Lacklustre England performances in the one dayers

He writes for The Northern Echo from Australia.

THE memories of the fabulous Christmas Test here in Melbourne that proved to be the beginning of the end for Australia’s Ashes hopes have been tarnished slightly by the generally lacklustre England performances in the one dayers.

The match at the MCG, which started this latest series, marked the 40th anniversary of one day international cricket – the first recognised ODI being played on the same ground, and between the same opponents, in January 1971, simply as a means of appeasing a public who had suffered a complete wash out of the fifth Test.

For the record, Bill Lawry’s Australia defeated Ray Illingworth’s England by five wickets with five overs to spare.

The game was played over 40 eight-ball overs per side, and Geoff Boycott went into the record books as the first batsman to face a ball in ODI cricket, and the first batsman to lose his wicket as he departed for a quickfire eight from 37 balls.

All 11 of that Aussie team are still around today and as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations ten were introduced to the crowd at the interval. The only absentee, for work reasons, being Rod Marsh.

The newspapers here suggested the 40th birthday of ODI’s arrived with the 50- over form of the game ‘officially in the throes of a mid-life crisis’, with falling interest, dwindling crowds and significant competition from more recent versions of high octane cricket....and there is certainly evidence that this is now the least popular format.

Not unusually Australia has taken the bull by the horns in its own domestic one day competition, addressing the apparent apathy towards 50 over cricket by introducing a new innovative format this season - split-innings cricket.

The Ryobi One-Day Cup kicked off in October and sees the State sides playing each other on a league format before the finals later this month.

The key changes to the rules that we’re familiar with are that each side has one innings of 45 overs, but they bat in separate blocks of 20 overs and then 25 overs.

Teams can use 12 players (only 11 can bat), bowlers may bowl 12 overs, and powerplays are abolished.

The jury is still out here on whether this will take off, but the perceived wisdom is the rules allow teams to pick their best specialist players, rather than a mixture of bits and pieces cricketers. This is said to have led to a higher standard of cricket, and higher scores despite the reduction in overs.

THE Aussies’ domination of the one-day series has given my clubmates the opportunity to find their voice again, and I’ve been getting quite a bit of stick in the dressing room of late.

As an antidote, I bought myself an exact replica of the Ashes urn – great value as they were going cheap in Melbourne after the fourth Test.

The trophy is tucked away safely in my kit bag and if my Aussie pals get too lippy I just whip out the little urn – which serves to shut them up for about ten seconds!

I ALSO seemed to get under the opposition’s skin last week after being given not out in a one dayer when I missed one down the leg side.

Despite being nowhere near the ball the noise of the bat flicking the pad (honestly) meant all 11 went up for a catch behind, the appeal manic and prolonged.

The umpire stood firm in the face of this intimidation and correctly gave it not out and signalled a wide, but this just sent the fielding team into orbit and they started bombarding the poor fella with abuse about the fact that he shouldn’t have given a wide because the ball hit the pad!

Rather surprisingly I managed to remain reasonably calm, albeit that a few inter-continental pleasantries were exchanged.

SLEDGING tends to be part and parcel of the game here.

Most players have the attitude that ‘the umpire is getting paid to make decisions so the players can appeal whenever, and say whatever, they want.’ The league authorities do try to enforce discipline, and have one penalty I’ve never come across in England. If a player receives a disciplinary suspension his captain also receives a similar ban at the same time if the original offence was something he should have controlled.

Having captained a side here last year which contained a particularly difficult character I can tell you it certainly had an effect as I was constantly trying to keep the bloke in check. The officials do tend to make a rod for their own backs by letting quite a bit go, and my experience here has heightened my respect for the officials in the NYSD back home who generally do a great job.

Nothing to do with defending ourselves in a sledging environment but our club coach sprang a surprise by announcing that our training night this week would include a fitness session run by a female martial arts champion.

Definitely a first for me.