KF on the Ashes (Part 4).

All I’m saying is Stiffies & Tossers. All will become clear.

Strewth, where did that England performance come from? In these times of professional sport a big problem with the amount of coaching and preparation is that sometimes, for no obvious reason, no amount of vitamin pills, bowling strategies, hypnosis, video studies of the opposition, ice baths, sex bans etc can make the athlete turn up and perform. As these factors are very difficult to study to definitively establish effectiveness, I often wonder just how effective many of them actually are. They sound intuitively correct, but you surely don’t need examples of how wrong human intuition can be.

There are countless anecdotes you could use whichever side of the argument you wish to take. Harold Larwood’s ‘Tea’ is a case in point. I understand he used to take 3 pints, 2 ciggies and a ham sandwich, then return to the field to bowl exceptionally enough to still be talked about today. I bet there isn’t a coaching manual anywhere that would recommend this to an aspiring cricketer. Whyever not? It worked for an all time great. The differences between the styles of Gower and Gooch are equally famous examples. Gower wouldn’t even go for a jog whilst Gooch espoused what we now recognise to be a much more professional approach. Could Gower have been even better if he jogged more? Would Gooch have been worse if he jogged less? Impossible to say. They did what they thought was best for themselves and it seemed to work just fine.

At Holy Cross (CA Smith & Astley aside), we take great delight in pillorying ‘warm-ups’. There are few things greater in cricket than watching the opposition blur around pre-game from a position of horizontal rest, to then take the field, fashionably late if possible and beat them. I’ve never noticed a correlation between the opposition warm-up and a Holy Cross defeat. I doubt it exists. Though I did see Astley injure himself first ball of the game once while the ten other stiffies soldiered on to victory!!!!!

We now have a situation where in the last two Ashes Test matches two wicket keepers have been injured in what is called the warm-up. Why not call it the ‘final injury chance’ or something that bit more truthful. Remember McGrath in 2005? What a great, series defining warm-up that was!!! Behind the (arguably avoidable*) injuries to Pietersen and Flintoff, the Prior back spasm seems to have played the major role in the turmoil leading up to the start of the 4th Test and the bad start from which England never recovered. So are warm-up’s worth it? Would more players get injured in a game if they didn’t warm up? Are there any stats on this? Or is it the type of warm-up? Should Gower and Gooch do a warm up that suits themselves, then go out and play to the best of their ability? I think so. I would contend that at most, a few small stretches or loosening of the joints would do for most people. Maybe a ‘loosen-off’ instead of a ‘warm-up’ would adequately suffice. If I was losing a wicket keeper every other match due to the warm-up, I’d be banning the stupid things immediately!!! But that might just be a stupid human with stupid human intuition talking.

So before the Match has even begun, teams are shooting themselves in the finger (Haddin), back (Prior) or ankle (McGrath)? If both teams are doing this, at least no disadvantage is gained.

My next point seems even crazier to me. Remember, we haven’t even started playing yet. What else could go wrong? How about the toss? At Headingley, England won the toss and chose to bat. Ponting said he’d have batted given the chance as well. What followed showed that both camps were absolutely wrong. How on earth can teams, in such supposedly enlightened times, have absolutely no clue how to read conditions? I plead now for any qualified academic’s out there to get a PhD arranged to look into this. It might even be as simple as just procuring a barometer.

At international level now (again, Trinidad aside, though I think it was the outfield that caused problems), pitches are pretty much immaculate and this is increasingly the case the higher you travel up through our club game. I suppose that the reason Strauss and Ponting were inclined to bat first at Headingley was because the pitch looked good. The factor of swing appears not to have been a worthwhile consideration. Having been a tosser myself for a few seasons, I feel I have some useful input here. I very recently heard the saying “look up, not down” when deciding what to do. As I became more experienced as a tosser, this is effectively how I came to decide what to do (I just hadn’t defined it so goodly). As a batsman, I think that standing in the middle, just ask, would I like to bat just now? How is the light, how windy is it, will there be much swing? If it doesn’t feel too good, best bet is to have a bowl. Not at all scientific, but summed up by ‘looking up, not down’. Whether I’m right or wrong, I’m amazed that there aren’t better ways of reading the conditions when it can have an overwhelming say in the result.

So, if I’d been in charge at Headingley, I’d have led my fully-fit, suitably loose XI onto the field to bowl. Ponting did this and despite a warm-up and losing the toss, his side triumphed. Strauss marched out, bat in hand already a man down (spasming) and lost. And the selectors get the blame?!?!?! It’s a funny old game!!!

*Pietersen has played injured for some time, including in the IPL without having the problem addressed and I’ve said enough about the madness of the Flintoff situation in previous writings.