What a Test summer that was...

England 2 India 2, probably a fair result?  This series is already being hailed as the best since 2005 and I won’t argue with that, it has been brilliant with two top teams trading blows for six weeks.  Yes I’d say the best since 2005 but it wasn’t better, one thing it lacked was a world class spinner and the stakes could never be so high. But for fine margins India could have been 3-0 up after Lords and the statistics imply India were the better team.  Despite this I feel this is a series England should have won and would have done so had they planned better and got a few more of the basics right.

Dissection

Off the field – The selection of the top seven can’t be questioned, even if it should be.  To be fair all of the players chosen justified their selection at the very least and most had good a summer.  I do think we got it wrong in choosing the bowlers or more accurately the brains trust got the rotation wrong.  If someone had been rested for Manchester, we could have done without Overton at the Oval.  Also choosing Dawson when Bashir was injured seemed a good fit at the time but in hindsight Rehan Ahmed would have been a more BB selection.  He could be our next great all rounder.  One feature of the early years of the BB era was selection, England consistently selected the best XI.  For the last couple of years I don’t think they’ve got it quite right, starting with Bairstow in 2023.  To be fair I don’t think England have been able to select their best XI this summer but the same could be said of India.
What was going on with the pitches this year?  The first four suited India’s bowlers better than it did our own, did we try to beat them at their own game or was there no communication with the groundsmen?  We know bloody well that Australia would never serve up pitches that would suit the opposition.
Then there’s the bloody toss; We all know England like to chase but there will always be times when to do anything other than bat first is just fucking stupid or even arrogant.

On the field - England went into the summer telling us BB had been refined and they would change the pace when necessary. This was the case at Lords and we sneaked over the line but there was little sign of this at the Oval where we gave away too many poor wickets.
Injuries affected both sides but England suffered most, Stokes is irreplaceable as a player and captain but should he manage himself better?  I can’t believe England would have allowed India to score as many runs in the second innings at the Oval if Stokes had been on the field.  Pope may develop into a decent Test batsman but, like Root, he isn’t a captain.  In the same match, if Woakes had not fell awkwardly, England would have won comfortably.

Individually England’s players mostly done okay, Stokes showed super human all round brilliance again, then broke down once more.  There were times when for me his captaincy wasn’t at his usual standard, he allowed the game to drift more than I’ve seen before but on the whole he is still a damn good skipper.

As a unit it is difficult to fault the batsmen; Root, Brook, Duckett and Smith all scored big runs, the latter kept well throughout but his batting tailed off a bit.  Unfortunately Crawley and Pope showed once again that they are not quite good enough when it comes to Test Cricket.  As much as I may like them, their best days just don’t come around often enough.  I have no doubt they’ll both start the first Test this winter but that tour should be the end of the road if they don’t perform.

That Stokes was our best bowler says a great deal about him as a character but is also possibly a disappointing reflection on the rest of the attack? No, to be fair we were unable to select anything like our best attack at any time.  Josh Tongue done very well in his three matches as did Jofra in his two and Atkinson in one.  Carse tried hard but everyone would have expected more from him in the wickets column.  The same could be said of poor Woakes but I suspect injury robbed him of his best return of the series because the Oval would have suited him.  Finally I have to acknowledge that two of our players should really be playing for West indies and at least one other has a Saffer twang.

India 2025 are the most impressive touring team I’ve seen in many years with strength in every position and almost the whole squad has performed well this summer.  Rahul, Gill and Jadeja in particular have really impressed me but for me their man of the series was Siraj, this may be his finest hour and he deserves his success.  Bumrah is an excellent cricketer but I’m not having Michael bloody Vaughan’s ridiculous assertion that he’s the best seamer of all time, he’s not even top ten.  I think stamina and fitness must be considered, Malcolm Marshall never needed to miss a match for a rest and you could reasonably argue that Jasprit was out performed by Josh Tongue who also missed two tests.  Anyway, the series ended with me having maximum respect for this Indian team who are going to be difficult to beat home or away in the years to come.

Looking forward…
We have the small matter of an Ashes series down under coming up this winter and I can’t stop myself speculating about who will be on the plane.  Obviously if fit Ben Stokes will captain and bat at six.  Whatever reservations I may have about Crawley and to a lesser extent Pope, I think our first choice top seven is fixed.  Those two will be joined by the men who played all summer; Ducket, Root, Brook and Smith with Bethell as reserve.  This summer has shown exactly what our seam bowling reserves are like; Atkinson, Archer, Wood, Tongue and Carse are all safe picks if fit.  We’ll need a few spinners and I’d expect Bashir to be picked and I’d take Jack leach ahead of Dawson.  I’m going with a seventeen man squad so that leaves two places.  Rehan Ahmed has already been selected for his leg spin and his county form has been good with bat and ball.  There will always be a question mark over Stokes’ fitness, we may need another all rounder.  That leaves one space, Pope can keep if necessary means no need for a wickie so I think I’d go for another bowler.  Even if Woakes is fit I might not have selected him but changes down under (more to follow…) might make it his time?  If he’s not fit then… well it won’t be Ollie Robinson so if not Woakes then maybe Overton’s height and heart say it his way.

Strangely it seems the nature of Australian wickets has changed drastically in recent seasons, they’ve gone from true, fast scoring batting wickets to mean, green seamers almost over night.  The cynic in me (who me?) would conclude the colonials started planning for this series very early and they feel their best strength is their bowling?

Finally, is it going too far to say this Ashes series is make or break for some of the ever presents of the BB era?  Cricket is a game obsessed with statistics and most of these stats are highly relevant.  Those stats say that Crawley and Pope are not good enough at test level, if they don’t succeed in Australia then get the whetstone out.  I hate to say this but for how long can Stokes continue?  I think he has an eye on the WTC final but if things go bad down under will he still find motivation to keep going through the pain barrier?  Then there’s ‘Baz’ himself.  For all the obvious good he’s done for the team I’ve never really taken to him. It has to be said, as coach and as a player he’s won nothing of note so far.  I’ve previously argued that Manchester weather aside, off field decisions cost us the Ashes in 2023 and, well as I’ve said above, the same could be said for this summer series.

Squad – Stokes, Crawley, Duckett, Pope, Root, Brook, Smith, Bethall, Archer, Atkinson, Wood, Carse, Tongue, Bashir, Leach, Ahmed, Woakes/Overton

An Oval classic

 

The final Test of the summer and it’s not even August (quite) yet.  England had to make changes, Stokes was injured so Pope would captain and Bethell came in at six, his part time off spin meant Dawson would have to step aside to allow four seam bowlers to be selected.  Woakes played again but joined by Tongue, Atkinson and Overton, the latter two coming back from injury, would they be ready?  For India Pant was injured, Bumrah dropped out, Deep came back and Nair found a way back in too.

Day one was gloomy with rain at times, Pope won the Toss and nobody questioned his decision to bowl first.  It was a funny old day with England’s revamped attack bowling some absolute garbage mixed with some unplayable balls.  Woakes took the first wicket Atkinson looked good and took two whilst Overton and Tongue were wayward although the latter snared a couple.  The brilliant Gill had a brain fart and ran himself out and the day finished fairly even with India 204-6.  But the balance may have been shifted by a bad injury to Woakes who would not be able to take any more part in the match, England would be a bowler light.

The second day began in similar conditions and the first session might have been England’s best of the summer.  Tongue broke through early and Atkinson polished off the tail to finish with five and India only added twenty runs.  Next Crawley and Duckett blazed away and England reached lunch at 92-1 and I was thinking ‘carry on like this and the series will be ours’.  Unfortunately the rest of the day saw some of England’s poorest cricket of the year and was frustrating listening.  Good bowling combined with a few daft shots and we were all out for 247, a slender lead which India soon over hauled this with Jaiswal counter attacking and England dropping catches.  The day finished with India leading by 52 runs with eight wickets left and probably slightly ahead in the game.  I couldn’t help feeling England had messed up big time today.

The next morning things went from bad to worse with more dropped catches, Jaiswal completed a ton and even the bloody night watchman got a half century.  India’s final innings of the series saw possibly England’s worst performance in the field in living memory.  In the fourth test the wheels threatened to come off for India but today they did come off for England.  Wickets did fall from time to time – Tongue finished for 5 for - but not often enough to prevent another fifty plus score from the brilliant Jadeja, Sundar slogged a few too many and England were set a target of 374.  This was how we started the series, trying to chase a 370+ score to win a Test match.  Six weeks ago I was confident we could do it but that was not the case today.  The openers started steadily and progressed to another fifty opening stand but no further!  Siraj removed the permanently inconsistent Crawley with the last ball of the day.

The fourth day and almost certainly the final one of the series.  Duckett nudged his way to fifty but didn’t go on, Pope got in and then out again as we see way too often.  But then Root and Brook came out after lunch and just batted sublimely pretty much all afternoon.  It was brilliant, both got hundreds and I almost relaxed but India roared back, dislodging both centurions and Bethell who looked like he knew he was out of his depth.  India were on top again but a sharp shower saw the players leave the field and there wasn’t time to get play started again today.  At the finish England needed 35 runs, India 4 wickets, assuming Woakes will have a go.  So we will have a fifth day as we have in every other Test match this brilliant series and going into it I was thinking it would be great if we had a tied Test match.

Who would believe an hour of this sedate and elegant game could render me a shaking, dribbling, stuttering mess?  Anyone who understands fine art at its pinnacle, or as we call it Test cricket.  In the final innings of the season England couldn’t win, then they couldn’t lose, then in the last two sessions they messed it up.  It may be harsh but in my opinion a couple of them bottled it, but they’ll come back stronger.  Chris Woakes didn’t bottle it, what a bloke and what a moment.  I hope it isn’t his last act in an England shirt but I fear.  India, led by the brilliant Siraj, took the four wickets they needed to win the match and level the series but make no mistake, England should have won this match.  Now the initial disappointment has settled I don’t begrudge India this win I just feel happy to have witnessed five excellent Test matches played by the best two teams in the world.  There'll be a bit more on that subject once I've got my breath back.

Old Trafford

The fourth test from Old Trafford, England made just the one enforced change, I expected the bowling to have been freshened up a bit more?  India shuffled the pack again but crucially Bumrah lead the attack.  England won the toss and bloody bowled again!!  But they did bowl really well without luck and India started sensibly with the bat and by lunch no wickets had fallen, I had that sinking feeling.  After lunch things got a little better with a couple of wickets and India could never score freely.  The day was curtailed by bad light with India 264/4 and with a bad injury to Pant maybe honours even?  I was looking forward to the start the next day’s play already.

A gloomy day two, England needed wickets and Jofra got one early but the Indian batsmen were difficult to dislodge before lunch at which point things were still well balanced.  Pant came out and had a go, India weren’t scoring quickly enough to worry England.  After lunch Archer and Stokes combined to bowl India out, the last five wickets fell for 44 runs and the captain took his first 5 wicket haul for a very long time.  India had finished on 358 which was probably the kind of total England had in mind when we put them in at Birmingham.  How good this total actually was wouldn’t become evident until England had batted and they did so under clearing skies.  The opening stand of 166 seemed to suggest India hadn’t got enough.  Duckett and Crawley both fell a few runs short of a ton but England lost no more wickets to finish the day in control on 225/2.  For the fan one of the more comfortable days of Test Cricket this year.

The third day was as close to easy listening as it gets for an England supporter.  Apart from a few minutes after lunch when a couple of wickets fell and it was possible that maybe the door might open for India.  The rest of the day England just accumulated runs and put overs into the Indian bowlers legs.  Five of the top six passed seventy with Root making 150 and we finished with Stokes 77 not out.  Brook played another terrible shot and will hopefully learn his lesson.  India had their worst day of the tour, with the wheels if not coming off, definitely starting to wobble.  In fact, starting with the toss, the first three days of this match have gone how I and presumably the England team, expected Edgbaston would.  At the end of the day England lead by 186 runs with three wickets in hand.

Saturday started with a bang, England pushed on, led by Stokes who made 141 we were finally all out for 669, a 300+ lead.  There was time for a couple of overs before lunch and Woakes hit them with a double wicket maiden!  I was thinking we’ll win this today.  But Rahul and Gill got together and stayed together and ground it out with an old school Test partnership and the day fizzled out for this England fan.  But well played India 174/2 at the close, I didn’t see that coming.

This stubborn, defiant batting continued into the last day which felt tense for a while but as India smothered everything so this eased.  Occasionally a wicket fell which gave me the flutters again but the second new ball was wasted with spin and in the end the game drifted away into a draw.  You can’t fault Carse for effort but he went wicketless in the match and you can’t criticise Dawson for his control but he only took one.  Fair play to India though, this is some team.

Long before the end I’d given it up for the inevitable draw and I enjoyed watching England women’s football team retain their title of European champions.  The team showed a lot of fight to make the final and to be fair had a little luck in winning the final but we’ll take that.  It has to be noticed that almost all Test matches are won by the team that plays the best cricket but the best team doesn’t always win in football.

A Lords classic

The first day at Lords and although it’s only been a few days I’ve missed Test cricket!  Great to see Archer back in the team but I’m surprised Tongue was the man to miss out?  England won the toss and thankfully batted on a slow, low pitch.  What followed was what we once called “attritional cricket”, certainly not BB!  On the one hand it was good to see England digging in on a tricky pitch but on the other, wasn’t the BB approach supposed to be the answer on these wickets?  Everyone got a start today but Root held everything together to finish on 99* and Crawley did himself no favours.  Bumrah was brilliant again.

The second day started with Root completing another century then a Bumrah burst threatened to derail England.  Smith and Carse put an attacking partnership together to push the total up to 387.  India went in and the recalled Jofra Archer took a wicket with his third ball and was excellent all day.  India tried to occupy the crease, held together by Rahul finished on 145/3.  England slightly ahead after two days?

I tuned in the following morning hoping, almost expecting quick wickets but it didn’t happen!  Rahul got a ton and together with Pant dug in and set the tone for the day with England having to scrap for wickets pretty much all day, Stokes running out Pant was crucial.  India looked like they would go past England’s total but eventually those wickets came with Woakes having a bit of luck for a change and the scores ended up level on first innings.  At the end of their innings India lost 4/11.  Then it all kicked off at the start of England’s second innings with time wasting tactics from Crawley winding up the Indians.

So we had a one innings match now, England batting to set a target but it’s so bloody tense because India bowled well on a wearing pitch and dominated the morning session with four wickets.  After lunch Root and Stokes threatened to steer England into ascendancy but the moment I started to relax Root was out.  The innings stuttered along in this fashion and for the second time this match I ended up thinking that right now BB would be the way to go!  And had England attacked they couldn’t have collapsed more spectacularly.
After an early wicket to Archer the Indian response threatened to take the game away but a late burst from Carse dragged England back into the game, then Stokes bowled the night watchman with the last ball of the day and it’s anyone’s game!

The final day, no sign of rain so a draw is out of the question but the other three results are possible at the start of play but after the opening burst it looked like being a comfortable England win.  It was anything but.  Jadeja was brilliant and with help from the tail he kept India in the game and nudging towards the total.  At times in the afternoon it looked like he was leading India to an unlikely win and from a nervous fan’s perspective, possibly the most uncomfortable final session since the 2005 Ashes.  An injured Bashir took the final wicket and thank fuck for that!!!!!!!!!! 
What a Test match!!  I’m delighted that England got the win and at the same time have a huge amount of respect for the Indian team.  England may be 2-1 up but for fine margins could be 3-0 down, this series has been excellent so far and it isn’t over by a long way. 

Bashir will miss the rest of the series so will England pick a proper spinner or will they squeeze Jacob Bethall into the team?  (Earlier today Dawson was announced in the squad which is a sensible selection.) Will one of the seamers be rested?  Carse was excellent at times in this match but I’d like to see Tongue have another go and the likes of Atkinson and Wood are approaching fitness too.  I moan about Test series’ being over in a flash these days but I can’t wait for the next match.

Edgbaston

 Day one – England won the toss and bowled which didn’t seem too ridiculous after the first test and we almost expect England to roll them over.  Indeed at the end of play around 300 for five I was thinking yes that’ll do if… but that was our high point.  Then day two is all India, or all Shubman Gill, either way by the end of the day only one team could win this match and England to be frank looked clueless and I found myself questioning the decision at the toss.  The third day saw a glorious England partnership of over three hundred by Smith and Brook but either side of this were collapses that meant India had a healthy lead.  Day four was all India and quite painful listening, the lead was extended to over 600 and by end of play England were three down.  What India’s batsmen did in this match was play themselves in which is something England seem to have forgotten in recent years.  It may not sit well with the England brains trust but at the beginning of day five there was every possibility of digging in for a draw but this hope didn’t last long and India wrapped up a deserved thrashing in the last session.

Who said ‘best team in the world’ and ‘5-0’, oh yeah it was me…  With a bit of hindsight England were as lucky as they were brilliant in the first test and could be 2-0 down.  As much as I love Stokes’ England, there have been many times when I’ve been raging in frustration.  There have been several occasions when I can only describe the decision making as arrogant, electing to field here will go down as another.  Unless the whole “we’ll chase” mentality is a double bluff aiming at getting Cummins to make an unlikely call later in the year?  India totally outplayed England in this match in every department; the batsmen got the runs, the bowlers – without Bumrah – made far better use of the new ball.  England did not help themselves by playing on a sub continental style wicket and not making first use of it.  Hopefully they will learn from this experience and won’t have their thinking clouded by stubbornness and arrogance.

I can hope

Glastonbury was all over the BBC this weekend and I enjoyed dipping in and out of radio and TV coverage when I was able.  I really enjoyed Alanis Morisette who was surprisingly good and Self Esteem is a talented lady.  Loyle Carner was pretty good too, he’s a decent song writer but it’s getting a bit ‘samey’ for me nowadays.  Neil Young was okay, I like the music but his voice grates a bit. I enjoyed Goat and the Prodigy on Sunday night made me wish I was there, especially when I had a text from a family member who was in the crowd.  Festival evenings can be truly magical, moved to emotional exhileration by a great performance and going on through the night, trying to keep the high going until exhaustion puts the brakes on.

But before festival nights come festival days which involve walking miles, often in extremes of weather whilst being bombarded from all sides by distractions designed to lift the cash from your wallet.  My first festival was the ‘Monsters of Rock’ in 1984 and in the forty years since festival comfort has improved beyond belief but comfort comes at a cost.  Festival commercialism slowly crept up on us and these events once a celebration of counter culture were kidnapped by the Establishment years before I stopped attending regularly and none more so than Glastonbury.

As much as I enjoy the coverage it was hard not to notice how much the BBC loves to sell “Glasto” to us.  Over excited presenters spew enthusiasm about how great is to be there but they aren’t really there are they?  They are not sleeping in a tent that turns into a sauna after 10 am.  They are not sharing toilets with two hundred thousand people.  They are not walking several miles every day whilst fuelling their bodies with shit food at rip off prices.  But all of this can be worth it if the right act nails their set and sparks you off on a mad festival night time journey of adventure, I hope I have more of those in my future.

Controversy, shock horror!  It started with a band called Kneecap from NI who I’d not heard of until it all kicked off.  These lads obviously court controversy and all the free publicity will do them wonders.  We’ve seen it all before; Sex Pistols, Ozzy Osbourne, The Beastie Boys, Eminem and so on. The twat PM couldn’t keep out of it and the BBC were too scared to screen them but other bands didn’t waste the opportunity to speak out about Palestine.  Bob Vylan is a band I’m well aware of and I like them; aggressive, outspoken and intelligent.  The first Glastonbury speech is included below, make your own mind up.  Later in the set they chant “Death, death to the IDF” which goes up a whole notch but the overall message only reflects what a hell of a lot of ordinary people are thinking.

I’m not shocked or offended by what Bob Vylan did and said, I applaud them.  I am disgusted by the reaction.  I’m disgusted that people from any walk of life can show more outrage at a speech and a chant than they do the murder of children.  What is happening is what was once called “ethnic cleansing” but our leaders are cowards who want us to look the other way and anyone who demonstrates against it will be punished.  This offends me, makes me fucking furious.  The media has the gall to call this anti Semitism, it absolutely is not fuck off.  At times like this I’m reminded that most people are idiots, they haven’t worked out that politicians don’t really have their best interests at heart and they still believe their newspapers tell them the truth.  There is a large chunk of the population that believes this shit and this deliberate, state sponsored misinformation will have an effect.  As my kids would say; “What the actual fuck?”

Their generation are not so easily fooled, they don’t get their information from the traditional sources and move comfortably through this digital world while I am happily allowing it to drift beyond my comprehension.  My kids have studied the media and understand how it works far better than I did at the same age and with new technology they have already left us miles behind.  I can only hope their generation will not succumb to the herd mentality and they hold the right people to account for the crimes of the first quarter of this century.  Well I can hope.

First Test vs India

 England won toss and fielded which seemed questionable at the time and ridiculous by tea.  Two young Indian batsmen made excellent centuries but would they have survived Jimmy Anderson with the new ball?  With Woakes having a rare average day, apart from the captain our bowlers seemed toothless, lacking in skill and guile, which is concerning.

Day two - Are England back in the game?  They’d argue they were never out of it.  Josh Tongue inspired an Indian collapse of 7-41 but they still set an imposing target of 471.  Crawley was out early but England had a comfortable day with the bat and Pope silenced the likes of MVP with a ton.
I don’t dislike Michael Vaughan really but since entering the media he’s made a habit of talking bollocks.  His latest nugget being “Jasprit Bumrah is the best pace bowler of all time.”  Bumrah is without doubt an excellent cricketer but come on Vaughan, surely one attribute of a great fast bowler is the fitness and strength to play all five matches in a series if necessary?  Of the modern bowlers I think Rabada is the best but this could be bias because he reminds me of Malcolm Marshall who is the greatest I’ve seen.

Anyway, following this England continued to build a competitive total led by 99 from Brook and contributions from the tail got us within six of India’s total but I couldn’t help thinking with a bit of thought it could have been more.  India batted again and accumulated runs while England nabbed a couple of wickets
Day four saw excellent batting from Rahul and Pant who hit his second ton of the match and it looked like the game was swinging decisively towards India but after the centurions were out they collapsed again, 7 for 79 this time with Tongue picking up more wickets.  England survived until the end and had a target of 350 to chase on the fifth day.  This would have seemed impossible only a few years ago but not now, ridiculous as it seems I expect them to do it.
The fifth and final day, England’s openers set the perfect platform, Duckett was brilliant and England strolled to a five wicket win with Root unbeaten on 50+ at the end.

This isn’t even surprising any more, playing at home England have always been difficult to beat (since the nineties at least) but Stokes’ England only lose when they fuck it up for themselves.  At times we were only just hanging on in this match so to go out and win comfortably at the end is an awesome performance.  On this form England is without doubt the best test team in the world.  How will India go from here?  On the whole they played a decent match apart from collapses and dropped catches, maybe that was the difference between the teams?  I wonder how failing to defend 371 will affect the mind set for the rest of the series, this series may not be close, dare I say 5-0?

Boxing and stuff

 I mentioned here recently that I’ve been an armchair boxing fan for years, how could you not be if you grew up in the seventies?  Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Holmes, Norton, Shavers and other heavyweights of that decade would be at the top in any era.  I watched their fights, usually highlights on ITV on a Saturday lunch time, sharing the adults enthusiasm if not their understanding.   As I got older I stayed up all night to watch the likes of Hearns, Duran, Leonard and the best of all Marvin Hagler.  Those two periods have never been bettered in my opinion but I’ve followed boxing ever since though mostly the careers of the best British fighters and we’ve had a few; Bruno, Eubank, Benn, Watson, Lewis, Hamed, Calzaghe, Froch and I’m sure more names will pop up when I’m finished. To be fair, I suppose I only really get interested in the big fights and don’t know a great deal about fighters on a more local level.  I can’t be much arsed about streaming and all that shit, I’ve never made any attempt to understand it so nowadays I mostly listen to a radio commentary then get the highlights on YouTube not long after.  Despite an almost lifelong interest I’d never, ever attended a live boxing event, until last week.

Our local lad Fabio Wardley had an inauspicious route through boxing but every time he’s been tested against a higher level fighter he’s come through, culminating in becoming British champion.  I mean, British heavyweight champion, from Ipswich?  That’s just fucking mental.  Now he’s fighting on the fringes of world championship level and with his ability to take hard punches and shake them off, along with an impressive knockout ratio, who knows?  Anyway, he ended up headlining an open air event at Portman road football stadium in front of twenty thousand people and it was too convenient to miss.

So along with family and friends we got the cheapest tickets in the house and turned up to find that although they were cramped and uncomfortable the view was actually pretty bloody good.  The weather was horrible so the people who had paid £300+ for the best seats beneath us were getting rained on which amused us at the time.  There were loads of fights on the undercard and I can’t remember how many we watched and right now I’m struggling to recall any names but all were entertaining.  There was some clever boxing and also a couple of impressive knockouts.  Another local lad won on points as did an Olympian from Colchester making his pro debut.  We saw ring walks, heard the announcer with the booming voice and they still have a scantily clad woman with a number on a board strutting around the ring between rounds.  Happily there were no annoying delays between fights and the night passed quickly, fight after fight, before we knew it the main event approached.  I’m sick to death of “Sweet Caroline” and sneer at most of the cheesy tunes they play to buzz the crowd up but I was amused by the way people under the influence cannot help but react to this stuff.

So the main event, after the ring walks (yawn, seen one you’ve seen them all) two unbeaten heavyweights faced each other across the ring.  The opponent from Australia was Justis Huni, a man with top amateur pedigree and a slick reputation, a real live opponent as opposed to someone expected to fall.  For the first three rounds it was pretty tight with Fabio looking most likely but from then on Huni took over and if we’re honest, gave our man a total boxing lesson.  Why wasn’t Fabio closing the gap?  Why wasn’t he letting his hands go?  After the ninth round I turned to number one son and said ‘he needs a knockout to win’ and he agreed.  Then in the tenth round Fabio landed a perfectly timed right hand bang on the chin and the fight was over.  A spontaneous roar erupted and we looked at each other with jaws hung open, wow!!  That one punch saved our man and sent us all home happy and will be talked about by boxing fans for years to come and not just in Suffolk. 

There was some bleating about the fight being stopped prematurely but having watched numerous replays Huni was staggering backwards from the ref, he would never have lasted the round.  However in defeat he impressed everyone and having been booed into the ring he was cheered out.  And Fabio, how far can he go?  As a boxer he’s not in the same league as Usyk but who is?  And with that granite chin and one punch power he’s got an outside chance against anybody.  Who knows if boxing will ever come back to Suffolk in such a way but if it does I’ll probably go along again.  I might even be tempted to travel a bit further.

But even after all that, Test match cricket is still my favourite sport and this week we had the spectacle of the ICC world test championship from Lords. I must confess I was happy to see the geriatric Aussie team beaten by the Saffers in a close, entertaining match.  It’s fair to say ball dominated bat over the three and a bit days, both teams have serious attacks but SA have the best in the world in Kagiso Rabada who reminds me a lot of the great Malcolm Marshall.  Fair play to the Saffers but they strolled into the final after a ridiculously easy schedule in which the highest ranked team they beat was Sri Lanka and nobody can tell me they are the best test team in the world despite what just happened at Lords.  In my opinion there are three or four teams that are better and two of them will commence a five test series before the end of the month.

Front page, back page

God I have all this stuff going round in my head but I never find the time to exorcise it!  I mean where the fuck do I start?  Trump is a thousand words of ridicule straight away, this after vowing I would do my best to ignore the lunatic this time around.  Closer to home the country celebrated eighty years since VE day a couple of weeks back and yes of course we should “remember the sacrifices of ordinary people…” but I struggle with the way this sentence usually finishes.  The BBC chose “…the defeat of Fascism in Europe” which conveniently ignores Spain which endured a bloody civil war and brutal aftermath which continued even while the rest of Europe sent its tourists there and this too was conveniently ignored.  Few people mention the Fascism rising across the continent in the present day.

Heading east and arriving in the war zone predicted/defined by Orwell we see and hear media outrage when bombs are dropped in Ukraine but ethnic cleansing in Palestine is erased from history.  We are literally witnessing a genocide in which our own government is complicit and nobody seems to give a fuck.  Is it because to criticise the state of Israel is considered anti Semitic?  It’s the allegation they pinned on Corbyn and they can pin it on me too, fuck Israel and while I’m at it fuck Putin, fuck Trump and fuck that snivelling wanker Starmer.

I Know Why the Caged bird Sings by Maya Angelou
I can’t remember how many times I’ve read this book but I can remember the first time.  I had to study it a lifetime ago and unable to put it off any longer I picked it up with little interest and no enthusiasm.  Before I knew it I was forty pages in and even my ignorance couldn’t blind me to the fact that I was reading something special and over the years I came to realise it was written by someone great.
The first of Maya Angelou’s autobiographies naturally covers her childhood and although she spent time in St. Louis and San Francisco it is Stamps - Arkansas that is imprinted in my mind.  A first hand account of the realities of growing up Black in the deep south of USA in the 1930’s. What Maya Angelou does so well is interpret the scenes through the eyes and understanding of the child that lived through them, as opposed to the adult looking back.
This is a brilliant book, beautifully written that will stir every emotion and if it doesn’t there must be something wrong with you.

Test cricket returned with England giving Zimbabwe a three day thrashing which allowed under pressure batsmen to consolidate their positions and taught us that our reserves of fast bowlers are not as deep as we would hope.  Crawley delayed his inevitable axe but Pope deserves to silence the doubters for a while.  England’s most successful bowler was Shoaib Bashir with nine in the match, for once spin doesn’t seem to be a problem.  We are currently hammering West Indies in an ODI series and Joe Root demonstrated that he is probably the best all format batsman in the world and he looks like he’s getting better.  Adil Rashid collected his 150^th cap and is still class, why did he never play more Tests?  We have some T20 trashathon stuff to come but by the end of the month we’ll be contemplating a proper Test series against an evolving India side which will be a big examination ahead of a trip down under this winter.

Things not as they should be

I’ve been a boxing fan for years, despite or maybe because I have precisely none of the attributes required to enter a boxing ring.  In recent times my allergy to cliché means I find the pre fight hype and antics of the boxers a total turn off.  The same pantomime has been going on for decades, its just boring, stop.  Everything I despise was on display in the weeks prior to the Benn vs Eubank fight but this wasn’t what got me chuntering.  Nor was it the totally fake rivalry manufactured around the fact that their brilliant fathers had a couple of tear ups thirty years ago.  The problem is the two should never have shared a competitive ring in the first place; one has fought at super middleweight and the other started off as a light welter.  If both were at their preferred weights there would be twenty one pounds difference.  So to make this fight viable the weight was set for 160 pounds with rehydration clauses that meant neither man could enter the ring in peak condition and any advantage the bigger man may have would be nullified.  In a notoriously brutal and potentially lethal sport this can’t be right but if there’s money to be made then corners will be cut until somebody gets badly hurt.  I didn’t see the fight but heard it was a good one with both boxers showing class in the fight and after and it was nice to see their dads embrace.  The weight drained winner spent twenty four hours in hospital and I hope there isn’t a rematch.

Resolution by Irvine Welsh

I love Irvine Welsh and will always read whatever he writes but honestly Ray Lennox is not a character I warm to.  I liked ‘Crime’ but ‘Long Knives’ less so and this is just more of the same.  The plot is hard to follow at times and the writing isn’t always up to this author’s usual standard, a bit lazy if anything?  The social comment (with which I strongly agree) seems a bit contrived when it appears.  But as ever there is plenty I do like, the dialogue is great, there is darkness and humour, when things speed up I couldn’t resist the reading and the conclusion is satisfying.  But what this book didn’t do, (like its predecessor) was suspend my disbelief.

A treasured friend left us this week, we will remember her laughing loud and dancing without a care.  This song is for her.

losing my religon 2 ??

Some cricket happened…  If I remember correctly the Champions Trophy went away for a while and then came back.  Anyway a 50 over mini world cup is something all the international teams want to win and interests me enough to tune in the radio.  England were crap and were well beaten in all their three matches with a batting line up that didn’t inspire too much confidence and a bowling attack that would have looked perfect anywhere but the sub continent.  Joss never seemed a natural captain to me and for the ODI team the only way is up.  We’ve been here before and the result was spectacular.

But even with England under performing my biggest gripe lies elsewhere.  This tournament was billed as a triumphant return for Pakistan as an international venue but politics got in the way and India ended up playing all their matches in UAE which effectively gave them home advantage.  To be fair they would probably have been favourites anyway, like they were last year at their own World cup last year where they famously choked.  Redemption for the billionaire superstars but it does seem like it was put on a plate.

I’ve enjoyed being an armchair rugby fan again lately, the six nations have been excellent even though I mostly don’t really know why the ref has blown his whistle.  France have been brilliant, at their best as good as any team I’ve seen yet somehow England managed to beat them.  I complained about it a year ago but the amount of Saffers, Kiwis and Aussies masquerading as Scots, Irish and Italians devalues things for me but this is just accepted without a word, I shouldn’t get too smug just because England’s pacific islanders haven’t been playing.  England finished runners up with a team full of home born players (except one who could have chosen to play for Scotland) and when they look back they might think that haven beaten France they should have completed the Grand Slam?  The French deservedly topped the table in the end, another team without dodgy imports, fair play.

Losing my religon

I’ve always followed my local football team and when I was young we had a great team that won at Wembley, my Dad and I were ever present at home games watching top level football and getting change for a quid.  But even then the pull of the waterside was strong and I was spending most of my free time fishing before Sir Bobby moved on.  In the years since then I went to a few games most seasons but as time speeded up and I became more contrary this dwindled away to nothing.  I fell out of love with football.  But I still follow the Town and I always will though nowadays I do so from a far, listening to radio or following internet coverage.  In recent times even this has been fraught/emotional/both at crucial times, culminating in the Town’s return to the premier league.  Tempting as it was I didn’t really think I’d actually make my way to a game, they were all selling out and I never made the effort but when a spare ticket was offered I thought ’why not?’

So for the first time in maybe five years I found myself following the ritual that thousands do as a matter of course for ten months of the year.  I was in a carload of friends as we made a slow snaking chain of tail lights into town, the journey was barely walking pace and seemed to take hours.  Eventually we squeezed our way into a space outside another friend’s house, this was a short walk from the ground.  Half an hour before kick off, I was way outside my comfort zone, in with a dozen or more people squashed into a kitchen, drinking tea and talking football.  Most of these people were proper football junkies, they talk the talk, buzzwords and cliches, I felt that any utterance from this outsider would have fallen flat.

We walked down the hill and managed to step into the throng of people poring towards the ground, everyone heading in the same direction, we got in line and march along.  I’d infiltrated the ranks of the believers and was carried by the throng towards the cathedral.  At the bottom of the hill our group split into two, most head south but we go west.  Since I first joined the cult in the seventies this ground has changed dramatically; three of the four stands have been rebuilt in that time and all the structures have been spruced up inside and out.  Nowadays the drab concrete is screened by lots of blue and white, decorated with images of great players and great days.  To do what this team has managed to do will be added to that history in the future, for a club of this size the premier league is massive.

We queued at the turnstiles, the lines moved slowly and I was surrounded by voices belching more football chat, the devout were exalted.  Thousands of people, we all wanted the same result, we had a common goal yet I didn’t feel part of it.  Once I belonged here completely, now I felt like an imposter.  Eventually we made it through and there were just a few minutes to go before kick off.  My prolonged absences mean the ground is now unfamiliar and this was the stand I’d spent the least time in so it took a while to find the right entrance, before even that we needed to piss.  Eventually after several flights of stairs and an apologetic shuffle we found our seats which were bang on the half way line, with seconds to spare.  There was a minute’s silence for someone whose name I didn’t catch then the game started with a roar.

Ten minutes later things had quietened down considerably, the visitors – Brighton had all the play and the Town couldn’t touch the ball.  Thankfully we were not made to pay and as the half went on our team grew into the game and actually looked the more likely side to score, testing the goal keeper twice; the volume rose, the chants resounded.  Once I would have known all the words to all the songs and would have been bellowing along.  Nowadays I don’t know half the players let along the words to the jingles.  This old ground has changed on the inside too, nowadays everything is so much bigger though maybe higher would be a better word.  To my left what was always called the North stand. The rough and ready terrace that always lead the chants and carried the mood.  To my right the old stand was called ‘Churchmans’ after the tobacco factory behind it.  This was our stand when I was a kid, always a good atmosphere but less volatile than the North stand.  Nowadays the old firm sit at this end where they can keep an eye on the away fans.  A half chance! But Omari took the wrong option when Burns would have been through on goal…

Half time came too soon, the scores were level and the mood was optimistic.  But that was as good as it got, the second half saw Town miss another chance early on but Brighton mostly dominated and it was no surprise when they took the lead after an hour.  Until this point I’d barely noticed the away fans opposite, I’d never have known they were there but as the game went on they just grew louder.  After going behind Town seemed to lose belief and never looked like equalising, likewise the home crowd couldn’t get any vocal momentum in fact where we sat it was totally flat and not the kind of faces I used to stand shoulder to shoulder with.  The game drifted away and the visitors ended up comfortable 2-0 winners.

We joined the throng of people, the tide now going in the opposite direction, this time the stream had more pace and carried us back up the hill.  We landed back in the crowded kitchen for tea and a debrief, there few good points for the Town tonight but even the proper football fans were happy just to see their team playing at this level once again.

So the cult of football, I’d sneaked in for an evening and although I felt like an imposter who’d jumped on a bandwagon I think I manged to escape without giving the game away or leaving too many bad smells.  But this isn’t me anymore, I’m not part of it and have no desire to be.  I don’t want to parrot the cliches, I can’t buy into the one eyed optimism, fucking football banter bores the bollocks off me!  I watch sport objectively these days though I’m not sure I like this development.  The world of football has been warped by the pull of money, it’s been yanked in one direction while I’ve tried to tip toe in the other.  Capitalism ruins everything.    

World Test Championship

 

The World Test Championship cycle has come to an end with a final table which doesn’t make sense to me but to be fair I have made no attempt to understand how points are awarded.  I think the way the fixtures in these two year cycles are arranged means some teams have an easier schedule than others.  For example in the latest cycle South Africa have beaten Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West indies twice, drawn with India but lost to New Zealand and haven’t played England or Australia at all.  Somehow they ended up topping the table. England may have been inconsistent lately but finishing sixth out of nine teams doesn’t seem right, even with the penalties for slow over rates.  Sri Lanka, South Africa and New Zealand all finished above England even though we've beaten these teams both home and away in recent series, though I’m not entirely sure when the latest schedule began.  Of the others we have a win and a loss against India who finished third as well as a draw and a loss against Australia in second.  Maybe one day we’ll get a schedule where we don’t play Australia or India?

Going back to the over rate penalties, assuming these are brought in to give fans more value for money, can anyone honestly say they’ve been short changed watching England?  Pundits and commentators bang on about over rates and they have a point but half a dozen overs lost rarely makes a difference to a good day of test cricket. It’s the other eighty odd that count.

Another potential controversy is bubbling with suggestions for a 'two tier' test championship being made.  I don't like the idea of this because I couldn't imagine a cricket world where England don't play against West Indies on a regular basis.  But if this format is to be the future there has to be some kind of promotion and relegation involved, even if this means one of the big teams occasionally take a tumble.

The final will be contested between South Africa and Australia, I think it will be held at Lords this time around which seems as fair as anywhere for a match between these teams.  With this announced ahead of time it implies England would have had a home advantage had they made it to the final.  This doesn’t seem right any more than a final featuring India being held in Dubai.  Anyway, I still maintain a focused England is the best Test team in the world and I don’t care who wins this years final as long as it isn’t Australia.