Layer 394 . . . Tests, Talent, Ability, Experience, Luck, Confidence, Virtue, Intelligence and Cricket

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Having gone to bed with the lunch score on 80 for 1 it was amazing to wake up and find that the day had ended with England not only still batting but on 315 with only two wickets down.

Not surprising - just amazing.
 
Cook had made another undefeated century and Pieterson was approaching his first century and best score in about two years.

And let's remind ourselves - this is against Australia, in Australia.

However, the real pleasure is not really to do with who the opponents are. The real joy is in seeing a group of very fine sportsmen playing superbly well as a team, and as individuals. They've worked hard to get to where they are, and they deserve to be doing this well.

We sort of knew that Australia are no longer the force they were a few years ago, when Warne and McGrath were in their prime.

What we didn't know was whether this England team had matured to the extent that they were ready to defend the Ashes in Australia. What we've waited for is to see a group of excellent English (or England-qualified) players in their sporting prime playing to their full potential.

Take Cook, for example. Strauss has always said he had no doubts about Cook's calibre and his ability, but many did doubt it when he was going through a very hard time earlier this year - seemingly with faults in his technique, and often falling victim to bad luck.

Not any more. His luck has changed for the better: he's not been giving snicks when he's played and missed, and his mishits have avoided fielders. Not that there have been very many of them. In this series he's now scored over 400 runs for only once out - which is phenominal, especially for an opening bat. Even when he's given a chance to a fielder the catch has tended to go down. Luck really does seem to even itself out when you have class and ability.

You can go right through the team and say dozens of positive things.

Strauss we already knew about. He gets better with age and experience, and the captaincy has been an inspiration rather than a burden to him.

Trott is starting to really worry the Aussies. They can't really cope with his confidence, calmness, unflappability, judgement, stamina, concentration and determination, to say nothing of his cricketing brain. His brilliant run-out when fielding in the Aussie first innings was a bonus.

Pieterson is changing from a talented biffer and slogger, who was a tad too full of his own brilliance, into something approaching measured, balanced, and thoughtful. His travails of the past two years have seemingly caused him to shed some of his ego and arrogance. His continuing willingness to take huge risks in his quest for personal glory was starting to piss off everybody. Having been dropped from the team he's been forced to reflect on his attitude and his willingness to harness his talents in the most appropriate way for the benefit of the team as a whole. He now knows that Morgan is waiting in the wings, ready to step in at the first opportunity or any hint of self-inflicted failure.

Collingwood - Mr Dependable - may now be able to play with more natural aggression  - if he gets a chance to bat that is  - instead of having to play cautious consolidation  or recovery or resistance innings.

Ian Bell has always played well when he's not having to bat under pressure to survive and to make a decent score because of the failings of the other batsmen. He's matured with hard experience, and is now a complete batsman, capable of brilliance against any opposition.

Matt Prior is now the best and most dependable wicketkeeper/batsman England has had in ages. We've known from the start that he can make big scores, and the initial doubts were about his skills behind the stumps. However, he's become a very good keeper over time - not faultless, but no more error prone than the other high-class specialist keepers.

Graeme Swann one of three all-rounders in the team. He can bat very effectively, and has taken part in some incredible batting rescue acts. He's also become a superb spin bowler - easily in the top three in the world.

Stuart Broad, on his day, is a terrific all-rounder. He's played some real blinders with the bat, and he's capable of knocking over top-class batsmen with his class bowling.

Jimmy Anderson has worked long and hard to become a genuinely feared strike bowler, with a combination of pace, control and swing.

Steve Finn is the least experienced of the bowlers but one who's already shown he's got buckets of potential and enthusiasm. He's already taken plenty of wickets in his short time at the top.

The Ashes 2010: Jonathan Trott racks up seriously impressive figures

Batsman equals England's highest Test average as he helps tourists pile on the runs against wrongfooted Aussies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/dec/04/jonathan-trott-ashes-england-cricket

by David Hopps

No England batsman in history has a higher Test average than Jonathan Trott. Herbert Sutcliffe matches him exactly, but the rest of the great names trail in their wake. You may suspect such a statistic cannot be taken seriously. But Trott will take it seriously. He is a serious man.

Twenty innings is the accepted minimum at which a Test average is deemed to be significant and Trott has now played 26. His average has swollen to 60.73. When you make a hundred at the Gabba, it does tend to have a positive effect on your statistics.

Add in their unbroken stand of 329 in the first Test at The Gabba and Trott and Alastair Cook batted for more than nine-and-a-half hours and scored 502 runs before Australia managed to split them.

The Ashes 2010: Centurion Alastair Cook stays cool to fry Australia

Cook follows 235 in Brisbane with unbeaten ton in 37C heat

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/dec/04/ashes-alastair-cook-century-england

Shivnarine Chanderpaul has batted as long without being dismissed more than once, but Shiv apart, Cook's breaking of the 1000-minute barrier is almost unique.

In each Test, he has been mentioned in the same sentence as Don Bradman, which is not a bad way to start an Australian tour. In Brisbane, his unbeaten 235 broke Bradman's record highest score at The Gabba. Here, he drew level with Bradman by recording his 15th Test hundred by the age of 26, a feat that only Sachin Tendulkar, with 19, has surpassed.

There has never been an England Ashes tour like it for smashing batting records set by the famous names of yesteryear. Cook's 371 runs and rising without being dismissed had already outdone Wally Hammond's record before he resumed his innings on the third day.

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by Vic Marks

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/dec/04/ashes-cook-england-australia-second-test

Alastair Cook has a damn good case for a pay rise. After seven days of Test cricket England's opening batsman has been absent from the field for the sum total of 11 overs.

By the end of play Cook had batted for 22 hours in the series for 438 runs and one dismissal.

Cook had entered into that wonderful, rare bubble in which the batsman glides along as if everything is happening in slow motion – especially the progress of the ball towards him. He merely played every delivery on its merits, tapped the crease and then waited for the next one.

Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen joined in the affair and by the close of the second day England were 317 for two and already in possession of a lead of 72. This game rarely goes to plan. But for two days England have adhered so closely to their blueprint that minds are boggling, particularly one suspects the minds of the Australian captain and selectors.

Cook's union with Trott, if combined with what they achieved in the second innings at the Gabba, was worth 502 runs and lasted 574 minutes. Here they had added 173 runs when Trott was eventually caught at midwicket for 78. But in came Pietersen eager to make his mark and all the Aussies could do was sweat some more.

Australia had been pummelled.

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Personally I've waited decades to enjoy the sight of an England cricket team that's not only capable of making huge scores against the likes of Australia, but can do so with flair and ruthless application.

It's icing on the cake that the team members seem a very likeable, very balanced, very mature and a very grounded bunch. Spiritually and emotionally intelligent.

All that remains is to keep up what they've begun, and to carry on getting better.

And for Pieterson to sort out his hair issues - facial and otherwise.
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Layer 390 . . . Snow, Cricket, Defending The Ashes, Emotional Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence

The first snowfall of the season fell on my neighbourhood last night, and it's still falling as I write this piece. It's not yet December.

We spent yesterday anticipating the snow, which had already covered much of Scotland, Wales and the north of England. I've had several conversations already with people who bemoan the snow and cold, since I maintain I'd rather have a PROPER winter, with snow instead of rain - since rain ought to fall mainly in autumn and spring, and never in summer - and with cold blue skies and bright sunshine between the snowfalls instead of our usual dull, cloudy, rainy, dampness and grimness. I love proper seasons.

You can't deny that snow makes ordinary landscapes and cityscapes look beautiful. So my suggestion is - get yourself some proper winter clothing and footwear, be prepared for journeys to take longer - possibly a lot longer - and if at all possible curl up in a warm room at home, or in front of a log fire in a pub; relax, unwind, enjoy conversations and home entertainments, and go for walks in the wondrous snow. Take photos, enjoy the sight of people making snowpeople and having snowball fights, and join in whenever possible. Tae out flasks of tea and coffee, and whisky. Have fun. Look out for those who are too old or too nervous or too infirm to get out and walk in the snow. Take care of those who don't have warm clothes and warm homes. Drive carefully, if you really have to drive.

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Some of my happiest memories of childhood are the times we played and made slides and rode on toboggans in the snow. The snowball fights, the giant snowmen, the crunching of fresh snow underfoot; the running around on lawns in parks and back gardens where the pristine snow was unmarked by a single footprint.

But looking back, one of the strangest things about my childhood, which in most ways was pretty conventional, was the number of hours, and days, I spent in the company of my dad watching Test Match cricket on black and white TV. Not that it felt strange back then, when there  were only two TV stations, and one TV per household, and it was the God-given right of the BBC to screen every minute of every home Test Match on live television.

Dad and me didn't really do a lot of things together, for all sorts of reasons. In early childhood I had Matchbox and Dinky toys to organise and drive around, and toy soldiers and cowboys to train, deploy and fight battles with.

In middle childhood I needed to be out with friends, armed to the teeth with six-shooters, automatic pistols and submachine guns, and sometimes bows and arrows, making dens and tracking one another down prior to almighty shoot-outs.

In later childhood there were bikes to ride, a big wide world to explore, football and cricket matches to play in, and girls to hang out with. Dad couldn't, and didn't, ride bikes or play sports.

But every summer there was live Test Match cricket on TV, which dad and I used to watch, whenever he wasn't out at work. Hours and hours of quiet and often silent contemplation  and meditation, without the distraction of telephones, texts, emails, iPods, Playstations, Nintendos and the Internet. Just dad, me, and the lucid, enlightening and thoughtful commentators.

What's more, in the era of May, Barrington, Lawrie, Dexter and Boycott the tempo of the cricket could be extremely slow, and the games could be extremely dull - at least from the point of view of strike rates, which was a term unknown back then. Scoring one or two runs per over was often the norm. Fiendish fast bowlers and near-unplayable spinners seemed often to dominate low-scoring games on tricky pitches.

And yet there was a high level of interest that kept us watching, when for me the sunny streets and my mates might otherwise have been calling.

You probably need to have played cricket to really appreciate it. What a mad game it can be - when two teams of eleven players can be on the pitch for five days and still end up with neither of them winning.

It's when you try yourself to master the arts and skills of cricket that you really get to know it. Just throwing and catching a hard, heavy ball can be a problem, let alone bowling accurately at a distant set of stumps with a batter standing in the way . . .

How to keep your arm straight when you bowl . . . How to run in fast towards the pitch and how to let go of the ball at precisely the right moment, with your arm high above your head, your front foot just beyond the stumps,  and with your fingers aligned with the seam of the ball in precisely the right manner and with exactly the right amount of grip . . .

How to bowl bouncers and yorkers and good length balls that actually hit the stumps . . . How to make the ball swerve or loop, and how to make it change direction after hitting the pitch . . . Not that this was too much of a problem on the rough grass that we used in our locality - but it was another story trying to do it in a controlled way that actually knocked over a stump or two.

As for the arts and crafts of spin bowling . . . On this you could spend hours - experimenting with different grips, and different flicks of the wrist, and working out whether you could do off-spin or leg-spin. Experimenting with flight, and speed, and toying with batters who were expecting spin but weren't expecting balls that kept going straight and true . . .

On the TV you could see the best players in the world showing off their skills and talents, and you could appreciate how good they were at their jobs, especially when your own efforts were so comparitively poor.

As a parks and gardens batsman you could become quite good at slogging and driving and hooking poor bowling, but there on the screen you could see great batsmen hitting big scores against great bowlers.

I say you could see it on the TV, but that was nowhere near as well as you can see it now, in glorious full colour, in high definition, on big screens and with the benefit of ultra-slow motion and telescopic lens, and with multiple camera angles. Not to mention Hawkeye. It was cricket, Jim, but not as we now know it.

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This current Ashes series in Australia could turn out to be one of the best ever - with evenly matched teams, interesting characters, and plenty of 'edge' to the proceedings. England are the holders of the trophy, and Australia are desperate to regain it.

During the final day of the (drawn) first Test we saw a magnificent Gabba stadium seemingly deserted apart from joyous Poms, who were celebrating England scoring over 500 runs in their second innings for the loss of only one wicket - thanks to some brilliant batting from Strauss, Cook and Trott, and some pretty indifferent bowling and fielding from the opposition. Even Ponting dropped a couple.

It's unknown in living memory for the top three England batsmen to all score centuries in the same innings. We're normally pretty ecstatic if they all score 50 or so, especially if they're playing Australia, home or away.

The commentators (on the single hour per day of highlights on ITV4 and ITV4+1) kept on talking about the 'wheels falling off' the Aussie effort to contain the magnificent batters, but all things considered they all seemed to me to play with sportsmanship and dignity, which is a big plus, I'd say.

In my own terms, the wheels fall off when people start losing their rag, become overly and unneccessarily and unproductively aggressive, become abusive and unpleasant, and start to show all the signs of failing to contain destructive emotions.

Machismo is often a preening display of the so-called manly virtues such as boldness, aggression and physical strength. Manliness, as such, is the ability to contain frustration, disappointment and anger when things go wrong and/or you find yourself dealing with opponents who are playing a blinder, often with all the available luck on their side. A better term for this is emotional intelligence.

The Australians showed proper appreciation and respect for some very able adversaries. This is what I'd call spiritual intelligence.

On the England side, their players showed a different sort of manliness and sportmanship in their hour of non-triumphant triumph.

David Hopps, in the Guardian, summed it up very well:

"The day when Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe are surpassed, for longevity at any rate, is not a day for egotism, it is a day for humility, and Strauss's sense of perspective on one of the finest days of his career provided further proof that English cricket is in good hands."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/nov/28/andrew-strauss-alastair-cook-ashes-2010

Hopps also wrote about the finest cricketers being unassuming, and showing geniality and resilience. These are also characteristics of spiritual intelligence. As is the ability to keep things in perspective, an ability to curb egotism, and an ability to demonstrate humility. As are clarity of thought, having the courage of one's convictions, and having the ability to inspire others - all of which which Mike Selvey wrote about in his match report. All of us do well to cultivate these virtues and values.

Let David Hopps, however, have the final say:

"It was accurate to observe this is not a great Australian attack and that the pitch at The Gabba was playing quietly. But it is more accurate simply to reflect that England began their second innings 221 behind, with more than two days remaining, that after only three days their reputation was on the line and by the end of the day they had responded so magnificently that they had summoned memories of giants from the past. History will tell you that this was one of England's great Ashes days."

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These days I prefer to listen to live broadcasts of Test Matches on the BBC's Test Match Special on Radio 5 Live Sports Extra. The wonders of digital radio! However, since these current Test matches are taking place during the hours I prefer to sleep, I look for an extended and practically ball-by-ball commentary on the Internet - on the Guardian website's OBO - Over By Over. Here there's written commentary plus amusing and sometimes enlightening emails and texts from around the world. Reading the whole thing whilst having breakfast is a treat. Here's a selection of recent comments:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/nov/28/the-ashes-2010-first-test-fifth-day

"I'm now sitting here with the single man's holy trinity of cricket on the TV, and OBO and Football Manager on the laptop. I have never seen Australians look so dejected either on the field or in the streets or in the stands - its fantastic. Australians under the age of 30 or so just have never seen their attack being so brutally demoralised in this manner - to the point where the Barmy Army were chanting "Are you England in disguise?" yesterday. I just can't wait to go back into work tomorrow, especially as all my colleagues were bombarding me with sledge e-mails and texts during Saturday."

Alastair Cook's 230 is the highest Test score at the Gabba, ahead of Don Bradman's 226 against some poor helpless suckers back in the day.

It's 512 for one. Someone should make an emoticon for this, although I don't know if one graphic can simultaneously portray confusion, joy, incredulity, delirum, delirium tremens, confusion, joy and multiple statgasms.

This has been an extraordinary innings, one that nobody on the planet could have imagined. Cook ends on 235, Trott on 135, their partnership an unbeaten 329 and England's lead 296.

TEA:  "I'm in a hotel room in Miami Beach with a dodgy internet connection and I'm reading that England are 517-1. If only! Real score please?"

Andrew Goulden feels a T-shirt coming on: "I'm not sure if it's already been mentioned but a T-shirt with '517-1, it doesn't get any better' would look pretty natty I feel. Maybe having a picture of a downcast Ponting underneath would really set it off. Or a shot of Johnson dropping that catch off Strauss. Either would do nicely." OBO Enterprises in on the case.

"Suggestion for Neil Gouldson (21st over): I've found an easy way to explain cricket-related happiness/despair with as little language as possible is to pretend the score works as in football. Point to the 517 and say "England" (ying guo), point to the 1 and say "Australia".
They will understand."

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More statgasms here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/nov/29/england-australia-records-ashes-2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/nov/29/ashes-alastair-cook-andrew-strauss

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Also heard on the radio yesterday, some pillock on Thought For Today saying,

"Christianity doesn't exist to make the world a better place. It exists to get souls into heaven."

"Justice, peace and the common good are not as important as the state of an individual's soul."

This kind of either/or dumb-arse dualistic thinking, which is typical of Christian fundamentalists - especially the rich, evangelical TV broadcasting variety - is what causes so many of the world's problems and keeps so many people in a state of spiritual ignorance. And that's without even considering the irrationality of believing in concepts like God and heaven.

As a matter of fact, I think Jesus did care about making the world a better place. I think that's why he threw out the moneylenders, why he healed the sick, and why he fed the masses.

The bozo on the radio also spoke about "Justifying oneself in the eyes of God." So what happens if billions of Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus and atheists don't even believe in one almighty God, let alone set about justifying themselves in His eyes? Do they all automatically go to everlasting hell, since they clearly haven't aimed to get into heaven? Even if they've led blameless, enlightened and spiritually intelligent lives?

How the hell can the BBC carry on letting nutters like this speak this kind of nonsense to the world at large?
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