posted by John Winn
Social media, the press and broadcasting outlets continue to express their anguish at England's recent four nil defeat in Australia usually accompanied by suggestions as to how things might turn out better next time. Many of these lay the blame at the county championship's door and at their most extreme advocate the scrapping of this competition and its replacement by something akin to a franchise system or a streamlined structure with fewer counties involved. Bathwater and babies come to mind and it is perhaps worth reminding ourselves that such a drubbing has happened before.
In September 1958 an MCC party sailed on the SS Iberia. Under the management of FR Brown sixteen players including batsmen of the quality of May, Cowdrey and Graveney and an attack including Trueman, Tyson, Statham, Lock and Laker called in at Ceylon as Sri Lanka was then known. to play a warm up match. Two weeks later they arrived in Perth to play Western Australia and seven (sic) weeks later they played the first test in Brisbane. Before May won the toss at The Gabba and chose to bat MCC (England in test matches only) had had 27 days of first class cricket including a match on the test ground against Queensland, albeit one shortened by rain. England went on to lose the series, which lasted until mid February, four nil. In mitigation Wisden mentioned injuries, poor umpiring and the doubtful actions of some of the Australian bowlers but concluded 'that the tourists were not good enough.'
Contrast the 58/59 schedule with that which Root's men were faced. Practice matches were little more the sort of thing we did when we were kids and picked up two teams from those who turned up on the local 'rec' and in any case were ruined by rain. From there it was straight into an itinerary that crammed five tests into little over six weeks with no cricket in between. Who agreed to that? Chuck in puzzling selection both before and during the tour and I think a measure of perspective is achieved.
In the days immediately following the fifth test the i newspaper's cricket correspondent, Chris Stocks, offered a brief summary of each England player's performance with marks out of ten. Bottom mark, -1, went to poor old Hameed and top of the class was mark Wood with 8. In his brief comment on the Durham quickie who was actually not selected for the second test, Stocks lamented that by the time England next contest the ashes in Australia in four years time Wood will be 36, presumably too old. This was perhaps a throw-away comment but it does seem odd that Stocks should be thinking four years hence when in March England are due to play a test series in the West Indies followed by home series this summer against New Zealand and South Africa and one test v India. Ten test in a little over eight months.Enough to be going on with.
No comments:
Post a Comment