Mommsen

Mommsen telling it like it is........

Scotland's skipper Preston Mommsen seems to have had a good WT20 competition as the disappointment of narrow losses to Afghanistan and Zimbabwe were assuaged by a maiden victory in a World Championship (even if they had to wear shocking pink to do so).

But it is his comments on the challenges facing associate members of the ICC which have rung out loud and clear and attracted wide interest.

Will they have any impact?  FB hopes so, but he is not confident that the sport's governing body will respond.

In the early days of this blog FB had access to the private meetings of the ICC as they decided the format of the 2015 World Cup.  He faithfully reported these proceedings in these postings.

http://fantasybob.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/icc-triumph-feckers-no-more.html

http://fantasybob.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/at-home-with-feckers.html

There were suggestions at the time that these were satirical presentations.  Subsequent developments merely confirmed their accuracy.

FB's worldwide communications system has been re-tuned and once again he brings his handful of readers a transcript from the most recent meeting of the ICC as they consider Mommsen's remarks.

.................Mumsnet?  Who is this Mumsnet?

He is captain of Scotland.

Where?

Scotland - you know, where the golf courses are.

Oh yes - so Mumsnet is captain of Scotland's golf team.

No - their cricket team.

Is there one?

Yes, apparently they've been playing in the WT20.

But it hasn't started yet.

That's his point - he says the associates have qualified only to play each other in yet another qualification event before the top teams come in.

What's wrong with that - everyone has to qualify to play India in the final.

He says we have to rethink the format.

Disgraceful.

Shocking.

I know, it implies we thought about it in the first place.

He says we're not supporting the associates.  He says that the associates should have more matches against full ICC members.  

But they might beat them and then where would we be?  Anyway, what's all this got to do with us?

He says that we should be trying to grow the global game.

We are - there are more matches between India England and Australia than ever................

McCullum

It was a desperate tactic.

Fantasy Bob looked up from his steaming bowl of porridge to see Mrs FB closely examining the weekend supplement's report of the New York Fashion Week.  As she lowered the paper, he knew what was coming.    He would be asked what he thought Mrs FB would look like in Marc Jacob's latest creation.  If it was good enough for Lady Gaga surely it was good enough for her?  The price tag was irrelevant. FB began to panic.

It it's good enough for Lady Gaga.....

A diversion was necessary.  Bluntly he blurted out

'He's some guy, that McCullum...'

Mrs FB looked steelily at him, and then more dreamily.  Thoughts of Marc Jacobs and Lady Gaga seemed to fade.  Her gaze became more wistful.

'Ah yes,' she said with a throaty warmth, 'I used to have a poster of him above my bed when I was at school.....'

FB's mystified gaze must have troubled his partner, for she continued.

'Ilya Kuryakin - now he was the man for me..........' she dreamily intoned, the suggestion that she had ended up with something considerably inferior was left unsaid.

The Man from UNCLE - no cricketing skills

FB recognised a situation which called for the ultimate patience and tact.  He chose his words carefully.

'Don't be so bloody daft,' he said.  'That was David McCallum.  The Man from UNCLE. Never known to play cricket.'

The only response was a sigh.  FB therefore felt emboldened to go on.  'It's Brendon McCullum - his final test match - he hits the fastest hundred in Test history.  He's also now the leading 6-hitter in Tests. He's some guy.........'

He was unsure whether Mrs FB was paying attention as he described the one time he had seen McCullum play.  It was at Leeds last year.  The first morning.  New Zealand had made a sticky start - they were 2 for 2 and had recovered a bit to 68 when Stuart Broad had Ross Taylor LBW.  In strode McCullum.  Broad streamed to the wicket. A full length ball. Bang!  It disappeared into the crowd at extra cover.  Perfect. Heroic. Not Test cricket as we know it.

Brendon McCullum - 100 from 54 balls

McCullum then timed everything and was 41 when lunch came.  The crowd buzzed and looked forward to an afternoon run feast.  The groan when McCullum drove too early at the first ball after lunch to dolly a simple catch to mid-off could have been heard for miles.  Live on the front foot, die on the front foot.

'Yes,' FB edged to the end of his speech, 'he's some guy.  You know, if I was a Test player, I'd be exactly like him....I like to think that when I lead out Carlton's 4th XI the team sees something of the McCullum in me........'

A medical emergency was only narrowly averted as Mrs FB's coffee sprayed in several directions and she collapsed into a coughing fit of what seemed to FB unnecessary theatricality.

McCullum has cause to remember Scotland with affection; although he only played twice there, it was the scene of his highest ODI score.   In 2008 New Zealand took part in a triangular ODI competition with Scotland and Ireland at Mannofield in Aberdeen, scene of some of FB's own first grapplings with the mysteries of leg spin and in swing.  In the match against Ireland he scored 166 off 135 balls, with 10 6s, as New Zealand posted a massive 402 off their 50 overs.  Two days later Scotland managed to contain him to 22 off 24 balls.

FB will greatly miss McCullum from the Test arena.

And if Mrs FB wishes to put a poster of him above her bed, FB would have no objection.

Stormy Weather

Storm Gertrude - no cricketing interest

As Fantasy Bob wearily trudges through the worst of January's weather, he finds himself wondering exactly what motivated the Met Office to grant names to the storms that have raged across these islands.  It seems to FB that the act of naming has done nothing more than get these storms coming off their long run.  'Look at me, look at me - I'm Gertrude.'  Look at me look at me I'm Henry.'
There was no such showmanship when they were anonymous - they would simply pass without drawing too much attention to themselves.

If the modern world requires names then at least they good have good names rather than the random hotchpoch that has appeared. There are no connections or themes and most of them don't even sound stormy.
Having just weathered - ha! - Gertrude and Henry, we can now look forward to Imogen.  Long suffering readers of these pages may recall that FB once had his own storm associated with Imogen, but in other respects it seems to FB a pretty poor name for a storm.
The problem with the list of names is clearly its minimal cricketing content.  FB thinks that this was an opportunity lost.  After all, there are many cricketers whose destructive power in its context bears comparison with any storm.
It would have been a tonic to cricketers buffeted by wind, rain, snow and hail to be able to compare the destruction around them to that caused by swaggering batsmen or intimidating pace bowlers.
So FB does the Met Office's work for them and offers his list of storm names for use by cricketers:


AB -  deVilliers - fastest ODI century - 100 in 31 balls v WIndies, J'burg 2015;
Beefy - Botham could cook up a storm with bat or ball (and with the management) - 200 in 212 balls v India, the Oval 1982
Curtley - Ambrose - meanest of mean pacemen - 405 Test wkts @20.99
David - Warner - 100 in 69 balls v India, Perth 2012
Eion - Morgan - 178 from 167 balls v S Africa, the Oval 2009
Fred - Flintoff - most 6s for England
Gilly - Adam Gilchrist - joint most 6s in Tests; 100 in 57 balls v England, Perth 2006 (or if he is unavailable - Gayle (pun intended)
Holding - whispering death - 249 Test wkts @ 23.68
Imran - Khan -  In 9 Tests in 1982 he took 62 wickets at 13.29
Jimmy - Anderson - England's leading wicket taker and still going
Kapil - Dev - 100 off 74 balls v Sri Lanka, Kanpur 1986
Lara - Highest Test innings - 400* v England, Antigua 2004
McCullum -  Brendon - joint most 6s in Tests
Nathan - Astle - fastest double century in Tests - 200 off 153 balls v England, Christchurch 2001
O'Reilly - Bill - 144 Test wkts @22.59 - the best bowler of his age
Pollard -  Kieron - 119 off 52 balls v India, Chennai 2011
Qadir- Abdul - finer than Warne - 236 Test wkts @ 32.80
Richards - the Master blaster - 100 in 56 balls v England Antigua 1986
Shahid - Afridi - 102 in 37 balls v Sri Lanka  Nairobi 1996
Tyson - Frank - the fastest ever
Ul  -Misbah Ul Haq -  100 in 56 balls v Australia, Abu Dhabi 2014
Virender - Sehweg - fastest triple century - 300 off 278 balls v S Africa, Chennai 2008
Wasim - Akram - 414 test wickets @ 23.62
Yuvrav - Singh - 6 sixes off the over - v England (ie Stuart Broad), Durban 2007
Zaheer - Abbas - the first Asian to score 100 FC centuries


Now that list is something to sing about - Stormy Weather indeed.

Robert Burns' Rant On the ICC

Here is further proof of Fantasy Bob's contention that Scotland's bard is a true cricket lover.  Sic a parcel o' rogues is generally held to be an invective against the machinations behind the Act of Union between  Scotland and England.  But this earlier draft seems to suggest that Burns had seen the excellent Death of A Gentleman and taken its message to heart

Oor cricket is a cantie game
That’s played the warld o’er
Wi' honesty its middle name
An' lo'ed by rich and poor
Ye’d jalouse this game is o’er-seen
By council weel electit
But fegs, there's just the gang o' three
Sic a parcel o' rogues running cricket

The Test match was the skyrit jewel
Thy grandeur’s been dilutit
By coontless twenty over duels
True cricket is pollutit
A twa Test series' meagre meal
For ODIs restrictit
Bought and sold for T20 gold
Sic a parcel o' rogues running cricket

Associates graced the warld cup
And had the michty crying
It drove them on, it fired them up
The dream of qualifying
They won't be there next time around

The minnows are neglectit
A selfish pact has slammed the door
Sic a parcel o' rogues running cricket

Olympic Games could spread the sport
To a' the warld's nations

The powers-that-be maun gie support?
But spurned the invitation
Maun we thole sic arrant failure
Wi' IPL gold complicit?
England India Australia
Sic a parcel o' rogues ruining cricket

For those who find Scots words as hard to read as leg spin bowling:

Cantie - cheerful
Lo'ed - loved
Jalouse - suspect, think
Fegs - by faith
Sic - such
Skyrit - shining, bright
Maun - must
Thole - tolerate

Vinyl

All that is holy is vinyl

What few remaining brain cells Fantasy Bob owns have been well exercised by reading a recent article by Ed Smith drawing out a comparison between Test cricket and vinyl records.

The substantive point that he makes is that vinyl recordings seem to be on the way back.  In 2014 sales in the UK leapt by over 50% passing the million mark.   From a position of near death following the introduction first of CDs and then of streaming, this is something of a resurrection and sales are higher than at any time since 1991.

Could this be a pointer for Test cricket, he asks, for which there are many suggestions that it is on its last legs, teetering on the brink of non-sustainability due to the rival attractions of the shorter formats.  Can vinyl Test cricket survive the onslaught of streaming T20?

The fan of vinyl will claim that by comparison with the CD, the sound is of a higher – more natural - quality (generally described as brown), it allows the concept of the album (or at least the half hour side) as opposed to the single song focus of streaming and encourages listening rather than consuming.  There is a parallel to the fan of Test cricket for whom it offers higher quality, greater sustained excitement and subtlety compared to the crash bang wallop of limited overs contests.

Is the route to survival for Test cricket to develop a similar niche status to that increasingly enjoyed by vinyl recording?

FB sees the point but is less than convinced.  He is sure that there is a parallel to be drawn between the behaviour of record companies, whose profit motives led them to abandon vinyl when CDs arrived, and the almost negligent behaviour of the ICC whose recent domination by the big 3 seems similarly designed to undermine Test cricket.  

But even if it is recovering a bit, vinyl is still a very small part of the recorded music market - a pretty small tail wagging a large dog.  Vinyl seems to be more like the heritage industry – it is about finding music in the format it was first recorded and issued in – there is little new music or recordings in the format.  This does not seem a proper comparison for Test cricket.

Like most cricketers of his age, FB has a sizable collection of vinyl recordings.  Even Mrs FB now treats this collection with respect having, after many attempts, given up her once enthusiastic suggestion that it might best be consigned to the charity shop.  

Like a proper cricketer FB ensured that these discs are carefully archived and stored in strict alphabetical and genre order. FB can recall where and how he purchased each one of these miraculous items and for most of them many of the times he played them - a set of reminisces that Mrs FB inexplicably finds less than compelling.  This orderliness went out of the window when CDs arrived which are stacked any which way and do no credit to anyone.   

FB's vinyl collection pretty much reflects his travel through music from the poptastic, through progressive rock and out the other end into the world of classical music which dominates his collection.  But there is something significant lacking at the centre of this collection.   He confesses with some remorse is that his collection contains no cricket recordings.  For there are a number of items in the catalogue that FB might well have added.  For example John Arlott Talks Cricket was released in 1982 but sadly failed to keep Duran Duran off the top of the album charts.  If ever there was a vinyl voice it must have been John Arlott's, but inevitably these discs are now downloadable.   Such treatment seems almost sacrilegious and FB has resisted the siren call of iTunes.

But the vinyl recording that FB most yearns after must be the record simply titled Cricket which was released in 1970 by the BBC. It took Bridge of Troubled Water to keep it from claiming its rightful place at the top of the chart. Cricket featured a collection of readings by Lords Taverners recorded to fill the tea interval of Sunday League matches.  John Arlott features here, but so do cricketers - Peter May, Alec Bedser - sportsmen - Graham Hill, Mick McManus and entertainers Brian Rix, Leslie Crowther, Eric Sykes.   As far as FB can tell this has not been digitised yet.  It remains holy.

Perhaps the solution is to get this on e-Bay and play it while watching yet another T20 thrash.

Exit Pursued By A Bear

Fantasy Bob hied him hither to a live stream performance of The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare.

FB understands that there is a dispute among literature critics as to whether this play should be classed as one of Shakespeare's problem plays.  FB can answer firmly in the affirmative.  The Winter's Tale is certainly a problem play - the problem for FB being that there is no cricketing content in it whatsoever.  FB accepts that this barely differentiates it from the rest of the bard's output, so to label it particularly a problem play might seem unjust.

But the title of the play would seem to offer more to the cricketer than many of the bard's other plays. Possibly it would disclose the drama associated with indoor nets on cold February evenings; or the excitement of waiting for the postman for that new bat to be delivered; or listening over the crackling airwaves to the faltering progress of the touring side overseas.

Disappointingly Shakespeare eschews all these possibilities in favour of a story about jealously, the passage of time and redemption.  Cricketers will recognise that these themes define a lower league fixture towards the end of the season when vital points are at stake.  But the audience is left hanging for this sensible content while babies are abandoned on rocky shores and statues come to life.  FB wonders if these are metaphors born of Shakespeare's experience as a junior of having to face the opposition quickie on a bouncy track or of the apparently stationary fielder at mid on suddenly leaping 3 feet in the air to pocket his blistering drive.............but this reading is not a conventional one among critics.

But one thing that everyone, cricketers and non cricketers alike, knows is that The Winter's Tale contains what is reckoned to be the most famous stage direction in the whole history of play writing, when at the end of Act 3 a character is instructed to - Exit run out without facing a ball.

Many critics have tried to deny this original text and contend that Shakespeare revised it to read Exit pursued by a bear. But that is obviously nonsense since no batsman has ever been dismissed in this way. And no bear otherwise features in the play.   Such a dismissal would of course be bizarre.

But bizarre dismissals may be becoming more common.  Not only has there in recent months been the Ben Stokes incident when he was dismissed for handling the ball as it was flung at the stumps, but this week the Australian Big Bash League saw an even more bizarre episode.

The ball deflects from Neville's bat onto Zampa's nose

Adam Zampa bowled to Dwayne Bravo who strode out of his crease and crunched it back down the pitch.  The non striker Peter Nevill was backing up several yards down the wicket.

The ball deflected from Nevill's bat onto the diving Zampa's nose and onto the stumps. (The link here contains video footage of this great incident).

Exit Run Out by the bowler's nose.  Now, if Shakespeare had written a stage direction like that it could have been the making of him.

Fat Cat Tuesday

Fantasy Bob has long concluded that the world is ill divided between those who can play leg spin bowling and those who cannot.

His conclusion received further confirmation with the publication of a report which labels this Tuesday as Fat Cat Tuesday.  This report reveals that in the few days since the start of 2016, a number of batsmen have already scored more runs this year than Fantasy Bob will over the whole year.  These include Ben Stokes, Johnny Bairstow and Hashim Amla.

As if this wasn't enough to stir FB's revolutionary fervour and demand that the authorities immediately introduce some positive redistributive measures - surely some of Ben Stokes' runs could be used for the charitable purpose of improving FB's average.

Fat Cats

But FB's sense of outrage is further provoked as he now reads that in the first few days of this year a young batsman has scored in one innings not only more than FB will in any one season, but more runs than FB has scored in his entire career.

Pranav Dhanawade scored 1009 not out in a school match in Mumbai.  In doing so he broke one of the oldest records in the history of cricket, that of fellow schoolboy AEJ Collins whose 628 not out scored in 1899 has long been held as the highest innings ever recorded.

As FB's post of some time ago records, Collins did not make the leap into first class cricket and was unfortunate enough to be killed at Ypres in 1914.

It will be interesting to see if Dhanawade's cricket career prospers or not - has he been a cat who has gorged too early on the cream?

Fat Cat gorging on cream or future star?