From the coffin pt 1: 17 November 2012

It’s Friday night in early November. My work-mates head to the pub for an evening where they will drink too much, too fast and too early, giving an introverted air to Monday morning, punctuated by cagey conversation as they scope out who let someone know what they really thought about them, who made a fool of themselves trying to impress the boss and, most importantly, who remembers what. Needless to say, however, a night of bacchanalian release is good for any work team – the shared enjoyment and shame knit us close and all the best stories come from such nights.

Whilst I’m usually first to the bar at these events, my Fridays during the winter are given over to a different sort of rite. From October to April I attend the adult coaching class at the Oval, in the company of 15-30 other slightly awkward men of varying cricketing ability, where we are put through our paces by a group of the ground’s professional coaches.

Adult coaching is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is genuinely populated by some extremely shy men. I’m not sure if it’s just their dogged focus on improving their skills, but some of these guys would rather be engaged in mortal combat than friendly conversation. Secondly, half the attendees seem to hate it and regularly grumble (to themselves, of course) about the format, the drills, the coaches and the other players. Thirdly, its success is predicated on there being just enough attendees for it to be worth running, but not so many that the regulars can’t get in. It astonishes me that in a city of 8 million people, over a winter there’s an average of 20-or-so who want to turn out and train each week. It only really works because it’s a well kept secret, and I am under no illusions that writing about it on this blog will change that.

It’s week one for me (having missed the first couple of sessions this year) and we’re bowling. Great. I do want to be good at bowling, and practice hard at it when I’m at nets, but in contrast to my batting I’ve shown no real improvement over the last few years. Also, LT Dinos CC is packed with good bowlers and the skipper very rarely has to look around for the best person to throw the ball to. What the team needs is some more consistent batsmen and that’s what I want to focus on.

But anyway, we’re bowling this week and I’ll do my best. It’s off-spin, as you ask. The kind that loops, or drops short, or is a full toss, and soars alternately, in reactionary paths, equally wide either side of the stumps. It is so slow that the only way it generates a wicket is if the batsman is beaten for lack of pace and the wicket keeper is agile enough to collect it from in front of the slips and accurate enough to through down the stumps.

This week is no real exception and after an encouraging start I produce enough filth to have Mary Whitehouse turning in her grave before turning in an injunction. After focussing on bowling good lines and lengths to an empty set of stumps, the coaches ask for some volunteer batters. My hand shoots up faster than a jailed heroin addict when he hears the warden coming.

My first knock since the end of the season isn’t an unqualified triumph. Against a mix of medium and fast medium I middle a few drives to mid-off and cover but am bowled twice swinging across the line of balls coming into my pads. Baffled for a while, I realise I’ve taken the wrong guard and don’t know where my leg stump is. I thought those balls were swinging well down leg and I could clip them fine. As it was I missed them and they made a fool of me. Schoolboy.

I also backed away from a couple of early deliveries, particularly from a stocky bloke with a gap between his front teeth who I am convinced is a West Indian (I can’t tell because, like everyone else, he doesn't speak). I thought I had cured this technical fault last winter and am annoyed at myself, but part of the reason is that it takes me a few balls to adjust to the fact that he, and one of the other quicker bowlers, is banging it in short without getting any real bounce. Once I get used to this I’m getting in line properly and I don’t think it was cowardice as much as poor judgement. I also remind myself not to judge a bowler by how he looks (this guy had me beaten before he bowled a ball) but to be alert, on my toes and react to each delivery.

I am impatient in the nets, trying to force runs from every ball and afterwards I can’t work out why. It’s not how I bat in the middle and it’s demoralising to have your stumps rattled even if you cream a few drives. I vow to regain Chappell-esque 'fierce focus' next week and play each ball on its merits.

The following Friday it’s bowling again and this time I don’t get a bat. The guy who does drives me like I’m Miss Daisy and pulls me like I’m Miss Daisy’s younger, looser sister. But I am improving. George, one of the coaches, is a fine off-spin bowler and works with extreme patience on my delivery stride, trying to eliminate the annoying skip that’s interrupting my rhythm. As soon as I manage that my line goes, then my release of the ball. When I correct those I start skipping again. It’s baby steps, but over last winter George gave me the beginnings of a basic technique – I just have to remember to apply it each time I approach the crease.

After both sessions I head home tired, a little frustrated and with plenty to think about. But I wake on Saturday pleasantly achy, but with a clear head, and having done nothing that’s going to stop me looking my colleagues in the eye on Monday morning.

Things we have learned from days one to three

Sehwag is not past it. Your correspondent would like to rescind his earlier remarks. He does not want to witness anything special from Sehwag from the rest of the series and does now believe that it’s likely he can still produce.

Virat Kohli is not the only young batsman worth watching in the Indian side. Cheteshwar Pujara’s unbeaten double century was a masterly demonstration of subcontinental batting. In counterpoint to Sehwag’s flair, Pujara played with patience and skill, scoring only 21 fours, but leaving with excellent judgement, defending solidly, turning the strike and using the depth of his crease to punish square of the wicket.

One and a half spinners is not enough in India. Graeme Swann bowled beautifully, and it was a pleasure watching him graft away for his wickets. But wouldn’t it have been nice to see Monty twirling at the other end? It’s true, they don’t have a great record in tandem, but the seamers were innocuous and although Bresnan and Broad batted better than most of the top order, that isn’t the main reason for their selection and it was wickets we needed first.

Ashwin and Ojha’s wickets against New Zealand weren’t a fluke. They’ve been good, haven’t they? And it’s been great to see Dhoni backing his bowlers with aggressive fields. With wickets tumbling, and a massive first innings score, he had no reason to defend, but the English batsmen were in a pressure cooker from the moment they stepped onto the field. Also, it wasn’t Ashwin’s ‘mystery’ that produced his wickets – it was high class off-spin bowling.

Cook is just wonderful. Ok, we knew this already from not only his career record and the oodles of runs he scored in the last Ashes, but the way he’s developed as a one-day player and captain, upping his strike rate and adding new aggressive shots to his repertoire. But boy did he play well today. We always hear the same names bandied as being the good players of spin and it tends to be those who use their feet: Ian Bell and Eoin Morgan, chiefly. Cook didn’t really use his feet today, in terms of charging down the wicket, he just got right forward to meet the ball in defense, and right back to cut it away. His one-day skills have definitely added to his test repertoire and he swept with confidence, keeping the scorecard ticking, which is essential when faced with such a mountainous first innings total.

Nick Compton looks ok. It must be very strange making your test debut at 29, with your opening partner and captain opposite you, still only 27 and a veteran of 83 matches. A player debuting at 29 is expected to arrive fully fledged, as Jonathan Trott did to memorable effect in 2009. I mean nothing disparaging by saying Compton looks ok. One fears a county player who has waited so long for the opportunity (and is thrust into the maelstrom of a tough series in India in a line-up of batsmen known to be weak against spin) would struggle. He may have only made nine in the first innings, but he didn’t look at sea. So far in the second innings he has been composed, positive in defence, pushing the singles to the less agile fielders and only had one major aberration when he premeditated a sweep and had to improvise a crabbed, cross-bat defensive trap when the bowler dropped it shorter than he was expecting. The hundred partnership is up and long may it continue.

All our yesterdays: a tale told by an idiot of how it came to this

The first test begins tomorrow. I love these days before a new series, when the action is suspended, in a liminal space between the end of the meaningful build-up and the first ball to be bowled. The squad has been picked, the warm-ups have given us all the clues and red herrings we can expect, and all that’s left before it starts is a period of restless expectation for the players and tired conjecture for the hacks. But for the fans, now is the time to savour all our theories, expectations and prejudices, all the possibilities ranged before us, and trust that the reality won’t be more mundane. It hasn’t tended to be in recent years.

Home team India have fallen far since they lost the number one Test ranking in last year’s drubbing by England. They backed-up that four-nil loss with a humiliation of identical proportions against the resurgent Aussies in their very next series. The retirements of the galacticos had been on the cards for a while and Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman called it a day in the wake of these unhappy episodes. Sachin Tendulkar bats on, his defence against questions of when to call it day gradually weakening, in parallel with his fading power to protect his off stump. It’s still a thrill to see the little (old) master walk out to bat and I hope we witness something special from him this winter. Virender Sehwag hasn’t troubled the scorers to any great degree in Tests since his annus mirabilus of 2010. It’s more than two years since his last century, and he’s only reached 50 once in five tests this year. He’s a batsman that brings me mixed feelings every time he walks out to bat against us. I hope he’ll produce something special, but if he does, the wickets better be tumbling at the other end, otherwise the game could be out of reach very quickly. Even as I type that I don’t think it’s likely any more; perhaps he’ll prove me wrong.

But enough of the elders. There is a new generation of Indian players and from the top order it’s Virat Kohli that promises big things. Kohli is of a different breed to the galacticos. His youth, vigour and attitude (or rudeness) set him apart from his elegant and distinguished elders. An established and thrilling ODI player already, his form over his ten test appearances has been less consistent, but scores this year of 23, 9, 44, 75, 116, 22, 58, 103 and 51* aren’t to be taken lightly.

I can’t pretend to have seen much of India since their last tour to England, but the spin twins Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha, who took New Zealand apart with 18 and 13 wickets respectively in the recent two test series, should be great to watch against our famously (after last winter) susceptible batters.

It seemed for so long an unstoppable rise to test success for England. The team that couldn’t cope with the shock of being world class under Duncan Flower and that became an unhappy, factional failure under Peter Moores and Kevin Pietersen, had an amazing run based on the Andys' (Flower and Strauss) cunning strategy of taking the opposition by surprise with old fashioned test cricket: bat big in your own time, bowl ‘dry’ and give the bastards nothing. Teams who had spent too long trying to be and expecting to play Steve Waugh’s Australians wilted in the face of Cook and Trott’s patience, Bell’s new-found confidence, Matt Prior’s all-round magnificence and a bowling attack more obsessed with control than a paranoid tyrant and with the all-swinging, all-bouncing skills to back it up. Jimmy Anderson, the man who couldn’t bowl outside England, Tim Bresnan, the fat lad from’t north, Chris Tremlett, the big injury-prone friendly giant, Stuart Broad, the petulant rose-cheeked ingénue, Steven Finn, the new boy – they all came good and in some style. And then there was Swann, the big-chinned, laddish joker of the team, with a golden arm and cult dance for any occasion.

But it all unravelled last winter. After humiliating losses against Pakistan at ‘home’ in the UAE and a hard fought drawn series in Sri Lanka, the world’s number one test side returned with their tails between their legs. In fact it wasn’t the tail that was the problem – the top order had charred and crumbled in the crucible of dusty pitches, quality (and sometimes just decent) spinners and fielders round the bat.

It was thrilling car-crash viewing, and we wondered: was this aberration? Would we be able to turn it around and learn to play on slow, low turners before the (then distant) winter tour? Would our bowlers be able to keep up their unrewarded brilliance while the batters got their act together? I hate to spoil it for you, but it hasn’t gone well.

After a convincing 2-0 win at home against an improving but still inconsistent West Indies, the South Africans arrived. I’m not yet ready to relive the details of what came next, but the fall-out included the retirement of His Straussness, a personal hero and one of the most decent-seeming men in sport, and the summer-long idiocy of the Pietersen affair, a controversy so annoying and ridiculous barely hundreds of bloggers bothered to append the word ‘gate’ to it.

So here we are. Pietersen is back in the fold and boy is he needed. Nick Compton is the man pencilled in to open with the new captain-opener Alastair Cook. I wish Compton well for a number of reasons. First, he plays his county cricket for Somerset, surely every non-Somerset fan’s second team. Second, he’s been good for long enough and at 29 is reaching now-or-never territory. Third, the Guardian recently revealed that he’s spent the last couple of winters trying to perfect the world’s best forward and backward defensive technique. Not the ramp shot, not the switch-hit, not the helicopter swat and certainly not the flamingo flick – the world’s best forward and backward defensive. God love them, but with Trott at first drop, this top three is looking dry as the desert and just as gritty.

But it’s more flair than a 70s disco from there. KP will have a point to prove in his first series back in the fold and let’s hope it comes off. I was at Headingley for his last innings, a 149 of reckless brilliance against the best South Africa could throw at him. I know plenty of fans who would have been happy to see the back of him but I think it’s a rare privilege and joy to watch him in full-flow and will relish whatever time he has left with England.

Ian Bell hasn’t been at his best for a little while, but we’re always being told he’s England’s best player of spin, so here’s hoping. Samit Patel seems nailed on for the number six spot, given his fine form in the warm ups, and I hope his obvious talent will be backed by the necessary application and luck to get on in the series. Patel was shoddily treated by management and the media over his weight and fitness and I trust his all-round abilities will set the record straight and get him known for the right reasons from this series on. Six hasn’t quite been a poisoned chalice since Paul Collingwood’s departure, but Eoin Morgan, Ravi Bopara, James Taylor and Jonny Bairstow have all tried their hands over the last couple of years and none has established himself in the side. Samit has as good a chance as any.

The bowling is less of a worry, even if Steven Finn isn’t fit for tomorrow. The bowlers had a trying time against the likes of Smith, Amla and Kallis this summer, but they have such strength in depth and history of excellent performances over recent years there’s no reason to lose faith.

And that’s where we’re up to. There’s nothing left now but an early night, 3.50am alarm, stumble into the lounge and the wait for the first ball.

To the crease

A handle and a blade is the start of something I've been meaning to do for a while. Cricket is a contemplative sport - it gets you to thinking. As a fan of the game for a little over a decade, since first starting watching in my late teens, and a player for four seasons, I've spent a lot of time absorbed in watching, reading about, practising, talking and thinking about cricket. It's become a little obsessional at times, frankly, and every obsession needs an outlet.

This blog aims to do a few things. First it'll be a repository for my thoughts about the game generally and its development specifically in the time I've been watching (which happens to coincide with the advent of T20). Second I'll write about current matches, players and news. Third I'll touch on the history of the game and books I'm reading. Finally, and bear with me here, I'm going to start keeping a diary of my development as a player. These posts will come under a series called 'from the coffin' and will probably have quite a niche audience of other 20-something men who've come to the game late and are struggling to develop. It's not going to be journalism. It will be personal, partial and doesn't claim to be an objective view or expert opinion. 

Before I go further, full disclosure. I have now played four summers for a thriving work team that plays T20s on weeknights and a smattering of one-day weekend friendly fixtures through the summer. I consider myself a batter, not because of any particular prowess, but because it's what I love and want to excel at. My first season in 2009 I probably recorded more ducks than I scored runs and my top score was seven. The year after I clambered to the heady heights of double figures and learned to defend but still not score runs. In my third year, encouraged by a pre-season in which I attended countless net sessions, I started confidently with several more double-figure scores, but couldn't seem to press on. Last winter I attended the Friday night adult coaching class at the Oval which started to pay dividends in a summer in which I achieved new high scores of 27 and 38. So it's been baby steps, but I am getting there. I have become a resilient batter, and hard to get out. I still don't have many boundary options, but I'm a pretty effective nurdler and judge of a quick single. This winter I'm aiming to gain a few more scoring strokes and stop playing round my bloody front pad. I will keep you posted.

Please comment if you want to start some debate, flatter me with praise or flatten me with abuse.

Eric