lookupsport

The advance of technology in all sports now, has always been seen as a good thing. Teams can replay matches and analyse performances with coaches, to refine their already considerable talents and plot tactics for the next battle.  In individual sports, technique can be analysed and honed by watching super slow replays, thereby ironing out any wrinkles and creating the “text book” player.  That’s what you would think at least.  However, 2 comments in the last 2 days have suggested this is not neccessarily a good thing.

First up Michael Vaughan.  When interviewed about his involvement with the team and decision making while Flintoff is standing in as captain he was also asked to comment on the woeful form of the English batsmen.  He suggested that sometimes you can over analyse and have too many people telling you what to do, which means you can’t go out and play your natural game.  Batsman play well when confident, and constant replays of dismissals and technique can undermine that confidence and stifle what would be an otherwise fluid and natural batting style.  The key word here is “natural”. These players have made it to the International stage playing their natural game, which we then try and coach out of them in an attempt to create the “perfect” player.  This will almost certainly never happen and over analysis only ends up damaging the key ingredient for any top sportsman - an ingredient which can never be taught - and that is “confidence”.

Next up the new look England rugby squad.  Or should that be “old look”?  I only caught the end of an interview and am not sure who was speaking, but he was being asked about the midfield line up for Saturday never having played together before.  His answer “It will enable us to play our natural game without over analysis of video tapes”.  That word again.  “Natural”.  The players will be able to go out and play the way they feel is right.  They won’t have to think about the hours of tapes that they’ve been given telling them what they should and shouldn’t do - they will be able to think for themselves depending on what happens on the day.  Something which the English cricket team seem unable to do currently!

While video technology has it’s place, certainly in the use of tactics, over reliance on it is detrimental not only to the team but to the individual.  We have to accept that quirky, different styles can be as effective as the “text book” technique.  Two names  from the golf world spring to mind.  Jim Furyk and  Lee Travino - both have very odd swing paths but both are very effective golfers.  The bottom line is they know that if the club face hits the ball square on then everything else is irrelevant.  Something the cricket team could do well to remember - the end result is important, not how you look and how you get there. 

Much has been written about the support shown or not shown by various football fans throughout the country, but I thought I would add my own words and opinion, after going to watch Pompey play at Old Trafford this weekend.

Pompey took 2000 to Old Trafford and given the attendance was over 71000, you can assume that the other 69000 were Manchester Utd supporters.  However, all that could be heard for 99% of the time were the voices of the Pompey faithful, singing and encouraging their team to perform.  I put it down to the fact that we were sitting right in the middle of the 2000 and the noise was reverberating around our particular stand and drowning out the Man Utd supporters.  However, when Rooney opened  up the scoring the ground erupted for (30 seconds at least) and  the 69 000 fans made themselves heard for the first time, proving that they had in fact been sitting there in mute silence for much of the game.  What a shame it must be for the likes of Rooney and Ronaldo and company, to play in such a magnificent stadium but in front of such banal support.  If the Man Utd fans made even half the noise per person that the Pompey fans do, then they would not only drown out away fans but also create an electric atmosphere for their own players and an intimidating one for the visitors. 

That said, it didn’t effect the result and Man Utd eased into the next round thanks to a moment of brilliance from Rooney, which was widely appreiciated even by the most ardent Pompey boy.  Pompey acquitted themselves well, with some slick passing at times, but really failed to make that tell in the final third.  The first goal had been coming for some  time, with Pompey continually giving the ball away for a period of 20 minutes and therefore defending deeper and deeper and inviting Man Utd onto them.  So a fair result in the end, (and a game that will no doubt raise the call for video evidence again), but a great afternoon out for the Pompey fans, who started the long drive home safe in the knowledge they had played their part.  I’m not sure the United fans could say the same…

Having woken at 5:15am and struggled to get back to sleep I thought I would get up and see what fun the cricket would bring.  So bleary eyed I crawled out of bed at 6:15 and flicked the TV on with trepidation.  Immediately the screen was filled with a close up of Ricky Ponting the elf like Ozzie captain.  My immediate thought was that can’t be good if he is still in, naturally assuming they must have won the toss.  Then my eyes scanned the graphic at the bottom of the screen.  39/1 - still half asleep I thought well that’s not too bad.  Then my fuddled brain took in the “Australia need 72 to win from 42.3 overs” and after some quick maths, the scale of the disaster hit me, waking me up better than a large shot of expresso. 

Once again England have failed to bat the full 50 overs - in fact it soon became clear they had failed to bat even  35 overs, and had lost 8 wickets for 38 runs or 5 for 7 (I’m not sure which sounds better or indeed worse).  For some reason I felt obliged to sit and watch Ponting and Hayden stroll to the total, almost like watching a wounded animal being put out of it’s misery.  Buchanon and Ponting are now complaining about the lack of competition by way of preperation for the World Cup, and to be fair they would probably get more competition from my local village side.  I have always been optimistic about English and British sport, trying to put a positive spin on even the worse results, but even I am finding it hard to find anything positive in this  current tour.  It’s difficult to know where the problems lay other than in the mind.  On the practical side, a good place to start might be to try and see out the full number of overs when batting first, even if posting a small(ish) total.  At least that would give something to build on and more to the point give the paying public some sort of value for money.  The 34000 spectators today have been robbed of over 40 overs cricket - maybe the ECB should refund 40% of the ticket fee.  The lack of atmosphere around the ground was deafening in it’s silence, with a lot of people leaving at the interval, presumably to go and watch some paint dry.  The defeat was made even harder to watch, with the lack of pride being shown in the field.  England managed to cap a woeful batting performance with misfields, over throws and pretty tame bowling, with the only wicket coming from a run out.  If that hadn’t happened it could have all been over inside 15 overs with Gilchrist scoring for fun. 

I’m not one to call for heads to roll, but there has to be some sort of shake up before the World Cup. If nothing else it might re-energise a badly battered team so low on confidence. 

The worst thing about the whole sorry saga is that in a moment of frivilous abandon I put £10 of England last week at 7/1 to win the series, believing it couldn’t get any worse and that they would turn a corner after beating NZ.  I might as well have taken it out and set fire to it.  At least my brother, who is currently in Melbourne and has a ticket for the 3rd final game will get his money back!

As a hockey player I thought I would take the opportunity to watch some of the Sky coverage of the Champions Trophy and the National League Indoor finals over the last few days.  What a disappointment!  I perhaps picked the wrong Champions Trophy Match to watch, (Germany vs Spain).  Not only was the quality of play poor, but the coverage was not much better.  The games rules are changed on a regular basis, some to make it safer but others to make the game more of a specator sport.  However, unless they find a commentator with a little more pezazz and a way of allowing the cameras to keep up with play they may as well scrap the coverage as it will do more harm than good.  If I had never watched a game I would never watch another having seen the coverage.

The final of the mens indoor final showed a lot more quality and was a more exciting spectacle, and is easier to cover as one camera covers the pitch. BUT why oh why were they conducting pitch side interviews, while the game was being played?  This resulted in one goal being missed while they were focussing on the coach, who really didn’t have that much to say to be honest as he was trying to watch the game and coach (funnily enough).  Come on guys.  It’s all very well trying to be innovative, but think about please!

You have to ask.  A sport, which historically only ever makes the press for what goes on on the table (a few tabloid stories from more distant times excepted), has suddenly gone mad.  Not only do we have players walking out, but fans who would be more at home in a football stadium.  Nobody can condone any professional sportsman walking out of a tournament when spectators have paid hard earned money to watch, however I felt a certain sympathy for Ding. 

Ironically it took Ronnie O’Sullivan to talk Ding around in this weekend’s Masters final, when Ding had thrown in the towel a frame early.  Apparently he thought it was a best of 17 frame match…is that really plausible?  He was undoubtedly rattled by a combination of Ronnies play and some heckling from the crowd - learning English does have it’s disadvantages - but should never have left the arena.  Fair play to Ronnie for talking him round and convincing him to play a fairly academic final frame, but once he had come back out, which took a lot of guts, he was clearly emotional and yet the crowd or at least certain elements of it wouldn’t let up.  When warned by the referee that the game was serious somebody replied that “if it’s serious why did he walk out”, to which Ronnie politely suggested that if he didn’t like it maybe he should go home.  It ended with the person in question being thrown out when still abusing anybody that would listen.  Let’s hope it’s not the beginning of the end, otherwise we could end up with stewards wearing high vis coats crouching down all round the arena to prevent crowd trouble!

Last night saw the FA Cup third round replays played.  All were great games, with lots of goals, some good football and some controversy.  They had everything.  Everything that is except for a crowd.

At all games (but especially St James Park), there were tiers and tiers of empty seats.  There can only be 2 reasons for this.  One is that people have fallen out of love with the FA Cup, or that the clubs are charging too much for the tickets.  The games were afterall a replay, and therefore a game which spectators would not have budgetted for or necessarily expected.  Therefore it is down to the clubs to recognise this and reduce the ticket prices accordingly.  Surely it’s better for everybody - players and clubs alike - to have the stadium full and create an atmosphere even if it means charging £5 for the tickets?   

Why oh why oh why have they made Flintoff captain again? In the absence of Vaughan surely Strauss is the logical choice.  The Ashes has shown us that the burden of captaincy is too much for our best player, and Strauss responds well to the pressure.  I’ve been scratching my head trying to think why it would be given to Flintoff again and the best I can come up with is the reluctance of the selectors to admit they made a mistake appointing him for the Ashes. I’m not for one moment blaming him for the whitewash, but coming back from injury, having to bat bowl and field in the slips is too much for one man and the pressure ultimately effected his performance. 

By giving it to him again, they probably think they are showing faith in him, and not blaming him, as well as unerlining that they are “right”, but it’s not fair to the team, the supporters of the man himself.

I tuned in to the final of the BDO “World” Championship to watch Martin Walsh the “world” number one up against the qualifier Phil Nixon.  Walsh, who is number one within the BDO rankings, despite never having won the World Championship, (I can only assume thanks to Barneveld changing allegiance).  Having taken a 6-0 lead, Adams then managed to lose the next 6 sets, missing a number of darts to finish Nixon off.  Although great entertainment, it has to call into question the future of the BDO as mentioned in a previous blog here. 

With Andy Fordham struggling with his health still, it’s no wonder that Walsh has pledged his allegiance to the BDO - it’s easy money and a guaranteed number one spot for a player who would struggle to make the top 5 and probably the top 10 of the PDC rankings. 

The BDO were dealt another blow this week with 3 more players moving across to the PDC, and Mervyn King being linked with a move as well.  The writing is on the wall and I give it 2 years maximum before the BDO collapses.

The thing about Twenty20 cricket is that it is supposed to be an entertaining game for the spectators.  That is unless England are involved of course.  This International game, which has seen all sorts of records set by the Ozzies - most runs (221), most sixes (14) and one record set by England - most runs conceded by a bowler Anderson 64-1 off of 4 overs, has been anything but entertainement - even for the Australian crowd who paid good money to see a competitive match, and have been leaving in the hundreds well before the end.  OK, it would have taken a miracle for England to beat the 221 set for them, but once again they have whimpered and died.  In contrast to the 14 sixes that the Ozzies hit (5 by Gilchrist  - another record), England have managed one and that in the last over when they need 98 - yes 98 to win.  Having lost Flintoff for a duck and KP get himself run out for 11 (albeit to a fantastic bit of fielding), the run rate was creeping up to over 13 an over, and along come Bell and Collingwood who are happy to take singles until the run rate hits 17 an over.  Once again to lose is one thing but to lose so badly without competing is an outrage and embarrassing for English cricket.  I don’t know how much the tickets were but I would be asking the ECB for compensation.

Well Pompey scraped into the 4th round of the FA Cup with a last minute goal from Kanu, and once again failed to get any decent sort of coverage on Match of the Day. I haven’t kept the stats because I’m not quite that sad, but they always seem to be either last or second to last on Mathc of the Day, and were the only all Premiership match not to get any sort of build up.  My money is on there 4th round game making the TV and probably even live, but then that’s against Manchester United.  Although the BBC say they always give equal coverage to all teams, I suspect that most of the “less glamorous” teams only get any decent coverage when they are playing the “big 4″.  More worrying than that though is the news coming from Fratton Park about Gaydamark and the fact that he has not yet paid Mandaric the £45M he owes, and is looking to sell up.  That would be typical of pompey, to get themselves into a good position only for the board to screw it up again.  But we’ll see.