A YEAR is a long time in politics, but an even longer time in Test cricket. Let's take a little journey down memory lane, shall we? It's February 15, 2022, and England have just received an absolute mauling at the hands of Australia in the Ashes. Chris Silverwood has been relieved of his duties as coach. Joe Root, despite having scored the most runs ever in a calendar year by an Englishman, looks jaded and despondent as England captain. The team are preparing to fly to the West Indies, to play a series they don't want to play, and one that they will eventually lose. Sir Andrew Strauss has been brought in to figure out how, exactly, England are so bad and what on earth can be done about it.
In their excellent book, Hitting Against the Spin, data analysts Ben Jones and Nathan Leamon refer to a phenomenon known as the 'tethered cat'. The phrase originates from an old proverb and essentially makes the case that simply because something has been done a certain way for a long time, does not necessarily mean that it is the best way to do that certain thing. In the aftermath of that Ashes battering and the frankly miserable run of results that preceded it, the usual traditionalists erupted out of their armchairs and bemoaned the rise of T20, The Hundred and colourful clothing in general as the root cause of England's ineptitude. What we needed, they said, was a return to tradition, to formality. Fewer ramps and scoops and switch hitting, and more blocking, grit and patience. Orthodoxy would save us, they said. Don't just tether the cat, shorten the leash.
Denne historien er fra February 15, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra February 15, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
