March 2008 Archives

The Bears' 50-over friendly with Worcestershire at New Road tomorrow is on, barring serious downpours tonight. I'll put a few details on here as the game progresses.

If I'm not called upon to purvey a few overs of leg-spin, that is...

Warwickshire's players are hard at work in pre-season training, mainly on yer regular crickety-type activities - batting, bowling, fielding and the like.
But there's more. All the Bears players have been or will be given a briefing on...the law regarding to corporate manslaughter.
This makes a lot of sense. It means that Jonathan Trott can venture out to bat safe in knowledge that, should he hit a six which clonks somebody on the bonce with fatal results, he will be well-prepared for any subsequent litigation. Similarly, Jimmy Anyon can hurl himself into sliding stops on the boundary comfortable with the fact that, if his momentum takes him into collision with the boundary fence, a shard of which splinters off, flies through the air and pierces a spectator tragically through the heart, he will be equipped to fight any pending legal battle. Makes sense.

Or has the world gone slightly mad?

In 1888, after a year of very poor financal performance, Warwickshire trimmed costs by ceasing to provide lunch for the professional players. Is this not a move that the county should seriously consider in 2008?
If not a complete abolition of lunch, perhaps an incentive-based system whereby a player is allocated an amount of nosebag relevant to the amount of runs/wickets he has secured.

I can vouch for the fact that avoidance of an empty tum is a great spur to work harder. When I was little I had to do the chores (sweep the chimney, scour the cooker, remove the dead rats from the outside lavatory and sandpaper the cat) before I was given even a few scraps.

I came from a poor family, you see. One year things were so tight that mum and dad gave me an empty box for Christmas and told me it was an action-man deserter.

It's a national disgrace that the BBC, having not even bid for cricket last time it came on the market, and which now shows such ambivalence to it that sometimes it does not even mention the score in Test matches during its main 6pm news, has shelled out God's-knows-how-much of your and my licence money for the rights to transmit live coverage of cars being driven along roads.
This despite recent figures which indicate that 98 per cent of the British population are interested in the glorious, fascinating, elegant and gripping sport of cricket while car-racing is rated below table-tennis, synchronised swimming, polo, fell-walking and underwater bowls in terms of public interest as a spectator sport.

And, while we're at it, it's high time they repeated 'The Waltons', the whole lot, start to finish, again. Proper telly.

He was of a peaceful, placid nature, no jarring element in it, all was mixed up so kindly within him; my uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly. 'Go', says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed about his nose and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him. 'I'll not hurt thee', says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair and going across the room, with the fly in his hand, 'I'll not hurt a hair of thy head'.
'Go', says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape, 'go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? This world is surely big enough to hold both thee and me.'

Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, talking about his gentle and kind uncle Toby. Perhaps the most beautiful passage in the history of English literature and one which the cricketers of India and Australia, after their ugly series recently, should be made to learn and then recite before the start of every day's play from now on for the rest of their careers.

Hampshire's decision to happily hire out Dimitri Mascarenhas to the Indian Premier League in May was another kick in the ribs for county cricket. "A great honour for the player and the county," said chairman Rod Bransgrove. Eh? Surely Dimmy's just getting his snout in the trough. Another case of a county delighted, indeed grateful, to play lamppost to the dog of TV-fuelled greed.
By the way, it's high time somebody clamped down on sofa adverts. All those people languishing around on sofas without any socks on. Sometimes in the middle of the afternoon! It's depraved.
Frinton-on-Sea is actually much nicer than it was portrayed in that disgraceful BBC2 programme last night but, if I was a Warwickshire supporter, I would not be entirely comfortable with the apparent obsession from some at Edgbaston with international cricket. We all know the financial realities these days but last season the eye was taken right off the ball county-cricket wise with wretched consequences.
Some counties seem happy to let the county game wither on the vine. I hope the Bears fight for it all the way.
One other thing - me back's gone again. Ever since Blackpool, 2006, and an ill-advisedly long and over-active night out with Section 19, it's been dodgy and it went again this morning just as I was asking Walsall manager Richard Money a probing question.
As I type this, I am flat on my back, covered from head to toe in bandages, with all four limbs suspended in splints. Dangerous business, this sports journalism.

Poor old Tim Ambrose, making his Test debut in that shambles. But Tim did okay and anyway, after last summer, he knows all about the deep end.
Remember he got lumbered with the Bears captaincy at home to Surrey and, after the predictable thrashing, faced the press with Mark Greatbatch. And when the coach was asked about the team's shocking batting form, incredibly, he said: "I think that's one for the captain," and handed over to poor Amby, who had just skippered a team for the first time in first-class cricket! Again, he did okay there too. Impressive fella.
On the England debacle, by the way, three points.
1. What on earth are Harmison and Pietersen doing in the team?
2. England are clearly so brilliant that they can just fetch up on tour and play brilliantly without any proper preparation. This appears the ECB view and, on the evidence of this Test and the start of last winter's Ashes series, who could disagree?
3. Most importantly, we can only hope and pray that news of England's appalling efforts did not disturb the concentration or detract from the delivery of the national selector at his speaking engagements back in the UK.
You wouldn't make it up!

Ladies and gentlemen I am pleased to announce an exciting new competition designed to reward high cricketing intelligence with a unique and most prestigious prize.
At stake is the Seagull Trophy, a magnificent, hand-crafted ornament forged by bearded specialists in the workshops of Cornwall. This item, which I acquired from a high-class boutique during the winter, will be awarded to the person who most closely predicts what happens when the first delivery of the Bears' 2008 season is delivered in the championship match with Worcestershire at Edgbaston on April 16. I'll set the ball rolling with: "Leg-side delivery glanced to fine leg for a single."

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, show your cricketing nous. And, by the way, the decision of the judge (me, that is) is final. I'm not having a repeat of the Old Trafford fiasco last September when the lunch-score prediction contest was seized by an unruly faction of members who wantonly rewrote the rules for their own benefit.
Get your thinking caps on. The Seagull Trophy - and let me tell you it makes the crown jewels look like a bunch of pebbles - awaits the winner.