Tag: Jason Holder

The J Team

An all time XI all of whom have given names beginning with J. There was a massive embarrassment of riches available for this letter, so the honourable mentions section is large. There is also a photo gallery of course.

Today, in a post the will feature a huge list of honourable mentions, our XI are linked by having given names beginning with J.

THE XI IN BATTING ORDER

  1. Jack Hobbs (England, right handed opening batter, occasional right arm medium pacer). One of the greatest ever to play the game, unchallengeable for this spot.
  2. John Edrich (England, left handed opening batter). A member of the ‘hundred hundreds’ club and someone with a superb test record. Scores of 310* v New Zealand and 175 & 164 v Australia show his ability to really cash in on a good start.
  3. Javed Miandad (Pakistan, right handed batter, occasional leg spinner). In the whole of his long test career his average never dipped below 50. Many would still name him as his country’s all time number one batter.
  4. Joe Root (England, right handed batter, occasional off/ leg spinner). Undoubtedly one of the greatest batters England has ever produced.
  5. Jacques Kallis (South Africa, right handed batter, right arm fast medium bowler). An absolute champion cricketer. Garry Sobers mastered a greater range of skills, one could argue that the likes of Aubrey Faulkner, Keith Miller and Imran Khan were truer all rounders, and one can list batters (though not very many) who were better and a greater number of bowlers who were better, but it would be brave person to state unequivocally that anyone has been a better cricketer than the South African.
  6. James Langridge (England, left handed batter, left arm orthodox spinner). He got few opportunities at test level due to overlapping with Hedley Verity, though he did take a seven-for on debut at that level. In a long and distinguished first class career he averaged 35 with the bat and 21 with the ball.
  7. +James Foster (England, wicket keeper, right handed batter). The most heavily contested slot in the entire XI, as you will see when we look at the honourable mentions, but the person I have chosen was a magnificent keeper, a good middle order batter and was badly treated by the England selectors of his day.
  8. *Jason Holder (West Indies, right arm medium fast bowler, right handed batter, captain). An impressive captain, in spite of never having had the luxury of having a really strong side under his command, and his averages are the right way round.
  9. Jim Laker (England, off spinner, right handed batter). One of the greatest off spinners ever to play the game. In 46 test appearances he took 193 wickets at 21.24 each, which included the best innings and match figures in test history, 10-53 and 19-90, at Old Trafford in 1956 against the oldest enemy.
  10. James Anderson (England, right arm fast medium bowler, left handed batter). England’s all time leading test wicket taker, more test wickets than any other non-spinner, and still going in his 40s.
  11. Jasprit Bumrah (India, right arm fast bowler, right handed batter). One of the leading contemporary pace bowlers, and probably the best pace bowler his country has ever produced.

This side has an awesomely strong top five, a genuine all rounder, a keeper who was also a good batter, a bowling all rounder and three all time great specialist bowlers. The bowling, with Bumrah, Anderson and Holder to bowl pace, Laker and Langridge to bowl spin, Kallis as sixth bowler and in the unlikely event of them being needed Hobbs, Miandad and Root available as back up options is both strong and well varied, and should have little trouble taking 20 opposition wickets on even the flattest of pitches.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Jack Robertson is the only obvious challenger for an opening role. The middle order was studded with options: Johnny Tyldesley, Joe Darling, Jack Ryder and Jesse Ryder being the four most obvious to miss out. James Hildreth had a magnificent record for Somerset but never got picked for England. I would expect James Rew to avoid Hildreth’s fate, but at the moment he is one for the future. James H Parks and James M Parks would both also have their advocates. The two legendary Hambledonians James Aylward and John Small have to be relegated to the honourable mentions due to lack of sufficient detail about the career records.

Jack Gregory might have had the slot I gave to Jason Holder but I wanted the latter’s captaincy as well as his playing skills. Jacob Oram of New Zealand was a fine all rounder, but I wanted a spinning all rounder, given that Kallis’ selection was set in stone and I also wanted Holder in the number eight slot. Johnny Douglas, both an England cricket captain and an Olympic gold medallist at middleweight boxing, cannot be completely ignored.

There was a logjam of keepers to consider, even after disqualifying Robert Charles ‘Jack’ Russell and Clifton James ‘Jack’ Richards is in neither case was Jack either their given name or derived from John. John Murray, Jackie Hendriks, Jeff Dujon, Junior Murray, Jack Blackham, Jimmy Binks and Jim Kelly are the seven most obvious potential keepers that I had to overlook.

There was if anything an even greater wealth of seam/ pace bowling talent. Josh Hazlewood is probably the most obvious miss to a contemporary audience, but two other Aussies, Jeff Thomson and Jason Gillespie were also formidable in this department. Jack Cowie, probably New Zealand’s best pre-Hadlee quick, also merits a mention. John Wisden has to be mentioned for historical significance, and a later Sussex pacer, John Snow also had a fine test record. Javagal Srinath, the first genuinely fast Indian bowler I ever saw in action, was another candidate. James Broadbridge was one half of the first truly great bowling partnership in cricket history, along with William Lillywhite, but it was the latter who was the greater bowler.

James Lillywhite Jnr, England’s first ever test skipper, was one of the spinners I had to overlook. Jason Krejza once took 12 wickets in a test for Australia, but he conceded 358 runs while doing so. Jim Sims was a good enough leg spinner to be selected for England and a useful lower order batter. Jemma Barsby, who bowls both off spin and left arm orthodox spin, and has recently helped the Adelaide Strikers to win a second successive WBBL title was another I considered. Jack Noreiga remains in a club of one as a West Indian to have test match nine-for. Jim Higgs had some successes as a leg spinner for Australia. Jack Saunders, who bowled left arm spin and seam for Australia in the early 20th century had a fine record as well. Two left arm spinners, Johnny Briggs and Johnny Wardle, both had excellent test records. Jimmy Matthews once took a hat trick in each innings of a test match, but those six scalps were almost half his career tally of test wickets and he never took more than four in an innings at that level.

I have doubtless missed a few.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

The Resumption of Test Cricket

The resumption of test cricket is our main theme today, and there are as usual some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

Test cricket has returned, club cricket restarts in this country on Saturday, and the domestic first class game restarts on August 1st. This means that the ‘all time XI’ series with which I have been filling the gap has performed its task (see yesterday’s sign off post). This post is the first of the new era on this blog.

THE ALL TIME XIS IN RETROSPECT

The series began with an 18 post whistle stop tour of the first class counties, and then as I realized that there was going to be a major wait before I had any real cricket to concentrate on it developed into a wide-ranging series covering national set ups, various esoteric themed XIs and variations on these themes. When it was confirmed that this test series between England and the West Indies would be happening I had my logical point at which to bring the series to a close. Most of the players I selected in my XIs were players I had already heard of, but just occasionally, when I was one or two names short of an XI I used cricinfo.com not merely to check on records but to find players to fill the XI.

THE TEST MATCH – DAY 1

There was some stuff about Black Lives Matter and racism in cricket – Ebony Rainford-Brent and Michael Holding, two black former players, were especially impressive on Sky (video footage of this was made available after the event by Sky themselves). Unfortunately the weather failed to oblige, and very little actual play was possible.

There are no spectators at the ground, all part of keeping it bio-secure, which means that there is no natural crowd noise. Test Match Special have prerecorded background noise as a default setting – it sounds like a low hum in the background – but one can also access a version without the fake crowd noise, which I greatly prefer. England were 35-1 at the end of the first day, with Burns one runs away from his 1,000 career runs in test cricket.

Play was officially called off just before 6PM, due to bad light (given the presence of floodlights why do they not have a selection of white balls available, so that play can continue under the lights even if it is dark – there are no spectators to get home, and the Ageas bowl was chosen as a venue precisely because there is a hotel there for the players to use, so they have no travelling to do?).

DAY 2 SO FAR

The weather has been better, and play got under way at 11AM sharp (again, why not an early start to make up for lost time?) The West Indies, relying on four pace bowlers, Kemar Roach, Alzarri Joseph, Shannon Gabriel and the captain Jason Holder (if they decide they need spin it will be bowled by Roston Chase – Rahkeem Cornwall is not involved in this match) bowled very well. England did not bat especially well, and Denly, Burns, Crawley and Pope all fell before lunch, which was reached with England 106-5 from 42 overs. Gabriel was especially impressive, accounting for all of England’s top three, Burns, Sibley and Denly, and the giant Holder took the other two wickets. Since lunch Stokes and Buttler have batted reasonably well, although Stokes has benefitted from two dropped chances so far, one either side of lunch, and England are currently 127-5 off 48 overs. England’s remaining batters are Bess, Wood, Archer and Anderson (at least I presume they will come in in that order). I would not have selected Denly,  preferring to give Lawrence a debut and keep Crawley at three. I would also have selected Foakes in preference to Buttler, and the latter could do with producing a serious score in red ball cricket. I am pleased that both the out and out speedsters, Wood and Archer are in the side. On this surface, which does appear to be decidedly bowler friendly England are not in quite as desperate trouble as the score might seem to indicate – if they can conjure another 100 they will have a defensible looking total (and Bess has a test 50, Wood has made useful runs at test level and Archer is supposedly capable of batting, so it does not quite all rest on Stokes and Buttler – though one of them will need to bat through from here). I also note that four of the five England wickets have fallen to good bowling rather than poor batting (Pope, who had looked in impressive touch, will not want to see his dismissal again but none of the others have too much with which to reproach themselves). In summary of the play so far: well bowled the West Indies. I do not think England made the wrong decision in opting to bat first: if you choose to bowl you need quick wickets to justify that decision, which puts extra pressure on the bowlers, and it is quite possible that by the final innings the pitch will be assisting Bess as much as it helps the quicker bowlers.

HOME COUNTRY UMPIRES

Another change wrought by the pandemic is that umpires can no longer safely be jetted in from round the world, so we have home country umpires back in charge. The two guys in the middle, Richard Kettleborough and Richard Illingworth, have not so far had the best of times – two LBWs which were quickly given ‘not out’ in the middle were reviewed by the West Indies and overturned pretty smartly by the TV replay umpire Michael Gough. On the plus side this has shown that with DRS in place and being used wisely (are you reading this, Mr Paine?) that giving ‘home’ decisions is no longer so much of an issue as it was when third country umpires were introduced, because they just get overturned. While I have been typing this England have passed the 150 with no further wickets down, although Stokes is still somewhat riding his luck.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

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PS – just as I finalize this before publication Stokes’ luck has run out – he has gone for 43 and England are 154-6. Dom Bess has come in at no8 as expected.