Sack the lot of them?

Ah well it’s so easy to sit at a keyboard 11k miles away, having never played the game at a standard above the lowest leagues and even this over twenty years ago.  What the fuck do I know? 

Let’s start with the good bits, the bowlers done pretty well.  Mark Wood had the kind of series we all hoped he could, Broad and Robinson bowled well, Jimmy was Jimmy.  But (and here things start to go downhill…) as good as he is at home Chris Woakes is not the type of bowler to do well in Australia.  Jack Leach done okay at times but like all the bowlers he suffered from mismanagement.  And for much of the series England’s fielding was not test standard, slip catching was particularly poor.  With terrible selections and butter fingered fielders it’s a wonder the bowlers done as well as they did.

Then there’s the batting…

Not quite two years ago, England won a test series in South Africa with young players contributing, the future of the test team looked assured.  But none of them have pushed on; Crawley, Sibley Buttler, Bairstow, Burns and Pope have just been treading water and recent re-additions like Hameed and Malan haven’t nailed down a place either.  The England teams of the nineties are much maligned but those batting line ups were much better than the recent ones.  The likes of Butcher, Gatting, Smith and Hussein were better players let alone Atherton, Stewart and Gooch.  The last England team to win down under had Matt Prior batting at seven and keeping wicket; he averaged higher than any current England player except Joe Root as did all of that batting line up.

Halfway through the series I was thinking “sack the lot of them” but then who else do we pick?  It seems like there are very few options out there, for example statistics say the best two openers in county cricket are Burns and Sibley.  This pair aren’t any better nor worse than Hameed and Crawley, I’d be surprised if it isn’t these two who open the batting in the Caribbean.  Who else is there?

What is certain is Root and Stokes are always going to play and with his ton in Sydney, Bairstow has once again done just enough to hang onto his spot.  We hope this is the beginning of a late career surge for JB but fear we’ll see many more examples of how not to play a straight ball. 

This still leaves two more batting spots to fill but I can’t see how Joss Buttler can be one of them.  Nice bloke but it’s time he went out to white ball pasture, he’s had enough chances.  I suppose the next in line for a middle order bat is Dan Lawrence but from what I’ve seen he doesn’t look like a permanent fixture.  English pundits purr when speaking of Ollie Pope but he hasn’t made the grade yet, why not give Sam Billings a go?  Will someone like James Vince get a recall?  If there’s no one else then why the hell not?  When it comes to keeping wicket, just pick Ben Foakes FFS!

What bothers me most is England’s brains trust.  The lack of preparation before the first test could be excused by unlikely weather and a Covid world but the truth is two inter squad matches was, is and will always be inadequate practice for an Ashes series.  This was a failure at the planning stage and is inexcusable, the team was handicapped before a ball was bowled.  Joe Root’s captaincy has developed to the point where we can now call him average, on a good day.  As leader he had a few days this tour which were far from good. 

Since Ed Smith’s surprise sacking, England’s selections have been baffling and the team’s overall performance is getting worse.  For this trip down under we took two players who were only ever going to be drinks carriers and never looked like playing.  At least Overton and Lawrence’s reputations haven’t diminished which is good for them at least.  The biggest management cock up of all has been the bizarre selections or more to the point, non selections.  I’m all for ‘horses for courses’ but only if they pick the right fucking horse!

The whole tour can be defined by the first morning in Brisbane where we left out our world class tall fast bowler then won the toss on a green pitch under cloudy skies and elected to bat.  The Ashes series was effectively over after one ball.  Those responsible for these decisions are not fit to be working in the world of international cricket and it’s here the blame lies for what happened over the five matches that followed.  For this and for his consistent ability to talk trite bollocks Chris Silverwood must resign.  At least he'll show people he's got more self respect than our lying, racist Prime Minister.

XI for first test vs West Indies;

Crawley, Hameed, Bairstow, Root, Stokes, Lawrence, Foakes, Wood, Robinson, Broad, Leach.

Why we Kneel, how we Rise by Michael Holding

Michael Holding, one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time and part of the greatest Test cricket team we’ve seen.  Latterly an unmistakable and intelligent voice on cricket media.  In short a hero for me.

The book stems from a rain break in play in a test match between England and West Indies, with BLM in the news Holding gave an emotional interview to which people responded in their thousands.  A seed was planted and a book became reality.

As a parent to mixed race kids I thought I was pretty clued up with the subject, it turns out I didn’t know very much at all.  The book educated me, saddened me and shocked me.

I’ve never really understood “Black history month” and it is only now that I realise just how much is being ignored.  In the history taught to British children, black people only enter the picture with slavery, all the civilisations before this are ignored.  Since slavery most black history has been edited out, both the cruelties of white imperial rule as well as the achievements of black individuals.  Yes we’re taught a bit about MLK and 60’s civil rights but that is it.

There were so many stories of appalling behaviour by white people (though I want to add a distinction- historically white people of the upper class.  Their attitude was in turn taught to ordinary white people) throughout.

Holding’s distinctive voice comes through, as does his passion and anger but he is not a writer.  He has enlisted Ed Hawkins as ghost writer and spoke to other prominent black athletes who are quoted in various chapters.

This book is a polite answer to the frightened people who say “All lives matter”.  This is a book that everyone should read but sadly the people who really need to read it most are the ones that won’t.

Great Britain in 2021 (AKA Horrible Histories 2021)

January 

The good news was short, the world finally said goodbye to Trump whose insane presidency came to an end but not before he incited his cult who, led by a man wearing a buffalo head, stormed the US capitol building in a probably accidental attempt to overthrow what they call democracy.  When the melee had ended five people were dead.  Over the following months many people were imprisoned for their actions and for his call to arms, Trump was punished with a lifetime ban from social media...  The US media went mental claiming the storming was “terrorism”; it wasn’t, it was a riot.  It was also described as an “attack on democracy” which it possibly could have been if the US was as democratic as it pretends, which it isn’t, obviously. 

Meanwhile back in Airstrip One Covid was still rife, the prime minister AKA Cat Funt assured us everything was fine and kids could return to school.  Within hours he’d performed another expert U turn (well he does practice a lot) and put us back into another strict lockdown.  By the end of the first week of 2021 it had become obvious that the government’s recent policies had allowed millions to become infected and thousands more would die.

In other news there was a short lived scandal over how much profit capitalist bastards could make out of a school meal that was allegedly worth £30.  Mail readers went into hysteria on discovery that young people, starved for months of casual sex were gathering together to party.  But things did start to look up, in the US Trump was finally led away and was replaced by Old Joe who looked barely alive, also Covid vaccines began to be delivered (i.e. injected into people’s arms), at last there was hope that Covid could be consigned to history.

February

At the beginning of the month the country got together to mourn the passing of the anti Covid poster boy, poor old Captain Tom who sadly and ironically succumbed to the virus.  His passing was a genuinely sad event but the fact this was an unquestionable public example of government mishandling was ignored, as were the 110 000 other Covid deaths.

In early February the country was bombarded by a foot of snow which is kind of normal for the far north where in a scene reminiscent of 1970’s Moscow people formed long shivering queues for the foodbank but obviously a crippling disaster for the south where the herd rejoiced and gathered together to pelt each other with frozen projectiles and give the virus spread a much needed boost.

A Tory MP called Sir Charles Walker gave an extraordinary interview in which he basically said we should stop lockdowns and let people die of Covid.  This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as he is a Tory and it was Cat Funt’s preferred strategy all along.  Walker’s hideous outburst was prompted by debate about travel and the herd’s right to have a holiday.  If your two weeks burning under a hot sun really is the highlight of your year then you really should question your values and priorities in life.  A day or two later it a group of 63 Tory back benchers (dictionary definition – complete cunts) started to campaign loudly for an immediate end to anything that might keep people safe.

It was alleged that Health secretary Halfcock had broken the law when giving billions of pounds worth of contracts to his mates, meanwhile the Dark/Silent Knight, (apparently the leader of the opposition) looked the other way as did the country’s media.  All pretence of democracy was shattered but the herd didn’t care as they waited with bated and fetid breath to learn when they could go back to the pub.

After weeks of promising a roadmap Cat Funt waddled up to the podium and unfurled a large sheet of paper he’d picked up free from a Little Chef in 1989.  After consulting with an embarrassed looking aide he then stuffed it back into a pocket, stared cross-eyed into an autocue and started revealing someone else’s grand plan for leading the country out of lockdown.  This all made perfect sense, especially when Funt reiterated that it wasn’t safe for people to be meeting in groups until the end of March but children would be able to return to schools in a fortnight.

March

At some point early last year the ginger Prince and his ride announced royal life wasn’t for them and disappeared to California, then Covid was born and the world went mad.  By March’21 there was finally room in the media for royalty so Ginge and ride went on US TV and had a whinge about their life of wealth, privilege and luxury.  In response Piers Morgan quit as leader of the opposition and decided to freelance as a gobshite cunt for hire. 

A young woman went missing in London.  When her body was discovered it transpired that she’d been murdered by a serving policeman.  Protests held in response saw women handled (literally) with blunt force by metropolitan police.

This was enough news to enable Cat Funt to escape any undue(?) attention from the media.  The Covid death toll passed 150k* in the UK but vaccinations were being given at a rate well over half a million per day. (* This figure was constantly manipulated, usually downwards, throughout the year).

April

After being secretly ill for some time Prince Phillip died and was mourned by many, notably Mail readers and TV comedians who would have to work harder for a cheap gag in future.  Despite being a passive republican I can’t help having a bit of admiration for the old goat and it must have been hard for Queenie burying him amidst all the Covid restrictions.

Football, the national religion threatened civil war as the top clubs were being lured into a league with those bastards in Europe.  Widespread hysteria and public outcry postponed the move for another year at least but get used to the idea footy fans it’ll happen one of these days.

One of the Prime Minister’s very many dodgy deals had become a little too obvious so the electoral commission began investigating Cat Funt’s wallpaper.  One question was ‘Who actually paid for it?’ another is who the fuck needs paper that costs £840 a roll?

In the US it was comparatively quiet compared to the laugh a minute ride of the Trump era (Just lots of deaths by car crash, winter storms, Covid and gun rampage) but in April the cop who murdered George Floyd was found guilty and locked up. 

Lockdown eased a little or more importantly for a few, the money started to come in a little faster again.

May

The Navy was called in to referee a skirmish between French and British fisherman who were arguing over scallops or something. 

The so called Labour party done abysmally in local elections, they even managed to lose the Hartlepool by election so Sir Prick Starmer blamed everyone else and cried.  There was a brief skirmish with the fire head but the two were separated before she could rip his balls off.  (NB assuming a- he has any and b- she could find them.)  However Labour candidate Sadiq Khan was re-elected as London Mayor.  Khan is a divisive figure due mostly to the colour of his skin.  What a sad, corrupt shower of shit the Labour party has become again, bastards in sheep’s clothing.

The BBC was investigating an interview that took place a quarter of a century ago but is still relevant because it involved a royal who everyone loved, then despised then loved again after she was killed.  A conclusion was reached but it was all an irrelevant use of licence money.

In a sign of the high street dying in this Covid blighted world Debenhams closed its doors for the last time.  Although obviously a sad event it was celebrated in private by hen pecked husbands all over the country.

The odious Dominic Cummings began his revenge by acting out of character and making statements that might somehow resemble the truth about what really happened behind the closed doors of Cat Funt’s government.  In truth he said nothing that wasn’t already obvious to anyone with half a brain.  People who defended him a year ago attacked with vigour and vice versa.  Cummings drip fed his revelations throughout the year, he told us nothing we didn’t already know but was a prick in Cat Funt’s arse and made the PM look a little more unkempt and uncomfortable.  Cummings had no real effect because everyone despises him and the government were able to talk it away with “waffle, waffle sour grapes waffle…”

Lockdown eased a little more.

 

June

On the first of the month nobody was reported as having died from Covid, the first time this had happened since March 2020.  By now just about everyone who wanted a jab had received at least one.

A convicted child killer was released from prison after 33 years (but he was locked up again by the end of the year) which partially hid the news that the high court had declared the government had broken the law by handing half a million pound contracts to friends of Cummings.  Tip of the fucking iceberg.

Cat Funt met an American pensioner in Cornwall.  Apparently these are the leaders of the free world which if actually correct would have been truly frightening.

Having comfortably beaten England over two matches, New Zealand then defeated India to deservedly win the inaugural World Test championship.  In doing so they demonstrated skill and sportsmanship that would not be rivalled during the English sporting summer.

Halfcock uttered some routine shit but by the end of the month was all over the news due to his resignation.  This long overdue departure was not down to incompetence, corruption or 150k people dead but was in fact caused by him being caught fucking a servant.  Halfcock then declared he was actually in love with the soon to be forgotten servant so after deserting his family the two of them skipped off into a meadow of wild flowers whilst holding hands.  They were both the tragically killed when a farmer drenched them in ‘Round up’.  *The last sentence may well be wishful thinking.

By the end of the month the people of England were disregarding their ambivalence and grabbing seats on the bandwagon as the national football team progressed onwards with increasing momentum through the Euro tournament.  In Scotland the population queued to get into fallout shelters.

In the US Bill Cosby’s conviction for fucking the wrong person(s)was over turned begging the questions; Is he innocent or did he get away with it?

In Suffolk a family went into mourning when the matriarch passed away.

July

Football mania continued to grip the country and groups of intoxicated people roamed the streets issuing loud grunts in a form of chant.  Roughly translated it sounded like “is caarmin ome” and was repeated until the grunter was overcome by delirium.  Ultimately England done well to reach the final against Italy where they were beaten by a better team, in truth had we won on penalties it would have been a travesty.  In the aftermath the English football fans displayed great restraint and intelligence when they attacked Italians and abused the non white members of their own team.

Football hysteria almost hid the news that Southern Water were fined £90 million for illegally dumping 21 billion tonnes of raw sewage over a five year period.  By the end of the year Cat Funt had eased the laws to make dumping shit in our rivers if not legal then certainly more difficult to punish.  Funt couldn’t tell what the fuss was all about, everyone knows water comes in a bottle with some French writing on it.

In mid-July Cat Funt ended all Covid restrictions, basically saying the virus isn’t going away and you plebs must learn to live with it so best of British luck to you.  Morons celebrated what they (and only they) called ‘Freedom day’, oblivious to any irony or offence taken by people who never took freedom for granted anyway.

Live music returned to festival stages which meant thousands of people could build squalid shanty towns, get wasted and huddle together in fields or sweaty airless tents.  It seemed neither real nor sensible and we really were dancing in the dark but by God I needed that.

But there was some funny stuff going on as well!  UNESCO realised that Liverpool really is a shithole after all and withdrew some meaningless accolade or other.  Labour MP Dawn Butler was ejected from parliament for repeatedly telling the truth, in this case she was calling Cat Funt a liar and the celebrity racist currently calling himself Tommy Robinson was ordered to pay a Syrian schoolboy £100k in damages after losing a libel case.

The Olympics took place in Tokyo despite being a bit late it all went rather well.

August

Britain’s were able to go on holiday so did so and nothing much happened.  Had there been any news then the royal previously known as ‘Randy Andy’ might have got away with being indicted in a sexual abuse case.

Someone went metal with a gun in Plymouth which made most of us even more relieved that we don’t have similar gun laws to those idiots on the other side of the Atlantic.

But in Afghanistan the shit was really hitting the chinook’s blades.  The dreaded Taliban, bearded bogeymen with evil intent were rapidly recapturing territory previously held by the US/ Afghan puppet government.  Old Joe had pulled the troops out and the Stan was going back to the way it was before it had become a scapegoat for terrorism.  But tragically it means that hundreds of British soldiers died for nothing other than political whim.  Thousands of refugees then tried to scramble out of the country, looking for freedom in the countries that ‘helped’ them and where they will not find a friendly welcome.

September

Mail readers found themselves in a state of anxious confusion due to the success of a British woman in the US open Tennis.  (NB Tennis is a type of sport played by the upper middle class (i.e. can’t afford a polo pony) and those afraid of a cricket ball).  Celebrations of success were muted somewhat by discovering the winner was an immigrant with dark skinned parents.

Also in the US, former ‘singer’ R Kelly was found guilty of sticking his cock into people and places he shouldn’t and was presumably sent to prison.

The only other story in this month concerned petrol.  A media report led to panic buying, this in turn led to more media coverage and more panic buying, by the end of the month supplies were running out and we were wondering if we’d be able to take our cars out at all.  Once again the great British public demonstrated brainless sheep like behaviour and some scenes posted to social media would have been funny in other circumstances.  No one is quite sure what caused the shortage but it was absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, honestly!  According to those hard of thinking at least.  What is for certain is prices rose rapidly thereafter and haven’t returned to ‘normal’ so once more we’d been kicked in the wallet.

Also one of Randy Andy’s legitimate kids spawned another privileged brat and Katie Price was hospitalised in a car crash despite the ample air bags.

October

The beginning of the month heavy rain in London which brought flooding to Kensington and Knightsbridge but unfortunately this did minimal damage and they all drive 4WD round there anyway.

Attempts to restart the various careers of renowned village idiot and disgraced Tory Matt Halfcock stalled before they got off the ground which was probably for the best but means we don’t get to see the fuckwitt crash and burn once more.

David Ames, a relatively benign and popular Tory PM was stabbed to death by a nutter.  The media immediately seized upon the ethnicity of the murderer.  Cat Funt paid tribute after someone reminded him who Ames was.

In the US Brittney Spears was making headlines as it appears she isn’t batshit after all.  I wish her all the very best as long as she doesn’t start singing again.  Also Facebook announced it was changing its name to Meta, probably to help us forget all the bad publicity of recent times.

Climate activists began gluing themselves to roads in a misguided attempt to highlight what we used to call Global warming.  Sadly their actions, though newsworthy, probably done their cause more harm than good.

Meanwhile Covid (like the Taliban) was still lurking in the shadows waiting for people to drop their guard.

November

Throughout the first part of the month scientists, aliens and “world leaders” were gathered together in Glasgow to take part in a publicity stunt designed to assure people that they were interested in healing the planet.  Actually the largest group of people at this event were lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry and this fact alone tells us how effective COP26 actually was.  It was a cynical PR stunt and was rightly called out as such by Saint Greta amongst others.

Also crooked MP Owen Patterson resigned after he narrowly failed to get away with being a corrupt, self-preserving, greedy Tory bastard.  This led to bastard politicians coming under much more intense public scrutiny about their routinely corrupt undertakings and Cat Funt himself felt plenty of heat although not enough to finally roast the bastard.  MP’s took up a fully defensive position and hoped they could keep their heads down until Xmas when everyone would get pissed and forget.

In Liverpool a potential suicide bomber tried to disrupt Remembrance Sunday, he succeeded in killing himself but thankfully other people received only minor injuries. 

The great sport of Cricket beat itself up with allegations of racism, at first these were brushed under the carpet then came bursting back with the promise of better processes in the future.  But with anything the media sinks its teeth into we next witnessed a witch hunt that may do more harm than good.  The guilty will be punished but how can anyone be judged when our own PM has a published racist past? 

In a similar vein over in the U S of Mad a white teenager was acquitted of murdering two unarmed black lives protestors despite being filmed doing so.  Throughout the year there have been countless incidents of people of colour being shot by police.

A snow storm with high winds hit the north of England causing two deaths and a shit load of problems.  People in the south only became aware of this when “I’m a celebrity…” was postponed.

A boatload of refugees/asylum seekers capsized in the channel leading to thirty deaths and widespread celebration amongst Mail readers.  How dare these people attempt to illegally enter the country which helped to bomb them out of their own homes?!

Covid started to flex its muscles again with the introduction of a new variant from Africa (where else?)  Cat Funt responded by belatedly restricting flights and making masks in shops and buses mandatory again.  Thankfully

December

Just when you thought things possibly couldn’t get any worse ‘Omicron’ arrived.  It sounded like a villain in a crap sci-fi film but was actually Covid’s revenge.  As December helplessly ground on, infection figures soared, sporting and music events were cancelled and the hospitals got very busy.

Cat Funt took to the airwaves, would he do the right thing and lockdown again?  Of course not, he hasn’t got the bottle, instead he rattled on about booster jabs and looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself.  Perhaps he was savouring time away from infant crying and shitty nappies as his whore had just shat out another child of privilege although you couldn’t technically call this one a bastard.

As the second anniversary of Cat Funt’s election passed many people suddenly woke up to what was obvious all along; the man is totally unfit to lead anything more complicated than a conga line.  He is blatantly lazy and arrogant, he is obviously untrustworthy and misogynistic, he is a published racist and homophobe.  In a by election the Tory bastards lost a Shropshire seat they’d held for 200 years, even his own party started to turn against him.

(Around this time an idiot on social media, who could not admit he could be wrong and may have misjudged Cat Funt, blamed the whore claiming the PM had changed since he got married.  He’s been the same for over twenty years you stupid fucking wanker.  Glad I got that off me chest.)

Also in December cricket fans were uncomfortably compared to Tory voters in showing blind faith in their idols despite all of the contrary evidence.  Realisation dawned; this is the worst England team (or at least batting line up) in living memory.

The story about Downing street Xmas parties wouldn’t go away either, when it was revealed the man charged with investigating actually attended one.  The spawn of Robert Maxwell was convicted of sex crimes which could in turn lead to Randy Windsor’s head being placed on the block.  At this point you start to wonder if we’re living in an elaborate reality show written by Mel Brooks.

In 2021 the English celebrated a normal Christmas and new year (Wales and Scotland were criticised for being sensible); mingling with family, loved ones and people they can barely tolerate for one day a year.  The result of this was another massive rise in Covid cases which had reached 190k per day by the end of the year and we now await the inevitable death toll carnage sure to descend in New Year.

At the end of the year in which Afghanistan was abandoned, Britain felt the need to demonstrate just how far human kind has regressed and how far it’s possible to stretch irony by awarding a knighthood to the renowned liar and war criminal Tony Blair.  This honour has previously been bestowed on the likes of Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, Philip Green and that cunt Rod Stewart.

 

So here we are, 2022, Jesus fucking Christ, despite being vaccinated with hope we are in an even worse position than we were twelve months ago.  This year the government isn’t even pretending to try and protect the citizens.  Also I wonder if being jabbed three times isn’t enough to prevent infection then what was the point?  Was it all just a publicity stunt?  Assuming we’re not crippled by the latest wave of Covid we’ve then got to deal with living in an openly corrupt society, surrounded by the living brain dead and governed by crooked cunts.  

But what can we do?  We can’t be unaware of what’s going on but we can notice the humour in it all and try to block out the bollocks.  We can try to ignore the bullshit, it works for me, most of the time.  Remember the acquisition of possessions in pursuit of status will not make you happy, ignore that shit.  If you pay tax don’t condone Amazon, boycott it.  Just concentrate on the people you love and spend time doing the things you enjoy most.  Come together.  When the time comes vote for change.  Happy new year.

Bowl first version

Sometimes it seems like we’re not experiencing real cricket being beamed back to us from down under, what we are seeing/hearing is some kind of scam, we are actually watching the same match over and over again.  No that’s wrong, there are actually two matches, one in which England bat first and the other when we bowl.  But in both versions of this game we are soundly thrashed while Australia crows unbearably.

In Adelaide we had the bowl first version and the actors stuck to the script perfectly.  The bowlers do their jobs well but are let down by piss poor fielding.  As the innings stretches on and on everything goes to shit and the ball is smashed to all parts.  England bat, a couple of quick wickets but then consolidation of sorts for a session or two before the inevitable collapse.  Australia extend their already massive lead and rub our noses in it.  Two days to go, heavy defeat beckons, the only question is day four or day five?

It isn’t as painful as it once was, experience has made me numb.  Predictable isn’t the word, we know what’s going to happen, it’s always the bloody same.

Decisions, decisions

It’s the hope that kills you.  Yesterday morning I’d pressed the cricinfo button score expecting the worst but had to do a wide eyed, smiling double take when I saw England had reached 220-2.  This morning I delayed switching on the radio as ‘not knowing’ would mean my delusions would stay real for a while longer.  When I did tune in the news was no less sickening for being expected.  At least we’d taken it into the fourth day and made them bat again, briefly.  That’s it then, the Ashes are as good as over for another couple of years.  Unless we can win in Adelaide, then it’s game on again…  It’s the hope that kills you.

Decisions, decisions.  Even before hindsight the choices made for England’s bowling attack were just stupid.  Tall, experienced fast bowler with 500+ test wickets left out?  This is the kind of decision that should see people sacked.  Quirky team selections have become a feature of the Silverwood tenure, none of them have worked as far as I can remember.  And why are Bairstow and Overton even there?  If either ends up playing then we really are in the shit.  Looking at the squad almost half could be playing for their test futures.  Now is the time for Burns and Buttler in particular to step up and show us they are match winning test players, up until now they’ve done just enough to keep their places.

You can almost forgive Root for electing to bat, given the grief Nasser gets to this day for his decision in 2002.  It really was a good toss to lose but having won it, given the team selection he was only ever going to bat.  Despite the evidence of the green strip in front of him.  England’s strategy was obviously wrong, decisions made before a ball was bowled or a coin was even tossed.

Most frustrating of all is the lack of preparation.  England have started every recent test series under prepared and have to play catch up.  The management need to stand up for the players and insist on proper preparation, we need to play tough cricket before the start of a test series.  This is fucking obvious and has been so for some time.  If England are to win consistently then they have to give themselves a chance or at least stop handicapping themselves.  Starting at Adelaide on Thursday...

It was somehow inevitable...

Sitting up for the Ashes with TMS as my connection to the Gabba.  There are lots of English accents in the commentary team which is a relief, familiar voices, Aggers and Mann, old friends in conversation again and Jim Maxwell is always welcome.  Its day one in Brisbane, you absolutely have to bat don’t you?  No choice, look what they said about Nasser in 2002…

But the sky is cloudy, the pitch is green and there are storms about, maybe a good day for Broad to rip through them?  But Broad isn’t playing…  That just feels wrong.

1130 GMT  Root wins the toss and elects to bat, half an hour until the start, anticipation mounts, my nerves start to tingle, bloody cricket!  I’m waiting to hear the start of England’s innings, why?  It's the Ashes! But what do I have to gain?  At best we’ll be about 20/0 by the time I switch off and turn in.  But somehow I just know that isn’t going to happen.  What I’m really thinking is ‘how bad will it be?’  I’m staying up to face my fears.

Here we go…  Ashes first day first ball, Burns bowled leg stump.  FFS  It was almost inevitable…

Keep the faith!  Malan and Hameed both pick up boundaries and I start to breathe again… but then Malan is out!  11-2.  Here we fucking go again…  By the time I’ve brushed my teeth Root has gone for a duck, fuck this I’m going to bed.

Awake before the alarm, I need a piss and there’s no point in going back to bed afterwards.  I switch on the radio…  147 all out when rain stopped play.  I expected worse.

I try to be fair on England, their preparation was non existent due to both schedule and weather and the latter may yet save them in this match.  We’ve been in worse positions in recent Ashes then come back to win but that really was a miracle.  And Australia are yet to bat, but we know they’ll make 350 and fucking Warner will score a ton.

But really given the lack of practice, the pitch and the weather surely pick Broad bowl first and ease into the game?  Was Root’s decision influenced by the ghost of Nasser and the choice he made twenty years ago?

Despite everything I’m tempted to stay up again tonight but on the other hand I’m knackered.  Ashes bloody cricket, it’s a love/hate affair on all levels.

Cricket isn't racist

We’re less than a week from another Ashes series down under but we’ve all the shite that’s gone on in the world since the last home series in 2019 even this pinnacle of sporting events holds less significance in my life than it once did.  Once it starts I’ll be willing England to do well, my ‘favourite’ Ashes win is the 2010/11 series down under, oh how I enjoyed that!  On that tour, led by Strauss, England had three tough preparation games against decent state sides which allowed them to become battle hardened.  Unsurprisingly this kind of preparation has not been made available on subsequent tours so this time England opted to play against themselves by including members of the Lions squad.  Unfortunately bad weather meant there was little actual play and England will go into the first test under cooked.

Australia have been disrupted too but they are and always will be difficult to beat at home, England need their best XI on the field at the top of their games if they are to stand a chance.  If Jofra Archer had made the trip I’d be more hopeful.  But I think we do have a better chance than four years ago, we certainly have a better bowling attack with height from Broad and Robinson along with pace from Wood and Stokes,as well as skill and accuracy from Anderson and Woakes.  As usual it won’t matter what the bowlers do if we can’t score 400+ runs regularly, our batting relies too heavily on Joe Root and that could well be the problem if other batsmen can’t stand up and make a name for themselves.

The first test at Brisbane is always crucial, if England lose at the Gabba then I don’t think we can come back even over a five test series.  If we avoid defeat then the pressure of expectation will transfer and we are in with a shout.  The traditional Gabba wicket will be fast and bouncy so England should pick a team that suits which for me would mean leaving out a legend, even if just for this one match.

Burns, Hameed, Malan, Root, Stokes, Pope, Buttler, Wood, Robinson, Broad, Leach.

England players may have been further distracted by events at home and cricket fans can’t have missed the great furore of recent weeks, it seems true to say that former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq was treated badly by his county and with ignorance by some of his colleagues.  But is it fair to brand cricket in this country as racist?  I don’t think so.

The situation at Yorkshire CC looks bad and for the outsider it’s not hard to believe there would be prejudice at a county club that has had internal strife for as long as I can remember.  All the stars of the sixties were renowned for bickering amongst themselves and at least two famous captains left the club to play elsewhere.  The Yorkshire spirit of stubbornness, abrasiveness and blind faith obviously carries on today, Gary Balance in particular comes across as a pig and I wonder if his exclusion from the England set up was based purely on form.  It’s easy to believe in back room wrongdoings and plain racism at Headingly when the number of British Asians who have represented the county is so embarrassingly low.

But as with anything in life when the media gets involved things go to shit and the witch hunt was inevitable.  Somewhere there are faceless mercenary scum in ‘Fleet Street’ trawling reams of historic social media in the hope of finding a tree from which to lynch someone.  The result is many embarrassed players and ex players having to apologise for ignorant utterances that only have meaning when given full context.  These comments are stupid, ignorant, misguided, probably drunken and not remotely funny but not enough to brand these people racist, which in many cases might be unfair.

Michael Vaughan was named by Rafiq and further evidence supported the claims that were made.  Vaughan’s initial response did little to help, it was ill judged and possibly typical of the YCC mentality.  Since then Vaughan has been put on gardening leave by the BBC but has been supported by ex team mates like Monty Panesar and Mark Butcher.  I loved Vaughan the cricketer and captain but I can’t stand his arrogant, deliberately combative and obviously fake media persona.  I won’t miss his smug voice on the BBC but I do feel he’s been treated harshly.  In the meantime, bring back Boycott!  An outspoken Yorkshireman, what could possibly go wrong?

Elsewhere in the English game other players at other clubs have been splattered by flying shit but there doesn’t seem to be anything close to the situation at Yorkshire.  However the whole history of cricket is marked by prejudice in some form.  Historically in this country the batsmen were all amateur ‘gentlemen’ from privileged backgrounds whilst the bowlers were ‘players’of working class stock.  Class prejudice prevented many players from being picked for England as often as they deserved, renowned fast bowler Fred Trueman being one, yet another outspoken Yorkshireman.  It is hard to believe that the annual ‘Gentlemen vs Players’ match was still being held at Lords as recently as the sixties.  

The England team was being selected by gin soaked officials and unsuitable, axe grinding ex players right up until the late nineties, Devon Malcolm for example should have played far more tests for England and Ray Illingworth (another outspoken character from guess where?) should never have been team manager.  It was not until the Duncan Fletcher (Zimbabwean) Nasser Hussein (Indian descent) era did England cricket start picking purely on merit and our team has been competitive against all nations ever since.  Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid were key players in the 2019 world cup winning team; during the celebrations it was noticeable that the Muslim players were given a moment to remove themselves from the scene before the champagne was sprayed.  But in hindsight, should it have been sprayed at all?  Even so there is no evidence of racism amongst the England set up and this has been the case for many years.

It’s a bit embarrassing to admit that Football – the not even remotely cerebral sport of the masses is ahead of Cricket when it comes to dealing with racism.  It was good to see players taking the knee and defying the government earlier this year.  Just a shame racism has yet to be stamped out amongst football supporters.  I’ve been to international and domestic cricket matches at eight grounds in seven cities around the country and have never heard anything remotely racist from the crowds.  (The same can’t be said for Australia vs West Indies at the SCG in 1991, that was like being stuck in the 1970’s.) Cricket may be behind some other sports but that does not make our sport racist and as already said there is no other English county tainted in the same way as Yorkshire.

Now the dust is being allowed to settle there is still one question I’d like to see answered.  When Cricket; administrators, players and pundits are being called to account, how can they be judged when the Prime Minister of this country is yet to be held to account for his own blatant, published racist past?  There’s the real problem, sport isn’t racist and cricket certainly isn’t but sadly society still is.