Little Britain

Is Ian Bell 'too English' to ever really succeed in Test cricket? Is Matt Prior a better player because he's given up eating sausage and chips and sunday roast? Is Steve Harmison a victim of Durham's insular community, and is Chris Tremlett just a big Southern jesse?

These might be at best tangential explanations of their failings. They probably wouldn't gain much traction in any lengthy debate. Every man is to a greater or lesser degree a product of his environment, and it's unlikely that a selection meeting involving Geoff Miller will offer the world an answer to a 'nature versus nurture' conundrum that has defied both science and philosophy.

The cricket correspondent of the Times, Michael Atherton, posed some similar questions in a piece this week, though: Is Monty Panesar too Indian to succeed for England in Test cricket? Is Ajmal Shazad in the squad because he's given up eating his mum's curries and chapatis? Has Samit Patel made that same dietary commitment, and if not, should he? Is Owais Shah not deferential enough and Ravi Bopara less mentally tough than other batsmen? Is Adil Rashid a 'slow learner' [and, by the way, is 'slow learner' now some kind of euphemism]?

It's a tortuous path to negotiate, this question of 'British Asian' cricketers, and Atherton has, to his credit, been unafraid to go into print with some of the arguments that are heard in dressing rooms and board rooms. Yet being set down in the paper somehow exposes them as bogus, from another age. Athers scrabbles for a foothold, but crashes to earth around the time he suggests that Monty's 'full blown Indian' wedding is somehow indicative of his dilemma.

Atherton asks if South Africa's outstanding batsman in India, Hashim Amla, has succeeded because he is 'better, or mentally stronger' than British Asian players. That's a bit like trying to compare apples and oranges, but within Amla's stats lie a different, and more revealing argument. He debuted in November 2004, and his average did not hit 40 until his 31st match, almost exactly four years later in November 2008. After two years and nine tests it was 22.47; after three years and 18 matches it was 32.56. After 41 tests it was 40.75, and it is only after his success in India that it has risen above 47. In short, Amla, had he been England-qualified, would have been in and out of the side like Bopara and Shah. Only South Africa's selection policy has allowed him to flower so late. Perhaps there is a lesson there - one of how some talent develops rather than how positive discrimination works.

In the Guardian, Mike Selvey made a far more acute point than Atherton's. 'Of the 30 or so batsmen to have played U19 tests between 1999 and 2006, only three - Ian Bell, Alastair Cook and Ravi Bopara - have reached the test team at all'.

That is the real question, and the answer lies in 'British' rather than 'Asian'. It's that question that we need to address. 

NB: One thing did Athers no favours - the lack of quotes in his piece. Surely he knows the players involved well enough to pick up the phone and ask them the question?

So farewell then, Charles Coventry

You don't need to write anything when Sachin Tendulkar scores 200 in an ODI. You've seen him bat. Just close your eyes and imagine. 

But The Master [surely it's time to drop the almost pejorative 'little'...] has eradicated one of the great trivia questions: who holds the record for the highest score in ODIs, along with Saeed Anwar? Yup, it's so long to Charles Coventry and his 194 for Zimbabwe against Bangladesh. 

Regardless, Sachin now has 93 international hundreds. Seven more, and it would have to be considered one of the all-time feats of batting, the equal [at least] of the standard 100 first-class hundreds. 

Let there be light

Messing around in the nets last year, I picked up an old bat my dad found in his loft, a Gunn & Moore Maestro that can't have seen action for at least 15 years. Ripe as an old conker and half as dark, I expected it to split down the middle. Instead, with the bowling machine cranked up for some short stuff, it played like a dream. The ball didn't trampoline from the face as it would from a modern bat, but it came off well enough, yet the real surprise was how much more quickly it felt like I was in position. When I got home, I stuck it on the scales: 2lbs 4oz.

I thought of it when reading about the Hawk batmakers [sponsors of this man] and their new LPi10 bat aimed at women players. It is, they say, 'lighter than a conventional bat' - and starts at 2lbs 6oz.

It shows how time has shifted: well-known ladies like Denis Compton [2lbs 2oz], Dame Don Bradman [2lbs 3oz] and Mrs Geoffrey Boycott [2lbs 4oz, sometimes changed to 2lbs 3oz after tea if he'd been batting all day] would have chucked a 2lb 6oz plank back into the kit bag. As Bob Appleyard once said, 'Billy Sutcliffe had a 2lb 6oz bat and he had to have it specially made'.

The game has changed of course. Much like forged golf clubs that used to have minute sweet spots, old bats were made for uncovered wickets, and for men who had to be able to manouvre the ball. But it's easy to get sucked into using a railway sleeper because the odd one you hit in the middle really pings. I'm trying to find a bat that looks manly and weighs around 2lbs 8oz at the moment.

NB: Any offers welcome...

What's words worth

Rock lyrics that aren't about cricket but could be - Number One in an occasional series:

'Bring me my broadsword, and a cross of gold as a talisman...'

- Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull

An opening batsman, about to bat...?

Naming ceremony

I love the Allan Border Medal, and not just for Hayley Bracken's dress. It debuted during my sojourn in Oz, and it was always a joy to watch, not least because of the baroque scoring system and the fact that someone, and sometimes more than one, were suitably refreshed as they took the stage. 

So much so that the only thing stopping me from proposing the same thing over here is what we'd actually call the medal. Let's have a vote. Here are my candidates:

The WG Grace Medal

The Sir Ian Botham Medal

The Douglas Jardine Medal

The Graham Gooch Medal

The Frederick Sewards Trueman Medal

The Mike Brearley Medal

The Michael Vaughan Medal [although he's so modest, he'd probably refuse the use of his name]

And naturally

The Mark Ramprakash Medal

Feel free to chip in... 

NB: An inside job on this year's ABM at Cricket with balls

Brett Lee

Brett Lee might not play again. The Times report said the news 'may act as a filip for England'. I disagree, and I think the England players would too. The odd beamer aside, Lee has been an exemplary opponent and the kind of bowler you'd tell your grandchildren about facing.

Australia may remember him for other things, but in England it will be for 2005, where, Warne apart, he was the man who came closest to changing history. There was the innings at Edgbaston of course, and the howitzer that removed Flintoff during the hide-behind-the-sofa run chase at Trent Bridge. And then there was the spell he bowled at Kevin Pietersen either side of lunch on that deathless last day at the Oval, one of the epic passages of modern Test match cricket.

As Pietersen said later, 'I knew it was me or him.' It was KP in the end, but it was nearly Lee, and then who knows what might have happened. He bowled brutally quickly, and it took a genius like Pietersen to counter-attack him. Both touched greatness then.

There was another spell too, perhaps the last we'll see of him, in the warm-up game at Worcester last summer, when it looked like he'd bowled his way back into the Test side. Again he hit that level of pace where the smallest increments of swing or seam on any one delivery made it effectively unplayable.

Recently in Australia there was a horrible series of racist beatings carried out on Indian students by dimwit up-country shit-kickers. It was Lee that the Government asked to make a broadcast to India to say that not all Australians were like that. They're not and Brett Lee is not.

'I may never bowl another ball,' he said, 'and if that's the case, then I'm so satisfied with my career and my longevity'. He left nothing behind out there, he was a worthy foe.

Andrew Flintoff: Do You Buy That?

The Wall Street Journal reported that Dubai wobbled again today, its precipitous debt mountain barely upright, its property shipping value as quickly as it once acquired it. Apparently RBS holds a huge chunk of the debt. Somehow that figures.

So all is not well in Dubai, unless of course, you're Andrew Flintoff, one of the city state's new celebrity residents. Today's Telegraph gave over plenty of space for Fred to plug 'the ideal location for a cricketer'.

'Dubai's position geographically and its amazing facilities I think will tempt more and more people to do what we've done, and move here in the next few years,' he says.

Yes, Fred, it's almost impossible to see a downside to relocating to Dubai at the moment - even if you play for Lancashire, England is 'only' a seven hour flight away.

'Andrew Flintoff has recently been appointed as a sports ambassador to Dubai' runs the sign-off at the end of the Telegraph story. You don't say.

NB: With Fred living in the gulf, does he now hold the record for being the non-Kolpak, non-overseas player residing furthest from his county?