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Bill Bridge: 'Fred Karno cricket' can give us all a laugh
THERE was no compulsion involved, certainly no instructions were received from Lord's; it was purely in the interests of investigation that much of the weekend was spent watching the Twenty20 World Cup and trying to fathom what it all means.
It came as no surprise that it does not apparently mean much to England's cricketers, at least not as much as it did to their Dutch counterparts on Friday evening, when the posing stopped and the action started. Except for the English.
The sight of Stuart Broad throwing the game away will live long in the memory – and even longer in his, no doubt. But Broad should not be too hard on himself; he will have many opportunities in the coming years to make a more successful impact for England.
The game had been lost long before then – when England's batsmen failed miserably to build on a solid start. Indeed, Holland could and should have won more easily than they did but a little fraying of the nerves as they saw their shattering success creeping up on them delayed what had long been the inevitable. For the rest, without having the stress of being English and watching those playing in our name perform so miserably they would barely have shone in the lower reaches of any of our leagues in Yorkshire, it was a mixture of fun and frustration, laughing one minute, shaking the head in disbelief the next.
Chris Gayle, for example was wonderful. Twenty20 is the ideal stage for his talent.
He can swish away, creaming wonderful sixes and slashing explosive fours, knowing that he will not be at the wicket for more than an hour or so if he bats through the innings.
That leaves him plenty of time to chill out, play the iPod and enjoy a cool drink, not like that Test game where he might have to bat all day, for goodness sake, to earn less than he does in the brief version.
Then there was Yuvraj Singh, all elegance and poise, wielding his bat like a rapier as he led India to a match-winning position against Bangladesh. Yuvraj we know about, one we didn't until Trent Bridge was the exciting Rohit Sharma, another young man apparently made for Twenty20. His range of strokes was exhilarating and – in the words of Nasser Hussain – he lacks only one shot in his repertoire: "the run-down-the-pitch shot". Funny, I can't recall seeing that one in Herbert Sutcliffe's guide to batting.
You expect the batsmen to dominate the headlines in this form of cricket, which is so heavily weighted in their favour but, on the evidence seen so far, the aspect of the game which appears to be crumbling faster than some of the bowlers is the fielding –yesterday's quite amazing catch by Scotland's Kyle Coetzer apart – and wicket-keeping.
One of Coetzer's colleagues not only missed a simple catch on Saturday but suffered the ignominy of seeing the ball hit his boot and run to the boundary; Fred Karno cricket. Then there was the Bangladeshi wicket-keeper Mushfiqur Rahim who made such a mess of a chance to stump Sharma that the batsman was given time to pause on his way to the pavilion, turn and see the wicket had not been broken and amble back into his ground. Alan Knott would have retired on the spot.
The research will go on at every opportunity but the initial prognosis is not good. We are watching cricket, certainly, but not cricket as we have known it. There is no doubt though, that crowds like that at Trent Bridge, as colourful, noisy and excited as any in Mumbai, loved every minute of the action as India strolled home. Even at a soggy, chilly Oval, where New Zealand edged out Scotland, the crowd entered the spirit of the thing.
It seems that the game has passed some of us by, with nobody to blame. Like music, cricket has moved on; the Beatles, like Geoffrey Boycott, are history.
Maybe we ought to stick with our memories and try to enjoy the rest of Twenty20, to concentrate our anger on Giles Clarke and David Collier, whose stewardship of the English game over recent years has been shambolic and whose timid kow-towing to Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen has undermined our national team to such an embarrassing extent that even the Netherlands can beat England. If that situation can be put right – the sooner the better – then this Twenty20 World Cup will have done us all a favour.
Now for Wimbledon as Federer joins the game's elite
"INCROYABLE" was Roger Federer's immediate reaction to victory in the French Open yesterday which not only took him level with Pete Sampras at the head of the grand slam listings with 14 victories but also earned him membership of the game's elite – those who have won all four of the major titles.
No-one would argue he does not deserve to sit at the same table as Donald Budge, Rod Laver, Fred Perry, Roy Emerson and Andre Agassi and few would deny him the right to leave Sampras behind when Wimbledon begins later this month. His final last year with Rafael Nadal was one of the great matches in history and there was a splendid symmetry about yesterday's first French Open title for the Swiss genius. Nadal lost for the first time in Paris to Robin Sonderling and it was Sonderling who was beaten in straight sets as Federer, pictured above, achieved his great ambition.
Forget British hope Andrew Murray; this must be Federer's year at Wimbledon.
Once in a lifetime chance to join Nijinsky
IT would not have gone down well with the Jockey Club of old, but a 27-year-old Hong Kong nightclub owner will have woken this morning with no sign of yesterday's thumping headache, a leftover from a long Saturday night of celebration, but with a decision to make which could have a huge influence on racing in general and Doncaster in particular.
In the moment of his triumph, Christopher Tsui wore the smile of a teenager and as the knowledge that his horse Sea The Stars had won the Derby began to sink deeper he rightly allowed his wise, unruffled trainer John Oxx to deal with the media scrum. But today – or sometime soon – it will be Tsui, no doubt, having taken advice from Oxx, who decides whether to run his wonderful colt in September's St Leger.
No horse since the great Nijinsky in 1970 has won racing's Triple Crown – the 2,000 Guineas, the Derby and the St Leger – but, by Oxx's own admission, Sea The Stars has the ability to take the final step and complete the treble.
Should he opt to travel to Town Moor, Oxx would be following in the footsteps of the great Vincent O'Brien, the man who trained Nijinsky and whose death a week ago brought a flood of fond reminiscence to Derby week.
O'Brien, the genius man behind the rise of Coolmore, dared to dream that Nijinsky could achieve the ultimate in British racing and, such was his attention to detail, he instructed that the colt be flown to Yorkshire for the final leg, rather than risk his charge being upset by a rough crossing of the Irish Sea, by no means an uncommon occurrence in September.
It may be, when the decision comes to be made, Tsui and Oxx decide to go down the route of the Eclipse or the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot then allow Sea The Stars to take a break before returning to action in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. But it would be wonderful if they, like O'Brien and Nijinsky's owner Charles Engelhard, set their sights on a place in racing history. There will be next year for the Arc; the Triple Crown beckons only once in a lifetime.
How sport can help boys make the grade in class
THERE are still many in the twittering classes – and some in the classrooms themselves – who remain unconvinced about the benefits of sport to our children. They might open their eyes if they could gain access to a report published by the Independent Schools Council.
That will have already ignited a chorus of animosity; for those tangled in our state system, independent schools are a foreign country and anything they suggest must be opposed or ridiculed.
But for those who are willing to take heed, the document makes interesting reading, not least when it addresses the success of schools where sport is taken seriously in improving the examination results of pupils – particularly boys who, generally, are looked upon as the weaker sex when it comes studying.
The report concludes that a boy is much more likely to record better grades in GCSE and A level exams if they have enjoyed success in activities away from the classroom – and that takes in anything from bell-ringing to chess to cricket.
One teacher (from Harrow, as it happens, which will draw further scorn on the evidence from some quarters) made the point: "Basically, a lot of boys are not particularly motivated by academic work but are motivated by sport. Having achieved success in one area of school, they do better in others, too".
Taking part in non-academic groups of all kinds helps the children, so says the report, to develop their self-esteem, enjoy recognition throughout school, make more friends and become much less likely to drop out.
Great progress has been made in recent years in bringing more children to sport but it still remains a fact that the bulk of those who will represent Great Britain at the next Olympics will come from independent schools.
It is not all about facilities; you do not need a sport hall to play chess. Maybe, if the attitude is right, it is not too late for one sector to learn from the other.
Now it's confirmed who really runs game
THERE was no sounding of trumpets or slick presentations, but then there never are when a politician has to make it public that he is perhaps not quite as important as he thinks he is and is certainly much less important than he would have us believe.
So it was that Lord Triesman, Downing Street's man in the chair of the Football Association, ostensibly the ruling body of the game in this country, confessed to Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport – and one of the few Ministers who has not resigned or been threatened with the sack as the carnage in Westminster goes on – that the FA are no longer in charge.
In a letter to Burnham, written in response to the Minster asking several questions of the chairman, the most important of which concerned which body, the FA, the Premier League or the Football League, was calling the tune, Triesman has had to come clean.
His initial response to Burnham was a treatise on how well the game has been doing since his lordship replaced the unlamented Geoffrey Thompson in the chair.
It was only after discussions with representatives of what is termed in football politics "the professional game" that he was persuaded to tell Burnham exactly what the state of the game has become. Effectively, he confessed that anything the FA wished to do had to win the approval of the Premier League as a minimum but preferably the Premier League and the Football League in tandem before it could be implemented.
Now we know why a block has once again been put on the development of the FA's proposed academy at Burton-on-Trent.
The party line is that the Association are having to reduce expenditure as the credit crisis takes effect. But looking at the figures bandied about last week telling us exactly what the Premier League clubs made in TV revenue, gate receipts and prize-money, there is no financial crisis in the game.
If the Premier League clubs wanted Burton to go ahead, the money would be found. But because the Premier League want to keep control of the development of young players in their own academies, rather than see the best of our youngsters developing their skills without club affiliation, there is little chance of the centre of excellence, the best idea Howard Wilkinson ever had, going ahead.
Lord Triesman has lost the battle and, in his letter, accepts that the FA have conceded the last vestige of control. That being the case, do we still need Soho Square? Let's leave everything to the Premier League; men we know we can trust.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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