County Cricket’s Final Over of the Week 22nd May 2011

Ball One – The roof comes off as The Roof comes off! It looked for all the world like title-chasing Lancashire had blown their chance of claiming a Roses Match win having failed to separate Yorkshire’s last pair for fourteen overs. Set 121 to win in 90 balls (no fielding restrictions and legside bowling allowed), big hitting and cool heads got the Red Rose over the line, with Farveez Maharoof the hero. The Lankan is averaging 65 with the bat and 30 with the ball and would be the player of the English season so far, had Gary Keedy not taken 31 wickets at 20.

Ball Two – Contrasting fortunes for Ashes heroes at Trent Bridge, as Trott and Bell’s Warwickshire wallop Swanny and Broad’s defending champions Nottinghamshire by nine wickets. Both bowlers have plenty of personality and media presence, in contrast with the two batsmen, criticised in the past for being too introspective for their own good. But there’s more than one way to play the game and the two quiet men may just be as comfortable in their own skins as anyone right now. They may have taken rather longer to find that place, but it’s working for them – body language experts take note.

Ball Three – Taking ten wickets in a match must be straightforward if you can reverse the balding process as spectacularly as Rana Naved has managed. The epitome of the value overseas signing also chimed in with a hard hit 20, as Sussex’s tail got them out of a first innings hole. After the Pakistani’s second five wicket haul, all that was left for the South coast men was to send out their in-form openers, Ed Joyce and Chris Nash, and Somerset, pre-season title favourites for many, were rolled again.

Ball Four – With only three men averaging over 30 with the bat up against four men averaging over 40, Worcestershire looked ill-equipped to take on Durham and so it proved. Adding to that talent shortfall, the experience comparison told a tale too, with Michael Di Venuto alone having played more first class matches than eight of Moeen Ali’s men. It  looks like a long season at New Road.

Ball Five – Following in the footsteps of IPL busted flush, James Franklin, fellow Kiwi, Kane Williamson, was finally in the runs for Gloucestershire. While his bowling is as ugly as it gets (and I’m struggling not to put the word “bowling” in inverted commas), the 20 year-old looked to have plenty about him when batting six and a half hours for a Test debut ton on the Ahmedabad road. Encouraging Williamson to play a season in England is a shrewd move on the part of New Zealand Cricket, as there is no better finishing school for an ambitious international player. Cricket Australia might want to think about taking a similar approach with Steven Smith – as Usman Khawaja is finding out at Derbyshire, if it ever was a soft touch, county cricket certainly isn’t any longer.

Ball Six – Graham Napier likes hitting 16 sixes in an innings, having now done it in T20 and First Class cricket – equalling Andrew Symonds record in his 196 at the Whitgift School ground, as Essex piled up 548 against a Surrey attack boasting four Test bowlers. I was there on the fourth day and can report that the ground was by no means postage stamp sized – his hitting must have been every bit as spectacular as reported. Napier must fancy drilling 16 sixes in a 40 overs match innings to complete the set – but that might be just a bit too greedy.

Gary Naylor, whom you can tweet at @garynaylor999 and find at nestaquin.wordpress.com and Testmatchsofa.com.

Final Over of the Week: 15th May 2011

Gary Naylor brings us the final over of the week in county cricket – 15th May 2011

Ball One – To enforce the follow-on or not? Having piled up over 600 runs, then dismissed Durham in just over two sessions, Tresco had little choice I suppose, but his opening bowlers (Steve Kirby and Charl Willoughby – combined age 70) must have had other thoughts, having been part of an attack that, at one point, had delivered 178 overs without a break and still had seven wickets to get. I hold two slightly conflicting views on the follow-on: (i) that it’s usually best not to enforce, particularly with pitches often flattening out as matches proceed; and (ii) that any first innings lead should give a captain the option to invite the opposition to bat again. The glory of four and five day cricket lies in the decisions it demands of players – allowing the follow-on with any lead means that there are more decisions to be made.

Ball Two – No such problems for Michael Yardy’s Sussex, who cruised to a nine wicket win having enforced the follow-on against a Nottinghamshire side bolstered by the presence of Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad. It may still be mid-May, but there was plenty of work for Monty Panesar who was  rewarded with the excellent match return of 46-19-81-5, figures one might expect to see in late August. Class bowlers, like class batsmen, can often take the pitch out of the equation and Monty is a class bowler. Having waited so long for an English spinner to bowl at Monty’s level, it’s a shame that his Test career appears stalled by Swanny’s excellence and England’s reluctance to play five bowlers.

Ball Three – Showing how a class batsman can take the pitch out of the equation, Mohammad Yousuf’s match aggregate of 177 outscored the next best batsman’s total by over 100 – well, outscored those batsman left standing, as the wicket disintegrated. The ECB pitch inspectors, having sucked on a thoughtful tooth, levied an eight points deduction on Warwickshire. Yes, dead pitches can make a mockery of the balance of bat and ball and never seem to attract penalty, but for Edgbaston to produce a “poor” pitch – Worcestershire Director of Cricket, Steve Rhodes, felt it was “unfit” and thus worthy of a 24 points deduction – is not good enough given the advantages that flow from hosting international matches. Warwickshire are appealing on some procedural matter, but should really just suck it up and think themselves lucky to take 15 points and 11 uninjured players away from the match.

Ball Four – Forgotten man, Kabir Ali and coming man, Danny Briggs held out to frustrate Yorkshire and give Hampshire a second draw to go with their three defeats this season. It’s eight years now since Kabir Ali took 5-136 in his only Test, but, despite a couple of seasons blighted by injury, his career stats are still very good indeed. Given the queue of pacemen in front of him, the ex-Worcestershire man’s chances of playing Test cricket must be remote; unlike young Danny Briggs, who is learning his craft and is the right age to take over from Swanny and Monty when they step aside.

Ball Five – While Eoin Morgan is looking skywards to see where Chris Gayle has hit the next ball in the IPL, Ravi Bopara, in the (I think it’s safe to say) rather less frenetic atmosphere of the County Ground Derby, compiled a second innings century that proved just enough to secure Essex the draw. Ravi has often been accused of not displaying quite the right attitude on the field – a charge never levied at the livewire Irishman – but, when the selectors ponder on who should fill Colly’s spot in the Test XI, Ravi’s work at Derby should count for more than Eoin’s work at Delhi.

Ball Six – I wrote in last week’s over of the strength of Northamptonshire’s lower middle order and they were at it again this week, 125-5 turning into 557-9dec. This week’s Six, Seven and Eight of Hall, O’Brien and Middlebrook are averaging 91, 75 and 84 respectively in the Championship. Some would say that it’s just not cricket…

You can tweet Gary  @garynaylor999 and find him at nestaquin.wordpress.com and Testmatchsofa.com.

County Cricket: Final Over of the Week 8/5/11

The Final Over of the Week in County Cricket 8 May 2011

Ball One

Jonny Bairstow underlined his potential turning a maiden ton into a double. That will gladden the hearts of Yorkshire fans who have much to be excited about in Andrew Gale’s young team. It’ll also gladden the hearts of older cricket fans everywhere, who remember his fiery father, David, with great fondness. David has been gone 13 years now – his son, for whom losing a father when just nine years of age must have been shattering, is doing his old man’s memory proud.

Ball Two

At The Oval, Surrey fielded an attack including Yasir Arafat, Chris Tremlett, Stewart Meaker and Jade Dernbach. Okay, it’s not Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft, but that’s a lot of pace, especially in Division Two. The two non-internationals took 15 wickets between them and Surrey won by a country mile. Even with South London Boys’ well-earned reputation for cocking things up, that attack will win them plenty of matches in all formats of the game.

Ball Three

I have to feel some sympathy for Kent. In financial difficulties, with a skeleton playing staff, they dismiss half of the Northants team and still hold a lead of 73 runs. They then run into a 6, 7, 8 of international cricketers, Andrew Hall, Niall O’Brien and Chaminda Vaas backed up by last week’s centurion James Middlebrook at 9. By the time they got through those four, Kent were over 200 behind and on the way to defeat.

Ball Four

Lancashire’s great start to the season continues with a crushing win over Warwickshire. Despite baosting a 3, 4, 5 of Ian Bell, Jonathan Trott and Muhammad Yousuf, Warwickshire could muster only 269 runs in the match. Simon Kerrigan joined the long list of Lanky men in form with the ridiculous match figures of 16.2 – 4 – 26 – 7. Gary Keedy, in dazzling form himself, is under pressure for his place. Could it be Lanky’s year at long last? What’s the weather forecast?

Ball Five

Having suffered a few setbacks after expectations were set so high, Somerset are getting their season back on track having eased to a win over Worcestershire. The key to success at Taunton has always been bowling the opposition out in the second innings and the key man for Tresco in achieving that goal was last year’s County Championship surprise packet Gemaal Hussain (6-33). I questioned his close season move across the Bristol Channel, but he’s playing Division One cricket now and still taking wickets. At 27, he’s a late developer, so he had no time to lose – his, and Somerset’s, faith in his ability appears well founded.

Ball Six

Thrills and spills at Lord’s as Middlesex and The Netherlands divided 571 runs between them over 80 overs, with Middlesex having the single more and the CB40 points. Unlike The Unicorns and Scotland who have lost all seven of their matches this season, The Netherlands are giving a fine account of themselves in the limited overs competition. What a shame Ireland aren’t entertaining us and, no doubt, bringing in a few very welcome fans through the turnstiles.

you can tweet Gary at @garynaylor999 and find him  at nestaquin.wordpress.com.

Lou Vincent: an extraordinary tale

This interview first appeared in the October 2010 issue of SPIN magazine

Two years ago, Lou Vincent was still one of the faces of international cricket: only recently dropped from the New Zealand side, he appeared on Sky’s Cricket AM to talk about signing for Lancashire and hit a 63-ball century in the Twenty20 Cup for them. One year ago, he was out of the picture completely: working as a tiler and a builder in Manchester, his professional career ended apparently in its prime by a rare combination of mental exhaustion and fallings-out. Now, still only 31, Vincent is talking to counties about a comeback to professional cricket in the 2011 season, by which time he will be able to play as an English-qualified player. Permanently settled in the UK with his British wife and two young children, he has been in talks with several counties and the tbc signs are that one of cricket’s forgotten men could be landing back on his feet in a fairly high-profile fashion.

When people talk about the modern age of the freelance cricketer, the gun-for-hire, they talk about Kevin Pietersen or Kieron Pollard – big names with straightforward ambitions and well-connected agents who will never want for a contract anywhere in the world.

Lou Vincent’s story is rather different. His talents as a clean-hitting batsman were never in doubt: after all, he made a century on Test debut in 2001 against a full-strength Australian attack – McGrath, Gillespie, Lee, Warne – and has a career Twenty20 strike rate of 126. But playing top-level cricket helped make Vincent depressed. Being dumped out of the international game before he was 30 did not, immediately, make him any more content. But the whole process eventually led him to re-evaluate his life and regain a hunger for the game at the highest level. “Once I’d finished with Lancashire that was it,” he says. “I ended up working on the BBC site up at Salford Quays. I did 160 apartments there, tiling the kitchens and bathrooms. I was doing it for eight months, doing some building as well. I enjoyed it in itself. I’ve always had a hammer in my hand. I’ve always built things. I’m a hands-on arty guy.

“The money wasn’t an issue. A million dollars wouldn’t have made me happy. 
You get to a point in your life where you start to question what you’ve been doing, and who you are.

“But it’s been 12 months to the day since I was putting some posts in my mates backyard, digging some holes, and I sat there and thought, ‘What am I doing?’ I’d lost my life as a cricketer, and therefore my identity; and I’d almost lost my wife.

“I’ve had this discussion with lots of cricketers, when careers suddenly fall short and they have to adjust to a normal life from being an entertainer in front of 50,000 people to digging holes or selling insurance to people who don’t know who you are … and the money goes too… It’s quite demoralising. I’ve talked about it in depth with quite a few ex-players. How do you adjust? My family life was affected, my health, everything.

“Things were sliding down hill pretty quick. But then a mate of mine pinned me up against the wall and said. ‘Mate, you’re only 30, what the fuck are you doing?”

Gradually, this summer [2010], Vincent has started heading back towards professional cricket. The comeback trail has consisted of racking up big runs (and wickets) in the Cheshire Premier League for Nantwich, and turning out for Lashings and the PCA Masters. Though these latter games tend to be fun, exhibition-type affairs, Vincent believes that being back in the milieu of pro cricket and playing with team-mates like Graeme Hick and Phil de Freitas has helped re-establish his bona fides as a man and as a player. Should his current contract talks with a county continue successfully, he won’t be short of good references.

Vincent’s life as a low-level gun-for-hire this summer has also given him the opportunity to live a lifestyle that KP or Flintoff would not necessarily have chosen but one that Vincent plainly loves. For games outside London, he’s been camping in fields and catching his own dinner.

“I’m a gypsy with a tent and a cricket bag on my back!” he says. “It’s not about saving money – it’s about the fun part of life and the scrapping and just the outdoors thing that you have as a Kiwi.

“I target certain areas. I wouldn’t camp in London because I’d probably get arrested. But I’ve had a fabulous summer of seeing England. I don’t go to campsites. So I apologise to all the farmers…”

Guerrilla camping?

“Yes: I stalk it out on Google maps, looking for water and trees. England has massive problems with the way the American red signal crays have taken over and are killing off the native fish life here. So I do my Bear Grylls impersonation and help out the community by catching them and eating them.”

Camping japes and optimism for the future notwithstanding, Vincent’s account of the last three years is a pretty dark tale that echoes the well-documented struggles with depression of, for one, Marcus Trescothick. “I don’t understand Marcus’ full story,” he says. “I know it’s partly to do with travelling away from home. To me, it was everything in the world, agonising over why I didn’t enjoy my life. It’s not the stress of playing; it’s the stress of off-the-filed stuff. But it’s not just sportsmen who go through this lull of depression, this black beast of constant anxiety. There’s a lot of pressure on everyone – pressure to earn money, to consume.

“What’s been wonderful for me is to have been rock bottom and to slowly dissect myself as a human being and work out what I want from life.”

It was in late-2007, six years into his international career, that things came to a head for Lou Vincent. He was dropped by New Zealand. He went public on his struggle with depression and never wanted to play cricket again. And then the Indian Cricket League offered an apparent way out: a contract to play short tournaments in India throughout 2008, ideal for a man at once jaded by the 12-month-grind of cricket and still trying to support his family. As it turned out, though, the ICL would be just another step towards rock bottom.

“In December 2007, I got back from the ODI tour of Australia and I knew it had been my last game for New Zealand. I went back and played for my club second team with all my mates. But I literally couldn’t hit the ball; I was a complete nervous wreck. And eventually they stopped sledging me because they felt sorry for me. They ended up bowling me full tosses. It was the weirdest feeling in the world. I thought, ‘That’s it. This life has just killed you.’

“So my choice was to fix my personal well-being and my family life rather than the cricket issue. But then the ICL came up to me and offered me a three-year contract. I saw it as a kind of pension. And we packed up and left New Zealand within the week.

How much longer would he have played for New Zealand had they had not dropped him? “Maybe one more game. Something had to change and I had to get away from it. People take sabbaticals. But it’s taken me two years to realise how much I miss it.”

He doesn’t miss everything about top-level cricket. Being dropped in 2006 still rankles. “They told me they were looking for technically correct opening batsmen then they picked two guys who’d never opened before!” he says, still dismayed. “We were poorly managed by that New Zealand set-up,” he says. Look what’s happened to New Zealand cricket in the last four years.
I can’t even name the team now. You’re missing that generation of senior players through the damage that was done.”

A straight reading of the chronology of Vincent’s career might suggest that it was signing for the ICL that finally put the kibosh on Vincent’s chances. He played in three ICL tournaments throughout 2008 and was, like fellow ‘rebel league’ players including the likes of Brian Lara and Shane Bond, ultimately effectively ostracised from official cricket.

As it happens, though, those repercussions of signing for the ICL were secondary for Vincent who felt that his career was virtually finished anyway. “ICL was great for the first tournament, the whole buzz of it,” he says. “Then gradually I started to see its weaknesses and it was horrible. Just the disorganisation of it and the nature of the cricket. Socially it was great: I met some fantastic players from Australia and South Africa and I made some good friends. But I ended up hating it.”

One of those new friends, Stuart Law, helped get Vincent his contract with Lancashire in 2008. Vincent’s scores were good, in the T20 at least, but his heart wasn’t in it. There was still something wrong and he managed to sabotage any chance of re-engagement by putting coach Mike Watkinson straight on a few matters – in front of the rest of the team.

“We’d been beaten by nine wickets by Worcester and the team talk afterwards was short and about taking the positives and ‘See you all tomorrow’. But I put my hand up and said, ‘We’re one of the biggest counties isn England and we’ve been beaten by a second division team, this is a bit of a shambles really…’

“And I made my opinion about the whole organisation of training and preparation clear. So I shot myself in the foot, really. I didn’t really understand how county cricket operates. I probably should have spoken to the management privately.”

Vincent was not re-engaged.

The unofficial ban on ICL-linked players now apparently ended, Vincent has been in talks about a return to full-time professional cricket. Vincent has not played a first-class game since August 2008 but started his comeback last winter in the Auckland side that reached both pyjama-form finals and dipped his toe with three T20 games for Northants this summer, fixed through his old ICL team-mate Andrew Hall.

Vincent thinks there is more to come and as an England-qualified player unlikely to be called away for international duties, several counties are pondering whether he may prove a canny signing. “A lot of people will look at me and go, ‘Not another foreigner playing over here as a local.’ But I’d say, ‘Hold on a sec – this is my home.’ I understand that the British want to see a born-and-bred Andrew Flintoff. But if you’re an insurance salesman and you go to New Zealand, people don’t say you can’t have a job; you’re welcomed into that community.

“I think I’ve got five or six solid years left in me to get the most out of entertaining people. My dream is to be part of a successful team. That’s it. Be a huge part of rebuilding a team to become a successful No 1 team.”

Why England won the Ashes

English cricket faces split over plan to axe older players

The ECB is facing a serious backlash from professional cricketers over plans to field more young players in domestic competitions.

The disagreement concerns incentive payments designed to encourage counties to field two players under 22 and three more under 26 in Friends Provident and County Championship cricket. From 2010, counties will be rewarded around £80,000 if they maximise the incentive opportunity. Those payments will rise year-by-year and are expected to be worth £200,000 per county, per year by 2013. Those are sums that many clubs will be unable to ignore and several have already committed to embracing the scheme to its full potential.

That could well limit the opportunities for more experienced players. The ECB already pay incentives for counties fielding English-qualified players, but cap those payments at a maximum of nine per side in order to allow room for two non-qualified players, be they overseas or Kolpak registrations.

That leaves only four places per side for England players aged over 26. As a consequence, county players are deeply concerned. Many of them feel the plans will dilute the quality of county cricket and threaten their livelihoods. The possibility of a strike has been mooted.

While Vikram Solanki, the chairman of the PCA (the players’ union), makes no such threat, he does make it clear that there are serious reservations over the issue. “There are good cricketing reasons to suggest this will not help English cricket,” Solanki said. “Merit should be the only criteria for selection. Unless that’s the case, the quality of English cricket will be diluted. It seems artificial to force this upon counties. If young players are good enough, they will play anyway. But if you force them in too early, you may damage their development and cause resentment in the dressing room. We’ve seen the damaging effect of quotas elsewhere.

“Young players can learn a great deal by being around experienced players. When I started, I batted inbetween Graeme Hick and Tom Moody. Fine, they’d make it in any system. But I also learned from the likes of David Leatherdale and Stuart Lampitt. That was hugely valuable for me and I’ve no doubt that any young player will learn from playing with and against experienced professionals.

“This system will make it much harder for late developers, too. We’ve seen the likes of Michael Hussey and Marcus North come into Test cricket in their late 20s and do well, but this system will make that much harder for English players.

“I don’t doubt that the intentions behind this are honourable, but the ECB are trying to solve a problem that will no longer exist. One of their motives is to reduce the number of players in county cricket who are not qualified for England. But the work permit situation will change this winter and make it vastly more difficult for non-qualified players.

“The other concern is that this will increase the divide between the richer counties and the rest. While the clubs with Test grounds might be able to ignore the incentives, the smaller ones can’t. It’s likely to artificially inflate young players’ wages, discourage them from going to university but then, potentially, leave them in a very difficult position in their mid-20s if things don’t work out.

“It is felt by the PCA that their was a lack of consultation,” Solanki continued. “There is a concern among players that these plans will not benefit cricket in anyway – in fact they’re likely to harm the game – and there will also be implications for cricketers of a certain age.

“We want to express those views and voice our members’ concerns. At this stage I don’t know what can be done, but we do need to canvas the opinions of our members and see what they think. Then, at least, we can have discussions with the ECB.”

There will be some mitigating features for the smaller counties. A salary cap will be introduced from the start of next season, with no club allowed to spend more than 1.85m per squad, per year. That figure is still some way in excess of the amount paid by most clubs, however, so will come as scant consolation.

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