Hello and
welcome back to my blog
I do not
believe I have seen both teams in an upcoming series have their preparation
derailed so completely as those of New Zealand and England this month. They will play two tests, 5 ODIs and a
solitary T20 fixture and despite Mike Hesson’s call for more fixtures this is a
full tour; although you would be forgiven for thinking that neither side is
prepared for such an undertaking. New
Zealand are going to begin the international segment of the tour with frontline
players who have played no First Class cricket since the New Zealand summer as
well as little encouraging form from the players who have been present for the county matches. England on the other hand find themselves
drawn into a maelstrom of power, authority and ego in their non-selection of
Kevin Pietersen that is swallowing up their new Director of Cricket, Test
Captain, senior players (those foolish enough to voice their opinion) and –
most importantly – their focus on the series that begins on Thursday. Stuart Broad couldn’t even turn up to the
series launch the other day due to anything from illness to hangover depending
on whose hastily-deleted-tweets you have read…
Neither side
will begin the first test at Lords confident in their preparation – although numerous
interviews from now until Day 1 will try to convince us otherwise. This is insulting to fans and players alike
and in my series preview I am forced to focus on these elements.
I won’t beat
about the bush here; Brendon McCullum, Kane Williamson, Tim Southee and Trent
Boult are – baring injury – going to be named in the XI to play for New Zealand
at Lords in just four days. They will
not have played a day of First Class cricket on this tour because they will not physically be on this tour
until just three days before the first test.
This is a ridiculous situation because our star players will be underdone
in a series that they profess to care very deeply about – one player said that
it was their most important tour. I don’t
disagree with the sentiment but I do laugh at the commitment behind it because
a situation where your Number 3 batsman (Kane Williamson) is kept IN India as
injury cover, despite not having played for his IPL franchise since Round 3 is
insane.
I understand
all the noise about players making what they can from their cricketing skills
which means participation in the IPL even at the detriment of their tour
preparation (if not the actual international fixtures of that tour). That there will be contractual obligations on
the players to remain if their franchise wishes and that if New Zealand wishes
to play in England they – for the time being – will have to tour in May and June. I realise these are realities in the current
tour-schedule but if New Zealand Cricket is to take all of the goodwill towards
the team and the unprecedented level of talent within the it, and establish
themselves as a cricket-power instead of the honest merchants of the
second-tier, then this insanity needs to be addressed. How is the team going to build on its
2013-2015 successes if short-cuts are taken now? Perhaps it means reminding the players that
the reason they are picked in the IPL in the first place is because of their international success. Since the ill-fated tour of South Africa
where the players sat down and decided that they would play cricket a certain
way, their commitment to the team and tour preparation has been excellent but
there is so much more to be achieved and they need to retain their commitment
in order to establish the dynasty we all want them to create.
I realise
that my argument is not helped by the fact that other linchpins of the team
have not achieved the form they would like in the warm-up games – Ross Taylor
being the main concern. Watling,
Bracewell and Rutherford have made mentionable contributions but I for one will
feel very uncomfortable with the level of readiness in the twin engine rooms of
batting and bowling when the first ball is bowled.
That being
said, at least New Zealand’s troubles are not structural as England’s World Cup
hangover continues after the tour to the West Indies – ideally placed to
recover from their ODI troubles – was at best irrelevant and at worst a further
step backwards. They have fired their
coach Peter Moores and installed Andrew Strauss to the highly-dubious position
of “Director of Cricket”. The latter’s
first decision was to explain to a batsman who had just made 355* for Surrey –
the highest county championship score in 13 years I have been told – that he
would not be playing for England this summer; this is an extraordinary thing to
say to a player and so bizarrely broad as well; was it really necessary to rule
out the whole season? On the other hand
the player in question is Kevin Pietersen, a man who sent disparaging messages
to opposition players during a live series, about his own captain (who was
Strauss, the man now standing between him and the test team) leading to that
captain’s resignation and retirement.
Not to mention slagging off various current players in a book published
less than a year ago - I believe the Director of English Cricket when he says
that it’s a matter of trust with Pietersen.
Once you add into the mix a recently-demoted vice-captain (Ian Bell)
letting slip that it is current captain Alastair Cook who doesn’t want the
Surrey star in his team and you have a Game-of-Thrones-style power play that must
surely end in disaster for all concerned.
I realise
that the last paragraph is difficult to follow and I want to assure you that
this is deliberate because I could think of no better way to illustrate the nonsense
that is the governance of English Cricket at the moment. I reiterate, there is a month-long series
beginning in just four days and the English team is all over the place with no
sign of real leadership. Oh and did I
mention there’s an Ashes series right after the New Zealand tour?
People ask
me if I side with Pietersen or Strauss in this fight and I honestly sigh in
disgust; neither would be my answer. I
would side with every other cricketer in England as they deserve better, I
would side with every member of the cricket audience who could rightly turn
their back and leave these squabbling ‘men’ to their cesspool. As Martin Crowe conveyed this week, none of
them realise what they’re doing here – they've lost sight of the sport they are
supposed to be the custodians of and instead play out these pitiful feuds in
full sight of the media and public. And
it will be the sport and its fans who will suffer in the end.
Well that’s
it from here and I hope you join me again
It’s good
bye for now
*title quote is from Benjamin Franklin
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