Is it all over for Bob Willis, Sky Sports’ Pope of Mope? Er, no…

There will be amongst our number, I dare say, those who regard the Taliban’s strict ban – at pain of death – on public singing and musical instruments as somehow an inappropriately aggressive piece of law-making. But they may not, I suggest, be the same people as those who have a ticket for this year’s PCA end-of-season dinner dance (entertainment for 10th year in a row: Mark Butcher Band salutes the magic of Ocean Colour Scene, with encores). I don’t know for sure. I haven’t done the research.
But I digress. You know, readers, sometimes I ask myself: what kind of nation are we? (Not aloud; I just do it in my brain, while sitting on the bus with the other high-achievers. And weren’t the buses better when they had professional drivers?)
Are we a nation of Stuart Broads, gambolling fresh-faced and carefree in Gap jeans into a sunny future, filled with effortless success and the prospect of dates with former beauty queens and lucrative sponsorship deals with in-sole manufacturers, which dream package we can describe publicly as “pleasing”, just like the media training says?
Or a nation of Big Bob Willises, a land of recrimination and angst, of three-day weeks and coal strikes and half-day closing on Wednesday, our national spirit a mix of righteous, voice-cracking anger and weary resignation, of plain-speaking, of calling a spade a frankly inadequate spade, Charles.
Or is there, maybe, a third way? As the celebrations went on around him at the Brit Oval, Tinker Harmison – so-monikered because of his collection of Lovejoy DVDs. Keep up, new readers – gave an interview to Sky Sports that was about the most articulate thing I’d heard since Dominic Littlewood’s recent investigation into funny-shaped vegetables on the One Show. Among the madness – ticker-tape, drunks, very loud music – that surrounded him, Harmy became focused and passionate in talking about his pal Andrew Flintoff.
Usually interviewed when on the back foot, and looking understandably nervous with a raging Nasser Hussain beating him round the head with the microphone, this Harmy, relaxed and flushed with success shortly after wrapping up the Aussie tail, was a different proposition entirely.
He said what a great fella Freddie was, what a great mate, what a great player. And then he turned his attention to the gantry. “Certain former England players on the highlights in the evenings have been saying some bad things about Andrew’s record,” said Tinker.
Saying bad things?
Who could he mean?
Not Big Bob, surely?
As Tinker toyed publicly with the notion of retirement from international cricket, he conceded that, yes, if he had picked up his hat-trick to win the Ashes by bowling Ben Hilfenhaus 15 minutes previously, he might well have called it a day there and then.
Let’s step inside Harmy’s brain for a moment. He doesn’t rate the highlights package. He’s gunning for Big Bob. He’s possibly looking for a new gig. Hmmm.
Poor old Big Bob. There he was later that evening, raising a glass of champers in the gantry with Charlie Colvile. Had Broad’s wonder half-hour made him, suddenly, yesterday’s man? Did England need a Chief Critic anymore? All his best material consigned to the dumper by one thoughtless burst from Goldilocks.
I could hear the old catchphrases echoing eerily round the highlights studio all through the long years of English success stretching out, inevitably, before us.
“I’m afraid, Charles, that he’s
GOT TO GO.”
“I’m afraid it’s just NOT GOOD ENOUGH, Charles.”
“Matt Prior’s not even IN THE TOP 15 WICKET-KEEPERS IN THE COUNTRY.”
“Yes, Charles, I’m afraid it’s the SAME OLD STORY.”
And my own personal favourite:
“He’s batting LIKE A BLIND MAN!”
Was it really all over for Big Bob? Could Harmison bring a more avuncular ex-fast bowling voice into the highlights? Would they let him present it from his house, in his slippers, by his hearth, with his bairns? “The lads are trying their best,’ he could say in the event of any slip-ups.
Then I thought: there’s nine limited overs games with Australia and a mini-World Cup to come. Long before the end of that little lot, Willis will surely have downed the champagne flute and gleefully donned the executioners mask again.
And then we’ll all know where we
stand, again.

The ire brigade: Bob Willis v Nasser Hussain

Ire, readers. That’s what I look for: ire. I want my broadcast pundits to sound like they mean it. The sight of Big Bob Willis haranguing Charles Colvile, voice cracking with raw rage has made England’s hapless post-2005 progress easier to bear. But is Willis running out of steam? Is it time for a younger, angrier man to step in? In this month of fiasco, the Pope of Mope went head-to-head with the chippy challenger Hussain…

 Willis on England’s 51 all out

England’s third lowest all-out score in Test history? Willis seems initially resigned to their failure. But it’s not long before he gets the old chainsaw going: “What’s the effect going to be on Andrew Strauss?!” he sneers gleefully. “It must be the shortest honeymoon period in history for any England captain!”

Soon, he’s in full flow: “There’s a lot of work still to be done. I think it needs to be done in the head. They’re MENTALLY WEAK,” he rants. Not just are England hopeless – there’s no-one to replace them. Willis dismisses the Test claims of Rob Key and Joe Denly and moves on to rubbish the county game generally. Joined-up moaning. Not as easy as it looks

“Do they need to clear out the back-room staff?” host Ian Ward asks Willis. It’s a dolly. Willis responds as if ‘clearing out’ would be too good for England’s coaches and nothing short of public flogging would do. “There are more backroom staff than players now!” he points out. “Which I think is an absurd situation. The players don’t need all this pampering and molly-coddling. When you’re out in the searchlight in the middle… it’s down to you, mate.”

Willis warms to his theme. “Batting coaches! Bowling coaches! Fielding coaches!” he intones, as aghast as if England had taken lion-tamers and jugglers on tour with them. It’s not quite the Full Bob, but he’s grinding it out. Harmy? “I want to see him out of the side!” KP’s 97? “It isn’t good enough!”

“I call this batting unit ‘The untouchables’,” says Bob sadly of England’s cosy top six, before naming his XI for the next Test: “Well, I’m not going to pussyfoot around, Ian; you wouldn’t expect me to,” he promises, thrillingly (to me, anyway). “I want to make a clear statement here. I’m putting the Dumbslog Millionaire up to No 3; Bell carrying the drinks… and as for Steve Harmison,” he concludes, magnificently. “I’m afraid it’s back to the dartboard in the Ashington Working Men’s Club.”

Hussain on TV referrals

The best introduction to the Hussain ire oeuvre is his autobiography, in which he devotes whole chapters to the injustices of being short-changed in Spar 20 years ago. So when the TV referral system flopped in Barbados, it was, naturally, Hussain that sprinted down to the outfield to accost match referee Alan Hurst… 

Hussain’s initial questions are brisk, efficient, even military. He sounds like he has well polished shoes. Question 3 – “I’ve got two pages of regulations on this. Why can’t the question be: ‘Listen, Daryl: is that out or not out” – sees him get mildly chippy; and his ire builds further with questions 4 and 5, about the ICC’s refusal to use the available technology. 

But seasoned Hussain observers will spot question 6 as his cracking point: “I know you don’t to talk too much about specific decisions,” says Hussain, adding brilliantly: “But can you explain how Chanderpaul was given out?”

He should just leave it there. But no. He does a little finger-jabbing-at-lapel monologue. “Not by the on-field umpire by an off-field umpire who has technology available to him, who sees a new ball hit a batsman above knee-roll on a Barbados pitch. How can he, with all the time he has available, give that out?”

Hurst says the third umpire doesn’t give the batsman out. 

Hussain asks the same question again, twice. Hurst tells him again that the third umpire doesn’t have the final say. He talks as if playing for time. He knows it’s all hopeless: the system is hopeless, Harper is hopeless. He probably doesn’t even have the cricket on his little TV; he’s probably watching the darts. 

“The saddest thing about that decision was that a very good on-field umpire was  overruled by a man off the field,” asserts Hussain, wrongly. He really is like the sports version of Mr Shake-hands man: he just asks the same question over and over until the interviewee decides he’s a lunatic and walks off. Hurst doesn’t walk off, but he does tell Hussain for the third time that the third umpire doesn’t have the final say.

Hussain’s microphone – which is all we can see of him – starts to shake with rage. “Finally,” he says, voice cracking triumphantly with ire. “Do you believe that Daryl Harper is competent enough to be third umpire in these situations?

Hurst refuses to comment.

Conclusion

It’s horses for courses. Hussain is the man you’d send round to the ask the neighbours to turn down their music (repeatedly). Willis is plainly the man to succeed Wogan on Eurovision. (“Nul points! And they were lucky to get nul, Charles!”). As England’s year of fiasco progresses, this could be the most fascinating contest of all.

2007 World Cup: the ‘high’ ‘lights’

And now… here are our own World Cup highlights. Imagine me introducing them in fancy dress. It’s the theatre of the mind.
 
1. Bob Willis’ post-mortem after England’s exit. Sky had two hours to fill after England’s lame early exit against South Africa. Handily enough, Willis was on hand to give arguably the most imperious display in broadcasting history, as he railed against  everything from the Sunday League to fortnightly waste collection, offered to take over as the ECB’s director of cricket and flung around words like ‘squandered’ with abandon. Gower was trying not to laugh.  

2. Mark Nicholas’ on-air application for Australian residency in the final. He didn’t quite get to screaming ‘Aw, mate! Strewth! Take that you beauty!’ as Gilly laid waste to the Sirils. But he may just as well as. 

3. Those brilliant little films that the BBC used to introduce the highlights esp. the one that had Rishi Persad dressed up as the captain of a ship – Nelson hat and all – overlooking a harbour, making some gag about Australia playing with great freedom. Or something. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Just show us the cricket. Is that so hard? As for the Boy Manish’s weird local-paper voiceovers, we say: never again should the job be given to a competition-winner. 

4. Stickcricket/Spin/Challenge Kemp’s World Cup song. You’ll have read in these pages last month the story behind the making of this ska-based, trumpet smothered, gloomy, lo-fi ode to coach Fletcher’s boys. Well, having got enough hits to go to No 1 (ie more than 250), Kemp is now taking his ‘sound’ out on tour. See the site for more extraordinary details, if you dare. 

5. Damien Fleming on Sky. See, we’re quite big fans of the Flem’s easygoing impishness. But not as big as the Sky producers who, during England v Bangladesh, had him spend a whole over ‘interviewing’ and taking very seriously the punditry of two well oiled northerners in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costumes. Painful. Saying “that’s five off” when you mean “that’s five off the over” isn’t winning you any friends, either, mate.

6. Nasser Hussain. We love the man and the way he shakes with rage at every opportunity. Sport is nothing if it’s not taken seriously and, as his ace autobiog showed, Nass is still punching the walls over leg-before decisions from 1989. His tearful defence of Fletch’s status as the world’s best coach after the South Africa debacle was good value. And when Michael Slater was moaning about the Sirils’ resting Murali, Nass’ “Dry your eyes, Slats” riposte was perfect. If only he hadn’t then whacked him with that chair leg, it would have been Bafta-level stuff.

7. Percy Sonn. The ICC’s prez’s speech at the end of the final defined everything that was wrong about everything. No-one came to see you, mate! Let the Aussies have the Cup!

8.  The BBC’s Panorama about the Bob Woolmer investigation. Apparently, some Pakistanis are Muslims and they quite like cricket. Cheers!

9. Ravi Bopara. Genuinely – exciting to watch and obviously loving it. Let’s get 11 of him in the team.

10. Nicko Nixon. What IS he talking about? “I’m a very nasty man.” “In the pink, Monty.” “There’s only you and me here, Vaughany.” 

11.  Ricky Ponting – talking faster than any man ever talked. Made Sir Patrick Moore look like Bob Willis.

12.  Slinger Malinga. Of course.

You’ll have had your own. 

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