Professional Documents
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AFRAMEDBAT
SIGNEDBYTHE
ENGLAND
CRICKET’S TOP TEN CRICKETTEAM
SEEP68
GADGETS, GIZMOS AND
WEIRD EPHEMERA THE
INNOVATORS
ASHES WATCH TILLAKARATNE
DILSHAN
What are the KEVIN PIETERSEN
Aussies up to? AJANTHA
MENDIS
BEST AND
WORST
OF IPL 2010
PLUS
CURVEBALL!
CAPTAINCY COOK
ISSUE COLLINGWOOD
EXCLUSIVE COMMENT DOES THREE INTO ONE GO?
FROM BREARLEY, GATTING
AND BOTHAM
PLUS AOC EXPERT Issue 68 June 2010 £4.25
SWOT ANALYSIS www.alloutcricket.com
THE BIG SHOT ISSUE 68
10.04.10
NEW ROAD,
WORCESTER
YOU’LL NOT SEE
NOTHING LIKE THE
MIGHTY FINN
Fresh from a fiery England debut in
Bangladesh, Middlesex’s Steven Finn
rocks up for his first Championship
match of the season and takes 14
Worcestershire wickets, including
9-37 in the second innings, the best
innings figures in county cricket since
2003. Andrew Strauss watches the
full masterclass from first slip.
www.alloutcricket.com | AOC | 03
The leader
All Out Cricket, TriNorth Ltd, Unit 3.23,
Canterbury Court, 1-3 Brixton Road,
London, SW9 6DE
He said, captain? I said wot?
www.alloutcricket.com
EDITORIAL I consider myself particularly lucky to
“England’s greatest captain ever is...”
Editor: Andy Afford – Dead-Shot Keen
have only captained sides on relatively few
Deputy Editor: Phil Walker – Nasser occasions. I am indeed fortunate in that regard,
Design: Ian Findlay@iforma – Mike Brearley because captaincy turns your ten subordinates
Publishing Editor: Matt Thacker - Vaughany
Publisher: Patrick Fuller
– nigh-on to a man – into complete idiots. They
News Editor: Sam Stow – Graham Gooch strop about if things aren’t going their way. They
Reviews Editor: Ed Davis – Bobby Moore question every decision you make when your
Contributors: Toby Bailey (Brearley), Scott
Collen, Barry De Silva, Jamie Ellis, Jo Harman,
back is turned – sometimes not-so subtly.
Jim Hindson (Jardine), Ed Kemp (Athers), Rob And they bowl almost wilfully the wrong
Key, Elliott Pinkham, Barry Ross, Will Smith, line to the field you’ve set them. Then bat for IP...HELL? The best and worst
Paul Terry, Richard H Thomas
themselves and not the team. Or is that just 12 (geddit?) of this year’s Indian
Photography: Getty Images, unless stated Premier League
when I’m in charge?
COMMERCIAL Anyway, we feature three men who obviously
Commercial Director: Ian Sykes suffer from none of the above. England’s current
T 020 3176 2053 E ian@alloutcricket.com
– Paul Collingwood holy trinity of captains, in their own way, make
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T 020 3176 2052 E dom@alloutcricket.com Who would have thought that the national
– Sir Geoff rey
Publishing Manager: Sarah Cullum side would require three concurrent tenures to
T 020 3176 2051 E sarah@alloutcricket.com service the international fixture requirement?
General enquiries and comments In the bad old days of England cricket, the side
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worldwide £87.50
Brearley and Ian Botham, AOC covers all points
of the captaincy continuum. We think it makes
for a fascinating all-points-of-the-compass read.
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THIS ISSUE
20 FROM NEW JERSEY TO NEW
SOUTH WALES…
Six ‘crystal clear’ connections between
‘The Shore’ and Sir Donald Bradman
42 CAPTAINCY: THE AUDIT
Strauss, Cook and Collingwood under
the AOC microscope
62 WALKING WITH BEEFY
A wheezing AOC staffer tries to catch up
with cricket’s force of nature
REGULARS 87 REVIEWS
14 GETTIN’ JIGGY When planning to steal
WITH IT from your local library,
Durham’s Will Smith find out what’s worth
finds himself actually sticking up your jumper
playing some cricket 96 CAPTAIN SLOG
26 THE INTERVIEW Jimmy Hindson can’t
Chris Broad steps into put the cricket season
the hotseat off any longer
30 NEXT MAN IN 100 FACE OFF!
Ben Stokes is this Lovely cricket kit?
month’s hip young Compared and
gunslinger contrasted? For your
40 GET YOUR information and
SUBSCRIPTION HERE! entertainment? By
Think of it as an crikey!
investment in EXTRAS
happiness… 69 AUSTRALIA HERE
WE COME!
Ahead of this winter’s
Ashes, AOC presents an
Tillakaratne Dilshan talks
79 flipping the ball over his eight-page special
own head, as one of the feature on why Australia
new generation of great has to be the ultimate
innovators cricket tour
106 LAST KNOCKINGS
It’s the final page and it’s
much like every other
magazine’s last page in
that it marks the very
end of the pages. Apart
from a couple of ads
NEXT ISSUE
Life’s a beach – well, a strip of Our keeping expert
60 shingle on the banks of the 100 tests the best new THURSDAY
Thames at least. AOC’s Ed and gauntlets on the
JUNE
Sam are at it again market 3
www.alloutcricket.com | AOC | 07
COMMENT
Mike Gatting
if i ’m honest, captaincy gave me
confidence. It gave me a bit more belief
in myself. Knowing that I was going to
of the World Cup final against Australia in
India in 1987. His record against them was
unbelievable, but I’d picked Tim Robinson
plans and have the courage
of your convictions. I also felt that it was
important to uphold all sense of fairness.
be playing – after my early international for the semi-final and I wanted to be Telling players that they weren’t doing
career was spent on the periphery – was consistent. My heart was saying to go with well enough to remain in the team was the
huge for me. Broady, but my head was saying to pick his hardest thing I ever had to do as a captain.
In terms of doing the job, I learnt a lot Nottinghamshire opening partner. I should It felt like you were abandoning them and
from Mike Brearley at Middlesex. But I was have gone with my gut. banishing them, telling them they weren’t
also lucky enough to play in an era of very The same sort of thing happened, doing well enough.
good captains. I liked the way that Keith but in reverse, with the selection of That was a lesson that again bore fruit
Fletcher looked after things at Essex and Worcestershire’s Rhodesian-born seamer on the 86/87 tour. Although it was a settled
the way Clive Rice led Nottinghamshire. I Neal Radford. Radders was getting loads side, we realised that the likes of Bruce
think every captain would like to think of of wickets at New Road, bowling his skiddy French, Neil Foster and Gladstone Small
themselves as good at their job. The biggest seamers on pitches that moved around a would have important parts to play as the
thing is – and it’s difficult to take at times – lot. We were facing India at Edgbaston on tour wore on. Manager Mickey Stewart and
that you can be the best captain in the world a surface that was likely to be incredibly I tried to do something with the support
but if you don’t have good players around flat and a real challenge to contain the likes players at least once a week, to make sure
you, you’re not going to be recognised. of Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar. I they felt part of things. It’s very easy to
I think that on the whole I handled players told the chairman of selectors, Peter May, become adrift if you’re not playing any
pretty well. The likes of Phil Edmonds and what I thought, that Neal would bowl too cricket. On a slightly different tack, we did
Phil Tufnell had their moments, as I’m straight – trying to get the ball to swing the same in looking after Phil DeFreitas
sure you can imagine. And I’d have to say from middle-and-leg – and would get hit all and Graham Dilley – but that was to keep
that I handled Beefy [Sir Ian Botham] well. over. We talked long and hard about it and them from going out with the likes of Beefy
Differently to how Brears handled him, he overruled me, saying that he was picking and Allan Lamb! You didn’t mess around
but I tried to include him in all decisions the man in form. I think Radders went at with that pair, not on an evening out…
and get his buy-in. Most people just tried seven-an-over! And in that decision, I’d With regards the England set-up of today,
to tell him what to do. All I did was to treat have to say that everyone lost out that time. I can only assume that Andrew Strauss will
him like a human being. For Beefy to say it If I believe in anything as a captain, it’s return to captain the 50-over side. That
was his favourite tour, I felt spoke volumes to trust your intuition. If you feel it, do it. would leave only the 20-over captaincy
for our relationship. And that’s with him And just be strong enough to carry out your separate. And you’d have to say that it is a
being injured during completely different job to
the Ashes too. Though the other two – especially as
typically, he came back for If I believe in a batsman-captain.
the Melbourne Test, bowled With all the will in the
a pile of rubbish and got
anything as world, and with all due
five-fer! I can tell you, that a captain, it’s respect, as great a captain
doesn’t happen when you’re to trust your as Mike Brearley was, you
a batsman. If you bat badly, intuition. If you wouldn’t have him in your
you get nothing! feel it, do it 20-over side. Test and
If you were to push me for one-dayers, definitely. But
a decision I got wrong as a not the shortest form of the
captain, with hindsight it’s game. That’s for a different
when I left Chris Broad out breed altogether.
www.alloutcricket.com | AOC | 09
E v E r y T H i N g i N c r i c k E T T H a T ’ s s H O r T, s H a r p a N d r i s i N g
MOMENT
OF THE
MONTH
hayden
lets
loose
the
’goose
we weren ’t sure at first, Australianism, righteous chunk of wood on the end of above : Hayden out in the fourteenth over,
beefs another
watching the match from advocate of the Aussie way. an extended handle sends through the
the Mongoose has produced
the back of the office with Cricketers like Hayden the ball up to 20 per cent legside as the seven sixes – some of them
the sound turned down. But don’t use gimmicks. further than a normal bat, Mongoose enormous – in his 93 from
there it was, camouflaged Here in a sponsored and without any change makes its 43 balls. And all without
incredible
by a riot of gaudy yellow nutshell was the essence in technique. As far as debut any change in technique.
and almost buried inside of IPL3. Unburdened by quirky inventions go, it’s It’s surreal, but it’s
Hayden’s huge mitts: the the hassles of heritage, top bracket. But surely it happening. The ball looks
suddenly very famous this tournament has wasn’t going to work, not at like it’s made of rubber
Mongoose MMi3. developed a kind of genius this level. Half a bat can’t be (anything to declare, Mr
This was amazing even for dispensing with pretty better than one. Modi?), as a piece of wood
for the IPL, a tournament much all of cricket’s sacred But this is where the IPL steals the show. As he
that would re-brand the cows, and in this feral keeps having the last laugh. strides off, job done, Hayden
Taj Mahal if it brought atmosphere, not even the Because what happens is raises his tiny-huge bat, and
more cash. And it was bat itself was spared. this: Hayden mullers it. the crowd go bananas.
amazing because the So here’s Hayden, under After getting his eye Then we cut to the Maxx
bloke wielding this brick lights, taking aim with his in with the conventional Mobile Strategic Timeout
on a stick was no less than funny little mallet. The blade, Hayden calls for it in and the next festival of
Matthew Hayden: legend idea behind the Mongoose the fourth over. He’s on 19, adverts. Welcome to the
of the game, statesman of is that this concentrated with four fours. When he’s future, folks!
www.alloutcricket.com | AOC | 11
11
THEIPLAWARDS
The number of sixes hit
by Murali Vijay during his
127 from 56 balls against
Rajasthan
THE BUMPER
www.alloutcricket.com | AOC | 13
33
WILLSMITH
Runs scored in one over from Ravi Bopara’s bowling,
in the Kings XI Punjab versus Kolkata Knight Riders match.
The onslaught included four sixes by Chris Gayle.
Two balls were lost in the process
THE BUMPER
LEFT: Will relief that most of the lads
Smith shifts spend the hours before
a fieldsman
during
departure in Greggs, Burger
Durham’s King or Wetherspoons.
opening
County
Tuesday March 23
Championship
match against We arrive at the hotel in the
Essex at dead of night and hurriedly
Chester le check in. Depending on
Street
RIGHT: Abu which receptionist you were
Dhabi – tall presented with, depended
buildings, on whether you were
clear blue
water and lots ordered to pay AED2000
and lots of (Arab Emirate Dirhams),
sand… equivalent of about £400,
in order to cover ‘any
extras’. One receptionist
was clearly expecting
Premiership footballer-
style parties to be thrown
nightly, while the other
quite simply smiled and
Skipper Will Smith writes about gave us our room keys. Were
the strangest start to a domestic we not so jet-lagged, this
season, ever. The Champion County would have been met with
v MCC in the Middle East… great consternation, at least
GETTIN’
by those not planning such
carousing. ABOVE : we are ‘five minutes away,
A few hours sleep later Saadiyat five minutes.’ Very rarely
JIGGY
Beach Golf
and the squad depart for Resort: tall pin are we five minutes away,
the Sheikh Zayed stadium positions, clear and even when we are, a
– the venue for all practice blue water new spate of roadworks or
WITH IT
and, you’ve
days and matches – which guessed it, oddly-positioned dead ends
we are assured is only lots and lots of will hamper our progress.
DURHAM’S ABU DHABI DO ten minutes away. Our sand…
BELOW:
tour liaison officer then Durham’s Scott
Thursday March 25
Monday March 22 hotel, purpose-built on explains that this ten- Borthwick: These frustrating but
Finally the day has arrived the doorstep of the Abu minute journey would removes amusing journeys are not
James Foster
for us to depart for the Dhabi F1 circuit. We are be when the tunnel was only to face
limited to and from the
Emirati desert, just as the about to play the MCC v constructed to subverse death-by-bear cricket stadium either.
daffs’ fi rst green shoots Champion County fi xture. the stretch of ocean that lay hug from Phil Having a spare afternoon
emerge from the north Mustard
And we’ve been transported between the hotel and the allows us to take in a round
eastern tundra. Virtually ‘desertside’. cricket stadium. No such of golf at one of the lavishly
a full complement of While the last few pre- tunnel currently exists, and lovingly constructed
players set foot on the season jaunts have seen and instead the journey golf courses in the area,
plane – itself a rarity for Durham deep in Afrikaaner consists of covering seven organised by Harmy and
pre-season tours, as usually country, this year’s sees sides of an octagon, when courtesy of the kindness
international commitments us amid the oil-funded the crow would simply fly and generosity of Dubai
and injuries curtail the playground of the rich and the remaining un-traversed resident Andrew Flintoff.
numbers – making this a the even-more-rich. Half corner. Nevertheless The course is at one of the
notably different trip to expecting this sudden these bus trips are met countless resorts that have
most others. The usual departure in status to bring with admirable patience, sprung up, are springing up
low-key early season on more lofty and, it would humour and slight or will soon be springing
accommodation is replaced22/1/10
GM941_left_righthand_pages have to be said, forced
10:57 Page airs
1 suspicion at the drivers’ into being. These resorts
by the plush Crowne Plaza and graces, it is of great constant reassurance that do not just supply exquisite
www.alloutcricket.com | AOC | 15
MANOF THEMONTH I’m not going to lie; in my first game I was really nervous. It
gets easier, you start to get a few balls away and you think:
“Hey, I might actually belong out here”’
Michael Lumb after his first experience of the IPL
THE BUMPER
LEFT: Lumb in After a decade treading
action for the water in county cricket, the
England Lions
this winter;
30-year-old left-hander was
the senior side hoisted into the spotlight.
have since The son of former
come calling
Yorkshire opener Richard,
Michael Lumb made his
fi rst-class debut for the
White Rose a decade
ago, showing enough
early promise to make the ECB National
Academy in 2003 following 1,000
Championship runs that year.
But then the runs dried up. By 2005 the
scores had all but vanished completely.
Lumb appeared to be drifting through an
unfulfi lled county career. It took a gamble
by a gambler to reignite his career.
It was Shane Warne who took the punt
on bringing Lumb to Hampshire. Under
Warne, Lumb blossomed in the shortest
form of the game. A prolific 2009 in the
Twenty20 Cup, with 442 runs including
a thunderous unbeaten 124 from 69 balls
against Essex, led to Warne snapping up
the strapping opener to the IPL for just
$50,000, as one of only two uncapped
English players, along with Graham Napier.
Lumb has repaid Warne’s faith in the
best way possible, going toe-to-toe with
his more illustrious peers and forming a
genuinely dangerous opening partnership
with Naman Ojha. A series of rapid knocks
culminated in an explosive 83 from 43 balls
against Kings XI Punjab.
No sooner had Warne clicked his fi ngers,
than Lumb was named in England’s 15-man
squad. Suddenly the squad looked well
equipped with innovative and aggressive
batsmen, with Lumb joining the likes of
Kevin Pietersen, Eoin Morgan and fellow
new boy Craig Kieswetter.
On paper, England have assembled
a batting line-up capable of clearing
the rope with the consistency required
Lumb
Meet Michael Lumb, an overnight
often hitting it further and more regularly, a
new face was making himself known.
For those pockets of curious English
candidates.
His success should resonate through
the English county game. Lumb has proved
sensation a decade in the making. viewers peering in at the new world, that genuinely destructive players lurk
Michael Lumb would not have been on in English T20 cricket, a format that can
WORDS | ELLIOTT PINKHAM
most of their radars. But the IPL is now sometimes seem like the rather dowdy
the ultimate shop window, and no sooner sibling of the glamorous IPL. Aged 30,
had Hampshire’s hitter opened his burly after a decade on the treadmill, Lumb has
shoulders at the top of the Rajasthan Royals suddenly become an unlikely advert
batting order, than England’s Twenty20 for the merits of the county system. With
think tank were earmarking him into the short form now well established as the
their World Twenty20 plans. IPL success domain of left-handed openers who hit it
is becoming the clearest barometer for out of the park, what can Lumb achieve in
judging a player’s value and worth. the colours of his country?
The
dropped when Malik divorced her,
claiming that photographs she had
sent him during their courtship were
of someone else.
Cricket
UNICORNS IN THE SADDLE
It’s not often that an underdog comes in
the shape of a horse with a horn on its
head, but this year’s Clydesdale Bank
40 will see the fantastically named ECB
Specialist.
Unicorns – a team made up of players
without first-class experience – take
on county opposition. The squad led
by former Somerset all-rounder Keith
Parsons was whittled down from an
original list of 200 players submitted
to the ECB and will be a mix of youth
Horses for courses: and experience including a number of
The ECB Unicorns
players recently released from county
Enter AOC20102 at checkout
have been drafted
into the CB40 sides. The Unicorns have taken the
place initially offered to Ireland who
declined to compete because of their
international commitments. and get a FREE cricket ball.
www.barringtonsports.com
THEAOCTEN
THE BUMPER
LEFT: If you
like a lot of
handle on
your willow,
use this club
RIGHT: The
Skyer’s the
limit; man
and rubber
combine
to glorious
effect
MIDDLE RIGHT:
Merlyn
limbers up
under the
watchful
eye of Mark
Alleyne
FAR RIGHT: The
sightscreen:
push!
10 | The Mongoose half of a tennis ball and bunnies will always seize 6 | The Sightscreen
MMI3 giving that side more weight the Skyer and give the balls Of great assistance to the
To all intents and purposes can replicate the properties a hefty whack, and you, batsman, especially when
a Neanderthal club, of the manipulated leather standing there freezing and faced with ‘frog in a blender’
(especially when wielded ball. And it works. In the scared, must be prepared actions and irritatingly
by Matty Hayden), the right hands this can result to catch the hurtling bullet positioned spectators,
Mongoose claims to offer in the kind of carving swing dropping on you from a the stoic sightscreen is
20 per cent more power that Waqar Younis once great height. Tough luck another piece of ageless
than traditional designs trademarked. Now the big if it takes your hand off on furniture that’s found in
and few who witnessed manufacturing companies its way to the turf. That’s every cricket club in the
Hayden despatching have cottoned on and are cricket. land. Much like scoring
Delhi Daredevils into the selling their own versions and slip cradle practice,
stratosphere would argue. of the street classic. As with 7 | The Merlyn Bowling the manoeuvring of rickety
Traditionalists may scoff, all good ideas… Machine sightscreens around
but the Mongoose is a very The viciously turning boggy outfields because
welcome addition in a game 8 | The Skyer deliveries spat from this your new opening bowler
that’s gone power mad. A thick, meaty rubber don of bowling machines fancies “going round” is
mallet brought out in could confound the most another job that should be
9 | Tapeball 2008 as a training tool fleet-footed of batsmen. avoided at all costs. If you
The idea of layering of that launches cricket balls Ashley Giles claimed must get involved, shotgun
electrical tape to one side higher into the sky than is Merlyn helped England win foreman duties and save the
of a soft ball to make it hoop strictly necessary. Cricket the Ashes in 2005 (even inevitable stress fracture.
and swing seems to have balls launched into the air though Warney took 40
sprung up in Pakistan, by the Skyer can hang for up wickets), and the metal box 5 | The Catching cradle
where ‘Tapeball’ has long to nine seconds, providing is supposedly capable of Sitting outside pavilions
been the street’s riposte to some vintage damage to bowling any delivery known across the country
the age-old issue of bat’s frost-bitten English hands to man. And it won’t give ABOVE : Swing
and bearing a marked
Kings: today’s
dominance over ball. The in early April. Machismo you an earful for padding up tapeballs resemblance to the carcass
idea is that taping up one being as it is, beefy gym in the over before tea. of a beached whale, the
www.alloutcricket.com | AOC | 19
THEAOCTEN
THE BUMPER
SIX
DEGREES
OF
DON
BRADMAN…
Does anyone know the secret...