coaching

And now they’re gonna believe me.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

World Cup Winners. Not a phrase us sporty-peeps are all that used to. Mainly because our media and our heads are dominated by footie – by the epic failure of England. England Men. In football. In World Cups or Europeans.

But who cares about them?  Certainly I care waaaay less than I once did.  Let me dispatch that whole industry of trauma with a flourish, with some disdain, with a few bullet-points.

I care less because;

  • of politico-philosophical stuff about disassociating myself from the Posh South of England
  • because of the rank dishonesty and/or meanness of spirit/anti-sportness football wallows in
  • (but much more importantly) because other sports and other kinds of people seem better. More entertaining; more fun; more worthy(?) of our support.

Post the 2012 Olympics magnificent, generous, friendly, articulate athletes – proper humans who could talk engagingly even though they were world stars – lit up the footie-player-heavy universe.  They were lovely as well as gobsmackingly talented.  They were real and rounded.

Fast forward or maybe re-wind just a few days.  Focus (finally, yes?) on a particular sex. Throw your arms around or share the joy around Anya S, Sarah T, Heather Knight and that daft bugger Dani Wyatt with her twitter and her Proper Sense of Humour!

Read the backstories about shared houses and shared disappointments or challenges. Get the whole idea that there’s been a tough revolution going on – one where these tremendous women have been through major, testing stuff.  And now look at them.  Listen.  Get to know them.  This is England Cricket.  These are our World Cup Winners.  How great is that?

I need to acknowledge coupla things.  Firstly, I’m a dumb bloke.  Secondly, there are people who think this dumb bloke is as bad as the rest of them: somewhere on that patronising/sexist/misogynist spectrum.  Meaning I should be keeping my mouth shut.

I’m not going to because I know (actually) that I try pret-ty hard to be careful and reasonable with what I say… and I know however flawed I may be I am genuinely committed to some vague-ish but powerfully-felt ideas about equality.  I’ll get stuff wrong but as a geezer and a coach I do not entirely lack political sensitivity and do try to make things better.

By that I mean specifically supporting women and girls into cricket – or in cricket.  Apologies for the digression.

England’s World Cup win is a gift as well as a wonderful moment, a triumph.  The manner of victory was intoxicating and gut-churning and all those things that characterise truly fabulous sport.  It was unbelievable, dream-like, horrendous, glorious, daft, moving, nerve-shredding.  The actual match was extraordinary and captivating.

So the drama – the sport – was as magical as sport can be be but the levels of interest and coverage also went off the scale in a way that must surely mark a new phase; ‘just the start of the story’ as described by the outstanding Ebony Rainford-Brent.  Cricket needed that, the universe needed that and we Community Cricket Coaches needed that to really move things forward.

This is what’s exciting.  I hope it doesn’t sound too worryingly cynical if it feels like we all – not just those of us work in cricket – have to use this.  It’s BIG.  BIGGER THAN CRICKET. I’ll not wade into the wider debates just now but I do hope there will be an unstoppable energy around this event, feeding into rilly profound developments ‘elsewhere’.

I personally have been enthusing folks for bats and balls and stuff for about ten years. For the last four, for a living.  I am absolutely clear that us Cricket Wales coaches (who spend much of our times in Primary Schools and clubs) have actively set out to make girls feel like this is their game.  The argument can certainly be made that we could have done more but one of the central messages we’ve been trying to put out there is exactly that: girls, you can do this – it’s yours!

We in the Community Team run what we call cricket assemblies, generally alongside or in the middle of a series of school cricket sessions.  The centrepiece of these assemblies tends to be a shortish video, supplied to us by Chance to Shine, the treble-fabulous cricket charity, one of our sponsors.

I very often bring out a film that was made a few years back, showing India winning a World Cup, amongst other buzztastically uplifting cricket-scenes.  The presentation (bit concerned about that word, in fact) features a Jesse J soundtrack and the challenge is laid to the teacher and/or learning assistant to name the singer and the song – Domino.

I encourage the kids to sing along and if the hwyl with the staff is good to ‘dance around a bit’.  If the teachers get the points for identifying the singer/song then the kids get unholy amounts of points for knowing the words.

We have a bit of fun and maybe a quiz or a relatively ‘educational’ discussion around what we’ve seen.  Which countries were playing?  Recognise anybody – any flags?  I big up the notion that cricket can feel like this then I always ask a few of the girls present

was it all blokes?’  (The film has clips of England Women in action).

When the girls say ‘NO!’  I ask the class

who’s the best team we’ve got?

A question that throws them, admittedly but soon enough the lads start saying Chelsea, Manchester Utd, Swansea, or Scarlets or Ospreys.  I let them shout them out and we have a giggle or two around that – especially, obvs, at the Chelsea fan’s expense.

I then tell everybody that there’s a very strong argument that the best and most successful team we have (acknowledging the brilliance of our cyclists and rowers, maybe) might really be England (and Wales!) Women’s Cricket side.  Because a) they are right up there on the world stage b) because they do win things.

I’ve been saying this fairly convincingly for four years. Now, these classes – these girls – are gonna believe me.

I will again look them in the eye and say

girls. This is your game. Cricket is a fan-tastic game… and it’s yours every bit as much as it’s mine… or his… or his.

How did I get here?

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

So. We’re with David Byrne, right? Scrambling for sense in a trippily colorific world. In the sunshine – or is that floodlight? – in the city – but look at all those trees! Squeezed between giddyingly gaudy, pyroclastic sport-of-the-now and the river. Wondering…

How did I get here?

No idea if Robert Croft likes Talking Heads (some would say he certainly is one) but the Glamorgan gaffer has needed to say something. His side have been alarmingly exposed too much already in the county season in a way he simply will not accept: three consecutive defeats culminating in the extraordinary but surely dispiriting pasting at Cheltenham.

My sense is that Croft is tough, however and crucially that although he must be feeling personally slighted by the suspicion recent matches have featured capitulations, he does believe in his team. Not as champions or even leading contenders but as guys building.

I’m not party to real policy – who is, amongst us scribblers? – but I am aware of a deep commitment to developing talent, with some emphasis on Welsh players. At Glam this of course flows down from the very top, Hugh Morris being emphatically behind the  notion that it’s right, as well as financially necessary, to seek after local gems; all this implies Project Patience.

Of course Big Name Signings have to be factored in and Glammy have, in the recent past gone (I’m guessing!) as big as they dare to secure the likes of Steyn and Shaun Tait to lift attendances and results. De Lange is maybe this year’s arguably slightly lower profile star but the standout signature for the tilt at glory is a re-signature, this year – that of Colin Ingram.

Which brings us to the white ball… and to the river.

Ingram is a precious talent – one that must surely have been tapped-up by pals from Pietermaritzburg, agents from Vauxhall. He is a whirlwind, a destroyer, a smiter of mighty blows. He may well, by the way, be magnificent at four, possibly five day cricket; but Ingram was made for 20 overs.

I met his father briefly at a T20 in Cardiff last year and he told me ‘he’s just loving his cricket’. Arguably flimsy evidence for me to remain hopeful that Ingram still is content at (lowly?) Glamorgan, that he knows this is his moment and that he can channel the white-heat, the adrenalin, the spectacular focus and again go beautifully monstrous.

Many will hope that Donald and Cooke pitch in with the bat and that Hogan and De Lange can be wily or sharp enough to stem the flow from t’other end, as it were. Whichever way it’s hard to escape the feeling that the season has been building (and the team shaped) towards this T20Blast competition.

There are clearly pressures around the notion that Glamorgan kinda have to be a white ball county; given current status, balance, quality – given the real world. Croft and co have looked set (and more controversially, maybe like they’re settling?) for #T20Blast for months. They fit the c.v. – they feel competitive in a way they don’t at the longer formats – and maybe I’m including 50 over cricket in that category. (*Sign of the Times* alert).

How hugely the great capitalist shadow falls across this squad/format/direction equation is another great unknowable: tonight, pre-match, I don’t care. What matters in this glassy, summery, spring-coiled moment is the degree to which Glamorgan can grab.

The game; Hampshire to bat. Coolish summer eve – pret-ty close to ideal for sport.

A look at the teamsheets suggests Hants have the weightier characters, perhaps (Abbot, Bailey, Vince, Carberry, Afridi?!?) but who knows? I can however report with some certainty that for me that everyday nervous thing is coloured up or sharpened just a tad by the feeling that Glammy must really go to work – that this is their season.

Vince had other ideas. He twitches and sprints off the mark; Hants are 40 for nothing, sharpish. But Hogan has that hand nice and high, and TVG is bowling with some venom. Salter seems purposeful. If a team can be said to share body language…

Wickets fall. Hampshire are 72 for 4 in the tenth; things poised.

Salter and TVG make for an encouragingly testing combo. The blonde bombshell accelerating in hard and zapping the deck, the Pembrokeshire twirler bustling through, changing it. Notable that Van der Gugten bowls almost entirely back of a length (or shorter) at Bailey and MacManus and that the batsmen pass on the invitation to hook big almost completely. Plans, eh?

88 for 4 off thirteen. It’s hardly explosive stuff – for all his worldly experience Bailey feels a disappointment. Hants are going at seven an over without dominating. Sixes are a rarity, control in some dispute.

Suddenly MacManus smashes two off two (sixes that is) as we  close out the 16th on 116 for 4. Gear change? Ye-es but not emphatically so: MacManus will eventually battle through to 50 and beyond without absolutely bossing the scene. (Tonight, nobody does, in fact).

Early in the seventeeth MacManus dismisses De Lange back over his head for a booming maximum. (OK, pedants, not maximum just six). The visitors are plainly heading for a goodish total but this hasn’t felt especially one-sided: given recent history might Glam settle for that? Hopefully not.

Croft’s side’s time in the field felt efficient enough rather brilliant: they were unlucky – seven or eight times miscues or aerials just fell short of the onrushing fielder. Finally MacManus holed out to a diving cover in the last over (167 for 5). A serious challenge, then.

Lloyd and Donald to open for Glammy but the former’s cutting and tickling the first ball… behind, disappointingly. Topley the bowler. In comes Ingram, already a high percentage of hopes resting on him and the young man opposite.

Sharp intake of breath as Ingram is caught, outstandingly, flaying wide, at extra cover by Berg and Glamorgan are 3 for 2 after the first over. The thought registers rather darkly that the incoming Rudolph may have to find something unexpectedly maaarvellous, here.

Unsurprisingly, it’s the dynamic Donald that takes it to the enemy. Again he appears bright and almost fearless – raising that bat intimidatingly high and baseball-like as Topley charges in. He flukes a poor four before middling a couple to leg but the intent – that waggling, pre-hook backlift – is clear and positive.

Rudolph is from another generation but can he glide through this and shepherd the innings? Be the statesman to Donald’s stag? With Glammy at 24 for 2 off four, it seems that natural Rudolph will anchor and/or thread singles whilst Donald biffs the thing around.

With Donald so obviously set up to slap everything through midwicket, I wonder if Hants might bowl full at off-stick and get him playing across. Saw no sign of that approach. He’s done, in the end by spin, in any case. When Donald is swiftly followed by Carlson – for nought – the crowd re-calibrate their optimism. Glam are 47 for 4 after 8.

When Rudolph chips the energetic Afridi to short mid-off, the Glam faithful – and those critical newcomers, on a boozy or family night out – begin to fear capitulation, which would feel disastrous for the season, never mind the night. At 54 for 5 off 10, things look bleak.

Wagg finally connects with Afridi, smashing a straight six but the runrate is above ten per over at the halfway: too much. Unless…

Glamorgan reach the hundred five wickets down at the end of the 13th. Extraordinarily, the generally dynamic Cooke has been relatively soporific – certainly compared to his partner Wagg – who sits on 43, at this point.

Afridi is bowling incredibly quick ‘legspin’. Perhaps it’s this that unsettles Cooke, who spoons to off and is caught, rather tamely. Enter Salter.

Ultimately Wagg makes a brave 50 before driving to mid-off. Salter and De Lange have no option but to blast and hope, in the last four, with 54 needed(!) However they have mixed success and Topley deceives the South African paceman with a slower ball.

TVG bolts the first ball of the 19th from Topley past midwicket for 6, keeping the game alive – as in alive-but-surely-dead? The England paceman responds with two stunning yorkers and Glam need 27 to win it from Berg’s final over.

TVG is caught at deep mid-on off the first ball. Glamorgan finish 22 short, Salter swishing his blade violently in disappointment.

The suspicion remains that Glamorgan must find some collective inspiration and look to bursts of unanswerable brilliance from Ingram, Donald (possibly) with the bat and from Van der Gugten, De Lange or Hogan with the ball.

This can happen. Croft’s job is to stimulate and support those aspirations – to help build beyond expectation.

Slaven to the rhythm(n?)

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 1 Comment

Not sure how comfortable with the idea I am, but have been slightly comparing (if that’s a thing?) my medium-local cricket team with Premier League ‘equivalents’. Something to do with straining to get or put a handle on the role or leadership style of Robert Croft. Because Glamorgan – in fact based exactly 100 miles away – is my team.

The redaction back to footiestuff – as though that’s the Natural Yardstick – concerns me a tad but put that down to historical-familial linkage. Much as the righteous heart of me turns away from the diving, the feigning, the insufferable and delusional arrogance of too many contemporary football legends, I am in it (football) for life. Without pardon.

Cricket, meanwhile, insinuated a way in subtly and built over time. I played cricket as a wee lad, loving bowling from the first moment: however post comprehensive school (for reasons I won’t bore you with now) I flitted in and out of the game, returning fleshed-out and mature to coach, work for Cricket Wales and then really get back into it in my (ahem) middle years.

I now follow Glamorgan, from my hundred mile distance, ever more keenly. The daft-beautiful tribal nonsense-thing has properly kicked in.

This feels great, if challenging. Given the voluptuous up-and-down-ness of the current Glammy trajectory, I’m Kinda Concerned, of nr Tyddewi. And I’m wondering if it’s the ubiquity of fickleness itself – or what? – that draws me towards dubious analogies with more spiteful sports… and (ya know) Slaven Bilic.

Glamorgan under Croft just sounds right – and probably is. Former player, of great distinction and unquestioned commitment. Committed welshman – plus! Croft takes his archetype shooting, fishing and singing: slings his arm round it, man-hugs it, banters with it, in the dressingroom, sportsbar, tv studio. I reckon he broods with it, whilst softly crooning Canon Lan, wader-deep in the Tawe.

This is not (I promise you) to patronise the man. Bob Croft is loved and respected by many for his flawless, brilliant, imperfect, unstill, sanguine-genuine welshness but he is Head Coach at Glamorgan because of cricket; knowledge and nous.

Croft, I have felt, has the potential to be truly inspirational – a quality many coaches simply lack. It’s not in their biology, never mind their c.v. – however impressive, however legitimising. The Glammy coach’s strengths and weaknesses will increasingly inevitably be looked at as time goes on but few will question his ability to stir the blood of his players. Which is where (probably?) Bilic comes in.

Croft and Bilic share the p-word – the one that salespeople or businesspeople who should be stood against the wall and shot increasingly claim. (Shoot them for their impudence, their lifeless, dullards’ cheek, their hard-horny-shell-like unawareness; for they know nothing of… Passion!)

The geetar-playing Croat has it. The bloke from Swansea, too. Real, human, kosher, bonafide passion – the sort that implies a degree of poetry, of creativity, as well as that thing where you’d fancy sharing a boozy night out. Bilic and Croft are bigger than their sports – and this is why we are hopeful.

Today Bilic meets/met the West Ham board, in what the papers are characterising as a) crucial talks and/or b) routine, post-season discussions. Could be that like Croft he is both loved and under some pressure. Pressure because a) it comes with the territory and b) neither fella has sufficiently gathered his troops. The Happy Hammers have barely chortled, Glammy are steepling between Ingram’s brilliance and raw uncompetitiveness. Let me say now I hope both come through it (whatever it is) and go on to glory.

But what glory? What’s possible, in the nearish future? For West Ham maybe a cup, for Glamorgan likewise? What would turning it round look like?

Notwithstanding the brave retreat currently being fought by Ingram and partner in the four-dayer against Notts, in which at this very moment Chris Cooke is currently – perhaps symbolically – being treated for a blow to the head, Glamorgan have lately too often been battered. They appear off the pace in the longer format and were frankly wildly inconsistent in the LV One Day tournament, failing to progress.

Rudolph, the captain and theoretically the international-class statesman amongst a reasonably youngish group, is also under the spotlight. More than Noble (or whoever is West Ham’s skipper) might be. The role of the cricket captain is broader and  arguably more intellectually-demanding than the fooball equivalent but shares, clearly some fundamentals. You have to play well and you have to lead.

For Rudolph, this means more than anything that he has to get runs, against the fiercest, freshest bowling the opposition can muster… and he has to keep on doing that.

At every level in cricket the performance of the opening bats is crucial – even when (as say, in junior junior games) the result just doesn’t matter. Batters three, four and five settle, their whole experience of the game is transformed positively if the openers just see it out for a while, then get comfortable.

Glamorgan have rarely been in this position. Rudolph has (from memory) one much-needed ton to his name this season but his position will, as they say, be being looked at. He cannot lead, truly, without scoring pret-ty heavily.

Croft will have a big call to make on this – assuming agreements are not already in place. He must also seriously address what feels like a team-wide tendency to either gift-wrap wickets, or concede them somewhere on that spectrum between the mad reckless and the careless. Glamorgan batters have to stay and bat. More.

Of course Croft is aware of this – and no doubt working hard, pushing his players hard. Would be fascinating to know just how much Croft is prepared to blur the lines/protect his players/genuinely accept ‘positive cricket’ and/or ‘expressing yourself’ as an explanation for near-humiliation. I imagine he gets angry but also wants that positivity, not just from his precious jewel-of-the-moment (Ingram) but from likely lads Donald, Lloyd and co.

Glamorgan’s gaffer – and the man above, the impressively assured and committed Mr H Morris – are plainly and rightfully trying to find a way through meaningful encouragement of welsh talent AND via less popular (though necessary) judicious recruitment, with presumably smaller resources than most ‘bigger’ counties. They are also clearly targetting white-ball success. You would hope that Croft’s powerful bond with the county might suit a high energy, adrenalin-rich culture:  this year’s T20 Blast is feeling important, already.

Players talk of rhythym(n)s – of feeling good. Movement feeling natural, the game flowing or feeling easy or even energising, despite the tensions. I’m not neutral here but if I was, I’d still be hoping Croft (and Bilic) can charm, bully, or conduct their men towards that magical, tuneful, expressive flow.

 

This time it’s personal. It always is.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 2 Comments

I’m finding it difficult to bear the news about Ugo Ehiogu. Not because I knew him, or supported Villa or Boro’, or have avidly followed his life and career inside or outside of football. Something has connected, though. I am genuinely saddened and undone in a way you’re going to have to give me time to describe, at a moment when words are inadequate.

Ugo was, to me, a really good player cut cruelly, cruelly short. I know nothing of him as a person but I promise you I totally get the weight of this. The depth of the grief, the merciless bleakness – the shock. Unbelievable as it may sound, I understand. For me and mine, this is about hearts.

It’s about hearts and possibly artsy indulgences – for which I should probably apologise in advance. However I want to make a contribution here, despite the likely inappropriateness, the embarrassment, the intimidatingly personal whorl I’m about to unleash; so I’m going on.

My dad was a sportsman and (actually, I came to realise) a great human. He died of a cardiac arrest, on a badminton court, playing with his mates, on a Sunday night, aged forty-four.

It was February. It was dark, it remains a blur.

I was sixteen or seventeen. Some word had come back that something had happened and my mother was whisked off. I remember one of my three brothers quietly saying to me, as I innocently got on with the most banal of things, that ‘ this really might be significant’. I had no conception of what he meant.

My mother returned, looking both shocked and calm. Her sister – who had ‘lost’ her husband (a doctor, at 38!) to heart disease about a year before – was physically supporting her. My mum said ‘I’m sorry to tell you, kids, that he’s gone – your father’s died. And there’s never been and never will be another one like him’.

My Auntie Marie couldn’t stop herself crying ‘yes… there has been – there has been’ before we wept, together.

I carry this loss every moment of every day. I have in some sense counted the days and years ever since with a shared, maybe schizophrenic focus;

1. to pour good energy in

2. to absolutely deny the possibility – deny, deny! – that I could leave my own wife and kids in the same situation.

I notched something when I went past forty-four a dozen years ago. I notched something too, later, when I had time in the back of ambulances, then hospitals, having mysteriously ‘gone’; when we had immense banter as some bloke put a ‘tinna sardines’ (an ‘at rest’ pacemaker) into my chest. I did this/do this utterly fearlessly, because I am recognising but denying – positively – still.

My next unspoken goal is to get both my kids past their teens and into Proper Adulthood (nearly there). Then there’ll be another marker-point, another effectively sub-conscious notch, done with that same unshakeable calm. Because I am not letting anything happen to me – because I do believe that I can, by act of will, persist into daft-glorious (in my case) Oldish Age.

But what’s this got to do with anything?

Our own family tragedies changed our lives. Sounds glib? Powerfully, devastatingly, inspiringly true. We learned about accepting sadness as part of the richness. I became powerfully angry and committed and I hope inviolably generous. I became (by all means chortle) An Artist Who Responds. I lost all that crap about being ashamed to say stuff deep or loving in public. My essence became truer and more determined, better… as a way of fighting back, perhaps?

I say all this because I think maybe the universe – maybe a particular family? – needs this kind of energy, today. Hearty stuff, stuff that’s de-baggaged, de-peer-group-pressured: fearless. I also want to say something about health – what health means.

The implication here is plainly that I do believe we can make some meaningful contribution to our own state of wellness by being positive and open. Let me both re-tick that box and contradict it by saying something about lifestyle and diet.

As a mob we’re a disgrace to our wonderful planet. We’re wasters, we’re soulless, medium-heartless irriots with an insultingly low capacity to think or act well. This applies particularly pointedly to issues around health.

Where to start with the examples? Parents with young kids get masses of pretty good information about healthy eating and exercise from Primary Schools yet virtually no families eat truly well. Kids grow up on coke and fanta and Mcdonalds; they eat pre-prepared meals. Hardly anybody cooks fresh on a daily basis. No matter your budget or your background, this is unacceptable. Our hearts – our systems – are paying for this.

So I suppose this is a warning.

Let me tell you another cruel story – one I hope certain members of my own family don’t read. I have a strong, childhood memory of being slightly in awe and certainly slightly jealous of the tray on our cousins’ kitchen table. On it were always three or four bottles of what we used to call ‘pop’.

We never had pop. But they had red or excitingly lime-green or yellowish pop. Always. On their table. This was the family whose father died at thirty-eight – the doctor.

I’m going to compound my judgemental rashness here by adding in that two of the children from this family – of which there were four – are now morbidly obese, with acute diabetes. Last time I saw one of them he told me fairly cheerily he didn’t expect to see sixty.

These are brilliantly clever people. They would have to concede that they’ve been relatively advantaged. I sometimes wonder if they haven’t got my Indestructibility Thing arse about face ; that they’ve got some death-wish going on – some self-hatred, some Punishment Thing as a result of their own heart story.

Now I know I need to say something about that use of ‘morbidly obese’. I accept it sounds horrendously judgemental – possibly unacceptable. But I cannot help but feel that those that are dangerously big have to accept some level of responsibility for their predicament. (And it is a predicament.) The warnings are out there – the tragedies, too.

I suspect more families exercise well than eat well – just not well enough, often enough or with enough enjoyment. Thus, as a race, we are unfit. (Again… pejorative word! But GREAT WORD!!) We have to work on this. As a society. By pressuring government and by making good choices.

One of the things I know my old man would be pleased about is that the bottom line with the thing I do – working for Cricket Wales – is it gets people moving about the place. He’d like that.

Keith Winston Walton was

a) (briefly) British Army 400 metres/yards champ

b) skipper of Macclesfield Town

c) (I think) bold enough to turn down Manchester City as a schoolboy, because he wanted to play full-back for Sale RFC

d) generally (weirdly?) a fit bloke

e) alongside my grandpa (ex-MU)) my hero.

Make that IS my hero. He was no intellectual, he was no artist but he poured out the finest, most positive energy into the universe that you could imagine. I grieve him still, because we lost him, crazy young.

So… I know it makes sense – it’s essential – to do the Good Healthy Thing. And – whatever the reasons for their own, terrible loss – I feel, for the family of Ugo Ehiogu, I really do.

Changed my life.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 4 Comments

I may have dreamt it – certainly as of now, I have no proof. So really I should go check, somehow. Except Tenby isn’t heavily stacked with Wisden Emporia(?) so that checking process isn’t that straightforward.

I’ve heard from medium-authoritative sources that I have a nod in this year’s Almanack; a mention.

In fact this under-characterises the moment. One of the writers/editors/compilers of that noble tome has twittered to the above effect.

Even allowing for Soshull Meedya’s capacity for fake news this surely registers as CONFIRMATION OF SOMETHING. Bugger it, I’m going to take it that way, REGISTERING MY EXCITEMENT in the only way I know how – by writing something about how this mad, deep, luscious, illusory moment feels. Sincerely – as though on drugs – as per.

But hold. Post what my yoga teacher (and wife) would sagely describe as a ‘conscious breath’ and notwithstanding the outbreak of a particularly cruel breed of dream, I feel a soundbite coming on: my life is transformed.

*That mention* is as we speak (or wash, or drive, or stare strangely obsessively into the mirror) legitimising everything, vindicating everything, making right everything, including the following;

  • all my qualities
  • all my qualifications
  • all my opinions
  • the general unattractiveness of… that face.

At a stroke all the things I ever said or will say in front of cricket people of whatever sort have a certain weight. In brief, I’m gold-plated.

So here (maybe after the conscious breath fogs the innocent glass, then passes?) are the repercussions; the unplanned, unchained, unthinkable thoughts. My ideas.

  • Enjoy.
  • Ignore.
  • Puff yer chest out, fella.
  • Shut up, you utter donkey.
  • Be really, really grateful. Fly to Australia and say thankyou to Melinda Farrell. Drive to The Midlands (I think) and give George Dobell an alarmingly familiar hug. Tweet something to @barneyronay @chrisps01 @TheMiddleStump and everybody else who’s been gracious enough to support my baby – cricketmanwales.com
  • Note to the universe that I’ve never met any of these people (and may never) so/but a) it feels good that they are palpably lovely humans and b) they’ve said nice things, which may or not be relevant to this moment.
  • Wonder who’s actually read what?
  • Kerriist!! Wonder (for a nanosecond) how embarrassing, really, some of the posts are, then swerve course to dare to contemplate whether someone might not just say

Hey @cricketmanwales not only is that bloody good but would you go to Sri Lanka/West Indies/Lords to write about it FOR US… and we’ll pay you something?

  • Wonder exactly who it is I should be offering coffees/hand relief to in order to further my prospects… and then promptly bin that notion.
  • Breathe again and know – really know – that ce sera sera and anyway my indy-looniness mitigates against most ‘opportunities’… and probably always will… and this is fine. Absolutely.
  • Sing the following into the mirror – defiantly, in the happiest of furies –

but if you can stand the test

you know your worst is better than their best!

(Human League. And me, fairly often.)

  • Wonder if this really will help with ECB Media Accreditation. Resolve to take a passport pic and get that bloody form in.
  • Return to the slight fear that I am God of the Unwise, as well as (obviously) God of the Unwise Word.
  • Then feel good. Because though of course I’ve courted retweets and bombarded the timelines of a few folks with me-ness, I know I’ve put my own voice out there. And this feels important.

Now. IS there a quality bookshop in Tenby?

 

 

Day in the life of.

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So up at 6.50 to do the domestics. Wash up, in a haze, reply absently to the dog’s effusive welcome. Get daughter up. Scramble through shower/shave routine whilst porridge bubbling. Get wife up. Take dog out then eat porridge, blueberries, banana on return. Know motor’s loaded with multifarious Cricket Things so safe to exit rapidly. Forget phone. Go back.

Cosheston. Rain. Have missed (due to general fluster) the facebook message telling me session can’t go ahead. Don’t care – or rather don’t worry. Know a) this is a fabulous, supportive wee school where the staff will be pleased to acommodate an @cricketmanwales special (The Cricket Assembly) b) that this will be fun enough and genuinely helpful re the signposting of kids to local clubs.

Former Wales international and all-round deelightful human (and Head) generously in favour of said assembly. So 9.20-odd, as the rain pours, me and years 3/4/5/6 talk sport. Had feared that as I have ‘only’ a relatively past-its-sell-by-date Chance to Shine vid (Jessie J, Domino!) it might feel bit lame. But na.

Clip myself into the audiokit-thing for the hearing-challenged (that the right phrase?) girl in the posse and off we go.

We start with an observation that maybe WHY questions are kinda tough. But… why am I here? What’s that all about?

Wonderful range of responses, from kid X telling me exactly what he thinks I want to hear to eye-moisteningly sincere stuff about inspiring children to be ‘really healthy and happy’. The usual mixture of blankness and soaring-because-childish profundity.

I am absolutely comfortable telling folks I believe in sport. Believe it’s wonderful, believe it transforms and enriches. I find the right words to make children listen to all that – that ‘message’ about activity being essential on a zillion levels. They hear lots of dull stuff about health and happiness but I want them to believe that movement/activity and for me maybe particularly TEAM SPORTS hold a special kind of magic.

Naturally, I get them to tell me why they love their horse-riding or swimming or rugby or  whatever. Then we watch a hugely upful video about the brilliance of cricket. And Jessie J does an Indian/Mexican wave. And does dive-catches and rolls about and smiles – no, beams.

Righteously, sisters, women feature in the on-white-board cricket action. So I ask the kids if  ‘it was all blokes’.

No-o!

We talk about how soo-perb Anya Shrubsole is – and stuff – how it’s not just for blokes. How there’s an argument that our best team over recent years *may not be* Chelski or Man Yoo or Swansea or Ospreys but may actually be the England & Wales Women Cricket Team. (Because yes, Ffion, when you’re unbelieeeeevably ace at cricket you will or can play for England… and Wales.)

So I talk unashamedly, proudly, psychotically honestly about sport for good, for health, for your mates, for the craic, for good. And – because it’s siling down – I do this three times, at three Primary Schools, today.

Different contact hours then. No outdoor boomathons or multiskill darts and dashes or small-sided games. So less time: instead shortish but realish corporate messaging. Meaning time to knock out a blogette and also to rest up a little and re-charge before leading the coaching at our Training Hub South tonight; this for teen girls and women, experienced players and slightly nervy beginners.

Somehow, some goodly feelings in the Pembrokeshire ether have genied-up two new womens’ teams for the county’s Ladies League. Whether we Cricket Wales peeps can take any credit for this is very much open to question. More likely the commitment and generosity of people like Mickey Marsh at Kilgetty CC and just a couple of key individuals at Lawrenny CC, plus some awareness of abstract but hopefully positive forces in the sporty consciousness – Womens World Cup/big upturn in visibilty looming – have enabled important progress.

The Tenby Training Hub has been an outstanding success, given no history of training sessions, given reasonable wariness around a) a bloke like me leading b) self-consciousness/alleged lack of cricket skills. More than 20 attended the first Thursday (7.30, Tenby Leisure Centre, Free!!) and these numbers seem likely to continue.

Thus far, ably supported by the aforementioned Mr Marsh and powerfully buoyed by the attendance of some Proper Quality Women Cricketers, our sessions have been real good fun, with a significant dollop of generous role-modelling from experienced players facilitating great learning and universally brill application. We’re running six sessions in total before the Pembrokeshire Ladies League – the only one in Wales – gets going.

In terms of what we’ve actually done – what the sessions look like – I’ll offer the following:

  • we’ve gotten folks (women, girls) moving. By daft-friendly, slightly buzztastic warm-up games. Which are about smiling because you’re moving/chasing/beginning to really get at it.
  • We’ve kept technical stuff to a relative minimum but gotten into throwing, posture, dynamism – how we need to find a way to enjoy fielding – to be in the game.
  • We’ve bowled. And tried to feel what control of that ball – that seam! – feels like. (All this with a wind-ball-like ball… but one with a decent seam, right?)
  • Session two we went batting, after an enjoyably energetic netballistic warm-up.
  • We apologetically but fairly briefly went through questions around length – short length, in fact. We marked on a pitch (for all to see and discuss) where a short, good length and full delivery might land.
  • We centred on the short ball, reasoning that pull shots would feel good, would be do-able, would introduce notions around footwork and maybe recognition of healthy instincts… like going back to make time?)
  • We got a bit concerned that things might be concept-heavy, so we smashed plenty of balls, in small groups, before re-gathering and offering a backfoot defence option.

Generally, coach looked, hard, because the range of comfort and understanding and execution of shots was excitingly ‘challenging’.

Last week’s was a top session. Tonight I’m thinking let’s get forward… and let’s hit some more.

4.13 p.m. Weirdly copious lump of time to lose… in Tenby… before tonight. Maybe I should write something?

JD. Thank you.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

(Thinks). Wow. Now that’s class. That may be the best series of cover drives I’ve seen! Powerful, really powerful hitting… but so, so STILL!

The scene? Tenby Leisure Centre. Another dollop of coach education for a bundle of us clumsy amateurs. John Derrick, of Glamorgan – the ‘bloke who was leading the Performance Programme’ (or something) was ‘in’ – was demonstrating.

John hit the ball beautifully but boy did he hit it. Repeatedly. Hard. The strokes were controlled but not flashy, there was no sense that he was showing off – grandstanding, we later learned, just not being his thing. John was just demonstrating – like us coaches used to do in the oldish days.

It was beyond striking, in every sense.

The fact that he went on to reduce a glorious but complicated ‘technical skill’ (or the coaching thereof) to a single word has remained with me since that moment, as a kind of touchstone and a warning against my own verbosity. The execution both of the shot but also the art of coaching was about as perfectly judged and quietly impressive as anything I’ve witnessed in sport. And I’m medium ancient… and have done loads of sport.

John, bat whirling magnificently in that mighty but controlled arc, creamed the ball past cover or mid-off or wherever he wanted to cream it and said only… HEAD. It was all he needed to say.

This was probably ten years ago, or more. I’ve seen John irregularly regularly ever since – either at coach workshops or for gatherings of the Cricket Wales/Glam Cricket Massive. Can’t claim to be soulmates but we tended to have a laugh, to get on.

We’ll all have our own memories, now, poised on that spectrum from the plain daft to the ecstatically triumphant to the utterly tragic. I wasn’t there when he won trophies with Glamorgan or worked in South Africa, so mine will be mid-ranking; but important nevertheless, to me.

I sat next to JD at an alarmingly civilised Christmas Party at The Cricketers near the Swalec a year or two back. I saw him do the office thing, the strategic planning thing. But mainly we met in sports halls, or similar. In his element, in other words.

John could just do it. Play, coach, say the right thing. He was rooted and calm and he had the necessary crafts. He had energy gathered and he focused it. Once, after a particular coaching session, he made a point of eyeballing me and told me what I’d done was

brilliant – seriously.

It was a quiet couple of words. Undemonstrative. Genuine. It means even more now than it did then. Because we’ve lost him.

John’s gone, cruelly, another victim, another good ‘un ripped away too early. Some of us had been gently primed for news of this sort… but it barely helps. Time to give up on faith or retreat into something darkish and miserable? No. Absolutely no.

Back in Tenby I was struck by not just the quality of what John did, but by the simplicity, modesty, authenticity of everything around him. Folks do have an aura or feel about them: JD’s was solid, somehow – if that’s possible for an ethereal phenomenon? He gave off unquestionably good, honest, positive vibes, somehow without seeming to do that much.

Sure his presence was proper blokey – stocky, smiley, straight-talking – but he/we were all comfortable, there was easy engagement. Crucially for a coach you believed him and believed in him.

But why wouldn’t you? John Derrick was an elite level player and coach as well as an elite level bloke. His career will be charted well enough in the tributes that will pour in. John played, John coached – it’s on the record.

There’s more. The sheer volume of love and respect over-flowing from the various social media channels is testament to something beyond that list of achievements – impressive though it may be. John was special.

He was hugely loved and respected, at all levels of the game, across Wales, across the continents! John earned that love by being great company as well as a great player, Level 4 Coach, mentor. He was true. He was with you. He was genuinely, solidly, ever-reliably there.

We’re advised, these days, to seek closure in matters of trauma or difficulty – to resolve things. So let’s accept that John has left us. But is our engagement with him over? Do we need to (in any sense) leave him behind? No. Because he was fabulous… and therefore invincible… and good.

A Ready Position.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 4 Comments

Winter nets. Arriving (as coach) in the dark and damp. Lugging those several bags of clobber from the boot to that ubiquitous over-varnished, unforgiving floor. Casting a glance for stray implements. Breathing and considering. Resolving once more to unmake that whole concept of Winter Nets.

Be honest, most nets are garbage – or if not garbage, then significant under-achievements. Folks just bowl, folks just bat. Of course that can be fine for some finding of grooves but more often – because there’s negligible focus – folks are arseing around. Even good bats swing reckless and wild; because they can; because there’s nothing on it; because ‘it’s nets’.

Your leanest, meanest fastest bowler – him with the peroxide flash – bounces and beams the club sec, for a laugh. Then he takes the innocent description ‘ag-ri-cultural’ to obscene depths when he bullies his way into bat. Things develop more as a response to the crass machismo of the universe than to the subtler promptings of the coach… who may simply not be there.

Let the coach be there. Make the coach be there.

A sports hall is a shiny-blank canvas. Could be the first thing you want think about is leaving it that way. That is, de-furl those unfurled corridors – the nets. Often, they are narrowing what you do, blinding the options. If you do use them, decide What The Point Is.

Questions you might think about include;

  • how many batsmen per net? In other words, are they running?
  • what stage of the game we at?
  • where are the fielders?
  • do we mark where the fielders are? How?
  • which bowlers are bowling at which batters. And why?
  • what are the consequences of a poor shot? Of getting out? Of insultingly obvious lapses in concentration because the batman think it’s just nets.
  • would a bowling machine be better or worse for your current exercise than a real-live bowler?
  • are a queue of bowlers waiting whilst one bowls a full over? If so, what are they doing?
  • do you have video… of anything?
  • do you have a flipchart for recording… anything? Observations/challenges/personal checklists for batters/bowlers?
  • is anyone saying anything? Meaning are there discussions on any of the above? Are players engaged with that? If not why not?
  • who’s watching, from the sidelines? Are there parents or coaches (or both) to whom you, as coach have to grandstand? Are you (as coach) telling the universe everything you know about This Particular Technical-Cricket Thing because Dave Oosit is over there and he’s Level 3?

Friendly aside; I nearly always coach with other coaches in attendance – often watching their kids in action. Some of these people almost certainly think I’m medium clueless or hopeless. I do one or two things to make this an utter non-issue.

1. Concentrate on energising and enthusing and asking good questions of my players.

2. Prepare… enough.

Few of us outside of the professional game have time to prepare properly. But I do prepare enough. I rehearse things, mumble things and make notes. If I know I am going to have to speak to a new group of parents (for example, at the outset of County Development Sessions) then I may well write a few important points or phrases down; because a) first impressions b) I want them to trust me and rate me, less out of ego than the practicalities of simply getting on c) this means I have to think about what I’m doing.

I have notebooks for this stuff. Alongside the tees and the multifarious balls and beanbags and cones and clobber.

When I arrive at Winter Nets (or anywhere else where I’m gonna be leading) I have notebooks to ask myself questions and to prompt the way. Sometimes things change – because Jonny or Sarah needs that, but often the skeleton for the session is there.

In the moments of calm before other folks arrive – because we coaches always arrive first, right? – I unpack my notebook and my thoughts. I look around the space, feel its fitness, readiness, scope. I leave the nets, to start with, and resolve not to capitulate to their charms without setting some real, meaningful points of focus. And then I am ready.

 

Vaulting forward.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 3 Comments

The ebbs and flows of cricket admin. Presumed soppy or soapy or almost ludicrous in their becalmed niche-markethood, but sometimes challenging, dynamic – stormy even.

We’ve got big waves at the moment. In the case of the #AllStarsCricket/CricketUnleashed Projects, maybe it’s once-in-a-generation stuff, a time for courageous plunges. Or not?

Meanwhile, around the boomathon – the #T20Blast or City Franchise (or both) – there is similarly a gathering of conflicting surges. For or against the fierce carnival? Anti the lurid populism thing in principle and/or protective of the counties, or wet-suited and booted and charging teeth-bared with the contemporary tide – surfing into the cities?!?

Rarely, surely, can the knitting together of cricket in Ingerland and Wales have been so stacked with tumult? It’s almost exciting.

I go to an #AllStarsCricket Roadshow this week, committed not just out of loyalty to my employers, Cricket Wales but more because my sense is the central notion around which the campaign is constructed (that we cricketpeeps have to ‘break out of the bubble’) is undeniably valid.

There are always a zillion micro-reasons why things stall or fail or are superceded by cultural mores but the blunt truth of this is that too few people get cricket, know cricket, understand what cricket means. And the ECB are (it would seem) absolutely backing a programme designed to genuinely transform levels of contact with, familiarity with and appreciation for the game. #AllStarsCricket is absolutely about making cricket known at a different level.

This talk of ‘presence’ and ‘visibility’ inevitably leads to cynicism – if nothing else because it means we’re in the hands of Market Researchers, Salespeople and career Sports Development Officers. True that it is them who have largely built and/or co-opted the strategy. Untrue – or too simplistic – to make the assumption that there’s something un-cricket and therefore unconvincing or even suspicious about that, although there is no question that some in the game fear that research is no match for time spent in clubs or on pitches.

Dwyer’s Posse have obviously been challenged and no doubt guided by Proper Cricket People at the ECB (and yes I do think there are some. To be fair there are unquestionably cricket people from within that posse, too.)

The framework they’ve come up with hangs upon that idea that cricket functions (or malfunctions) in too small a sector of the population; the bubble is simply too feeble and too small. By implication it is also probably too similar (and too conservative?) to be viable, to be healthy, to feel right, to be attractive in 2017 and beyond. So #AllStarsCricket is about vaulting forward, about increasing numbers simply by exposing more 5-8 year-old youngsters to the game.

The jargonistas talk rather dangerously of ‘winning the battle for the playground’, something I – as a lover of many sports – feel (as we tend to say these days) conflicted about.  I hear the message but think it unnecessarily provocative. I’m in playgrounds alongside rugby coaches or tennis coaches and whilst I am motivated to be the fabbest sportingest bloke my particular dollop of kids have ever come across, this is non-adversarial; I’m neither looking to oust nor undermine any other sport.

In fact, what happens at clubs is more key to the success of #AllStarsCricket than the gathering of the new gang through Primary Schools. I don’t, aim to get into the methodology of all this right now, more the frisson or the philosophy; this may change after I hear more from the ECB in midweek.

Questions, of course, remain. About how clubs will cope, how activators will work, about the quality of coaching and how ASC sits with existing coaches. Most crucially the issue (pointedly felt here in rural West Wales) around how many families will fork out the proposed wedge needed to sign up. But because I totally get that loads of kids need to know who the England captain is (and want to be him or her) I’m in – well in.

We all know that ideally a raft of things should be in place, from free-to-air cricket on telly to fabulous, appealing kit. We have also clocked that this is not Australia. However, having slung the pros and cons (and ill-disciplined metaphors) around the room, around my head for some months, the weight of water behind #AllStarsCricket – investment from ECB, doubling up of Chance2Shine resources – suggest this will be really powerful. That once-in-a-generation monster-wave thing is sounding convincingly BIG: it needs to be irresistible.

Over the weekend a couple of stories have emerged, coincidentally, I imagine, which may suggest that the relentless flow towards city-based cricket may yet be held up.

Firstly Freddie Flintoff – a man who does have a meaningful hinterland and still an active role in the game – came out very forcefully in favour of an admittedly improved, counties-based T20. He made an argument that does have some support and some credence: essentially that #T20Blast wasn’t a million miles off the tournament we need and that fans (Proper Fans?) are (or would be) loyal to their county in a more profound way than they would be to cities across their cultural boundaries. Scousers won’t support a Manchester Marauders – but they would get behind Lancs.  Most of Yorkshire (like the rest of the universe) ‘all ‘ate Leeds and Leeds and Leeds.’

Freddie is right with some of this. Tribal is beautiful.

Then we learn (admittedly via The Mail, which o-kaaay, hardly counts) that an allegedly significant majority of current pro players want to retain that link with the 18 counties into the new era of T20. (Previously it had seemed that the noise was more in favour of the BBL-style city thrash). This is news.  This is heartening to those of us who accept that white ball cricket is going to be key but not that an entirely new audience must overwhelmingly benefit from our attention, to the detriment (or worse) of County Cricket.

I’m sketching again. But what feels true is that dizzyingly crazy waves are slapping around us. It would be easy to pitch in – either through carelessness, or over-ambition, or lack of that steady hand. Who would have thought that so many defining moments could be piled up so high, so tightly?

Being a do-er, not an organiser, I confess to a(n) habitual lack of sympathy for them stuck in the office. Right now I don’t envy the pen-pushers their choices. Let them be bold and also sagacious.

This is what we want.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment
  • for the cricket to be good
  • for girls to play – like shedloads of them
  • for the sun to shine – really
  • for (somebody like?) Mark Wood to stay fit then take International Test Cricket by storm, or signal it’s ok, for Anderson then Broad to slip into the past
  • …or, maybe just have competitive equals.
  • Also for Cummins and Starc to stay fit, bowl incredibly fast, entertain the universe but be tamed by Hameed, Jennings & Rooooot, when *that time comes*.
  • In a slightly greedy-personal way, I want the whole #AllStarsCricket/#CricketUnleashed thing to really, really transform the profile of cricket in the next two years, so that more people simply get it
  • because it’s worth getting, right, but currently there IS a smallish, arguably fairly narrow range of people who are kinda culturally-familiar with the game, so we do have to commit to something bubble-breakingly ambitious. I think that revolutionary moment is nearly upon us and I hope our commitment is kosher. Tweaking rules or formats is all very well but we have to get to more people in AS WELL.
  • So that mission. I’m proud and excited to be part of all that but c’mon, let’s all get on it?
  • On the T20 thing let’s resolve the City v Counties issue in such a way that County Cricket really benefits. Not good to have a spectacular, ‘world-class’ City T20 that further closes the door on the traditional form (which is maybe dead in the water without T20blast money?) Can’t see how two UK boomathons can co-exist, myself, so this feels like MAJOR. Major comprises, major, generous, philosophically-informed as well as commercially-driven conversations. Let’s be avvin um.
  • I would also like to play cricket… but there’s no realistic chance of that. So maybe contribute elsewhere. Coaching, social media-ing, writing. Try not to think about the pleasure of running in or fluking the occasional cover drive. In fact stop thinking about that RIGHT NOW. Work to do.
  • On the tribal front, I want a better year for Glamorgan. The fella Croft will know he needs to feed more successfully off the goodwill and bourgeoning welshnesses in and around his developing squad, because the times conspire against patience. Great that he’s actively promoting and supporting homegrown players – and I’m told that Huw Morris should also take a lot of credit for this – but clearly results must improve. Lots of us are heartened by (for example) the offer of a 3 year contract (and the security that offers) to young off-spinner Andrew Salter and by Van der Gugten’s emergence but as somebody said re another, similarly competitive industry, ‘goals pay the rent’. On the short-format front, I personally enjoyed Dai Steyn’s run-outs at The SSE Swalec and the form of his compatriot Colin Ingram and of Aneurin Donald. I think I have starts in the night, mind, around the first of those two batsmen being tempted away by a large, hairy cheque. The local lad we imagine will stay and build a wonderful welsh story…
  • Back at England level I think we are actually half-decent. We just can’t compete with India on their patch. Of course this isn’t acceptable… and we have to look at ways to get better.
  • With my Elderish Statesman wiv Worldview head on, I still wonder if there isn’t something frankly unintelligent about the drive for ‘positive cricket’ (in Tests, in particular) or at least the relentlessness of the pursuit of it. It feels ridiculous not to have real game awareness ahead of the need to fight back aggressively or ‘express yourself/back yourself’ at all times. Been mentioned before but there’s a significant clue in the label here: Test Cricket. It’s not about swapping macho gestures – although we accept absolutely that bravado or boldness will play a part. Often it’s about patience, playing within yourself, seeing things out, as opposed to needing to express some weird domination throughout every moment. This is a contest over time and that’s beautiful, unique, crafty, cerebral, tense-in-a-different way. We all get that young athletes wanna be sexy and strong – stronger than their oppo’s – but sometimes it’s dumb and counter-productive to fall for that as An Approach. It may be tempting, in a bullish cohort of Fit Young Things, to go the easy way of expressing superiority through spunkiness but hello-o you don’t have to be a reactionary retard to make the argument that this may be simplistic nonsense unworthy of high-grade sport… which demands intelligence as well as testosterone.
  • There, I did it. Got struck off David Warner’s Christmas Card list. And Michael Vaughan’s. And everyone under thirty.
  • Final word on that Culture Of thing. Get absolutely that dynamism is central to impact/saleability/maybe growth. But drama is not always poptastic and colorifically-enhanced: sometimes it’s symphonic, ma’an.
  • So I want the Wider Game to be looked after. I’m bit suspicious of the race to funkier kit – essential though that may be. I want County and Test Cricket to dig in or be propped up until we’ve kappowed that bubble of limitations and shown everybody what an extraordinary, diverse, exciting game we have. The range of possibilities, of intrigues are maybe a language that must be learned – and therefore they may demand unfashionable levels of attention – but draw folks in and make them welcome and hallelujah! Something great happens. Longer forms are worth supporting not just for sentimental reasons but because they are essential to the romance on the one hand and the learning or skill-acquisition on the other. Tests and County Cricket must be sympathetically nuanced til crowds are meaningful and/or income from the ECB or telly or T20 action means there is a secure place for the next Baby Boycs as well as the next Ben Stokes.
  • That’s all I ask
  • except, naturally, for an absurdly fit-again Dai Steyn to come steaming in from the Cathedral Rd End / an absolute production-line of great welsh cricketers / a regular & successful & appreciated slot for Andrew Salter / a mindblowing series of tons from Nye Donald…