Posted by No, like, we REALLY wrote about Paul Collingwood this time. It’s like a proper article for a proper website. You may have read it a couple of days ago, of course. If you did, we apologise, because this is all you’re getting here on King Cricket today.
But why not read it again anyway? Come on, it’s a good one. On Twitter, none other than Paul Collingwood himself said of the piece:
“Very kind words!!”
Two exclamation marks! For once we’re actually happy about that, rather than irritated. If you think that betrays a certain inconsistency in our attitude to punctuation, why don’t you toddle off and score a double hundred in an Ashes Test? Do that and we’ll be perfectly happy for you to use two consecutive exclamation marks, providing you’re also expressing approval for something we’ve written.
“But let’s get something straight: batting is about scoring runs.”
And in the comments, only a few lines later:
“More than his fielding, batting and leadership; I liked him for his “Gentleman’s behaviour”
(That’s what the last column in t’book must be for, where the scorer fills out the batsman’s Gentlemanly Behaviour Index.)
Anyway, it’s all bollocks about Collingwood. As you say, look in t’book. And if you do, you will find that Collingwood was a journeyman cricketer who lacked style AND substance, as can be seen from this comparison of him with some of our accepted truly classy batsmen:
Runs HS Ave SR 100s 50s
Paul Collingwood
4259 206 40.56 46.44 10 20
Michael Atherton
7728 185* 37.69 37.31 16 46
Alec Stewart
8463 190 39.54 48.66 15 45
Nasser Hussein
5764 207 37.18 40.38 14 33
If more (any) people in English cricket understood your line “…batting is about scoring runs,” we wouldn’t be in half the mess we are in, or a quarter of the mess we are going to be in.
Hey, KC. Any chance you can use magic to reformat that table? Even I can’t read it.
I mentioned these stats to a mate of mine, who said it proves how much more difficult batting was in the 90s (with great fast bowlers a-plenty). So I checked. It turns out that FIFTY test players had better averages than Atherton, Stewart and Hussein in the 1990s, and if you take the period 1995 to 2004, SEVENTY test players had better averages.
What it proves is how easily we accepted mediocrity, sometimes even confusing it for excellence. Welcome to the new old world.
I entered that Collingwood string of numbers into my bank’s on-line system. Straight through security and into somebody’s bank account…or I should now say, somebody’s former, empty bank account. That’s me set for the weekend.
Thanks Bert.
Bert, I would temper your new old-world appraisal with England having rubbish bowlers.
This put added pressure on the batsmen – hence Atherton, Stewart etc having figures that do not stand up against their international contemporaries.
Those contemporaries all (basically) had decent attacks. We accepted mediocrity because when you’ve conceded 500 and they’ve got Wasim and Waqar, that’s the best you could hope for.
Averages, schmaverages.
In the 1990s *nobody* scored more test runs than Stewart, and Atherton was less than 200 runs behind.
Nobody scored more test runs than Atherton while he was playing, and over Stewart’s career, he was only topped by Waugh S and Tendulkar, neither of whom spent half their careers keeping wicket.
For these purposes I was counting 1990 as part of the 90s, I guess you could pedantically argue I should have used 2000.
And everyone always thought Hussain was crap.
You forgot to mention that nobody played as many test innings as Atherton and Stewart during the 90s. Beyond the top 4 – AJ Stewart (Eng), ME Waugh (Aus), MA Taylor (Aus), MA Atherton (Eng), others played 50 innings less. Steve Waugh played 25 fewer innings and scored 4 runs less than Atherton. Tendulkar and Lara played ~60% of the number of innings and were still pretty close.
I think I understand it. They all had a very low strike rate but Colly’s was the fastest so he didn’t score many 100’s or 50’s?
The Yorkshire Post has an article today where they repeatedly talk about Lord’s, the Ashes’ Tests, Priors’ injury etc.
I give that !!!!!
I remember that six in 2008. Pietersen had got out earlier in the day, also on 94, trying to whallop a six out of the ground.
The commentators were fighting over themselves to put the shoe in. From cricinfo;
“53.1 Harris has got him! Pietersen’s gone! Skipping down the pitch and going for the glory shot over the top, but he picks out long-on, and he swears black and blue while trudging back to the pavilion. He is absolutely apoplectic with rage – and understandably so. He might just have thrown the game away for England”
And as you said, he was about to be dropped.
20/20 can go to hell.
“Prior to announcing his comeback for Lancashire, Flintoff said he had hoped to have been selected for July’s invitational match at Lord’s between Marleybone Cricket Club and a World XI in July.”
Good old BBC manage to find a little known cricket club to play the World. I’m starting to think it is really called Lord’s
It is, isn’t it? Named after Thomas Lord.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/27645389
hahahahaha… ohfergodsake – i would say this is all getting ridiculous, but when was it not?
also… this seems as good a time as any to piss and moan about the paucity of people left in the english-speaking world who understand what “disinterested” means (paul downton is not among them). of course i’m preaching to the choir here, given that half of those left who *do* understand it are probably reading this website
It’s in the name, he’s being eschatological.
which “he” are we talking about here? KP, paul downton or john apocalypse?
As explained by my English teacher:
A good referee is interested and disinterested
A bad referee is interested and uninterested
Of course, he didn’t mean “explained” in the way most people use it.
Nonsense.
adjective
1.not influenced by considerations of personal advantage.
“a banker is under an obligation to give disinterested advice”
2.having or feeling no interest in something; uninterested.
“her father was so disinterested in her progress that he only visited the school once”
… in fact, thinking about it, this last distinction is particularly ironic given that we very much WANT sportsmen to be disinterested, and – apparently – not enough of them are at present…
ok, ignore that one. clearly sportsmen have an interest in the way the match turns out. it’s just not supposed to be a financial one