Posts
Loading ...Articles tagged as: mike-selvey
A damp squib of a Test match
By Jonathan Liew last year, mid-December, 5 Comments »
Mike Selvey was seeing the Galle squelch-pit through uncharacteristically rose-tinted glasses in yesterday’s Guardian:
Already there has been insensitive and thoughtless talk about shifting the match back to Colombo - as if that is the sort of thing that happens when rain is forecast for Chester-le-Street, or the Old Trafford outfield has been damaged by concert-goers. It just goes to show how some people are incapable of seeing a wider picture beyond their wraparound shades: anyone who suggests such a thing has failed to grasp what this match at this ground means to Galle specifically and to Sri Lanka in general.
The point Selvey was making, I think, is that it doesn’t really matter if there’s any meaningful cricket or not in Galle: as long as everyone turns up and mumbles some vaguely heartfelt sentiments about how much it means to the region, it’s really rather immaterial that a Test series is ruined and the England fans who have travelled thousands of miles to see proper Test cricket are instead treated to something rather akin to the serious bits of Comic Relief.
Obviously - obviously - it’s great that Galle is getting back on its feet, and it’s also nice to see international cricketers recognising the existence of something more important than cricket. Yet at the same time, there’s a Test match to be played, and either the ground’s fit to stage it, or it’s not. If it’s not, then moving the Test would have been simple common sense. Not only that, but it would have given Galle time to make a grand, dignified re-entrance to the Test arena, rather than the sodden mess that looks like ensuing.
If it’s playable, then, you know, fine. Hoggy’ll like a bowl on it. But while this outpouring of generosity and consideration to a town still trying to remake itself is absolutely the right thing to do, you do wonder whether it could be done without also devaluing Test cricket, which is in the interests of nobody. Offering support and assistance to those in need is one thing; ruining an enthralling Test series to achieve it smacks of perversity.
5 Comments »The sterile, lifeless World Cup
By Will last year, at the start of April, 9 Comments »
Or, rather, the lifeless Antigua Recreation Ground. A passionate, albeit depressing piece from Mike Selvey:
9 Comments »It has gone now. Rather than plough strong investment into upgrading the ARG sympathetically, to preserve cricket’s integrity here, Chinese money, grabbed eagerly, has produced the new stadium out of town. Of its kind it is a fine facility and a fitting monument to the greatest batsman of the modern era. But what of the other heroes? It has a north end and a south end, as bland as that. Where is the character? Where is the recognition of Antigua’s cricket heritage immortalised in calypso: Richie Richardson (”Who is dat man flashin’ blade in de han’?”), Ambrose (”He mek de batsman shiver when he run up to deliver”) and Andy Roberts? The stands named after Richardson and Roberts still look down on the field set up for net practice.
This still should be their epitaph. Instead Antigua has a white elephant that will see, if it is lucky, one Test match a year and little else. There is talk of enticing baseball teams down from the States. That is the legacy that the World Cup could leave on the island. Baseball. I shut my eyes once more, feel the vibes and want to weep.
Mike Selvey on Michael Vaughan’s return
By Scott 2 years ago, at the end of December, 8 Comments »
Basically, he’s against it, and he thinks that it is more evidence of sloppy thinking by English management.
In my view, he’s quite right. England need to consider their long term as well as their short term goals. There has to be plenty of doubt about Vaughan being fit enough for a tough campaign in the West Indies for the World Cup, and lets face it, he’s not likely to make a difference to an English side that is chronically short of potent ODI bowlers. England’s batting is fine, it’s the bowlers that hinder them, in both forms of the game.
If Vaughan has any use at all to English cricket, it is by being fit and in charge at the top of the order, preparing for the 2009 Ashes campaign. Why you would risk him for the World Cup is an interesting question.
8 Comments »Vaughan’s career is over
By Will 2 years ago, mid-July, 4 Comments »
Since Vaughan last played a Test both Alastair Cook and Paul Collingwood have scored Test match centuries: by the time next summer comes round, who knows, they might have four apiece. Any player, Vaughan included, can become yesterday’s man very quickly, left behind in the wake of the next generation. He could be trying to get fit only to be discarded.
[...]
His knee, in other words, is shot, its condition chronic. In which case this is no longer about getting Vaughan fit for cricket. It is about trying to make sure that by the time he enters middle age he is not doing so on a stick.
Mike Selvey in today’s Guardian.
4 Comments »Should Michael Vaughan be in England’s one day team?
By Scott 3 years ago, mid-December, 7 Comments »
Mike Selvey is wondering if he really should be.
7 Comments »The fact is that Vaughan’s place in the side ought to be under scrutiny. Seventy-four one-day matches have brought him 15 half-centuries and not one hundred. Indeed he has scored only two limited-overs centuries in his professional life. For a player of his obvious calibre it suggests he has not come to terms with adapting his Test-match game to the demands of one-day cricket. He is following in a line of underachieving England one-day captains, with Mike Atherton, Alec Stewart and Nasser Hussain registering only seven hundreds in more than 300 matches. Atherton’s average of 35 is the best, Vaughan’s 28 the worst. Had they not been captain only Stewart, who has four of the hundreds and was the wicketkeeper, ought to have kept his place. Moreover Vaughan, by the standards demanded of the one-day game at the pace it is played now, is a modest ground fielder and unreliable catcher. There is not even evidence that he is the same dynamic leader in this form of the game that he is in Tests.
The most important Test for 52 years
By Will 3 years ago, mid-August, 2 Comments »
Scyld Berry:
If there has been a more important Test match in living memory than the one scheduled to start at Trent Bridge on Thursday, it can only be the Oval Test of 1953, when England regained the Ashes after 19 years, an even longer interlude than the current one of 16 years.
As if the pressure on both teams wasn’t already enough! There is some fabulous stuff in the press today:
Scyld’s article on why England can reverse the Ashes trend.
Mike Atherton, whose articles I always enjoy, writes a light-hearted but revealingly clever piece on Ponting and Vaughan:
I’m not looking forward to confirming the news tomorrow morning [Gillespie missing out on selection] - it could be the end of his Test career.
Maybe I’ll let Merv tell him - the fat b****** has to do something for his money. Who voted him in as a selector anyway?
Cricket v Football at The Observer.
A very long, not particularly revealing but ultimately enjoyable interview with Simon Jones in The Sunday Times.
Another excellent writer and commentator, Vic Marks, says in his Guardian column:
Brett Lee acknowledged: ‘We are happy to come away with a draw.’ When did we last hear Australia so relieved, so ecstatic to avoid defeat in an Ashes Test?
Mike Selvey, Marks’ TMS colleague, has been trying to escape from Ashes Central, but failed. In his article, he said he even tried listening to the White Stripes’ album Elephant - but even this thwarted his attempts to get away from the game:
To avoid the chatter [on the plane] I turned on my iPod - the White Stripes’ Elephant would be a good safe haven I thought - and what did I hear? “Waking up for breakfast, burning matches, talking cricket” on There’s No Home for You Here and “It’s quite possible that I’m your third man” on Ball and Biscuit
Funnily enough, I too thought once thought those were the lyrics (”burning matches, talking cricket”) but my mate corrected me, almost in disgust at my obsession with the game. Apparently it’s “Burning matches, talking quickly.” Still sounds like “cricket,” if you ask me.
There’s lots, lots more besides which I’ve no doubt missed, but that lot ought to keep you honest for the time being. This lull in the Tests has been strangely uncomfortable, almost like when you walk to the next ride and find it’s crap, after going on a 100mph rollercoaster. The tumbleweed has been, well, tumbling - but I’m getting that familiar, nervous excitement returning to the pit of my stomach. It’s 1-1, guys and girls - and it’s about to kick off again in just four days time!
2 Comments »