Flat pitches, flatter series

By Cricinfo editor Sambit Bal

Don’t go by the dramatic last hour, when a crumbling pitch almost contrived to produce a result: on the dullness scale, this series stood sheepishly alongside the one these rivals played out in Pakistan in 2006. Like then, the better team took the series, but save for a few individual performances, the cricket remained uninspiring almost throughout; often it was insipid.

A large amount of the blame must be assigned to the pitches, or more appropriately, those responsible for creating them. For nearly two unseemly weeks senior BCCI officials obsessed over the harm being caused to Indian cricket by the chief selector writing a column in defiance of the board’s code of conduct, but not a word was heard about the dead pitch that condemned the second Test to tedium. Of course, the BCCI’s constitution doesn’t lay down guidelines for safeguarding trivial matters like the health of Test cricket and spectator interest.

One of the most heartening aspects about cricket in recent times is that Test cricket has become far more result-oriented, yet the last six encounters between India and Pakistan have yielded four draws, all of them on pitches designed to break the heart and will of bowlers. It would have been a travesty had India sneaked a win at Bangalore, because it would not have been earned by great bowling, but rather due to a pitch that became a minefield towards the end after staying unfair to bowlers for the most part. Anil Kumble looked deadly bowling seam-up, and Yuvraj Singh just by bowling at the stumps.

India didn’t deserve to win because they had shown no intent - in fact, after lunch Kumble seemed more focused on giving Dinesh Karthik an opportunity to bat than on forcing a win - and a result would have somewhat redeemed a pitch that was just not good enough.

This said, the story of the series was also that neither team possessed a bowling attack capable of transcending the pitches. India winning 1-0 was the right result: they were the superior team; but a 2-0 scoreline would have flattered them. Pakistan will rue that one suicidal session on the fourth day in Delhi that cost them the series, but the truth is that like India in the 2006 series, they were playing catch-up all through the series. They managed to bowl India out only twice in the three Tests, and only once for under 600. At no point did they get themselves to a position from where victory could be contemplated.

But most of all, they were flat, lacking in fire, intensity and purpose. The most conspicuous personification of their diffidence was their inexperienced captain. Shoaib Malik had looked calm and controlled while leading Pakistan to the final of the World Twenty20 in South Africa, but in the longer versions of the game, in home series against South Africa and here in the one-dayers and in the first Test, he looked forlorn and bereft of inspiration. Inzamam-ul-Haq, his predecessor, often gave the impression of disengagement, but he had presence and commanded respect of his team-mates for his batting abilities.

Keep faith in your brilliance, don’t bed the staff and you’ll be all right

By the Times chief sports writer Simon Barnes

As Fabio Capello inches closer to the job of England head coach, he prepares for a voyage into the unknown. Running any national team is different from running a club and running the England team presents unique difficulties.

England has a growing reputation for eating football managers. Men have gone into the job with every possible credential – tough, unflappable, capable – and one by one they have ended up on the dining table.

Just as water finds the weak places in a landscape over the course of millennia, so the England job finds the weak places in a man; sometimes, in the case of the lately departed Steve McClaren, in a matter of months.

Recent history gives Capello sound advice. Alas, all the advice is negative, but it is as well to pay attention. For example, if you are approached by a sheikh who promises the earth, make your excuses and leave. Don’t hang around outside Roman Abramovich’s flat with the expression of a man visiting a prostitute. Keep your trousers on at all times when dealing with members of staff.

It’s also a good idea not to put your name to a CD of undemanding classical music.

There are many other obvious pitfalls. Don’t write a book about your job and expect to keep it. If you have eccentric religious beliefs, don’t tell The Times. Don’t burst into tears in the lav – but I don’t think Capello goes for the tears-and-Andrex jag. And, of course, don’t take part in fly-on-the-wall documentaries and say things such as “ Quello non mi piace?”* Don’t try to make the press like you. That’s a mistake they all make. Any attempt to come across as a sympathetic person will fail. Worse, it makes you look like a creep. The idea that you are weak and contemptible passes on to the players; that weakens your authority, hence your ability to win matches. That is why, the longer you stay in the job, the more your authority is undermined and the harder it becomes to win matches.

Is the job genuinely impossible? Any job is impossible if the expectations of your employers are unrealistic. Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997 and everybody believed that Britain would instantly become peaceful, green and happy. We thought we had elected Swampy. Blair failed our expectations, but they were not realistic in the first place.

Absolutely Fabio

By the BBC’s Derek ‘Robbo’ Robson

So Fabio it is. It’s a bit of a blow personally cos I thought I had a real chance once His Specialness turned it down. He’s not an idiot, is he, that fella?

Them that desperately wanted an English manager are going to be disappointed. With those European specs he couldn’t be more continental.

I’ve been to Specsavers meself but them fancy dan goggles always make me look like a German businessman who’s trying too hard.

You can’t argue with the appointment. Everything that’s being said about him fills with me with a sense of security.

He’s a brute in training? Good. Some of our lads need it straight between the eyes. McClaren was so blinking pally-pally it was embarrassing. Sometimes when he spoke dreamily of Stevie G or JT you got the impression he couldn’t believe his luck either.

Del Piero thought he was a tyrant. Yeah and there’s a lad who looks like he likes a sun-lounger and a singapore sling.

He lacks a human side? Fine by me. Probably means he won’t need a brolly.

His track record is brilliant. We have cast-iron proof that the bloke KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING! Not such god news for the England boys. Cos this time we’re not going to be looking a the manager if things go T.U.

He can hardly speak a word of English. Good. He’ll fit in perfectly with the rest of the squad. I never have a clue what Rio Ferdinand’s on about either.

He’ll play effective, unexciting football. Fantastic. I dunno about you but England 2 Croatia 3 is about as exciting as I can stand.

He wants the job. Yeah, I know, what kind of fool is he? It’s about as beautiful a challenge as the one Stephen Ireland commited last weekend (After Nicky Hunt’s effort the previous week I’m beginning to wonder if Irish internationals need a lesson in the perfect slidey - or have they been busy reading the Keano autobiography?)

Clarence Seedorf said: “He would rather have less quality but committed players rather than quality players who are not committed.” Well that just fits the bill perfectly.

Me, I’m happy. The bloke’s about the best available. If Wenger and Fergie think so, then who are we to argue?

All the FA wants for Christmas is a chairman with ideas and character

From the Times chief sports correspondent Matt Dickinson

The interviews are being carried out in secret, the chosen candidate will be presented before Christmas and the ramifications for English football could be far-reaching. So, who is going to be the FA’s new independent chairman?

If you care about the fate of the England team in ten or twenty years’ time, and not only the chances of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, it should be occupying your thoughts every bit as much as the manoeuvrings of José Mourinho and Fabio Capello.

It is not, of course, which is why it is worth asking how seriously we take the wide-ranging issues that have been raised since England’s dismal failure to qualify for Euro 2008. The woeful neglect of sport in state schools may seem less urgent once Brian Barwick, the FA’s chief executive, has snared his “world-class” manager. There may not be so many angry discussions about the size of children’s pitches once Fabio Capello, the high-class successor to Steve McClaren, sits at the top table with Barwick beaming in the chair beside him.

Once the national team improve, as they surely will even under a man whose English is not perfect, we will go back to laughing along with the John Smith’s “ ’Ave it” advertisement rather than acknowledging, ruefully, that it reveals a national weakness. A familiar complacency will take hold unless someone stops it and who better than someone starting afresh, someone from outside the game, someone installed right at the top of the pyramid? The new independent chairman, like the next England head coach, should be appointed in time for the next FA board meeting on December 19.

If this seems to be putting a lot of significance on a man in a suit, we should first acknowledge the restrictions that will greet him. He will join an FA that remains encumbered by a laborious committee structure. The 92-man council, complete with its representatives from the Forces and Oxbridge, continues to be a ludicrous anachronism. The Burns report, the recent structural review of the organisation, was just a bit of tinkering.

But all of this just makes the choice of independent chairman more important - and it makes it critical that the man chosen has courage, conviction and dynamism. At a time when the two leading organisations, the Premier League and FA, are in deadlock over something as important as youth development, the national sport has never been more in need of someone to knock heads together. Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister, has yet to show that he has anything to offer either for children or the elite.

Will we get a man of boldness? We are dependent on a four-man headhunting panel that has been led by Lord Mawhinney, the chairman of the Football League, who would love the job. Some suggest that the new chairman’s independence is already compromised, given Mawhinney’s influence.

And with the shortlist thought to be down to Sir Roy Gardner and Lord Triesman of Tottenham, there are mutterings within the game that the FA is not about to be chaired by a man who will pull up trees.

Schumacher may be Germany’s fastest taxi driver

BERLIN (AFP) - Michael Schumacher may well be the fastest taxi driver in Germany after the seven-times world champion shocked a cab driver by taking over the wheel in order to be on time for a flight.

Schumacher, 38, flew into the aerodrome at the Bavarian town of Coburg on Saturday and took a taxi to the village of Gehuelz, 30 kilometres away, to pick up a new puppy - an Australian Shepherd dog called “Ed”.

But when the former Formula One ace, plus his wife and two children, caught a taxi back to the airport they were short on time and, after a polite request, cab driver Tuncer Yilmaz watched in wonder as Schumacher took the wheel.

“I found myself in the passenger seat, which was strange enough, but to have “Schumi” behind the wheel of my cab was incredible,” Mr Yilmaz told the Muenchner Abendzeitung.

“He drove at full throttle around the corners and over-took in some unbelievable places.”

Mr Yilmaz was well rewarded for the unusual journey - on top of the 60 euros (88 US dollars) fare, he was also given a 100 euros (146 US dollars) tip.

Schumacher’s spokesperson Sabine Kehm later confirmed the story.

The German track ace, who now lives in Switzerland, retired from Formula One in 2006 after a glittering career and, despite test drives for his old team Ferarri, has insisted there is no chance of a return to racing.

£80m an expensive motivational tool

From the Times Gabriele Marcotti

Sometimes change can work in the most unexpected ways. Real Madrid acquired ten players last summer at a cost of about £80 million. It was an attempt to overhaul a team who, under Fabio Capello, won La Liga but supposedly came up short in the entertainment department.

Four months on, Real sit top of La Liga. Is it evidence that spending money guarantees success? Not quite because, amazingly, of Real’s ten newcomers, only one - Wesley Sneijder, the Holland playmaker – has started as many as half the club’s matches this season.

The others’ impact has ranged from the fleeting to the impalpable. Pepe, the £20 million Portugal defender, missed ten weeks with injury. Christoph Metzelder, the Germany centre back, has made six starts, while Royston Drenthe, the much-hyped Dutchman, has made four. The quartet of players who used to ply their trade in England – Arjen Robben, Gabriel Heinze, Júlio Baptista and Jerzy Dudek – have started seven games between them. And the pair of strikers, Javier Saviola (plucked on a Bosman free transfer from Barcelona) and Roberto Soldado (back from his loan spell at Osasuna, where he scored 11 goals in 21 appearances last season) have accumulated only three starts between them.

What is curious here is how Real have thrived without the contribution of those players who were supposed to strengthen the team, but rather relied on the veterans, in some cases the same veterans who were apparently past it. Take Guti, for example. Eleven months ago Ramón Calderón, the club president, was caught on tape lambasting Guti and his unfulfilled potential, saying that he has been “a promising player” for his entire career. This season the 31-year-old, originally pencilled in as a reserve, has been a fixture in midfield, playing some of the best football of his career.

Raúl, the club captain and a veritable superstar early in his career, seemed to hit the skids after his 26th birthday, failing to reach double figures in league goals in each of the past three seasons. This season he has amassed eight league goals already.

Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos, as always, have been the driving forces defensively and Robinho and Fabio Cannavaro, after disappointing campaigns last season, are back to their best as well. As for Ruud van Nistelrooy, it is the same story: put the ball anywhere near him and he will stick it in the net. His goal against Athletic Bilbao on Saturday evening took his season’s tally to seven in 12 matches and his overall Real record to 32 in 49 appearances.

Contradiction right at heart of the enigma that is Kieren Fallon

By the Times Chief Sports Writer Simon Barnes

Jockeys are a difficult bunch. It’s a mixture of short man’s chippiness and the demands of the job, a series of brusque, even brutal, wham-bam relationships with an endless series of partners. Thus we have the depression of Fred Archer, the pathological meanness of Lester Piggott, Willie Carson’s outbreaks of spitefulness, and even Frankie Dettori has a dark side.

But Kieren Fallon is different. I have had long chats with him on two or three occasions and each time I walked away thinking: “What a nice guy. If only they were all like that.” Fallon’s CV speaks of someone you would cross the M25 to avoid, but the man himself is quite different.

All the same, there was the time when he pulled a rival jockey off his horse — brilliant, in a way, because a racing saddle and an oated-up thoroughbred do not make a stable platform for judo. Whatever else Fallon may be, he is not so much a magnet for trouble as a black hole. Incomprehensible forces of gravitation tug every possible aspect of strife and destruction towards him. And so, even as his corruption trial collapses, we hear that he has failed a drugs test for cocaine, a matter still in the arena of the unproven as we await the findings for the B sample.

And yet the man I met was a champion jockey filled with humility, lost in admiration for Dettori’s style, expressing a touching eagerness to improve. You can see his hidden nature in the way he rides, in the impulsive, nanosecond seizing of a gap. But for the rest — well, he has some of the most well-mannered demons you could possibly wish to be introduced to. One of the strangest men I’ve ever met.

As reports in different newspapers claim that José Mourinho has (a) signed up as England’s next head coach and (b) performed an about-turn and joined Barcelona, the fact to bear in mind is that neither scenario would come as the least surprise. Mourinho obeys neither laws nor conventions. He pleases himself and if he gets the England job, he will do it for himself alone.

I take my hat (and shirt) off to Giggs

I remember attending a football match in which opposition supporters sang of their hatred for Ryan Giggs. Not for the first or the last time, I was bemused by a football crowd. How can anyone hate Ryan Giggs? He’s another of those athletes who lift the heart.

He has just scored his 100th league goal for Manchester United, so it’s a nice moment to applaud him as he lifts his bat, and to muse on the idiosyncratic gallop – at full pace, he is recognisable from half a mile away – and that expression, seen far too often, alas, of profound and innocent bewilderment because the ball that he has struck has failed to find the goal.

No Ordinary Joe

By the BBC’s Derek ‘Robbo’ Robson

Well a bit of justice was done on Sunday.

Not the Boro’s utter dismantling of them Arsenal boys that left Arsene Wenger with the usual gripes about teams doing their nasty hard tackles on his darling boys. (No mention of the happy-slapping Eboue, mind).

Nah, we gave the Sports Personality Award to the right person. He should’ve got in the top three last year at the very least, but the forelock-tugging numb-nuts of the British public decided to chuck it the way of a toff and her gee-gee.

Calzaghe has not lost for 10 years. Sports Personality of the Decade, then.

Now I’ve heard them that’s in the know banging on about how boxing shouldn’t really be recognised in this way. And I’ve heard some long-winded apologies from boxing fans on phone-ins and the like.

The issue comes up when a likeable sort of fella like Ricky ‘Hitman’ Hatton (or Rick-yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyuh Hitman H-aaaaaaaa-tuuuuuuuuuunnnn as he’s now known) gets dumped on the canvas by a sickening blow.

Your medical profession says people shouldn’t be paid to inflict brain damage on each other. It’s hard to argue against that.

Your pro-fight lobby reel off a string of cliches such as:

1. It keeps young men off the streets.
Right. So does footy training but you don’t have blokes bashing the hell out of each other (if we ignore Messrs Bowyer and Barton, allegedly)

Joe Calzaghe-A deserving winner

I was absolutely delighted yesterday when Joe Calzaghe won the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2007. Calzaghe received just under 178,000 votes to beat off firm favourite Lewis Hamilton who gained around 122,000 votes. Calzaghe has had an incredible career with a fighting record which stands at 44-0. He has been the longest reigning title holder of any weight class in boxing which has just passed the 10 year mark. He beat Peter Manfredo Jr earlier this year and then beat Mikkel Kessler to unify the WBA, WBC, WBO, and Ring Magazine super middleweight titles which was another incredible achievement and confirmed him as one of the best pound for pound fighters in the world.

It is great that the British public decided to vote for a true champion rather than Lewis Hamilton who was a close runner-up. Don’t get me wrong as Hamilton is incredibly talented and had an astonishing year considering he was a rookie. I reckon(and so do many others!) that he will win the Formula 1 world championship sooner rather than later and it will be nice to see him win the Sports Personality Award when he does. However if he had won this year it would not have reflected sporting achievement but general popularity which is not really what I think the award is about. Calzaghe has truly achieved sporting excellence in his field and has been given the recognition he thoroughly deserves.

Lewis Hamilton - a very British sort of victor

By the Times Simon Barnes

So which loser shall we give it to this year? Lewis Hamilton, who lost the Formula One drivers’ World Championship, is favourite to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year; he’s 5-2 on. It’s a done deal.

There is a great tradition of Formula One losers being made Sports Personality of the Year; Nigel Mansell in 1986, Damon Hill in 1994. Silver medal is the prize for the first loser: that, and the BBC Sports Personality award.

It’s not only drivers. There is a national habit of giving the award to people who haven’t won anything and that is, at least on the face of it, an odd thing in a business that is supposed to be about winning and nothing else. On five occasions since 1990 the award has gone to a nonwinner. That is to say, a loser. In 1990 it went to Paul Gascoigne, for losing to West Germany in the semi-finals of the World Cup. England finished fourth in that tournament after losing the third-place play-off. Gascoigne cried and didn’t even take a penalty in the shoot-out (he had been substituted).

In 1994 Hill got the award for not being Formula One world champion. It was the year he was driven off the track by Michael Schumacher; it was a sort of consolation prize from a sympathetic nation.

In 1997 Greg Rusedski got the award for being the losing finalist in the US Open tennis tournament. He lost to Pat Rafter, of Australia, in four sets; perhaps the fact that he won a set and was wearing a black armband for Diana, Princess of Wales, swayed everybody’s judgment.

The next year the award went to Michael Owen. The striker scored a great goal for England against Argentina, but England lost the match on penalties and so they went out of the competition in the round of 16. Is that as far from being a winner as an award-winner can get?

No, actually. In 2001 David Beckham won it. He got the award after England qualified for the World Cup finals in melodramatic fashion, almost losing to Greece in the last match in the qualifying group before Beckham’s swirling 93rd minute free kick made it 2-2. So England didn’t even win the match and, rather than actually wining something, England simply counted themselves among the 32 nations who would take part in the tournament. Not exactly world-beating stuff.

Now there are a number of ways of looking at this, but the first thing to be clear about is that we are by no means bigoted in our national taste for winners. (The past five recipients of the award have been serious winners: Paula Radcliffe, Jonny Wilkinson, Kelly Holmes, Andrew Flintoff and Zara Phillips).

But we are not pedantic about sporting heroes. We prefer winners, but we are happy to embrace the right kind of loser. In other words, losing also has a kind of beauty.

There is perfection and a beauty about defeat, but above all there is sometimes a story, a vivid tale of a cosmic striving and a desperate falling-short. Sport doesn’t only give you impregnable and immaculate heroes, it also gives you flawed heroes and flawed losers that excite our love. The nation judges and tomorrow night a loser will win.

Me? I’d vote for Christine Ohuruogu, but there you go.

For more from Simon Barnes click here