DAVID GRAVENEY INTERVIEW

It started with a chat about Gloucestershire's loss to Minor Counties in the 1980 Benson & Hedges Cup, the first such giantkilling in that tournament. At the end of the chat, reasoning I had someone on the line whose reflections and opinions on the game would be saleable (romantic, I know), I asked if he'd do a longform interview for cricinfo, with the theme being selection. 

He would, he said, but could I send the questions through in advance?

I could, I said. 

So, having first asked cricinfo if they would commission such an idea, I devised a load of questions, trawling through his eleven-year stint picking the England side, and emailing my go-to guy for cricketing insights. And then I emailed them to him. Tis was February 2015. 

Still in the employ of the ECB, Grav perhaps needed to ensure there would be no hidden traps, no ambushes. That wasn't my aim. It's not 2008. 

He gave the questions his assent, but we couldn't seem to fix a time. The interview was eventually carried out in June. He gave very little away. Admirable, in a way. Confidences should be kept. But he had that curious facility for appearing to say a lot while saying very little that is the hallmark of politicians. Not even talking about Duncan Fletcher could get through his forward defensive. I put it down to him being indecisive, overly collegiate, a weathervane who blew this way and that. We made some polite small-talk and he asked if he could see the transcript before I filed it with cricinfo. I said that would be fine (while secretly thinking it was a bit much given he'd barely suggested there might be any cats in bags, let alone let them out –to get among the pigeons or otherwise).

I then told cricinfo I had done the interview. This was eight months after it had been commissioned. After the 2015 World Cup, when ESPN had spent a huge amount of money building a studio overlooking Sydney Harbour, not to mention manning it with expensive pundits. They told me they were cutting back on freelance contributions and now no longer wanted it.

Arse.

I contemplated trying to flog it elsewhere, but thought I'd wait and see if the lie of the land in Bangalore might change. By the new year, it had. So, I transcribed the interview – always, always a tedious task –and then emailed David to let him know. I told him to get back in touch and "I will do the amends (within reason)". 

He said he'd be in touch, because "there were several changes". I sighed, then told him he needed to do this before the end of the week. He didn't reply.

Three days later I emailed again, by now starting to feel a bit irritated at all the hoops I was having to jump through. It may have shown in my tone, too. I told him I'd agreed to make amends "within reason" but didn't want to "bleed the interview of all colour", especially since "there was nothing controversial in there". 

The email I received back was an unequivocal baring-of-teeth, definitively refuting the notion that he was a pussy cat (which I may have based entirely on the fact that he smoked a lot). Afterwards, I posted this status on Facebook, which sort of completes the story. 

Here is the interview. It's interesting, without being incendiary. I think we parted on good terms. But boy, it makes you realise how the jousting between a ravenous news media eager to fasten on to a poorly chosen phrase and officials keen to protect themselves thereform starts to pollute the air in which even these fairly harmless conversations take place.

Oh well. Glad I'm not doing this particularly seriously. 

Talking Cricket: David Graveney



 

DOES MIKING UP PLAYERS TURN CRICKET INTO A CIRCUS?

The latest blog for ESPNcricinfo (given a much snappier title than I've managed) was supposed to be a general look at the way broadcasters are encroaching on the game, particularly T20, asking whether, in the main, this was a good or bad thing, and in what ways.

Then something happened. I was watching the 1st Australia vs India T20I at Adelaide when a quite extraordinary 2 minutes 20 seconds of live international cricket broadcasting happened, involving the current Australian Test captain (though not skipper on this occasion) Steven Smith talking live while batting to the three Channel 9 commentators, Mark Nicholas, Mike Hussey and Ian Healy. It lasted one Ravindra Jadeja over. It ended in Smith's dismissal and a rather animated send-off from Virat Kohli.

So I wrote about that incident, and the wider implications of having players wired up and conversing with commentators. 

When Entertainment becomes Intrusion

It was a real struggle to whittle this down to 1200. I could easily have gone through the exchange sentence by sentence, riffing on the various issues it raised. 

Here's the exchange as it played out in real time: 

Australia are 82 for 1 off 8, chasing 189. They have taken 19 from the previous over. Steve Smith is 20 off 12 balls.

Nicholas: Steve Smith’s miked up. Steve, you’ve got ahead of the rate.

Smith: What’s that, sorry?

Nicholas: You’ve got ahead of the rate now.
Smith: Yeah, we’re going alright.

Ridiculously over-the-top laugh from Nicholas.

Smith: Hopefully we can keep getting a few boundaries away here and there. We’ve got plenty of power, so… It’s a pretty nice wicket out there. It’s coming on pretty well so all good at the minute.

He finishes just as Jadeja leaps to bowl. Aaron Finch cuts to point. No run.

Hussey: Steve Smith, what’s the plan against Jadeja? Where are you going to try and hit him?

Smith: Wherever he bowls it. Just watch the ball and see what happens.

Again, Jadeja is entering his delivery stride when Smith finishes. Finch lifts the ball over extra cover. It will skip away for four.

Smith: That’s a nice shot!

Nicholas: You commentate for us, mate. You’ve got it covered. You’ve got the bird’s-eye view.

Smith: What’s that, sorry?  

Nicholas: You’ve got the best view. You call it for us.

Smith: That was nice, that. I’ll see what I can do for ya…

Jadeja is running in again…

Smith: Might have to run hard here. Pretty long boundary straight. We’ll see how we go.

Finch drives to deep cover. Smith calls “yep” and scurries to get on strike.

Nicholas: Now, are you pre-meditating or not?

Smith: When do I premeditate?!

Nicholas (laughing): Yeah, yeah.

Jadeja in. Smith works the ball from outside off to deep mid-wicket.

Smith (to Finch): Yeah, push, c’mon!

They settle for one.

Hussey: That’s really interesting, Steve: no premeditation at this stage. You’re just seeing the ball and looking to react to it?
Smith: Oh yeah, you never know what’s going through our minds.

Jadeja is already running into bowl. Finch drives out into the covers.

Smith (to Finch): Just the one, mate.
Smith (to Hussey): You never know mate. You’ve just got to watch the ball and see what happens.

Smith is on strike for the final ball of the over.

Healy: He’s darting them in, angled in to the right-handers. 103kph.

It’s unclear whether this is commentary or advice. Smith tries to work a ball from outside off stump through the completely open midwicket region. He gets a leading edge to extra-cover, where Virat Kohli takes the catch and proceeds to give Smith a send-off.   

Nicholas: Steve Smith is out, and he’s unable to talk us through that. Understandably. What a disappointment: 21 to Steve Smith.

 

SHIRE BRIGADE #9: STEVEN CROFT

The ninth in the All Out Cricket Shire Brigade series took me to Lancashire. This made it half the counties chalked off on this first lap (assuming it will be recommissioned, and I don't, or even that I'll get to 18), having previously done Notts, Somerset, Northants, Durham, Warwickshire, Kent, Essex and Hampshire. Or Luke Fletcher, Pete Trego, Steven Crook, Colonel Mustard, Ian Westwood, Stevo, Foster and James Tomlinson.  

The obvious choice for Lancs would have been Glenn Chapple, but unfortunately that couldn't be sorted. After that, it seemed as though current skipper Steve Croft would be the most "cult". While he's certainly a fan favourite, I had been warned by a journalist from one of the Lancashire locals that he was hard work as an interviewee, either because he was a bit dull or, more charitably, because he didn't feel he should open up for the press. 

Either way, there wasn't a huge amount of quotable material by the time we'd done. Not that he was a bad stick.... 

Shire Brigade 09: Steven Croft 


 

SHIRE BRIGADE #8: JAMES TOMLINSON

The first I heard of James Tomlinson was when Moddershall's professional, Imran Tahir signed for Hampshire midway through our 2008 title-winning campaign. Hampshire were struggling at the time and Immy gave them instant cutting edge, taking 12 for 183 on debut, and 44 wickets in seven games, as they avoided relegation from Division One.

But he wasn't the only bowler who did well for them that year. James Tomlinson took 67 wickets with his lively left-arm swingers, the most in the County Championship (either division). He's also a thoroughly nice bloke, as I found out when I had a chat to him for the All Out Cricket Shire Brigade series, which shows off his all-round good-eggedness. 


Shire Brigade 08: James Tomlinson    


 

PROS AND CONS

At the back end of last summer I was asked by All Out Cricket editor Phil Walker to write something about the hallowed club pro: the greats and not-so-greats, the upside and downside, a few yarns. I'm not entirely sure whether he realized that I'd written something very similar for them a couple of years earlier (while he was editor) but I was happy to oblige. 

However, time soon caught up with me and I found the deadline approaching with no work having been done. One Friday in September, the day of the deadline I headed to London for the Lord's one-day final, having explained to Phil, using a mixture of truth and white lie, why I hadn't yet filed.
 
I arrived at my mate's house (he was in Devon) and stayed up till 4am working furiously on this and another piece for AOC. Then I turned in for what was a smidge over 4 hours' kip, then dragged myself across town to Lord's.

Upon arrival, I checked the seating plan for where to park myself and my totally knackered Dell laptop and USB keyboard (keeping it real at the Home of Cricket). Who should I be sitting next to? Yep, Phil Walker. Ace. Only, he hadn't arrived. Acer. So I cracked on with writing about Sobers and Learie Constantine, SF Barnes and Shane Warne. But then he did arrive. Arse. 

I apologised for my slackness with the Pros prose. He said: "No problem. Monday's good."

I apologised for my slackness with the piece about Staffordshire's 1000th game. He said: "No problem. We're pushing that back a month to a different issue." I thought: "Well, you could have fucking told me that yesterday, before I stayed up till 4am working on it." But I said: "Oh, cool." Mainly, because I was in the wrong.

So then we watched the match, a humdinger, and I had a much-needed beer with a couple of journalists before schlepping first to Archway, to pick up the bag I'd travelled down with (as I'd be going to stay with friends in Woking for a couple of days), and then on to Dalston, where I was meeting said friends for drinks before heading on to Hackney Wick to an Altern 8 rave, at which I would start the process of writing about their dancer, Martyn, with whom I'd played junior cricket. I was still awake at 8am, by which stage I was a little bit tired. 

Still, the piece about the pro's turned out alright. And the strapline calls me a "stalwart clubbie"... 

Prose and Cons 

A VISIT TO DUKE'S

The pill. The cherry. The tater. The conker. In no other sport is the ball such a crucial component of how the game is played. But then, in no other sport is the ball subject to such dramatic change – some natural wear-and-tear, some, erm, man-made – over the course of its life.

And this is why we love cricket: a ball that is in a process of continuous variation, a pitch that is in a process of continuous variation. An ever new set of conditions to 'read'. The quality of the cricket ball (and the pitches!) therefore plays a hugely significant part in balancing out the cricketing ecosystem, ensuring that neither batters nor bowlers become predators or prey for too long.

And cricket balls had been in the news a lot during the latter part of 2015: first, in the wake of #60allout, various Aussie luminaries advocated their fair nation using the Duke's ball in first-class cricket; then, when the pitches in the Emirates and Cape Town were too flat, people called for them to take up the Duke's, too. And then there was the pink ball to be used in Test cricket's first day-night game...

It was with all this in mind that I went down to East London to speak to Dilip Jadojia, boss of Morrant Sport, who own Duke's, to find out why their hand-stitched ball was better than the much-maligned Kookaburra. 

The resulting article was difficult to write up, insofar as it inevitably came quite close to advertorial in places: Dilip's observations about having cricket balls that were good for the game of cricket of course overlap significantly with his commercial interests. That said, there are a good number of second opinions out there who would fully support his claims. All told, it was an interesting two-hour chat with a very, very smart cookie.

In quest of a durable cricket ball

SHIRE BRIGADE #7: JAMES FOSTER

Not many people play Test cricket for England while still at university. One such was James Savin Foster, the Essex stumper rated the best in the world by none other than Jack Russell, who said that "he's taken wicket-keeping to a whole new level". 

35 years old now, Fozzie has recently landed a job as cricket professional at the Forest School, where he himself was a pupil twenty years ago. The school have allowed him to play one more season of county cricket, and the way Jonny Bairstow's been keeping there are a few at Essex who'll argue that he still should be playing for England.

In the dregs of the summer I tootled along for a chat at the ramshackle Chelmsford ground, and as an added bonus I was not only able to chew the fat with former Essex and England leggie Robin Hobbs (one of only five to have been capped by England in the last 50 years) but also saw Jesse Ryder score a masterful hundred, taming Jimmy Anderson in the process. 

Shire Brigade: James Foster

* The others are Adil Rashid, Scott Borthwick, Chris Schofield and Ian Salisbury)

THE DECLINE OF STOKE'S INNER-CITY CLUBS

Another month, another 'Cordon' blog for ESPNcricinfo. I cannot really recall what prompted me to write about the old, defunct grounds of the Potteries – not only Great Chell and Sneyd, but all the other factory grounds that have fallen by the wayside – but I do know that 24 hours after it was published I received an email from my editor in India telling me they had had the UK office on the phone, not particularly happy with the content. 

Apparently, UK cricinfo was just about to embark on a series of interviews with the ECB about grassroots cricket, and felt that I ought to have offered them right of reply. First, this isn't a news piece; it's a column. Second, it wasn't remotely scathing of the ECB (although I think here the headline was a little alarmist).

My stock at the UK end of ESPNcricinfo is non-existent, with pretty much every pitch having been rejected there on the grounds of them having no budget, so I don't suppose I've done anything drastic to my prospects of getting more work from them. 

Anyway, there was a quickly cobbled together paragraph shoe-horned into the piece, and nothing more was said. All a storm in a teacup, no doubt. 

'The Cordon': The Slow Withering of English Club Cricket

 

TALKING CRICKET: AGGERS ON RADIO BROADCASTING

One of the better feelings to be had in this line of work is when someone relatively famous* – that is, someone who you imagine is far too busy to be chatting to you – is generous with their time. Such was the case with Jonathan Agnew who, either side of a man coming to fix his oven, gave me the benefit of his broadcasting wisdom over a long, rambling hour on Skype. 

In one way, it was a fairly difficult interview to conduct. So fulsome were his replies that he often ended up answering three or four questions at once, all of which had me scrabbling down my notes, furiously crossing out while also scribbling keywords, hopefully to have him expand on a throwaway remark or observation. 

It was hard work, but in another sense it was very easy, because you start to develop a 'second ear' which follows the conversational flow not so much as would anyone in any ordinary exchange – i.e. to grasp meaning and elicit information –but to listen for quotable lines, for juice. Aggers was a constant stream of juice. Without doubt the most eloquent interviewee I've had. 

That's not to say I agree with everything he said. On the technical matters of broadcasting, I defer to his authority. But on strictly cricketing matters I find he can be a little rash, a little quick to offer opinions, often conservative opinions. Nonetheless, that doesn't alter the fact that he's very engaging company (he has since given me a couple of other interviews, one for my book, another for a piece in The Cricketer (about the Stanford T20 game in 2008) and definitely someone you'd want to have a beer with.

It's a real shame, I think, that this piece got less than a thousand social media shares, especially given how the story of Shahid Afridi (an interesting yarn, no doubt, but pretty niche) received over 25,000. 

* I say relatively famous. There was an episode of Pointless recently that showed five pictures of sports broadcasters, and Aggers was the lowest score: that is, the best answer. My cricket blindness prevented me from realizing this. I went for Claire Balding, the second highest. The others were Hazel Irving, Peter Alliss and Bobby George.


Talking Cricket: Jonathan Agnew

SHIRE BRIGADE #6: DARREN STEVENS

The sixth in the monthly series caught up with one of county cricket's most underrated players (at least, if we're judging by England selection). 

Darren Stevens is a destructive batsman whose late-career reinvention as an all-rounder who purveys some of the tricksiest dobbers on the circuit has often kept Kent afloat during a tricky period, as this once powerhouse club adjusted to their financial realities and rebuilt with a team of homegrown talent (Billings, Bell-Drummond, Blake, Riley, Cowdrey, Northeast et al) and no overseas player. 

He is still trooping on, now almost 40, and Jimmy Adams and Rob Key will be hoping they can squeeze a little more out of Stevo before he heads off into the sunset. 

Darren Stevens: Shire Brigade 

 

SHIRE BRIGADE #5: IAN WESTWOOD

The fifth installment of my monthly series for All out Cricket was a chat with the diminutive, nuggety Warwickshire opener and sometime skipper, Ian Westwood. Not a bad lad, considering he has a Brummie accent... 

Shire Brigade: Ian Westwood

RELIVING GLOUCESTERSHIRE'S ONE-DAY GLORY YEARS

Mid-September, and a trip to London to watch unfancied Gloucestershire take on fat cats Surrey in the Royal London Cup final, once upon a time the showpiece game of the English domestic first-class season but now something of a poor relation to the glitz of Twenty20 Finals Day.

A smallish crowd – the larger part of which were down from the West Country, it seemed, rather than south of the Thames – were treated to a slow-burning classic of a game, with Sangakkara at one stage looking like he was waltzing Surrey to victory, until his dismissal triggered a tense hour-and-a-half on a crusty pitch. Gloucestershire fought superbly, and eventually squeezed out a victory, one that was highly reminiscent of their glory years under John Bracewell and Mark Alleyne at the turn of the century, when they completely dominated limited-overs cricket.

It was this one-day dynasty that formed the subject of my ESPNcricinfo blog for September, and I managed to run into quite a few of that team around the ground: Mike Smith, Jack Russell and Alleyne in the press box, Ian Harvey and Jon Lewis in the Tavern pub, clearly enjoying themselves.

Reliving Gloucestershire's One-Day Glory days 

 

THE SHIRE BRIGADE #4: PHIL MUSTARD

With their close ties to the PCA and access to the England cricket team, All Out Cricket magazine could be forgiven for ignoring the less glamorous parts of the English game. True, they do run interviews with the likes of Moeen Ali, Joe Root and Ben Stokes every three months, it seems, but they also like the less heralded characters of the county game, which is who I'm trying to write about in the Shire Brigade series – players who can be considered cult heroes, or stalwarts for their clubs.

Fourth in the series, after Nottinghamshire's Luke Fletcher, Somerset's Peter Trego and Northamptonshire's Steven Crook, is the Durham wicket-keeper Phil Mustard, 'The Colonel', still an important part of their one-day team but someone who has lost his place in the Championship side to Michael Richardson and has been loaned out to Lancashire. 

I'm led to believe he is an avid consumer of magazines from a shelf or two above the natural home of All Out Cricket, and while that does perhaps add to his cultic status, it wasn't really something that was ever going to make the cut. 

Shire Brigade: Phil Mustard 

 

STAFFORDSHIRE'S 1001st GAME

At the end of August I pootled on down to a sun-baked Knypersley CC to watch the opening day of Staffordshire's fixture with Buckinghamshire, their 1001st game in the Minor Counties Championship. 

I was able to interview to a few people – Keith Stride and Sid Owen, as well as both coaches, Dave Cartledge and Simon Stanway – for my book about the Minor Counties' cult players, and I was able to chat to several people in a non-professional capacity. It was an enjoyable day, and I was able to write a piece for All Out Cricket magazine about it, with another due in the next issue of The Cricketer. 

The Manchester United of the Minor Counties 

 

HERATH AT BARNFIELDS

My effort to smuggle as many North Staffs cricket stories on to the widely read virtual pages of ESPNcricinfo continues apace, this month with the story of Rangana Herath's brief and not especially successful couple of months at Moddershall in 2009, at least some of which was directly copy/pasted from a lengthier comparison of his stint as pro and Imran Tahir's (Imrangana Taherath: A Tale of Two Spinners). This follows fairly recent pieces on Tino Best, Shahid Afridi, Adam Sanford, and, self-aggrandisingly, me nudging 50-odd against Bilawal Bhatti.

As ever, the earnestness of the some of the comments is both amusing and disturbing all at the same time. 

Herath's Cold Summer at Staffs 

WHEN MINOR COUNTIES HUMBLED THE AUSTRALIANS

OK, so I have blogged this piece in longform previously. However, this is the age of recycling, and if I can persuade The Cricketer to part with some cash in exchange for the simple expedient of turning it from a written-up feature to a collage of quotes, then why would I not want to, erm, help the environment...

Anyway, it was nice to earn a few quid for the hard yakka, but it was equally pleasing to have this story ('A Minor Triumph') reach a wider audience, especially for some of those whose finest hour it was, some of whom went out of their way to provide me with photos to pass on to Alec Swann, who had commissioned it.

I'm therefore grateful for the contributions of Mike Nurton (Oxfordshire), Neil Riddell (Durham), David Bailey (Cheshire), Doug Yeabsley (Devon) and Frank Collyer (Hertfordshire), but especially so to Stuart Wilkinson (Durham), Brian Collins (Hertfordshire) and the current Staffordshire President, Peter Gill. 

NO DEAD-RUBBER CRUMBS, PLEASE

Heading into the fifth Ashes Test at the Oval with the urn in the bag was once a familiar feeling for the Australians. Not so any more, not that anyone currently an Adrian Mole-ish 13-and-three-quarters years old would know it.

So, I took the time to remind them of the pain of the late eighties to early noughties, and, equally, the solace provided by the occasional "dead rubber" victory while supping the last of the summer wine – which is exactly why we cannot allow the Australians to burgle a cheap win over this coming weekend...

England Must Aim for Dead-Rubber Demolition

 

THE SHIRE BRIGADE #3: STEVEN CROOK

Actually, it was the fourth, but All Out Cricket haven't yet posted the third, with 'Colonel' Mustard of Durham. 

Anyway, I was led to believe Mr Crook – the sometime Adelaide-born Lancashire, Middlesex, Northants and Brixworth CC fast-bowling, hard-hitting all-rounder who recently walloped a hundred against his semi-countrymen, the Australians, at Northampton – was a genuinely nice bloke, and so it proved. Shame I only had around 650 words to convey the contours of a really interesting 45-minute conversation.

Sample question: Your Twitter profile reads "Do some cricket, do some music, do some business but mainly do fun things that test the bounds of reality"; given that you're a big Jim Morrison fan, does that mean you spend the off-season dropping acid? His answer: a throaty chuckle, and "nah mate, although..."

I found him to be a very grounded and interesting individual, one who hasn't forgotten why he plays the game, nor who he's played it with on an arduous road to reach the sort of consistency he's now showing as he reaches the autumn of a stop-start career. I wish him well.

The Shire Brigade: Steven Crook

 

YOU MUST BE BHATTI

My latest blog for ESPNcricinfo's Cordon was prompted by what would have been, given different genetics, the hair-raising experience of playing against recent Pakistani fast bowler Bilawal Bhatti. (And if it was hair-raising for me, with reasonable experience of playing against quick bowlers, what would it have been like for the clutch of under-15s in the side?)

The editor in India gave it the somewhat workaday and slightly misleading heading: Do Professionals Raise the Standard of Club Cricket?, failing to indicate that I was talking solely about the lower echelons of the recreational game. Still, it has been fairly well received. The following week a member of our opposition, Bagnall, poked his head round our dressing room door before the game to tell me he'd enjoyed it (thereby precluding himself from being sledged by yours truly), as did a couple of his colleagues after the game.

The comments below the line – often a hotbed of rancour from the growing legions of bedroom-dwelling firebrands known as "keyboard warriors" – were generally supportive, although there was one bright spark – going by the name Ali Shah, not especially rare in certain parts of the world, though hopefully not the Ali Shah who plays in my team – who spent several seconds of his life typing out the following: "Mmm ... two points of note in this piece: first, what exactly has 9/11 got to do with cricket? Secondly is the author using Bilawal Bhatti to inflate his ego because he got a fifty in that game? A sad non-article."

Given that I failed to mention my score in the game, I can only commend Ali Shah on his sleuthing. Bravo. 

 

THE ASHES: ENGLAND'S POST-NEW ZEALAND COMEDOWN?

Everyone does an Ashes preview, it seems. Mine, for VICE Sports, decided to take a different tack from the 'Key Battles', 'Players to Watch' route, and instead started off with a (NSFC) delirious parallel between dropping your first pill (yes, I was once young and wild) and England's joyous early-season romp against the Kiwis: particularly the Lord's Test and the ODI series, when England finally played with the handbrake off.

It was thrilling, exuberant, wide-eyed stuff, enough to make you fall in love with the game again. However, as Newton's laws probably say, what goes up must come down, and so I was expecting the Ashes to be something of a buzzkill. Of course, I got it spectacularly wrong, inasmuch as I looked at things through the lenses of an English cricket watcher accustomed to disappointment. Happily, I wildly underestimated England's strengths and grossly overestimated Australia's (caveat: Ryan Harris hadn't retired by this stage, and his absence drastically tips the balance in England's favour, albeit, I thought, not as far as seems to be the case after the first Test). 

Anyway, here is my preview: The Ashes: England's Post-Party Comedown.