And to think that I was predicting that the cricket World Cup would be predictable. England have been on a mission to add the dimension of the unexpected to the interminable qualifying stage of a tournament that still, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
All five England matches have been remarkable. I have been trying to work out how they have managed it every time and I think I have cracked it. They are modelling themselves on me. Me, and the way I play table tennis.
Like England, I am capable of playing rather well and equally capable of playing rather badly. (That is to say, by “fancy a game of ping-pong” standards, not the Olympic standards of Matthew Syed, my colleague.) And regardless of how good my opponent is, I invariably lose 22-20. With someone hopeless, I lower my game to the gutter. With someone brilliant, I, too, am brilliant — just not quite brilliant enough. I am the world’s best opponent: you always get a thrilling game against me and I always lose. Just.
England have followed this pattern more or less exactly. True, they won against the Netherlands, but that’s because, try as they might, England couldn’t lower their standards sufficiently. They also beat South Africa, but that’s because South Africa have a contractual obligation to choke in close matches at the World Cup. (They’ll have to get the contract lawyers in after Saturday’s match, though.) The tie against India came after England had played brilliantly to put themselves in a winning position against the favourites. They blew a winning position comprehensively, but not quite enough to achieve defeat. The defeat by Ireland came because they couldn’t cope with a detonation of brilliance and good fortune from Blessed Kevin O’Brien; Friday’s defeat against Bangladesh also came from a winning position.
Poor England batting gave Bangladesh a target of a mere 226; England then played brilliantly to leave their opponents needing 57 from 62 balls with two wickets left. England contrived to lose it from there, with James Anderson — England Ashes hero — bowling a succession of leg-side wides.
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If I am prepared to admit that my record in ping-pong stems from all kinds of ghastly character flaws then England must accept the same thing. The players are talented enough and fit enough and prepared enough to be among the tournament favourites — at least at the start — but in match after match, they have failed mentally.
I always put my ping-pong failings down to some hidden core of deference, some deep-rooted unwillingness to see the bloody thing through. But how could that be true of England? Just last December I was in Adelaide writing about England’s brutal defeat of Australia in the second Ashes Test match. Just last January I was writing about England’s 3-1 victory in the series. It was a triumph of planning, of talent, of preparation, of will.
England were superb in the Ashes series. The bowlers hunted in a pack, the batsmen made sure that when one failed, another stepped in and did the business, and the fielding was aggressively and oppressively brilliant. This was a hard-fought victory by a hard-nosed team.
How come they are now playing with such deference, uncertainty, inconsistency? There is a personnel shift from Test match to one-dayers, but the heart of the team is the same and so is the coaching staff. The world-beaters of the Ashes series have become the Chuckle Brothers of the World Cup. A team conspicuous for mental strength have become a team conspicuous for mental frailty.
These are professional athletes, highly trained, very fit indeed, very well prepared. Physically, they have everything they need to do very well at the World Cup. But emotionally, they are shot. They gave everything to the Ashes series: they have recuperated physically, but it is impossible to recuperate mentally — certainly not when you have been playing cricket incessantly since that triumph.
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There has been no time to absorb that fabulous victory, no time to savour it, no time to come to terms with it. There has been no time to gloat and no time to get over gloating. The Ashes victory remains an unprocessed emotion. Modern training methods can allow a team to play cricket for all but 12 months, but no one had found a way to make the fulfilment of something the nation has waited 24 years for seem unimportant.
• The matches at the cricket World Cup — I mean those in which England haven’t been playing — tend to go through strange periods when neither side is trying to win. It’s as if the teams have signed a middle-overs non-aggression pact. The bowling side set a field that allows 4.5 runs an over and the batting side then knocks the ball into the gaps created. Neither side seeks to violate this Geneva Convention: batsmen don’t try to hit over the top, captains don’t set aggressive fields to take wickets or block the singles. It’s become a meaningless ritual that must be gone through before we get to the interesting bit. You see the same sort of things in all sports. Sometimes it’s called lack of imagination, but its real name is fear.
• Photographers notice stuff. They notice things that the eyes of most of us simply don’t pick up. So here is an odd little detail from the Champions League match between Barcelona and Arsenal last week (see picture above). These are the studs worn by Daniel Alves, the Barcelona right back. Or are they Jelly Babies? A picture from Marc Aspland, the chief sports photographer of The Times.
Cheers to Jodie for not being deflected from chosen track
There is no more inspiring company than teenagers who are on good terms with themselves and the world. You get idealism, optimism, ambition and a determination to avoid all the mistakes that have been made by all the grown-ups over the past three or four thousand years. The kids are all right: they always are.
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So best greetings from this column to Jodie Williams, the British sprint sensation. She is 17 and made her debut in senior athletics competition a few days ago in the European Indoor Championships. The idea was that she should gather a bit of experience; she was one hundredth of a second away from a medal in the women’s 60 metres.
So instantly we want her to join the senior ranks full-time and prepare for the World Championships that take place in Daegu, South Korea, this year and then go to the Olympic Games. Williams chose to go back to school. “This has made me sure that I’m not ready to compete against all those top athletes at the World Championships,” she said.
It takes a pretty grown-up person to understand her own immaturity and unpreparedness. It’s her decision and it’s one she’s happy with. As for me, I’m a little disappointed, but what do I matter? I hope she’s going great guns at school and I look forward to seeing her race with those top athletes when — and if — she feels ready.
• So after a week of silence encompassing two defeats, Sir Alex Ferguson ended his boycott of the media to tell us two terribly important things: one, when a Manchester United player gets hurt by a player from another team, it is a very bad thing, like Nani and Jamie Carragher, of Liverpool; and two, when a Manchester United player hurts a player from another team, like Wayne Rooney and James McCarthy, of Wigan Athletic, it’s not a bad thing at all. Ferguson boycotted the media: isn’t it time the media boycotted Sir Alex?