LEE PAYNE

Tag: jennings

  • Having a Blast: my trip to Old Trafford

    On Sunday I went to Old Trafford for the T20 Blast match between Lancashire and Durham.

    Me, my mum and her partner at Old Trafford

    A week on from England becoming world champions (I will never get tired of saying that), cricket is enjoying a boost in popularity. The Cricket Paper reports that counties have noticed an increase in ticket sales for the T20 Blast as people who maybe haven’t been to a match for a while, or indeed at all, seize the opportunity to see the game in the flesh.

    This includes – crucially – children. Most of the crowd in Manchester, which was huge for a domestic game, were families with youngsters. I’m not a big fan of kids – they are noisy, carry illnesses and can’t sit still for five minutes – but they are vitally important for the future of cricket. They all seemed to be having a great time, and that’s key. Children need to think of going to a cricket match as a normal thing to do, and something to look forward to. They will be the next generation of players and fans and will hopefully pass on their enthusiam to their own kids in years to come.

    The players warm up at Old Trafford, Manchester about an hour before the start of play

    I had been to Old Trafford before, for the Test match between England and India in 2014, and enjoyed the laid back atmosphere and friendly stewards. This makes it the ideal venue for 20 over cricket compared to, say, Lord’s which I find stuffy and inaccessible. The emphasis was on fun, with the Lancashire mascot Lanky the Giraffe dancing on the boundary before play began.

    As for the match itself, T20 is perfect for those who are unfamiliar with cricket. It’s short and sharp and you get to see plenty of big sixes and wickets. Lancashire batted first in their opening home game of the tournament and amassed 189-3, opener Steven Croft top scoring with an unbeaten 65 from 43 balls. The star of the show, however, was Australia international Glenn Maxwell. The world number one ranked all rounder in T20s hit 58 off 33 balls with four sixes. Each boundary was received with loud cheers and a burst of pop music. It was interesting to see how partisan the crowd was, a lot of the people there seemed to feel for the Lancashire cricket team the same way I feel for Norwich City Football Club. They weren’t just there to enjoy a day out, they were there to see the home side win.

    Australia international Glenn Maxwell bats for Lancashire in front of a huge crowd at Old Trafford

    Durham never looked like chasing the 190 they needed to win and were all out for 117 within 17 overs. Scott Steel had scored 58 from 46 balls but the next highest score for the visitors was 12. Lancashire won by 72 runs and a couple of run outs were enough to secure Maxwell the player of the match award.

    Maxwell played for Australia in the World Cup (having won it in 2015) so he was the main attraction for the kids. They gathered round to watch him be interviewed at the end of the match, taking photos and hoping for an autograph. The occasion was slightly lacking in big names. Both sides were packed with solid professionals and the standard was high but aside from Maxwell only D’Arcy Short, another Australian, would have been recognisable to most of the crowd. Short was not involved in the World Cup but has played for his country, as well as in T20 leagues around the world. Also on show was Keaton Jennings, who has scored a Test century for England but has otherwise struggled at the highest level and has been dropped from the most recent squad.

    Player of the match Maxwell is interviewed after Lancashire’s 72 run win

    The majority of the England players involved in the victorious World Cup campaign were getting a well deserved rest, with the seven week long tournament soon to be followed by a Test match against Ireland and the five match Ashes series against Australia. Part of me, though, wished that there could have been a way to get those stars involved in the first couple of rounds of T20 Blast fixtures to really capitalise on the current popularity of cricket in this country.

    Had those England players been available, the Lancashire side would have featured Jos Buttler and Durham’s side would have boasted Ben Stokes, who was player of the match in the World Cup final. Mark Wood is also a Durham player but is injured and out until September. It would have been fantastic for the crowd to have been able to see their new heroes, but I understand that with a packed schedule it was almost impossible. Wood and Stokes paraded the World Cup trophy around Durham’s home ground the Riverside on Saturday, as captain Eoin Morgan had done around Lord’s, where he plays for Middlesex, on Thursday. I had a faint hope that Buttler might have done the same around Old Trafford on Sunday but it was not to be.

    The T20 Blast is a fantastic product. Now in its 17th season, the crowds are big, the standard is high and overseas stars want to play in it. If some of it was on Free-to-air television instead of it all being on Sky Sports I have no doubt it would be a massive annual summer event.

    Walking away from Old Trafford, I couldn’t for the life of me fathom why the authorities have felt the need to invent an entirely new format of the game to try to attract new fans. Next year will see the launch of The Hundred, a convoluted version of the game with the simplest part being one hundred balls per innings. Eight completely new teams, based around the major cities and with awful names like London Spirt and Leeds Superchargers, will take part. These teams will have to start from scratch, with none of the existing loyal following of the county sides. The only thing going for it is that some of it will be on BBC TV. It makes absolutely no sense and from what I can see it is doomed to fail.

    My visit to Manchester on Sunday was conclusive proof for me that the England and Wales Cricket Board already has everything it needs to make cricket the undisputed second sport of the nation again. I can only hope that their seemingly muddled thinking doesn’t mean they miss the opportunity.

  • What England can take from the Sri Lanka Tests

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    England beat Sri Lanka 3-0 in the Test series

    England have become only the third team ever to go to Sri Lanka and whitewash them in a Test series. They may not have their great players any more, such as Mahela Jayawardene or Kumar Sangakkara, but Sri Lanka remain a very difficult opponent in their own conditions. They beat South Africa 2-0 in a Test series back in July, thrashing the Proteas in both matches, so it is without a doubt a fine effort from Joe Root’s team. Here I have picked out five key things for England to take away from the tour.

    Openers

    Rory Burns was the popular choice to succeed Alastair Cook at the top of the order, but he leaves Sri Lanka with only one half century to his name. Burns is probably best suited to facing pace bowling, which there was precious little of in this series. He needs to be given the chance to show what he can do in the Caribbean, and I can see him opening the batting in next summer’s Ashes.

    Keaton Jennings might have considered himself fortunate to be on the tour but there was a logic to his selection. He is actually a very competent player of spin, and he showed that in his century in the second innings in Galle. Jennings is much maligned and clearly has a weakness against seam bowling, so it’s hard to tell whether he’ll be lining up against Australia next year. What is not in doubt, though, is his fielding ability – some of the catches he took at short leg over the three Tests were nothing short of ridiculous.

    Number 3

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    Jonny Bairstow made a statement with his century in Colombo

    England have not had a settled number 3 in the batting order since the retirement of Jonathan Trott, and it remains a problem position for them. I suppose this links in with how fragile the openers have been, as the next man in has had to do a lot of the early work. They used three different batsmen in the role in the three Tests – Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow. Moeen just doesn’t seem to be up to it, Stokes was only given the one chance, but Bairstow made the most of his opportunity with a hundred in Colombo.

    He might not even have been picked for the match if Sam Curran had been fit, but the Yorkshireman was clearly determined to make a point after slipping out of the side following his ankle injury. The injury, picked up during a game of football, prompted a lot of moaning about cricketers warming up in such a way. The fact is, Bairstow could have turned his ankle over anywhere – walking down the stairs in the team hotel, for example. Football is a good way of loosening up the muscles and getting the blood flowing, and the players love it. Personally, I think a lot of the complaints had a snobbish air to them. A lot of people don’t want the gentleman cricketers playing such a common game. There has also been the frankly ridiculous argument that ‘you never see footballers warming up with a game of cricket’. Well, if cricket was a proven way to prepare the body for exercise, you may well have done.

    Whether Bairstow is England’s number 3 going forward is not clear. He may just have been so set on scoring big runs in the third Test that he would have made them wherever he batted in the order. I do think he will be in the position in the West Indies, and this may have to be his new role in the team now it looks like he won’t be getting the wicketkeeping gloves back.

    Wicketkeeper

    Ben Foakes was the best thing about the tour for England. He had been on the fringes of the team for a while, without ever breaking into it. Having not even been in the squad when it was initially announced, few would have expected him to end up the leading run scorer in the series. But he started off superbly in Galle with a debut century, showing the top order how to bat, and has made wicketkeeping a thing of beauty with his flawless glovework. Sorry Jonny, but England have found their wicketkeeper. Foakes has been widely regarded as the best gloveman in the country for a while now, and in the year he was a county champion with Surrey things are certainly going well for him.

    Adil Rashid

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    Adil Rashid took career best figures in Colombo but is a luxury bowler

    England played three spinners in every Test in the series, and it is hard to imagine them doing that anywhere other than the subcontinent. Moeen Ali, Jack Leach and Adil Rashid all had major roles to play, bowling the vast majority of the overs and taking nearly all the wickets. Moeen found a happy knack of getting regular wickets, and was vital in the second innings in Galle to seal the win for England when it looked like Sri Lanka had a chance. Leach is a very tidy bowler, and took his maiden five wicket haul in the second Test. He also seems to love every second of playing for England, pretty much to the point of not being able to stop smiling, which is great to see. Rashid bowled the fewest overs of the three spinners, and goes for a lot more runs than the other two, but he showed his worth with a five-for in Colombo which enabled England to take control of the match.

    Rashid looks the most likely to miss out when conditions necessitate more seamers in the side. He is something of a luxury spinner, who will bowl the occasional unplayable delivery but will leak runs in the meantime. Moeen will probably be in the side more often than not, as he will nearly always take wickets and England like players who can do a bit of everything. Leach looks like he could well be the long term spinner in the side, the kind of go-to bowler that Graeme Swann was. His ability to keep it tight and hold up an end will be very useful.

    Anderson and Broad

    While the Sri Lanka tour has been very successful, it has taught us nothing about how England will deal with life after Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad. Anderson played in the first two Tests and took just the one wicket – not unexpected in a country with conditions that so favour spin bowling. Broad came in for the last match and bowled only 14 wicketless overs. Many saw the Colombo Test as the opportunity to give Ollie Stone a go, with the series already won and the pressure off. There was an argument for this, but it’s hard to see what knowledge of Stone we would have gained from playing him in such difficult conditions. Decisions will have to be made sooner rather than later as Anderson and Broad head towards retirement but I am really not sure Sri Lanka was ever going to be the place to find solutions.