Gooch calls for England's World Cup stars

 

GRAHAM GOOCH has warned England to learn from his mistakes and find the X Factor to win a maiden World Cup. Gooch played in three finals – 1979, 1987 and 1992 – and lost them all. Three games away from glory and with Sri Lanka up next in the quarter-finals, the England batting coach believes this team has a chance of reaching the final, but they must start playing their best cricket now.

Perhaps that is where his teams went wrong. They eased their way to the final by being solid, consistent performers, but when it came to the crunch they ran out of steam.  There is no danger of the same being said of this wildly unpredictable bunch, but with Kevin Pietersen and Stuart Broad at home, the question remains ‘who will burst from the pack to become a World Cup hero?’

“I don’t have any regrets in my career as I played a long time and had a lot of fun with Essex and England and gave it my best shot,” said Gooch. “But my only slight thing is we played in three World Cup finals and we lost three. “In the second two in particular we were quite consistent all the way through – in India in 87 and Australia in 92 – but we just probably had gone off the boil by the time the final came round.

“And we didn’t find anyone in either of those games to supply that match-winning performance. That was the one thing missing from both finals, we had contributions from lots of people but not ones that won the match. “We just didn’t quite have anyone, myself included, who did something really special on the day to tip the scales our way. You’re always looking for that X Factor. It’s not about the number of runs, it’s not about the number of wickets you take, it’s about how many matches you win for your team. How many matches your contribution makes the ­difference.

“The important thing about a World Cup is you have to start playing your better cricket towards the latter stages. The first ­objective is to get to the knockout stage and we’ve had a roller-coaster ride achieving that. “We know we can improve, we’re not looking back and it’s only the ­challenge in front of us that counts, and if we improve we’ve a good chance.”

At 57 Gooch remains as enthusiastic about the game as ever and his value to the England team comes as much from his empathy in situations like this as his technical ­know-how. He does not talk about batsmen and bowlers he talks about run-makers and wicket-takers. As far as he is concerned it does not matter how, it is just about how many.

It is why you will not hear him criticising Jonathan Trott for failing to look flashy when he keeps hitting 50s and 100s, nor will he come own hard on Eoin Morgan when he gets out playing a reverse sweep. But some things are the same now as in his playing days, such as batting out the 50 overs – which England have failed to do in their last three matches.

“I don’t like being bowled out inside 50 overs,” he said. “You have to use them up even if it just means getting a few singles at the end. “If you come to the last 10 overs and you’ve only a few wickets left you’re in trouble. You can’t accelerate and you’ve little option but to see it through and we haven’t been able to do that. “Against the West Indies we could have found another 10 runs. It doesn’t sound a lot but in a low-scoring game it can be the difference between winning and losing.” Go Camping for 95p! Vouchers collectable in the Daily and Sunday Mirror until 11th August . Click here for more information

Michael Clarke's new friend

 

Australian vice cricket captain Michael Clarke's new friend Kyly Boldy is starring in a new television commercial for whiskey brand Jim Beam.

Boldy, 27, who is currently in India, stars alongside former Blue Heelers fixture Samantha Tolj in the ad, which is ironically set in a speed-dating venue.

In the ad, set to debut nationally next month, Boldy and Tolj play empowered chicks who are watched by a bloke on the hunt, but he is confronted with "The Dilemma" (the title of the campaign) as a result.

Intimidated, he ends up choosing his best mate instead - Jim Beam.

"This is great for Kyly, who is a TV presenter and actress - and she beat many other contenders for the role, which is fully scripted," the Herald Sun quoted Boldy's agent Sally White as telling Confidential.

White also said the infomercial presenter on Ten's morning show 'The Circle' and former weather presenter is about to sign a deal with a network for a lifestyle role. (ANI)

Stars and Style of Cricket

England, possibly in honour of its long sporting tradition, is trying very hard to fail, but I suspect that it might very well fail to fail. I hope Bangladesh marches into the quarter-finals, precisely because it is the very opposite of England: its spirit is greater than its ability, unlike England, which brought along quality to the Cup but mislaid its spirit somewhere on the flight to the subcontinent. The one fascinating aspect of this tournament so far is the difference in the management style of its captains. The test of a captain lies, obviously, in adversity, and Bangladesh’s Shakib al Hasan is blessed with the courage of self-belief.

He could have fallen into that worst of all traps, sulking self-pity, when angry fans broke his window panes after his team’s pathetic loss to the West Indies. Instead, he picked himself and the team up, and led them to a famous victory against England. It does not actually matter now whether he goes into the next round. He has restored his nation’s pride. Bengali fans are right. They do not expect Bangladesh to win the Cup, but they will not tolerate a team that betrays its honour.

The surprise is Shahid Afridi, who could easily join Pakistan’s foreign service after this swansong. The man who has tweaked a ball or two in his time, has flowered into a diplomat. He soothed ruffled feathers after defeat against New Zealand through a brilliant strategic pincer movement: he invited the huge Pakistani media contingent for dinner with the players. Mollifying the messenger is the best treatment for the ache of bad news. Afridi is clearly aware that contemporary Pakistan has only two powerful institutions, the army and the media. The army has only cursory interest in cricket during wartime, so an alliance with the media is sufficient for crisis control.

Pakistan remains the contrarian’s favourite; and if Afridi can handle his temperamental eleven with the kind of aplomb he has shown off the field, then watch out for the Greens. Predictably Pakistan’s erratic, slippery-fingers wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal has induced the best joke so far: ‘What is Akmal’s favourite pick-up line? Can I drop you anywhere?’

In contrast, Mahendra Dhoni is so laidback he could have been training in a sauna. Dhoni is proponent of the Yawn School of Business. When asked why India had made such heavy weather of defeating less-than-ordinary sides like Holland, he replied with a verbal shrug. India was winning, wasn’t it, and that was good enough for him. Well, he might lose when there is no second chance left. It may not be much of a problem for him personally, since the advertisement deals are done, cheques are in the bank, and he probably thinks that the Great Indian Public is fickle in its affections anyway. Somebody should tell him that the symbol of India is the elephant, and while the elephant treads with a light step, it also has a long memory.

The captain who really knew how to lie on his back was the incomparable Viv Richards, but he had a few advantages over Dhoni. He was a genius with the bat. He was fearless (he disdained a helmet, trusting his eye and instinct instead). And he had a set of bowlers who could break your hand when you were looking and crack your head when you took your eye off the ball. Dhoni has fashioned half a team for this tournament, just a set of brilliant batsmen, on the assumption that opponents will get themselves out. We shall see what we shall see.

The finest gentleman ever to captain England was surely Colin Cowdrey. In his last match as captain Cowdrey walked to the pitch for the toss, dressed in immaculate whites. And waited. Richards sauntered up 20 minutes late, wearing a T shirt and bandanna in more colours than a rainbow would dare to advertise.
The coin was tossed. Richards won. Richards looked at the prim and proper Cowdrey and asked the Englishman what he wanted to do, rather than exercising his right of decision. Once Cowdrey had recovered, he said England would like to bat. Okay man, said Richards, you bat.The West Indies won that Test match by 10 wickets. That is why it was Cowdrey’s last match. And that is why few lovers of cricket can remember Cowdrey, and no one has forgotten Vivian Richards.

Style is an art, particularly if it can be complemented with swagger. But style is not a substitute for substance.
The writer is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, India on Sunday, published from London and editorial director, India Today and Headlines Today.

Australia's Test fortunes

Voted the players' association's shield player of the year on Tuesday, 32-year-old Hopes made a strong case for the veterans at a time when Cricket Australia has pursued a policy of encouraging younger state squads.
Hopes said they were needed as mentors to the new breed as Australia looks to rebuild its Test status after the Ashes series disaster. His comments came after Australian captain Ricky Ponting expressed concern that the domestic cricket competition was not producing ready-made international players like it used to.


Hopes said it was hard to compare the quality of the competition between eras. "Shield cricket is on the way back up, there's a lot of young kids playing," said Hopes. "I think it's also important to keep the guys aged around 30 playing for as long as they can, because they're going to be the guys that teach the young kids how to play first class cricket.

"We can't run away from the fact that our Test ranking has gone down in the last couple of years, and it's up to these young kids now who are going to get a go in the next year and a half to step up in Shield cricket."  Hopes said mentoring Queensland youngsters had been his focus since getting the captaincy. "It coincided with me being dropped from the Australian one-day team," he said.  "That was my goal from then on. If I'm not going to play for Australia, well it's up to me and guys like me to help these kids become good first class players."

Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland said the crowded international schedule was having an effect on the quality of the game at the domestic level. "Perhaps international players don't play quite as much state cricket as they used to, so perhaps the standard is somewhat less as a result of that," he said. "But there's no doubt that the intensity and the fierceness in which the teams compete is at a level in parallel to what it was 15 years ago or 100 years ago."

Hopes polled 23 votes to take out the ACA player of the season award on Tuesday, three more than the competition's leading wicket-taker Luke Butterworth of Tasmania. Victorian veteran batsman Brad Hodge was named the one-day player of the season, while South Australian opening batsman Dan Harris was named Twenty20 player of the year. Western Australia were presented with the Benaud Spirit of Cricket Award.

The awards were presented at Bellerive Oval, which will play host to the Shield final between Tasmania and NSW from Thursday.