“It was fine when it left my hand,” was a response I occasionally gave to an exasperated captain after being hit for six. It always seemed a legitimate observation to me. A cunning off-break had been propelled that would pitch on a perfect length before being thumped over the boundary by some oaf at the other end. Being hit for six was, in my view, more an occupational hazard than a dereliction of duty. What more could I be expected to do – except anticipate my opponent’s plans?
In the recent one-day international series in the Caribbean Moeen Ali was entitled to say, “It was fine when it left my hand,” on numerous occasions, most of which coincided with Chris Gayle taking guard at the other end. Moeen has had a brilliant red-ball winter as an off-spinner; he was England’s best ODI bowler last summer but in the one-day series in the West Indies he had the unflattering figures of 19-0-167-0, a stark reminder that life becomes tricky for a spin bowler when his good balls end up in the stands.
The challenge Moeen undertakes is radically different and far more difficult than the one that faced me decades ago. In the 80s, when grounds were larger and bats smaller, deterrents usually worked. Station men at long-on or deep midwicket and the batsmen, with a few exceptions, would not try to clear them. They would pat a single in that direction instead. Who were the obvious exceptions? Kris Srikkanth, Lance Cairns, Viv Richards, Collis King and Ian Botham spring to mind.
Place six men on the leg-side – as one could then – and bowl consistently at a right-hander’s middle and leg stumps and most batsmen would obediently hit the ball to the crowded leg-side. Just a handful of players would dabble with the reverse sweep and they risked the ire of Peter May, England’s chairman of selectors at the time, when doing so. But now the deterrents on the boundary edge are frequently ignored and youngsters experiment with the reverse sweep/slog as regularly as we all honed our forward defensives.
One consequence of all this is that the game has become ever more entertaining – though I mourn that a six is no longer an event. Whether the format lasts 20 overs, 50 or (theoretically) five days there is seldom a dull moment. So what do the counter-intuitive crackpots at the England and Wales Cricket Board decide to do? Concoct another format that no one outside St John’s Wood views with any enthusiasm unless smelling the possibility of making some money from it.
Sadly only those at Surrey have the independence of mind and the bank balance to express any reservations. So the sleepwalk continues uninterrupted and the non-Test match-hosting clubs face becoming ever more irrelevant as they count their compensation from the ECB.
The ODI series against West Indies has reminded us how entertaining the 50-over format, which will become a backwater for the novices and the not-so-good in English cricket in 2020, can be.
This summer 50-over cricket will be heralded as the means of reigniting the nation to the game via the World Cup, even though the number of people watching it live on TV will be minimal compared with previous World Cups in this country. Almost nine million viewed England and Wales in their Six Nations encounter at Cardiff last week. I dread to think how many viewers there will be if England take on Australia in the semi-final of the cricket World Cup at Edgbaston on 11 July.
Then, in the summer of 2020, the 50-over format heads for the dustbin in this country. Our best young players will never play this type of cricket until selected for England (they will be playing about 30 games per season of 20 overs or less instead). So England had better win the World Cup this time around.
England’s performances in the Caribbean, while exciting, were neither reassuring nor predictable. They could chase down 361 in Barbados but not 290. They just managed to defend 418 in Grenada and were then bowled out for 113 in St Lucia.
For the moment Moeen epitomises a team that is gifted and endearing yet has the capacity to fail spectacularly. As his two international captains readily confirm, Moeen is an enigma: an utterly dependable team man, positive in the dressing room and a highly valued stabilising influence; but in the middle anything can happen. Oddly enough this was also the case with Paul Collingwood a few years ago, a rock-solid character, yet a mercurial batsman, who could sway between the extremes of form.
The die is cast for England’s World Cup campaign. We know the bulk of the personnel and how they intend to play, which can be frightening for opponents – if they click – and for supporters – if they don’t. Nothing can be taken for granted; it is 418 one day and 113 the next. They can excite and exasperate in equal measure. But you have to watch them if you can.
This side is diametrically opposed to most England teams of the past (on balance a very good thing, given England’s woeful World Cup record). Pre-Eoin Morgan and the revolution England tended to prevail on spicy, low-scoring surfaces; the batsmen were adept at scraping together a respectable score while the seamers exploited favourable conditions. Now England crave perfect batting pitches, which may involve some wishful thinking since all their World Cup matches will start at 10.30am, so that their batsmen can blast and their doughty bowlers can survive hopefully without saying “it was fine when it left my hand” too often.
• This is an extract taken from the Spin, the Guardian’s weekly cricket email. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
