Beware the quiet man

SOMETHING ODD has happened over the years to the reputation of Michael Holding and the invincible 1970s and 1980s West Indians. Holding is now regarded as one of the all-time greats of the game; he is a fixture in the Sky box, his opinion sought by the ICC and the WICB alike. Other pundits, meanwhile, lament the decline of West Indies cricket and look back wistfully to the golden age of Holding’s playing days.

But Holding has spotted revisionism at work. The West Indies side that lost just one Test series between 1975 and 1995 was not regarded at the time with any great affection, outside the Caribbean. Quite the reverse: their fearsome all-pace attacks, led by Holding and Andy Roberts, were often seen as unsporting and likely to kill off the game. “It isn’t good for the game was a regular cry,” Holding recalls
of the Windies heyday.
“I believe the criticism
of our approach was based on jealousy, pure and simple.”

Holding thinks, frankly, that plenty of observers are actually glad that West Indies cricket is now at a low ebb and quotes with a raised eyebrow a series of critical articles by former Wisden editor David Frith, one suggesting, extraordinarily, that the ’70s Windians game plan was founded on “vengeance and violence… fringed by arrogance.”

Just as you’d want, Holding also gives the notion that the Waugh/Ponting Australia team was in any way better than his legendary Windies side remarkably short shrift. There’s passion and insight here and some of the same kind of righteous anger that we have seen previously in memoirs from Nasser Hussain and Mark Ramprakash , though with more substantial, even political, grievances at its root.

Holding’s memoir goes off into lengthy column-style critiques of aspects of the modern game – but his passion and status makes these chapters must-read material. Who will provide, for instance, a better insider’s view of Sir Allen Stanford’s work within West Indies cricket? Holding’s initial suspicions of Stanford related to the latter’s newbie’s obsession with Twenty20 – a form of the game Holding professes to have little interest in.But Holding eventually spends 10 months on the Stanford Board of Legends and his rather testy account of the episode provides a fresh perspective on the affair from someone who both knows West Indies cricket intimately and has its best interests at heart. “Both Stanford and Bush were rich men from Texas,” he concludes, “and further proof that no amount of money can buy class.”

As for the reasons behind the West Indies declining fortunes, Holding thinks the old notion that American sports have somehow superceded cricket in the affections of Caribbean teenagers is entirely false. He outlines his own reasons and solutions, though intriguingly, he seems to put the original decline in Test performances partly down to the sacking of one particular coach: he maintains the catalyst for  the West Indies’ ’80s invincibility was the chance appointment of Aussie physio Dennis Waight to look after them during Kerry Packer’s rebel World Series Cricket series. Waight, coming from a rugby league background, put the West Indies fast bowlers on an unprecedented regime; his departure, after 23 years, in 2000 is put down to player power from a new squad not prepared to put in the hard yards.

Holding has strong, well-expressed views, but for one of the greats of the game, he comes across as unassuming, even humble: picked for his first overseas tour in 1975, he is more concerned at missing the family Christmas in Jamaica than elated at the chance of going to Australia (possibly correctly: the Windies lost 5-1, Holding was reduced to tears of frustration and considered packing it in.)

There’s another humble moment when, on the back of the Windies ramming Tony Greig’s ‘grovel’ comments back down his throat in 1976, Greig offers Holding a £10,000 contract at Sussex for 1977. At the time, West Indies players were making around £100 a match from Tests, but Holding turned down this lucrative contract, he says, because, “I did not see myself as a professional cricketer. “

In fact, Holding held his job in computers with the Jamaican government right up until 1981. Finally enticed into county cricket, Holding notes the overly comfy culture in county cricket, with plenty of batters happy to take an early bath against himself or Joel Garner and fill their boots against a mediocre attack the following week.

Happily, all those years of sitting next to Bob Willis for Sky seem to have rubbed off on Holding when it comes to assessing his time with Derbyshire. “The only disappointing aspect of playing for Derby,” he laments, “was the fact that our team wasn’t all that good.” Duncan Steer

Perfect Sri Lanka bowling sweeps Windies away in World T20 semi

Sri Lanka crushed the West Indies by 57 runs in the ICC World T20 semi-final – and now face Pakistan in the final on Sunday.

The victory came on the back of another mighty innings from Tillekeratne Dilshan – tonight he batted through the 20 overs for 96 off 57 balls – and a sensational first over from the apparently innocuous medium-pacer Angelo Mathews (3/16).

With the Sirils defending a total of just 158/5, skipper Kumar Sangakkara’s throwing the ball to Mathews to kick-off the West Indies innings proved to be an inspired hunch.

Mathews’ first over saw three wickets fall – all bowled, all played on – to leave West Indies 1/3, with Xavier Marshall, Lendl Simmons and Dwayne Bravo all back on the bench without scoring. The dismissals suggested that the pitch, unusually for the Oval, lacked pace and left batsmen confused about the best way to attack the ball, which was not coming onto the bat.

Chris Gayle (63 off 50) batted through to the end, unbeaten, but received no support at all. No-one else hit more than Denesh Ramdin’s nine runs and though Shiv Chanderpaul stuck around for half an hour, his 7 from 15 balls – filled with pre-meditated (and generally failed) trick shots – did little to advance the cause.

With the innings already in disarray, Ajantha Mendis (2/9 off four overs) and Murali (3/29) applied the killer blows, mid-innings. The Sri Lankan attack is the most varied in the tournament, but the West Indies did not help themselves with their shot selection; their inability to get Gayle, their No 1 danger man, on strike was a major failing. Instead, he waited at the non-strikers end while a procession of batsmen came and went, going for glory trying to hit sixes themselves.

Dilshan had also fought a lone battle in the Sirils’ innings, though he had help early on from Sanath Jayasuriya. Jayasuriya’s 24 off 37 balls was, though, a very a typical innings from the Sirils’ veteran, who is 40 next week. Visibly frustrated with his inability to time the ball, he changed his bat several times before holing out in the 11th over and leaving Dilshan to carry the innings.

No-one else scored more than Angelo Mathews’ 12 runs, hit off four balls at the death.

Dilshan’s innings included 12 fours and two sixes and left him just short of completing the second-ever international T20 century. It was another versatile display from the tournament’s leading run-scorer, full of sweet timing, clever placement and ever-adaptable stroke play including his now trademark flip over the keeper’s head, this time off a Jerome Taylor slower ball.

Dilshan’s innings earned him the man of the match award – though the killer blows really came from Sri Lanka’s bowlers, and that remarkable first over from Mathews, in particular.

West Indies knock England out of ICC World Twenty20

England are out of the ICC World Twenty20 after losing to West Indies by five wickets in a game shortened by rain.

England hit 161/6 off their 20 overs, with Ravi Bopara top-scoring with 55 from 47 balls.

But after an hour had been lost to rain, West Indies were set a target revised by Duckworth-Lewis to just 80 from nine overs.

Though England took regular wickets and had the Windies at 45/5, Shiv Chanderpaul (17*) and Ronnie Sarwan (19*), surely the most experienced sixth-wicket partnership going, saw them home.

England, omitting Dimi Mascarenhas and again refusing to include Graham Napier, again laid a solid foundation but lacked any firepower in the final overs of their innings. Remarkably, they did not hit a boundary between the 11th and the 20th overs. Stuart Broad came in at No 8 for the last two balls of the innings and hit a four and a six, but it was much too little much too late.

At the top Luke Wright (6) fell again top edging a hook from a ball that got large on him. Today, it came from Kieron Pollard.

KP hit 31, before top-edging a sweep from medium pacer Simmons. After that Shah (18), Collingwood (11) and Foster (13) all managed to score at a run a ball but there was no sense of the innings taking flight, despite a massive hooked six from Shah.

In fact, it was after that Shah six in the 11th over – he fell in the next over to a brilliant catch from Fletcher on the square leg rope – that the boundary drought began, lasting until the penultimate ball of the innings.

The first rain break, midway through the 17th over, came at a bad time for England, as they were already struggling to rebuild momentum after the dismissal of Bopara. England failed to hit a single boundary between the 11th and 20th overs and, though the Duckworth-Lewis calculations appeared to favour the chasing side, it was this lack of adventure that ultimately cost them the game.

Defending the meagre, rain-adjusted total, England bowled well and fielded tenaciously. Ryan Sidebottom yorked Chris Gayle in the second over and James Foster pulled off another brilliant stumping, of Bravo off Swann, leaving the West Indies 45/5.

With Windies needing 30 off 18 balls, a James Anderson over went for 13, thanks to some clever batting from Sarwan that brought him two successive fours – the first saw him sweeping a ball from wide of off-stump for four .

After that, the Windies were in the box seat, and soon they were though to the semi-finals. Ryan Sidebottom came to the last over trying to defend three runs; England spent an age shuffling their fielders around but it was all too late; Sarwan smashed him for a four over extra cover and England were out.

Friday: India face first real test of ICC World Twenty20

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At Lord’s on Friday, the defending World T20 champions do battle with the most unpredictable side in world cricket. It should be a corker.

The group stages have not given us any conclusive proof of what to expect from either side. While India have cruised to wins over the inferior opposition of Bangladesh and Ireland, West Indies have a) thrashed Australia before b) looking back to their usual haphazardness against Sri Lanka.

On Wednesday, in a dead rubber, Sri Lanka named their best side and played to win and maintain momentum, while the West Indies rested key players and showed that they couldn’t give two hoots whether they won or lost.

Sri Lanka scored 192 runs and in reply the West Indies fell 15 runs short, far fewer than the number of runs they gifted to Sri Lanka through over ten counts of appalling outfielding from, some of whom wore neon pink, yellow and orange sunglasses. Chris Gayle’s pair looked like the kind you get in a one pound store – fortunately he only used them to watch from the sidelines as he was sitting out to rest his various injuries.

You never know which West Indies will turn up on the day.

Maybe it will be the West Indies that thrashed Australia through Gayle’s onslaught of 88 runs off 50 balls looked dangerous with the ball and didn’t field too badly, which is saying a lot.

By contrast, India found themselves in the easiest pool of the opening round. Bangladesh and Ireland might have given India an effortless route through to the next round, but they offered precious little by way of match practise.

Virender Sehwag, the most explosive batsman in world cricket, has pulled out of the tournament, thanks to his shoulder injury. Luckily India have a more than able replacement in Rohit Sharma, the Under-23 player of the IPL. Sharma grafted a graceful 36 off 23 balls against Bangladesh, which he bettered with an unforced and unbeaten 52 off 48 balls against Ireland. He is a batsman in form who offers a handy bowling option too. Sharma took one of the three hat-tricks in the IPL and is just one of a team of potential match-winners.

Dinesh Kartik, who was excellent with the bat and the gloves during Delhi’s IPL campaign, has been added to the India squad in replace of Sehwag.

Zaheer Khan showed he has recovered from his own shoulder injury when he claimed the figures of 4/19 that helped his side reduce Ireland to 112/8 in and 18-over match on Wednesday.

“It will be good if we can get early wickets against the West Indies,” Zaheer said after India’s eight-wicket victory. “Removing Gayle will be a great advantage for us. I am hopeful because we are clicking as a bowling unit and each bowler understands his role.

“We are chipping in with wickets at the right time.”

“The shoulder is coming along well. I feel better day by day and I am improving, I feel 100-percent now” added Zaheer.

Captain M.S. Dhoni admitted that his team was yet to peak when he said, “Every game you start from scratch.”

“The bowlers did very well and it’s a real positive that they are doing their jobs. But we can do better in the field. It was not our best day. I am talking about 85-90 percent efficiency, but we can do it.”

The match is certainly India’s first real test of the tournament and after South Africa’s comprehensive win over England, it will no doubt tell us a lot about who is likely to go through to the semi-finals from that group – and what England have to do in the next three days to stay on at their own party.

West Indies (possible): Gayle, Fletcher, Marshall, Chanderpaul, Sarwan, Bravo, Pollard, Ramdin, Taylor, Benn, Edwards.

Lendl Simmons – who came in for Gayle – batted, bowled and fielded well against Sri Lanka – and may retain his place, possibly at the expense of Pollard.

India (possible): Gambhir, R. Sharma, Dhoni, Yuvraj, Raina, Y Pathan, I Pathan, Harbhajan, Zaheer, I Sharma, Ojha.

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Sir Allen Stanford and West Indies cricket – an inside story

First published in the April issue of SPIN magazine. Subscribe today and get a free copy of the Cricketers’ Who’s Who worth £18.99 (UK readers only)

A key member of the coaching team that helped the Stanford Superstars beat England in last November’s $20m challenge match has been speaking to SPIN about Sir Allen Stanford’s ill-fated involvement with West Indies cricket.

Julien Fountain, the side’s English fielding coach, believes the Stanford project had great benefits for West Indies cricket – and that the intensive training camp ahead of the 2020 for 20 challenge has had a lasting impact on the West Indies side, which went on to beat England in the recent Test series.

“The players realised what they are capable of if they do the right thing. They gained an awful lot from that environment and I think they’ve held on to some of the feelings. It was a very positive experience. 

“The West Indies had had a pretty poor run of form leading up to the series, where we’d always come out second best. I think that everybody realised that this was an opportunity that we could really put West Indian cricket on the map and say, ‘We’re not quite as bad as you think we are’.”

The Stanford side won by ten wickets, having bowled out England for 99. “We did get the impression that the whole week – the whole competition – meant a bit more to us. We’d been through so much preparation, that I think everybody in our squad really realised that ‘Now is the time’.

“I think it showed that West Indies cricket can be successful, given the right environment, back-up and organisation. 

“Afterwards, everybody was just stoked that we won the $20m game and that we didn’t just beat England, we absolutely crushed them. Winning the money didn’t register for a little while. It was just that we’d achieved what we wanted to achieve.”

The ECB’s dealings with Stanford came to an end in February after the US Securities and Exchange Commission accused the billionaire financier of “a massive fraud.”

Stanford sponsored inter-island Twenty20 tournaments in the Caribbean in 2006 and 2008 and, briefly, funded four professional island teams. His deal with the ECB was to have seen the annual $1m-a-man challenge match with England, plus an early season T20 quadrangular in England and a Stanford team in the new-look Twenty20 Cup. Stanford, who denies any wrongdoing, has now had his assets seized by the US authorities, as he stands accused of an $8bn fraud.

Fountain, now working with the Ireland team in their World Cup qualifying campaign in South Africa, could not confirm how
many of the players had re-invested their $1m prize money with Stanford organisation – but thinks that at least one player had. While some players and coaches were written cheques, others had accounts opened for them in the Stanford International Bank, with the money deposited there. 

“Sir Allen made a big thing about his financial advisers talking to us to ensure that the money was invested wisely,” says Fountain.  “They were very keen for us to keep the money in house. The advice was very plausible. And you’re sat there in this luxurious bank: huge, beautiful tables, big flat screen TVs, big glass, chrome and leather. They said, ‘Listen, the market is really volatile and you don’t really want to invest in stocks and shares now. If you want a simple, safe thing, just open these accounts, we’ll pay you the interest and it’s as safe as houses’. They were offering rates of nearly eight per cent interest in these ‘safe’ accounts, even though most other banks were offering three per cent.

“One of the younger guys said, ‘I live with my mum. I’ve got no need to touch it, I’m just going to live off the interest, thanks very much’. Interest on a million dollars would have paid him about $80-90k a year. A huge annual wage for doing nothing, so he had no reason to touch it.”

Did the players have any inkling that there was anything untoward about the Stanford organisation? “Not at all. We found out when everybody else found out.” says Fountain. “It was such a positive event, so it’s such a shame it has gone horribly wrong. If all of his rhetoric had come to fruition, it would have provided so many great opportunities for young West Indian cricketers – and been such a shot in the arm for West Indies cricket.”

The Superstars squad featured several young semi-pro players who had never played for West Indies. The Stanford project gave players from smaller islands a shop window to progress their career and it’s the affect of the scandal on this aspect that Fountain finds most disappointing.

“Some of the new and young Stanford players tried to get county contracts this winter but got absolutely no feedback. You can understand that: one game doesn’t make a career. But they played out of their socks; hopefully that would have kicked on with more games for Stanford. It may have taken 12 months or 18 months but all the kids who were no-names would have risen to the top and got opportunities. Sadly now, you’re back to the old days which is unless you get selected for the West Indies, nobody wants to know you.”

First published in the April issue of SPIN magazine. Subscribe todayand get a free copy of the Cricketers’ Who’s Who worth £18.99 (UK readers only)

Five-wicket Onions puts England on top

England have not won a Test in four years at Lord’s. Their defeat in the opening game of the 2005 Ashes has been followed by six consecutive draws, thanks to a series of high-scoring games mixed with poor weather.

But with three days to play in the first Test the West Indies are, following on, still 186 runs behind, thanks to a sensational debut from Graham Onions.

The weather forecast is gloomy – but surely not so gloomy as to stop England kicking off the Ashes summer on a high.

Graham Onions’ debut didn’t start too well: he was out first ball when England batted and his first four overs went for 22. But then it all turned round for the Durham fast bowler, as he took the last five Windies wickets in 27 balls including three in one over and four in seven balls.

Those seven balls saw the end of Lendl Simmons, Jerome Taylor, Denesh Ramdin and Sulieman Benn and took West Indies from being down (117/5) to being very nearly all out (128/9).

Earlier, Graeme Swann had picked up the key wicket of Shiv Chanderpual, caught at slip first ball.

With West Indies all out for 152 in reply’s to England’s 377 (Bopara 143, Swann 63*), they followed on 225 runs behind and soon lost Chris Gayle (0) and Ronnie Sarwan (1), both to Anderson.

Windies’ Powell and Bravo to miss England tour

Daren Powell and Ryan Hinds have been left out of the West Indies Test squad to tour England in May. The fast bowler Powell played all five Tests as the Windies ran out 1-0 winners over Andrew Strauss’ team in the Caribbean, yet has been punished for his poor return: just six wickets at 69 runs each.

Seven years into his career, his Test bowling average is an underwhelming 47.

Hinds, meanwhile, has been axed for averaging 18 in a series that, for most batters, proved to be a runfest.

Dwayne Bravo also misses out as he is recovering from an ankle injury – although he still intends to play in the IPL.

Three uncapped players are named in the 17-man squad: Grenada fast bowler Nelon Pascal, Barbados batsman Dale Richards and Jamaica medium-pacer Andrew Richardson.

Squad Chris Gayle, Denesh Ramdin, Lionel Baker, Sulieman Benn, David Bernard, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Narsingh Deonarine, Fidel Edwards, Brendan Nash, Nelon Pascal, Dale Richards, Andrew Richardson, Darren Sammy, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Lendl Simmons, Devon Smith, Jerome Taylor.

Flintoff hat-trick seals ODI series win

A hat-trick from Andrew Flintoff clinched the final one-dayer against the West Indies in St Lucia, as England ran out 3-2 series winners.

The 26-run win brought to an end England’s worst run in a decade.

Remarkably, it was the first time England had ever won a one-day series in the Caribbean.

With the West Indies needing an improbable 38 runs from the last three overs of a rain-reduced 29-over game, Flintoff removed Denesh Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul and Sulieman Benn to put the game beyond reach.

It was death bowling at its best: fast, full and straight; virtually unplayable in-swinging yorkers. Ramdin was bowled as he shuffled across his crease; Rampaul was hit full on the knee and given leg-before, despite Flintoff not appealing; Benn was bowled, stepping away to leg.

Flintoff finished with 5/19 off his five overs, his best-ever ODI bowling.

He became the third Englishman to take an ODI hat-trick (the other two, Steve Harmison and James Anderson, were also on the field today).

So England’s hapless winter that had seen humiliations from the Stanford Superstars, India, and the West Indies ended on a high note for Andrew Strauss’ team.

The game appeared to be in the balance after the controversial dismissal of Kevin Pietersen earlier in the afternoon. KP, well set after an even-time 48, was adjudged caught by Darren Sammy at point. But replays suggested the ball had bounced and that Sammy should have been well aware of his ‘mistake’ in claiming the catch.

As so often, England lost their way after Pietersen’s dismissal: Ravi Bopara (44) gifted his wicket, hoofing a short ball from Kieron Pollard straight up in the air; and Shah and Flintoff fell cheaply, before Collingwood (35 not out) and Prior (25 not out ) nursed them through to a still-below-par target of 172/5.

James Anderson removed danger man Chris Gayle, caught at slip by Flintoff off the third ball of the innings, to give the tourists the initiative before Collingwood (1/24 off four, including the wicket of Chanderpaul) and Mascarenhas (0/16 off four) applied the brakes on the Windies chase.

But the headlines belonged to Flintoff.

The turning-point of the series, however, was Windies coach John Dyson’s calling his players off incorrectly in the first ODI in Guyana, having misread his Duckworth-Lewis chart.

That mistake gifted the down-and-out England with their first win in the 15th international game of a disastrous winter.

Without it, West Indies would very possibly have wrapped up the series 3-0 after the first three games, before Flintoff had even returned from injury.

“It’s been a long hard tour and to come out of it with something is special,” said England captain Andrew Strauss afterwards. “We’ve worked really hard so not to get the results has been frustrating. It has been a tough tour. It’s frustrating to keep banging your head against a brick wall and not getting what you want.

“This one-day victory is something we  can really build on. This game is all about momentum and given that we lost the Test series this one-day series win is very very important to us.”

Strauss, who before his elevation to the captaincy ahead of this series, had not played an ODI since the 2007 World Cup, picked up the man of the series award. He hit 204 runs at an average of 51, including a century in the defeat in the second ODI at Guyana.

Paying tribute to the man-of-the-match Flintoff, Strauss added: “That’s why he’s one of the best bowlers in the world – because he can deliver under pressure.”

England fans: look away now

There’s been a lot of moaning over the last month from English cricket’s top brass. National selector Geoff Miller and England MD Hugh Morris believe that English counties should not employ Aussies in the lead-up to the Ashes as it is, basically, unpatriotic.

Kent have signed Stuart Clark; Hampshire Marcus North and Middlesex Phil Hughes. The argument goes that in giving these guys six weeks practice in English conditions, the counties are stabbing English cricket – and their own long-term interests – in the back.

They have a point.

England’s Ashes fortunes may well depend on Stuart Clark having six weeks build-up with Kent.

Then again, they may depend more on the fact that England currently have a team that could not give the Brondesbury Park Women’s Institute a proper game.

Maybe Miller and Morris and co should stop bleating about the opposition getting little 5 per cent advantages and wonder why, after 18 months in their respective jobs, England have failed to win a game all winter. (I’m not counting the West Indies’ off-field suicide in the first ODI Guyana.)

England were bowled out for 117 in the third ODI in Barbados on Friday. The Windies knocked the runs off in less than 15 overs.

Afterwards, Andrew Strauss said it was the worst performance for a long time. Presumably 48 days is a long time in cricket: it was only on February 7 that his side were bowled out for 51 to lose the Test at Jamaica.

Let’s not forget that West Indies have for a long time been the lowest-ranked major team in world cricket.

Miller and Morris want it all ways: if they really do believe that six weeks’ practice in local conditions gives Test teams an advantage, why does their own England team never – even after the 2006 Ashes ‘undercooked’ debacle and the Schofield report recommendations that followed – have more than six days’ match practice before an overseas Test series? Is it just a coincidence that England always lose the first Test in a series?

Ian Bell took the bullet for the 51 all out. Who will take the bullet if England now lose the ODI series?

I am sorely tempted to see the England team as more like a government. The team has failed, so let’s vote all of them out. After all, how much worse could England’s zero per cent win record be if they brought in 11 new players?

Perhaps instead of selecting England teams player by player, they should simply stand and fall together? Players say that scoring a century is meaningless if the team doesn’t win. Why not take that thinking a stage further?

Quite honestly, as captains always say in victory, it would be wrong to pick out individuals. You can’t drop KP and Flintoff, can you? James Anderson gives his all. We all argued for Owais Shah and Ravi Bopara to be given a go. Are there really two batsmen more deserving of their chance? Even Steve Harmison – who was absent on Friday but whose underachievement seems to sum up the whole squad’s – even Harmison: he can’t bowl 92 mph hostility with accuracy anymore. But who can? Saj Mahmood?  

There’s a case for keeping everyone.

Of course, before calling up the England Lions to take their place, we might want to bear in mind that Rob Key’s side didn’t win a single game on their recent tour of New Zealand. They drew two warm-up games, drew the two Tests, then lost both ODIs and a Twenty20.

So while the ‘sack the lot of them’ route appeals, we may have to face the fact that the 15 players England have with them in the Caribbean are, roughly speaking, the best available. I’d like to see Adil Rashid get a game, certainly ahead of Gareth Batty. But there are no magic solutions.

England fans and media may just have to face the fact that the Ashes win of 2005 and the other minor successes since – ODIs series wins in Australia and Sri Lanka, that 4-0 thrashing of the Saffers last summer – were blips and the natural state of English cricket for the last 30-odd years has been marked by underachievement and wasted resources.

And – primarily – by an insane belief that we are still the greatest cricket nation in the world and that the last decades have just been some kind of bad dream.

England fans still, for some reason, like to think they’re Manchester United: well-resourced, well-led, a team for whom any defeat is a surprise. In fact they’re more like Newcastle United: great fans and plenty of them and massive expectations built on nothing more than blind hope.

There’s no sensible reason to expect England to turn things round suddenly and go on to win the Ashes 5-0; still less to hope that they won’t simply be embarrassed at the ICC World Twenty20.

England might, belatedly, turn things round in the Caribbean. A 3-2 win would be hailed as Ashes-winning momentum, when really it will be a case of too little too late.

It’s plainly too much to expect England to be world-beaters. But is it really too much to expect them to give the West Indies – officially the worst team in the world – a game that lasts beyond tea-time? 

Messrs Miller and Morris might want to address this question before bleating about the counties’ recruitment policies.

Because right now, the only legacy of 18 months of these fellas being in charge is a shambles of a team. 

That the Aussies think they might even need to prepare for six minutes – never mind six weeks – to take on England is, surely, an act of pure flattery rather than practical need.

Duckworth-Lewis madness: an easy solution

England come into today’s rain-reduced game with a chance of not going home empty-handed.

Which represents some kind of progress, after the 5-0 pasting in India.

But let’s not forget that is almost entirely down to the generosity of West Indies coach John Dyson whose Duckworth-Lewis mess-up in the first ODI, wrecked a day’s cricket not just for his own team but for everyone at the ground and watching on TV.

In calling his players off when light was offered in Guyana, in the mistaken belief that they were ahead on Duckworth-Lewis, Dyson made about as big a mistake as a sports coach could make.

It was sporting suicide. Not a duff tactical decision or selection – but, actually, a surrender.

I’d like to know this. Why are cricketers and coaches carrying round little scraps of paper with Duckworth-Lewis on that – often – seem to be unreliable?

There are official scorers at the game – as well as scorers from TV and radio- plus two on-field umpires, a third umpire, a fourth umpire and a referee. Is it beyond the wit of this army of officials to make sure the Duckworth-Lewis score that appears on the scoreboard is officially sanctioned and correct?

Surely the primary purpose of every single one of these scorers and officials – working together – is to make sure that the people in the ground and at home have a firm idea on exactly what the score is?

Everything else is a nicety if you don’t know the score; if, after a game has finished, no-one knows who has won, what’s the point?

Why should we waste out time and money?

(In fact, the scoreboard in Guyana got it right; but the general culture of the game seems to suggest that the scoreboard can’t be officially relied upon. Hence the amateurish farce with all the little bits of paper.)

Still, never mind. Cricket only very occasionally looks amateurish and fiasco-prone, eh?

Joke.

The World Cup final ended in farce, of course.

Last summer, England’s Twenty20 Cup saw an administrative nightmare when Yorkshire’s failure to fill in their player registration forms properly. That led to a full house, all set for a Cup quarter-final, being sent home with no cricket.

Never mind all the financial shenanigans at Stanford: what about the floodlights and all those dropped catches?

And the Test in Antigua abandoned after 10 balls because no-one could foresee the pitch was hopeless?

Or the referral system, hopelessly compromised by the refusal to use the technology properly? For days in the Caribbean, the TV umpire was judging snicks with the sound turned down on his television!

!!!!!!!!

And the series of batathons on dead pitches in the Windies (and in the ill-starred Pakistan-Sri Lanka series)? At least with those pitches, you knew who was likely to win: no-one.

Surely, cricket can’t just keep shrugging and saying it’s just ‘one of those things’.

The mistake – the big mistake- last Friday was John Dyson’s. But it’s symptomatic of a sport whose administrators have never ever grasped that giving the public – at the ground and at home – something to watch should be the No 1 priority. The idea of ‘the show must go on’ or even of ‘the show’ is never part of the calculations. It’s that lack of intent to provide the public with value for money that lies at the root of all the fiascos detailed above and all the ones that are surely still to come.

With security and terrorist issues threatening the game in some parts of the world, cricket cannot afford to act like this.

The fact that Dyson called his players off for bad light is even more laughable when you consider that the stadium has a full set of floodlights.

Naturally, it’s simply unthinkable that cricket might consider using floodlights in a game that is not officially a day-nighter. Of course it is. Just as it’s unthinkable that the D-L calculation should be updated ball-by-ball and displayed, officially, on the main scoreboard at grounds.

That would all just be too easy. Wouldn’t it?