Meet the old England, same as the new England

It's been quite a while since I've last done any blogging. I did a few for the 2013 English Ashes (remember those, back when England were good? Heady days) but the last time I blogged with any real regularity was the 2011 World Cup. England underwhelmed in the groups so terribly that they only got through to the knockout stage thanks to a format that aided the big boys so much that non-qualification was near impossible, try as they may. Once there however, England had no hope and were crushed by 10 wickets by Sri Lanka. Despite four years of planning, seeing careers shortened and those plans ripped up and rewritten numerous times along the way, England weren't even close to being up to scratch, and despite a month at the tournament were home long before the World Cup got close to being interesting.

So with all that in mind, I've decided to give cricket blogging another go (well, for this one at least). A lot's changed for me since I created and built this site up, before completely forgetting about it. I was writing about the last World Cup on my gap year in South Africa, and in the subsequent four years I've started university, graduated with a Journalism degree, had a go as a cricket journalist and commentator, worked in digital content for MCC, moved full-time to West London, and am now working in the communications department for a charity. I'm sure plenty of others have had a much more dramatic change since 2011, but funnily enough, not much has changed for England. Sure, different captain, different coach, and different victims of batting collapses, but everything else is as you were.

Acknowledging how badly things were got wrong in 2011, the ECB acted to try to make a better go of it this time around. The Ashes scheduled for this winter were bumped to last year to give the one-day side a clear run to the World Cup, and a captain was appointed with 2015 firmly in mind. This of course being a captain who wasn't in the ODI side (and hadn't been for a number of years) who was bumped about a month before the World Cup started. Sure, the ECB weren't to know that the back-to-back Ashes weren't to put paid to the careers of Pietersen, Trott, Swann and Prior for the variety of reasons that it did, but surely some bright spark could have noticed that ten consective Tests of cricket's most intense match-up may have one or two negatives?

There's then the short-sightedness and stubbornness (to put it kindly, batshit mental could also suffice) approach by the coaching set-up to picking the team. Nobody is denying that Cook clearly wasn't the right man for the ODI captaincy gig, but given this was fairly evident about 18 months out why did it take until three weeks before flying to Australia before Eoin Morgan was appointed? A year and a half to grow into the role, select the players he wanted and put his stamp on his team was such an obvious thing to do it's almost pointless me even writing this given how many others have pointed this out. Ditto earmarking Ravi Bopara as the number seven who bowls a few handy overs a good few years ago and dropping him on the morning of the World Cup opener, refusing to select county cricket's stand-out limited overs batsman James Taylor until November - and then when he has unprecedented success batting at number three drop him down to six for no clear reason, and giving Chris Woakes the new ball for every game for months before giving it to Broad when the World Cup starts. "Joined up thinking" is the sort of management babble that Peter Moores has come out with at some point in a post-match presser, but there's been a distinct lack of it from England.

England's shortcomings aren't helped by the lack of rope fans are willing to give them. After the shocking way the Pietersen situation was handled (by both sides I must add), getting into bed with Australia and India to ensure top-level international cricket will now look like a glorified round-robin, along with high ticket prices, a lack of visibility of international players at county level, being told we're "outside cricket" in an official statement, not being from the right sort of families, and saying Moeen Ali should be "glad" to have been booed by fans in Birmingham - there's not a great deal of goodwill from anybody towards the England team at the moment, who unfortunately for them are the visible face of some shocking bureaucratic decision-making from the ECB.

This is all in focus due to this (as it stands) being the last World Cup that won't be a ten team invite-only members party. Despite the crippling affect this will have on the sport outside of the lucky few who got VIP tickets, the ICC are pressing on with it to avoid countries with the big TV markets missing out on getting through to the final stages. Never mind that the current 14 team structure is already weighted so heavily in that regard, ICC CEO Dave Richardson is ending all hope for 115 of the 125 countries that he represents of ever appearing on the biggest stage again. "A lack of competitive matches" cites Richardson for the contraction for the already criminally small tournament, though in his defence this was well before New Zealand chased down England's score in 12 and a bit overs.

Given the fact that the gap between cricket's haves and have-nots is now so small that an Irish win over West Indies last week (and even a Netherlands win over England in the last World T20) can barely be considered a shock, the contraction of the game by the money makers at the top of the ICC, ECB, Cricket Australia and BCCI is a decision that is both cowardly and incredibly damaging to the future of the sport. In chasing a few short-term dollars at a time when literally every other sport is growing, cricket isn't so much falling behind the times but becoming plain irrelevant. While the TV companies are still paying the big bucks to show matches that are watched by the hardcore cricket fans, in this country at least that number is dropping dramatically - and Sky surely won't be as keen to stand the ECB's finances up if nobody's going to watch their shows. And that isn't even getting close to touching on the decision to ignore potential fans in untapped markets where cricket isn't the major sport that it is in England, Australia or India. And if you want to be as crude as the ICC, there's a hell of a lot more money to be made if cricket makes it big in America or China than there is to be lost by seeing Sri Lanka fail to make a World Cup quarter-final.

So back to the beginning of this blog, why I haven't updated the old faithful Short Midwicket blog over the last while (though it's still been picking up a few views, so cheers for those). Sure, life has got in the way and it's harder to find time to put together a couple hundred words of quality cricket cricket with uni and work going on, but the main reason is that it's difficult to get excited about cricket in 2015. I nominally support a country who are destroying the future of the sport by chasing short-term profits, and in that short-term they are run so laughably it's beyond parody. Maybe it's having a few more years of life experience under my belt, but it wouldn't have been that long ago that an annihilation so embarrassing as this morning against New Zealand would have left me on the verge of tears, but today I'm almost ambivalent about it all (though not that much, seeing as I'm writing a blog on it). As Holland were outplaying England in the T20 win in Chittagong last year I was cheering along for the boys in orange (not the boys in solar red), and when Geoffrey Boycott says things like this (which might be the most arrogant, ill-informed and outright offensive quote I've seen in a long, long time)

it's hard not to want one of Scotland, Bangladesh or Afghanistan (if not all of them) to give England a Brendon McCullum style shellacking.

Whether I blog again any time soon remains to be seen (I imagine you're all on edge to read this excellent and well planned standard of writing where I knew exactly where I was going with throughout again) but it certainly is difficult to summon up any kind of emotion about English cricket that isn't just incredible disappointment. English cricket deserves better than those who are running it, just as the sport of cricket worldwide deserves so much better than those who are supposedly acting with the game's best interests at heart. Blogging and public dissent in so many areas can really be a force for change, with governments overthrown, bills passed and laws changed due to an active and growing blogosphere, but the most disappointing and dispiriting thing about world cricket is that no matter how many pieces I or the incredibly talented batch of cricket writers throw at the ICC, there almost certainly won't be any real change. Cricket is clearly heading for a crisis but will anything change at the top? It's almost as likely as me doing another episode of the Short Midwicket Podcast...

Boyd's call-up continues to Rankle

There are two sides to the news that Boyd Rankin has been called up to the England ODI squad for the remaining two two games of the series, and they are divided by the Irish Sea. This is not the first time an Irish international has been called up to the England side, but it comes at a key moment in Irish cricketing history. But first, let's look at the short term of Boyd Rankin being picked for England.

First and foremost, Rankin being picked for the England team comes as a bit of a surprise. Not because he isn't good enough, because his height and bounce, plus his reasonable ODI record for a supposed weaker nation prove that he very much is an international player, but the fact that he's been fast-tracked up the pecking-order so quickly will leave a few others feeling a tad miffed. Rankin may have been but an injury away from a test call-up in early 2012, but a difficult 2012 season saw him going backwards in the selectors thoughts, to the extent that he didn't even make the England Lions squad for their winter tours, with Matt Coles, Stuart Meaker, Toby Roland-Jones, Reece Topley, Chris Wright and James Harris being preferred, with Harris even getting a call-up into the full England squad for the ODI tour to New Zealand. Roland-Jones, Wright and Graham Onions led the Lions' seam attack against New Zealand earlier this month, with Rankin nowhere in sight. Yet suddenly, from almost completely off the radar, he's been parachuted in after injury has ruled out Stuart Broad and Steven Finn, and Roland-Jones, Wright, Harris and Meaker very much have the right to feel aggrieved.

On the face of it, the decision seems sound. Broad and Finn are both tall men, and without them the England attack lacks that X-Factor that a tall, steepling quick can bring. Rankin very much brings that to the table, and the added international experience over his counterparts will also have counted in his favour. What those rivals will not be so happy about, however, is the county from which Rankin has been selected. While as county champions it's only fair that are large pool of players are being selected from Warwickshire, but in Ashley Giles' short reign as limited overs coach he's pushed forward Chris Woakes and now Boyd Rankin to England colours. Rankin becomes the fourth Warwickshire Bear in the current ODI squad, and while there is no suggestion of anything underhand, the accusations of favouritism will only grow stronger, leaving those waiting in the wings bemoaning the close relationship between Giles and his former charges at Edgbaston.

The other side to the story lies a short hop over the water, where yet another Irish player has been vindicated in his decision to turn his back on his parent country by being called up by England. Cricket in Ireland has never been so healthy, and after two fantastic ODIs against Pakistan last week, where they lost the series by the narrowest of margins after a tie and a two-wicket defeat, the only downside is that had Eoin Morgan and Rankin been added to that side, Ireland should currently be celebrating their first series victory over a test-playing nation at home. Something is clearly going right in Ireland, as without the huge bank balances and TV deals that England, and other nations possess, they are finding and creating a group of very talented players who are going toe to toe with some of the world's best players. However, the worry for Ireland is that whenever they do produce a world-class player, he is but a few good performances away from his head being turned by the lure of fame, fortune, and test cricket in England. How can Ireland expect to compete and improve when their best talent is at constant threat of being taken from them by a country that's shown they have no qualms in doing so?

The first thing Ireland can ask for is help from the ICC. First and foremost, a law that prevents an Irish player switching to English nationality at the drop of a hat is absolutely paramount. The laws have nothing in them that could have prevented Rankin playing for Ireland yesterday before being whisked away to play for England tomorrow, but they do prevent the opposite, with him potentially having to wait for four years after his last England appearance before changing back to the boys in green (see Ed Joyce). This rule is completely backward, protecting the bigger boys ahead of the small associates (which really isn't like the ICC at all) and should be remedied as quickly as possible, if nothing else, to stop the likes of Rankin and Morgan from switching so readily. Ideally, a rule that outlaws players playing cricket for two nations at all would be introduced, but given the intricacies of employment law, this may not be feasible. Nevertheless, we could see a situation in the next ODI where Morgan, Rankin (Ireland and England) and Luke Ronchi (Australia and New Zealand) have all represented two cricketing nations, which plainly just is not right.

More importantly for Ireland, however, is making sure that the pull to leave is outweighed by the rewards of staying. Ireland have targeted test cricket by 2020, and with central contracts bought in, an improved national four-day set-up and improved performances against established nations, it would be hard to argue that they wouldn't be as deserving as Zimbabwe or Bangladesh for test status, with Ireland probably being more competitive in test matches than those ranked nine and ten in the rankings. Test cricket is said to be the primary motivation behind the switches of Morgan, Rankin and Joyce, and if the ICC could give some indication that it could even be a remote possibility, this could be enough to encourage the next batch of promising youngsters to stay. In the meantime however, regular ODI series against the test-playing nations will have to suffice, like the one just gone against Pakistan, and the key is to ensure that the one/two-off matches are turned into three or five game series. Packed houses like the ones seen at Clontarf and the possibilities of upsets might well be enough to keep hold of the likes of Stirling, Dockrell and Sorensen, who could already be on England's radar, and Ireland, with the support of the ICC and other cricketing nations need to be able to offer that to them on a regular basis.

In an odd way, the call-up of Rankin to England's ODI squad may prove to be the best news possible for Irish cricket at the moment. Rankin's long-term injuries meant he would only be able to appear sporadically in green anyway, but him being picked by England shows the cricketing world that a) Ireland are capable of producing world-class players and b) they need support in being able to keep hold of them. If he performs well in England colours, this only adds to their claims. Another man who'll be hoping that Rankin performs is Ashley Giles, as plenty of aggression, hostility, steep bounce and wickets would justify Rankin's selection to those who are accusing him of only looking to further the careers of those he's coached before.

Making the case for Compton

So despite winning the first test by a canter and being miles ahead in the second, the English cricketing press would have you believe that Alastair Cook's brave boys are on the verge of meltdown. The bowling fab four of Anderson, Broad, Swann and Finn are all in the wickets, so they're safe. Cook's captaincy seems to be going well, so he's off the hook. Prior, Trott and Bell haven't done a great deal wrong recently, so they're free to go. The columns detailing Joe Root's ascent to the role of Saviour Of English Cricket look far too positive, which means somebody has to shoulder the blame for the inevitable wheels falling off. That poor bastard is Nick Compton, who despite a steady start to his test career is already "facing the chopping block", "staring down the barrel" or even a "dead man walking". Which all seems a little harsh and unnecessary.


Nick Compton is playing in his 9th test match. In that time he's been part of an England team that won a generation-defining series away in India, and scored back to back hundreds - two things plenty of players don't achieve in 90 test matches. In that time Compton's forged a decent understanding with Alastair Cook, making six partnerships over 50, with three of those being converted into hundred run stands, and a top partnership of 231. Compton has bought a stability and maturity to the top of the order born of over 100 county games for Middlesex and Somerset where he's proven that he's willing to work hard for his runs and not throw his wicket away. His promotion to test cricket came where England were at a crossroads at the top of the order after Andrew Strauss' retirement, and he's let nobody down. And while he made two hundreds away in New Zealand in a series where English batsmen otherwise struggled, four failures in the home series has apparently put his position in jeopardy.


Jonny Bairstow is currently in the England team due to an injury to Kevin Pietersen. Jonny Bairstow has played one fewer test than Compton, and has made two fewer hundreds. Going into this match he also averaged 10 runs fewer per innings. Bairstow (23 years old compared to Compton's nearly 30) has played 40 fewer first class games than Compton. The word on the street is for Bairstow to keep his spot in the team once Pietersen returns, with Compton being the man to miss out to make way for The Reintegrated One. Has there been anything in Bairstow's test career to suggest that he's more likely to make runs than Nick Compton? I'm not sure.


I don't want to take anything away from Jonny Bairstow as he will undoubtedly score thousands of test runs for England, but Nick Compton is someone who knows their game inside out and has been piling on runs for a long time - Bairstow is still attempting to get to grips with his, as the amount of times he's been dismissed hooking for Yorkshire this season have proved. Dropping Compton to keep Bairstow strikes me as bizarre - especially considering the upheaval that doing so would cause. Getting Compton straight outta there would mean Root would have to move up to open - admittedly something he's done throughout his career for Yorkshire, but something he'd have no experience with in an England shirt, and the first Ashes test is one hell of a place to find out whether someone can sink or swim. Besides, knee-jerk decisions and uncertainty didn't get England to the number one spot in the world (even if they did knock them off again) and it doesn't seem like Andy Flower or England's way to change for changes sake.


While an Ashes summer always brings some level of media hoopla, England will do well to ignore the armchair selectors (the irony of me writing this while sitting in an armchair is not lost on me) who want the next man to finally be the one who faces the chop. There's a lot going right about this England team at the minute, and while Nick Compton has struggled for form this series, he should very much be seen as a big part of the team who hope to go and win back to back Ashes in the next six months. It is very much the way of the world that no matter how well the team are going, someone has to be supposedly in the firing line, and the best thing team England can do is to back Compton to come good and make runs, which he's more than good enough to do. While speculation about who takes to the field on July 10th at Trent Bridge will continue until the teamsheets are in, I'm confident that the selectors and the powers that be will do the right thing and keep hold of Compo. Besides, the last English opener who was certain to be dropped before an Ashes series didn't do too badly, did he?