Hope, hubris and Haddin

Well another Ashes series is here and England is a buzz with a strange feeling. A sort of cautious, whispered hope. Gallows humour has been temporarily suspended and across the land the first sprouts of belief are peeking through the cracks in sun-baked outfields. No one speaks it out loud of course, instead they exchange nods, knowing winks and half-raised eyebrows. But the meaning is all too clear "maybe we do have a chance after all".

But on what great feats do we base this new found slither of confidence? A strong World Cup performance? Ah, okay, well some pretty convincing Test series wins then surely? Right, I see, so basically this new found belief is based on a drawn two match series with the Kiwis and a 3-2 victory in the after party hit and giggle. Oh if only blind optimism was an Olympic sport!

You think I'm unfair. That's understandable, it really is. The thing is we don't come at this from the same perspective. I'm guessing that eighteen months ago you didn't spend seven weeks of your life trekking (not literally, there were planes involved) from one stiflingly hot antipodean mega stadium to the next, watching the same dismal, depressing show play out time after time after time after time. Well I did and frankly I haven't recovered. And to be honest I'm not sure that I'm going to.

You know what made it worse? It all started off pretty well. Just before lunch Stuart Broad directed a short ball into Michael Clarke's ribs looking to exploit a weakness exposed in England a few months earlier. The Brisbane heat seemed to have done little to help the back problem deemed to be the root of Clarke's discomfort and he fended the ball straight into Ian Bell's hands at short leg. Australia 74 for 3. Teetering.

It was Broad's third wicket of a morning in which he had seemed energised as seldom before, spurred on no doubt by sustained personal abuse that must have shocked him, not for its content or vociferousness but for how widely it was taken up. When you have pre-teenage children joining their parents and thirty odd thousand other people in chanting "Broad is a wanker" you really have to wonder about a society.

Giddy in my English superiority, both moral and cricketing, I took to Twitter. "it's gone rather quiet at the Gabba" I drooled. It was my first tweet of the series. Also my last...

Hubris, you say? Haddin, I reply.

Australia struggled on to 132 for six but then everything changed. Mitchell Johnson joined his keeper, a partnership of 112 ensued, and a below par total morphed into a more than respectable one.  This became the unbreakable, inevitable pattern of the series from first match to last. Johnson may have ripped away English nerve and confidence but it was Haddin who sapped our hopes. Bloody Haddin. Five times he walked to the crease and five times he walked off having doubled the first innings total (give or take a couple of runs in Melbourne). It didn't even help that you knew what was coming. When Broad removed George Bailey just before lunch on the first day at Sydney (oh George how we miss you!), the Aussies stood 97-5. I knew better, of course I did, but I just couldn't help it. So I hoped, I willed, I prayed. "You've taken so much, just give us this one little something".

Close of Play - Australia 326, England 8-1. Bloody Haddin.

Do you understand better now? You see I'm just not ready for your kind of hopeful objectivity. I don't care that Haddin's only averaging 18 in Tests in the last year. I'm not interested that since he arrived Lyon has been carted by just about every batsman he's bowled at. It matters not a jot to me that Australia haven't won a series in England for fourteen years. And it is most certainly not relevant that their best bowler has just announced his immediate retirement.

I know you don't agree but trust me, it's better for everyone like this.

Overstepping the mark: DRS must go farther

It may have gone through more updates and revision than Windows but the current version of the referral system (DRS) shows little sign of having ironed out the bugs of its earlier editions. Like space travel, our ambitions for the technology continue to outweigh what it can currently supply. That is, of course, if you consider a world where every decision is guaranteed 100% correct to be an utopian rather than Orwellian one.

The Indian cricket board last week announced that it would not accept the use of the referral system in any bilateral series in the foreseeable future. (It will, however, be forced to accept it during the forthcoming world cup.) The BCCI stated quite plainly that it doesn't trust the accuracy of the technology. The Ashes series just finished, hardly disproved this point but it did provide compelling evidence for its extension in one particular area.

To my mind the value of having no-balls reviewed was proved beyond question, with two wicket-taking deliveries voided for overstepping.  I have mentioned previously that line decisions are technologies' bread and butter, the logic of using it for no-balls is obvious and undeniable. So why do we continue to adopt such a half-baked approach? Are we really to believe that the only two deliveries in the entire series where an umpire was unsure as to where the front foot landed were those that took wickets. Of course not.  You can't blame the on field umpires. Mitchell Johnson's radar was typically askew when he argued "If the umpires know it's a no-ball I think they should call it, instead of waiting to call it," Well I guess they would have if they were sure Mitch...

The fact is, umpires are in no position to make an accurate judgment - they are often stood two or three metres back from the stumps (at the request of the bowler no doubt) and besides which they have more important things to do.  I also wouldn't criticise them for not making more referrals, over rates are funereal enough as it is. Instead full responsibility should be given to the third umpire to review each delivery. There may not have been many tight finishes in this particular series, but one doesn't have to go too far back to recall matches won or lost by the odd run. 34 no-balls were called during this past series. But how many more went unpunished?

Bringing back distant memories of Perth, Johnson did eventually find his line and length when adding "  "I suppose it's not a bad thing, but it can be frustrating. I suppose you've just got to get your foot behind the line." Well, yeah.