Tag: Declarations

Declarations

A look at declarations in the light of recent events in Brisbane, and a large photo gallery.

Declarations have been in the cricket news again lately after one by Australian captain Pat Cummins didn’t work out for him. In this post I look at that declaration and some stories from cricket history involving declarations or their equivalent.

THE CUMMINS DECLARATION

West Indies had fought back from a poor start to record a first innings score of 311, Australia then had an even worse start to their first innings, being 24-4 at one point. They also fought back hard, and reached 289-9, at which point Cummins declared, opting to look for early wickets under the lights. While declaring when still in deficit is unusual there were justifications for taking this approach. Australia were unbeaten in day/night tests, largely because they as a whole, and Mitchell Starc in particular bowl so well under the lights, so it was natural for Cummins to want to play a potential trump card. Unfortunately for Cummins Australia managed only one wicket in the mini-session under the lights that he engineered for them, and West Indies ended up winning the match by eight runs.

DECLARATIONS THROUGH THE AGES

Declarations were only allowed in the late 19th century, and two matches from the tail end of the period in which declarations were not permitted help to illustrate why.

When Surrey played Nottinghamshire in 1889 they were going well in their second innings – so well in fact that they were in danger of not having enough time left to dismiss Nottinghamshire a second time. Surrey captain John Shuter instructed his side to get themselves out quickly, and they did so. Surrey then bowled Nottinghamshire out cheaply. In 1893 England were playing Australia in a rain affected match, and England were batting with a small lead at the end of day’s play. England captain WG Grace inspected the pitch the following morning and getting back to the pavilion he told his team mates “I need you to get out quickly – we need to be bowling by 12:30 at the latest”. Grace was not the sort of skipper anyone would dare ignore, and England duly lost their remaining wickets in 20 minutes of play. Australia then collapsed on a pitch that was every bit as spiteful as WG had reckoned it would be and England won the match.

1936 – DECLARING BEHIND AND A DRAMATIC COUNTER

England were 2-0 up in an away Ashes series after two matches, and all seemed to going well when they got Australia out for 200 in the first innings of the third match. Then the rain came, turning the pitch into a vicious sticky. England limped to 76-9 before skipper Allen declared to get Australia back in again while the pitch was still misbehaving. Bradman countered by sending tailenders O’Reilly and Fleetwood-Smith in to play and miss until the close, and when O’Reilly was out before the close he sent in another tail ender, Frank Ward. All of this meant that by the time Bradman, normally number three, joined Fingleton, a regular opener, the score was 97-5, and the pitch was easing. Bradman and Fingleton put on 346 together for the sixth wicket, Bradman going on to record score for anyone batting at number seven in a test match of 270, and England were beaten by a massive margin.

1950 – DECLARATION AND COUNTER DECLARATION

The England squad for the 1950-1 Ashes arrived in Australia not expected to do much, with both batting and bowling looking questionable and the skipper Freddie Brown known to have been the third choice for that role. In the first match at Brisbane they rose magnificently to the occasion in the first innings and dismissed the Australians for 228 on a plumb pitch. Unfortunately for them it then rained, with the usual effect on uncovered pitches. At 68-7 Brown declared to get Australia in while the pitch was at its worst. Australia were 32-7, and in danger of being all out for a new all time test low, beating the 36 they had been rolled for at Edgbaston in 1902, when Hassett declared to get England back in that night. England held back Hutton for the following day, but unfortunately they did not make a great fist of surviving that evening being 30-6 by the close. The worst of many poor dismissals among those six was that of Arthur McIntyre, reserve keeper but playing that match as a batter, who was run out coming back for a fourth run. Hutton played a superb innings the following day, but England came up short.

A DECLARATION ON DAY ONE, BATTING SECOND

Surrey were going a third successive title near the end of the 1954 season when they played Worcestershire. Worcestershire were all out for 27 batting first. With Surrey 92-3 Stuart Surridge decided he wanted another go at Worcestershire that evening and declared. Laker and Lock each claimed a wicket by the end of day one, and on the second morning Worcestershire were all out for 40, and won by an innings and 25 runs, which ensured that they would retain the championship.

A STOKES SPECIAL

A few months before England toured Pakistan in late 2022 Australia had visited, and when they played at Rawalpindi they had a full bowling attack, rated among the best in the world, and took precisely four Pakistan wickets in the match. Thus, England were already well in credit by tea on day four, having dismissed Pakistan in their first innings and built an advantage of 347. At that point Ben Stokes opted to declare, a declaration that many rushed to condemn. I had not been expecting the move, but did not rush to judgement on it. Having been following the match the whole way through I knew that both evening sessions would be abbreviated due to lack of daylight, so it was not quite as generous in practice as it was in theory. England secured the victory with time for probably nine more balls, and at most 15, before the light closed in on the final day (the final wicket went to the third ball of an over, and there were nine minutes left before the time at which the light had been judged unplayable the previous day).

PHOTOGRAPHS

New on my blog:

A Test Match For The Ages

An account of the closing stages of a classic test match and some photographs.

This post looks at the extraordinary events that unfolded in Rawalpindi this morning UK time.

AN EXTRAORDINARY FINISH

At the tea interval Pakistan were 257-5 chasing the target of 343 that Ben Stokes had dangled before them precisely a day earlier. Thus this match went into the final session with all results possible (the draw being in the equation due to the fact the fading light would force a halt at approximately 4:45PM local time) rather than the players heading out for an hour of meaningless cricket before the umpires were officially allowed to confirm the draw as would have happened had any current international skipper other than Stokes been in charge of the visiting side on such a flat pitch. Many, especially those who had objected to the Stokes declaration reckoned that the Pakistan victory was the most likely outcome, but that neglected both the time limit imposed by fading light and the fact that the pair in occupation, Azhar Ali and Agha Salman, were their team’s last recognized batters – Pakistan had four genuine tail enders in their team. Agha Salman was the first to fall post tea, and then crucially Azhar Ali was seventh out, leaving the tail enders needing to cobble 83 together to win or else to survive until the light halted play. Anderson removed numbers 9 and 10 in the same over to claim his third and fourth scalps of the innings, drawing level with Ollie Robinson who also had four wickets. Zahid Mahmood joined Naseem Shah, and they held out determinedly for some time.

Eventually the third ball of the the 97th over of the innings, bowled by Jack Leach, pinned Naseem Shah plumb in front. He sent it upstairs, but it was never really in doubt. By my reckoning the wicket fell with nine balls remaining before the light forced an abandonment. Pakistan were all out for 268, and England had won by 74 runs. I hope those who criticized the declaration are enjoying their portions of humble pie – England needed the time they gave themselves to take those 10 wickets. The last visiting side to play a test match in Rawalpindi, Australia in March, had their full first choice bowling attack and managed to take precisely four wickets in the entire match, so for a weakened England to claim all 20 of the opposition wickets was outstanding.

Ollie Robinson was named Player of the Match for his bowling efforts (I would have given it to Stokes for his captaincy, which transformed what have been an Old Trafford 1964 style snoozefest into a test match for the ages – I rank it second among those I have witnessed live behind Edgbaston 2005, but absent that it was right to honour Robinson for his great bowling effort on a lifeless pitch). I stand by every word of my criticisms of this pitch in earlier posts – it was Ben Stokes who engineered a compelling test match out of nothing on a surface that was ridiculously loaded in favour of the batters. England faced only just over half as many overs as Pakistan in the course of the match, winning it because they quite literally scored twice as fast as Pakistan. This match set many records: Highest match aggregate for test match with a definite result, highest match aggregate for a time limited test match (the first and second highest scoring test matches were both supposed to be timeless but were abandoned as draws when the visitors had to travel home, hence this match gaining these two records. Pakistan’s 847 is the most runs ever scored by a side losing a test match, and their 579 is the highest first innings score by a home side to lose a time limited test match (Australia lost after scoring 586 first up at the SCG in 1894, when overnight rain after the fifth day’s play in a timeless match turned the uncovered pitch into a vicious sticky dog and a hung over Bobby Peel claimed six cheap wickets with his left arm spin on the sixth morning, to give England victory by 10 runs). A final note from this remarkable match: James Anderson conceded just 2.35 runs per over, while the average economy rate of every other bowler in the match was 5.09 per over. A full scorecard can be viewed here, and I have included a video of the winning wicket below:

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

A Classic Test Match

some thoughts about the recent test match between England and the West Indies, declarations and umpires.

INTRODUCTION

This post is devoted the second test match of the current England versus West Indies series, which ended at about 6:45PM on Tuesday. 

THE EARLY EXCHANGES

England batted first and reached 258 only because Ben Stokes (100) and Joe Root (59) were reprieved early in their innings by bad West Indies fielding. Kraigg Brathwaite (134) and Shai Hope (147) were the cornerstones of a the West Indies response, which eventually reached 427, a lead of 169. In the second England innings no-one reached three figures but there were solid efforts all the way down the line, and at 490-8 Joe Root decided to declare and give the West Indies a little session of batting just before the close of the fourth day. 

THE FINAL INNINGS

The West Indies made it to the close of the fourth day without losing a wicket. Brathwaite made 95 in this second innings, coming within five of becoming the first batsman ever to score twin centuries in a first-class match at Headingley (and this was the 534th such fixture at the ground), a feat that was finally achieved by player of the match Shai Hope, who also received support from Roston Chase (30) and Jermaine Blackwood (a rapid 41 in the closing stages) who ended up 118 not out, and appropriately enough scored the winning runs. 

There are two features that I am going to make specific comments about, starting with…

JOE ROOT’S DECLARATION

For all that the end result was not what he would have wanted I still say, as I said on twitter at the time, and again a day later when the result was imminent, that this was a good declaration, and that Root was entirely right to go for victory. I remember (though few others will as it was not actually a pafrticularly good match) the Australia v West Indies test match at Adelaide in 2009 when the West Indies were one match down in the series after being soundly defeated at the ‘Gabbatoir’ (a nickname for the Woolloongabba stadium in Brisbane, also known as the Gabba) based on what often happens to visiting teams there) but declined to declare, batting on into the final day. Australia faced a target of 330 off 81, and skipper Ponting decided to settle for the draw rather than going after this target. By the end of the day there were not many people left in the ground (I know whereof I write – I was one of the few who did stay right to the end). I condemn Ponting for this decision to preserve his team’s 1-0 lead in the series rathwer than trying to make it 2-0, as also I condemn the decision of Ryan Ten Doeschate today to extend the Essex second innings into the final afternoon rather than make a serious attempt to win the match by declaring at or even before lunch. PS when I wrote this paragraph I did not realise that Somerset’s “resistance” would be quite so utterly spineless – it now looks like Essex may get their victory after all.

While I do not quite as far as the legendary Sammy Woods (who played for Somerset in the lat 19th and early 20th centuries) who once responded to an enquiry about whether his team might have played for a draw in a game they ended up losing responded with “draws…they’re for bathing in” but I do not hold the draw in high regard and would much prefer a team take risks in the attempt to win than see them play safely for the draw. In the special case of a team being one match to the good going into the final match of a series I would condone a more cautious approach being taken, although Kevin Pietersen’s magnificent series clinching innings at The Oval in 2005 was hardly cautious!

To finish this section: Joe Root was justified in declaring when he did (as was David Gower at Lord’s in 1984 when the result was even more embarrassing for England, courtesy of a magnificent 214 not out from Gordon Greenidge), and this result stands to the credit of the West Indies batting, especially that of Brathwaite and Hope and not to the debit of Root’s declaration. 

SOME SENSIBLE UMPIRING

According to the strict letter of the law play in a purely day game cannot continue if the floodlights are providing more light than the natural light. I congratulate the umpires in this match for not acting with Emeritus Professor of Biosophistry like pedantry and curtailing play due to the light, thus depriving the West Indies of their well-earned victory. There seems little doubt that the light was bad enough to have warranted taking the players off, but the umpires realised given the match situation was such that the players should be kept out there. 

Here are a couple of links relating to this test match:

LOOKING AHEAD

The final match of this series should be good, and almost certainly will feature a moment of history as James Anderson goes into it with 497 test wickets to his credit. Then England have the task of taking on Australia in Australia. This is a seriously tough task, but I think that this England squad can do it.

PHOTOGRAPHS

As always I end this post with some of my own photographs:

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Championships and Contrivances

Some thoughts on the closing stages of this years County Championship, as it goes into its final day with three potential winners.

INTRODUCTION

Somerset are within touching distance of their first ever County Cricket Championship, but the situation is complicated by the fact that their only two rivals are in direct opposition.

THE CURRENT STATE OF PLAY

Courtesy of cricinfo, here is the situation in the key matches:

cricinfo

The situation is that a draw in the Middlesex v Yorkshire game is not enough for either side – the five points they would each gain from that would still leave them adrift of Somerset. Tomorrow is the last day of the match, which means that time constraints are well and truly in play. Clearly, with a draw rendered worthless by the situation both sides will do all in their power to win the game, which leads given time limitations to the question of just what would be acceptable in the way of a third innings declaration by Middlesex. It is possible that Yorkshire could win the match in the most satisfactory way, by taking the remaining eight Middlesex wickets early enough to give themselves an easy fourth innings target. For Middlesex the question would be how much risk could they take in setting a target bearing in mind that they have to have a legitimate chance of taking 10 wickets to do so?

ACCEPTABLE VS UNACCEPTABLE

Given that Middlesex are still 39 runs behind, unless Yorkshire deliberately concede runs to hasten a declaration (which would certainly cause raised eyebrows in Taunton) it is unlikely that Middlesex would be in a position to consider a declaration much before teatime. My own rough and ready view is that if come the tea break tomorrow Middlesex have a lead of somewhere in the region of 170 that in the circumstances would be an acceptable risk – Yorkshire would have to go for the target, and an asking rate of approximately 5.5 an over with no fielding restrictions would introduce enough risks that Middlesex could hope for the 10 wickets they need. A declaration giving Yorkshire 120 or so to chase in that final session would definitely (albeit actuated by very different motives) be verging on ‘Cronje’ territory, and almost regardless of when it was made, a declaration giving a target of under 100 should be considered as out and out match fixing.

Although I have indicated previously that as an underdog supporter I would like to see Somerset win, the key thing here is that any victory for Middlesex or Yorkshire should be seen to have been won out on the field, and not in the dressing rooms.