Tag: hare

All Time XIs – Detective Fiction

An all time XI of players who have namesakes in detective stories and a photo gallery.

Today I select an XI of players who are namesakes of characters in detective fiction.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

  1. Percy Holmes (right handed opening batter, Yorkshire and England). In most eras other than the one he played in he would have been one of the first names on the England team sheet, especially given what a great partnership he formed with Herbert Sutcliffe. As it was he generally missed out due to the presence of Jack Hobbs. His record for Yorkshire was outstanding, and at the time of his retirement included five of the ten highest individual scores made for the county. His fictional alter ego is of course the one and only Sherlock Holmes.
  2. Herbert Sutcliffe (right handed opening batter, Yorkshire and England). One of the greatest opening batters ever to play the game, and shared 69 first class century opening stands with Holmes. He gets in by way of Magda Josza’s “Sherlock Holmes and the Femmes Fatales”, which features among others Lady Elizabeth Sutcliffe and her uncle Sir Vincent Sutcliffe.
  3. Fred Bakewell (right handed top order batter, Northamptonshire and England). By the time a car crash brought his career to a premature close he had done more than enough to establish himself as a great batter. His fictional equivalent is Diana Bakewell, heroine of the Rachel McLean/ Millie Ravensworth series of London cosy mysteries of which I have read three thus far.
  4. Jack Ryder (Australia, right handed batter, right arm medium fast bowler). One of the finer batters of the 1920s, his credits include a test match double century. He was also a useful enough bowler to occasionally be entrusted with the new ball. His namesake is James Ryder, villain in “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”.
  5. *Warwick Armstrong (Australia, right handed batter, leg spinner, captain). A magnificent all rounder, and a ruthlessly effective leader. The eight successive Ashes match victories he presided over (a 5-0 sweep in Australia in 1920-1, and the first three matches of the series in England in 1921) remains an all time record. His alter ego is Superintendent Armstrong from the Museum Detectives series.
  6. Vallance Jupp (Sussex, Northamptonshire, England, right handed batter, off spinner). In the 1920s he achieved the double feat of 1,000+ runs and 100+ wickets in FC matches eight times in consecutive seasons. I have slipped him in by means of a small piece of sleight of hand – one of The Railway Detective, inspector Robert Colbeck’s colleagues is an inspector Vallence, and by altering one letter I got in a link to my favourite of all detective series.
  7. +Adam Gilchrist (Australia, wicket keeper, left handed batter). |One of the all time greats of the game, although his legacy could be considered tarnished by the fact that a number sides nowadays blatantly sacrifice keeping quality for better batting from the keeper. One of the three students in the Holmes story of that title is named Gilchrist.
  8. Gus Atkinson (Surrey, England, right arm fast bowler, right handed batter). He has had a superb start to his England career, though like too many of his team mates he had a poor time on the recent tour of Australia. Gus the cat is a character in the London cosy mysteries that also gave us a Bakewell.
  9. Don Wilson (Yorkshire, England, left arm orthodox spinner, left handed batter). Though his England record was not great he took his first class wickets at 21 a piece. His alter ego is of course Daniel Wilson, one half of the Museum Detectives.
  10. Ted McDonald (Australia, Lancashire, right arm fast bowler, right handed batter). One half of the first great fast bowling pair to operate at test level along with Jack Gregory, he later became one the spearheads of Lancashire’s most successful ever period. Though I have to add a letter to his surname to do it, I have two very different alter egos for him: Alec MacDonald, one of the few Scotland Yarders Holmes actually treats with respect (see “The Valley of Fear”) and Kylie MacDonald, one of the pair of detectives in the elite NYPD Red unit that features in a series of books with that title, the first six by James Patterson and Marshall Karp, and the seventh by Marshall Karp.
  11. William Mycroft (Derbyshire, left arm fast bowler, right handed batter). Took over 800 FC wickets at 12 a piece in his career. With one Holmes brother sharing his name with an opening batter this XI ends with the other, Mycroft, sharing his name with an opening bowler.

This side has a more than adequate batting line up, and a stellar array of bowling talent – McDonald, Mycroft and Atkinson as front line pacers, with Ryder available as fourth seamer if needed, and Wilson, Jupp and Armstrong covering all the spin bases. I will not do honourable mentions for this one – there are a vast range of possibilities. Feel free to comment with your own ideas.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Deepti Sharma Guides India to ODI Win Over England

An account if the first ODI in a three match series between the England and India women’s teams and a large photo gallery.

The ODI series between the England and India women’s teams started today at 1PM, at the Utilita Bowl near (not in) Southampton. This series has a little extra importance as there is an ODI world cup coming up later this year, so both sides were looking to put down a marker.

THE PRELIMINARIES

Nat Sciver-Brunt was fit to play, though not to bowl, which left England with a dilemma in terms of the balance of side. In the event they solved the problem by playing a batting all rounder, Alice Davidson-Richards at number six, and five bowlers, of whom two, Charlie Dean and Sophie Ecclestone are useful batters as well. Sciver-Brunt won the toss and chose to bat.

THE ENGLAND INNINGS

England started badly with both openers, Tammy Beaumont and wicket keeper Amy Jones going cheaply. Sciver-Brunt and Lamb mounted a fightback, but then both were out in quick succession to make it 97-4, with Sophia Dunkley, on her 27th birthday, being joined by Davidson-Richards. The pair batted superbly, putting on 106 for the fifth wicket. At 203-5 England needed someone to inject some extra speed into the scoring late on, so Ecclestone was promoted ahead of Dean to number seven. Ecclestone scored 23 not out off 19 balls, and Dunkley reached 83 (92). The final ball of the innings, from Amanjot Kaur, bowled Dunkley, in keeping with my belief that there are only three acceptable outcomes to the final ball of a limited overs innings: a boundary, a wicket or at the least a run out attempt.

THE INDIAN REPLY

Kate Cross opened the bowling for England, and unfortunately she was definitely off the boil. At no stage of the innings did she ever look threatening. Lauren Bell had moments with the ball, but only one wicket fell remotely early, Mandhana edging Bell through to Jones for 28 to make it 48-1. The second wicket fell at 94 when Ecclestone got one through the previously very impressive Pratika Rawal for 36. Rawal averages in the60s in this format in her brief career so far. Eight runs later Harleen Deol suffered a dismissal that was probably in all honesty somewhat worse than ‘village’, being run out because although her bat was beyond the crease line she had failed to ground it, a truly amateurish way for a top order batter in an international line up to go. The fourth wicket, that of skipper Harmanpreet Kaur was a credit to England however. Kaur was given not out by umpire Redfern, who does not get much wrong, but even though the bowler, Dean, herself wasn’t 100% confident Sciver-Brunt sent it upstairs, and the ball tracking showed that it pitched just outside off, hit Kaur below knee level (and the Indian skipper is not a particularly tall woman) and in line with off stump, and was doing just enough to thump into middle had it not been obstructed. That was 124-4, and brought Deepti Sharma into join Jemimah Rodrigues. From here on to the end Deepti Sharma was in complete control of proceedings, never fussing or panicking. Two further wickets did fall, Rodrigues to a catch by Jones off Filer for 48 and Ghosh stumped by the proverbial country mile after charging at Dean and missing her shot, but as the end of the innings approached the required run rate tumbled. In the end number eight and medium paced bowler Amanjot Kaur, like a ham actor stealing the Oscar winner’s scene, ended proceedings by hitting the first two balls of the 49th over, bowled by Cross, for fours to win the match for India. India had won by four wickets with ten balls to spare, and Deepti Sharma’s 62 not out from 64 balls to mastermind the key stage of the chase quite rightly earned her the Player of the Match award.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

There was a little rain yesterday after a long dry spell, and it brought the snails out.
This picture and the five that follow all feature plants that fell victim to ‘grounds maintenance’ shortly after I took the pictures this morning.
The last six pictures, including this one offer a preview of my next gallery.
This hare was in the woodland section of Salter’s Sanctuary, a small nature reserve in the North Lynn area.
A cinnabar moth (yes, there are such things as diurnal moths) enjoying a teazel plant.
A close up of the cinnabar moth.

India Looking Dominant at ODI World Cup

A look back at the weekend’s action in the 2023 ODI World Cup – a somewhat fortunate two points for Pakistan, two rather more well earned points for Australia and an utterly dominant display by hosts India in today’s table topping clash with South Africa. Also a large photo gallery.

Since I last posed there have been three matches at the ODI Cricket World Cup: New Zealand v Pakistan, Australia v England and India v South Africa. This post looks at these matches and at the state of play in the tournament.

NEW ZEALAND v PAKISTAN

DLS SAVES PAKISTAN

Pakistan won the toss and elected to bowl first, a type of decision that has a terrible track record at this tournament. That did not look like changing when New Zealand were batting – at the end of the 29th over I tweeted that a total of 400 was on for the Kiwis, and 21 overs later when their innings had run its course they were 401-6. A combination of an amazing innings from Fakhar Zaman, solid support from Babar Azam and good reading of the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern situation by Pakistan saved them from a poor decision at the toss. With rain threatening Pakistan started to seriously increase their scoring rate from the end of the 15th over onward, and by the time of the first intervention, in the 21st over they were 10 runs ahead of where they needed to be according to DLS. When the second and final interruption came midway through the 26th over they had increased their advantage to 20, and emerged with the two points when the rest of the match was rained out. It was well judged by Pakistan to get themselves significantly ahead of where DLS said they needed to be – there have been some famous mishaps involving DLS calculations, such as Mark Boucher studiously blocking a ball with the rain already falling in the belief that his side were already ahead on DLS, when they actually needed a single off that ball to get ahead. At the same time I feel that the Kiwis were hard done by – I don’t think that had the match been allowed by the weather to go the distance that Pakistan would have pulled off this chase would have been over 50 runs more than the biggest successful full distance chase of the tournament so far.

AUSTRALIA v ENGLAND

ANOTHER “WE’RE GOING TO BOWL” DISASTER

At 8AM UK time yesterday Jos Buttler won the toss at this match, and moments later uttered what has become something of doom laden phrase at this tournament “we’re going to bowl”.

This was not actually by any means one of England’s worst efforts of the tournament, though that is more a reflection of how bad they have been than of how good they were on the day. However, even with the bowlers showing up and restricting Australia to 286 from their 50 overs, it was never terribly close, and the final margin of 33 runs flattered England rather than Australia.

INDIA v SOUTH AFRICA

TOTAL HOME DOMINANCE

India were playing a world cup match at Eden Gardens, Kolkata for the first time since 1996 (that game was a disgrace for India in two ways, first they were totally outplayed by Sri Lanka, and second it was called off early and awarded to Sri Lanka because with India over 100 adrift with just two wickets left the “fans” rioted rather than suffer the closing stages of a defeat). Today’s match was billed as a clash of the titans, featuring as it did the two best teams of the tournament to date. India won the toss and chose to bat first, virtually a mandatory decision when facing South Africa (just ask Jos Buttler and Tom Latham, both of whom made the wrong decision in this situation)…

Rohit Sharma played some beautiful strokes early on, while Shubman Gill hit four fours and a six on his way to 23, but also allowed 18 dot balls to be bowled to him. India scored 91 off the first 10 overs and a huge total looked on. However, South Africa looked to have fought back quite well when India finished on 326-5 from their 50 overs. Virat Kohli equalled Sachin Tenulkar’s career tally of 49 ODI hundreds, while Suryakumar Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja provided some late hitting.

South Africa started their reply badly and it never got any better. Ravindra Jadeja followed his batting cameo by claiming five wickets with his left arm spin, while everyone else also bowled well. South Africa scraped up a beggarly 83 in 27.1 overs, going down by 243 runs, the biggest margin of defeat South Africa have ever suffered in any ODI (some of the sides from South Africa’s first incarnation as a test nation between 1889 and 1971 took some absolute thumpings). India had batted well, but it was the bowling that was really notable in this performance. Usually batting sides try to find a bowler or bowlers they can target and see if they can force the bowling side into using minor bowlers, but when an attack features three top class pacers and two top class spinners all of whom are in good form this is rather difficult to do.

HOW THE TOURNAMENT IS SHAPING UP SO FAR

India are now looking extremely likely to win the tournament – their performance against South Africa today was simply awesome, and was the second successive time they had bowled an opposition team out for under 100 while defending, a detail which might make Sri Lanka feel a little less ashamed of their own capitulation a few days ago. South Africa are qualified for the semi-finals and are likely to hang on to second place, meaning that they are most likely to face Australia in the semi-finals. The fourth semi-final slot is up for grabs between Afghanistan, New Zealand and Pakistan (listed in alphabetical order for the avoidance of prejudice). Bangladesh, England, Netherlands and Sri Lanka are battling for the minor places, with 7th and 8th in the group gaining qualification for the 2025 Champions Trophy. Personally I reckon that England deserve to finish the tournament precisely where they currently are: stone last. That would force them to make the necessary wholesale changes.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Four goldfinches together is not the commonest sight.
A hare enjoying a comparatively pleasant November afternoon.