Paul Seaborne on Cricket


Hello everyone and welcome to this weeks edition of Paul Seaborne on Cricket. It's been a hectic couple of weeks since my last article so there's plenty to look back on. We've had abandon tests, resigning captains, the debacle that is Sir Alan Stanford, a thrilling test match and a dour one. We’ve had centuries, milestones, injuries and some fun along the way, so let’s have a look back at the last fortnight.

First up I have to start in the West Indies where poor old Sir Vivian Richards was left fuming at the abandonment of the 2nd test between West Indies and England due to an unfit outfield. It all started on the morning of Friday 13th Feb. An apt date considering what was about to follow. England won the toss and decided to bat on a flat wicket. Eight deliveries had been sent down before Darren Powell realised he couldn’t keep his feet on the sandy beach that was the Sir Vivian Richards stadium. Play was held up for more than forty minutes as groundsman and officials alike tried all they could get the outfield ready for the bowlers, but to no avail. Play was abandoned for the day as embarrassment swept across Antigua. Sir Viv was seen tracking down anyone resembling an official and was looking for blood, angered that his name could be attached to such a debacle.

In the end, after much trying, it has to be said, the game was abandoned. This is where the fun really started. What were the West Indies board going to do? The ICC were busy blaming the WICB, the WICB were blaming the groundsman and the groundsman was busy blaming the weather. You couldn’t help but compare it to a school playground, where “someone” has broken a window with a wry kick of a football, and no one wants detention or a letter home.

After much deliberation, it was decided that a 5th test would be added to the tour, with the second test abandoned (or drawn, depending on where your money was!), the 3rd test now being called the 4th test, and the 4th test being the 5th test. I think.

So what was going to happen to the test that was supposed to be played now? There were hundreds, if not thousands, of England fans on the delightful island, and they wanted cricket. And rightly so. You don’t expect a test match to be abandoned when the sun is shining and there are 22 players ready to play. It’s not as though the test was forced upon them. This game had been in the schedule for months to come, and to have an outfield resembling Antigua’s 366th beach was just disgusting really. There’s no other word for it. There were so many people to blame – the ground staff for not preparing a suitable pitch, the ICC for passing the venue fit when allegedly not one official had inspected the ground, and the WICB for not ensuring the ground staff do their job correctly.

Anyway onto the next bit. The noises coming out of West Indies was that the game was going to be played at the ARG stadium. Well I nearly crashed my car when I heard. The ARG? Surely not. The famous ground where Brian Lara scored his 375 and 400 runs to set world records? The ground where Chicky’s disco used to pound out Caribbean music in between every over? The ground where “Gravy” would entertain the fans with his weird and wonderful dancing? More significantly, the ground that, for the past three years, had been used as a football pitch by local and visiting teams, and a ground that had not seen test cricket for quite some time, due to the WICB declaring a new stadium would take over from this old rickety ground. It wasn’t fit to hold a training session let alone a five day test match! “This game will be all over in three days” was my first thought.

But the island of Antigua is nothing but resilient. In a scene straight out of some Hollywood drama movie, they came in droves and worked round the clock. Fixing the stands. Painting the sightscreens. Rolling the wicket. Drenching the sun baked outfield. Until finally, some 48 hours later, there was something resembling a test match venue. Chicky set up the disco, Gravy danced in the aisles and finally something so magical had come out of something so desperate.

And fittingly, the old ground played host to a fantastic, heart stopping test match that captured the hearts and imaginations of the locals and the tourists, until, with sun dramatically setting on perhaps, and sadly, the last ever final moments of the test, England tried and tried to prise the last wicket from West Indies ever increasing grasp. And injured Flintoff roared in, exuding every last inch of energy from his battered body, Swann toiling and trying everything he had and indeed, it all looked to be going England’s way towards the end of a slow day, when they had nearly 25 overs to dismiss the final three West Indies players. In the end it was left to Darren Powell and Fidel Edwards to cling on for that final half hour, until England had no more, the sun said a fond farewell to this magnificent setting and Antigua erupted as the umpires offered to two batsmen the light, which they duly took. West Indies had survived and take a 1-0 lead going into the 4th test starting Thursday.

Many lessons need to be learned from this episode, but the most important one is that if you have something so great, so magical, and with so many happy memories, do not tinker with it. The WICB have made a grave error in building a new stadium for West Indies. A stadium that they didn’t want, and that no one wishes to see cricket played in. It is a crime against crimes that they should name this new stadium after a true hero of the game, for one thing Sir Vivian Richards would not want his name attached to such a failure, something which clearly, the new stadium is.

For half the price of building the new stadium, they could have revamped the ARG, and despite the debacle with the outfield, that is truly the most horrific of crimes to come out of this whole sorry episode.

Staying in the West Indies foe now, Sir Alan Stanford has been arrested, and had all his assets frozen after authorities in the USA found evidence of fraud amounting to an estimated $8bn over the last few years. I cannot say too much on this because obviously the case will be on going and I don’t think many at Priceform would appreciate a law suit against them, but the facts as I understand them is the ECB have decided to sever all ties with Sir Alan, resulting in the debacle that was Stanford 20/20 for 20 being cancelled, meaning England players will never again get the chance to play for $1m per man in a one off game.

Whilst that is not particularly bad news, I never liked the idea of England being hired for one week’s entertainment, and you get the impression that the England team were growing cold towards Stanford, there is worse news for West Indies and it will affect them a hell of a lot more than it affects England.

For while Stanford was obviously not perfect, indeed he appeared smarmy, arrogant and from the moment he landed at Lords in a helicopter with $20 in a briefcase, appeared to know very little about cricket and its traditions. He did however; provide a much needed investment into West Indies cricket. A nation once famed for its furious fast bowlers like Ambrose and Walsh, and their genius batsmen including Lara, Richards and Sobers, was beginning to warm towards American sports such as Baseball and Basketball and not cricket. A point that was proved by the lack of success enjoyed by the West Indies over the last few years. As I have said before, world cricket desperately needs a successful West Indies team, and Stanford, to his credit, was bankrolling that, and getting young children involved and interested in the sport once more. I’m sure this will come to little comfort to the thousands who have lost money and jobs, but Stanford’s absence will see the West Indies into further decline that they simply cannot afford.

Away from the Caribbean, and into Pakistan where I am going to have another moan. And I don’t like moaning, life is far too short, and cricket far too wonderful to moan about, however having witnessed the first three days of the test match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka this week, I have to ask the question; What is the point of producing a track/pitch that is going to see 650/7 declared v 250/3? It can’t simply to keep supporters in the ground for five days because there is no one there! I can, to an extent, understand the ACB or the ECB saying to a groundsman “Listen, we need this pitch to last five days, we’ve got 20,000 tickets sold for Monday and that’s £500,000 revenue can’t afford to lose” but in Pakistan where, due to reasons beyond their control, there hasn’t been much cricket played, you’d think the PCB would want an interesting and exciting test match to get the supporters returning.

Fans want excitement, they want tension, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the locals in Antigua are already talking about when the next test match is. I love cricket but this game has made me question whether I want to watch the rest of the match. At the close of day three it should by now be bubbling into an exciting test, but with not a blade of grass on the pitch, everyone involved should be taking a close look at themselves and asking if this is really what the Pakistan team and supporters really want. It has even enraged the Pakistan officials, namely Intikhab Alam who said he was disappointed with the slow pitch. "We were not expecting such a wicket, we needed a wicket that should have had grass and some bounce because we rely on our fast bowlers.

Unfortunately that type of wicket could not be made and it is too suitable for batsmen." This was backed up by captain Younis Khan who said "Test cricket gets boring if we play on such wickets. They [Sri Lanka] scored over 600 and now we are going well and people won't come to the stadiums. Two top spinners from Sri Lanka are playing but they are not troubling us. We too have Danish [Kaneria] and Umar Gul, [but] if we play boring Tests people won't come to the stadiums. What are we showing the people?"

There were other comments – but you get the drift. At a time when Test Cricket is under threat from 20/20 cricket, it needs to provide the sort of entertainment that only Test Cricket can, for if the subcontinent I particular although not exclusively, continue to produce such lifeless wickets, there will be even less than the 200 people who turned up to watch this test. Michael Hunt at Lords, please take note.

Staying with this series, Mehala Jayawardene has announced that he is stepping down as captain after this series, bringing the curtain down on three fairly successful years as captain. He led the team to a series draw in England, then over saw a 5-0 drubbing in the one day series against the same opposition, he has taken his team to a World Cup final, won the Asia cup, emerged victorious against England at home and India in 2008. However, following the 4-1 defeat at home to India recently, Jayawardene announced he felt it was time for someone else to be handed the reigns of captaincy, and promptly announced his resignation when the current Pakistan tour is over. Kumar Sangakarra remains hot favourite for the job, but we hope that Jayawardene continues to play for many years yet. It must also be noted that Jayawardene has spent much time and money supporting a very worthwhile cause, the HOPE cancer foundation, for which he is an ambassador.

Elsewhere in the world – Australia have arrived for an all important series in South Africa. I’m not going to go into too much detail here as I shall be previewing the series later in the week ahead of the first test that starts on Thursday. But suffice to say that this series is going to be very important for both sides as they fight to stave off the growing threat from India at the top of the Test tree.

Well that’s about all I have for this week, except to say that Amjad Khan and Ravi Bopara won’t be spending too much time together in the near future after spending an astonishing 41 hours on a flight from New Zealand to Barbados after being called up from the touring England Lions squad to join the full England party in the West Indies. 41 hours! Bet one of them was sat next to a screaming baby as well…..

All the best

Paul