Wickman was already sick before he decided to turn in with England 30-4 in their second innings against the mighty Kiwis on Saturday night at 2315. During the night Wickman slid into his own personal hell of stomach cramps and nausea. But the shit was truly hitting the fan in Hamilton. The Brit Journopack had all predicted a clean sweep for England down under and someone was going to have to pay...
John Buchanan, former Australian coach and reader of obscure treatise on war, was largely dismissed in the media by his players. Perhaps it was Warne, perhaps it was McGrath, but people in that camp would intimate that they were too good to be coached and that Buck was just there to "put out the cones".
Bob Woolmer (RIP - how did we never get him as coach?) was, media stories alleged, over-ruled and mistreated by the hierarchy of the Pakistan team. Balooooo was not going to be told what to do. Dinky Dunky Fletch didn't really deliver in his final Ashes campaign or World Cup and managed to get his retaliation in first against Freddie and his acolytes in double quick time.
Talented sportsmen don't need coaches is the modern mantra. So you have to blame England then for the batting collapses and bowling surrenders of the last 18 months and in particular for the Alan Bysmal 110 on the last day in Hamilton. That Harmison can't get the ball down the other end any quicker than Paul Collingwood is not the fault of the England management. That we scored so appallingly slowly in Adelaide and in Sri Lanka and then again in the first innings in Hamilton is not the fault of our Zimbabwean batting coach. It must be down to the players...
Back in the 1990s when England was a byword for catastrophe in cricket, there was a team chaplain, Wingers-Diggers (Andrew Wingfield Digby). What a laugh riot. You've just got out and a man of the cloth comes across and puts the consoling arm of the Lord around you to help out. Please God, make my next innings a match winner. Bwahahahahahaha.
Maybe, just maybe, Shane Warne was such a talent that he didn't need coaching. Maybe, just maybe, Inzi was too good to be coached. The Australian team might even be good enough to downgrade the support that they need to various technical coaches.
But there is no way that ANY England player currently in New Zealand can claim to be one of the game's greats. So what will Peter Moores do? This the worst England display this "correspondent" can recall for more than a decade. It's spineless, whingeing craven stuff. The ex-players in the scorebox are almost suicidal. Your average armchair fan can't stay awake for more than a couple of overs.
Mr Moores. Most of your team look scared. The batsmen look tortured, afraid to play their games in case they get out. Harmison is shot. There's a man that has fallen out of love with playing cricket for England. He's a decent man they say. Wickman could have told you a long time ago that he doesn't have, on his own, the temperament for it. Wickman has read interviews with him where he has essentially said that his talent comes with no fortitude. He doesn't like bowling quickly. He doesn't want to utilise the inherent threat of being able to connect leather with flesh and bone to his and to England's advantage. He's not ruthless. Can anyone really imagine him, Marshallesque, threatening to come round the wicket to kill David Boon? More likely he'd bowl a few half volleys to get Boon to a ton.
Pietersen has stopped playing Bertie Big Bollocks cricket. He seems to Wickman to have lost all the arsehole qualities that made him so special in 2005. He seems to have tightened up his game to point where he has become, whisper it, ORTHODOX. Michael Vaughan? He's a God on Earth but he's not getting big scores. Andrew Strauss... Ian Bell is not getting big scores.
So this is where the coach earns his money surely. The fielding drills are working Mr M - you have turned Alastair Cook into Jonty Rhodes. But where are the cojones? Where's the belief? Where's the trust in teammates? Where is the sheer talent in this team? Spunk. Performance... call it what you will.
Somehow Peter Moores has to put some self belief back into this team, into the individuals or, frankly, sack them and find someone else to do the jobs that they are paid to do with the joy and enthusiasm that we should be seeing out there.
Currently the drool on quarter of a million chins round the UK is because 250000 punters are falling asleep on the nation's sofas. Wickman was drooling at 4am Sunday morning because he was in that state that we only reach when shallow breathing and a clenched ringpiece are the only things that will stop other effluvia flowing. We should be drooling over sublime bowling figures and big tons. It should be pleasureable. Please.
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