Wondrous Carnage.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 2 Comments

Too many words written already, on McCullum – fully accept that. But I want to get to a different argument, something trickier, something that maybe dovetails with broader questions re- the power-shift towards *positive cricket*, which I appreciate and applaud but do not regard as sacrosanct.

Given the shockingly exciting (and therefore unhelpfully diverting nature) of the New Zealander’s assault, it’s not easy to know where to start.  But the minor strands of this here pseudo-hypothesis are, I think, relevant beyond this single boomtastic event; they may, for example, resonate with the debate over England’s direction.

Cricket is unique partly because of the multi-layered levels of intelligence, of challenge, it presents or demands.  These extraordinary elements may not be conducive to bold reduction.

The wondrous carnage at Christchurch (in his final Test) is obviously a catalyst for both hyperbole and cud-chewing. However despite being

a) a huge fan of BMac and

b) (whisper this one) kinda culturally down on the Aussies,

my enjoyment of all that was what Guardian-readers amongst us might call conflicted. I watched highlights and this may have been instrumental to the mix of emotions but nevertheless I did experience the full range of oohs and ahhs – some registering vintage, unsullied joy and some a difficult-to-nail-down concern. Because parts of the extravaganza seemed (almost jarringly?) a bit ‘village’… and some baseballesque.

Ok, about eighty-three qualifications necessary immediately. I know what that sounds like – like I’m channelling your Uncle Herbert. Like I don’t get the sheer brilliant courage and the sheer brilliant instinctual majesty thing. Like I just don’t get McCullum – his essence. I do.

I get that this was merely the logical, glorious climax of a lung-burstingly full-hearted climb towards some mountain amongst the gods; from which McCullum could then base-jump, vindicated and inviolable, down and back into the arms of his loving family. And that post that signature moment, in a brief interview with someone calling him mate, Ar Baz would wander off into happy obscurity, complete – sanctified.

Except it’s not that simple. McCullum isn’t over, there’s more hired swordsmanship to come – notably in England, in a few months. This is a Retirement From Tests Moment like no other (so far) but it is not a retirement.

(I’m still trying to work out if that means anything but something makes me wish this was over now, unquestionably and emphatically. Maybe I simply don’t want it unpicked by subsequent events? Maybe the McCullum Statement works best in the abstract, because it may be prone to subversion by intelligent contradiction? Or cruel, early catches at fly slip?)

The innings itself was a clear statement of belief – in the power and legitimacy of see ball hit ball get-your-retaliation-in-first counterattacking sport, as well as in the greatness of individual talent. Yet it inevitably fluked its way along as well as sashayed; it was wild and wildly fortunate. Does this in any way diminish it? Certainly not. It was made possible by an invincible faith and fearlessness; that’s why it happened and why we loved it. But the flawlessness, the purity of this effort is/was made vulnerable by chance(s.) The fella coulda got out; it was barmy-risky – all that.

McCullum has said he doesn’t know what’s going to happen – how he’s going to play – ‘til he gets out to the middle. Plainly this is a half-truth. We forgive, however, a man who’s earned the right to burnish the sparkle around his aura with a little bravado, so this notion that instinct is absolute (and that he merely trusts himself in the moment) can stand as a kind of psychological icon. Not only will we tolerate it but we can roar our approval as he carves a way through the pomp and old-fartism that is Received Wisdom on Batting in Tests.

Except it’s not that simple. Yes this skipper and leader of men plays magnificently off-the-cuff but also, surely, with raw pre-determination? He decides (of course) to charge, having made some arguably rather visceral calculation re the odds/what feels right/what might transform this thing? McCullum (say it quietly) is a thinker as well as a merchant of blam.

What is special around him is the quality of the gamble. BMac revolts and inspires and re-invents the possible, even against the Aussies, even when the spotlight is set to 3rd degree burn level. It’s absolutely wonderful that he himself sears with an often undeniably inspiring energy, that he scorches a path through stuff. This is what identifies him as a Great and it’s maybe what makes sport great too – the magical, revelatory force that talent and belief unleashed in tandem can offer. So… how come the sense of another impending ‘but?’

Fact is, I’m not quite sure. Can wholeheartedly (that word again) support McCullum the superman-human, the doer of brave, cathartic, generous, sporty things. Love that he has led his tiddly nation to a very warm, disproportionately high-profile place in our hearts and that people all over are touched by something about New Zealand’s approach. In the age of cynicism… this is big.

So big as to be beyond critique, or just big?

Am I right in thinking this bloke, the human figure who fights and leads and inspires like this is maybe beyond critique? He’s one of very few genuine world stars and he’s connected with us more profoundly (if still abstractly?) than any other world star so… let’s stay with that. And then argue that the process of ‘positive cricket’ – the philosophy he apparently embodies – is a marvel we can tweak. Cavalier can be dumb as well as mighty and entertaining.

The mild, almost unsayable negative is that talk of aggression and fearlessness can be worryingly close to pret-ty dumb maschismo – and mighty seductive to blokey blokes who chest-pump around in, or coach cricket teams, at any level. To be blunt, this ain’t always gonna work, this T20 thrashathon model for Test cricket. It’s too simple, too reliant on individual genius; it’s based on wonderful longshots (sometimes literally) and not everyone can or will carry it off. Mostly, McCullum has. Hence I love the fella too.

Brendon McCullum swings a three pound bat. In his 140-odd off 70-something balls – the fastest ever Test century – he swung it both beautifully and malevolently, like a drunken knight. Perhaps in those occasional ungainly swipes he simply got caught in his own fury, over-cooking the defiance against not just the peerless Australians but maybe also the earthquakes that again rumbled against his homeland during the week? (He must after all, recognise his own status as champion against all-comers?) Or perhaps the bowling was just tastier than he gave it credit for?

When Brendon connects, things fly. Our spirits have, the ball has. Though he has not gone, we should hoist him shoulder high; he’s special, we needed him, he enriched us all.

Whenever games get dull, or challenges remain unmet, or situations bleak, let’s remember him, eh?

#3millionstories

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been a sportsman all my life – a sportsman, not a salesman. So it doesn’t come naturally for me to Big Up what I do for a living, which is coach cricket (to children, mainly, for Cricket Wales). But I’m about to make an exception.

And this is not about me. It’s about the thing we do, which is simply offering a game.
In Wales there are about a dozen of us Community Coaches going into Primary Schools to deliver cricket sessions. In our case we’re sponsored by Cricket Wales, Sport Wales and @Chance2Shine – the cricket charity. We’re trained to go in and put a smile on children’s faces, show them the game, get them moving. But there’s more.

Would you believe we’re also hoping to make children better listeners, to stimulate numeracy and develop social skills? And guess what? We think about lighting up every single child with a few words of encouragement – we get right in there amongst those bobbing and weaving faces and aim to make them feel listened to – heard.

Does it sound a bit pretentious if I say that we try to offer both a kind of release and a way in to academic work for children that we coach? That in offering opportunities to devise games we’re looking to delve into really quite complex issues around
‘What works for everybody… and maybe not just me?’

We’re trying to do all that. We’re trying to inquire into levels of understanding and generosity and difficulty. Get this: I often think half of what I do is about coaching the sharing of the bat; because everybody wants to bat, right?

This all sounds a bit ‘dry’ maybe. Like we coaches are obsessing a bit about Physical Literacy Frameworks or some or other ‘target’. We’re not. I’m pret-ty confident the kids in our sessions are too busy running or hitting or catching or building something to feel like they’re in some academic exercise. They’re not.

Instead, they’re expressing their talents. They’re having a laugh – they’re thinking. In the end, they’re unfurling their stories – some a little clunkily, some with that magical, uncomplicated joy that sport can unleash. We’re just there to help.

So because I see this stuff – these revelations – every day, I can do the sales pitch thing. I can look you or anyone in the eye and say ‘Yup, I’m happy to be making the case for cricket. Because I know people – young and older – are being transformed by it, every day.’

@Chance2Shine are Bigging Up the fact that three million children have now been through sessions with their coaches – with me and my mates. @Chance2Shine know that with every child there’s been impact; something learned or shared or maybe some giant leap forward made. Opportunities to build games, build confidence or take wickets/hit runs! They know that there really are wonderful stories here so they’ve adopted the #3millionstories hashtag, to share all this around.

I’m happy and proud to share it too.

#3millionstories.

It’s got to feel like you.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 2 Comments

There are no constants. Everything is mitigated by circumstance or context. For all our efforts to gather in meaning or truth, glorious, nose-thumbing reality intervenes. On the one hand to remind us we’re only human – only individual – and on the other to deflate our pomp. In life and in sport.

So (for example!) we’ve recalibrated our cricket coaching; we speak of Core Principles rather than Technical Models. We question and we question to unfurl answers, decisions, ownership from within the player. We throttle back our opinion, our ego, our instinct to contradict, in order to facilitate. We’ve become model humans; wise, generous, liberal, humble. In theory.

In practice we moan and bitch and pull our hair out at the sheer incompetence just like always. But we keep a lid on the bollockings – mostly, probably. We rant about the ECB coming over all generic and politically correct and ‘forgetting’ that cricket IS unique. Its complexities. Its predication upon repeatable skills, skills which must deny the encroaching possibilities, the errors which will be punished. We coaches battle with or against this need to prescribe for excellence and the higher impulses towards player-centredness.

It’s not easy but it’s fabulous. In the sense that a) it’s magnificently challenging b) it’s fun c) it’s perversely right to shoot for individual brilliance over theoretical alignment. Coaching cricket is absolutely wonderful because… it makes you wonder about stuff. Not least this balancing of how much freedom to offer, when you may know that discipline (possibly of the technical variety) will, pound for pound, probably enable greater success than (say) allowing Player X to continue to ‘play by instinct’. Maybe.

An example of this gorgeous conundrum might be as follows: young(?) Player Z has an extraordinary eye and a capacity to take the game away from the opposition with the bat. Because he or she swings freely and quite simply generally connects – beautifully. However, you have observed both in practice and in matches the tendency for the front foot ‘clearing’ to (either) draw the head inside the line of the ball early and/or affect balance. Meaning mistimed strokes or miscues and trouble.

The issue is compound. Coach should probably say something (but is this re philosophy or technique?)

Wrong to be the style-cramping miserablist but also wrong to leave innocence un-warned, unadvised. Few would now row entirely against the tide for dynamic/counter-attacking batting but in my experience few coaches would be content to keep schtumm when they can see that some of the risk might be mitigated by a few words around form or base or head.

One model might be to ask the player questions about the implications of being less than balanced (even) when playing aggressively. Then bring out the sub-Churchillian stuff. Make clear that it’s the player’s moment; they choose, they act. We can theorise all day about agility, belief and commitment but in the moment the player must be the expressor of all that. Which brings me back to my title.

Another, more personal example. I was a decent bowler; like the rest of the universe I was told aged twelve I should look to be playing First Class Cricket but a zillion things intervened, including my lack of that kind of ability. But I could bowl quickish and I could also bowl quickish leg-cutters by doing something weirdly akin to the back-of-the-hand thing even when bowling swiftly. Nobody taught me; I found this weapon. I loved finding things, especially on those very rare occasions when I had a proper cricket ball in my hands – a brand new cherry, incidentally, was completely unheard of.

I grew up on the fringes of the game rather than right in it so this may mean I had less exposure to coaching. But the facts that I went to a relatively humongous state school and that coaching barely existed back then also weigh in here. However they do not alter the feeling that my love of bowling results mainly from faffing about; running in and trying things with my mates. Bowling, in fact; in our case at a block of wood in a disheveled net on the British Legion field down the road.

I labour these points because it strikes me there is no substitute for at least some ‘free practice’ and because more importantly I’m clear that only I knew how this particular delivery really felt. It was my process. This is not to say that it couldn’t later be broken down and ‘understood’ by others skilled in coaching or analysis; it surely could. But inevitably it remains unique. Which is surely part of the magic? Stay with me.

I have a concern that pace bowlers (maybe in particular?) are sometimes ill-served by coaches who want to direct them towards their understanding of best practice. (In other words, change their action). This may be the result of over-zealousness or quite frequently because these coaches feel the breath of other, more senior voices around them. You legitimise yourself, you puff out your chest and say something you imagine sounds powerful – authoritative.

God it’s tempting at my amateur level to tell a bowler all you know about bowling when his dad (who played for Glamorgan) or another coach is edging into earshot. Instead all parties might be better served if a few friendly questions are asked, leading the player towards two or three (not 42 or 43!) checkpoints for when they’re bowling. Two or three things to return to before clearing the mind, concentrating on the stumps and running in freely – like a kid on the field with his mates.

There’s no wider agenda here. I’m not alluding to alleged failings at Loughborough or revisiting Finngate. I don’t know the circumstances or the relevant individuals. However I am chipping into the debate because I’m a bowler and a coach and I recognise acutely some of the issues. To plunge again into the general, I would be very loath to change the action of a bowler significantly unless it was absolutely nailed on that injury had been the direct result of that action. Instead, mostly, I would be saying this to the seamer(s) in my charge –

Hey mate you know what things keep you in order – what your checks are. So focus on them. Then calm yourself, run in with energy, follow through.

I’m happy enough with that. I have on board the (compound) idea that yes we should be offering Core Principles and – reference those batting skills – yes we can rightly encourage positivity whilst (also) playing the match situation. But ultimately, ultimately…

It’s got to feel like you.

There’s a welcome.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 4 Comments

Last night I was buzzing. I’m going to bore you with it – the detail of some of it, too, – because (who knows?) it may be either relevant or it might, in an abstract way, ‘cheer you up’. Plus I’m still buzzing.

But what follows, with its adrenalin-fuelled odour of Mission Statement, is not supposed to be some model, some icon of good practice. It’s just another contribution to the debate. If it’s unusually detail-heavy, that’s because I’m imagining other sports-peeps with similar interests or concerns may be perusing.

Now we’re talking cricket but please don’t be put off by that. We’re also talking – really talking – #inclusion, #development, #sport, the human. Big Things; proper Guardian-reading adult hashtags; but in the context of wee humans, mainly, so don’t tell me you’re not interested. It’s for the kids.

Okay so there are Test Matches and Big Bashes and bawling crowds and trampolines and trumpets and y’know – glory. But there is also the tiddly, inconsequential stuff. Let’s call it the grassroots – even if a fair portion of the resultant grassroots action takes place on a Leisure Centre floor, or on what most of us call an ‘astro.’

Last night, in a hall that has the feel almost of an old-school gymnasium, 16 kids turned up to one of our cricket hubs. Hardly earth-shattering, so for that to mean anything I’m going to have to explain some stuff. Let’s take a deep breath together.

In the search for alternative ways to offer up cricket to children aged 6-11, we (Cricket Wales, Pembrokeshire Posse) came up with the cunning plan to deliver in a ‘non-club’ setting and then secured three Leisure Centres. But… why now, why midwinter?

Firstly it felt worthwhile to extend the profile and availability of the game locally – whilst accepting entirely the primacy of clubs. Secondly, as L C’s are often simply unavailable to us in the summer (and weather then theoretically at least supports outdoor cricket!) it made enough sense to crack on in the cold and dark. I should add that this is something of a pilot scheme but also that we believe it’s important – possibly crucial – to broaden our appeal beyond the keen, ball-tracking eyes of the gifted.

That then, is some of the why. The how was less of a novelty for us, in that I then went into local primary schools and delivered some ‘taster’ sessions and/or spoke in assemblies to try to enthuse children towards the activity. Which is kindof what I generally do.
With an unhelpful(?) break over Christmas, we really weren’t sure if we could maintain sufficient numbers to continue into the New Year. The centres have been very supportive but clearly there’s an economic reality of sorts even here, in the joyous, energising land of play.

With children going free if they already have a membership and paying two to three pounds if not, the project is vulnerable should less than about ten or a dozen children attend each one-hour hub. (Naturally we’d prefer more – 15-20 ideally.) Cricket Wales fund me and the Leisure Centres have to pay my partner-in-crime, Craig. Nobody’s making money here; it’s about opening up opportunities – to either play cricket or inhale the culture of physical activity in a particular space – or both.

Pre Santa’s delivery of new Gray Nicholls or Ni-kees, so attendances predictably had begun to dip slightly; hence we were conscious we may need to pull out all the stops to find enough bodies. We got on twitter to promote the hubs again, as well as re-sending posters into schools. My suspicion is, however, that the notices delivered via facebook – for a smallish fee, to all users in a particular post code – may have been key to refreshing and re-booting the return to action. (This was another first, for us, by the way. Forty-odd quid that I expect will make several weeks or possibly months-worth of cricket possible.)

I feared or expected only six children might turn up for the first post-Krimble session. We had sixteen. I appreciate this may not sound like a triumph but I know just how powerfully these sessions can act on children – maybe particularly children who get left behind when the alpha males/females are choosing teams in the playground. Cue the brief appalling digression…

In ‘Just one experience’, I wrote about how impactful (even) very ‘loose’ or profoundly non-technical sessions can be. (http://cricketmanwales.com/2015/12/15/just-one-experience – Go back a coupla posts on this site – you’ll find it.) Lots of people liked it – got it – that sense of a young human lighting up, opening up, through sport. Like most coaches that’s what drives me – and if that is revealing of some intrinsic arrogance then so be it. I love to play a part in that inching or lolloping towards expression and movement. It’s massively inspiring for me to see children blown away or buzzing with what they’ve done; it’s my privilege and responsibility to offer up the game and do it well in the knowledge that this might change something.

Anyways, back to that sixteen – those sixteen kids.

They make a glorious dollop of change and inspiration possible by making this hub viable – and this was the difficult one in terms of numbers. As it happens in the last 24 hours more people have come back to me on twitter and are committing their kids. From the Sports Development Militia point of view, it’s also important that we may have found another way of reaching people.

Weirdly, this latter point – the facebook option – feels like a watershed moment, given one of the intentions was to open this up to children who might find the club environment waaay too challenging to contemplate. There’s something about the part-private, part immaculately ‘populist’ post-code slam-dunk blanket-coverage-wallop that I like and it looks to have worked, or helped.

In this particular centre last night eleven of these boys and girls were ‘new’ – meaning they didn’t attend prior to Christmas, when the project started.

New attendees are clearly the gold dust, the holy grail and the bees knees when it comes to the Key Performance Indicators that S D Militia everywhere cherish. I can see why, but as the front man in much of this, gifted the role of interacting with and hopefully encouraging children towards something I know to be fabulous and growing, I’m probably a whole lot less interested in the numbers than I’m sounding here. Yes I’m chuffed that it was sixteen not six… but I’m more bothered by how these sessions feel to the kids.

So, whilst this blog is about the circumstances around capturing these young cricketers, do not, my friends, get side-tracked into thinking that anything is remotely as important as the quality of experience in that sports hall. Migrations mean nothing if the sessions are dull or inappropriate.

A final thought. It hasn’t escaped our attention that the children who fall(?) into the ‘Na, not a natural’ category may quite possibly still offer up 40 years of wunnerful service as an administrator/scorer/groundsman at a cricket club they patently love. Possibly despite never having represented it on the pitch. This phenomenon clearly becomes more likely if they have a great experience of knockabout or festival cricket games – say using a tennis ball or windball… in a local Leisure Centre.

Broadly, the point I am making is that we cricketpeeps need to offer many things. And we’re looking to do that. The game is sensational but it can seem dauntingly technical or structured or dull, actually, from the outside, or from knee-high to a grasshopper. And we need – we really need – to welcome folks in.

Views.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I’ve had David Coleman’s signature squawk reverberating through my consciousness this week.

EXTRAORDINARY!!

This of course a function of my age and disposition as a dumbed-down sporty geezer, every ‘natural’ response to news or events played out around the place being filtered through ball(s)-tinted memory.

So no surprises that what felt like an EXTRAORDINARY week of cricket-related drama – Newlands/Gayle/Big Bashings – resulted in such a violent struggle for understanding that I’m fearing I may myself have been the subject of this other Colemanballs…

He just can’t believe what’s not happening to him.

Nor can I be sure if

In a moment we hope to see the pole vault over the satellite

is something a daft-but-lovable commentator once said or a perfectly reasonable – if surrealist – appreciation of how things currently are.

Life is bewilderingly wunnerful but I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the coalescence – or should that read ‘submergence? – of World Events into the chavisthmus that is sport-in-my-head. I’m not sure how wise or practicable or manageable it is, being unsure which time-zone hold sway or where the edges are between Dukes or Kookaburras or Gun Control or Nuclear Tests. Pretty frequently, it’s turned out (sorry Bethan, sorry kids!) I’ve been both manically watchful and glazed over; immune and ecstatic; absent and then wallowing in the profound. Essentially lost to it.

This evening is a very different evening from the morning we had this morning.

Much of this is down to the Test Match at Newlands, a venue which c’mo-on, has hardly helped. As a plainly ludicrous mixture of the sun-blasted, glacially-perfect picture postcard-with-chronic-baggage and the symphonically serene (but not)… this choice of location location has done nothing to still the fast-twitch/slow-mo-ness of *experience*.

The second thrash between South Africa and England has been something else. Principally it’s been a reminder that the word epic is waaay too small, too monotone.

Five days in a Test Match. Suddenly that’s become a subject for debate not a statement of fact. The Instagram Generation snipping and snapping away – eroding. The Authorities frantically feeling the pulse of Public Opinion. (Quite rightly.) Thunder rumbling elsewhere – colourful, relevant, undeniably (financially) attractive thunder. And pray what did the gods of Table Mountain portend? Of what did they speak? And what be their message?

Firstly, that Test Cricket ain’t dead. Not even over that crazily anachronistic five day thing it ain’t dead. In fact (yes, whilst we take stock and whilst we inevitably make increasing provision for short-format cricket) Newlands spoke eloquently of the unique fascinations of the long-form game.

Nothing else has all of it. Not the brewing or unraveling individual processes with scope for redemption four/five days later… in the same game(!) Not the accruing mental challenges that wear upon the soul, the confidences, in different genres. Not that cruel exposure when your bit fails – when you let down your mates, your country – or (despite ALL THAT TIME, that selfless effort!!) you cannot make a breakthrough. Not that particular kind of poignant exhilaration, when your ton means everything to you, your dad, maybe and yet this is not, ultimately, triumph itself.

We can talk about the event or the events for decades (and may) but surely Newlands can only be understood as some kind of majestic, appalling, glorious, defiant, inconclusive tribute to (or of) our capacity to view. To understand perspective, meaning, action – substance. Look at Stokes! Look at Bairstow. Look at that shrunken Amla reinventing some form, some proper Amla! Look at the implications of that field change; the offer of that boundary over the top. Look at the newspaper, even – it’s gone quiet. What day is it – or sorry, which day is it?

The word is unique. And whilst of course this doesn’t necessarily or always mean good it does mean something. Probably that anything providing this measure of drama and tension and atrophy and drinking time and perplexity and grief and scope really may, in our short-format world, be kinda precious. The knitting or muttering aproval or the silent joy of it. Maybe especially that thing that non-cricketpeeps don’t get – that dimension of time: the thing that means it’s okay to miss something or drift from proceedings and still be completely doing the cricket.

So forgive me for not majoring on Stokes or Bairstow or Amla or the pitch. That’s all stored, for sure, alongside the blurred recognition of this week’s iconic facts and figures. What got me though was the sense of twisting, turning, unfurling but then foreclosed drama. The kind of drama over time you just don’t see.

Elsewhere the Gayle controversy confirmed everyone’s prejudices about everything – unsurprisingly. However if you didn’t hear Melinda Farrell and Neroli Meadows interviewed for ABC Grandstand then you effectively lose the right to your opinion. As I said on twitter

Not good enough to say the #Gayle thing – however it was intentioned – was ‘harmless’. Harm was done.

Finally, something sad. Two young men – one 22, one 28 – deeply embedded into that soft target the #cricketfamily were lost to us, suddenly, in recent days.

As I write the circumstances around their deaths remain (I hope this doesn’t sound either callous or indiscreet) slightly uncomfortably mysterious. But what is clear to me from my involvement with both that cricket community and the internet is that a genuine and powerful amount of love for these fellas has been stirred; suggesting overwhelmingly they were outstanding humans as well as outstanding talents.

Can we agree that in all sincerity the names of Matt Hobden and Tom Allin have been marked and appreciated within our disparate but strangely/wonderfully united throng? Can we accept both the sadness and the fact that they were involved – they made an elite-level contribution – to something fabulous? To cricket.

I’m fearful of finishing on a morbid or a corny note. But would like to say something about the value and maybe the appeal of this daft game of ours. And I promise this won’t be a quote from David Coleman.

I get why people love cricket. (I do.)  It’s something to do with the richness of the challenges. The diversity. Or maybe just the feel of a new ball – a cherry-red cricket ball – in your hand. Or it’s the tactical ‘get your head round this, skip’ thing. Or it’s the slowness, or the rewards for flow, for timing, for movement. Or it’s how, in its incredible complexity it’s so simply revealing of the human. That bloke or girl swinging a bat, bowling a ball.

But hey, that’s just how I look at it.

We need some facts. (Dream on.)

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

It’s an unspecified time during Christmas. So I could be dreaming or under the influence of exotic chocolate liquors – meaning extravagantly packaged, diesel-filled ‘seasonal treats’. My best guess is that I’m simply up early to listen to cricket.

#TMS and a quiet house. And in time the relatively un-glorious dawn chorus, via a handful of unseen, presumably gale-tossed and bedraggled birds. I release into them. Quietly but chirpily, in the dank and dark, I go travelling.

From the beautiful but sopping West to London – the point of departure. Down into the Tubes that my wife plans to ‘avoid with the children’.
It’s down there – or going down there – that in some Orwellian confluence of Norths and Souths and whirrs and clunks I have that out-of-body witness-thing; watching silently as England, pristine in their whites, inevitably on the up escalator, pass South Africa as they descend.

Amla is looking quiet, Steyn angry and de Villiers strangely disconnected as they slide away. Weirdly, I think I’m still hearing birds. Cook and Root and co meanwhile are bouncing. All smiles and gurns and territorial in-jokes as they rise.

That feels good but we need some anti-indulgent facts here.

The first one that springs to mind (the news that Lemmy just died) feels unhelpfully non-focussing. What’s more real is the lack of sun around my fizzog and warming beer in my paws – confirming I’m still in Wales. So I haven’t entirely Gone Barmy – or at least didn’t get on a plane, or on a tube. No. The dog’s sleeping on my feet, being massaged by my twitching toes. I can see that, feel that. And #TMS is on.

England, as I begin to write, have a lead of 350. Bairstow, coming in at the most perfect of perfect times, has clonked a few, encouragingly positively. Moeen is in there with him and the prospects for South Africa are not good; somewhere between bleak and utterly dispiriting. The sense is that given Amla’s disappearance, Steyn’s issues and the South African public’s relative non-engagement (in Durban, at least) a killer momentum has already been established in this series – and not for the home side.

That may be premature but the impression persists – at least until the South Africans bat. Things skate on, do they not, but I think I’m right in recalling the essences: Broad again rose to the occasion as Leader of the Pack, Mo rolled those fingers and on a trying surface our batsmen stuck at it better? Importantly, Compton and Taylor have done absolutely what they were drafted in to do; applied themselves; job done.

Regarding Compton, I suspect I may not have been alone in wondering whether his relentless campaigning in the media might have worked against his chances of a recall – certainly Graeme Swann appears to be fed up of the bloke, given his endless mithering about the Middlesex batsman’s lack of dynamism – but the Harrow educated, South African-born grandson of Denis has earned his chance… and taken it.

Rightly going against the grain of the daft or disproportionate (but apparently non-negotiable) positivity being preached by everyone with a Level 4 Coaching Certificate, @thecompdog has ground out runs in the historical (meaning arguably dull but crucially opposition-shrinking manner) favoured by everybody who Played the Match Situation, pre 2010. Frankly I don’t warm to the bloke – that self-publicising plus the South African/Harrovian combo doesn’t exactly light the fires of my enthusiasm – but he has been exactly what England needed for this series.

Likewise Taylor. Possibly more so, given his ability to transcend that Diggin’ In mode. The wee fella has got those dancin’ feet moving nicely, to shore up the England batting and manifestly reduce the pressures on Hales and Stokes in particular. Size-wise, personality-wise and contribution-wise, it seems a good balance has been established – for which we have to credit Farbrace and Bayliss. It’s always a question of blend and England look to have most things covered.

Hales will remain a concern until he fires. He has profited from both an absence of other openers and from that fine understanding a propos the team balance. In acknowledging that success, I restate my suspicion that the fashion for positivity (which of course we all love to see!) is over-emphasised – in my view because it’s a seductively blokey if not laddish concept that sits nicely with any coaches need to sound or be generous towards freeing up and ‘expressing talent’. But this is Test Cricket – a test over time – where things are (or often need to be) more slowly gained.

We all get that it’s important to entertain the punters. We all get that times have changed and run rates have bounded forward. But both ‘holistically’ and tactically there is no need for (our) Test Cricket to morph entirely into the other formats. Let 50 overs and T20 provide the boomathon for the masses and let Compton be Compton (in Tests.  Don’t pick him for the other stuff.)  His pedigree doggedness can then set things up for Stokes to be Stokes – boomtastically so, if the match situation allows.

And now back to #TMS, which is buzzing as England reach a lead of 415. Bairstow has enjoyed himself – 79 from 76 – and South Africa have 140 overs to endure. If their body-language doesn’t improve they are more likely to face humiliation than honourable defeat.

This is a potentially significant triumph, then, for England. Stepping into Steyn and Morkel’s back yard and – without arguably hitting peak form – dismissing the World Number Ones with some ease. We look a good side; despite the questions that remain over Hales, Woakes, Bairstow’s keeping(?) and Moeen’s admittedly improved bowling. Through the four match series, things could get alarming for the home side if Cook provides an anchor around which that long England batting line-up can swing.

Dangerous, yes, to come over too optimistic. Bayliss and Farbrace though, have already earned a lump of credit – faith, even. The central allegation against this England group – that there are still far too many batting collapses – seems likely to recede when the evolving team settles. That seems only natural and as the coaches appear to be gathering their posse in good order so things should get better yet.

(*Fatal*!)

The project, however, remains unfinished. Personally I’m not clear if Woakes or Hales will become fixtures; I’m guessing the former won’t and this is only partly because a certain Burnley Express will surely return.

Hales may get an extended opportunity even if he plays fitfully; that seems right because we all know (and the coaches will clearly know) that he’s something of a longshot. He’s such a stranger to playing the traditional opener’s percentages that Hales must either be overlooked completely or persisted with philosophically. Because the group are sending out a message. I do hope there will be a time – coming to a packed venue near you – when Cook is quietly imperious and Hales, his partner, is lankily Warner-like.

Elsewhere the side looks strong – like if somebody fails somebody will surely storm on through. Cook Hales Compton Root Taylor Stokes Bairstow Moeen Broad? In the New Year, why wouldn’t we be dreaming?

 

Brief postscript – in which we pile on the positives.

  • For Moeen’s bowling to (ahem) turn out so well is MASSIVE for him and for England.  A significant step towards legitimacy as an international spinner… and hooooge for his personal confidence. Plus he’s Man of the Match, if a little surprisingly.
  • Compton and Taylor and that successful blend thing. (A blend that may change of course, depending on what the opposition offer.  Again the fact that we look to have a strong SQUAD is looking useful in this regard.)
  • Bairstow’s batting – if not the glove(s)manship – was doing exactly that *making a positive statement* thing the management would have dreamed about.  Behind the sticks he may never be the finished article… but you trying choosing between him and Buttler?
  • Root.  Let’s not forget.  Brilliant… and brilliant contributor to the team *humour.*
  • And talking of which… That Group Feeling.  England are rightly cock ‘a the wotsits and over the parrot.  They whupped the World Number 1s.  They are strong allround… and the feeling is that they may well get better – whether or not Jimmy Jimmy walks back into the side.

Now.  Where are those dodgy chocolates again?

Just one experience.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 8 Comments

Disclaimer; certain things have been changed here so that (I believe) no-one could be undermined by the following story. I’d like to think that wider interests – much wider than me or mine or Cricket Wales’s – might, can and arguably should be served by recounting what follows. It’s healthy, it’s heart-warming and it really happened.

Right now we’re test-driving a project that (rather than gathering children and ‘migrating’ them into local cricket clubs) is offering them an indoor knockabout. The kids get @cricketmanwales, his partner in crime, C****, a hall, some kit and then we play stuff. Once a week, for a few weeks; out of school hours.

I don’t want to get bogged down with the whys and tactical wotnots but (because two of you may be interested) we’re doing this for the following reasons, amongst others;

• The Leisure Centres are available to us now.
• Local cricket clubs don’t have the capacity for us Cricket Wales peeps to drive yet another clutch of budding Under Nines or Elevens into their hands – or at least they’re telling us they can’t accommodate a new team – fair enough.
• Some kids just don’t or won’t feel comfortable in the club environment – maybe they aren’t ‘good enough’ (or don’t think they are) to make anybody’s team? Maybe they’re a wee bit scared that they’ll have to face a Proper Hard Cricket Ball? Maybe Mum or Dad says it’ll cost too much?
• Simply, we wanted to offer a different opportunity and, without actually targeting any particular group, without remotely abandoning the idea that clubs are rightly at the centre of what cricket is, see what a mildly alternative space and proposal might offer.

This may have the sound of a fringe project, an experiment and there’s some truth in that view of it. A little. But though I confess to indulging in occasional meetings about all this strategic stuff, rest assured, dear friends that I/we are about the cricket – the act, the action that happens when a daft bugger like me is let loose with a bunch of kids. These weeny earthlings don’t feel part of any project. They’re too busy moving, catching, stopping, starting.

We’ve called the sessions ‘cricket hubs’. We didn’t, on the poster that ultimately my daughter cobbled together, specify ‘beginners’ or anything else other than ‘Boys and Girls, 6-11’. I then did some sessions in local schools and Bigged the Thing Up in an assembly or two and then off we went… we knew not where.

At the Leisure Centres, as a familiar face to the arriving children, I ‘lead’; which is a posh way of saying it’s me that does most of the shouting. Given these young ‘uns do turn out to be anywhere from six to eleven years old and do have a fairly alarming but fascinating range of abilities, the sessions have to live off my sense of what they can do – what they can have fun with – and maybe what’s possible to learn.

At one particular centre a boy I’m not going to describe or name joined us. When I say joined us, he slid in with what felt like an unremarkable degree of reticence. After a welcome to all I ran a warm-up game. Amongst the giggly anarchy I saw that maybe we needed to place a few balls – asitappens, we were using anything from teddies to beach balls to foam rugby balls – into his hands rather than either let or expect fellow players to lob things at him. He was involved on the periphery, neither happy nor unhappy but with his hands unconvincingly outstretched, at risk of either failing to acquit himself or being bypassed by ‘better players’.

Don’t panic. This post isn’t going to be about the quality of my coaching. It’s about the quality of this wee lad’s experience. Sure I’ll take a modicum of credit for getting fairly early on that he wasn’t, in the dangerously contentious phrase, a ‘natural’; that the games were going to have to come to meet him. I reckon I probably also intuited something about the appropriate level of fuss he’d most effectively ‘respond to’ and just quietly kindof revisited him now and then, to show tiddly things, without focussing on this fella as the Possible Struggler in the group.

Interestingly – and unusually – the boy’s dozen compadres were mostly children who clearly found catching and co-ordinating movements generally a challenge. Maybe this helped. We played simple games – yup, including that ole chestnut hitting from tees! – which everyone could do and I hiked the technical info with certain individuals when they needed to extend. It went okay.

This went on once a week for four weeks. The boy attended every week and to my knowledge did not speak a single word to either myself or one of the other children – even when asking for a pass, a catch. He simply got marginally more proficient, more convincing at the body language, the shape of the movements, in proffering those arms. In time he tried throwing, bowling, all of it; they all did. Skills, in between or in and around what we might call small-sided games. He managed, found a way through, without either busting the proverbial gut, or getting frustrated, or making spectacular leaps forward. He was it seemed in that undemonstrative middle-ground.

The fifth week comes and the boy arrives a tad late. His mum (whom I‘ve seen, watching discreetly but never met or spoken to) does that ‘would you mind if I had a quiet word’ gesture and we step out of the hall momentarily. She says something very close to this;

Look I just wanted to thank you, really. I don’t know if you know but my son has really significant confidence issues – really significant.

I say I had an inkling but…

No they’re really debilitating. And I just wanted to thank you because he’s NEVER EVER done anything like this. He just can’t. So he never does anything.

I say something crass like ‘that’s genuinely lovely to hear, thankyou.’

No, thank YOU. It’s remarkable – are you going to be able to keep on going with this? He got up this morning and asked what day it was and when I said xxxxday he said ‘Oh great – cricket tonight! Believe me he NEVER says anything like that!! So thank you.

People, I was more than a bit choked. I managed to blurt out something about the cricket going on again after Christmas and then went back in to join C**** and the kids.

On the How Rewarding Was All That?-o-meter this ranks pretty high. Maybe because it felt both literally (eek!) awesome and a little mysterious. How could this lad’s seemingly non-animated engagement with our cricket-thing turn out so… profoundly? I’m delighted but also shocked, almost, that he’s found it so enjoyable – frankly it didn’t really seem like he was having that much fun. Whatever that unknowable process, we find ourselves reflecting on a stunning example of the fab-you-luss-ness of … what? Games? Movement? Interaction? Those few encouraging words?

Good to reflect, for one minute. Because I’m thinking this is evidence of the power of sport. This young boy has now bounded more than slid – albeit in his own, magical, ghostly-silent way – into a new, expanding universe. He is both denying six years of absence and disengagement and bulleting towards possibilities previously unthinkable. Why? Because he enjoyed the movement, the encouragement, the sporting challenge. It acted as a trigger.

We may never understand quite why this worked. It may not matter. But the fact of it matters. The quality of this boy’s experience was such that things were transformed.

This I suppose is anecdotal evidence. We can’t ‘map’ it or prove it so as to legitimise ourselves in the eyes of local authorities or funders. It’s pretty much non-measurable. But know what? To me it feels like a really great bit of work.

Zoom.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

So hang on – it all happened in a surreal blur – did we win two series? Having lost those Silent Tests? If so, was all that dramatic, exotic and occasionally eerie stuff going off in ‘The Desert’ a rip-roaring success? I guess it was. Or it felt that way at the end.

Now faaaar be it from me to de-mystify the Pakistan-England triple-series thing to the extent that the boomtastic power or – more seriously – the romance of it is lost, but if we dust it down (sorr-rree) and try to engage proper growed-up reflection mode, how does it all look? Where are England at? What have we learned about the magnificent and bewildering flux that the game itself is in?

First thing that springs to mind – before even offering genuine congratulations to the England Group, which I do – is that the fabulous, explosive diversity between the three codes (T20/50 over/Test) is splintering things.

This may not be bad. There are implications and opportunities for all of us, for one thing. Fans have every right to be excited at the surge of energy pulsing through our ‘typically sedate’ pastime. Scribes and pundits have a renewed supply of high horses to git on up upon. Change is begetting change and whilst this may be challenging it does appear to be heaving us all forward. In the flux, admittedly.

Meanwhile, in the wunnerful postmodern matrix that is probably the game itself, England played away to Pakistan in (for example) Dubai! Appropriately, it turns out another extraordinary series – and why wouldn’t it? Firstly we are lulled into a 3-match Test Bit that asks familiar questions about technique against spin, or absence of spinners… and then it comes over all noisy and color-full and barnstormingly new again. Like the world. Like the kit. Like that red or white or pink or whatever thing – the ball.

Happily, through this full-on sensory assault, it’s clear that England have dumped their Short Format Dunces caps. And therefore any review of the tour may have to include the profoundly encouraging conclusion that ‘we’ve definitely got talent’.

We can and must chalk this up as progress whilst we smile our crazy-innocent smiles, imagining how the players feel. Surely the Barmiest England fan could never have predicted the journey from humiliation (World Cup – all that) to the narcotic worldiedom (epitomised by Buttler in that 100-in-an-instant innings) might be achieved with such startling speed. We’ve gone from not mentioning the cricket to rolling around the floor scattering goodies from the box.

Look at the players. See into their faces, lit up with pre-Nintendo joy! All of them! Go through the list of those with reasons to be closer to ecstatic than cheerful. On the less obvious side that may include Topley, Woakes, Willey and arguably Parry. In and around Roy or Buttler’s wantonness they all shared in preciously groovy stuff with real, notable contributions – important for them, important for us. Given the finale, with Jordan’s absurdly successful Super Over capping off a third consecutive T20 win and we’re all buzzing, all wallowing in the team-bath of their confidence.

Deep breath and zoom out again. Factor in the acceleration away from what used to be commonly assumed (four or five or six an over, consistent line and length) and this fecund-new environment offers players the hopefully energising prospect of reimagining the scope or direction of their careers. Because if we are at the point where any self-respecting international side needs to equip itself with three teams for increasingly(?) diverse formats of cricket, where today’s norms are smashed into history week by week, the stumpy goalposts have been smash ‘n grabbed – never mind moved.

This is that most unlikely of phenomena the cricket revolution and it continues to spin out the challenges. It has both an undeniable centrifugal force and fascinating implications for coaching and for execution of skills. It’s gonna be a boon to both the Specialist Coach industry and to Bullshitters Ubiquitous. (We’ll all need more experts, allegedly.)

I recall hearing England Coach Trevor Bayliss say something recently about great players being able to perform across codes but great players (by definition) account for a small minority even amongst international exponents of the game. Going forward we can only imagine selection is going to be as much about format as talent, because we move (do we not) increasingly into extremes? Athleticism will of course be ever more non-negotiable in a sexed-up game but players will likely be ultra-groomed for specific roles: Death Bowler; Attack Dog; Infuriating Nurdler. All this as well as international-class core skills.

I don’t see it as a problem that in the case of England only Root springs to mind as a very likely starter in all formats; I see that as a developing consequence of changes in the elite game. Haverfordwest CC may not have to concern themselves too deeply with this uber-horses for uber-courses thing but international coaches will. And their players will then make judgements about what they target; what role(s).

Where this multi-faceted thing leaves Test or longer-form Cricket everywhere is a question. It could be that a not insignificant bi-product of the contemporary urge for positivity on the park is dynamism off it – leading to tough calls over restructuring domestic competition or ‘providing space’ for ‘acclimatisation’/prep/performance of traditional cricket around blocks of white-ball action.

My ole mucker John Lydon railed about anger being an energy; it may be ironic or just plain weird that T20’s and now even 50-over’s punkiness reminds me now of his brilliant subversions. For me, cricket – comfortable or not – does need to feed on this current Youffy Explosion.

Zoom in again, to waaaaay back when, at the beginning of this particular (Pakistan) tour. Note that England got beat in two out of three of the Tests, meaning Farbrace and Bayliss – who clearly return with tremendous credit, generally – have things to think about. Christmas is coming… and so is Boxing Day.

The squad these two sagacious gentlemen picked for the upcoming South Africa tour felt a top seamer and a top spin bowler short, amongst other things; some felt it ‘unbalanced’ and yeh, I got that. The widely discussed Hales Gamble and the selection of Ballance also prompted a degree of malcontentment. There is consensus, at least, that this next venture for England Cricket – to face Steyn and Morkel etc – may tell us a whole lot more about the real strength of Bayliss’s group than the Pakistan games, in all their richnesses, could ever do.

Us Brits may be rejuvenated by Ashes memories and now Action Movie action via the desert. We approach South Africa as Jos Buttler might – with a lump in the throat but a store of confidence we hope to tap into. Huge ask but if England can continue to let their instincts flood through, whilst playing the match situation, who knows what further drama they may unleash?

Sport Transcending.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 2 Comments

 

Minor aside. I was going to write about football for bowlingatvincent.com but couldn’t summon the mood. There are subjects out there – the Chelsea Void, the ongoing van Gaal splutter-which-might-somehow-incredibly-lead-to-a-title, the wonderful Vardy nonsense – but something about the context, the deflating averageness of the Premier League undermines my conviction to really plunge into the stories. Temporary this, I hope.

Then I thought on the obvious; the Buttler Transformation. Magic but na.
Instead I’m going to recount stuff that I hope might just strike a deeper (sorry, pretentious gitdom alert), more inspirational chord with some of you. As I sit looking out over Swansea Bay in sharp sunshine it just seems right to blaze away on Bigger Themes rather than pootle around with transparently forced hypotheses around elite-level footie. And Buttler, Buttler’s been covered.
In any case, sharing something of the small fabulousness of grassy, grassrooty sport feels worthier and more pressing; so that’s where I’m going.

Friday I got up at 6.50a.m. as per and did usual the family stuff. (Dunno about you but this generally involves maybe 20 minutes of washing up whilst cobbling together medium-decent brekkie for t’other three, plus a swift jaunt to ‘look at the sea’ with pooch.)

Critically for me it also meant both trying to picture where a particular school is… and then rehearsing ideas for a first session of cricketstuff for (probably) two groups of kids (probably) aged seven to eleven. Hilarious but true it could even be that I’m visualising ‘capturing’ kids whilst stirring the porridge. In fact I’m pretty certain I am.

I’d not been into this school before. I’d spoken to the Head – whom I’d never met – and he had sounded right up for my pitch re delivering a couple of taster sessions with a view to inviting kids up to further cricket action at the local leisure centre. He’d also skilfully gently inferred that because of the ‘nature’ of his posse, it might be a challenge to actually achieve the transfer of children from (free) school knockabout to a leisure centre charging a not unreasonable £2.50 for the hour. I remember rating his honesty and generosity around this but was clear that there is real value in showing the game(s) at his place irrespective of any targets. I told him that and think this made us mates.

We’re a one-motor family so it was a scramble to get people to various terminals of departure before I could boot down towards the school. I arrived, very nearly a tad late, carrying big, unhelpfully decrepit bags of clobber in coolish drizzle, to be told I ‘needed to be round the corner at the Junior School’.

Given that I’m kindof Old School about being timely and gathered and stuff, this was not good. However, arriving at the destination proper turned out to be one of those rather lovely, confirmatory moments which denied any residual fluster.

The Gaffer met me and was friendly: there was clearly no rush. Within seconds two different people had offered me a brew and a ‘hand with ‘anything.’ The ambience spoke of proper welcome and the environment was visibly (whatever this means – we know what it means!) encouraging. Minor note; I’m a fella with very few prejudices but I’d walked in there wondering, just a little, about baggage in the ether – ‘reputations’.

Because of the tiddly specks outside and the availability of a spanking new and perfectly adequate hall, I bundled my kit inside. Another teacher came to say hello and offer help. Whilst we chatted it became apparent that the weather was breaking for the better and that though it might remain marginal we could go for it outside, on a new, tarmacked space. Outside is better; we engaged Plan B sharpish and I re-gathered to think about first outdoor introductory sessions for feisty kids. It’s cold. It’s grey. It’s okaaaay, actually but best get these guys at it.

So, movement and maybe teamwork and a few giggles. The setting out of a friendly, challenging-in-a-good-way matrix through which we can gambol. Pressing that ‘earthlings you’re gonna have to listen because the games are gonna change’ button. Making even these instructions engaging/dynamic/part of some irrepressible bundle. Do all that pal.

First group comes out. Mix of Year 5 and 6. I launch likeably enthusiastic geezer mode, with a deal based around F.U.N. for ‘top, top listening’.

I think they get me and we shake hands excitedly-metaphorically on a guaranteed smiles-for-listening agreement then off we go. Twenty-five boys and girls passing teddies, beach balls, (spongy) rugby balls and other assorted unthreatening globes to each other as they jog across the space and back, Emily having set the tempo by demonstrating a treble-fabulous and stylish jog immediately before the happy stampede.

It’s chaos but manageably so; it’s undeniably smiley. They do get me. Of course Jonni and Marc are hogging the rugby ball and the expressed aspiration to get everyone in the game is missed, first time out (so reinforce that). But this is great.

‘Earthlings, looking spookily good. But I told you my favourite word is TEEEEEAAAMMM so we have to get the guys who didn’t catch a ball or a teddy in the game. Let’s go again and this time we must pass within three seconds. Go!’

Some thinking going on and some great, energetic movement. Still some daft overthrows but blanket engagement and strikingly good catching – really good catching!

I’m weaving in and out to get those words of encouragement into their faces. ‘WODDA CATCH!’ ‘Ooooff –how’s your nose?!?’ ‘Great hands!’ ‘Blimey, that’s pass of the century!!’

They’re fizzing, almost uniformly – what was that cobblers about ‘challenging kids’? Somebody film this quick; show the Governors, show The Government, show our funders, show EVERYONE!! You watch this develop, now!

‘OK. Next up we can’t go cuddling that teddy; remember how many seconds before we have to pass? Three! And this time we can’t throw to the same partner all the time. This Frankie-Millie/Frankie-Millie/Frankie-Millie thing is now… a no-no. How many seconds before we pass? OK. Go!!’

We shift forwards through a one second interval; in other words catch and pass immeeeeediately. ‘How can we make that baby work, people? What can I do if I don’t have the ball? YES! Communicate! What might I do with my hands? Yes, show them! Because I’m joining in with the team.’

Enough on that warming up, switching on thing. Ball each. ‘Show me some basketball – show me some control as you go. There/back. Tell me what works, how you get some control’.

Then catches and bounces of a zillion kinds, whilst moving – must be moving to crack the cold, to crack the smiles.

I’m in the mix of strikingly co-ordinated ease and refreshingly willing flap, constantly, cos I’m charged with bringing the personality here. The game is everything but I am Agent of Boogie, encouraging fringe-players to break through into the song ’n dance of it – defying them all not to enjoy this daft, doable thing. We’re all lost in the swirl of it and it’s magbloodynificent.

Fifty minutes-worth and done. Revert to pitch about *also* coming out to play at the leisure centre, Tuesday nights. Reassure them Yes! I am here next week. ‘Course I am. They’ve been wonderful.

A break and another, similarly zaptastic group. Teacher asks if some kids from ‘the unit’ can join in – meaning children with issues I may need to consider – and I emphatically assent. Without singling them out I scatter some further encouragement as the group flies around, engaged. It’s magbloodynificent; they are.

It finishes (or actually I call it) after some booming hitting from tees. All of them brimming with their own enormous or enormously minor triumphs. They shared, they clouted, they caught, they couldn’t believe they connected. Take the me thing out of this, here was an absolute model, a goddam advert for the case for sport transcending.

Forget the Premier League. It’s been simply overrun, overshadowed, shrunk – if only for a moment. The world got better here, because these kids accepted my (Cricket Wales, asitappens) offer. They invested in it; they threw it forward and then they caught it. They listened, they were thoughtful and busy and strategic and inventive and there was barely any drift. As they go back in, a teacher is beaming back at them.

Hear that, Bumble.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 2 Comments

@BumbleCricket said some stuff earlier that’s got me thinking. (Read it here, on alloutcricket.com – https://t.co/wk7k4mcJgX by all means, but only after hoovering up my own gloriously fulfilling and not entirely contradictory missive.)

Now I don’t think I’m doing the fella a complete disservice if I paraphrase what he said – I know, diabolical and dodgy thing to do – by reporting Bumble’s reminder that there’s always been choice, always been different stuff to do, and therefore the Big Deal we’re making about player retention and/or dwindling numbers of clubs, matches played or whatever might not, in the great scheme of things, be that Big a Deal. Because a percentage of people have always moved on from the game – made other choices – to chase girls/boys/drink sweet Martini and lemonade, work, or set up a punk band. Always there’s been some (what shall we call it?) drift – nah, implies failure – some expression of choice which may or may not indict the game; always.

Clearly, Mr Lloyd has a point on this. His gravy-boat full, milky-creamily-mashed and treble-fabulous good nature impels him to urge us, in so many words, to leave off with the judgemental stuff and gather a little perspective. Maybe cricket’s really doing okay – challenged by more choices than previously, for sure, flower – but doing okay? He cites the example of clubs which are bouncing with smiling Rooty wannabes, thriving community hubs which can barely manage the influx of diminutive but excited scoopers and reverse-sweepers. These clubs certainly exist, defying any sense of atrophy or retreat.

I’ve never met Bumble but I like the bloke. He seems genuinely authoritative and genuinely authentic; never would you question his love for the game – at all levels. Importantly (or incidentally), he’s from pretty much the same latitude as me, the same spiritual place – that Northern outpost of corny-wonderful faith (in people?) and honesty and (blow me down), hope. Like me, he’s daft about sport.

The senior gym bunny and Accrington Stanley fanatic’s seen and is seeing a whole lot of the umpteen-plus faces of cricket around the country, around the world. It’s great that he’s plainly optimistic, that he has a faith in the durability of the sport, acknowledging as he does the competition from outside.

To further precis his argument, Bumble suggests (inevitably, amongst many other things) that maybe we need to get real regarding the viability of tiny clubs; that we should amalgamate plenty and drive quality and competition through continuing the trend for Premier Leagues, where standards and facilities are good. This in itself increases the viability and/or inviolability of club cricket, which he argues is hardly in crisis but which is challenged by choices – like always.

Some contentious stuff there – I’m immediately reminded of the delightfully teeny village clubs in my area which might be snuffed out under any brutalist gathering of that which is seen to be sustainable. Folks who’ve effectively lived their richly undemonstrative lives through the village club might be stirred to militancy by the thought of ‘healthy amalgamation’, I reckon. (Not Bumble’s phrase, I hasten to add.) Mr Lloyd has unquestionably earned the right to proggle away at our condition, mind, even if this process feels like the opening up of some acute or tender hurting – that’s just gonna happen, needs to happen.

I’m not going to try to unpick all his arguments, however; for one thing I (in the contemporary jargon) ‘hear them’ and another I agree… with some. I’m going to put a few other things out there, another contribution, if you will, to the debate, ideally conducted over a foaming pintabeer in a clubhouse with a spirit-lifting view of mighty trees or swirling rivers or smiling kids. Bumble has been my prompt.

As some of you will know I both volunteer and work in cricket and so irrespective of how bright or stupid I am I do know some stuff about migration, retention and maybe how clubs or regions move or think or identify what’s necessary to survive or hold fast or grow. Weirdly, I’ve actually been reasonably attentive and interested when all this gets discussed by members of our Cricket Wales posse. I/we genuinely do grapple with The Issues (or identifying the Real Issues) and genuinely do try to effect change and progress. We have heaps of information and heaps more in the way of opinion, baggage, ‘knowledge’.

And yet I couldn’t tell you how things compare now with some arbitrary idyll way back in the whatevers, when maybe cricket was on terrestrial TV and summers were long and Botham or Gower or Lloyd or Richards or Sobers was bewitching us or giving us the horn.

There are TV figures available but I doubt we really know what migration of 9-11 year-olds into clubs or retention of players in the 13-17 age-group looked like back in that sunny, simple, unaccountably Child Safety Officer-free era. (My point being that it’s perdy darn near impossible to be sure about whether things are better or worse; that (actually) comparisons between eras are relatively meaningless; that none of this makes intelligent discussion over current, ‘durable’ research an indulgence).

I hear the argument that as the sport has accumulated a layer of Development Officers and Community Coaches, so arguments for Development Projects or Community Coach work are bound to spring up. I hear the fear that (as everywhere?) a squadron of pen-pushers has insinuated its way into ‘cricket’ and is (wilfully or otherwise) banqueting on its blood whilst attempting to drive it forward. I hear the argument (or do I make it, being a coach?) that unleashing more great coaches into schools and clubs would sustain and enrich both the game of cricket and a zillion young lives everywhere and that every last possible penny should be invested in funding and improving coaches and thereby (I promise you) changing lives.

But back to that fella Lloyd. I disagree with Bumble that the lack of cricket on terrestrial TV is insignificant. I’m a real lover of sports but as a low earner I can’t justify coughing up the required £30-40(?) a month for the Sky Sports subscription. I simply can’t. And I can promise you (and him) that in schools I go into there are lots of kids who really don’t know what cricket looks like because they don’t – despite what our friends at the Daily Mail might say to the contrary – have Sky.

This is not to say that these same children would all be cricket mad should the Beeb be showing Test Matches… but I can only imagine that it must be a fact that pay TV reduces levels of exposure, hypothetically and in the real world (if there is one). Cricket costs, meaning it’s therefore beyond the consciousness of many, surely? I think this matters.

For balance – and because it’s true – Sky props up the game financially; a factoid that undermines any anti-capitalist revolutionary zeal we may be harbouring here. But you judge on all that.

Broadly I share Bumble’s genial confidence. I think maybe like him I reckon good folks will find a way. And that it’s the good work of individuals, individually changing lives by timely encouragement or technical tweaking that is the unchanging essence of ‘development’. And that therefore the work I/we do as cricket people needs to be conscious and respectful of not just the facts enshrined in our latest review, but of the uniqueness and power of individual experiences, relevance(s) and needs.

The game is gloriously and maybe increasingly diverse. Whether we agree with Bumble that cricket’s central challenges have remained relatively similar or not, we maybe can – maybe should – look at what we can do, in whatever capacity, to support the game – ‘muck in’. This is going to mean different things in different places. It’s also going to mean tough decisions, maybe unpopular ones like the ones that may be looming around the sustainability of village clubs, become necessary.

Strikes me that Bumble seeks to cut through the concept-fest that our cricket administrators are mud-wrestling in. It’s his way to sort things out witha bitta plain speaking. He knows cricket needs good-hearted people, experienced people on board. I wonder if (less obviously and perhaps less comfortably) he accepts that it will need a quota of lateral thinkers too, to separate sentiment from ongoing vitality.