Good God, where do I start with this one… I think I’ll start off by welcoming you to the first ever Big Beavon Bashes. (Thanks Chris for the name, you may not know much about cricket, but you do know how to create a good name.) This column will basically be me rambling on about how I am getting back into watching cricket after a good few years out. I also have to say one other thing before boring you with my cricket supporting background; Alex has definitely made a mistake in letting me onto this website. The funniest thing is, the running theme of this piece is bad decisions, thanks to England’s perfect performance against Pakistan.
Early Stages Of Regret
Now, before I get into the part where I bash everyone in English cricket, I want to establish where my cricket knowledge comes from and the teams I support. I feel as though you never get to know the person behind the article and that, for me, always ruins a good piece of writing. How do I know that you haven’t just gone and got everything you know from Twitter or Google? So, to start off with I am nineteen years old. Yes, I know I am young for a cricket fan. My main cricket interest came from a young age when my cousin and uncle played over in Birmingham. From there I went on to fall in love with the game and followed it for a fair number of years.
I was born in Birmingham, however, moved over to Derbyshire when I was still very young. I ended up supporting Warwickshire in county cricket and Birmingham Bears in T20 blast and all other versions which existed. I’ve always preferred T20’s as I just love watching batters going out and walloping the ball every chance they get. However since I have grown up and understood that it’s not all about runs, I have come to love test cricket like all you oldies have been telling me.
My last real time following cricket was back in 2013 when England actually won the Ashes, whitewashing the Aussies. I remember listening to the commentary on the radio as it was my schools Sports Day and I had an excuse for not taking part in any events, nor helping out with any during the whole day. A few mates and I were just sitting on some grass listening to us absolutely destroy Australia; I’m not sure which test match it was. That was the last real memory I have of following cricket until Chris notified us all that he had acquired this website as part of the wider family.
Since reading some of the stuff on here and mainly following each tweet, I fell in love with cricket again.Well that was until over the bank holiday weekend when England decided to take four days of my life away.
Now I must admit to one thing and I’m not too sure how you loyal cricket fans will take this but my favourite player would have to be Ian Bell. With him being from the West Midlands as well and playing brilliantly for Warwickshire for so many years, something inside me would always want him to do better than others. It also helped he was a fantastic batsman and something we are sadly missing right now in the England squad. Although to be honest we are missing a fair amount.
One person who I cannot stand, no matter how good he is, is Alastair Cook. I really can’t describe to you why I hate him so much but I just do. I just about manage to make myself watch him bat for England but that’s it. Even though I think he is a brilliant opener and we will struggle even more when he decides to go, I just can’t stand the guy.
Pakistan Punishment
Now, enough about me and more about how crap England truly are. I’m not going to lie to you. I came back to cricket expecting England to dominate this summer. Especially as the footballing side won’t be doing much of that in Russia. But it seems since I left following the sport, we really have gone down the gutter. Everything just doesn’t seem right. For instance it seems we have no spin bowlers. That’s not a shot at Dom Bess who played decently on his debut, but you could tell he was inexperienced against a pretty inexperienced Pakistan side.
Time To Pull Up The Roots
One thing that stood out to me the most was the fact Joe Root shouldn’t be captain anymore. There are a few reasons why. The first is he doesn’t have that leadership quality in him. When you look at him out on the field, he doesn’t seem to have that look about him. I probably sound stupid for saying it but when you look at Morgan as limited-overs skipper, you can tell he’s the leader. Even when Cook was captain, you could see by just the way he acted that he was the lead man.
Another reason to why Root shouldn’t be captain is his decision making. Even before a single ball had been bowled he managed to make a very confusing decision; he decided to bat first at Lord’s. Obviously, he couldn’t have expected what was to follow but to even put the squad in that position is bewildering. Even I knew that was a stupid decision and that’s coming from a bloke who didn’t know anything about cricket for years.
Another decision he completely flopped was reviewing a ‘so-called’ wicket, which even Stevie Wonder could see wasn’t out. Even when Cook said it 100% wasn’t out, he still went to a review and obviously ended up wasting it. Just like wasting the weekend for England fans. A final decision he failed at was to disagree with Dom Bess about fielder’s positions. A new batsman was out and Bess wanted the whole over going at the new batsman. Thus asking Root to bring a fielder closer in. However, Root rejected Bess’ appeal and told the fielder to stay out by the boundary. The batsman ended up stealing a single and then Root decided to call the fielder in. Only two balls after Bess told him to do the same thing!
The worst thing about everything I just said about Root is we can’t replace him as captain. One of the other major issues of this team is the fact we have no real leaders. We have no one who can take the players by their necks and get them playing like they should be. Obviously, they haven’t been helped by the fact the board is focusing on the limited overs side of the game but it doesn’t give them an excuse to go and get ripped apart by a pretty inexperienced Pakistan side who we should be beating.
I’ll Go Grab My Coat
I think that’s where I will end up leaving my first edition of Big Beavon Bashes. I am sure Chris didn’t think the title would actually turn into what I would be doing to the whole of cricket; absolutely bashing the hell out of them. Sure you can probably tell, I do love a rant and a ramble. Hopefully you have enjoyed this first piece and this becomes a more regular thing, as I can see cricket taking over my love for football, especially with the World Cup coming up. I’ll try and plan some more comedy parts rather than just doom and gloom. Until next time, which will probably be Monday when Pakistan spank us again…
