by daniel
21. January 2010 17:41
Deep breath. Focus. Find the zone. Begin. In the name of all that's fucked and buggered in the world, did it have to be quite so pitifully limp, as if John Inman had cross bred with a lobotimised Alan Bennett and the resultant foetus had been gang bitten by a particularly sickly swarm of Tsetse fly. It all started so macho. Let's bat. After all, we hadn't tried that before. Let's win the toss and bat. Under cloudy skies. On a juicy wicket specially prepared for Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel. Let's finally sodding bat. We're 'ard we are. We're 1-0 up. We're the Daddies. For one ball. Well actually for less than one whole ball. For the run up and briefly before the bat turned in the limp wrist of the French courtesanly Strauss, and the quite brilliant catch at (an admittedly idiosyncratically placed) short leg. No longer the Daddies. And from that point it got worse.
Much has been said of England's attitude after the Harper caught behind that never was. But we were in mind melt well before then. Trott may not have been ready to bat (if so this displays an astounding lack of imagination or just terrible time keeping), but even that cannot explain his 1st innings (second no better but at least it took a decent ball to be shot of him). It was as if he had got pissed in the green room of some futuristic game show based on Bullseye but now cricket themed in which he had to face 9 balls for charity, and being such a cold eyed bastard (see Chris Mason, or Kevin Painter) he couldn't really give a toss about the Hardwick Hospice and decided he'd try out some trick shots he learned in the nets when doing a session with Gary Player on South African "TV". KP is just plain confused at the moment (and a confused KP is a useless KP. All his power lies in his misplaced self confidence and we must do nothing to derail this if we want runs - if we want to punish him, surely our time will come, when we have no more use of him, in about 6 years). Even the redoubtable Colly went nuts before lunch, and once you start a collapse it's very difficult to stop it (without a number 7 like Boucher, Gilchrist or Haddin).
South Africa showed how to bat on that pitch, and England inexplicably left out Onions in favour of a man who'd hardly played cricket in six months and was 7 mph slower anyway. Further evidence of England's sudden failure to learn from what they'd achieved hitherto. They stayed in the series by batting second and therefore being in the game for long enough to give them survival options. Obviously a good team would bat first when possible, but England, by comparison with their opponents and on foreign wickets were always second best. Suddenly they thought they were good. Much as they did at Headingley in 2009 and came dreadfully unstuck. Strauss's England is at its best when it knows its place. Then all its character can flourish. But without a proper reliable strike bowler and with Collingwood leading the batting while KP undergoes an intensive 24 session course of Neuro Linguistic Programming, England must look to scrap for as long as possible, which is why batting second allows them to assess the conditions within the confines of the unfolding match. Asked to set the tone, their batting will fall apart.
Yes Harper's decisions were crazy. He's clearly as mad as a mongoose. But in a nice, monstrously stoned way. He can't hear stuff, he can't see stuff. But it's all quite benign. He should obviously be released from the elite panel. Maybe he can umpire at the Paralympics.
But 1-1. It's not bad. And surely that's the right result. Is it bollocks. The right result would have been another draw with England hanging on but hopefully only 7 down as rained flooded the High Veldt after lunch on the fifth day. South Africa had four notable and consistent batsmen (Smith, Amla, Kallis and Boucher) and one very good bowler in Steyn. England don't have those resources, but they're canny game players and must always be aware of their limitations if their game sense is to going to win out. That means in this case not dropping Onions and bowling first on winning the toss.
Sod it. Harumph. So annoying. But it could yet be a high water mark. I've seen Sakib ul Hassan and Mushifiqur Rahim against India. My advice? Bowl first and hope for the Chittagong sea fret to save us.