A visibly satisfied Andrew Flower addressed the media on the even of the last Test at The Oval. Excerpts from the interview:
Press: What is the secret behind England’s series win over India?
Flower: Our boys have been practising hard over the last 1 month under the neem tree. Due to neem impact, some of our boys like Broad, Bresnan and Swann have excekked beyond everyone’s imagination by scoring runs and taking wickets.
Flower attributed the success of his team to special practice under the neem tree
Press: What’s the reaction from the team after their series win?
Flower: Like I said earlier, they are in different world because of the neem tree practice and are by now used to making previously unimaginable comments on team India and its players.
Press: How tough it was for you to pick the team before this series?
Flower: England has got a good mixture of experience batsmen and bowlers. We were in a dilemma on whom to pick for series, I even personally suggested to the board to go for Onions instead of Broad.
Press: How was the team feeling and reactions after winning the first test match?
Flower: Strauss and other senior players came and shouted at me, “thank God we didn’t go by your words to drop Broad for this match, otherwise we would have end up in losing the test match.” After the test, even Board also requested me to keep silent through out the series
Press: How the English former players feel about this achievement?
Flower: You can very well see that every former player is writing articles and talking to the media that we outplayed India. Even Bresnan has publicly asked team India to go back home. It is team India who have given him the opportunity to be in the side by allowing him to score runs and take wickets in the series. But nobody seems to have realized my true value to this team as it was me who requested Dhoni and his team to play as poor as they can so that we can win the series.
“Indians either need to learn to do banana splits to keep themselves warm or go back to India and start preparing for Champions League T20,” said Tim Bresnan, wearing a sleeveless shirt and a wrestler’s shorts, and flexing his biceps and then resting both his hands on his hips. But for the cape, you would call him Batman.
Bresnan has challenged the Indians to follow suit and try banana splits or go back home!
Bresnan added, “English boys are now the alpha males of cricket. Guys like Cook have reformed batting in the days of ugly swipes and heaves that are influenced by the blasphemy of the IPL. You cannot compare our extremely superior batting line-up to theirs. It is unfair. We pratice it as a sacred art – perfected by the likes of W.G. Grace, Hutton, Hobbs, Hammond and passed on to the likes of Boycott and now Cook. It is art in its purest form.”
Asked if it was a challenge to bowl to the likes of Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Laxman, he said the biggest challenge was not to be bowled over by a dozen middle aged men dressed like Britney Spears on the fancy dress Saturday in Birmingham. Once he could resist keeping his eyes off them, he said he had conquered his biggest challenge and Indians’ batting was nothing in comparison and pointed out that Sreesanth and Ishant couldn’t and suffered as a result.
With the Indian media contingent also not interested in the series after having to go through the arduous task of praising Cook’s batting for three days, the series sponsors, npower, tried to attract media personals to the press conference by arranging for a “Who has more tattoos” contest.England’s long list included two South Africans in Jade Dernbach and Kevin Pietersen and India were represented by Sreesanth.
Vaughan has appealed to stop worshipping Tendulkar and copy Tuffnel's batting instead
Sreesanth’s sledging of Dernbach’s tattoos notwithstanding, it took an accusation from Bresnan again to warrant Indian media interest back in the series. “Sehwag is the joker to this Batman,” he said referring to himself. He said, “Virender Sehwag is the most overrated of Indian batsmen as he is a flat track bully and cowers when touring abroad. Boycott’s mum had better technique against the moving delivery.”
When asked for a reaction, the former English skipper, Michael “Vaseline” Vaughan said, “It is about time people understood Indian ways do not work anymore. The Tendulkar way has not worked for Tendulkar himself and he should learn a thing or two from Cook. No surprise his clone Sehwag hasn’t done well. Time someone like Ravi Bopara learnt the lesson and stopped worshipping Tendulkar. Even mimicking Tuffnel’s batting technique would have given him a hundred runs at Edgbaston. If he did, we will have the best Indian in our team, like we have the best Zimbabwean and South Africans in our team!”
Bob Willis joined the bandwagon and said, “This entire series has been about Tendulkar getting his hundredth 100. Don’t you see that he wants to put himself along Bradman with the perfectly imperfect number 99? Their preparation and prioritization of the English tour has been abysmal. If Strauss wins the toss at The Oval, they should look to bat till lunch on Day 5 and declare. Indians have shown no stomach for fight and will disintegrate twice in the remaining two sessions. England might even win with a session to spare!”
Zaheer Khan is reported to have pocketed the coin that is to be used for the toss tomorrow to check his weight after being accused for being fat by Stuart Broad. The umpires and match officials were busy checking if a substitute coin will be allowed if the designated coin for the toss can’t be recovered and if there was a possibility of the match being called off in such a scenario.
Ian Botham has slammed the ICC for not giving England a fair opportunity to win the four match series 5-0. His request to let India bat twice again on the 4th and 5th days on a crumbling Edgbaston pitch so that England could showcase their supremacy over the highly overrated Indian batting line-up. ECB had sold any number of non-refundable tickets for the last day. He quibbled, “This Indian side is only interested in IPL cricket and the razzmatazz associated with it. The partying and cheer leaders can be very tempting! But ECB should rub their faces in the mud when they can so that I can walk with my head held high!”
Ravi “Tracer Bullet” Shastri accused Ian Botham of being jealous for not being involved in the IPL. He said, “Instead, we could have had 5 IPL games on the 4th and 5th days as skippers of Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Daredevils, Pune Warriors, Mumbai Indians were around. It would have proved only Indian teams can win IPL matches even in England and England cannot stomach that fact and India would still be world no. 1”. Sunil Gavaskar, nodded in approval even as the editor of the Outlook magazine was stealthily eavesdropping on the conversation in a Scooby Doo disguise but wearing his ID nonetheless.
Cook is to be rechristened as “Sir Mulish” by the Queen
ESPNStar, the Indian broadcaster of the India-England series, has sued Alastair Cook for a severe dip in their television ratings and their studies revealed that grown men preferred to watch soaps over cricket who have refused to switch the channel back on to cricket even a week later fearing that he would be leaving deliveries bowled by M.S. Dhoni whilst still batting on 401 after 70 hours at the batting crease. They have sued his mentor, Graham Gooch, and his hair-transplant consultant who is rumored to be a distant cousin of Geoffrey Boycott for implanting these ethics into Gooch, and by extension, to Cook.
Indian fans who have travelled to England have been seen scampering at Kings Cross in the hope to find the platform 9¾ to escape to the magic world of Harry Potter. They were seen frantically performing the memory charm ‘Obliviate’ on each other in a vain attempt to erase the memories of Cook. ESPNStar has warned that another innings of Cook on similar lines at The Oval would further weaken the economics as they already have no advertisers or viewers till the time there is Cook.
BCCI has warned the cricket world of there being a great depression should Cook continue to be allowed to play any cricket at all. They have challenged Cook to settle scores with Praveen Kumar in a wrestling bout followed by a sweating contest with Rahul Dravid. Cook has agreed to the challenge but only after he is done with his batting practice that commenced 10 mins after the 3rd Test ended on Saturday afternoon. Two bowling machined have limped off with hamstring and shoulder injuries, but Cook’s practice shows no signs of abating.
Praveen Kumar is warming up to settle scores with Cook in a wrestling bout
On Sunday, with the Indian Embassy appealing to the Queen, the matter was forced into Scotland Yard’s hands. They have hired the services of the Indian minister and former cricketer Sidhu and former England captain Nasser “Jealous” Hussain to provide pitch-side distraction for Cook in his practice. Sidhu has apparently not let Hussain utter, “I have been paid to provide my opinion,” in 18 hours of Cook’s batting practice so far. With bowling machines worn out and all net bowlers doing their shoulders, Scotland Yard’s private detectives were seen plotting their strategy against Cook.
They hired the services of George and Fred Weasley who ran-up to bowl to Cook and cleverly disguised the use of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes’ new trick of developing five arms on the delivery stride and bowling them over-arm, under-arm, side-arm, a Shoaib chuck and a Sreesanth beamer simultaneously against Cook only for Cook to defend, block, leave, sway and duck at the same time to the five deliveries. The mesmerized Weasley twins were last heard arguing with J.K. Rowling that Harry Potter should now be rechristened Harry Cook.
The Queen has decided to take the matter in her own hands and it has been decided that Alastair Cook will be given knighthood on Thursday so as to ensure that he doesn’t play in The Oval test after the BCCI accused ECB for not playing in the spirit of the game. ECB, it is understood from our sources, have sent out a massive search for bowlers who specialize in bowling long hops and leg-stump half-volleys in order to restore interest among Indian batsmen and Indian spectators.
Not even the magic tricks of the Weasley twins could get Cook out.
The Queen has urged that normalcy be restored in cricket. She urged, “Alastair Cook henceforth will be known by the name Sir Mulish for his insane ability to resist a Sreesanth half-volley after two days of batting when he can see even the smallest of craters on the moon even in broad day light.” Sreesanth complained that he never felt this bad even when he was slapped. And Warne ended-up sending text messages to all nurses in the whole of England to beat boredom. All the while, Sir Geoffrey Boycott was seen admiring Cook and blowing kisses at him.
ESPNStar, meanwhile, has resorted to desperate measures to keep the Indian interest alive in the series. BCCI has arm-twisted ICC to decide the result of the final Test through online voting and text messaging. Viewers will be asked to vote on the following:
BCCI is working with PCB to see if they can spot-fix the Test last summer where Cook scored his career saving hundred. They are talking to have the umpire change his mind and give him out against Mohammed Aamir when Cook was on 2 so that England would drop him retrospectively and his Ashes and Edgbaston exploits be deemed void.
There have been plenty of former and current English players speaking about how England would become no. 1 at the end of 3rd Test. Sure, England have blanked India in the three Tests so far. But, is it really a dominating performance by England? Not at all! The matches looked really odd where the English bowlers have got the ball to move and bounce around the legendary Indian batsmen and at the same time were able to score plenty of runs against Indian bowlers like a Twenty 20 match. Indian team had a reasonable chance in the first two test matches but the outcome was really pathetic with England scampering home by huge margins. In the 3rd test match, it was more about India’s fielding where four catches were dropped in a single innings. The bowlers would have needed all the help they needed to get wickets and their own fielders let them down. There were plenty of times when the bowlers ended-up on a few close LBWs, on all occasion the ball pitched outside the leg stump.
Is this England team as good as they are made out to be?
England played decent cricket, but they are not really no. 1 material yet. The wickets were not really earned by their bowlers; it was more thrown away by Indian batsmen in all the three Test matches. All other top cricket nation players will not end up playing these kind of shots on a continuous basis. Even though England are no.1, their bowlers will have a real tough time in their upcoming series. Most of their Test victories are on their home soil, yet to make a decent show in subcontinental conditions. The batting clicked for Englishmen in all the 3 test matches with 2 out of top 7 emerging with big runs in almost all innings. On a few occasions, the lower order put up a great fight which led them to win the first 2 test matches. On a whole, the English batting is still lacking consistency from their top order players.
When there is a collective team effort and the team ends up on the winning side, most people don’t look at the individual performances and also the strength of their players in difficult times. But in the case of a team which is experienced and fail on a continuous basis on a single tour, then the whole world talks about hectic match schedule and lack of fitness of their players. This is really a rare incident in Indian cricket, there is no need to panic or talk about match scheduling without much break to the players or bringing in fresh blood to the Indian team. It is really important to bring the next generation into the side, but there should be some senior players for the next two to three years to bring them in to a level where they can be on their own in all conditions.
The key areas to focus for team India in the last test match is:
1. Team coordination on the field: The captain and senior players in the team should talk to the bowlers frequently during their long spells, educate to the bowl at right places.
2. Active involvement by team players: Involvement should be more than what it has been during the last three matches. Players should not miss easy chances and also try to convert half chances on the field which really boosts the bowlers and the whole team.
3. Bowlers should understand and bowl to plans: Bowlers should have the courtesy to bowl a decent line and length continuously. They should make the batsmen play at most of the deliveries in an over. There should be variation in line-and-length and pace during their spell.
4. Batsmen should hold their wickets: Batsmen should take a fair amount of responsibility and try to build some partnerships. The trio of Laxman, Dravid and Tendulkar has been pillar of the Indian cricket should understand and take the game on, which will boost the lower order players and also create fear in the opposition camp.
The only odd thing during this series was Indian batsmen failing for 6 consecutive innings whereas their opponent team were able to score twice of their total runs in less than a day’s time.
If England team lost the test series like this in Indian soil, England’s Michael Vaughan would have commented as “the curator applied some stuff on the pitch every time before the commencement of England team batting”
Wishing Indian team all the very best and they will surely end up in a good note on this series.
In this episode, The CouchExpert’s Goutham Chakravarthi, Chandra Jayarama Krishnan, Rajat Jain are joined by Aravind Srivathsa, columnist and analyst with the popular cricket portal Cricbuzz. They discuss England’s ascent to the top of the world rankings, debate if this is England’s best Test side in the last 20 years, England’s immediate tours of Sri Lanka and U.A.E and the threat from South Africa to the no. 1 ranking and India’s immediate Test future following the annihilation in England.
Srikrishnan Chandrasekaran
The CouchExpert 