Carberry At The Crossroads Simon Jones Says Goodbye

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

We’re right behind you Carbs

 

September 13^th

 

 

[10:00 CEST] Michael Carberry has heard that most terrifying of phrases if you are a football manager “you’ve had a tough time, we’re all backing you”. The phrase is so familiar that newspapers can plan their story on the imminent loss of job, knowing that they will only need to wait a week or two to publish it. It is the usual story of a player who looks superb in Division 2 of the County Championship finding that Division 1 is a step up in class and international cricket is something else altogether. In Division 2 most sides have one or possibly two top-class bowlers. In Division 1 you face a full attack that is not far short of international class. The intensity is greater. The opportunity to recover from  mistakes correspondingly lower. James Taylor discovered that when he moved from Leicestershire to Nottinghamshire: his first season he could hardly score a run until he leant to cope with the higher level. Division 1 cricket in England is now, without doubt, the toughest First Class competition outside international cricket. The fact that players are increasingly moving to Division 1 sides to further their chances of Test cricket shows that they know that runs at the lower level do come much easier and are not worth as much (ask Ravi Bopara).

Michael Carberry has been told that he will get the last two games of the ODI series to give him a chance to show what he can do. It greatly reduces the chances of the selectors to experiment, but the weather is doing that too. Tomorrow’s game is looking an iffy proposition with conditions favouring the bowlers. Rain is forecast to start mid-afternoon and last through most of the night. With England needing to win to keep the  series live, the bowling is the biggest worry which would mean, in normal circumstances, dropping a batsman. While Finn, Rankin and Tredwell are a good attack, it is asking a lot of Ben Stokes to act as a front-line bowler at this level and Ravi Bopara is the sort of bowler who can be deadly when the conditions are helpful, but not when the pitch is full of runs and the batsmen are setting out to attack.

If conditions favour the bowlers, we will almost certainly see England field an unchanged XI. If the conditions favour batting it would be a huge risk to persist with what has been termed a “three and a half bowler” policy. Either way, it would be astonishing if Chris Jordan were not to get a game in the final match at least, although he is definitely a red ball specialist and not the ideal player to blood in an ODI. However, he is what the selectors have got.

Yesterday one of the last remaining links with the England side of 2005 announced his retirement from First Class cricket. Of the twelve players used by England in that series, only Pietersen (who topped the batting averages) and Bell are still playing for England. Marcus Trescothick, Paul Collingwood and Geraint Jones are still playing county cricket, but close to retirement now. Steve Harmison last played for Durham 2^nd XI on May 2^nd and will surely announce his retirement before the end of the season. Matthew Hoggard has just announced his retirement. Ashley Giles retired in 2006 and now, Simon Jones, whose glittering international career was ended by a series of major injuries has finally accepted that he will not be able to play any more First Class Cricket; he will play on in T20, but will no longer play even 50 over matches. He was close to a return to the England side in Michael Vaughan’s last season in charge but the selectors, perhaps wisely, decided that his body would not stand up to the rigours of a Test. Like his father before him, injury stopped him from moving on to greater things. In a 15-year career Simon Jones managed just 91 First Class matches, 18 of them, Tests, but showed the strength to come back from no less than three injuries that would have ended the career of most players.