It’s a World Cup, for crying out loud
Andy Zaltzman10-Mar-20151. There is a substitute for experience
Or at least, there is a substitute for experience when that experience is functioning as productively as a picnic hamper in a lava flow. England’s experienced Core Four – Bell, Morgan, Broad and Anderson – not only failed in various different and costly ways, but their struggles seemed to exacerbate the uncertainties of a team that had its suspected vulnerability confirmed on day one in Melbourne, and its hopes of recovery shattered by Southee and McCullum in match two.Bell’s cautious, stifled half-century against Scotland in Christchurch conveyed concern as much as determination. In Adelaide, when he restrained his early calm fluency in an effort to avert a potential wobble, he succeeded only in incompleting another major innings, fired out by a spitting lifter from the sizzling Rubel, thus perhaps creating exactly the misgivings he was seeking to dispel.Few bowlers enduring droughts as pronounced and untimely as Broad and Anderson could succeed in maintaining outward positivity as they seek to rediscover their former vibrant cricketing selves. Broad and Anderson were not amongst those few.If Morgan was not weighed down by captaincy, his batting appeared to be weighed down by something. Whether it was or not, only he knows.They all tried hard, patently but without discernible belief, they all failed. “Greatness is contagious,” proudly announce the banners at the World Cup venues (which possibly explains why the authorities seem to view it as a disease that must in future be quarantined within a shrunken ten-team tournament). So too is doubt, and insecurity, and apprehension, although the ICC perhaps understandably elected not to parade these facts in large letters on brightly coloured hoardings.England have long misplaced the alchemy that creates, entrenches and spreads form, fluency and confidence. With their four most seasoned components out of kilter, England had no clear-headed reconstructor of innings, no anchor of reassurance around which to construct their campaign and their matches, no Sangakkara or Mathews, no Mushfiqur or Mortaza, no Joyce or Cusack. The under-employed brilliance of Buttler, whose natural power gives his strokeplay the authority England otherwise lacked, nearly bailed his team out, but England needed at least two of their four relative veterans to have major tournaments. Like so many England linchpins in World Cups before them, none of them did.2. The World Cup makes players do unexpected things
On October 9, 2006, North Korea claimed to have conducted its first ever nuclear test. Four days later, Ban Keith Moon, the pin-up boy of South Korean diplomacy and son of a rock-drumming-hating father, was elected as the new Secretary General of the United Nations. In between those two events, amidst rather less international attention, Tawanda Mupariwa hit two fours in a 67-ball 20 in a seldom-discussed one-day international against Sri Lanka in Ahmedabad.Fast forward more than eight years, to March 6, 2015. North Korea had been constantly in and around the international news agenda, through various acts of provocative crank-headed nuttiness by the Krazy Kims. Ban has spent almost a decade slamming his head against his UN desk, internally screaming “Why is my species such an idiot?”, and coming to the conclusion that his job as chief leak-plugger in the colander of global politics is arguably more onerous and possibly more thankless even than that of head coach of the England cricket team.Mupariwa, on the other hand, had hit the grand total of zero more ODI boundaries. In fact, in his 17 ODIs in that period, all but one played before 2010, his 12 innings had harvested 16 runs, seven ducks, and no awards for Batsman Most Likely To Hit 4, 4 And 6 In Successive Balls Of The Penultimate Over Of A Nerve-Shredding World Cup Match.On March 7, 2015, as the tumult of Williams’ dismissal reverberated, Mupariwa broke his eight-years-and-five-months ODI boundary famine. He overtook his tally from his previous 12 innings in just six balls – 18 runs, including four, four and six off three Kevin O’Brien deliveries to prove that awards committees know nothing, and took his nation to the precipice of a startling victory.In the final over, however, Cusack bowled Regis Chakabva, and Mupariwa perhaps remembered that he was a batsman who gets out more or less instantaneously, not one who hits match-winning flurries of boundaries under intense pressure. He skied his next attempted blast of unexpected tail-end heroism to long-on, and Zimbabwe were out.Of the many feats described as “unbelievable” in this fascinating tournament, most of which have been believable but nonetheless impressive (or, in most English cases, numbingly believable but nonetheless depressing), this was perhaps the most genuinely incredible, an adrenaline-fuelled smashing of personal precedent and cricketing probability, when his country needed and almost received a near-miracle.3. Don’t walk
Zimbabwe’s Sean Williams taught the world a very valuable lesson – when you have either (a) been caught on the boundary, or (b) brought up your century with a six, and taken your team half a dozen runs closer to a victory, do not walk. Even if it looks like the fielder caught the ball fairly within the field of play. Even if the fielder thinks he has caught the ball fairly within the field of play. Even if the umpires ought to have been smart and swift enough to hold you back to check whether the fielder had caught the ball fairly, before you completed your own dismissal.In many ways, it was an admirable display of trust within the context of cricket. But still… a World Cup match on a knife edge… your maiden international century… your team facing elimination if you lose… Make sure. Don’t walk.4. It is a batsman’s game
Not only are the regulations dice loaded in favour of today’s batsmen (as they have been for most of the last 120 years), but the Man-of-the-Match adjudicators are nakedly pro-bat as well.Ed Joyce scored an excellent match-shaping hundred for Ireland against Zimbabwe; it was one of four scores of 90 or more in the match, and was scored at slightly below the overall match run rate. Alex Cusack took 4 for 32 off 9.3 overs, including the critical wicket of Brendan Taylor, and the two conclusive strikes in the final over. His economy rate was 3.3 – no other bowler on either side in the 657-run match went for less than 5.6 per over. Short of hiring a light-aircraft to buzz the stadium whilst trailing a banner reading “I have obviously been the greatest influence on the result of this game. Yours sincerely, A Cusack (Ireland)”, there was little else the medium-pacer could have done to win the Man-of-the-Match award.Joyce was duly named Man of the Match. Granted, such trinkets are essentially meaningless, but they need not be quite as meaningless as the appointed sages make them.5. Fast bowling is good. It works. For spectators and teams.
Above all, it makes Pakistan a different team when they unleash it.
