No disrespect to David Gower, Rob Key and Andrew Strauss — who had plenty to say in the studio afterwards, lots of which was to the point. But surely the most pithy reaction to yesterday’s result in Adelaide came via Sky News and its bottom-of-the-screen tickertape: “England have been kocked out of the Cricket World Cup after losing to Bangladesh.”
A typo in the newsroom? A kock-up? Well, possibly. But a Freudian one, if so. For what was yesterday’s broadcast from Adelaide if not one long edition of It’s a Kockout? Chris Jordan’s entirely needless and muddled run-out in the game’s key phase only lacked a hoot from the late Eddie Waring and some flung sponges to take its place in the annals of foam-engulfed, competitive slapstick.
The third umpire spent an age poring over what, from the sitting room, looked like patently contradictory images of shadows and flashing stumps before somehow satisfying himself that Jordan’s bat, having been grounded, had bounced up again at the critical moment.
First point: stupid rule. Second point: we don’t just need illuminating stumps, we need illuminating bats, clearly, if the third umpire is going to be able to do his job properly in such circumstances. And possibly illuminating players, for the avoidance of all doubt.
How quickly the game turned thereafter. One moment Sky Sports was showing us a proud package describing Jos Buttler’s “strong zone” — the place low down on the off side from which he is likely to cream the ball into the nearest advertising hoarding and carry his country past another humiliation. Not long after we were watching a sad-sack compilation entitled “England’s poor footwork”. And not long after that the jig was up.
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“England are out, they are gone, they are done and dusted,” cried Nasser Hussain, electing to go all parrot sketch on the grave of England’s World Cup campaign. “The Bangladesh Tigers have knocked the England Lions out of the World Cup,” he added. “And look at what it means to them.”
We’ve got a lot of time for Hussain round here, but this instructing viewers to look at pictures and draw their own conclusions is an advancing blight in modern sports commentary and, according to our records, Hussain had recourse to it three times yesterday alone. It’s a minor abdication of responsibility, under pressure, but we don’t like to see it creeping into his game.
No such problem for David Lloyd. Many commentators would have chosen this moment in the history of English cricket to evoke Oliver Hardy, and Lloyd duly did so, sighing: “That’s another fine mess you’ve got me into, Stanley.” However, only Bumble, one senses, would go on to add the critical, clinching, “Mmm, mmm,” which turns a passing Hardy allusion into a definitive summary.
That’s why people in the game speak of Lloyd as a consummate “finisher” — someone you can trust to come on for the final seven or eight overs and see a game out. If only England had one of those, as the pundits repeatedly argued yesterday. Also some people to come in at the beginning. And to do the stuff in the middle.
It by no means diminished one’s amazement that, for long periods, England were struggling against a medium pace bowler — Mashrafe Mortaza, the Bangladesh captain — with knee braces that are visible through his pyjama bottoms, who at times barely seemed capable of limping back to his mark, let alone running in from it. Mind you, his condition did seem to go into remission during wicket celebrations. Adrenalin, presumably — plus, of course, the obligation to show “what it meant” to him.
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“Ultimately, we didn’t perform,” said Eoin Morgan, who has unarguably come into his own during this tournament as a versatile and patient maker of statements of the bleeding obvious. “It doesn’t feel like a time to be analysing it at the moment,” suggested Peter Moores, the England head coach, evasively, before assuring us that England would be conducting a review “over the coming days”. “Well, come back on the show and tell us how you get on,” as Hussain might have said in reply, but, alas, didn’t.
On we go, though. Gower, his eyes baggy with emotion (or possibly baggy with the rigours of a 3am start in London) and his limbs heavy with the obligation, forced upon him by Sky’s chairless studio, to take this latest dismal reversal standing up rather than sitting down, looked drily through the calendar in search of what he called “England’s next, maybe, dare I say, serious cricket”. April against the West Indies seemed to be the date in question. No one sounded terribly excited at the prospect. It will only be a matter of time, the implication was, before England are kocking on the door once again.