Undazzled
Chelmsford – His old mucker Nasser Hussain is enjoying a well-earned retirement after bowing out at the top last month; Darren Gough is the only former England star seeing out the end of his career with Essex.
On Tuesday night, Gough did what he does best, uprooting the stumps of the last man to complete a one-day league win for the Eagles under the floodlights with the Sky TV cameras rolling, but his figures of 3-19 were his best in any form of the game for the county he joined from Yorkshire via helicopter at the start of the year. When the sun comes out, he is mortal.
Dazzler would argue vociferously that he has lost none of his fire, although his retirement from Test cricket last summer was an admission to some extent that he was losing his battle with long-term knee trouble. In St Lucia he suffered his most expensive outing in any of his 126 one-day internationals, conceding 1-67 from 8.1 overs. Essex won't complain – he does a job with the ball, raises the club's profile and brings in a few extra fans to the bigger matches. They accepted on signing him that he wouldn't play every day.
England spent last summer arguing in favour of having a senior bowler to tutor the new crop. When Gough retired, they toyed with Glen Chapple then employed Martin Bicknell, with mixed success. They abandoned that idea for the Test side, which won 3-0, in the West Indies but stuck with it for the one-day series, which they could more easily have lost.
David Graveney and Co name their limited-overs squad this weekend with Gough still optimistic he will get another chance to face New Zealand and West Indies, and with Simon Jones struggling for fitness he may get his wish. If he does make it, he will be there or thereabouts, but nowhere near his peak.
Spotted
1. A particularly natty BA Barracas-style mohawk haircut, dyed brick-red and sported by Hampshire all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas, a worthy addition to the glut of idiosyncratic styles on the county circuit.
2. Ten men around the bat as Shane Warne-inspired Hampshire tried to prevent a new Essex batsman find his groove. A master-class in Aussie ruthlessness, even if unsuccessful on this occasion.
Six sense
1. Zimbabwe bowed to the inevitable this week and accepted the suspension of their Test programme. That left Pakistan wondering what they can do instead of hosting two Test matches in early October, suggesting a third team might join them for a triangular one-day series. And it left England still obliged to play a four-match one-day series in Zimbabwe after that. I'm taking two, adding one and making a triangle.
2. Interesting that South Africa and India have agreed to send A-teams to Zimbabwe before the turn of the year. (As they have a problem and no one else can help, maybe Mascarenhas will help out with hairstyling). The captain of the South Africa A tourists in early 2003 was one of the only cricketers to speak out about playing in the country with everything that was happening off the field – his name was Graeme Smith.
3. Remove one goose from surrounding golden eggs and roast until easily consumable; serve with wallaby. No sooner has Twenty20 cricket succeeded at county level, creating a unique product that has brought fans flocking to see the domestic game, than England are planning to play it internationally against Australia. One-day internationals play to packed houses so why change a winning formula, and why risk devaluing in the public perception one of the few things county cricket has got going for it?
4. It can't be long before England follow the rest of the world in allowing three days off between back-to-back Test matches and – horror of horrors – start a Test on a Friday. New Zealand have been terribly charitable in making sure each match goes the distance but West Indies might leave us with a couple of Sunday afternoons free. With a Friday start you guarantee paying fans cricket over the weekend at least, although it might not work as well for corporate sales.
5. It's a shame we didn't get more of a chance to see Chris Cairns at his best in Test cricket. He showed just how much damage he could do on New Zealand's 1999 tour of England – 80 at Lord's and that brilliant slower ball that yorked Chris Read – but since then he has been dogged by injury, mainly to his knees. His father Lance this week suggested he shouldn't have begun his county career with Notts aged 19, suggesting the year-round cricket since then didn't help. Let's hope there are still some one-day highlights left from the man who injected the Kiwis with charisma.
6. The maxim that you can please all of the people some of the time or some of the people all of the time doesn't apply to county cricket, where there's nothing that warms the cockles like a good moan. It used to be that those selected for the Test squad and not required for the final XI could only rejoin their county if their match had not begun – cue moans as many matches begin on Wednesdays. Last year Lancashire moaned openly when centrally-contracted duo James Anderson and Andrew Flintoff were made unavailable for a match that was squeezed between two Tests. Last year a rule was introduced allowing specialist substitutes to cover for selection so, when not required by England this week Anderson headed back to Old Trafford, where the Lanckies had already leaked a first innings 470 to Sussex. There were moans about the new rule being stupid! Answers, on a postcard, to the ECB.
Turnfurlong 4th XI update
Thank God for timed matches. They racked up 270 after I made the mistake of employing Pooley's right-arm slow – I hadn't realised you could concede six wides from a single delivery - but Derek was in obdurate mood. Four not out in three hours. The gout meant his footwork wasn't up to much, and of course he wasn't running for anything. Undefeated for a second week running.
