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EddieOnTheWing

Listed below are comments made by EddieOnTheWing between Monday, 18th May 2009 and Saturday, 7th November 2009.

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The rise of the English South Africans 2:00pm on 07 Nov 2009 Oh, sorry, I forgot to add - would you dare to ask an Asian resident in Yorkshire or Essex the quesiton in the first place?
The rise of the English South Africans 1:59pm on 07 Nov 2009 Ah, I get it 121- qualification for the English cricket team is to give the correct answer to this question: "Do you consider yourself to be English?". Do we ask that one with or without lie detectors? What would you consider to be acceptable coroborative evidence? And how regularly shall we re-ask it in case they've changed their minds? And, more sensibly, would an answer of "I consider myself to be an Englishman of South African/ West Indian/ Asian descent" be acceptable? And, for the umpteenth time of asking, if not, why not?
The rise of the English South Africans 8:31pm on 06 Nov 2009 Right, it's actually become a challenge now. Will one person who claims that any of Trott, Pietersen, Strauss or Prior are not English, please stop just repeating that claim over and over again and be good enough to tell the rest of us (a) what your definition of English actually is and (b) why we should accept that your definition is better than the official one?
The rise of the English South Africans 4:20pm on 06 Nov 2009 In this discussion, a lot of people have announced that Player X is not really English or how disgraceful it is that we even consider Player Y. Not one person who has made a statement to that effect has come up with a definition of "English" that is none of the following:

1)Inconsistent - eg Hussain (born in India, mixed parentage) was ok, but Pietersen (born in South Africa, mixed parentage)is not
2) Arbitrary- eg who did they support as a child? (What is the cut off age?)
3) Irrational - where did they learn their cricket? (Hopefully, they never stop learning it)
4) Irrelevant - they're only here for the money (prove it)
or
5) Downright Racist - not born in England (or worse, not "obviously" of English origin).

The alternative view - that you were either
1) born in a country,
2) have a specified number of parents or grandparents who were born in that country, or
3) have lived in that country for an agreed amount of time
is by comparisom consistent, rational and straightforward. Really can't see why people have a problem with it.
The rise of the English South Africans 7:45pm on 05 Nov 2009 100 years ago Ranjitsinji was considered eligible for England because people thought he was a prince. Was he a product of our junior cricket? Are we saying we should be MORE restrictive in our idea of Englishness than the Victorians? For those who argue that we're on a slippery slope, was Rani at the top or the bottom of it, do you think?

Mike Denness was born is Scotland. Should he have been allowed to play for, never mind captain, England? Or Sir Colin Cowdrey (Bangalore)? Or Sir Pelham Warner (Port Of Spain, Trinidad)? Are we saying that if someone was born in another country as a result of our colonial occupation of it, that's fine, but not if it was an free nation at the time? Or is it about parents? If so, what is the minimum number required to be "English"?

It's actually this - and it goes back to Ranjitsinji. After his first test century, one MCC member who spoke admiringly to another about it found himself denounced for "having the temerity to praise a filthy black". I don't think that racist has died. But I think that if he says what he really thinks about having players with names like Adil Rashid or - good grief - England captains with names like Nasser Hussain, he's wise enough to know what the reaction will be. For that mindset, white South Africans (and, even better, Irish) provide an easy smokescreen. But they're not the real target. The real target is the notion that a national side, no, a national sport, no, a nation should ever be truly mulicultural. Someone on 606 recently complained that England has become the "United Nations of International Cricket" - I'm ashamed of people who are ashamed of that.
England one-day player ratings 7:51pm on 21 Sep 2009 If you must score people at all, score them against reasonable expectations. The reasonable expectation for younger players coming into the side SHOULD be that they score a few runs, take a couple of wickets, back up those who should be the senior players and look like they'll be able to build on it (Anything more is a bonus). Did Denly, Morgan, Wright, Rashid and Bresnan deliver against that expectation? Mostly, yes.

The expectation from the senior, more experienced players is that they score the bulk of the runs, bowl most of the overs and hopefully take control of the game. Did they? Strauss and the bowlers for the most part, yes. Prior and, especially Collingwood, no.

Unfortunately, in addition to Prior and Collingwood being out of form with the bat (and given the fact that the schedules have had them playing almost non-stop international cricket since February that was going to happen to somebody) there were two players, Shah and Bopara, who not only failed to perform themselves, but managed to undermine (and sometimes run out) everybody else as well and then compounded the felony by fielding to a standard even fast bowlers of the 1920s would have considered unacceptable.

So no, it is not fair to bring Wright into the side to bash a quick 35 at the end and then complain that he didn't bash the slow 70 that he'd been left needing and isn't fair to complain that Morgan wasn't able to improvise finishes when the start had already been blown away. And it definitely isn't fair to give the same low ratings to junior players for not having the experience to rescue the side as to the senior players who let the side down in the first place.
Edgbaston ratings 7:30pm on 03 Aug 2009 No 6, what is the matter with you?

Paul Collingwood's record for England in the last 12 months:15 Tests, 1079 runs at an average of over 49, 4 centuries, 6 50s, no ducks.

Are there actually any circumstances at all in which you won't consider him to be on borrowed time
Injuries take their toll on England's lionheart 7:46pm on 15 Jul 2009 The "fuss" is about a bowler who could out think and out perform the best batsmen in the world. The "fuss" is about a batsman who on his day can make quality bowling attacks look silly. The "fuss" is about someone who could step up for the last over in an ODI with the opponents needing three to win and bowl a maiden. The "fuss" is about giving proper respect to a cricketer who might only have taken two wickets in an innings, but they'd have been Hayden and Ponting or Dravid and Tendulkar.
The "fuss" is about making it clear to anyone who may be fooled that statistics without context tell you nothing about real achievements. And also, the "fuss" is about making sure that anyone who thinks that ignorant statements like "too busy getting drunk to be considered any good" are going to gain you any respect from anybody is not encouraged in their delusions.
England World Twenty20 player ratings 7:35pm on 16 Jun 2009 "You can't mince words", said someone earlier, by which I assume he meant, " hurl the most accusatory things you can and never mind a sense of proportion". And words like Disgraceful, Terrible, Apologise and Old Boy Network (oh give it a rest!) don't describe England's performance in this competition. The phrases that do are ones like "a par performance, but should have been better", "better than they were, but still not good enough" and "ok, but some big weaknesses let them down". Ok, not snappy or self-righteous enough for some, but I'm afraid accurate.

In the end, there have been over 75 posts on this blog since no 20 by Andy Plowright and less than 2% of them have had anything to say that's even 50% as intelligent. So thanks Andy, good to see that someone responded to what happened on the pitch rather than just reiterating their own prejudices.
England player ratings 7:35pm on 18 May 2009 Until they guy turned up who wants to drop all the batsmen except Owais Shah followed by the one who wants to sack the captain for not getting the declaration wrong and drop Collingwood for only being able to deal with Australia and South Africa by scoring centuries against them, and one or two people who think that an England win is by definition a nail in the coffin of test cricket, I was getting worried. Responding to a player ratings piece by saying that it was generally fair and if anything didn't give people enough credit? That is not the kind of whining negativity that England expects from its supporters.

Fortunately the responses demanding Collingwood's removal were so gloriously full of factual inaccuracies, ridiculous interpretations and ludicrous alternatives that they restore confidence - but it was a close run thing for a minute there.

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