Demosthenes
Premiership Player
- Jun 9, 2015
- 3,364
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Yeah that was the article that prompted it.
Still love Polite Enquiries, got to say.
Still love Polite Enquiries, got to say.
-
AFLW 2024 - Round 8 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
The Cricket Writing Thread
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Been hanging out with George Dobell for too long.
Was that they "daymare" one? Yeah I didn't get that one at all.
However his one on Cummins from the second day was outstanding. As is the usual case with bigfooty the good is unrecognised and the bad induces disproportionate meltdowns.
However his one on Cummins from the second day was outstanding. As is the usual case with bigfooty the good is unrecognised and the bad induces disproportionate meltdowns.
Kimber seems to try too hard to be profound and sometimes it results in a mess of an article. But at least he's having a crack and has some strong, thought-provoking opinions on the game. There are far worse cricket journos going around.
strewthcobber
Senior List
- Jul 20, 2015
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He's just about at the top of the pile these days. Takes risks, writes stuff no-one else will. Even if the articles don't work at least it's interesting. The data/stats stuff recently has been terrific
nobbyiscool
Brownlow Medallist
- Aug 11, 2006
- 21,568
- 23,953
- AFL Club
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I reckon that, of all the sports in the world, there's no more interesting sport to write about and to read about than cricket. I think because of the slowness of the game, along with it's intricacies, and the vast cultural differences between the countries that play cricket, it lends itself exceptionally well to opinion and to analysis, from former players, from professional journalists, and even from Joe Average who has an opinion and good writing skills.
So I'm hoping we can create a space where, if you read an excellent article, people might post the article (or maybe just the link, depending I guess on where the article is from.) I doubt any of us have the time to check all the great sources of cricket writing, so it'd be great if maybe we could share them.
So I'm hoping we can create a space where, if you read an excellent article, people might post the article (or maybe just the link, depending I guess on where the article is from.) I doubt any of us have the time to check all the great sources of cricket writing, so it'd be great if maybe we could share them.
nobbyiscool
Brownlow Medallist
- Aug 11, 2006
- 21,568
- 23,953
- AFL Club
- Tasmania
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/b...is-rotting-destroyed-icc-ecb-t20-test-matches
Thirty years ago, when he was newly retired as a player and before he was canonised (if not yet knighted) for his performances as a jolly old card on Test Match Special, Geoffrey Boycott appeared on the Radio 4 programme In the Psychiatrist’s Chair.
The interviewer, Dr Anthony Clare, casually mentioned that cricket was a team game. Boycott denied it. “No, it’s 11 individuals as a team.” What a giveaway, thought the massed ranks of cricket-loving, Radio 4-listening, amateur psychiatrists. Boycott had finally admitted what his contemporaries always claimed: that he played for himself.
A generation later came Kevin Pietersen, Boycott’s polar opposite in his style of play but his long-lost son in terms of team-mate relations. Consider the differences, though: Boycott, between 1962 and 1986, played 414 first-class matches for Yorkshire (maybe he only ever played for Boycottshire but that isn’t the point), 108 Tests for England and only bits and pieces for anyone else.
Pietersen, in a less enduring career, has played for three English counties, a South African province and six specialist Twenty20 teams in four different countries, none of them yet his native South Africa or his adopted England. With power to add.
Pietersen played 104 Tests and without them he would have been a nobody. But he is the harbinger of a new world, in which Test cricket is becoming irrelevant, even on a player’s CV, a world in which it is becoming possible to make millions from playing without getting more than a cursory mention in Wisden. Without even having a team at all except as a very temporary hook-up in the Twenty20 leagues: something more than a one-night stand and less than a holiday romance. Perhaps KP can remember all the Twenty20 teams he has played for. It seems unlikely that he can remember whether or not his presence helped the Quetta Gladiators or the St Lucia Zouks actually win a trophy, unless there was a contractual clause that made it matter to him.
This wretched idea was sold to the county chairmen by bribery – an annual £1.3m sweetener per county – with a tacit undercurrent of threat.
My only interest – in common with many other cricket lovers – is the hope that the damnable thing is a total flop and that we can somehow save the game I once adored, and still love more than the people who have seized control of it. One can say that athletics is in crisis but at least we can be sure that, as long as humanity survives, kids will still try to run faster than their classmates. Cricket’s crisis is an existential one.
Everything worthwhile about it is being destroyed: its culture that the umpire’s decision is final; the delicate balance between bat and ball as the game degenerates into a six-hitting contest; and that even more delicate balance between individual and team that made it imperative for even the most militant individualists not to laugh out loud if one’s own magnificent century failed to save the team from defeat.
It is rotting in different ways in different places. In Asia, it is being wrecked from the top down: by corrupt administrators, politicians, businessmen and bookmakers while the kids still play in every available back alley and rice paddy. In Britain, it is happening mainly from the bottom up, as village cricket disintegrates and the once ubiquitous informal cricket of playground, park and back garden is crushed by the power of football, even in high summer. When did you last see a group of children (public schools and Asian community partially excepted) playing cricket without an adult? The cricket that does take place is increasingly argumentative and bad‑tempered; ask any club umpire.
This does not make the England and Wales Cricket Board guiltless. It is responsible for the catastrophic decision (cricket’s live now, suffer later version of PFI) to take the game away from the public and hand it to Sky – which took effect at the very moment of triumph in 2005 when the nation had just reignited its love affair with Test match cricket.
And this was merely the most devastating error. There have been decades of twisting, turning, fiddling and farting around with the fixture lists. When does a Test match now start? Search me. What about county matches? Heaven alone knows, if even heaven now bothers. But you can generally rule out June, July or August, the months of high summer.
The ECB still employs a few people with some knowledge of cricket, but even they seem to have zero understanding of the game’s rhythms. Which are the Test matches that still habitually draw crowds? Lord’s, The Oval, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. What do they have in common? Predictability – so that friends can get together every year and watch the games companionably. Sometimes with panamas and bottles of Chardonnay; sometimes dressed as Elvis holding pints of lager. But the authorities are trying to wreck even this, by staging Oval Tests in July and Lord’s Tests in May and September. And in 2018 there will be no Tests at all between 5 June and 1 August. They just don’t get it.
One has long ago given up any hope of anything worthwhile emerging from the Dubaivory tower where sits the International Cricket Council. It has, so far as I can discover, three aims in life: the accumulation of money; its own self-aggrandisement; and the largely bogus expansion of the game designed toimpress bodies such as the International Olympic Committee (the ICC claims 104 member countries, most of them places where cricket is played almost wholly by expats); it has not (yet) taken the Laws of Cricket away from MCC, but it often imposes new regulations, of varying degrees of stupidity. And no figure of genuine cricketing stature has held the most powerful job (variously called president or chairman) at the ICC since Sir Clyde Walcott bowed out 20 years ago.
The latest wheeze is to reinvigorate Test cricket by providing a final, now scheduled for Lord’s circa 2021. Where we do start with this crackpot plan? First, the essence of Test cricket is that it constitutes a complex form of arm-wrestling, in which superiority reveals itself over a long period of time. A single match, played in particular circumstances, proves nothing, as any fule kno.
Second, if the final is between, say, New Zealand and South Africa, who the hell will pay to watch? Third, does anyone at the ICC even know that there are three common results to a Test match, including the draw, which is part of cricket’s under-appreciated genius. Even if one team is completely superior, it still has to complete victory within the allotted time frame. And even a team staring at defeat still has the possibility of escape.
So what happens if the final is a draw? Will the team with the better overall record be declared champion, in which case they have no incentive to take any risks? Or do they share what will undoubtedly be big prize money, that being the only language the ICC understands? In which case, they might well agree to share that in advance.
I am credited with originating the current Test championship, which is sort of true. As editor of Wisden, I came up with the idea in 1995 and for a while it attracted considerable attention, especially in 1999 when England managed to hit rock bottom, below even Zimbabwe.
Then I made what may well be (despite many other contenders) the biggest damn-fool mistake of my life and handed the table over to the ICC for what I imagined was the benefit of cricket. As soon as they got their mitts on it they abandoned the straightforward system I had devised and handed it over to a statistician, using a method no one except him has ever understood.
As this stands, India are apparently the best Test team in the world although they have not won an away series against England since 2007 and not at all in Australia. And they haven’t played Pakistan in a Test for a decade. Yet, we are told, they are the reigning champions.
There are potential ways forward, one of which, emanating from Andrew Strauss and supported by Mike Atherton, involves using the three different forms of the game to produce one champion. This is worth discussion. I tried proposing something similar to revive county cricket years ago but it got lost in a Lord’s committee room. Cricket is not beyond salvation. One thing is certain: the current omnishambles will never be resolved by the dunderheads in Dubai.
Thirty years ago, when he was newly retired as a player and before he was canonised (if not yet knighted) for his performances as a jolly old card on Test Match Special, Geoffrey Boycott appeared on the Radio 4 programme In the Psychiatrist’s Chair.
The interviewer, Dr Anthony Clare, casually mentioned that cricket was a team game. Boycott denied it. “No, it’s 11 individuals as a team.” What a giveaway, thought the massed ranks of cricket-loving, Radio 4-listening, amateur psychiatrists. Boycott had finally admitted what his contemporaries always claimed: that he played for himself.
A generation later came Kevin Pietersen, Boycott’s polar opposite in his style of play but his long-lost son in terms of team-mate relations. Consider the differences, though: Boycott, between 1962 and 1986, played 414 first-class matches for Yorkshire (maybe he only ever played for Boycottshire but that isn’t the point), 108 Tests for England and only bits and pieces for anyone else.
Pietersen, in a less enduring career, has played for three English counties, a South African province and six specialist Twenty20 teams in four different countries, none of them yet his native South Africa or his adopted England. With power to add.
Pietersen played 104 Tests and without them he would have been a nobody. But he is the harbinger of a new world, in which Test cricket is becoming irrelevant, even on a player’s CV, a world in which it is becoming possible to make millions from playing without getting more than a cursory mention in Wisden. Without even having a team at all except as a very temporary hook-up in the Twenty20 leagues: something more than a one-night stand and less than a holiday romance. Perhaps KP can remember all the Twenty20 teams he has played for. It seems unlikely that he can remember whether or not his presence helped the Quetta Gladiators or the St Lucia Zouks actually win a trophy, unless there was a contractual clause that made it matter to him.
This wretched idea was sold to the county chairmen by bribery – an annual £1.3m sweetener per county – with a tacit undercurrent of threat.
My only interest – in common with many other cricket lovers – is the hope that the damnable thing is a total flop and that we can somehow save the game I once adored, and still love more than the people who have seized control of it. One can say that athletics is in crisis but at least we can be sure that, as long as humanity survives, kids will still try to run faster than their classmates. Cricket’s crisis is an existential one.
Everything worthwhile about it is being destroyed: its culture that the umpire’s decision is final; the delicate balance between bat and ball as the game degenerates into a six-hitting contest; and that even more delicate balance between individual and team that made it imperative for even the most militant individualists not to laugh out loud if one’s own magnificent century failed to save the team from defeat.
It is rotting in different ways in different places. In Asia, it is being wrecked from the top down: by corrupt administrators, politicians, businessmen and bookmakers while the kids still play in every available back alley and rice paddy. In Britain, it is happening mainly from the bottom up, as village cricket disintegrates and the once ubiquitous informal cricket of playground, park and back garden is crushed by the power of football, even in high summer. When did you last see a group of children (public schools and Asian community partially excepted) playing cricket without an adult? The cricket that does take place is increasingly argumentative and bad‑tempered; ask any club umpire.
This does not make the England and Wales Cricket Board guiltless. It is responsible for the catastrophic decision (cricket’s live now, suffer later version of PFI) to take the game away from the public and hand it to Sky – which took effect at the very moment of triumph in 2005 when the nation had just reignited its love affair with Test match cricket.
And this was merely the most devastating error. There have been decades of twisting, turning, fiddling and farting around with the fixture lists. When does a Test match now start? Search me. What about county matches? Heaven alone knows, if even heaven now bothers. But you can generally rule out June, July or August, the months of high summer.
The ECB still employs a few people with some knowledge of cricket, but even they seem to have zero understanding of the game’s rhythms. Which are the Test matches that still habitually draw crowds? Lord’s, The Oval, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. What do they have in common? Predictability – so that friends can get together every year and watch the games companionably. Sometimes with panamas and bottles of Chardonnay; sometimes dressed as Elvis holding pints of lager. But the authorities are trying to wreck even this, by staging Oval Tests in July and Lord’s Tests in May and September. And in 2018 there will be no Tests at all between 5 June and 1 August. They just don’t get it.
One has long ago given up any hope of anything worthwhile emerging from the Dubaivory tower where sits the International Cricket Council. It has, so far as I can discover, three aims in life: the accumulation of money; its own self-aggrandisement; and the largely bogus expansion of the game designed toimpress bodies such as the International Olympic Committee (the ICC claims 104 member countries, most of them places where cricket is played almost wholly by expats); it has not (yet) taken the Laws of Cricket away from MCC, but it often imposes new regulations, of varying degrees of stupidity. And no figure of genuine cricketing stature has held the most powerful job (variously called president or chairman) at the ICC since Sir Clyde Walcott bowed out 20 years ago.
The latest wheeze is to reinvigorate Test cricket by providing a final, now scheduled for Lord’s circa 2021. Where we do start with this crackpot plan? First, the essence of Test cricket is that it constitutes a complex form of arm-wrestling, in which superiority reveals itself over a long period of time. A single match, played in particular circumstances, proves nothing, as any fule kno.
Second, if the final is between, say, New Zealand and South Africa, who the hell will pay to watch? Third, does anyone at the ICC even know that there are three common results to a Test match, including the draw, which is part of cricket’s under-appreciated genius. Even if one team is completely superior, it still has to complete victory within the allotted time frame. And even a team staring at defeat still has the possibility of escape.
So what happens if the final is a draw? Will the team with the better overall record be declared champion, in which case they have no incentive to take any risks? Or do they share what will undoubtedly be big prize money, that being the only language the ICC understands? In which case, they might well agree to share that in advance.
I am credited with originating the current Test championship, which is sort of true. As editor of Wisden, I came up with the idea in 1995 and for a while it attracted considerable attention, especially in 1999 when England managed to hit rock bottom, below even Zimbabwe.
Then I made what may well be (despite many other contenders) the biggest damn-fool mistake of my life and handed the table over to the ICC for what I imagined was the benefit of cricket. As soon as they got their mitts on it they abandoned the straightforward system I had devised and handed it over to a statistician, using a method no one except him has ever understood.
As this stands, India are apparently the best Test team in the world although they have not won an away series against England since 2007 and not at all in Australia. And they haven’t played Pakistan in a Test for a decade. Yet, we are told, they are the reigning champions.
There are potential ways forward, one of which, emanating from Andrew Strauss and supported by Mike Atherton, involves using the three different forms of the game to produce one champion. This is worth discussion. I tried proposing something similar to revive county cricket years ago but it got lost in a Lord’s committee room. Cricket is not beyond salvation. One thing is certain: the current omnishambles will never be resolved by the dunderheads in Dubai.
nobbyiscool
Brownlow Medallist
- Aug 11, 2006
- 21,568
- 23,953
- AFL Club
- Tasmania
(I hesitated to use this as an article to kickstart the thread, cos I know that Geeves is considered... "contentious" to put it nicely. Still, I thought this was a really well written article.)
https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricke...y/news-story/2a01808be6c22c1700ca56ddf3d37755
SO, can we talk about Chris Lynn’s consistency?
This summer he’s had no Shield cricket. No one-day cricket. Just the three Big Bash games.
And his last one-day game came 350 days ago.
He’s played nine domestic one-day games in three years for a return of 29 per innings and a top score of 63.
And his current return to cricket comes with the restrictions of being a gross liability in the field through not being allowed to dive for the ball or throw with his dominant hand without fear of having his arm detach completely from his shoulder socket.
I’m not even making this up.
When asked a week ago about a return to the national set-up, Lynn’s response was far from open-ended.
“I still can’t throw with my dominant hand and still believe to play for Australia you’ve got to be 100 per cent fit,” he said.
“I’d love to be out there, but I’ve still got a way to go”.
Strange response, right? Normally players are salivating at the chance to push their own cause publicly.
Because even though the body might not necessarily be ready for an injection of workload, the bank account is always ready for an injection of funds.
Damn straight — talk yourself into making $7,000 per one-day game!
But maybe this response runs a little deeper than just the rehabbing of a problematic shoulder.
Earlier this year, Lynn snubbed a domestic contract with Queensland to rehab that shoulder.
Why wouldn’t you want the security of guaranteed money while you take time out of your profession to fix your body?
The way of the modern player: T20 freelancer!
When you can hit the ball as clean as Chris Lynn, why wouldn’t you flick the bird at the lure of national representation, choosing instead to trade bombs for cash — which is more relevant today than you might even know.
Making the decision more fundamentally sound than a perceived cash grab, Lynn’s shoulder is in such bad shape that it threatens the longevity of his career.
The man’s gotta eat. And cashing in on your strengths is a sound business model.
Does $7,000 per day restrict Lynn’s long-term earnings as a T20 freelancer?
Speculation. But sometimes it’s fun ... and relevant.
It was a brave decision to not partake in guaranteed money, and at the time, it felt like the end of Chris Lynn the international performer; at least until his shoulder was back to full health, he wasn’t a liability in the field and he was recommitted to the state pathway.
STATE PATHWAY!!??? (insert an evil laugh from the NSP)
It is here that we take a knee for Glenn Maxwell and Jon Holland, to give thanks that we are not living the professional hell they must now be experiencing.
“Go back to shield cricket and score more runs” the NSP said to Maxwell after dropping him from the Test team following a brief stint in which all of his innings came on the Australian graveyard of the subcontinent and included a breakthrough Test century that, on the surface, appeared to be the making of him at that level.
Getting dropped is always tough to swallow; but making it even harder to pass through the gullet is the square-shaped nature of the ridiculously ICC-sanctioned flat decks that have been offered up at the WACA and the MCG!
It doesn’t get any flatter without someone having to pay a fine.
Give Glenn credit, here. We’ve seen no public whining, even though I’m sure he desperately wanted it.
And no requests to jump states like last time.
It was clear from this, as a rank outside observer, that Maxwell had matured. His focus seemed solely on doing as he was told, which hasn’t always been easy for him, or me, or your puppy retriever.
And how did this new approach to his cricketing life work for him?
Career-best form and unseen consistency.
Try 278 against NSW, a 96 against Western Australia and a pair of 60s against Tasmania.
Since being dropped for Geoff’s boy Shaun, Maxwell has been a shining example of consistency: batting long periods, getting his team through key moments, winning key moments; proving that he can be a leader with bat in hand.
From this, it’s not possible you could question his showing of improvement in the areas that have too often plagued his career: consistency.
His batting fundamentals, the basics forever questioned, must surely have him perfectly poised to re-find the golden touch of the man who was named the 2016 one-day player of the year — the man who averaged 62, at a strike rate of 180, in the last World Cup.
Confusingly, Steve Smith took time in his press conference today to suggest Glenn still hadn’t mastered the art of consistency.
“Train a little bit smarter” were the pointed words Smith used to justify the selectors swinging the axe.
“If he keeps his head switched on and trains really well, and focuses on basic things, probably more than the expansive things, then I think that will help his consistency.
“And if he is having those consistent performances, then he is someone you definitely want to have in your team”.
Whoah! You can take that with you on the way out, Maxy.
Without pushing blame on anyone other than Glenn for his training standards — because grinding in the nets isn’t for everyone, and nor should it be, for we are all different animals — what in the name of Mayor West are his coaches doing?
Where is Darren Lehmann? Graeme Hick?
Why are Andrew McDonald and Dave Hussey, who oversee the Victorian program, letting him do his own thing? And if he isn’t off coaching himself, then why is he paying the ultimate price for the coaching plan he has been given?
Where is the consultation from CA to the states to ensure that Glenn is being guided down a harmonious pathway of development?
I’ll tell you where: it lay in the gutter with the same contradictory communication standards that saw Steve Smith go rogue and drop Ed Cowan for being too old, which made the NSP and CA look completely incompetent through it’s contradictory selections of Shaun Marsh and Tim Paine.
It lay next to Cameron White and George Bailey who experienced the same fate.
It lay next to the decision to fly a suspended-by-his-state Steve O’Keefe — for an incident many believe to have been sackable — to Bangladesh, ahead of Jon Holland.
That’s Holland who is the best-performed spinner in domestic cricket over the past two seasons, by the way.
The further contradiction of Marsh and Paine — proven domestic warriors that have the NSP currently beating their own drum — against the selection of Ashton Agar over Holland.
But perhaps most confusing about this is the fact that the strength of your white-ball numbers can get you picked for Test match cricket — see Paine, Stoinis — yet finding a level of unseen consistency in the red-ball format — the only one available to you through the demise of domestic cricket to ensure the cluster of the BBL rolls on — isn’t enough to answer the question marks over your consistency as a cricketer.
The consultation between CA, the NSP and state associations appears to be beyond the gutter of disarray.
It is completely non existent.
And it seems the communication with players on the radar — as proven by Chris Lynn’s quote about his shoulder only a week ago and Jon Holland’s phone not displaying ‘NSP Calling” for an extended period — rolls into the same storm water drain.
Does the outcome — Australia is up 3-0 in the Ashes, after all — justify the means?
No.
Not when it comes to the careers of professional athletes who need as much information as possible to perform and train at their optimum.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricke...y/news-story/2a01808be6c22c1700ca56ddf3d37755
SO, can we talk about Chris Lynn’s consistency?
This summer he’s had no Shield cricket. No one-day cricket. Just the three Big Bash games.
And his last one-day game came 350 days ago.
He’s played nine domestic one-day games in three years for a return of 29 per innings and a top score of 63.
And his current return to cricket comes with the restrictions of being a gross liability in the field through not being allowed to dive for the ball or throw with his dominant hand without fear of having his arm detach completely from his shoulder socket.
I’m not even making this up.
When asked a week ago about a return to the national set-up, Lynn’s response was far from open-ended.
“I still can’t throw with my dominant hand and still believe to play for Australia you’ve got to be 100 per cent fit,” he said.
“I’d love to be out there, but I’ve still got a way to go”.
Strange response, right? Normally players are salivating at the chance to push their own cause publicly.
Because even though the body might not necessarily be ready for an injection of workload, the bank account is always ready for an injection of funds.
Damn straight — talk yourself into making $7,000 per one-day game!
But maybe this response runs a little deeper than just the rehabbing of a problematic shoulder.
Earlier this year, Lynn snubbed a domestic contract with Queensland to rehab that shoulder.
Why wouldn’t you want the security of guaranteed money while you take time out of your profession to fix your body?
The way of the modern player: T20 freelancer!
When you can hit the ball as clean as Chris Lynn, why wouldn’t you flick the bird at the lure of national representation, choosing instead to trade bombs for cash — which is more relevant today than you might even know.
Making the decision more fundamentally sound than a perceived cash grab, Lynn’s shoulder is in such bad shape that it threatens the longevity of his career.
The man’s gotta eat. And cashing in on your strengths is a sound business model.
Does $7,000 per day restrict Lynn’s long-term earnings as a T20 freelancer?
Speculation. But sometimes it’s fun ... and relevant.
It was a brave decision to not partake in guaranteed money, and at the time, it felt like the end of Chris Lynn the international performer; at least until his shoulder was back to full health, he wasn’t a liability in the field and he was recommitted to the state pathway.
STATE PATHWAY!!??? (insert an evil laugh from the NSP)
It is here that we take a knee for Glenn Maxwell and Jon Holland, to give thanks that we are not living the professional hell they must now be experiencing.
“Go back to shield cricket and score more runs” the NSP said to Maxwell after dropping him from the Test team following a brief stint in which all of his innings came on the Australian graveyard of the subcontinent and included a breakthrough Test century that, on the surface, appeared to be the making of him at that level.
Getting dropped is always tough to swallow; but making it even harder to pass through the gullet is the square-shaped nature of the ridiculously ICC-sanctioned flat decks that have been offered up at the WACA and the MCG!
It doesn’t get any flatter without someone having to pay a fine.
Give Glenn credit, here. We’ve seen no public whining, even though I’m sure he desperately wanted it.
And no requests to jump states like last time.
It was clear from this, as a rank outside observer, that Maxwell had matured. His focus seemed solely on doing as he was told, which hasn’t always been easy for him, or me, or your puppy retriever.
And how did this new approach to his cricketing life work for him?
Career-best form and unseen consistency.
Try 278 against NSW, a 96 against Western Australia and a pair of 60s against Tasmania.
Since being dropped for Geoff’s boy Shaun, Maxwell has been a shining example of consistency: batting long periods, getting his team through key moments, winning key moments; proving that he can be a leader with bat in hand.
From this, it’s not possible you could question his showing of improvement in the areas that have too often plagued his career: consistency.
His batting fundamentals, the basics forever questioned, must surely have him perfectly poised to re-find the golden touch of the man who was named the 2016 one-day player of the year — the man who averaged 62, at a strike rate of 180, in the last World Cup.
Confusingly, Steve Smith took time in his press conference today to suggest Glenn still hadn’t mastered the art of consistency.
“Train a little bit smarter” were the pointed words Smith used to justify the selectors swinging the axe.
“If he keeps his head switched on and trains really well, and focuses on basic things, probably more than the expansive things, then I think that will help his consistency.
“And if he is having those consistent performances, then he is someone you definitely want to have in your team”.
Whoah! You can take that with you on the way out, Maxy.
Without pushing blame on anyone other than Glenn for his training standards — because grinding in the nets isn’t for everyone, and nor should it be, for we are all different animals — what in the name of Mayor West are his coaches doing?
Where is Darren Lehmann? Graeme Hick?
Why are Andrew McDonald and Dave Hussey, who oversee the Victorian program, letting him do his own thing? And if he isn’t off coaching himself, then why is he paying the ultimate price for the coaching plan he has been given?
Where is the consultation from CA to the states to ensure that Glenn is being guided down a harmonious pathway of development?
I’ll tell you where: it lay in the gutter with the same contradictory communication standards that saw Steve Smith go rogue and drop Ed Cowan for being too old, which made the NSP and CA look completely incompetent through it’s contradictory selections of Shaun Marsh and Tim Paine.
It lay next to Cameron White and George Bailey who experienced the same fate.
It lay next to the decision to fly a suspended-by-his-state Steve O’Keefe — for an incident many believe to have been sackable — to Bangladesh, ahead of Jon Holland.
That’s Holland who is the best-performed spinner in domestic cricket over the past two seasons, by the way.
The further contradiction of Marsh and Paine — proven domestic warriors that have the NSP currently beating their own drum — against the selection of Ashton Agar over Holland.
But perhaps most confusing about this is the fact that the strength of your white-ball numbers can get you picked for Test match cricket — see Paine, Stoinis — yet finding a level of unseen consistency in the red-ball format — the only one available to you through the demise of domestic cricket to ensure the cluster of the BBL rolls on — isn’t enough to answer the question marks over your consistency as a cricketer.
The consultation between CA, the NSP and state associations appears to be beyond the gutter of disarray.
It is completely non existent.
And it seems the communication with players on the radar — as proven by Chris Lynn’s quote about his shoulder only a week ago and Jon Holland’s phone not displaying ‘NSP Calling” for an extended period — rolls into the same storm water drain.
Does the outcome — Australia is up 3-0 in the Ashes, after all — justify the means?
No.
Not when it comes to the careers of professional athletes who need as much information as possible to perform and train at their optimum.
Power Raid
We Exist To Win Premierships
#in4everythingcricket
- Jul 31, 2010
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We had a really good thread on cricket writing last season and I recommend nearly all the aricles posted in that thread.
https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/the-cricket-writing-thread.1155078/
https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/the-cricket-writing-thread.1155078/
nobbyiscool
Brownlow Medallist
- Aug 11, 2006
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Thanks heaps for that - I thought there was a thread but I couldn't find it
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The Cricket Monthly is sensational, could read through them endlessly. Long reads but top quality and free.
http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/
The Guardian tends to be my other go to for quality writing on cricket. Atherton and Haigh always enjoy as well but not a subscriber to The Australian or The Times so can go a while without reading their works.
http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/
The Guardian tends to be my other go to for quality writing on cricket. Atherton and Haigh always enjoy as well but not a subscriber to The Australian or The Times so can go a while without reading their works.
Gough
Moderator
- Sep 29, 2006
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From the Cricket Monthly, a long read but worth it.
http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/1131324/the-rainbow-beauty-of-hashim-amla
http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/1131324/the-rainbow-beauty-of-hashim-amla
Drugs Are Bad Mackay?
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nobbyiscool
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Read it just this morning. Excellent.
nobbyiscool
Brownlow Medallist
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I meant to post this article when I started the thread - it was run of the reasons I started it. One of the best cricket related articles I've read (albeit 6 months old.)
http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/patrick-patterson-an-unquiet-mind-4762590/
If you only read one cricket article this week, make it this one.
http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/patrick-patterson-an-unquiet-mind-4762590/
If you only read one cricket article this week, make it this one.
Teal Plums
Team Captain
That was absolutely superb. Thanks very much for sharing
http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia-v-india-2014-15/content/story/811903.html
The evolution of Steve Smith. Written by Jarrod Kimber. I reckon it is absolute quality.
The evolution of Steve Smith. Written by Jarrod Kimber. I reckon it is absolute quality.
http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/1122096/towering--glowering--empowering
Enjoyed this one on Curtly Ambrose.
Enjoyed this one on Curtly Ambrose.
To me, this is the best article on cricket I've ever read: http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/549101.html
Oh I forgot that one, has been a long time since I've read it so thanks for the re-introduction to Thompson!
- May 5, 2016
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Wow, what a fantastic read! Seeing Patterson in the 92-93 series was one of my earliest cricket memories and even then I found it interesting hearing how the commentators spoke about him. Everything about him seemed cool and intimidating. Very sad that he never got to really kick on. They could have done some further damage with he, Ambrose, Walsh and Bishop.
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