A lovely tribute to Bob Woolmer by his pupil, Peter Briffa.

Am I missing something here? The England one day squad has just been announced. The two keepers are Chris Read and Paul Nixon. No place for Geraint Jones.

Yet for the Ashes, Read was dropped and replaced by Jones for his supposed batting superiority.

Surely, if ever there was a time for a batsman who can keep it's one day games. And so what do the selectors do? Drop Jones completely from the squad and give the job back to the supposedly lesser batsman, Read (not that they should ever have dropped him from the Test team, but that's another story).

Shambles doesn't even come close to describing it.

(2)

From the Times of India:

HYDERABAD, Nov 15: Move over Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli, one of your long-standing school records has just been tossed away. B Manoj Kumar and Md Shaibaz Tumbi blazed a trail of mind-boggling world records in an extraordinary display of batsmanship during an inter-school match in Secunderabad on Thursday.

The two 13-year-olds slammed triple centuries en route to posting an unimaginable 721 in 40 overs. While Manoj cracked an unbeaten 320 off 127 balls, Tumbi pummeled 324 off 116 balls during their opening partnership, which featured 103 boundaries.

The run riot unleashed by the St Peter's High School students has resulted in the highest total, highest partnership and highest margin of victory in any form of limited-overs cricket at any level, according to former BCCI statistician Mohandas Menon.

Sidelights to the unusual Hyderabad Cricket Association under-13 inter-school encounter were the 77 extras that the hapless St Philips High School lads gave away. It included 57 wides and three no-balls, which meant that Manoj and Tumbi had the luxury of an extra 10 overs to blaze away.

Strangely, not a single six was struck. Probably, it had to do with the huge Parade ground. Stunned by the onslaught, the St Philips' batsmen did not have the stomach to put up a fight and were bowled out for a paltry 21. St Peter's emerged winners by a record 700-run margin.

The last One-day record was of 630-5 in 45 overs set by United Cricket Club against Bay Area in a league match in California. Tendulkar and Kambli had struck up partnership of 664 for the third wicket in February 1988.

Big deal. As a schoolboy, I once survived for ten minutes in the nets at The Oval without being out.

And if you're not impressed by that, how about this? The two bowlers I was facing were Sylvester Clarke and David Thomas.

Puts B Manoj Kumar and Md Shaibaz Tumbi's puny little achievement in perspective, I'm sure you'll agree.

(I might just point out that the reason they didn't get me out was that the ball was travelling so fast that I couldn't see it, and I was unable to lay bat on ball once. And not once did either of them hit the stumps and bowl me! Still, I can legitimately claim that one of the fastest and most lethal bowlers in Test history was unable to get me out.)

(1)

With the nation gripped by cricket as never before — more so, even, than Botham’s Ashes of 1981 — long-time cricket lovers, and newcomers, have all been asking the same question: “Is cricket the new football?” Their answer has been a resounding “no”. I wish that they were right.

Next week I will be at the Oval for the deciding Test match. Having watched the previous matches on television, I know what to expect: football crowds.

The phrase “it’s just not cricket” is usually taken to refer to fair play. This summer its meaning has changed. The crowds’ behaviour has not been that of cricket lovers but of football fans: chanting, booing, singing and a general determination to tell the opposition that we think they’re scum.

That goes with the grain in football — I join with everyone else when we boo the opposition players at White Hart Lane. And I join in the chants, hoping to antagonise opponents into playing badly. That’s football — 90 minutes of pressure-cooker atmosphere.

But cricket is meant to be different. Cricket fans don’t boo opponents — we applaud them. When a cricketing genius such as Shane Warne is on song, it’s a sight to gladden the heart of any cricket fan, not to be jeered.

Cheer, yes. Scream with joy when an Aussie wicket is taken, certainly. But not incessantly for four or five days. The whole point of cricket is that it is a subtle game, stretched out, with long periods of often unbearable tension.

That tension is made even worse when you can feel the gripped silence of the crowd, as every ball is played out as a drama of its own. And it is correspondingly ruined when the crowd’s chanting and noise is so great that it is impossible to hear yourself think — let alone to hear the sound of bat on ball or ball on pad.

The newly rowdy crowds are a reflection of cricket moving from the fringe to the mainstream. Restrained and thoughtful cricket crowds were once archetypically British. This summer’s crowds still reflect mainstream behaviour. But archetypically British behaviour has changed, as anyone who ventures out in a city centre on a Friday night knows. The nadir of this was when the crowd at Trent Bridge started singing “It’s coming home”, the Euro 96 football anthem. Cricket’s not coming home at all. It’s been invaded — by the Brits.

Harry is bang on in this post about Jonny Come Lately cricket fans:

Its begining to feel like football became after Italia '90 and Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch. All these people talking excitedly about 'Freddy' - I can't believe they all knew who he was last year. All these people making sure you know they are really desperate to know the Test score. Yeah right. I bet you were all Arsenal fans three years ago.

And how many 'fans' does the England rugby union team have now? Remember 'Johnny'?

Fear not old school cricket lovers - it won't last. As the fate of the England rugby union team shows - a few setbacks will see off the fairweather fans and if that doesn't happen we are going to stop them watching anyway.

I bought my Oval tickets last year, and am eagerly awaiting a fantastic 5 (more likely 4, if the rest of the series is anything to go by) days in just over a week. There is, of course, nothing wrong with new fans enjoying cricket - quite the opposite. It's imperative that new fans are made - and it's terrific that this series will have introduced lots of people to the joys of Test cricket. But there is a problem when crowds introduce entirely alien behaviour, as one of Harry's commenters spells out:

As a lifelong cricket fan i think its great that people are finally into cricket, but what I really am starting to get frustrated with is the increased footballisation of the game. I dont like the rediculous chanting and negative atmousphere. even in 2003 the crowd were not so partisan. I first noticed it last year when i went to the lords test against the West Indies where, for the first time in my life, i felt intimidated by "cricket" fans. Being, primarily an Indian fan, I have seen many matches in India, particularly at my "home" ground of Eden gardens in Kolkata (Calcutta). Even there, where evey man jack of them are Indian fans, people applaud opposition batsmen, and certainately dont boo them. An example is last year when Warne became the highest wicket taker in Bangalore, thewhole stadium stood up and applauded him. I cannot believe that here the likes of warne and McGrath have been booed.

If asked what should comprise our fundamental rights, what would you suggest? Health? Education? Liberty?

Maybe. But according to one David Brook, former 'Director of Strategy' for Channel Four, up there too should be the right to watch cricket.

According to this oaf:

Everyone has the right to cricket for free.

Mr Brook was on Newsnight with Kelvin Mackenzie debating the sell off by the ECB of TV rights to Sky. Needless to say, the former Sun editor wiped the floor with him.

The sudden spark of outrage at the sell off is one of those typically British pieces of illogical nonsense. Apparently cricket is going to collapse when it switches over to Sky.

Just like the Premiership did, I suppose.

Duh.

At last! It's seemed as if today would never come, but it has. Excited as I am for the Ashes to begin, I do have a terrible sense of foreboding. We might indeed be the second best team in the world...but I can see McGrath and Lee - not to forget Warne - ripping our batting apart. Get rid of Tescothick and Strauss, and with Vaughan struggling for his once imperious form, what's left? Freddie Flintoff and Peterson. Both could have stunning series, but they could just as easily flop.

3-1 to Australia, I fear.

While I'm on the subject, I'll share with you my favourite sort-of sledge (it isn't a sledge as it came from the crowd). Phil Tufnell was fielding on the boundary, and up piped an Aussie voice: "Oi, Tufnell - can I borrow your brain? I'm building an idiot".

It pains me to say it - he's an Aussie, and all that - but Adam Gilchrist just has to be the most exciting cricketer in the world. The power, style, reliability and sheer charisma which he brings to the wicket is breathtaking. Now the new edition of Wisden Australia calculates that he is the fastest run-scorer in Test history.

Stands to reason, really.

(via Norm.)

(3)

Fascinating piece by Will Buckley on the future of cricket, and the chaging world order:

But bubbles burst and Murdoch may have already spotted and tied up the rights to a sport that will make the revenues generated by the Premiership look like a grudging tip. This time his chosen target is not an unhinged adolescent but a geriatric widely assumed to be a cold winter away from death. Rather than fade away, though, Test cricket has made a miraculous comeback.

...As innovative and invigorating as the Australians have been, the main reason for Test cricket being restored to rude health is the rise of India. In Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, they possess a middle order so talented that it may propel the team to being the best in the world. And such an ascent would have far-reaching consequences. Here are a few numbers. The population of India is in excess of one billion. When Tendulkar bats against Pakistan, the television audience in India alone exceeds the combined populations of Europe. In contrast, when England played Germany in Euro 2000, the combined audience of BBC1 and ITV was 17.9 million. The chief executive of Star TV (Sky's Asian wing) asked himself recently, what is sport in India? It's cricket.

(1)