Quick thoughts on the Black Caps as the season to end all seasons begins!

Hello and welcome back to my blog

As much as I would like to pontificate about Kevin Pietersen vs. English Cricket, Throwing or the West Indies' continued turmoil, I am driven today to speak briefly about the New Zealand cricket team going into this summer.  I caught bits and pieces of the game in Mt. Manganui and to a certain degree my opinions will be based on this match.

The obvious point is that the Black Caps lost to South Africa today as the full-strength Proteas team chased 230 with 11 balls to spare.  With so many ODI games in the next 4 months it's difficult to take the results of these 3 games very seriously - at least in the sense that I won't lose sleep over a series loss the way I would if it were a full tour.  What I would like to see is progress and signs of something special to come in March.  This is a good series to try a few things - although don't believe team management when they spin it that way, given less injuries there would NEVER have been this much tinkering - and blood new players all in the interest of having a proper squad come February and March.  That being said there is plenty we can think about as we lean back from our television screens.

If I take the team in batting order:

• Jimmy Neesham - chosen to open the innings in an obvious attempt to fit both he and Corey J. Anderson into the team.  I will say that he did display the confidence to play some aggressive cricket against a very good attack.  His bowling looked good too and I have not always been a fan of that attribute of his game.  He should open in the other two games so we can gauge his potential as an opener with Guptill
• Martin Guptill - he has done a lot of reconstruction work on his technique in the winter season and I will look forward to examining it more closely the next two matches; sadly he wasn't able to produce much with it in game one but over the series we should gain a measure of the new man.
• Dean Brownlie - a benefactor of injuries to Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor.  I missed seeing his innings live but some of the shots I saw in highlights looked very good (and on the legside which is even better).  He has shifted to Northern Districts this season to try again for International honours as an opening batsman.
• Brendon McCullum - in his latest attempt to bat in every position in the line-up, McCullum slotted in at 4 and produced a couple good shots before Morkel fooled him with a slower-ball bouncer.  His form is often all over the place in one-day cricket - to be honest I prefer him at 6 or 7 to add impetus to an innings - I was more interested to see if his captaincy was till as sharp as the last 18 months.  In small chases you cannot let the game drift so it was good to see plenty of bowling changes to try and disrupt South Africa's progress but they lacked the aggression of Milne or McClenaghan to provide a different kind of pressure in the middle overs (30-40).  If he is going to bat at 4 for the remaining games he will need to build his innings more affectively to compensate for the lack of Williamson and Taylor (proven ODI-hundred makers).
• Corey J. Anderson - first-baller today and not much of a bowling spell.  I felt by the West Indies tour in April that Anderson was slightly out of favour with the Black Caps after an injury during the Indian series, his return has been slowed by the success of Neesham in the test side and subsequent elevation of Neesham to this ODI team.  I am still not sold on both of them being there at the same time because they are filling the same role.  If one of them could improve their bowling then it would be a different story.
• Luke Ronchi - he finally produced an innings of character and class after a number of games in the top-side without living up to the expectations.  B J Watling is a very good wicketkeeper-batsman too so they are in a real competition for that role in the World Cup next year.  If Ronchi continues to bat like he did in this game then he probably has an edge over Watling as there is a dynamic and explosive nature to Ronchi that Watling may not possess.  This contest will be fascinating to watch.
• Nathan McCullum and Daniel Vettori - Nathan was the second spin option in this game and if they had been defending a proper total of 260+ then his worth would have been more apparent.  His bowling, due to exposure in 2020 cricket for so long, is geared around containing batsman who are trying to get 10+ off every over.  He developed really good methods of preventing that kind of runrate but it does make him a appear limited when the opposition can choose to milk him for 40-50 runs off 10 overs.  Vettori can be negated in that way as well - they had the SA player David Miller in commentary and when asked about team plans for Vettori he revealed that they don't see him as a threat, just another bowler.  Vettori has years of experience on his side in ODI cricket though and McCullum could do worse than learn from the different variations Vettori has used to take so many wickets in this form.
• Mills and Boult - the opening attack.  Mills is looking old and it will be interesting to see if he makes it too the World Cup in the new year as Southee and McClenaghan return.  Boult is an interesting topic because many people wonder why he hasn't played more of this form.  My feeling is that I almost prefer his playing so much test cricket initially.  He is far more valued in the long form of the game and if he now adds ODI skills to his trade then so be it, but left-armers have been ruined by too much limited-overs cricket before and it would have been a waste to see him fall into that dustbin in history.

Well that's it from here and I hope you join me again

It's good bye for now

In support of my brothers

Hello and welcome back to my blog

I believe sport is an important frontier for the homosexual community.  Success in sport but more importantly, acceptance within a traditionally and stubbornly heterosexual fortress.  It is increasingly clear that gay men and women are achieving great feats in various sports - even if the public don't realise it at the time - whether it be a footballer in the USA, Olympic Diver in the UK, or an Australian swimming champion - the number of professional sports men and women coming out is on the rise and hurling society forward to the promise of equality.  It has been a very positive few years but we cannot lose sight of the cost to these brave, trail-blazing individuals.

Two stories this week highlight the current situation: the confirmation by Ian Thorpe that he is gay and the depression he suffered from while grappling with this during his career, as well as the story of a Christchurch born rugby player who faced exclusion, humiliation and abuse from rugby clubs both in New Zealand and Australia.  As sad as both stories are, they do affectively highlight the reality that young, gay athletes face.  In a largely individual sport Thorpe confronts the idea that Australia would not accept or support a gay champion and his success as a swimmer while struggling with this burden is amazing.  Men like the rugby player suffer a different daily hell as do many gay men in team sports (at this point I will leave it to more informed writers to speak to the experiences of gay women).  The key thing to understand here is that while an individual pursuit is as much battling against yourself as anything, being part of a team requires basic levels of agreement amongst team mates - namely the greatness of the sport in question and interest in the opposite sex.  The majority of conversations in a sports team surround these two past times, but what happens when you have a team member who does not desire women, secondly cannot desire them and in fact prefers the opposite (which may or may not include members of that same team).
Club sport - the form that most young men play - is the social life of many men.  Here in lies the problem, because much of the banter surrounds the topics of women and experiences with women, it is very intimidating for gay sportsman who have no dog in that hunt, if you'll excuse me.  Particularly as many gay men experience love slightly later in their youth than their straight comrades.  The uglier side to this situation is that the team huddle is also a bastion of competitiveness.  Which brings us to the use of the word "faggot" for those who don't measure up to the - largely nonsense - notions of what a successful (straight) man ought to be.  You will witness men who would never use this word otherwise, bandy it about as if it were going out of fashion.  This is a true f-word and the most cruel, evil and twisted part is that many men don't mean anything particularly hurtful or homophobic when they use it.  They really mean the opposite of what the archetypical alpha-male should be.  The result however is that because the word still holds associations with being gay (or at least stereotypes of what a gay man is) suddenly a gay team mate isn't just not-into-women but he is the complete opposite of the rest of the team and easily maligned.  The use of the word "gay" in the same constant, negative way has the same effect.

Personally I am able to survive this environment as the gay manager of a premier cricket team because firstly I joined the team after I came out, secondly it was my accepting straight friends that encouraged me to take the position in the first place and in doing so provided a small core of players who knew what I was going through, which brings me to the third reason which is that I did not volunteer the fact that I was gay until I had been involved in the team for a full season.  I wanted to prove that I was part of the team first and to their credit the lads have been nothing but supportive as they slowly found/find out.  I consider myself incredibly lucky because the rugby player I mention above was not so fortunate and was forced to leave the team he played for (twice).  I was also lucky that I was largely settled in my social life when I became the one gay man involved in a team; the continuing fear I have is that it would be next to impossible for a young man to come out while already part of a cricket team.  How the hell is a confused youth supposed to be sure of who he is when surrounded by the claustrophobia of a team environment?  The all-day nature of cricket makes me even more certain that this is a real problem in the sport.  It will be a gradual evolution of attitudes.
However there are a couple things I would say at this point to my heterosexual colleagues.  A gay player is as much interested in you as you would be in a lesbian team mate.  If a gay player ever did like the look of another man - I would be lying if I said I hadn't - possibly in the team, you have nothing to fear; it is much more tormenting and distracting for the gay player than for you  Remember that every player in the team is there because they like the sport, they're not there for the visual buffet (you should be so arrogant) and this is where the balance lies in my opinion.  The thing that unites the team is their shared passion for the sport (and probably many other sports besides) and the fact that one or more players might be gay is as relevant as whether they like Game of Thrones or not, whether they study law to your arts degree or whether they prefer vanilla to chocolate.  I would ask that you lay off the language though...

If you think I'm exaggerating then consider one of my heroes is English cricketer Steven Davies (who describes his coming out to team mates before he toured Australia in this short interview).  He brilliantly conveys what it is like, I encourage everyone to watch him describe the process, reasons and timing for his coming out to his team mates.

Well that's it from here and I hope you join me again
It's good bye for now

Like a dull Greek Tragedy: the career and captaincy of Alastair Cook

Hello and welcome back to my blog

I must say I feel somewhat like a wagon driver this week, I'm the man holding the reins who turns suddenly to find any number of people have jumped on as I slowed for the turn in the road.  It seems extraordinary to me that it took England losing not just the 2020 and ODI series to Sri Lanka (almost forgiveable and certainly not unexpected) but the test series as well; a trinity of losses finally provided the wake-up call that people needed.  The fact is that Alastair Cook is a poor captain.  I remember being struck by this more than 12 months ago - I will go into the timeline of his tenure shortly - and that it has taken so many draws against averages sides and losses to top sides to drive this home to people is sad.  Now, I can hear the chorus already singing 'say what you like about his leadership, he's a fine batsman' and you won't hear me argue against that in this post - although I would happily contend at another time, with more space to write that he is both a better and worse batsman than people think.  Actually I would suggest that the qualities which make Cook such a success as a batsman are the real reason he is such a failure as a captain; he is not just a poor captain but he was always going to be a disappointment.

Alastair Cook debuted in the new age of English cricket brought in by Duncan Fletcher, Nassar Hussain and Michael Vaughan.  He enjoyed a great deal of success as an obdurate, patient and straightforward opening batsman to partner Andrew Strauss.  He made a number of hundreds early in his career including a defiant and ultimately unsuccessful century in Perth (2006/07 Ashes) before experiencing a true run of bad form in 2010, his place only saved by a hundred at The Oval in the last test of the English summer.  This effort allowed his selection for the Ashes of 2010/11 where he made 766 runs to power his team to a convincing 3-1 victory and cemented his reputation as the finest opening bat going around.  This was followed by big hundreds against Sri Lanka and India at home during a 4-0 drubbing of the supposed best team in the world.  His powers of concentration, patience and no small amount of technique to back these qualities up with allowed him to wear down opposition attacks on most pitches and keep them down until he, and consequently England, triumphed.  Nothing controversial here so far - my apologies but I had to begin with a throat-clearing about his undoubted success as a batsman.

Cook rose through the ranks of the team to be named captain when Andrew Strauss retired in 2012.  His first series was a hugely successful tour of India where, after losing the first test, he helped bat his side to victory in the series (with some help from Kevin Pietersen and Monty Panesar).  This served to quell many of the arguments against his appointment at the time because it seemed to prove he could lead the side AND score the runs required at the top of the order; I'm sure I agreed with this assessment at the time although doubts crept in soon after.  I think it is clear that this has not been the case for Cook since that series and I would offer the following explanation.  If Cook is a poor captain - I know I have barely begun to discuss this but bare with me - then he has nothing on the failures of MS Dhoni who, despite possessing one of the less penetrating bowling attacks going around, is content to sit and wait for victory to materialise.  I contend that this is the perfect situation for Cook to produce runs because there's nothing to challenge him, this certainly explains why his record against captains Clarke and McCullum has been so poor.

Anyway, after this encouraging start to his captaincy stint he drew 0-0 in New Zealand, won 2-0 against the same opposition back in England before retaining the Ashes 3-0 at home.  Despite the successful scoreline it was clear to me that it was really the talent of his team and in particular his bowlers during this 9 months that allowed such a scoreline in his favour.  His leadership in New Zealand was extremely complacent, boring and lacking in any imagination; amounting to simply pointing the Anderson/Broad/Swann attack at the opposition and saying 'destroy that'.  It was little better against Australia who should have been overwhelmed in more convincing fashion.  His captaincy style is all a holding-pattern, just keeping things tight and to the plan until victory turns up.  It almost appears (and I hate to have to say this) that while he has the talent at his disposal, Cook believes he has a right to win test matches.  It's combining the worst elements of his predecessors and everything that Duncan Fletcher tried to eradicate from the England mindset a decade before.  By the time you get to the 5-0 drubbing by Australia this year it's not ever Cook's direct fault any more because the complete lack of form from the entire team allowed a resurgent Australia to trample them, it's probably true that more inventive captaincy on his part may have carved a number or two off the scoreline but ironically I don't really blame him for the series loss.

The problem really is that the English selectors picked the captain they wanted.  Tall, handsome, easy to manage, attended the right schools, etc.  He had the pedigree to be a throw back to old captains like Hutton, Hammond and others (well at least to caricatures of old captains anyway).  His recent comments regarding the criticism from Shane Warne actually included the line 'something must be done' which almost sums it up.  In any case he is clearly strained and out of form and should have the captaincy removed if he will not relinquish it himself.  It would be sad to watch him try and wait it out like he does when he bats - Alastair you're not wearing the opposition down in this fight son, you're battling with yourself.

At the end of the day Cook's leadership really is too much like his batting and relies too heavily on a staring contest with the opposition.  The same qualities that afford him success as an opening batsman lead to the downfall of his captaincy.  This is the tragedy of his career, the fault that sets all of his purposes at naught.

Well that's it from here and I hope you join me again

It's good bye for now

The integrity of every game of cricket...

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