Darren Gough, Alec Stewart and Derek Pringle all came to the conclusion that Andrew Strauss wasn’t capable of batting in Indian conditions and wouldn’t make their collective world cup squad when filming a piece for Sky TV back in September last year.
The mock squad selection was chaired by Mike Atherton. I watched the piece with interest and remember how Darren Gough and Derek Pringle in particular were so dead set against Strauss playing in the world cup.
It annoyed me for a number of reasons. First, Strauss had proved himself a good leader of men and had the team right behind him, so why upset that and change the captain?
Second, after the world T20 success, we were treated to a series of articles from ex players telling us how Paul Collingwood should now be the 50 over captain and Craig Kieswetter should take over from Matt Prior behind the stumps in all forms.
Just for the record, where are the games of Paul Collingwood and Craig Kieswetter at the moment? In a good place?
My gripe being, that these articles and TV pieces just appear to be written and performed by ex pros jumping on a particular short sighted bandwagon. It’s as if they are trying to say something controversial just to get themselves noticed.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not overly bothered about it, it doesn’t keep me awake at night worrying about this, I just wonder how they keep getting away with talking such rubbish and then getting invited back to talk even more of it.
I made my feelings known about it at the time, but since the programme, I have heard and read the so called ‘mock selection panel’ trying to justify or back track their remarks.
Gough backed up his view that Strauss couldn’t bat in Indian conditions on Talksport, I heard Alec Stewart say on TMS that he was just going along with the others and Derek Pringle used his Daily Telegraph column in a poor effort to justify himself a couple of days later.
This article in the Guardian just after the programme, highlights the former players pathetic backtracking efforts.
And the silence was defening from them all today after Strauss’ century on Sunday.
While I’m on the subject of ex players pissing me off, another example of hypocrisy that got my back up came in the form of Michael Vaughan yesterday. As soon as England started losing wickets in our batting power-play, he claimed that England took it too early.
Now I’ve listened to Vaughan on Test Match Special quite a lot over the last 18 months and I can say that I’ve heard him on many occasions criticise teams for leaving the batting power-play too late in the innings.
I know every situation is different, but many of Vaughan’s criticisms have been a generalization that batting power-plays are taken too late. Which bloody way does he want it?
Stani Army
I remember seeing this on Sky, and quite frankly some people think too much of themselves. Gough’s clearly spent too long on talksport talking b******s and has carried it over everywhere.
As for Vaughan; he’s usually pretty good. Maybe the disappointment of throwing a certain victory away led him to make the statement. Other commentators were definitely guilty of this though.
I think what also hastened the powerplay choice was Bell’s condition. He and Strauss probably though he’s suffering so may as well hit as many as he can. Unfortunately, he fell straight away.
Cricket Betting Blog
I think you’re right about Bell, I heard him say in an interview that due to his condition he had to play some big shots as he couldn’t carry on, or he needed to get out and let someone capable of running come in.
I generally like listening to Vaughan. I just felt he was talking with a lot of hindsight on Sunday. And yes, he is far from the only one who does this.