A person would probably have to get lessons in elocution to be able to insult England.
While they bowed down to a C-Grade Bangladesh side, Peter Moores was still busy trying to check the “data” to be able to know if 275 was gettable on a reasonably good Adelaide Oval surface.
No wonder English cricket is in a sorry state of affairs because the coaches and the managements are spending a majority of their time collecting statistics. The ignominy they are being subjected to is more than that suffered by a man in a state of déshabillé at the Abbey Road, and if I am to be laconic, just to sum up English Cricket in limited-overs, then “Specialists in Failure” fits nicely.
Even José Mourinho would choose to describe them that way, and probably it’s only a man of his calibre and mentality that can get England out of this mess.
It is a noisome mess, the smell of which is snaffling the breath out of people. Peter Moores and Paul Downton, can well be singled out as the “driving forces” in this era of failure.
Abhorrent management to beblamed (Peter Moores included)
Isn’t it the most obvious fact in the world that Cricket is the most foolishly managed sport in the world, and The ECB, the one that makes the statement a truth.
Time after time, fingers have been pointed at the ECB for being too naive, and rather loathsome in the way they manage players, in the process turning them into unbearable liabilities, rather than assets to be cherished. I have always said that the management that is based on dictating terms to the players about what is to be done, will always end up reaping dreadful results.
Modern day cricket doesn’t work like that. It’s about being more instinctive, rather than being predictive in whatever you do on the field. Look at Australia, or New Zealand, or South Africa, you never know what to expect off them on a given day.
On the contrary, England are way too predictable, and far way from being flexible, something that they pretend to be – but believe me they aren’t.
Management is about getting the best out of someone rather than ordering an individual about following a certain pattern.
The way England’s players are managed means they are coached and coddled until the creativity and innovation is gone and are made a bunch of mere statues. They are hopeless when situations that the coaching manuals don’t apparently have, are being made to face.
There’s no freedom for the English cricketers to express themselves and they never do get in a habit of doing so either, and as a result are never able to think for themselves.
And then one can clearly see the iconoclasm that is present in English cricket, which is resulting in England playing ODI cricket their way (which is quite antediluvian), and not the way it is required to be played.
Parking the bus
The players England have, it leaves my mouth wide open and makes me suffer apoplexy when I see them being that inanimate. There’s no aggression at all in whatever England do on the field.
They don’t bat with aggression, they don’t bowl with aggression, and the fielding is even worse.
What else can you expect when is a team is so defensively minded. They bat to save wickets and they bowl to protect the runs, the eventual result of which always is disappointment. And when I say parking the bus, I mean being too modest too.
Giving your opponents way too much respect only allows them to sit right on top of you and dominate you. They start getting into your skins, and finally tear you apart.
A good coach, a good leader’s nous always tells him to build a team that is arrogant, a team that is flippant and not generous. The world which we live in, has no room for nice people in sports.
You have to learn to sit right on top of your opponent. Peter Moores, and the England management though have built a team that can only be modest.
They don’t think about winning, they think about preventing a defeat, and that’s obviously the ideology that works behind selecting Gary Ballance in place of Alex Hales.
The pathetic selection panel
James Whittaker, the chief selector of English cricket deserves a knighthood. He’s an absolute genius isn’t he?
The ability to consistently rebuff talented players like James Vince, Jason Roy, Adil Rashid, and Samit Patel, makes him the stand-out man behind this era of failure for me. Had these gentlemen been in any other country, they would have played loads and loads of international cricket by now.
But here in England, there chances almost amount to nil. Why? Firstly, their places are held by Ian Bell, Joe Root and Gary Ballance-like players. Obviously, there’s no reason why Bell and Root shouldn’t be in this team, they have scored runs, and have been consistent.
But, can they hit 50-ball 100s? No. Can they help their team chase down totals of 350? No.
That’s what someone like Roy or Vince can do and hence why they are clearly the better options. The point here is, the selection panel and James Whittaker must be brave enough to have different set-ups, different group of players and even coaches, in the longer versions and the shorter versions.
That’ll make each of them concentrate on their respective formats, and help them maintain their form over a longer period of time. Though, that doesn’t look a possibility in English cricket at all.
The future for English cricket in the shorter versions remains in dark, remains in an aphotic place. Either the drastic changes must be made, or things will continue as they are.
Today was arguably the most shameful day in English cricket history, most probably, many such days will keep on coming.
Hopefully the arrival of Colin Graves as the ECB’s new Chairman can be a good start towards taking the big strides forward for improvements in this England side. And a stride forward would only mean the immediate filtering of the men within the board, and the men in the team.
Sack them, drop them, involve former players, be brave.
That’s the way forward.
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