Planning for the unexpected

Saturday was a disappointing day for us at Kimberley. After such a positive result the previous week against Rolls Royce, we were desperately keen to back it up with another good performance against another prospective championship winning team. Unfortunately, we were outplayed in every department, and full marks must go to Cuckney for the professional performance they put in.

The defeat was not down to a lack of quality on our part, but perhaps a lack of concentration at crucial stages of both the first and second innings, and this is something we will be keen to address this weekend at Mansfield.

The week has also seen a remarkable Test Match take place down the road at Trent Bridge. The cricket there has been engrossing, with momentum swinging for side to side with each passing session of cricket. I also read this week that 200,000 pints of lager had been sold over the five days so hopefully Nottinghamshire will have made some money out of it!

The game really changed from being an easy England win to a close fought contest, when young Ashton Agar came in and played the most astonishing innings from a number 11. As a fellow ‘jack’ myself, I know how hard it can be to come in when your team are struggling and need a bit of momentum. However, the knock that Ashton played was more than just momentum but was really a game changer.

Alistair Cook was criticised heavily for his captaincy during that intriguing session of cricket. Yet what you perhaps forget is that England will have had no plan for Agar. With a support staff to rival a West End Production, England have footage, analysis and a written game plan for each international player around the world. Yet when this boy was pulled out of Henley on Thames a few weeks before the series, I doubt England had much footage from the Home Counties League. The fact probably is, that they assumed (maybe as Australia did by batting him at 11) that he wouldn’t be up to much with the bat, and would probably last a few overs at best. So when he started to stroke the ball to all parts of the ground, it sent the strategy team into a bit of a spin.

I really do wonder how much current international captains are encouraged (or allowed) to think on their feet. There was much criticism that Cook was uninspiring through this phase of the game with both his field settings and his bowling changes. Yet I would imagine, that to justify the large entourage and coaching team, Cook and the bowlers have a set plan for each batsman. So when situations arise that require a little intuition and creativity, they struggle to find it as they are not used to it.

The skilled captain and coach are always looking for the clues and tell tail signs of where a batsman likes to score and where they might be vulnerable. It is certainly something that we look at at Kimberley, and I have no doubt that come Lords this week, we see  a plan hatched for young Ashton that wasn’t there at Trent Bridge.