cricket

Resting, before acting.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Over to you, Sarah Taylor, Nat Sciver…

 

 

Don’t say Knight Knight.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is unforeseen rain during the break.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun with Space and Time.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

When I watched Moeen cart the Windies for 61 off 14 deliveries in Bristol and Gayle smash Ball in Southampton, the sense that something wonderfully unavoidable had happened was unavoidable. Admittedly we were in silly season – Ingerland in the autumn, with the visitors surely neck-deep in thermals – but did this account, in any way, for the co-bubbling of fate and freakishness? I think not.

In both cases I was privileged to be right behind the unlucky bowlers’ arms – behind the lustrous glass of the Media Centre – having mildly subverted the seating plan so as to maximise the seeing-and-explaining quotient: hopefully. Lil’ ole brilliant me, easing my way into that totemic roost to savour, discern, dismantle and demystify the event better than everybody, because I have The View That Makes This Possible.

Don’t hold your breath, people.

I’m not exactly sure where the respective coaches were, during these timeless, chartless, thrillingly renegade moments. I’m guessing either raising a discreet hipflask or patting cold, co-old water against their ashen cheeks, depending on their batting/receiving status. Or lost, fumbling for some cosmic but transferable truth. Something in the moment lurched or levered us towards dumb, ecstatic diversions – but from where, or to where?

Slap! Time bent! Kaboom! Things redefined. Now fetch that ball please?

I’m wondering about fields of influence, here: also – what were the coaches thinking? And were these developments actually developments – from what did they actually spring?

But back to the coaches. Were they exploding in rage at the mind-boggling, plan-defying incompetence of their miserable, ungrateful pie-chuckers… or (miraculously) doing some eye-rolling, centre-testing ce sera? Were they even watching – could they watch it all through live – or did they slink off, sighing, accepting or determined, towards their branded lap-tops?

Actually, they may have made notes – I’m sure they did – on every ball punished; this being the difference between the level they work at and most of us.

Sure, later, foolish to rule out a secretive flick through the ECB/WICB manuals in search of half-remembered buttresses around Player Ownership: paragraph six, Problem Solving – down to them. Or meetings where nothing was said.

Dealing with the runaway moment is a profoundly philosophical challenge: the coach might recall and indeed be comfitted by this widely accepted notion – that players must execute, must own, must accept that ‘coaching is not about answering’. It’s players who do the playing.

Bayliss or Farbrace or Radford or Simmons or Springer or Law, Estwick or Einstein. Excuse the pun but no matter – no matter whom: each and every one useless, hopeless, atomised – as were we all – irrelevant, in the warp of the event. Moeen decided what would happen. As did Gayle.

The England man was in a rich vein of form, which helps. He is a beautiful striker of the ball but in interview after the Bristol game, claimed not to see himself as a bringer of undeniable, match-winning carnage.

Grounded, humble, Moeen is good on the self-awareness front; he knows he tends to be a threat of the groovicious variety; that he makes strokes more often than he explodes.

Initially, he was doing the day job, alongside Chris Woakes, England having revisited their tendency for gifting clutches of wickets: Moeen with that responsible head on, with an agreeably stoic partner, quietly rescuing.

Looking back, the fact that the word ‘circumspect’ was used in the press to describe how Ali’s subsequently historically outrageous innings began, seems appropriately ludicrous. Thirty-nine in thirty-nine balls, as rebuild mode was dutifully engaged, following the about-par-for-England loss of three wickets for eleven runs.

At Southampton a few days later I again found my way into the perfect spot, by now slightly curious as to why other, senior scribes seem so ambivalent towards magisterial stump-to-stump-hood; when it seems a denial of the most fundamental privilege to be seated anywhere else.

(I pictured either a ruthless policing of the accommodation or some Media Cool that I am as yet unaware of. Turns out that most journos simply watch reasonably well… but then turn to the TV screens left and right to check for turn, appeals, seam, etc. Hope I never lose the naïve compulsion to froth from on high, straight, straight in line).

Windies batted first at the Ageas; meaning some bloke called Gayle. Meaning also a fabulous test for the likes of Ball and Curran – the latter making his debut. However, it was the taller-bouncier former who opened up, almost certainly in the knowledge that I was immediately above and behind, monitoring like a twitchy but medium-scholarly hawk.

Ball I hope won’t mind me saying that he is relatively inexperienced, at this level. In a curvaceous, duplicitous, space-bent universe the allegation that he had played, before this game, just the fifteen One-Day Internationals might pass for a fact. At the moment the inevitably altitudinous young man first raced in towards Gayle, I have to confess I was unaware of this number: I’m not that big on numbers.

I watched Ball intently and continued to do so, throughout his spells. Partly because this was an obvious test of how he is in the environment, partly because I was a bowler (at a distressingly lower level) and partly because the whole Ball equation here was loaded to the max with Gayleness.

Dear reader, it may not surprise you to learn that I am no scientist: and yet I do wonder. Especially when prompted (by my son) towards the deep, dark, black-holed mysteries personified and neatly packaged into the seminal ‘Seven Brief Lessons on Physics’ – this being a sort of fine convenience store of a place where staggeringly heavy stuff can be swept trolley-wards in (ahem) relatively good time.

(Did you guess? I’ve been doing precisely this kind of shopping around now).

Consequently it occurs to me that there are correlations both broad and specific between the General Theory of Relativity and what Gayle and Moeen did. Let me deal with a specific one first.

Einstein proved time at height travels marginally more swiftly than time at sea-level. Ball is twelve foot seven. No wonder then, that his contribution in Southampton was shredded by Forces Beyond His Control.

I will return to this (probably) after sharing the following general observation, from the rear cover of Carlo Rovelli’s extraordinary book, as though it translates across, uniting in glorious revelation our Moeen/Ball/Gayle/Einstein Axes.

‘By God, it’s beguiling!’ – Michael Brooks, New Statesman.

The Ageas, first over. Ball to Gayle. Crowd keyed, batsman waiting. Nottinghamshire’s finest bounds in, puppyish but also committed. Repeatedly, the ball skits or pads pretty much exactly where the bowler would want. There is an incremental incidence void. Gayle defends, defends, before being comprehensively beaten by an absolute pearler – the fifth – which gets unplayably lively from that killer length. Then more justified caution – and a maiden.

Those of you who follow these things will of course know that Gayle, despite the reputation for vulcanism, is quite prepared (well-prepared, in fact) to wait. Tempting but reprehensible then, to assume that his nation as a whole or Gayle in particular may be preparation-averse, or in some way less sharp than England or Australia when it comes to planning. Just read around.

The West Indies have been ahead of the game. The carving folks about has been less ‘instinctive’ than you think. Gayle and Hope and Lewis are as stat-aware and marginal gains/run-rate savvy as anyone. As noted elsewhere, white-ball cricket has become their currency.

So maybe no dramas, for Gayle to simply hold, when the first over from Ball is commendably lively and accurate. The record will show that the Universe Boss can and will wait.

At The Ageas, the opening four overs from Ball and Curran yielded but nine runs to Hope and Gayle. The combination of goodish bowling and circumspection from the batsmen should on reflection have been neither the surprise nor minor disappointment it was received as. The crowd’s readiness for intensity was merely stalled.

Back at Bristol, Moeen’s gone beyond big. He’s gone beyond any previously-known ‘zone’. With the crowd utterly participant – and yet irrelevant, like the bowler, the moon and the stars – he follows some flow, ‘keeps his shape’, re-invents or slashes through to something new and deeper. Cummins and Holder merely feed the narrative.

Earlier, Cummins had bowled Root with a peach and seemed to be finding something. Yet Moeen dismissed him and his captain as though the Windies process was mindless. As though they weren’t scrambling through a repertoire of deeply considered defensive options – Death Bowling Brought Forward.

But what were or are the options? When there is very little help from that dull, white ball?

Laser-guided Yorkers, straight or wide. Variations. Taking some pace off, trying for some cut. Sudden venom; bluff. Percentages – knowing where Moeen is likely to hit – so field placement; then bowling to that field. Looking in-cred-ibly hard at the foot movement, reading the pre-meditation. In the age of T20 (and the laptop) international teams are covering and knowing this stuff like never before.

Anyone who has seen and heard Holder in interview will know his side are unlikely to be short of an intelligent voice. Yes, flusteration might have taken hold but there is time, between deliveries, for re-commitment to plans or discussion and re-focus.

Moeen smashed all of this consideration into the middle of next week. True, Root and Stokes may have been instrumental, in their partnership of 132, towards his stunning acceleration: had they not provided the platform, blah di blah. But the fella from Brum created his own event.

Things went pear-shaped for Ball but it was different. Or was it?

The universe knew that the longer its boss was forced to wait, the surer it was that boom-time would come. Somewhere something triggers and Gayle, miscuing, clubs one over midwicket before battering one straight for six. I note both that one delivery is clearly but marginally over-pitched and that there is an ‘utter energy change, irrespective’.

Curran is less heavily targeted. Ball retains the responsibility from beneath me but is heaved over extra, first delivery in the next, then top-edged for four. The plainly unfit Windies talisman has burst through to 40 (out of 52) by the end of the seventh over, dismissing the ball at will to the boundary.

Curran eventually has Gayle caught, superbly but in the finger-ends, by Plunkett.

Ball’s initial five over spell defies characterisation; he opened up brightly and with discipline and he may not have strayed far from that. The lines between him straying into the batsman’s natural arc and not were lost in the mercifully temporary evisceration. It felt, during the barrage, that the batsman (for it was a one-man assault) had simply chosen a moment from which to launch – as opposed to an individual, or individual delivery, to persecute.

Gayle’s was an all-out, conceptual explosion in the sense that every ball would receive the same brutal treatment with barely an ‘unless’ in sight.

This is not to entirely exonerate Ball. Though I liked his continued commitment and apparently unwavering spirit, he offered just a few here and there – and was punished, crazy-disproportionately at times, because.

With specialist knowledge and specialist coaching and the scope these days to practice almost endlessly the death (or power-play) skills, a worldie of a thrash might be expected, predicted and prepared for. Particularly, of course, when Christopher Henry Gayle is amongst the chief protagonists. Cricket provides for almost every indulgence.

Brathwaite knew a lot about what Stokes would do in that ecstatic car-crash in Kolkata – and vice-versa. Cummins and Holder are pret-ty familiar with Moeen and Ball with Gayle. Much has been anticipated and rehearsed. How fabulous that despite the wonders and luxuries of cricket science it can be true and real and undeniable, when bat is swung, that all considerations become an irrelevance.

Ball: 10 overs, 1 maiden, 1 for 94.

Gayle: 40 off 29.

Moeen Ali: 102 off 57.

Outplayed.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chanceless at Coffs Harbour.

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

Patterns of play.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#WomensAshes

Took no pleasure in that).

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

 

 

 

Conference rise.

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It was a real coup for Cricket Wales/Glamorgan Cricket to get the new ECB Head of Coach Development, John Neal, to open the first National Coaching Conference, held at The SSE Swalec Stadium on Sunday. (Good work on the nobbling-him-early-doors front, from our very own Paul Morgan.)

John is both plainly a top man and the top man in terms of his responsibilities vis a vis cricket coaching in England and Wales. He came across as exactly the sort of authoritative, centred, witty and determined individual you might really want to lead you through… whatever.

Opening up, the former WRU and RFU man did not so much speak – certainly he didn’t lecture – as conduct an exchange with us, which was (despite the fact that it had by its nature to be themed), refreshing, challenging, funny and direct. Those of you who attend vaguely corporate gatherings of this sort may shiver coldly when I tell you he played a series of short games with us but a) he did b) they were fine – they were funny, meaningful and illustrative of his points.

Understandably reluctant to lumber himself with a glib, conference-friendly soundbite, John threw away the notion that ‘this is about Making Coaching Fun’ – before making it fun. He was big on the ideas around the right reflex and how we must challenge our own ease or easing towards judgements which may be wrong; when we (ourselves) are often wrong anyway… and this is fine.

On the process of coaching, Mr Neal offered the following, in essence: that it is largely about the coach being skilled in offering good questions to stimulate self-learning in the player. I am para-phrasing, but speaking privately for some time after his initial remarks, the sense was that John is right behind the idea that

“players must problem-solve: coaching is not about answering”.

After a start that was as provocative as it was informative, the fifty coaches attending were then ushered down into the indoor school at the Swalec, where three top-level deliverers were waiting.

Cookie Patel is one of the ECB’s go-to men for leading Coach Ed. sessions. His brief on this occasion was to share some ideas and principles around fielding; from catching to sliding to stats. Inevitably, he threw in a few nuggety specifics around posture or practice – offerings, I would say, rather than instructions.

So there were observations and some demonstrations for the various disciplines, calibrated for – and then re-calibrated for – different abilities or scenarios, or just to make them more fun. Couple of half-decent fielders were tested: all done with a bit of healthy mischief and a good dollop of streetwise (but also clearly authoritative) cricket humour.

In short Cookie was engaging, sharp, likeable and packed a whole lot of learning into his sessions. There was some gawping at a screen full of prompts or stats but there was a good flow – good energy.

Sharing the space was the ECB’s Dan Garbutt, who beasted his posse of innocents with a chaotic-but-not-chaotic runaround under the theme of Game Sense. This was an inventive multi-game, loosely and briskly set up by Dan, demanding lots of input and application from the participants, in order to a) score runs through targets b) challenge the players’ wits.

Dan intervened only occasionally: he told me rather proudly midway through ‘I’ve offered no coaching points’, meaning this was about inventiveness – movement, adjustment, game sense – from the players. It was crazy-dynamic in a really good way: the coaches were smiling and knackered.

Screened off in a single net area (hard ball work) was Mark O’Leary, lead coach at Cardiff Met and the driving force behind the MCCU side which won out at Lords a month or two ago. Mark was and plainly is into spin.

Tall, slim and alarmingly youthful, ‘Sparky’ bustled his groups brilliantly through all things spintastic. Entry-level under-arm games; progressions towards Rashid-dom; use of visual cues and handy, wristy tips. He demystified stuff and demonstrated, simply but strikingly well, how you might extract major turn. (Certainly he did: the leggies and the extraordinarliy nonchalantly launched googlies turned about a yard – or that’s how they would surely have felt to the batsman). Impressive.

Impressive but delivered with just the right amount of direction, humour and humility. Loved that Mark unashamedly spoke of leg-spin (in particular, though obviously not exclusively) as an art and yet entirely demonstrated how accessible that magic around the art can be. The session, like the balls, fizzed.

In practical terms, Sparky used ver-ry few bits of kit. A builders line between bowler’s mark and off-stick; a washing line, effectively to draw loop and dip; some balls. The rest was ingenuity and enthusiasm – and yes, knowledge.

Those amongst my co-gluttons at Cricket Wales who failed to attend the day may be interested to hear that lunch was generous, tasty and included hot chunks of meat as well as the dainty sandwiches of yore. Well -fed, we sat again to listen to Hugh Morris.

Hugh is CEO at Glamorgan Cricket. I know now – having been in his company on several occasions – that he is also a hugely capable and honourable man, impressively focused on building a successful club, with a strong, Welsh core under-pinned by a truly effective pathway. Hugh knows there are sceptics; he himself joked about the South African rather than South Walian origins of a good deal of the current squad, but I am clear he means it when he talks about developing a county side that consistently reflects its support, its national identity, its base.

The former Glammy and England opening bat majored on the Long Term Athletic Development pathway that he believes – and again, I really think he does believe – must be central to a joined-up, fit-for-all-purposes, enabling structure. He took us through the detail, so as to make the argument unanswerable and impress upon us how necessary he believes the changes are. It was arguably dryish stuff but the gaffer was utterly, convincingly clear that the model of LTAD planning he outlined would be key to achieving the twin objectives of great, appropriate sporting provision and the development of great Welsh players.

Hugh was gracious enough to enlarge privately on the arguments – and the research around them – for some time after his presentation. Plainly, explicitly and rightly he wants Glamorgan to be geared up and ready to bid for and use the (potentially increased) ECB funds to make real his vision. It’s ambitious. It involves considerable culture-change and investment. However, Mr Morris, I can tell you, is committed.

After a few brief questions from the coaches, it was back to the action on the floor, as groups rotated through the sessions.

Dave Leighton is a shortish fella – fair cop, Dave, you made the jokes – who may well have played rugby league (as well as cricket) before his twenty-odd years service with the ECB. He now heads up National Participation in his role as Coaching Manager. Dave twinkled his way through ‘the graveyard shift’ asking questions about his chief areas of concern – ‘beyond Coach Education’ and ‘the club environment’.

Having spoken to him before he addressed the coaches, I was interested to see him in relatively discreet mode: he gave little away in respect of the transformation about to be unleashed: I respect that. However (again privately) he did share his confident expectation that resources will be ploughed into the recreational game… over and above the huge investment in All Stars Cricket. Coaching, it seems, will be recognised, valued and supported (by the ECB) in a way that marks a step-change towards the bubble-burstingly brilliant future envisaged by Matt Dwyer. I wish Mr Leighton had been as clear about that to the assembled throng as he was to me, individually.

Whatever, there’s a theme developing here, is there not?Centred on belief and expectation. Around investment which folks are pret-ty certain is a-comin’. Let’s go back to where this began – to the other Top Man, John Neal.

John was absolutely clear that he has the freedom to make changes happen; that he will do so. Given that his brief is for Coach Development he will broaden the Coach Education pathway, making it possible to improve and achieve in (probably) three newly defined areas rather than (probably) get blocked in the current, suffocatingly vertical structure. He likes the word enablement and he will enable. The money is coming and the ground has shifted and things will happen – are happening.

Final thoughts? Sunday was a good day. For those who participated, it was a blast, a pleasure, it was challenging-but-great. It was well-supported but chiefly by exactly the sort of coaches who support stuff – who always do this stuff. Meaning a) if you are coaching in Wales and you didn’t attend, why not? b) you’d be daft to miss the next one.

There are about forty-seven cricket revolutions going on simultaneously, right now; some on the pitch, some off. The first Cricket Wales/Glamorgan Cricket National Coaching Conference evidenced, echoed and nudged forward that sense that we are entitled to come over all excited, in these extraordinary times, because pound-for-pound, it seems likely that we coaches – we cricket people – may be able to contribute more, expect more, influence more… because the investment is coming. That’s the clear implication.

So, call me an optimist… but I am optimistic. Don’t just take my word for it, mind – all of us the Swalec were buzzing.

Aimee Rees, lead for Cricket Wales Women and a hugely respected coach in her own right, put it this way;

‘today’s conference was excellent – really well organised and all of the presenters were engaging and knowledgable… The standout session for me was on spin, with Mark O’Leary from Cardiff MCCU. I am already looking forward to the next conference.’

Friends, there will be a next conference.

Coast.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Please note, sagacious reader, that this is Part 2 of my Ageas Bowl column-thing. So go read the previous blog too, eh? Maybe read it FIRST?!?

I need and deserve a break so this will be more… reflective. Less ball-by-ball action painting, more Fauvian-contemplative: or something. I need a walk, for starters.

Bairstow and Roy both put Joseph away in the second over of the reply. The former with a trademark, timed, wristy little number through midwicket, the latter with a confident pull. I do go walkabout.

Stunning gentleman parked on the stairs: suit, phone out. Friendly, passing punter chirps inoffensively, to which the man drawls ‘I am bored stiff’. Was Michael Holding. England are 61 for nought as I return.

Alarmingly early for any away support, we could be on body-language watch here. England have strolled and stroked their way to 71 for no loss, with ten gone. There’s a kindof assumption  already alighting that a humiliation looms. The visitors – new skipper and all – have to find something and not sure what the odds are on that. Perhaps that change of oeuvre – day into night – may offer them something? Time for daft speculation – scope for that in the drama-vacuum…

With Bairstow a) looking this comfortable and b) being so-o brilliantly competitive and bright and able, could he not bat high, for England… in Aus? Like unthinkably high.

Especially if there’s a post-Mbargo shiftaround, might we not opt to think of him primarily as a batter and bring in Foakes as the gloveman? (I personally think JB is so fit he may actually thrive on batting high and taking the gloves as well but this is another argument).

Bairstow is that bloody good you could stick him in at three, persist with that and he’d make a success of it – probably. Relative to other risks – like the Vince, Ballance, Malan ones, for example. Of the four, who would you most expect to get closest to doing an Ashes job, for England?

But I’ve daydreamed into a daft theory. Did I really actually write down all that stuff? Bugger. Roy has made fifty, almost contemptuously. *Drifts off again*…

Look I know there are/were issues for the Yorkie genius –  pushing at it outside off – but he’s so determined and gritty and hearty that he could surely leave stuff, leave stuff, leave stuff, if heavily instructed, until he’s ready to play? If he did manage to get set, against the Starcs and the Cummins’s, imagine how much fun being English/Welsh might be, come December?  (If this is crazy-naive, put it down to the woozifying afternoon sunshine now annointing the procession towards victory. 101 for 0, after 14).

Tempted now to relate a concern for one of our, leading media guys, having just seen him. But won’t. Instead I’ll say that this is feeling embarrassingly easy, for England. Roy has 76 and Bairstow 49. Believe me, they are coasting on the coast: a slow perusal of the Media Centre confirms the suspicion that *other things* are front and centre… and why not? The game feels gone.

The West Indies are getting battered, quietly but this does not forgive the comedy fielding. Twice outfielders make an utter horlicks of regulation gathers. Roy and Bairstow, sensing an absolute gift, play beautifully controlled, dynamic cricket, such that the natural target seems to be a ten wicket drubbing. Change in light, temperature and moisture-level seem to be the only things that can undermine England; the oppositon have become an irrelevance.

As dusk closes in, Roy, on 96,  is lb to Cummins. 158 for 1. Enter Root.

Bairstow remains. His energy remains fabulous. In particular the relentless chasing-out of singles, twos, threes. With his team way ahead, by the 25th over, he is still pressurising the fielders – simply by charging for maximum runs, time after time.

It’s a slow death, for the Windies. Root and Bairstow opt pretty entirely not to engage blast mode – just don’t need to.

Difficult to guess whether this way is more or less painful than a swift obliteration might be. Maybe the crowd get more time to enjoy more cricket, this way? Maybe an elegant but civilised flourish trumps a biffathon? Maybe I should go ask Michael Holding?

205 for 1 after 29.

In the 33rd, Root short-arm clubs Taylor through straight mid-on. It’s brutal. Next shot draws another error at the boundary – the sprawling fielder again conspiring to shove the ball over. Then Bairstow gets his ton, with an easy glide to third man.

I may have felt this before but the sense is that there’s nothing to stop England getting this for no further loss: they need less than fifty.

In the 36th, almost unbelievably, we get more charity at the boundary. I may be too knackered to count them but there have been five or six occasions where the sliding fielder has carted or cushioned the ball over the rope. A very unfunny video of this may just get played at the Windies tour debrief.

England need 15 from 82 balls. Which tells you most of what you need to know. Bairstow is now standing and hitting, triumphantly.

Root finishes it with a straight six, off Samuels. A nine-wicket win, with Bairstow there on 141 and Root 46. The headlines may revert to brutally dismissive mode around the hapless tourists… unless there are other things to talk about?

 

 

 

 

 

Brian. And BBC Solent.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Blimey. Biblical dark descendeth. After Brian at the B&B was so-o confident. After BBC Solent were so confident. Almost spookily oppressive cloud. But on the brighter side… it’s 10.20-something. Time for the natural order to sort itself yet.

The Ageas Media Centre: biggish, open, goodish. Similar to Swalec – tad smaller? Bigger than the Brightside – more spacious. By the looks of the seating order, not that rammed today.

10.40. Appreciably brighter. 11.05 begin to remove outer covers.  (They actually only shift the one). Was guessing they’re heavy-dew-wet rather than sopping but a rather worrying pool appears at mid-off during this process. (Could be the guys were a tad clumsy, to be honest. Out with the mechanical sponger-mopper-upper).

By about 11.15 the England quicks (Curran, Ball, Plunkett – no sign of Woakes) are out there, building up. Off a few paces, initally. They have cones out, at yorker length- one on middle, one very wide of off, but they are plainly not targetting them. Or if they are, we’re in trouble. Rashid works alongside. Gently.

Out of the grey… rain. Against the grain of the reports. Unfortunate. 11.50-odd, delayed start suddenly likely.

In other news, the consensus seems to be that Curran will replace Woakes but as yet unconfirmed. We lose 45 minutes – meaning with a slightly reduced lunch, a full game is possible.

12.46 and England into their footie. Interestingly(?) I haven’t heard confirmed line-ups yet… and I’m in the Media Bubble, dwarlinks! Don’t get the sense that folks or essential information are by-passing me particularly, but guessing that Woakes is out and Curran in rather than knowing that.

Really good to chat with both Adam Collins and Daniel Norcross. Unsurpringly, good guys. Had forgotten that Mr Collins had a strong Welsh connection – something he’s proud and deeply aware of. #Respect.

Abstract: it’s suggested that some of the media big-hitters here today are present more for the presser (afterwards) than for the cricket.

Opening with Ball. Full, defended by Gayle. Second very straight – defended. Third, slightly more across the batsman. Fourth down leg, fifth a pearler. Bouncy off a decent length. Final ball leg-stump – defended. Meaning we start with a maiden. Can’t last.

Curran bowls a loose, slanty wide first up. He may be getting a touch of shape in the air – away from Gayle. He does then get one to leave him sharply: good, settling delivery. Excellent start, with not the faintest hint of violence from the visitors. Two, only, off the first two.

Ball bowls another beauty at Gayle: still has three slips and they look as though they may be gainfully employed. The Universe Boss having to be respectful here; Ball right on it.

Curran courageously full, to Kyle Hope (too). Only 9 off the first 4 overs. The lack of drama is pretty- near dramatic.

Finally Gayle clubs one over midwicket (miscue) then batters one straight for six… then one over extra. Ball has actually bowled close to outstandingly well, before this but marginally over-pitches again and is again boomed straightish for six. Utter energy-change; 29 for 0 off 5.

First ball of Ball’s next over is heaved over extra cover again. Then he’s top-edged for four. Huge test for the Notts quick, who looked fabulous about ten balls ago. Gayle has not so much found him out as dismissed all considerations, before dismissing any ball to the boundary. The big man’s gone waaay beyond cricket again, racing to 40 (out of 52) by the end of the seventh.

Ultimately, Curran outfoxes Gayle, who only manages to hoist a skier whilst readjusting backwards – Plunkett taking a  difficult catch, retreating, in his finger ends. Quickfire 40 suits everybody, maybe? With the two Hopes together, West Indies are 56 for 1 after 8.

Ball has lost none of his commitment to this, even through the barrage. He returns to ask some decent questions of brother Shai. Looking straight at him, Ball appears strong,  and lively… but then he drops short and is crashed past square-leg.

Curran still going after that inswing, in the tenth. Like his boldness, his faith. Decent contrast, too, to the boomier, bouncier stuff coming down from t’other end. The Surrey dreamboat brings out that looping slower ball, too, to some effect.

Plunkett will bowl the eleventh. Strong man. Second ball *may well* have swung a tad to off. Tries it again for the fourth but jags it down leg: wide. Down to the one slip, now. His extra bounce draws an error – handle, maybe? – but Hope S escapes. Then Rashid joins.

Some turn, second ball. Straight onto a length. Varies the flight. No fireworks.

Note for Ageas People. Small scoreboard only visible from Media Centre. Not what us Giants of the Press are used to – limited info.

Plunkett draws Kyle Hope forward, unbalanced and the ball loops just enough for the stooping bowler to gather. 86 for 2, in the 15th. (On the replay, it appears the batsman’s grip failed him). Plunkett slams an emphatic, fabulous bouncer down at Samuels to finish the over.

Rashid is tidy, with a little turn, but nothing to suggest glorious spin-carnage. Thought strikes, I need to get out of this box to see if if my hunch (that this is a quietish crowd) is accurate. Could be uttter cobblers – can’t tell.

For those of you who don’t know the ground, the Ageas Bowl is nice enough: got that circus tent thing going on over the Rod Bransgrove Pavilion then two streamlined, lowish-flattish stands either side, somewhat dug in to a woody slope. Hilton Hotel and Media Centre opposite.

The ‘flanks’ are surely designed to welcome in swathes of beautiful coastal light. They are open, relatively, like sluice-gates for sunbeams. Today, there are no sunbeams – despite encouraging noises from every forecaster who ever lived. So there’s a sense of depressed possibilities, as opposed to the boundless, crystalline vistas we/you may well get on a good day. In short I bet it’s fab here in the sun.

Moeen takes over from Plunkett, bowling in tandem with Rashid. Hundred comes up – for the loss of two – in the twentieth. Limited urgency from the batsmen. I see a googly turn.

Ball has changed ends. He’s going quickish – or so it appears. Moeen persists from the pavilion end, with ver-ry little assistance from the pitch. He has a long discussion with Morgan mid-over, trying to break things up, presumably, as well as formulate a Cunning Plan for No Spin. 128 for 2 off 29.

Now Morgan has words with Ball, mid-over. Anything to mess with the admittedly quiet rhythm of things. At only 135 for 2 after 30, you would think England are well on top of this but…

Plunkett replaces Moeen. Can’t help but wonder if his power into the pitch might have been a good call for the Ashes. Hope slashes at him and Morgan puts down a difficult chance at shortish extra cover. Then a short one is pulled to square leg for a rare boundary.

Rather than retiring (as it were) Moeen has changed ends. Ripping it, he promptly deceives Samuels, who is stumped easily by Buttler. Enter the captain, Mohammed. Run-rate is currently 4.43 so will be interesting to see how/when he leads a counter. 150 up in the 34th – so soonish, you would think?

Very tight run-out call goes in favour of the batsmen. Sharp work from Morgan – borderline at first and second look.

Abstract revisited – not that I ever left Pollock territory. Morgan is ’embattled’, in terms of his batting form. However, I have heard nothing negative from the media on his captaincy. He changes things, he changes bowlers; the judgement seems good. #Respect?

Curran bowls the 38th and slants it too much down leg: is punished – deservedly. Next over, though, Hope lofts Rashid straight to Root in the deep: catch taken. West Indies 195 for 4, at this point.

Buttler puts down a diving chance off Curran. Doesn’t feel critical – tellingly? Hope S has gone quietly to 61. Last ten will be about people smashing around him, I’m guessing.

Root – who almost shelled one earlier, puts down a relatively straight-forward (though admittedly) diving catch, off Rashid. You can tell from the increase in backlift that we’re into the last thrash: eight to go, more tennis-shots, more baseball upcoming.

Hope hoiks Ball – the unlucky one? – over midwicket, moving to 72 in the process. That’s it, though, as Billings takes a well-judged catch close to the rope, off one visibly relieved bowler. 221 for 5.

Plunkett’s economy has been in rather sharp contrast to his partner Balls’s. Question is to what degree he can maintain that in these death overs? He takes some pace off, goes wide, slam-dunks it. Good over.

In the 46th, Ball goes for a wide yorker and then for the blockhole. He misses neither by more than a few inches but guess what? Two boundaries. I may be brewing a staggeringly novel hypothesis here around how life can be cruel. Then he bowls another ver-ry full one just outside leg stump… and I join the communal bollocking.

Nice test for Curran. Coming in for the 47th, with the run-rate only 5.2, five wickets in hand. Sure enough, Powell slashes with alarming but unfocussed violence at the first delivery but misses. Ambris – now on 33 – will look to maintain that level of intent.

Plunkett will bowl the 48th. Classic end-of-innings stuff. Firstly Powell picks a back-of-a-length ball early and middles for six; secondly the bowler tries a slow, slow ball which loops high, full-toss stylee into the off stick, about nine-tenths of the way up. Gone.

Second last and Curran goes for the blockhole. Concedes one. Then does Nurse with a slower one, which he survives. Then gifts him a half-volley – despatched with no little style, for six. The Surrey man may be a little unlucky next ball as Plunkett drops one across the boundary: Curran sulkily, boy-beautiful unimpressed.

Ball will bowl the last with the West Indies on 275 for 6. Challenge – both batsmen relatively ‘in’. His wide yorker is again slightly too short and is punished for four. This becomes something of a pattern – only the final delivery landing in the Bloody Awkward To Hit zone. Carnage avoided (somehow), Windies get to 288 for 6.  First guess is that’s well short.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bright Side / Soar. Two posts, one Moeen.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

BRIGHT SIDE.

Warm-ups. At the Brightside. England. Lots of high kness and dodging. Bowlers catching medi-balls and slamming, with some violence. Stokes choking Rashid playfully; apparently. Greyer than our friends at the Met Office promised.

Conflicting and building scene, then, at 10.20, with incoming punters carrying already that fear of incoming drizzle or depressingly fatal dollops – about three-ish, we now hear.

Across the ground from me, the West Indies, in their weirdly, unconvincingly kingfisher-blue trackies are jogging. Then hopping. Again, like their opponents, utterly directed. England turn to full-on footie.

It’s mid-competitive. Buttler scandalously holds Bairstow, like some brutal 70’s catenaccio, whilst Curran to-tally fluffs a routine cross. It’s fascinatingly ordinary – but clearly enjoyable.

As is the Windies equivalent – now going on directly across the square. I wonder about a challenge match between the two, with Stokes ab-so-lutely clattering *the player of his choice* into row C. Would be great.

The visitors win the toss and will bowl. Their fielding drills, come 10.38, are sharpish. Lots of skim-catches.

We start. Taylor gets some bounce and some away-swing, to Bairstow. Single leg-bye off the first. Then Holder, who really is a giant, in the flesh. Absurdly high hand means he extracts bounce even plopping it down – which he does, rather, first up. Third man and square leg the men out in the powerplay.

Early signs are for some life in the pitch; both quicks getting bounce,Taylor getting more shape. England in no hurry.

Taylor no-balls and immediately adjusts his bowling marker… before castling Hales… on the free hit. Bowling full – in the expectation of a little swing? – nearly pays dividends but Bairstow gets a streaky, uppish boundary past short cover. Good start from Taylor.

Hales miscues, hoiking Holder just over mid-on from high on the bat. Neither opener has really settled. Windies definitely ahead on points.

First plainly poor ball – short and wide from Holder – cut to the point boundary contemptuously by Hales; needed that.

In the fifth, still a hint of way swing for Taylor, if he goes very full: Holder had none. First half-tracker is the last ball of the over. Only 18 on the board. Thought strikes that England could be waaay out of this if Duckworth Lewis kicks in mid-afternoon.

Bairstow responds, by scampering to rotate things and by despatching a free hit over mid-on for six, but is caught off a leading edge, next ball, by the Windies skipper. In comes Root at 27 for 1. The man in the deep to leg goes behind square – to fine leg, in fact.

England’s finest plays and misses twice – genuinely – before clattering three fours. Hales belatedly joins in, as the momentum shifts a tad back towards England. A ver-ry tight-run second down to third man confirms the gear-change. Classic straight drive, off the suddenly hittable Taylor, by Hales emphasises the flip. England have spurted to 61 for 1 off 9.

Root, gathering in that quietly awesome way, surpasses Gooch’s record for the number of runs scored in an international summer. (Of course he does). After a very briefly uncertain start, he’s freed this up – freed up Hales, too. It’s bright, here, now and England are finding their flow.

Hilariously, Hales calls for a new bat as the Windies review a possible lb… on Hales. He’s out. Enter the under-pressure Morgan. Briefly. He is caught behind, first ball. (What were we saying about momentum shift to England?!?)

With Holder still bowling – and now fired–up – England are 74 for 3, in the 12th and the sun re-joins.

Stokes sprints impressively to make two and get off the mark but plays rather loosely out to point, without penalty. Then studiously presents the bat to Cummins and gets four past the bowler’s left hand. Looking good.

Perhaps should have mentioned the outfield: green and softish when I arrived, similar at noon. The ball hardly ‘racing away’.

Holder bowls seven overs straight and is still getting meaningful bounce. Plunkett may enjoy this.

Cummins looks deceptively sharp – something about that not-too-arsed-actually approach – but Root picks one up and it curls over fine leg for six. 101 for 3 after 14. Drinks.

Dramatic change-down as Bishoo comes on after the break; he escapes relatively unscathed.

Enter the off-spinner Nurse, for the 19th. Root and Stokes seem settled. Will they go after him? He’s going flattish, quickish but Stokes reverse-sweeps him through point’s hands for four. With both spinners on, there’s that fascinating energy-change: Root and Stokes play it pretty patiently, initially.

The former gets to yet another fifty in the 21st, without really opening up. You feel that’s coming, mind – especially with Stokes at the other end.

Not hugely impressed with Nurse, who’s getting no turn and asking very few questions. At least Bishoo seems to be driving Root back. Likewise with Stokes, until his patience gives and he smashes one straight for six. 145 for 3 after 22.

That sense of a dam about to burst is (if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor?) mexican-waving itself around the ground. Both batsmen being hugely patient – or ‘responsible’. The innings hasn’t exactly stalled but with Stokes on mid-forties and Root past fifty, if I’m Bayliss/Farbrace I’m maybe looking for more, medium soon.

Again, Stokes reverse-sweeps for four, off Nurse. Gets to fifty with a defensive prod. Measured might be the word; he is noticeably presenting the bat beautifully.

Maybe anticipating the potential boomathon, Holder changes Bishoo for Powell. Good call.

Stokes booms the first two balls of the 31st for six. He’s cruised to 73 but then fails to connect with a wide one next over and is caught in the deep. Shame to lose him but incoming Buttler might be just the man to raise this again, for England. Hope he doesn’t he too greedy too early.

He’s bowled, instead, by Cummins. Great ball of killer length. Moeen in at 210 for 5 in the 33rd. More drinks.

England need a partnership as much as they need another gear-change. Loving the balance of this one. One thing’s for sure, the Windies are no pushovers.

Root, having been untroubled since his first handful of deliveries, gets a good, full one from Cummins and is plumb, having stayed back. 84 scored – cue moaning from the back about ‘failing to cash in again’.

13.32, pouring in Pembrokeshire.

Moral victory for Powell, as Moeen edges through vacant second slip: am hugely biased but feel Ali may be key, here, completed game, or no. He can really do that game-management-whilst-also-striking crazy-purely thing. And I unashamedly hope he does. (Honestly wrote this pre-frenzy).

Bloody big drone soars above deep midwicket. 250 up (for 6, in the 41st). Taylor still manfully searching for that blockhole.

Back to the A Team as Holder follows Taylor. Draws an uncouth swing from the typically elegant Woakes; no contact. The sense that maybe England are rising to this, with ten remaining. Woakes more expansive, certainly.

Moeen whirls at Taylor first ball of the 43rd, as if to confirm that the home side will go at this, now. He marches at the next, too – and misses by about a fortnight.

I think Taylor’s been good, here, despite one period where Root and Stokes feasted. Woakes strokes a beauty off him, down the ground for 4. Uppish but utterly controlled – safe. Then it’s about Moeen.

Words are inadequate so in a few… FIFTY are plundered off two remarkable overs.

Mo mashes and smashes it all over, getting his second fifty off TWELVE deliveries. Woakes departs but the Mo-Show goes on. The crowd bellows with Mo-lurv as he breaks the hundred barrier with another maximum. The stat-heads in the Media Centre are rolling around on the floor.

Mohammed gifts him a life on 101 – as Gayle had, previously – but when he finally holes out to Holder at deep mid-off the crowd do that ecstatic clapping above your head thing. It’s been wonderful. We don’t need anything else.

Taylor, bowling the last, runs out Plunkett with his left instep, shortly before signing for Bristol Rovers. The lights are on, on, now (as opposed to unnecessarily on). Perversely, symbolically, the sun comes out again as the innings closes, with England – Moland(?) – on 369 for 9.

I eat. Quickly.

 

SOAR.

Bristol, where there may be more cricket. Where the Windies may bat. (Because England have).

Mr Lewis smashes two sixes off the second over but then is caught. The weather may be closing in but the Media Centre buzz is not too fatalistic around that: ‘a shower, around four-ish’.

The day’s drama may yet be compromised but most of us achieved (if I may so?) orgasmic satisfaction during the Mo-fest of earlier. We can love whatever happens next or sleep, eat cake or go to Ikea. By three-something, there’s been enough.

Bristol. Gayle still there, the Windies get to 62 for 1 off 9. They are ahead of the theoretical Duckworth-Lewis, which threatens to dominate, as the clouds do.

Shai Hope is out, caught behind. We do notice but we are looking at the far horizons and our various screens: forecasts. 79 for 2 in the 12th.

Predictably, Plunkett is getting some real bounce. Moeen less so, unless bounces in the crowd count – Gayle going to fifty with another legside heave.

The visitors hit, relatively at will, towards and beyond their first hundred. Then despite no appeal from the bowler, Samuels is given caught behind and the Windies are 109 for 3, off 16. And I think rain is less likely. And Gayle is still there, on 63.

The Universe Boss is short-arm punching as much as lifting the ball around the place. Inevitably he’s nearly been caught – inevitably – both on the park and in the crowd. But he’s still there and whether or not the rain comes it feels like he, The Mighty Gayle, may out-Mo England.

Fifteen strides then a pirouette-shuffle to mark out… and in comes Stokes for the twentieth. Looking to make something happen: Gayle’s gone quiet.

We have a game (because the rain hasn’t delivered). Moeen is still central – bowling, getting just a little turn – and Gayle has just receded, somehow. Could this be temporary? Is he teasing us?

In the Media Centre, Nasser Hussain is four yards to my right. He seems reluctant to come introduce himself. I get that. Him and Atherton both look immaculate in a crushingly clerical-worker kindofaway, blessem.

Gayle re-announces himself. Three sixes in three, forcing a wide next ball, from the unfortunate – well, relatively unfortunate – Moeen. 156 for 3 off 23.

Word is rain arriving any minute and (slightly surprisingly?) the visitors are behind on Duckworth-Lewis. (In fact, according to the scoreboard, they are 23 runs down as we enter the 25th, with Woakes returning).

The Bear’s seamer persists with plenty of slower balls, to Gayle; off-cutters. Meanwhile Stokes is back of a length and mixing it. The runs have slowed.

I’m wondering if Gayle is reading the scoreboard, where they remain 22 behind the DLM. Maybe he knows something?

Doesn’t matter. By the tightest of margins, he is run out, by Rashid, with a superb flat throw. 94, for Gayle, who carried himself like a reasonably heavily-baited bear.

Reasonably enough, the first thought is that Powell and Mohammed – or somebody – really have to go some (now). Yet the DLM deficit has reduce to 18… which is plainly wrong. A moment later the deficit is 40. I resolve again to stick with how things feel, not what the numbers are saying.

Up steps Rashid to bowl his first, with Vic Marks confidently predicting 3 for 30, post that glorious intervention from midwicket. Two England spinners together, in fact, for the first time.

Powell skies Rashid straight – gone. Enter Holder. Moeen gets a couple to turn. 31 overs done, skies darker but no rain. We seem to be drifting towards a Moeen-inspired win; certainly the Media Posee are asking for him, post- match. Meanwhile, out there, tellingly as always, it’s Mexican Wave time.

Holder digs us sleepy ones in the ribs by clonking Rashid big over mid-on. His bowling partner, meanwhile, is troubling the batsmen with appreciable turn, now. (Bloke name of Moeen).

Later, Rashid has changed ends and befuddles Nurse, for 1 scored. The game has entered the final phase – as has the day. It’s dusky and it’s done, at 216 for 7, after 35.

Plunkett has again earned wickets, with his persistence and his energy into the pitch. (He finishes with five). Rashid has enjoyed the freedom coming his way as ordinary batters were exposed to an impossible target. He can whirl and express.

Stokes, Woakes and Willey simply did well enough, for Morgan; mixed it, slowed it, stilled any Gayle-prompted tendency towards panic. The job is well done: what separates the teams – substantially – is what Moeen did, with the bat.

So… can we really enjoy that? On the day that a pret-ty remarkable film on the man’s early life was launched by the ECB, we can share in a sportsman’s daft-brilliant triumph as well as something actually rather profound – difficult though it may be, to articulate. How to big the man up without gushing, or dropping into issues around race and ownership? How to keep it simple?

Moeen is an outstanding individual; gifted, truly humble, truly rooted in his community. We need him – all of us – to just be him.

Today he soared, outrageously carting the ball to the four points of the compass in a way which simply told, made the difference, made our day. We can speak of his timing and grace and rhythm and utter confidence. Can we though forget the flag-bearing, the well-meaning clutter; let’s not impose anything, eh? Let’s just soar.