Carlisle Best is Tino Best’s uncle

We’re not quite sure why we never put two and two together before, but it turns out that Tino Best is Carlisle Best’s nephew.

Now, why is this significant? Well, there’s a good chance you know about Tino Best. We have a regular feature in the Twitter round-up we do for Cricinfo called ‘Tino Best’s Modesty Corner’ because he generally makes at least one outlandish boast a week. He’s magic.

Carlisle Best might be less familiar to you. If you’ve checked Cricinfo, you’ll know that his first scoring shot in Test cricket was a six, but that’s not why he love him. There is one simple reason why we love Carlisle Best. He used to commentate on his own batting.

This gave rise to our favourite cricket quote of all time:

“You can’t bowl there to Carlisle Best” – Carlisle Best.

Is Jonny Bairstow the next Ravi Bopara?

Regular readers will know we rather like Ravi Bopara. We don’t think he’s the next Bradman or owt, but we do think he’s probably England’s sixth best batsman.

People don’t like picking the sixth best batsman. They have it in their heads that there must be someone better out there to take the sixth batting slot. Maybe there is, but perhaps that person could make a better fist of highlighting their quality and make life easier for all of us.

27-years-old

Ravi’s at a good age for Test cricket now. He’s had his share of ups and downs and he knows a spangly Test career doesn’t come easily. That’s healthy. That’s the point at which Jonathan Trott arrived in Test cricket. That’s the point at which Matt Prior and Ian Bell started looking the part.

This is why we’re completely irritated that Ravi’s got himself injured. His winter was a complete pain in the arse, sitting and watching Eoin Morgan spazz around for a month before sitting and watching Samit Patel do little better. He was due a turn. He was due a few innings to make a case for himself. He’s only had two Test innings since the juvenile Ravi died in the 2009 Ashes and he was not out in the last of those.

But he’ll have to wait again

Jonny Bairstow’s been promoted to the Test team in Ravi’s place and we worry he too will slip into the no-man’s land just outside the Test side in years to come. He’s young enough that if he fails, he could find himself dragging ‘evidence’ of his shortcomings around for years to come, smiting county attacks all the while.

Hopefully it won’t come to that. Hopefully Bairstow will make 500 on his debut in an innings that will later be considered disappointing in light of his subsequent achievements. However, that would sentence Bopara to another spell of driftage and that would get on our nerves.

Count Cricket’s county cricket round-up – May 14th

Good day to you all. I, Count Cricket, attended the Nottinghamshire v Middlesex match last week in my role as King Cricket’s county reporter.

Due to heavy rain, I was forced to seek refuge in the toilets. Fortunately, I discovered that I could emerge and check the scoreboard from time to time with very little chance of being seen. As a result of this, I know that a Nottinghamshire batsman called Michael John Lumb made 162 runs, helping his county acquire the bonus points needed to top the table. However, the match was drawn and Warwickshire, in second place, have two games in hand.

Last week’s other matches were also shortened by precipitation. Lancashire again failed to score runs, as did Surrey in their first innings, although they rectified this in the second when their imported middle order of Kevin Peter Pietersen, Rory James Hamilton-Brown and Thomas Lloyd Maynard all contributed runs. All matches were drawn.

A gentleman I met in the Trent Bridge facilities filled me in on these details. I attempted to thank him, but he refused the ecru-coloured potion which I had concocted.

Until next time,
Count Cricket

Alan Mulally is CEO of Ford

We always wondered what happened to flaxen-haired wrong-handed Nineties seam bowlers when they retired. Turns out they go all corporate.

After retiring from cricket, Mullally spent quite some time working for Boeing, where he rose to become executive vice president despite his CV being stained by the fact that he only managed 1,615 runs in 230 first-class matches.

The aerospace giant clearly focused more on his nagging accuracy and surprise quicker ball in fast tracking him to a key decision-making position and that faith was rewarded in 2006 when Mullally was named ‘person of the year’ by Aviation Week & Space Technology. However, shortly afterwards, he accepted the job of CEO of Ford, perhaps seeking new challenges.

The cash-strapped car manufacturer had long coveted Mullally’s impressive one-day economy rate of 3.84 and was duly rewarded in 2011 when Mullally was named ‘person of the year’ by The Financial Times and also ‘CEO of the year’ by Chief Executive magazine.

Oh, wait – Mulally with one L? We’ve been had. Thanks for nothing, D Charlton. Send your misleading emails elsewhere next time, you manipulative hound.

Yorkshire fast bowlers and competition for places

It’s popular these days to encourage ‘competition for places’. However, as a means of keeping players on their toes, it’s expensive and according to Yorkshire stereotype, that’s not an option.

The county has instead adopted a policy whereby it instils fear in its pace bowlers. Ajmal Shahzad was bundled across the Pennines in a Transit van and now they’ve gone even further by arranging to have Mitchell Starc deported. Yorkshire say the Starc thing wasn’t their fault, but they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Rumours that Ryan Sidebottom has been locked inside a shipping container are yet to be confirmed. This is largely because said rumour has only just been created, but still – those devious Tykes.

Ajmal Shahzad enters a completely different world

Ajmal Shahzad has shacked up with Lancashire following the barney with Yorkshire which led to him sleeping in the box room. Welcome to the civilised world that lies on the correct side of the Pennines, Ajmal. Leave your thermal underwear behind, but bring a light waterproof.

The move makes a lot of sense. Not because Shahzad is the kind of player Lancashire need. Far from it. It makes sense because he is exactly the kind of player they like. Glen Chapple, Tom Smith, Kyle Hogg, Steven Croft and Luke Procter all lie somewhere on the batsman-who-bowls-seam to seamer-who-bats spectrum. In fact, we’d probably put Saj Mahmood on there as well these days. Judging by his batting progress and bowling water-treading, he’s spending most of his practice time at the wrong end of the net.

So why add Ajmal Shahzad to the mix? Well, if you look at the county cricket fixture list, you can never have too many pace bowlers in your squad. Also, it will irritate Yorkshiremen. To be honest, that’s reason enough.

Count Cricket’s county cricket round-up – May 6th

Good day. I am Count Cricket. My parole officer told me it would aid my rehabilitation to find some form of employment and King Cricket has offered to pay me £2.70 to cover the county cricket season for his “website”. I assume he needs to subcontract because he is too busy telling people what classification of hill climb he’s been up on his bicycle this week, like the world’s most boring man (which is precisely what he is).

This week I went to watch Warwickshire against Durham. I took a flask of brandy with me and the experience was not unpleasant. A chap I met in the toilets told me that Ian Ronald Bell was likely to score runs, so I popped down to the local bookmakers and laid a wager on his being top scorer. Glory be, he was. Ian Ronald Bell made 120 when all other batsmen struggled and it surely can’t be long before this young man plays cricket for the United Kingdom.

Another chap I met in the toilets said that Warwickshire would remain at the top of the table. He said that a bowler named Keith Hubert Douglas Barker had played a larger part in the victory than Ian Ronald Bell as he had taken 10 wickets. However, I had laid no wager on this and so cared not a jot. Nottinghamshire are second, having beaten Lancashire, who cannot bat.

Until next time,
Count Cricket

Chris Gayle genuflects

It’s easy to characterise Chris Gayle as a man who’d rather play Twenty20 for money than international cricket for less money. However, recent jumping has taken him through a number of hoops in order that he is now, once again, able to play for the West Indies.

Essentially, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) made him get down on bended knee and kiss their boots using the right technique.

The WICB chief executive, Ernest Hilaire, basically said that Gayle had to make himself fully available by cancelling all his current commitments and if he did, then he would be considered for selection. It was like saying ‘jack in your day job and we might give you a few hours of freelance work – no promises though’.

Gayle did jack in the day job, however – meeting the WICB’s rather unnecessary demands – and is now facing possible legal action from Somerset, with whom he had signed a contract. Hopefully, they’ll chill out and spend the money they’ll save on Ajmal Shahzad instead, because they’re short of bowlers.

The good news is that we should get to see Chris Gayle in international cricket this summer. Lancashire’s Oliver Newby isn’t the only person who’s ‘partial to a bit of Chris Gayle spanking‘. He’s a great cricketer and this is a great story, by the way.

Limp top orders and wily old gnarl-dogs – Lancashire v Nottinghamshire

Both good teams. Both good teams who wait until six wickets are down before scoring any runs. So far Lancashire are having the better of things, bowling Nottinghamshire out for 169 before producing a staggeringly huge 48-run opening stand. Our man Paul Horton still stands a chance of top-scoring for Lancashire, even though he was out for 24.

Despite the presence of Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann, we expect the Nottinghamshire wickets column to be dominated by Andre Adams – because it almost always is. He and Lancashire’s Glen Chapple have much in common. They don’t have much international experience and seem better players the deeper they get into their thirties. They make county cricket seem like a ‘dads v lads’ match where the dads are going all-out for victory.

Hurray for wily old gnarl-dogs. James Taylor’s dismissal by Glen Chapple must rank as the most inevitable of the season.

Why is Ajmal Shahzad leaving Yorkshire?

Who knows? It’s Yorkshire. The only thing that can be stated with any certainty is that the decison will have been made by someone muttering: “All right, well ruddy sod yer then.”

Our guess is that Ajmal Shahzad has never felt too loved by his county. England always seemed to hold him in higher regard, which is weird. He rarely got the new ball for Yorkshire and it might be significant that his sudden departure comes shortly after it was announced that Mitchell Starc would be arriving at Headingley.

It’s hard when your employer doesn’t value what you consider to be your strongest skills. If you think you’re really getting the hang of staring at the wall and the company then goes and hires a foreign wall-starer, you’ll naturally feel pretty unappreciated. We think this is basically what’s happened to Ajmal Shahzad.