, unable to fulfil the mission but visibly enjoying some activity. Honestly, in the sunshine, they were brilliant – it was brilliant. Periodically, another group came in.

In other ‘zones’ children boomed balls off teas, or caught big balls, small balls, teddies, spiky things, beanbaggy things, foamtastic things. Elsewhere they played nonstop cricket – with or without a helping hand. There were pitstops for drinks and sarnies and more bantz.

It’s going to sound weirdly self-congratulatory if I describe it as something of a triumph but (with apologies) it really was. Not my triumph but everybody’s. Everybody including the sun’s.

My abiding memory is of a fellow coach, who shall remain nameless. This particular bloke is a powerfully experienced cricket bloke and longtime coach and supporter and administrator of the game. He’s been there… but not, as he said, in ‘situations quite like this’. As we packed up and chatted, it was striking that the level of enjoyment  – their’s, his – had been something of a revelation to him.

Three days later we were again involved, supporting an event at Pembroke Leisure Centre. This was an #insportseries Disability/Community event, open to all but shared that schools/learning feature in the sense that children with carers or support staff were brought in to take part. Again the weather was spectacular – almost too hot.

My first memory of this occasion was of a single, tall, strongly-built young man appearing early on at my shoulder, being a quiet presence and me not sure, initially, whether he was (as it were) a candidate for action, or not. Fortunately, my instinct to offer a ‘quick game’ (anyway) proved helpful… and off we went, with other children soon joining.

Here’s where things became profoundly different to that Primary School event earlier in the week, in a way I happily admit, I hadn’t, in my medium-crass naivety, foreseen.

Firstly that biggish young man, then others were really good – to the extent that I could, should, did coach them as opposed to simply hosting a game. (Doh… of course they were!)

Specifically, we got into bowling… because they could really bowl. We got into high hands and following through, with me being careful and even apologetic about being boring and coachy but having no choice because the players were driving us thataway, because they were good. There was also that hike in the attention-span in the players and their capacity to make and sustain their own game. I may have underestimated that, too.

I still have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I reckon I did okay because I know these youngsters did enjoy what they/we did. On the other I have to think about where my expectations were at that first moment. I did not, in truth, as I breezed in to that event, expect to be delivering stuff that I might share with an able-bodied county-level player. I was wrong – and how great is that?

This event, like the one in Haverfordwest, was a notable success – funded and supported strongly, visible and diverse. As well as presenting a range of activities, somebody (Angela Miles?) had the nous to invite Rob Evans and Gareth Davies from the current Wales rugby squad, much to the delight of our participants and many of the on-site and suddenly inquisitive Pembroke School children. Both these guys did a fine and generous job of circulating, encouraging and just being nice to anyone in the vicinity. (Chapeau, gentlemen, enjoy Croatia!)

I wandered through to check out the whole festival, from wheelchair rugby to rifle-range. Outstanding. On a personal note it was fabulous to see such an impressive turnout of Sport Pembrokeshire staff; was proud to muck in alongside to make our own, Cricket Wales contribution. It’s been a great week.

 

Worcester; Part Two.

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Posted this immediately after the South African innings. Go back one post to check out how the England knock went.

 

Opening salvoes. Brunt first, to Lee; bowls full and straight. England seem suitably bristly and busy in the field – need to be, immediately. They are noisy and bright, knowing they must make something happen. After two fairly uneventful overs the visitors are 2 for 0.

Then the breakthrough: Wolvaardt, ball that seamed in at her. Inevitably, it’s Brunt, who sends her off before leaping in that Proper Pumped Fast Bowler stylee.

Ayup. Next over the fabulous Taylor stumps Luus, standing up to Shrubsole – confirmed by a tightish review. We going to get a game, after all?

Lee responds with the first boundary, off Brunt. And the second. South Africa are 14 for 2, off 5.

Shrubsole now getting appreciable inswing, Brunt bowling with her customary passion. Love the way the Northerner demands a wicket from herself – from everybody –  at least three times an over. Proper ‘quick’.

They really are a good combination, these two. Energy in the field remains high. But have South Africa settled? Maybe.

Predictably, Gunn is in for Shrubsole after four good overs. Equally predictably, Gunn is targeted and the runs suddenly flow. Lee and Van Niekerk are on 19 and 18 respectively after Gunn’s rather concerning first over – the tenth.

Ecclestone comes in for Brunt, at 43 for 2. Importantly, she drops onto a decent line and length but there’s a sense that the batters will counter forcefully; both striking freely against anything unworthy.

Is Gunn removed promptly, in favour of Sciver? No. Knight banks on her experience and unflappability… and Gunn settles. Important phase, in which South Africa control things, as opposed to surge ahead. After 15, they are 64 for 2.

Sciver is in for the 16th: she owes us one. Van Niekerk and Lee endure, with increasing, building authority; there are boundaries – sixes, even – as well as skilled resistance.

Things ebb and flow but as South Africa seem to have a measure of control (at 80 for 2), so it may be natural and reasonable enough to consider England’s weaknesses. Not, you understand, out of malice or premature negativity, but because the individuals, the environment must be durable to challenge. It comes with the profile, with the money, the expectation.

England are, of course pretty strong, being World Champs, but as greater investment comes in and the squad grows numerically, so the competitive nature of selection bites more brutally – or should.

Two players from the World Cup Squad missed out here, because (I’m guessing) Robinson and Knight want yet more dynamism, or a shift in the balance. At 16.26 p.m. with the South Africans having cruised through the period of second/third change bowlers, this mix feels like an area to be looked at.

Gunn, tremendous servant though she has been, is on that vulnerable cusp. But Sciver, Marsh and Ecclestone as a group did not back up the work of Shrubsole and Brunt and they, too find themselves in the Must Do Better category.

Ecclestone has to bowl well, not being a great athlete; Sciver is a real talent but we need more from her with the ball; Marsh has to play really close to her maximum in all three disciplines; Gunn is coming to the end of an illustrious career. To complete the rant, Shrubsole’s fitness is a concern: the team needs a couple more stars.

All this arises because England barely challenged Lee and Van Niekerk until Brunt then Shrubsole began the charge again – Shrubsole bowling the opposition skipper for an excellent 58. But this is not just about today.

Batting-wise, the lineup seems goodish… but they had a poor, poor day. However I don’t foresee too many occasions when all of Beaumont, Taylor, Knight and Sciver will fail.

Folks will inevitably compare today’s sloppy dismissals with The Blokes: unwise but so were the wickets – gifted away. Credit Brunt with breathing life into a performance that seemed fatally poor at 61 for 5 and then 80 for 7.

So England, in my humble view, need bowling. The fielding was good, the batting is or should be competitive at this highest level but the team lacks an edge with the ball; or rather needs more, quality options.

As Ecclestone starts the 33rd, South Africa are at 133 for 3. Minutes later, it appears Brunt has emphasised that star quality factor by executing a stirring catch deep in the outfield. It’s the sort of effort that reflects how her desire and power and athleticism set her apart. Turns out – after a long review – she never quite got there. The relieved but deserving Lee returns to her crease.

She is still there, on 77, into the 41st, as Brunt returns for her final fling at this. South Africa require just 27, with seven wickets left intact. The afternoon is now still and lovely, so if nothing changes in the next few minutes we’ll be applying the ‘s’ word to the visitors victory – serene.

Marsh is now firing them in flattish, from the New Road End but England are being quietly picked off. Occasional, incongruous music meets the boundaries that prick the calm.

Brunt is in for her last, the 43rd. She wills herself towards raising once more the contest… but it’s done.

Gunn must bowl the 45th. Her slower ball is just too slow,  too easily read and is carted to extra cover for four, leaving three needed.

Next over Lee kabooms Marsh for six to finish it. A deserved win for South Africa, who have emphatically outbowled and outbatted England. Lee is undefeated on 92 and Du Preez on 36. Whilst plainly England’s batting cost them the game, I’m left with more concerns about the bowling. Wonder if Mr Robinson feels the same?

Cows and buzzards and crows.

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It’s hard to judge the impact of things, eh? Because we don’t know what people are thinking and in any case surely market research is heavily flawed, or skewed? Questions too obvious, contexts too directed, intelligence too dubious. Figures – even figures – are arbitrary.

Cricket is being measured and moaned about again: it always was and is and maybe the attention is good – or at least potentially good. The Profile is all. The Argument validates Life Itself.

I love that people care so much about cricket – about anything. They dwell on it, or in it, bawling or beaming or nagging away. The mad-wonderful truth could be, can be that cricket is the matrix within which they express their extraordinary brilliance or passion or flair or psychosis. Measure the massiveness of that.

So, I acknowledge figures more than I trust them. I believe in the truth of the madness. And yet.

We Community Coaches, in Wales and elsewhere have been working mainly recently on the huge All Stars Cricket project. I say huge because from the inside it feels big – and yet I’m not aware of as much hoopla around it this year as last. (Has the level of investment in media-stuff dipped? I don’t know).

In 2017 All Stars felt incontrovertibly a once-in-a-lifetime size commitment, a genuine game-changer’ in terms of investment and impact. 2018 feels maybe less extravagantly present but actually I’m clear it’s acting powerfully and it’s not just the figures that bear this out: it’s the experience.

I’m shockingly biased and shockingly pro-cricket but please hear me out; I’m in there, I know something of this. All Stars is a grower, on me, and in terms of its force.

I led the delivery of the (parallel) Chance to Shine cricket curriculum in Pembrokeshire schools in the winter and early spring, and now act as an Activator (meaning I run the All Stars sessions) at a local village club.

Village? Na, on reflection it’s a magical, seemingly movable speck on the rural landscape (for no-one can find it) nestling against a farm, overlooked only by cows and buzzards and crows. It’s idyllic on heartwarming drugs. It’s Llanrhian. Thursday nights the place is wild.

Wales-wide, there are more than 3,200 children signed up to All Stars, this year. (They tell me this is a thousand more than last year). At Llanrhian we have 26, which between you and me, is almost too many.

This signing-up thing is significant in several respects. Children pay £40, for an 8-week, informal course-with-benefits. They get clobber – bat, ball, t-shirt, etc, etc – but they as a family are kindof invited to commit. Commit the money, the time… and then maybe commit to joining in a little, at the sessions.

The design and the marketing raison-d’etre here speaks of gathering families in – ideally ‘new’, non-cricketing families – to a fun-but-guided sporty, family experience. The aspiration is towards not just providing good healthy fun but also the possibility for really rich shared time.

Some parents will instinctively get this; that this rather profound benefit may be there. Others will be too shy or too deep into the i-phone to notice. Fair enough. The All Stars sessions will be frothing over with good energy into which the parents can dip, or contribute, if they so choose.

I have some fantastically bright and busy and yes ‘boisterous’ kids in my group. The quality of listening is mixed, so I’ve already press-ganged in some support. It’s also – two sessions in – feeling part of the process that some parents (maybe surprised at the drift amongst some of their children?) are starting to wander in to games, to join in, in a way that they sense is helpful.

Hope this doesn’t sound like I’m either abrogating my responsibilities as coach, or endangering relationships, here: I remain aware of the issues around both safeguarding and control. It’s just that careful encouragment of positive interactive activity (which turns into family or truly social activity) really might be the icing on this Starry cake. I’m certainly hoping so… and working towards that. Watchfully.

Look, if, despite the cost and investment in time, a thousand more children have been signed up this year in Wales, and if what they tell me is true regarding 71% of All Stars children last year coming from new, uncricketing families, then I think we can put big ticks in the plus column. The data is positive – and there’s plenty more where that came from.

But we need more than that. We need recounted experiences, facts about feelings.

One example. I can tell you, I have seen that many children were, until All Stars or Chance to Shine lessons in schools, relatively or entirely unfamiliar with the feeling of bat in hand. Patently and understandably, this, in my experience, is the case. That’s changing or changed, because All Stars/Chance to Shine interventions have been huge. More children are getting to know the game.

Secondly, the glee factor – remember that? Kids are going ballistic in a wonderfully liberated way, at our All Stars sessions. It’s noisy and daft and over-the-top because the Stars are absolutely loving it. We’re setting them loose more than we’re directing them. I had one lad last week turn up with his broken arm in plaster: Dad said ‘there was no way he was going to miss it!’ Marley grinned and grabbed a ball.

Just this week we (Cricket Wales) Cricket People are trumpeting #4millionNotOut to celebrate that number of children receiving Chance to Shine cricket in some form. A big PR thing has gone off on our patch – da iawn, Milly-May, in Port Talbot! – so we’re full of ourselves, over that one. Doesn’t matter if this figure is less than football or rugby, or more than tennis or netball. Four million cricketing events. Plus the weight of All Stars on top; recently, now, next few weeks, all over – this matters.

The ECB decided that a monster wedge needed to go into junior cricket. Something transformative. A bubble had to be burst, the game had to be shared. Cricket was wonderful but was nearly out of time – or out of its time? Money to Chance to Shine was doubled, to raise the profile in Primary Schools and then something major had to be done to get new families into clubs.

All Stars is no panacea: said before that I know enough folks in cricket admin who fully accept that retention of fourteen/fifteen year-olds and of course the very shape and format of cricket itself are equally acutely important. Of course they are.

But both at the input-of-juniors level and culturally, All Stars is, in it’s gambolling, free-form, radical and hearty-risky way, opening up both the game of cricket and possibilities and understandings for coaching activity itself. This is profound. Slightly crazy, immeasurably good stuff often is, right?