8 August 2008

After day one of the Oval Test I’m looking forward to being forced to eat my words about Pietersen.

Time for a metaphor: the bitter bread of repentance is sweet when soaked in the honey of success.

It was correct to go with five bowlers, because that is effectively a team of four quicks. Panesar can only be used at the right time or when conditions help him, and for all his qualities, he would be the one to drop if an extra batsman were considered necessary.

What Pietersen rightly did was to tell his five batsmen that, if they did their job right, they were enough, especially when Flintoff, Ambrose and Broad were to follow.

Well, it was a good first day, marred only by Strauss’s early departure. The captain was everywhere, consulting, encouraging and cajoling. He used Panesar judiciously, and effectively. Harmison repaid the trust he’d been shown, Anderson maintained his new-found maturity and Flintoff was Flintoff.

* * *

The Today Programme had a numerologist on this morning. It is the silly season after all. The reason was all this nonsense about the Chinese superstition about the number eight.

Apparently, if you convert the letters of ‘China’ to numbers, you end up with the total ‘8’. Wow! What ‘The People’s Republic of China’ adds up to was not made clear.

What did interest me was the admission that this year is the eighth of the century. So we did celebrate the new millennium a year early after all.

* * *

I saw The Dark Knight, the new Batman film, the other day. Disappointing, I’m afraid, and not the ‘thunderbolt [that would] rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies’, as Rolling Stone promised.

It was good fun but too long. The action sequences were brilliant but so many and so protracted that they lost their power to thrill.

The reviewers have been impressed by the film’s insertion of a bit of moral philosophising, but it’s all a bit old hat. The dark side of heroism, the linking of hero and villain, the cruelty of fate which can push a good man onto the dark side, the moral choice imposed on ordinary people.

These things were a staple of the Western fifty years ago. Bend of the River, for example, where James Stewart and Arthur Kennedy are two sides of the same coin; High Noon, where the townspeople make the wrong choice, and At Gunpoint where they make the right one; Red River, The Searchers, Lawman, where the heroic lead moves further and deeper into psychosis.

In those films, the moral choices faced are essential to the plot, not tacked to help an action fantasy appeal to would-be intellectuals.

Here's a review that says it better than I can:

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2008/07/17/dark_knight/index.html

KP? - They must be nuts.

'I'll do it my way,' says Pietersen.

God help us!

SUNDAY MORNING, following England’s defeat to South Africa in the Edgbaston test, the press was its usual fatuous self.

‘South Africa’s first series win in England for 43 years!’ they cried. All of them, because the newspapers and radio merely report each other. Well, they beat us 1-0 in 1965 and then apartheid meant a suspension of hostilities until 1994. That’s nearly 30 years we can ignore.

Since their release from the leper colony they’ve drawn a couple of series here and beaten us more often than no over there. So winning a series in England is hardly earth-shattering.

And how often do they come over here anyway? Every three years or so, I believe.

I don’t like all this talk about ‘series’ wins. These matches are not a series, they are a sequence. I don’t care that they’ve all got names now – this one was in aid of the ‘Basil D’Oliveira’ trophy.

My blood boiled when I heard even Jonathan Agnew, who surely should know better, declaring that the fourth test at the Oval was ‘dead’, ‘meaningless’. And yet, when it was suggested to him that therefore it was an opportunity for some experimentation, as a test match were akin to a football friendly, he immediately contradicted himself, saying it was a test match and only the best players should represent their country and the aim should be victory.

SUNDAY LUNCHTIME and Michael Vaughan, with tears in his eyes, was announcing his retirement. I was sad to see him go, although I had been questioning his ability to do the job.

It’s not that his form was poor, nor that we were losing matches. It’s the way we were losing them. Batsmen were throwing away their wicket; the bowling was loose and undemanding; the spirit in the field was often defeatist.

And it’s the captain who has to be held responsible for that. Vaughan’s trouble was his over-identification with his men, although he no doubt would call it loyalty. I recognise that his involvement in selection was limited, but I wonder how much he fought for greater ruthlessness over under-performers like Collingwood and Panesar.

KEVIN PIETERSEN, the radio announced, was immediately the favourite to succeed Vaughan. Frankly I’d been surprised when he was mentioned as a possibility, but to hear William Hill say that the book on him was closed was barely believable.

It’s not that he’s a South African, for all that he parades his English ‘patriotism’ on his biceps, that repels me. And the man is obviously not without talent. I can’t understand, though, the argument that being ‘the best player in the side’ is a qualification for captaincy. It didn’t work for Botham and Flintoff. Moreover, it can hardly be said that successful captains like Brearley and Illingworth held their position in the side on ability alone.

Another specious argument is the fact that he’s the only player guaranteed his place in all three forms of the game, and the selectors want one captain for all of them. Why?

I’ve heard that he has a good cricket brain. Where did I hear that? Oh yes, Kevin Pietersen said it.

No, he’s not suitable because he’s a self-serving prima donna, far more concerned with milking the applause of an ignorant crowd than helping his team win. That attempted six to get his century at Edgbaston was criminal arrogance, predicted by South Africa and punished accordingly. The tragedy is that it was a major contribution to England’s defeat.

But what else can I do but wish him well? He’s England captain and I want England to stop disappointing me. If he can grow up, temper aggression with caution, out-think the opposition and motivate his players, I’ll salute him.

In the meantime I comfort myself with the thought that he won’t over-identify with his men. I just worry that he won’t even know that they’re there.

Law 11

Rugby Balls

A word about the rugby. England lost. But they lost fairly and with a lot of honour.

It’s easy to quibble about the try that wasn’t, but what let us down was the tactics. Kick, kick, kick. ‘Run,’ I kept yelling. ‘Remember Fiji.’ When you kick you gain territory, but lose possession, and there was no way we were going to steal their line-out.

OK, I know these were the tactics that got us took us so unexpectedly to the final, but couldn’t we see that South Africa were beating us at our own game?

The man I feel most sorry for is Jason Robinson, a player I’ve always found at least as exciting as Jonny Wilkinson. In the past, when Robinson got the ball I always leapt up with expectation. He would look around, wiggle his bottom and dart upfield like a rabbit chased by a pack of poodles.

And yet in the last few games he’s been told to kick the bloody ball away. It made this brave man look craven. A sad end, limping off early to watch Tait provide glimpses of what might have been.

* * *

And what now for South Africa? It seems that their government has decided that that their rugby team should descend to the level of Azerbaijan. Incredibly, just as their team becomes the best in the world, they wish to throw away the concept of selection on merit – is there ever any other concept of selection? – and choose the team to ‘reflect the make-up of the nation’.

So, what’s that mean? Ten blacks and five whites? What about ‘coloureds’? Asians; Jews. What about the division of ‘blacks’ into Xhosa and Zulu, not to mention all the other groupings? In any case, rugby is a class thing, isn’t it? Maybe you should be denied selection if you’ve got a degree. And why exclude women, children, OAPs, disabled people. You won't win anything, but what could beat that lovely warm feeling of sanctimony.

What a load of balls!

* * *

Talking about balls, there’s been a lot more in the news this week.

For some reason thinking about rugby reminds me of fat people. I know it’s not the case anymore that the game is characterised by beer-bellied boozers, but I can’t help the way my mind works.

‘Obese’ is the word these days for what were once called ‘fat bastards’. ‘Obesity’ is not the result of greed and sloth and stupidity, but a condition, we were informed this week by the Chief Medical Officer himself, caused by ‘the failure of human biology to keep pace with changes in society’.

I remember one of the would-be strippers in The Full Monty, sitting in his garden shed, his belly strapped with cling-film and eating Mars Bars, all the while bemoaning his weight problem.

‘The wife’s got anti-ageing cream and anti-wrinkle cream,’ he says. ‘What I need is some anti-fat-bastard cream.’

No use. It’s evolution’s fault. Now that theory raises some interesting possibilities. We need to do some selective breeding, mating people who seem to cope better with today’s lifestyle and diet. As it’s a matter of urgency – Education Secretary Alan Johnson thinks the problem is on a par with global warming – I would like the powers that be to know that I myself have a high metabolic rate and am at the nation’s disposal.

Now I’m talking a load of balls!

* * *

What else is annoying me at the moment? All right, I’m a grumpy old man, but these things must be said.

There were those kids who stoned an old bloke to death, more or less, and were tried at the Old Bailey. My complaint is not that they only got a year in some sort of detention – although it’s a travesty – nor that their parents, assuming they’ve got any, weren’t in the dock with them. No, it’s that we’ve been subjected since to the bleating of bleeding hearts that have crawled out from under those rocks called university social studies departments to tell us that these little bastards are too young to be held accountable for their contemptible actions.

The same characters are fretting about the desire of prison officers to use batons on violent young offenders. Give them water cannon, if not machine guns, I say.

They make me so cross that I mixed my metaphors back there. And for that I can never forgive them.

Of course these ‘children’ – funny how they’re called children sometimes and ‘young adults’ at others – know the difference between ‘right and wrong’. If a gang of middle class liberals were to get drunk and throw stones at a ten-year-old caught reading The Daily Telegraph, the little offender would soon start bawling, ‘It ain’t fair, mistuh’. Ergo, they know what’s wrong. In that silly little scenario is the essence of social morality.

Even Jesus Christ would agree with that, not that he’s much of an authority. In fact he talked rather a lot of bollocks himself. I’ll come back to that another day.

* * *

What else? Is there no end to the insanity of Britain today?

Oh yes. Apparently there’s an epidemic of ‘middle-class drinking’. Now this is not ‘binge-drinking’. That is the privilege of children or young adults or whatever they’re called in this case. Middle class people, whoever they are, indulge in ‘hazardous drinking’. Forgive me, by the way, for using inverted commas so much, but how else do I convey my contempt for the silly journalistic phrases taken up and parroted from newspaper to TV and back again.

It seems that professional people are going home after a day’s work and drinking a bottle of wine. Every day. Shock horror! What is the point, I ask, of aspiring to a middle class income, if not to be able to afford a decent bottle of wine on a daily basis?

Dawn Primarola, a health minister with impeccable Stalinist credentials, has warned that ‘this must stop.’ God help us.

Personally, I wish I could afford it. But I’m not complaining. What with the reasonable rates at Wetherspoon’s pubs and ASDA I’m at this very moment finishing my week’s government-allocated quota of alcohol.

Not bad, considering I started yesterday morning.

What the hell. Do you live and put up with all this balls forever?

The Logo

So this is what all the fuss is about.

Just to be awkward, I rather like it. It does its job. It's immediately identifiable, memorable and conveys the right information. Using the figures '2012' is a simple and effective idea.

Obviously, it's ludicrous that it cost £400,000 and took a year to produce, and you can argue that it's unnecessary in the first place. You can also argue that the Olympics shouldn't be coming to London at all. More than that you can argue that the Olympic Games themselves are a monument to human wishful thinking.

The criticism was so, so predictable. People are even complaining that looking at the logo is causing epileptic seizures. God, give me strength! There is something in our national psyche that expects and I think even wants things to go wrong. Every news item seems to be not so much about disasters, but perceptions of disaster and prophecies of doom.

Even now, as I write, I'm listening to a lot of moaning about the NHS. Yesterday, 'experts' were fretting that children were not playing outside enough and that the 'middle classes' were drinking too much. England, of course, are going to play badly tonight - they haven't trained on the Tallyn pitch, a matter of great concern to the pundits.

Not to mention the new Cold War.

Frederick Trueman, GOM

LISTENING to the radio tribute to Test Match Special the other day I heard a recording of Fred Trueman, who while summarising between overs became diverted into a rant about mobile phones on trains. Fred, in his later years, was a groaner, grumbler and grumpy old man of international standard.

I once heard an impressionist ask an audience to name a subject - any subject - and he would talk about it a la Trueman.

Car Parks, said someone.

'Oh aye, car parks. I don't know. Car parks aren't what they were. Now in my day a car park was a thing to be proud of. There was plenty of room; people were polite and there'd be a man in a uniform with a leather bag round his neck full of change and he'd say, ''Good Morning'', take your money and guide you into your space. Probably an old soldier with a gammy leg. You could have a chat and he might even salute you.

'Look at them now.

'What have you got now? Pot’oles all over the shop and then you’ve got to go looking for one of them damn machines that don’t give change and there’s always some Range Rover taking up two spaces – I can’t be doing with it. There was a time, you know, when parking was a pleasure. I’d rather catch the bus now. Mind you, buses aren’t what they were in my day . . .

I DO HAVE a true story about Fred which demonstrates what a decent man he was. A local golf club had just built a new clubhouse and wanted a guest speaker for the opening festivities.

Their first thought was Tony Jacklin, top English golfer with Lincolnshire connections. Whether they ever got past his agent, I’m not sure, but the upshot was that Jacklin would come, but his fee and expenses were ruinous. Somebody suggested Fred Trueman and provided a phone number. Whoever rang was surprised when it was answered by the unmistakeable tones of the man himself.

‘Aye, I’ll come,’ said Fred. ‘Four hundred. Cash, mind.’

He was asked about expenses.

‘Don’t bother about that. I’ve got my car.’

All they wanted him to do was turn up at 7 pm, make a speech, cut the ribbon, and eat dinner at the committee table, but when Fred heard that members would be gathering in the afternoon, he decided to turn up early. He made a speech when he arrived and spent the afternoon chatting and signing autographs.

He made his official speech later, peppering it with Boycott jokes, and after dinner made a point of dancing with every woman there.

YOU HAVE FRED the grumpy old man, Fred the stand-up comic, Fred the professional Yorkshireman. But for me he will always be Fred the fast bowler. Fiery Fred. One of the few iconic fast bowlers, along with Dennis Lille and Curtly Ambrose, that it was thrilling to watch. All fast, accurate and hostile. Hostile? Murderous.

Fred was the first I saw. I can still visualise him as he turned and began the walk back to his mark, rolling up his shirt-sleeve, tucking in his shirt and pushing back the hunk of black hair from his eyes. No doubt some Brylcreem would be transferred, along with his own sweat, to the ball which he would polish furiously on his red-streaked flannels.

He began his long run and the crowd roared him on. A perfect action propelled the ball towards the stumps, maybe the Yorker which often followed two bouncers; perhaps a third bouncer, for times were harder then. Maybe the batsman managed to dig it out and Fred would glare at him, hands on hips. Then he would turn again, have a friendly word with the umpire, and start the walk back to his mark, tucking in his shirt and pushing back his hair, polishing the ball . . .

Geoffrey Boycott and the Shaggy Horse

It was a warm, sunny afternoon, in the countryside not far from Leeds, and Geoffrey Boycott, opening batsman for Yorkshire and England, was taking a stroll.

He found himself walking along a quiet lane, a line of trees to one side and, behind a hedge on the other, a silky green meadow, where a horse was grazing. It looked up as Boycott passed by and snorted.

A few yards up the lane, Boycott heard a voice behind him.

‘Ay up. Tha’s Geoff Boycott, in’t thee? Call tha'sen a batsman?’

Boycott looked round quickly but there was no-one there. Just the horse, which was now at the hedge and looking over, chewing on a long piece of grass. Boycott shrugged and was about to move on when the voice boomed out again.

‘Is thee deaf, as well as daft. Tha can’t bat for toffee.’

Annoyed now, Boycott shouted back. ‘Who’s there? Come out where I can see thee, tha bastard!’

‘Deaf, daft and blind,’ said the horse – for it was he. ‘No wonder tha was out fust ball yesterday.’

Boycott was so stung by the criticism that any surprise he felt at its being aimed by a horse disappeared.

‘It were a fluke, were that. There were a crack in t’pitch, and any road it should a bin called a no-ball.’

‘Rubbish. My old mam could a blocked that wi ‘er rolling-pin. And I’d’ve ’it for six.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Prove it.’

‘You’re on.’

And so it came to pass that after a brief net at Headingley, where it demonstrated phenomenal technique, the horse found itself preparing to open the batting with Geoffrey Boycott against Lancashire.

They strapped two pairs of pads onto it and hunted around for something it could use as a helmet.

‘Don’t fret thi’sen with that,’ said the horse. ‘’Elmets is for them southern nancy boys. I’ll ‘ave a box, though. Got a spare bucket?’

They arrived in the middle amid a storm of applause, which subsided into an expectant silence, disturbed only by a strange clanking sound from the horse. Boycott's head felt oddly cold.

‘Right,’ said Boycott, ‘you big-headed bugger. You can tek first ball.’

‘Middle and leg,’ the horse called out to the umpire.

‘Which leg?’ came the reply.

The horse placed its bat firmly between its teeth and settled down to await the first ball. It was very fast, but the horse stretched forward, down on one knee and stroked it sweetly through the covers for four. The second was faster but strayed down the leg side and was glanced down over the long leg boundary.

The bowler was enraged and sent down a huge bouncer but the horse was up on its hind legs to hook the ball for six. Two apoplectic no-balls followed, one swept to square leg and the second cracked through mid-wicket. The fourth legal ball was slower and the horse drove it fine of long on so hard that Boycott had to jump to get out of the way. The fifth was impudently swiped over the head of the slips and nearly decapitated third man.

The frustrated bowler wiped away sweat and his tears and attempted a desperate yorker, but the horse took a couple of arrogant steps down the wicket and drove the ball back over the bowler’s head for six.

The crowd was delirious, the fielders catatonic, and the bowler was helped off to lie in a darkened room. Boycott approached the horse and advised it to take a bit more time to get its eye in.

Boycott himself took guard and awaited his first delivery. He played a neat forward defensive stroke to the gap where gully should have been, called for a single and set off. The horse didn’t move.

‘Run, you pillock,’ he cried as he saw the ball being gathered. ‘Run.’

But the horse remained rooted to the spot and a desperate Boycott turned and hurtled back towards his crease only to see his stumps shattered by a grinning wicket-keeper. For a moment he wondered whether there was some way he might argue for mercy, but instead, disconsolately, he removed his gloves and turned towards the pavilion. As he passed the horse, more in sorrow than in anger, he spoke. It was barely more than a whisper.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why? Why didn’t you run?’

‘Run?’ said the horse. ‘If I could run, I’d be at Aintree. Not wasting my bloody time ‘ere.’

Day 5

It was a shame that the first Test fizzled out in Monday’s rain. Considering the weakness of England’s bowling attack, the West Indies just might have won. Their batsmen, right down to number eleven, had shown a lot of class and character in their first innings to deny England an invincible lead, and it’s not inconceivable that they might have pulled off an heroic win.

Shot of the day on Sunday had to be when Daren Powell strolled down the pitch to an appalling Harmison and casually swotted him to the boundary. ‘I’ve never seen that before,’ said one commentator. ‘What do you call a shot like that?’ ‘Contempt’ came the reply.

England had to hurry along in their second innings. Alastair Cook batted excellently again and Strauss was adequate. Shah failed again and I think it was nerves and sheer desperation getting the better of him. It’s something like eighteen months since he played in his first test match and now it looks as if he’ll be dropped again, probably to make room for Vaughan, who seems to have a divine right to play, whether fully fit and fully performing or not.

It’s a similar situation with Flintoff. How long is it since he put in a match-winning performance? He and Vaughan can’t go on forever living off the glories of the 2005 Ashes series.

But if Flintoff is fully recovered from his ankle injury – if he is – he would justify his place as a bowler. As a batsman he is past it, and in any case, if we want someone who can score a century in double quick time, we have Pieterson, as he proved on Sunday. Not to mention Prior.

Our bowling, that’s the chief concern. Harmison should be a world-class bowler, but looks like a beginner. Plunkett is unreliable and so is Anderson, but both still likely to play in the next test. Ditto Mahmoud. Hoggard is injured. (How’s Simon Jones getting on, I wonder?) Other names raised recently are Onions of Durham and Chris Broad, both untried. Panesar bowled very well, but he can’t win a test match on his own.

Update

The squad has been announced for Friday. I'm not keen, by the way, on these back to back tests. Players with niggling injuries don't have time to recover; others don't have the opportunity to address their faults or prove themselves in a county match; the counties lose out; and the public, deprived of that sense of anticipation, get bored.

As I expected, Vaughan is back. Let's hope it's not just his (rather tarnished reputation) that's earned him his place. Shah dumped, probably forever, poor bloke. Flintoff in the squad, a triumph of hope over experience. And - surprise, surprise - Ryan Sidebottom - tantalised by the thought of escaping from the 'one test club', which he joined six years ago. His dad, Arnie, is also a member.

Crime and Cricket: Scarlet Street.

Edward G Robinson. What an actor - a squat, ugly bullfrog of a man, whose face could scowl with malevolence or, occasionally, crinkle with kindliness.

In the space of three years he appeared in three very different roles: stealing the show in Double Indemnity as the insurance investigator, rattling off dialogue like the machine gun in his gangster years; whispering obscenities into the ear of Lauren Bacall as the loathsome Rocco in Key Largo; and, in contrast, the mild, pathetic and tragic Chris Cross in Scarlet Street, which I have just watched for the third time.

Story

SPOILER ALERT

In Scarlet Street (directed by Fritz Lang) Robinson portrays a middle-aged bank clerk, married for convenience to a shrewish widow and repenting that error of judgment while washing the dishes clad in a rather fetching pinnie. When not out shopping for nice pieces of liver and slicing it wistfully with a spotlit carving knife, he retires to the bathroom to indulge his hobby of painting.

On the night he is wined and dined by the bank, humbly appreciative of the gold watch presented in honour of his long service, he find himself going to the aid of a woman (Joan Bennett) being beaten in the street and takes her for coffee. Coffee becomes a drink, and somehow she gets the idea that he is a successful artist. We worldly viewers realise she is a hooker, but Edward G gets the idea that she is a struggling actress. So far, so normal.

But Eddie is smitten and soon he is setting her up in an apartment, using money stolen from his wife, unaware of the relationship between Joan and Dan Duryea, who whines and sneers in his usual manner. An extra benefit of the apartment is that he can paint there.

Joan and Dan try to sell some of Eddie’s work, and a critic of modernist views decides it is touched with genius, and painted in a strangely masculine way for a woman artist. For somehow he too is under a misapprehension.

The crisis is reached when the bank discovers his embezzlement and his wife’s husband returns from the dead. The unemployed Eddie is now free to fulfil his dream of marrying Joan, but she turns him down in a somewhat cruel manner and he kills her. As you do. It’s now the police’s turn to get the wrong end of the stick and Dan Duryea is executed for the crime.

The film ends with a guilt-stricken Edward G, down–and-out and compulsively confessing his crime to incredulous mockery. The film ends as he passes an art gallery where his portrait of Joan Bennett is displayed, now a valuable self-portrait by a brilliant artist savagely cut off before her promise was fulfilled.

Comment

If my review of this film’s plot seemed a little jaundiced, it’s because I just don't understand why so many others consider it a masterpiece of ‘noir’, when I find it slow, stagey and unbelievable.

When I first saw it I was surprised to find it was made in 1945 and not 10 years earlier. It could be my DVD transcription that accounts for the grainy look of the film, but not the static camera, cardboard sets and contrived story-line. Duryea is good at what he does; Bennett is good at looking the way she does; Robinson, brilliant as he is, cannot overcome the pitiful stupidity of his character. The fact that a film is based on a good idea does not make it a good film.

However, the last five minutes are undeniably powerful and some of the most despairing I've ever seen in a Hollywood movie.


Now, away from the screen, Edward G was a very civilised man, who spent his earnings on building up one of Hollywood’s finest art collections. The sort of man who would like cricket, I like to think. Unlike the tribal savages at the Cup Final yesterday, booing some of the great names of the game because they’d played for the wrong team. Had he been privileged to experience them, Eddie would have appreciated a flowing cover drive or a brilliant slip catch, no matter who performed the feat.

Which brings me on to the fourth day at Lord’s, when England made hard work of dismissing West Indies and had to indulge in a run chase to set up a winning position. Which they did, it has to be said, with Cook posting a place-retaining 60-odd, Shah effectively losing his place and Pieterson knocking off his hundred and getting out, as per usual.

As I’d expected, the Windies proved they’re no mugs, with some brilliant batting against indifferent bowling, Monty apart. Shot of the day has to be when Daren Powell strolled down the pitch to an appalling Harmison and casually swotted him to the boundary. ‘I’ve never seen that before,’ said one commentator. ‘What do you call a shot like that?’ ‘Contemptuous’ came the reply.

But England are 400 ahead and therefore, normally, should win. But normally, we have more than one bowler. And it looks like rain.

Birds, Biltong and Batsmen

I’m pleased to report that last year’s song thrush is back. At least he looks similar. I also saw a heron the other day, and a pied wagtail. (I was with someone who knows about these things).

* * *
Morning

553 for 5. That’s how it ended last night. Not bad at all.

A day of records – only the second time four England players have scored a century in one innings, and Prior the first England wicket-keeper to score one on debut.

Pity we couldn’t have had a bowl at them before stumps, but as someone said, get the runs now, while it’s easier than it will be on the last day. And it might be best to grind them into the dust until, say, lunch today and take away all hope.

I’ve read the West Indies’ attack described as being less than world standard. But they’re not Zimbabwe. This is not going to be a pushover.

I hear there’s a football match going on at the same time today.

Later

I said the Windies would give us a run for our money. Beautiful aggressive batting from Ramdin and Bravo, showing others how to deal with Panesar, who himself demonstrated the nerve, not to mention stamina, needed by a spin bowler. Great bat-bowl contest.

Prior showed that he’s a pretty competent keeper. A pity that he had had to show it by reducing the runs Steve Harmison would otherwise have given away in wides. And it's worrying about Hoggard. I hear he missed the birth of his son in order to play for England. That's the kind of man we need in the team.

It’s shaping up nicely, as they say in tabloid-land.

* * *

And now, with acknowledgements and apologies to Stanley Holloway, Marriot Edgar and the PC police, here’s a monologue based on an incident I’m told is true.

‘T’were a few year ago, one September,
In this tale that I’m going to relate,
When t’king of some African country
Came to London on visit o’ state.

He were due to 'ave dinner with H.M. the Queen
Which didn’t quite please the old dear.
‘I’ll bet the blighter eats peas off his knife
and doesn’t drink nowt but beer.’

The Prime Minister told her, all smarmy-like,
‘Don’t fret thi'sen, ma’am, said he.
‘For after he’d finished at spear-throwing school,
He studied at L.S.E.’

Besides, said PM, all ‘aughty and grand,
In ‘is white tie and tails and ‘is topper.
The ‘ole thing’s in aid of good will and peace.
And we're after ‘is diamonds and copper.

All right, said Queen, but gave him the look
That folk get when they’re sent to the Tower,
‘For England, our realm, we will do this deed,
But the man’s still an absolute shower.’

His Majesty brought dozen wives with ‘im,
Just enough, but not the ‘ole set.
They came in the baggage compartment
Of an 'Elephant Air' jumbo jet.

He were just a bit peeved by the Customs -
Kept waiting he were for a while -
As they checked out his sackfuls of ganja
And examined his pet crocodile.

They ‘ung onto his assegai, then let ‘im go,
To be greeted by Prince Phil and Queen.
The pageant and pomp and the circumstance
Were grandest old lad had yet seen.

Guardsmen marched by wearing busby ‘ats;
There were flags of bright red, white and blue;
There was biltong, and bush tea, and coconuts.
Aye, an’ old ale and sandwiches too.

The Queen gave king a couple of jars
Of honey from Prince of Wales’ hives
The queen got some cheese made from lioness milk
And Philip got one of the wives.

The Queen took king on to Buckingham House
In a carriage all way up the Mall.
Crowds, they were deep, and folk cheered like mad
They tret lad just like an old pal.

He waved to the crowds, all the way, did king,
With a big grin that showed he were pleased,
While Philip were whispering in new wife’s ear
And queen were nibbling on t’cheese

Four milky white horses, all thoroughbreds,
Were pulling the plush regal cart,
When a silly old mare at back let go
Wi’ a right royal, thunderous fart.

An un’oly ‘ush settled down on the crowd.
T’king were too non-plussed to speak,
And when t’orse repeated her lez-majesty
Prince Phil started swearing in Greek.

But Queen, dear old soul, is allus cool.
She ‘andles such gaffes wi’ great skill.
Australians, Frenchmen and Flatulence -
Such things are mere grist to ‘er mill.

So with lady-like handkerchief over her nose,
She said, ‘What a nasty mishap.
We are sorry, Your Majesty, that this transpired.
O do please forgive us, old chap.’

‘Indeed, lass,' said king, all gentleman-like,
'Forgive thee I will, but of course.
Though between me and thee, if I may speak so free
I thought at the time it were ’orse.’

Ist Test: Day 2

As I write this England are 435 for 5. They’ve had a fair bit of luck. Collingwood in particular has had at least 3 lives, but has sensibly taken advantage of it. Cook, unfortunately, proved me right soon after the start. Bell is sticking around. It’s about time he came of age. And Matthew Prior is showing why he’s there, and that the selectors know more than I do about these matters.

The West Indies appear to be very poor in the field, with lots of dropped catches and surprising captaincy decisions, such as the delay in taking the new ball.

I heard the last excerpt from John Major’s new book, More Than a Game which he’s been reading on Radio 4 this week. It will be repeated on the BBC Radio website for a week.

Major writes elegantly and intelligently, and, boy, does he love the game.

He spoke this morning of the first-class cricketers who died in the First World War, including Percy Jeeves whose name is reputed to have been borrowed by P G Wodehouse for Bertie Wooster’s valet.

25 overs left. All being well, a declaration soon and a couple of their wickets before dinner.

Cricket and Crows

I don’t mind being up at 5.30 in the morning, at least not at this time of year. It’s quiet and peaceful, bright and clear. Despite a slight ache at the back of my eyes, so am I.

Dozens of invisible birds are singing, although I think I’ve missed the dawn chorus by a couple of hours. I often wish I could identify them, but I think that’s a yet another skill I will have to forgo. I see that one of our local nature parks has a ‘dawn chorus walk’, which involves turning out at four in the morning to wander the woods round being told what you’re listening to. I wonder if you can combine it with the ‘bat walk’ at dusk and some sort of nocturnal creatures walk in between. You could call it ‘Bats, badgers and birdsong’.

* * *

England’s cricket team created what the press described as a sound platform yesterday and ‘are in a strong position, going into the second day.’ Cook – and I’m pleased to see him doing well, because he’s a class batsman and has had trouble establishing himself – is ‘well set’. Let’s see. He and Collingwood, ‘Mr Reliable’, have to start again this morning. Cook has just got his century and that often seems to have a negative psychological effect on a batsman, as if they’re thinking the job’s done and they can stop concentrating. I often think it would be a good idea to scrap all the records of century-makers and make 150 the score that was commemorated.

What’s happening to umpires? Another shambles over bad light yesterday. It seems that ever since Darrel Hare was hounded out last year they’ve totally lost their grip.

Just a mention of football. Lincoln City lost in the play-offs and it’s for the best. They are not a Division One team. And Lincoln won’t have to endure visitations by Leeds after all.

* * *

I received some feedback from the RSPB the other day about the Big Garden Birdwatch for which I spent an hour staring out of the window in January.

I was surprised at how few birds I actually saw, but apparently that was a common report. The experts attribute that to the mildness of the weather, which meant that birds were not so dependent on domestic gardens to find food. That’s looking on the bright side.

It still seems to be a fact that the most common birds, sparrows and starlings, are declining. Finches and tits are doing well, but for me the most worrying trend is the decline of the song thrush (or the mavis as it was once called). The last thrush I saw was some time last year. It was a friendly creature, not exactly tame but quite happy to look up from pecking at the ground only a couple of yards from me and exchange greetings as I walked by.

We have plenty of crows, who strut along the middle of the road, arrogant and scruffy. I was watching a couple of them stalking a cat the other day. I noticed a cat ambling across a field behind my flat and realised that two crows were following it, one to the left, one to the right. The cat was attempting an air of nonchalance, but its tail was wagging. Each time it slowed down the crows would hop forward to urge it on, occasionally flapping into the air. They must have pursued it for 50 yards before they decided that it had left their territory and learned its lesson.

* * *

Men can get into trouble these days when attempting to tell a woman how attractive she is. Might a modern phrase be more politically correct? How about ‘fit for purpose’.

Cricket: England v West Indies

Today the first test match against the West Indies begins.

It seems to me that the two sides are well-matched, which means, let's hope, a good close contest. The West Indies are not the fearsome force they once were, and I cling to the belief that England are not as bad as they appeared over the last six months. Frankly, in Australia and in the World Cup, they were abject. I believe they were victims of the over-pitched adulation they received after winning the Ashes. They became arrogant and complacent and, when that bubble was pricked, lapsed into indiscipline and defeatism.

Have they learned their lesson? Is Strauss back to form? Will his captaincy be as good as it’s famed to be? Has Harmison got himself under control at last? Is Pieterson going to play for the team, not just himself? Who’s Prior, and what happened to Chris Reade? We shall see.

It’s a pity Brian Lara couldn’t visit us one last time. I’m going to miss him. A beautiful player and a true cricket gentleman. Perhaps the last professional batsman to ‘walk’.

The Grand National

In preparation for my annual trip to the bookies, I've sidling up to Irishmen in the pub and asking conspiratorially for inside information on the National. It's a bit disappointing the be advised to back the favourite, Joe's Edge, when I was expecting to be tipped the wink that a 100/1 outsider, secretly trained and cloaked in disinformation, was bound to romp home.

So I think a fiver each way on these three: Dun Doire, McKelvey, Bothar Na.

Later

Well, McKelvey saved it from being a complete disaster. I'm so pleased the favourites all lost. I would have felt so bad about the bookies paying out all that money.

In future I'll stick to premium bonds.

Why, oh why?

Not 'why, oh why?' do I drink too much and fall asleep at 9 o'clock?

Not 'why, oh why?' do I get up at 3am when I could doze for another hour or so?

But why, oh why do I put the radio on and listen to Test Match Special in the vain hope that I might hear good news from Australia?

Why, oh why do I keep saying 'just one more over and then I'll read a book or watch a film or write a sonnet' before wasting another hour torturing myself?

Why, oh why do I never learn?

Be a Sport!

Kirkaldy, in Scotland, has at least three famous names of which to boast. Adam Smith, for one, the great economist, whose common sense ideas were buried under layers of socialist wishful thinking for two centuries.

Gordon Brown, MP for Kirkaldy, would no doubt deny it, but he's a disciple of Smith, except in his more sentimental or politically cynical moments.

And then there's Jocky Wilson, world champion darts player, a volatile character, but who endeared himself to all when, replying to the question, 'How's it feel to be World Champion?', he said, 'Good. I can afford to get that kitchen extension finished now.'

I thought about Jocky a while ago when the Today programme on Radio 4 stage one of those silly debates it has periodically when news is thin. This one was about whether darts should be an Olympic sport. One 'spokesman' said yes; the other talking head said no.

It reminded me of the days when I used to run a pub quiz and asked the question, 'In which sport might you score a ''shanghai''.' Answer: darts (it's an arrow in the single, double and treble of the same number. You can play a whole game on that basis).

Now quiz teams can be very competitive and one team captain complained that I'd misled them by calling darts a sport, when it was a mere game. I justified my position, with calm and informed argument. 'Piss off,' I think were my words. After all, it wasn't very sporting of them, was it.

Now there's an interesting topic for debate: why do we associate games with sportsmanship, and sports with gamesmanship?

The English language plays with us. There are so many nuanced synonyms that we are encouraged to be boastful or snobbish about which particular word we use. And there is certainly a kudos in having your particular leisure activity named Sport. Just as every village wants to be a town, and every town a city, every college a university, and every cook a chef, so every tiddlywinker wants to be a sportsman, nay, an athlete.

That is why these sterile debates so often centre on what is not a sport, rather than attempting the impossible task of establishing positive criteria to define what is.

So, darts - it can't be a sport, they say because it doesn't involve physical effort and doesn't tend to make you fit. How, these guardians of sport's good name aver, can darts be a sport , when one of its leading practitioners, Andy Fordham, weighs over thirty stone? And they sneer at Andy for saying, 'I must be a sportsman, because I wear trainers and I've been on Grandstand.' Obviously a fat, working-class bloke can't be capable of irony either.

Therefore, by this criterion, darts and angling are out, but body-building is in. I don't suppose anyone's going to argue with Arnie about that, are they?

And these people don't notice the damaging effects of many recognised 'sports'. I don't just mean those pub teams where a game of football is merely a prelude to a session of boozing, or of Shane Warne, whose idea of training is a few tubes and a packet of fags. No, I'm thinking of fast bowlers' backs, golfers too; and Joe Mercer contracting Alzheimer's through years of heading the ball; and there are jockeys starving themselves and sumo wrestlers stuffing themselves; and I haven't even mentioned drugs or Russian transsexuals.

Now, skill. A true sport involves skill, say the pedants. After all, we don't want shove ha'penny getting lottery funding, do we? The trouble is that everything involves skill, whether it's tying your shoelaces or getting served in a busy pub. And it lets darts back in.

What else? Oh yes, competition. True sport involves competition. This reminds me of one of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series, the one where Maggie Smith plays a frustrated vicar's wife fretting about the church flower rota. 'If you think squash is competitive,' she says, 'you should try flower-arranging.' Do you remember John Goodman bowling in The Big Lebowski? That was competitive. Anything can be made into a competition - pie-eating, dwarf-tossing, synchronised swimming, ballroom dancing, and that gymnastics thing where they jump about waving ribbons on sticks. Even art. The Turner Prize. Of course, that can't be a sport because it doesn't involve skill.

While on the subject of art - by the way, when does a craft become an art? - there are some 'sports' that are judged by 'artistic impression' and consequently a value judgment. Synchronised swimming, for example, and ice dance. Think of a football match on that basis. Imagine watching a 0-0 draw between Manchester United and Bolton and Man U being awarded the three points because they played more attractive football. In boxing, a fighter can get extra points because he shows more aggression. How would Man U get on now that Roy Keane has left? I can't help but think back to the Turner Prize and wonder if Torvill and Dean, had they kept falling over, might have been able to claim that their artistic impression was conceptual and that they symbolising the contingency of life and the absurdity of competition.

Many 'so-called' sports are, a sense not competitive. In sprinting and golf, putting the shot and tossing the caber (and darts), the athlete is not interacting with his opponents. His competition is with the course, the track or the board. apart from psychological pressure there is nothing he can do legally to prevent others doing better.

In any case, if certain teachers are to be believed, competition can be very harmful, especially to children. Failure, apparently, can damage the sensitive souls of the little sods, sorry, souls. Do they not realise that failure is the very essence of success. (Discuss)

There's a more recent factor in the exclusion of some activities from the sporting canon. Political correctness. Why do people use the phrase 'political correctness gone mad' ad nauseum? It's bloody crazy to start with. Anyway, boxing is frowned on. How can that be a sport when it's very purpose is to beat your opponent to a bloody pulp? Even cricket is dangerous for children, not to mention conkers. Angling is cruel and so is horse-racing. Hawking and polo are elitist and upper-class. Fox-hunting has even been outlawed.

And as for dwarf-tossing!

On the other hand, politicians like to encourage sport in schools because they think it shows they are doing something about the fact that kids are fat, lazy bastards. God knows why they think it's any of their business. If kids are fat, lazy bastards, it's because they've got fat, lazy bastards for parents. But sport, we are told, encourages other virtues. Self-discipline, for example, such as that displayed by George Best; nobility of character, such as Roy Keane's; team spirit, such as was always displayed by Geoffrey Boycott. Perhaps we'd better play down the fostering of a competitive spirit.

Enough of all this sniping. Making a list of of characteristics and non-characteristics does not define something. Otherwise we might manage to prove that a dog was an elephant. What, actually, is sport?

I'll start with Shakespeare. In the first scene of King Lear, Gloucester is talking to fellow-Duke, Kent. He introduces his 'whoreson', Edmund, and, abandoning iambic pentameters for man-to-man prose, says with a nudge and a wink, 'There was good sport at his making.' No doubt this making involved a degree of physical activity, even a modicum of elementary skill, possibly a little previous competition, but I cannot see it becoming an Olympic sport, however hard the French lobby for it. The English probably take the Richard III view, 'I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks. . .'

I could talk about Doc Holliday, professional gambler, who described himself as a 'sporting man'. Jack Russell, breeder of the terrier, and inveterate rider to hounds, was known as the 'sporting parson'. The dictionary is crammed with meanings of the word 'sport'. And fundamentally it means 'fun'. So that's sorted.

I shall conclude by pondering on the original Olympic games. They were the basic sports of running, jumping and throwing. And they all had a military origin as well as a military purpose, just like shooting and riding in later centuries. It was much the same in medieval England and Wales, when the archer became the decisive force. Every Sunday, men within a certain age range and from the appropriate class were obliged by law to attend practice sessions. Football was outlawed, partly because it led to riots and dissolute behaviour, but also because it diverted men away from their vital training with the bow.

It is said that before the battle of Agincourt, Henry V's archers amused themselves by throwing their arrows at the circular bases of ale-casks, thereby inventing the game of darts and beginning its long association with beer. Following this pleasant interlude, they listened to the stirring words of the king and indicated to the French that their fingers were intact and itching to draw back the bowstring. Minutes later a shroud of arrows covered the enemy, whose army was reduced to so many bloodily squashed hedgehogs.

Gordon Brown wants to encourage a sense of 'Britishness'. I've no idea what that is but Gordon could do worse than promote the sport of Jocky Wilson, Britain's true national sport. Not only that, we have a realistic chance of winning something.

And if you don't agree, all I can say is that you're a spoilsport.

Ashes in the Mouth

The Ashes are lost. Now all we can hope for is to avoid the whitewash.

First, the excuses:

We lost Vaughan, our best batsman and a good captain.

We lost Simon Jones, the master of reverse swing (whatever that is).

Trescothick had 'personal problems' and lost it.

Harmison just lost it

Giles was injured.

We were playing Australia.


Second, the mistakes:

We made Flintoff captain. Like, Darren Gough and Botham before him, he's a great player and inspirational force within the team, but I doubt his tactical nous and his toughness as a leader. The last year's results should have proved this. He was the newspapers' choice.

We took a team of cripples, physically, mentally and in terms of form. We just hoped for the best from Harmison, Flintoff and Giles.

The same applies to Cook and Bell, the first a kid, the second always fragile.

Anderson and Mahmoud have never really proved themselves.

We chose the wrong wicket-keeper. All this talk about needing those who can get runs is nonsense. If the real batsmen haven't got them, it's too late for a number seven to get them, despite some notable late partnerships. One missed stumping is not cancelled out by 50 runs - and that assumes you're going to get them, which we didn't.

No-one told Pietersen to stop being an arrogant prima donna and play for the team for a change. (I accept that he seems to have learned by the third test, but his dismissal in the first innings was typical).

We let Vaughan hang around on the fringes, undermining Flintoff.

We didn't play anything like enough proper games in Australia to prepare. those two-day games, with 12 players, were a joke.

We were playing Australia.

Third, other points:

The Panesar/Giles thing was just got up by the press, because Monty is a 'character'. The editor of the Daily Mail is no more qualified to select the England team than the Radio 5 reporters. Monty did very well when he was chosen, but he would not have saved the first two tests, nor did he save the third.

I do not blame the coach, Fletcher. Not entirely. We won the Ashes under him, the culmination of a long process of improvement owed to him.

I blame the players. We got ourselves into winning positions, twice, and the batsmen threw it away. What makes it worse is that they showed that they could bat with grit and determination when they set their minds to it.

We were not motivated enough, we were not tough or hard or hungry or pure mad-dog mean enough. We don't love the Ashes enough.

We were playing Australia.