Forgive the international cricket slant rather than county cricket but I was listening to Test Match Special this evening – something I’ve discovered is excellent background noise after work to usher in the weekend, indeed it almost drowns out the 45 Bulgarians living next door and clattering around.
I was surprised to hear how vehemently Jonathan Agnew and Geoffrey Boycott rant against the West Indies. I was, it has to be said, in fairly strong agreement that playing Test cricket purely to draw as seems to have obviously been the case from the first day of this series clincher is a shoddy state of affairs – nonetheless, they seemed to run out of ways of running down a side who are going for their first series win for 5 years.
Again, the two did not wholly spare England in this verbal attack though obviously Andrew Strauss continues to wave his bat around like a light saber at present – and it got me thinking how often England have played dreary but effective cricket. Grinding out results is not everyone’s idea of fun but it’s hardly surprising to see Chris Gayle’s side do it just so they can taste victory for once. They’ve played plenty of calypso cricket whilst embarrassing England in the Stanford farce so from the West Indies point of view, it is job done. Boycott’s point that winning 1-0 in this vein will not be a step forward, well, what would England do to be in the same position? Again, the pitches have been the biggest killjoy over this series rather than the home side and yes, a shame for all those England supporters who’ve come out to watch England play but they’re in the sun, downing rum and watching cricket for goodness sake, it can’t be all bad!
Given that I refuse (for the moment) to give in and get Murdoch TV, TMS is the only way I get cricket and ok so the day’s play might not have been a thriller but Mr Boycott himself was not world renowned for his cavalier approach to playing the game but now he’s happy to dole it out. Like I say, I couldn’t watch the pictures so I’ll take their word that the West Indies were at their most muzzled worst but for a Test nation rocked with the furore of a texan fraudster, a Test series win, however achieved, might just lift a little of the gloom for a day so give them a break….
