Poor Werner Herzog. The mighty German auteur must have thought that he alone had a handle on any absurdity of the human condition involving someone called Treadwell, but, like so many before him, he has been trumped by cricket.
One of his great documentary’s protagonist, Timothy, was an indisputably brave and deluded conservationist, who spent large parts of his life living in among Alaskan grizzly bears until tragically, yet probably inevitably, the grizzly bears decided that they might instead prefer to gnaw on large parts of him.
Cricket’s James (I know it’s Tredwell, no ‘a’) is only a slight turn in the whirring dervish of chance that is the England team, but he and his colleague’s actions against the Windies and thus far in the World Cup have been no less idiosyncratically bizarre than those of Herzog’s muse.
In Thursday’s match alone, the roll call of random included: the Kent tweaker’s surprise inclusion and subsequent 4-48; Luke Wright’s six-week cold case knock of 44 to rescue the innings; Jonathan Trott’s electric, dashing 47 off 38 and the same player’s catch-negating brushing of the boundary marker with a microbe of shirt fabric to leave England eyeballing the abyss; Ravi Bopara’s two wickets and butter-tits dropping of Pollard; Chris Gayle and Tremlett both supping on a Jonty Rhodes milkshake to take catches of expert agility; Michael Atherton plugging ICC tat as if Tony Grieg had gone out of fashion.
When Indian journalist Harsha Bhogle tweeted that this was “the most crazy,whimsical cricket match I have seen”, it seemed like understatement, not hyperbole.
As with all their five games, England at times looked beaten and at times looked unbeatable, but to read anything into any of their match situation’s before the final ball has been delivered is as naive as bringing nasty Colonel Gaddafi back into the international fold, selling him nasty things and then being surprised when he uses them to be nasty.
My own ghost had never fully been given up, but when the Windies were 222-6, just after Trott’s stunning non-catch of Russell, the sound was down on my laptop and I’d started pottering round the flat to distract from the familiar embarrassed nausea that settles in my stomach every four years as England wibble out of the World Cup.
This was stupid because Swann still had the first (and, as it was his tenth of the innings, last) over of a spell to bowl, and this is one circumstance that can have a pretty high degree of certainty attached to it.
He didn’t just take the customary one wicket, however, but those of both Sarwan and Roach, the latter of who decided that the best way to knock off 25-odd runs at less than four an over was to charge the world’s most effective and effecting off-spinner.
A short time later after Trott’s bullet throw to allow Prior to run out Benn, the Windies had lost their last four wickets for three runs.
Across South Africa, TV screens were doused in spittle as the word ‘choke’ failed to be uttered by anyone.
So what now for Strauss and Flower’s band of scintillating brothers? What Brie-inspired dreams of madness will England now bestow upon the cricketing world in the knockout stages?
It’s futile to predict, but don’t bother trying to out do our convulsing genius again, Werner. You’ll have more luck trying to calm down Klaus Kinski.
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