England cricket

Passing the Stokes Test.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

Amongst the fabulous torrent of superlatives issuing forth after the recent (Stokes?) Lords Test, a common theme emerged. Even the cynics spoke of ‘bathing’ or inferred in some way both the warming and the cleansing of the sport. I, in my provincial innocence, tweeted about the ‘warm afterglow’. We were irresistibly drawn into hopeful and strangely moralistic dangles outside off stump. It was bloody lovely.

The drama itself was top level. Hikes in emotion and that mix of colossal heaving to the boundary and quietly magnificent recovery; both sides contributing. For England fans the possibly epoch-changing gear-change in the batting and the batting line-up. Stokes/Buttler/Moeen Ali. Six seven eight. Not so much an order as a challenge, a warning – an opportunity. For the first time in aeons Our Lot were proper slapping the opposition across the fizzog with a Gunn and Moore gauntlet;

I say. You blackcap people.We’re comin’ to avago… and we think we’re (ahem) ‘ard enough.

Now you don’t have to be a season-ticket-holder at Lords or anywhere else to know that this may not always work out; Ali’s bowling may be a liability/the slash-and-burn positivity may fall on its arris. But after years of talk this felt like the right kind of walk – a hearty, twenty-first century gambol, in fact. Shrewd – clearly Moeen can bat at an opener’s watchful rate if the young bucks get blown away – but essentially liberating. I think that’s where all this warm glow stuff comes from.

For us to have arrived here so immediately after an unrelenting period of negativity and uproar is remarkable. Who’s remembering messy departures and unpromising arrivals now? Who’s even remembering that South African bloke with his flamingo shot? We (because surely we’re entitled to claim some involvement in this – some credit even, right?) we the people have surged forward and up alongside Rooty and Cooky and the New Botham. Something about this New England represents us better and blow me we’re queuing round the block.

This marvellous confluence of form and fight must feel hugely gratifying to both Mr Strauss and the largely unheralded Mr Farbrace. Am I alone in wondering where and how exactly that perennial but thin claim towards positivity turned into Stokes/Buttler/Ali? Was that a Strauss/Farbrace/Cook combo or just the coach, effectively? Whomever or however that may prove to be a big moment – it certainly feels like one.

The beauty of all this upfulness may be that necessary caveats around caution and patience may be reduced to an irrelevance if the side continues to believe. The structure as well as the personnel are in place.  Conditions have changed,freeing up instinctively/naturally bold players to do their thing.  How many times have we heard this spoken of only to be bitterly disappointed come the moment?

There are delicious ironies here – quirks of fate and form and of the game.

Weirdly and wonderfully the loosening of responsibility made possible by the inclusion of classically Test-worthy players like Cook, Ballance (actually, surely?) and Bell, end-stopped by Moeen at eight, really should now produce both results and refreshing, energising cricket. Because Root/Stokes/Buttler have insurance; the blend is there.  Thus trad virtues – early watchfulness/straight bats – beget revolution.

In the gloriously honeyed present it feels as though with the dynamic new era pressures to win may actually fall, as fans buy in enthusiastically to committed, attacking sport.  Punters really will roar approval at the aspiration as well as the execution.  If that isn’t win-win for the management I don’t know what is?

With Cook returning to traditionally superb levels with the bat and Root making a mockery of the notion that this is a serious and difficult business expectations might justifiably rise. But consider how equipped this side now looks to man up and give it some, should they ever be hooo… I dunno… 30-odd for 4. Some bloke with attitude might just sidle on out and not so much counter-attack as lay waste to whatever comes his way. Before you know it the crowd’s behind him and crushing defeat becomes national festival.

This latter phenomenon is a significant boost. Cricket on the front pages; cricket as plainly outstanding sport. The feeling (dare we hope?) that this is only the beginning of a long and spectacular summer for the English game. Even if Tests to come prove too much.

It’s simply illogical to expect even a revitalising England to win series against the mighty Aussies and the pretty damn near mighty South Africans. But that may not matter so much as the permanent switching over into a game that is contingent more on the intelligent expression of talent than the (mere) ‘tactical’ occupation of the crease or use of the time. So even if our batting does underachieve – or more likely the bowling attack proves vulnerable – meaningful progress and great entertainment are feasible if the positive life-force continues to pulse.

What augurs well on this is the change of guard amongst the hierarchy. Those who viewed Strauss as a conservative may have underestimated him. I was amongst those who feared his administration might reflect too closely his rather dour brilliance as a batsman. However the confirmation that Farbrace and above him Bayliss will lead the England posse forward surely implies yet greater dynamism and a closer link to what we might term short-format, ‘aggressive’ philosophies. Strauss has effectively sanctioned this – striking out from his first over – and fair play to him on that.

So there’s a good vibe going. Even in the knowledge that bigger tests approacheth. Bigger tests featuring brash and (probably) moustachioed Australians confident of asking a few questions/getting under our skin/blowing us away. It’s possible. It’s possible but the Bigger Question – there’s always a Bigger Question, right? – is whether we blink.

Will we still believe enough to counter with undeniable force? When the inevitable squeeze is applied? Will we select in order to play that way? Is it too much to ask of Stokes and Buttler that they bury their fear and play with some intelligence but masses of faith? What’s the quality of our commitment?

Following Lords these are live questions – meaning there is some real prospect that the changes are real. Say it quietly to start but England are daring to march. Led unsurprisingly and unflinchingly by Stokes.

Crofty.

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I was about 30 feet away as Dominic Cork, the slickish rather than truly urbane linkman thrust that furry mic into the poor fellah’s face. Crofty, looking a tad drawn after long hours in the field and no doubt more aware than anyone of the poignancy of the moment, drew in visibly and spoke. Not remotely as easily  as is his chirpy wont but, given he was immediately asked effectively to encapsulate a sporting life, he did okay. He then grabbed clumsily for his son’s outstretched hand for an inadequately rehearsed but final clamber up those dressing-room stairs. Tears, as they say, weren’t far away. Real ones, not High Definition jobs.

The small Cardiff crowd – in which I consider myself privileged to have been included – clapped with gusto in that way suggestive of building emotion. We felt entitled to offer up a kind of knowing but all the same deferential appreciation. I heard the words ‘wonderful, Crofty’ aimed like a kiss on the top of his lowered forehead.

All of us knew something quite special was passing. Let’s be clear, the 21 Tests, the 903 First Class/List A/20-20 matches played, the 1673 wickets taken really matter; they just don’t, in themselves, account for the love.

The home side by this stage had all but won the game (against Kent) barring a Glamorgan-scale debacle in their reply, which fortunately failed to materialise. The man himself had taken the final wicket and mostly, the September sun had obligingly produced. Robert Croft – with a one year contract at Glamorgan to do ambassadorial/corporate work and surely genuine possibilities for wider media work – will hardly be disappearing. But he will not, apparently, be bowling. So it felt – it feels – like a shame.

May his legacy (that word again!) persist; infectious, on the pleasing side of jaunty, like his approach to the crease. And on that irresistible nature, a small wager; that reminders to Rob to show some enthusiasm will remain unnecessary; whether working at the Swalec or beyond, in an office or net, the fellah will still bounce in.  He may even appeal.

Crofty I think of as the chopsy poet of off-spin – maybe the chopsy Taff poet – and I view this as complimentary in every detail. I hope he does.

Having attended a workshop he gave to us Regional Coaches and seen him deliver both those absurdly fluent, flighted or flattened right-armers together with informal masterclass-isms for the benefit of us lesser life-forms, I can make surprisingly valid comment upon the man. Spluttering before the cameras I might muster… “he’s a bloody good bloke”. Elsewhere, with time to re-grasp reflections more or less blurred by time or Felinfoel I might suggest an outstanding Welshman, full of that rich mixture of public house verbals and proper sporting sparkle befitting a Premier Grade Dragon. A real player, in fact.

So as not to patronise him entirely with stories of his chummily colourful past let’s reinforce this essential rider; Crofty has performed, with rare diligence and consistency and passion for his beloved Glamorgan. Look at the stats if you will. Consider the fact that he’s often opened the bowling in 20-20’s, for example – an invitation to get humbled for any off-spinner.  Or look elsewhere in the columns, the how many’s. You will find something pretty remarkable. The woolly, immeasurable truth however is surely that few can match either his quality as a slow bowler or his loyalty and commitment to a single cause; very few have matched that combination of gift and heart.

Slow bowlers need a certain guile to go with any spin they may have. Croft personified a further extra-curricular dimension; he was a personality on the pitch. He believed and expressed the belief that body language – the oohs and aahs and OWIZZEE’S as well as the physical whirlings – were key to the armoury.

Tellingly, during the spin workshop – in front of 40-odd coaches uniformly but perhaps unknown to him slightly awed to be in his presence – Croft seemed inconsistently served by words. But when he demonstrated some of this intensity, in alliance with a fluency bordering the bewitching he impacted most fully upon the room. You use that seam – at 45 degrees; you follow through; you engage with the batsman – you get in his head. Like this!

I have a clear memory of leaving with a smile on my face, surer than ever that this occasionally combative professional sportsman might reasonably have the words ‘artist at work’ daubed on the flip-chart at the mouth of his net. He has a quality perhaps best recorded by such graffiti. Plus I suspect he might like the ambiguity – the banter? – such a tribute might evoke.

When relaxed, Croft has that blokey ease found all over; when riled, he is allegedly capable of stubbornness or worse – perhaps especially if he feels the county, the team risks being undermined. But when bowling – when released into the flow of his natural state – Croft (if it doesn’t sound too absurd?) outlives himself. Meaning something to do with poetry occurs; meaning something bigger than Robert Croft occurs.

Whether I am daft or delusional or dynamically charged in this, I hope young spinners in Wales will get some sense of his boundlessly purposeful bound, his zealot’s wheeling. And… enjoy that.

Kids go searching.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I’m no fan of Kevin Pietersen and never have been; I’ve never believed in him. I know plenty of folks think he’s a genius, a rare and special talent who’s simply been mismanaged but in accepting the bulk of that statement I reject him, utterly.

If the Steve Harmison story is true about KP flatly refusing to take throw-downs from senior England coaches then let that be my reason. If it’s not, let it be that I think his arrogance and his consistent failure to think of his mates and that team-thing marks him down as a… luxury item.

But hey guess what? Recently I’ve been ploughing through ECB Coaching Workshops and the thought struck me that KP – yes him with the ego – might have done something which may yet turn out to be profoundly positive. Maybe.

Between the Level 2 ECB Coaching Certificate and the new Performance strata there now lies a bunch of workshops. These are important in that they set out a good deal of the new ideology around coaching cricket in England and Wales. (Ideology? Oh YEAH, you better believe it.)

In the last eighteen months or so, following an epic lump of research, sports-scientific wotnots and cross-bi-lateral oojamiflips, the ECB has re-emerged from the swamp. Or should that be… the nets? There’s been a fascinating and genuinely radical shift in the thrust of coaching. Personally – and maybe I should be careful with what I say – I reckon you can feel the hand of the Sports Development Militias in it and you can certainly taste the political correctness of the era; neither of which is necessarily bad. But with generic views may come the occlusion of that which is unique to cricket.

The titles alone, of some of these workshops (and the fact that they are known as workshops, eh?) may tell you much of what you need to know. “Creating the Learning Climate for Children”. “Game-based Learning.” “Skill Development for Children”. Cutting through the inevitable (and inevitably transient) verbiage, there’s a powerful move towards ‘player-centred’ coaching, going way beyond tokenism towards the individual. This is big, ideologically-driven stuff aimed at making coaches work more about the player and less about the recall or display of their own cricket knowledge. I think some of this may have been prompted by KP, whose profile has been such that he could, conceivably, be a catalyst here.

Those last two paragraphs may have had too much cynicism lurking so let me immediately contradict. Or at least re-calibrate the tone. The changes are huge, or will feel that way to coaches brought through previous regimes – regimes which have themselves been rotated or cheese-grated through development over the years. But (genuinely) my experience of Cricket Wales/ECB Coach Education (and therefore my sense of the philosophical intent) has been both encouraging and challenging in a good way. Surprisingly perhaps, things feel quite dynamic back there. People seem to be alive to the need to transform; rapidly.

But back to KP. I’m guessing that opinions in the ECB hierarchy are about as divided when it comes to Pietersen as they are in the general population. In a private space 60% would describe him with a brisk four letter word – a recent former England skipper did exactly that, you may remember.

38% would say it doesn’t matter what we think of him or his methods – ‘e dun it on the pitch’. The remainder would splutter into their Pimms. What is interesting to me is that having seen/sat through these workshops, the voice of KP –in fact the noise that KP makes- about ‘not coaching talent out of kids’ booms out. Credit the ECB that he is the first face turned to the camera in a key video on skill development.

Predictably, Pietersen goes straight into his ‘Bell plays classically, I don’t: don’t go coaching kids there’s just the one way’ argument. Understandably. Justifiably. But it’s almost as if in their scramble to appease the twin-headed monster at shortish mid-off (Pietersen/the multi-sports-conversant, child-centred modernist and funder?) the ECB have changed everything. Perhaps, being broadsheet-reading, report-assimilating types they fear being called out for old fart-dom? Perhaps they are high on that elixir of the coaching industry age, branding – branding in the sense of renaming, re-infusing with sexy new jargon rather than psychotic (aaaaargh!!) market-driven branding.

This is certainly how the swing away from the previously central notion of (accepting the validity of) certain ‘Technical Models’ feels to many coaches who qualified pre-, say, 2012. Many are cynical. I am not, despite how this might sound. I view this stuff as a healthy challenge.

If Pietersen has bullied us into reviewing the very essence of coaching that is remarkable. That has happened. The talk is of ‘Core Principles’ now not ‘feet shoulder-width apart and blah-di-blah high elbow’. Skill is successful execution not necessarily a particular movement pattern. Players finding things and coaches asking questions are central. The essence of ECB coaching is bravely empowering… and that’s good.

Now because I don’t like the man I’m reluctant to give KP too much credit in this but the fact is too many coaches did have a very fixed idea of what skill looks like and they bored generations of twitching, net-bound youngsters with those ungenerous notions. They can’t get away with that now. The newer, younger coach on the block will either call them out or intervene, as I do, when somebody is saying too much/presenting 44 ideas not four to a group of nine year-olds.

So KP as crusader, then? Hardly. The man’s a tad more fixated on his image, his contracts and the most efficient route to the limelight for that. But he has stirred it, made his point and rendered this debate necessary. That’s a singular contribution.

It may be that the new, updated ECB risks alienating traditionalists and fails to address finer, technical points; I’ve heard it said that there are gaps in the essential knowledge, that ‘Core Principles’ are all very well but what, precisely do you as a coach fall back on when a particular skill proves beyond a child? Generic answers aren’t always viable.

I’m hoping the ECB have thought of this. But it may just be that they are choosing to let kids go searching.

 

@cricketmanwales is proud to work for @cricketwales. But these views are his only, right?