ICC Awards

Shivnarine Chanderpaul was rewarded last night for an excellent year in international cricket when he was crowned Cricketer of the Year. West Indies fans have known for many years that he is a monotonously reliable batsman whose weight of runs has been overshadowed by the peerlessly flashy Brian Lara until his recent retirement.

The last time I saw Chanderpaul play was on the 2nd day of the 4th Test against England last year at Chester-le-Street. West Indies were in a sorry state and were already 2 nil down in the series having been beaten by an innings and 283 runs and 60 runs in the previous two Tests at Leeds and Manchester respectively. In contrast to the general ineptitude of his team mates Shiv shone among them.

Previous to that day, I had driven up to Durham from Cambridge in the pouring rain and funnily enough play on the first day of the Test was completely washed out and the second day did not get started until after lunch. I’m sure England had more than an element of glee after winning the toss and putting the tourists in to bat. Predictably, in what little play there was on day 2, West Indies lost 4 wickets leaving Chanderpaul and Bravo battling at the end in bowler friendly conditions before the rains came again. Out of a West Indian first innings score of 287, Chanderpaul made an unbeaten 136 runs. Pure class, but he’s been here time and again in the recent past. It was only in the second innings of that match that he was dismissed for 70. Before which he had been not been dismissed for over 18 hours.

His place in the Test team of the year is obvious:

• Graeme Smith;
• Virender Sehwag;
• Mahela Jaywardena;
• Shivnarine Chanderpaul;
• Kevin Pietersen;
• Jacques Kallis;
• Kumar Sangakkara;
• Brett Lee;
• Ryan Sidebottom;
• Dale Steyn;
• Muttiah Muralidaran.

A damp squib

England’s win in the last Test of the summer was little more than a reasonable dessert following a disappointing main course that had looked so appetising when being weighed up on the menu some hours earlier. Prior to the South Africans arriving on these shores much of the media billed the series as an indicator of how competitive England were in the context of world cricket. So what does losing a 4 Test series 2-1 in your own backyard indicate?

The home nation not being in the rudest of health me thinks. With Australia far and away the best Test team and England, South Africa and the Subcontinental nations all supposedly close together in the chasing pack, England at home would expect to win Test series against all of those in the pack. However losing at home last year to India and this year to South Africa hardly gets any opposition boots quaking, let alone the Australians.

South Africa are not a bad team, in fact in my opinion they are underrated, the fact that they don’t have a “proper” spinner is often highlighted by Geoffrey Boycott among others, but is that such a bad thing? Where have a seen that before? A pre-Monty Panesar England perhaps? The one that won the Ashes in 2005 and several home series before that? Yes exactly. Stand up the King of Spain. The England team from that period is not so different from the South African team now. They should be congratulated on coming to England and not just being hard to beat but winning. Well done them. I can only hope this spurs England to take a long hard look at themselves to put things right.

Nothing ever fails for a single reason, so what went wrong?

Batting failures. The top order rarely put together the partnerships required to build the big scores needed in the first innings of a match to push home the advantage in each match overall. England batted first in the first 3 Tests making 593/8 declared, 203 and 231 respectively. In the latter 2 cases, at Leeds and Birmingham they lost comprehensively proving the scenario that a team batting first, if they are put in or chose to bat, need to put up good scores to not be significantly on the back foot with around 4 days of a game to play.

Lack of bowling penetration. In previous times, England have had a “go-to man”, a bowler that the captain could turn to, to break a batting partnership. In their pomp this would have been at different times, Harmison and Flintoff and arguably over the winter Sidebottom was outstanding. When the pitch was conducive to spin, even Monty Panesar chipped in, reference his performance at Old Trafford last year. The go-to man was not present in this series. Sidebottom’s form has dropped away and Harmison and Flintoff are only recently back in the team. Stuart Broad is an admirable cricketer but no strike bowler (8 wickets at 49) and lets not even mention the Pattinson episode.

Let’s look at the Test matches up to next summer. A paltry 2 Tests in India and 4 Tests in the West Indies before next summer where there may or may not be 2 or 3 Tests against Sri Lanka before the Ashes. What a way to prepare for the biggest Test series in world cricket.

England flatter to deceive, Windies look upwards and the Royals are crowned champions

Right, I’ve been quite busy over the past week, which means that the ‘blog has had to suffer. I apologise for this one, I will have more time next week for a super special entry, I promise!

The 3rd Test of England vs New Zealand started today at Trent Bridge in Nottingham and it wasn’t long before England were in deep Trent water at 85 for 5. I guess like any other England fan, I look at the top 6 English batsmen and think, that though it looks a touch defensive, on their day they should be able to post good totals. However, that’s ‘on their day’ and if doesn’t come against as lightweight attack as the Kiwis have, it could be a blue moon in daylight before it does happen. For my money England have really missed the aggressive impetus that Marcus Trescothick used to give at the top of the order since he retired. I dread to think what a South African attack will do to our batsmen later on this summer. At least Pietersen and Ambrose showed what was required and though they got out towards the end of the day, 273 for 7  is a great recovery considering the English post-lunch blues. If the home team can eke out another 40 or 50 runs, they should be confident of holding New Zealand to something short of that total when they come out to bowl.

Across the Atlantic in the Caribbean, Australia are finding a West Indies side that are at least up for the fight which is more than could be said on their tour of England last year, when they apologetically rolled over for a 3-0 defeat. In truth since that low point, West Indies Test match performances have improved in recent months with a win against South Africa in Port Elizabeth, a win against Sri Lanka in Port of Spain and genuinely competing with Australia for the first four days of the 1st Test at Sabina Park before capitulating on the last day. They have a battery of decent quicks, Taylor, Powell and Edwards supported by Bravo and a rock in their batting lineup, Chanderpaul, for others to rally around. Some decent batsmen to support ‘Tiger’, Sarwan and Gayle and a spinner would give them a better balance. So are the Aussies wobbling? I wouldn’t believe it, sure most of the marque names of the past decade have gone, but don’t believe for one second that the Aussies are about to relinquish their throne. Well done West Indies I say.

I can’t end a review of the week without commenting on the IPL finals. After Punjab threw it away in the semi, to my mind it could only be Warne’s Rajahastan Royals to win the title, albeit I thought they might do it a bit more comfortably than leaving it until the final ball of the match. Credit should go to their opponents Chennai for making the match one that ebbed and flowed right up to the last over, in grave contrast to the one-sided semi finals. My personal favourite moment of the semis was watching batsman after hapless batsman trying to slog Warne away and failing as he turned the ball at right angles off the pitch!

Wisden winners

These five lucky, lucky batmeisters and ballmeisters got the nod to be Wisden Cricketers of the Year 2008:

• Ian Bell
• Shiv Chanderpaul
• Otis Gibson
• Zaheer Khan
• Ryan Sidebottom

Any arguments about these? The criteria being eye opening performances seen in last year’s English season and not having had a nomination before.

So, starting from the bottom, everyone’s favourite lank-haired, left-arm pace man had to be in, not only because there is only one man in such a category in world cricket, but because of his phoenix-like return to the England set-up after an extended hiatus. He’s now their no.1 bowler and deservedly, hopefully for the foreseeable future.

When Zaheer comes round to my place, I’m  not going to offer him something sweet for dessert, judging by what he did to England’s batting line-up at Trent Bridge last summer after being offered a few jellybeans, he’d be turning over tables and breaking plates. I bet Anil slips a few Maltesers into his bowling boots to fire him up, having said that, crushing honeycomb biscuit and chocolate in my shoes when I put my feet in them would piss me off too. Great performances though and deservedly in.

You hold up the match ball after taking 5 wickets in an innings, but how to celebrate after taking all 10 wickets? Presumably with on you a golden podium held up by your team, whilst mere mortals bow before you. Not sure if Otis did this but, that performance was the diamond headstone in a sparkling season for the Barbadian in the twilight of his playing career.

Shiv. For many a year he has been hidden, nay eclipsed, by the ink black shadow cast by the ego of a certain Mr Lara, so when he buggered off to pad his back pocket with cash playing in the ICL, many people feared for the already fragile nature of the West Indies batting line up. He ended the Test series against England with an average of nearly 150, categorically cementing Shiv’s place. He just needs his Mueller sponsored bully to stop punching him beneath the eyes before he goes out to bat…

Ian Bell is a class act. I’ve seen him play in an exhibition game at my local park and I’ve seen him play Test matches and ODIs at various locations around England. He is a batsman with class in the orthodox sense, but to my mind we are yet to see the best of him. Should players be selected as a Cricketer of the Year who are ‘on the cusp of greatness’? or at the top of their game? I think the latter, which is why I feel Ian Bell’s inclusion in this list is premature; his best is not yet upon us.