16 1GS Saturday January 1 2022 | the timesSport Cricket
No time to
nurse a drink
with England
Reviving memories
of an old flame...
Irrepressible Root a
batsman for the ages
There have been memorable
lightings of the Olympic cauldron
since it was first ignited by Fritz
Schilgen in 1936, including Antonio
Rebollo firing a flaming arrow at
Barcelona. The first athlete to light
the cauldron at a Winter Games,
however, had one to forget.
Guido Caroli, a Milanese speed-
skater who died recently at the age
of 94, competed at three postwar
Olympics and was chosen as the last
torch-bearer for the 1956 Games in
Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Alps. His
moment was spoilt when he tripped
over a microphone cable and went
sprawling on the ice. “I am so
ashamed,” a weeping Caroli said. The
cable had even been pointed out to
him during the rehearsal.
On the bright side, he kept hold of
the torch and the flame did not go
out. In five years the Olympics
return to Cortina, 70 years after
Caroli’s trip. Let’s hope they give his
successor a clear route to the
cauldron.Captaincy aside, no one could
criticise Joe Root for his batting in- Only two players have made
more than his 1,708 runs in a
calendar year and since his birthday
was two days ago, he made them at - Root was also the most prolific
25-year-old, with 1,477 runs in 2016.
Surprisingly, Root is one of only
two players to lead the scoring twice
at a particular age. Graeme Smith
was the best aged 22 and 27, but
everyone from Mushtaq Mohammad
at 18 to Tom Graveney at 40 appears
only once. Sachin Tendulkar was the
best 23-year-old, for instance, Steve
Smith the best at 26, Brian Lara at 34
and Don Bradman at 39.
Since they played fewer Tests in
the past I then ran the numbers by
average and found only one player
appears twice: Bradman aged 23 and - For the Australian to have
averaged all but 100 over a 20-year
Test career yet have the best record
at any given age only twice is proof
of his remarkable consistency.
get a rapid test is to play the Poms”.
Worse are the ones who show pity.
“The trouble with your team,” a
friend in Brisbane said, “is there’s no
one I hate.”
So the Ashes have gone in just
over 11 days. But it could have been
much worse. A century earlier,
England surrendered in eight days
after losing by ten wickets at Trent
Bridge, eight wickets at Lord’s and
219 runs at Headingley. Yet they
were the better side in two draws
that followed, having changed
their captain to Lord Tennyson,
grandson of the poet laureate, left.
Oh for some offspring of John
Betjeman to save us now!
Here’s something else to
cling to: England made a
record 54 ducks in 2021, an
astonishing 13 of them
first-ballers. Yet there
have been only two golden
ducks this series (Rory Burns
in Brisbane and Dawid
Malan in Melbourne),
which is heartening
stickability. The record is six,
in 1946-47 and 1994-95.
There’s something to aim for
in the remaining Tests.Never mind England losing by an
innings in Melbourne, the real
scandal of the third Test is that
stadium organisers tried to prevent
the Aussie sporting tradition of
downing a pint of Fosters in one,
which I assume they do in order to
avoid tasting it.
In a tweet, later deleted, the MCG
announced it was “stadium policy to
eject patrons who scull their
alcoholic beverages”. And this in acountry whose former prime
minister, Bob Hawke, still holds the
Oxford record for drinking a yard
of ale: 2½ pints in 11 seconds,
something he demonstrated at
sports grounds well into old age.
Aussie fans pointed out, not
unfairly, that they had to
drink fast as they didn’t
want any left when
England finished batting.
We have had to endure
such jokes this week.
When a coronavirus scare
confined England to their
hotel for an hour, one Aussie
said he didn’t know our players
could stay in so long. The
Australian novelist Kathy Lette
texted from quarantine in
Sydney to say “the best way toTHETAILENDER
Patrick Kidd
effort into making the County
Championship sound exciting, which it
can be anyway?
JOHN GRIMBALDESTONWhen will cricket writers and the ECB
stop the policy of making our best
players captain. Ian Botham, Andrew
Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen, Alastair Cook
and Root. Not a speck of captaincyI
n a wide-ranging piece on
the future of English cricket,
Mike Atherton laid out his
proposed changes to create a
competitive side.
Among his recommendations for
the ECB’s management are the
appointment of a new chairman, the
involvement of someone with playing
experience, such as Andrew Strauss,
and a reallocation of power away
from the roles held at present by
Chris Silverwood and Ashley Giles.
Atherton insists that Silverwood
must — and will — be sacked, he
recommends a splitting of the red and
white-ball coaching roles and
suggests that separating selection
based on long and short-format
cricket will allow England to choose
from a greater talent pool. Despite the
limited options to replace him, Joe
Root should no longer be the Test
captain, according to Atherton.
He recommends a restructuring of
the central-contract system and the
congested county schedule, and a
reduction in the number of counties,
before finally advancing the idea of a
pathway to bridge the gap between
domestic and international cricket.
Here is how The Times readers
responded to his proposals...England cricket needs to allow some
expression for player individuality.
There are too many coaches, too many
decision-makers, and too much
tinkering with a player’s mind. Jonny
Bairstow was one of the few watchable
English cricketers of the past decade.
He seems demoralised now.
HERETIC OBSERVERStrauss isn’t the only one who should be
asked to put English cricket back on
track. I know you won’t and likewisewith Nasser Hussain but the ECB really
does need to tap into people like
yourselves.
DAVID CHANTRYThe Hundred is a media construct:
when commentators have to keep
saying how great a game or
competition is, then there’s something
very wrong. Why not put the sameacumen among them. All became worse
players as a result. So no to Ben Stokes.
Mike Brearley, Hussain, Strauss and
Michael Vaughan were decent captains
and the team benefited as a result.
PHILIP HALLTalk of reducing the number of
counties has been in the air for the past
three decades and nothing gets donebecause of the number of vested
interests. Far easier to control the
controllables on the field — ensure that
four-day cricket is played in June, July
and August and limit live grass on the
pitch to 4-6mm at the start of the game.
As a temporary measure, impose no
penalties for pitches that turn, but do
so for green seamers where more than
X-wickets fall in the first two sessions/
days of the match.
JAGANNATH IYERI’d like better pitches and some use of
the Kookaburra ball in the domestic
four-day game. I’d add that we seem
to welcome Australians into the
championship to develop their skills in
England prior to Ashes tours here (see
Marnus Labuschagne) but English
players don’t seem to play in Australia
any more; that should change.
CHARLIE WILLIAMSAll of these changes are irrelevant
unless we have the red-ball reset that
Root and [James] Anderson have
mentioned. That means losing either
the Hundred or the T20 Blast and
pulling together a more sensible
schedule. Add to that better batting
wickets...
PASTAMANThe lack of cricket on mainstream TV/
viewing rights on other formats is
killing the game. Sky [Sports] offers a
top-class service, the best around, but
to small audience numbers that are
missing vital new viewers/players of the
future. This is what has contributed to
the decline of the game as much as
white-ball cricket. The ECB took the
cash from Sky and BT [Sport] but at a
huge cost to participation numbers.
ANDREW ROBINSONReaders have their say on Atherton blueprint
Who should be the next
England Test coach?Gary Kirsten 29%
Andy Flower 10%
Jason Gillespie 30%
Paul Collingwood 14%
Justin Langer 9%
Mahela Jayawardene 6%
Other 2%Readers of The Times (^) What readers said in our poll
react to the chief cricket
correspondent Mike
Atherton’s plans to
reboot Test cricket
THEDEBATE
PHILIP BROWN/POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES
It’s time for Root
and Silverwood
to be removed
from their roles,
says Atherton