Cow Corner Blog

Shah spin steals win and salvages pride

Thu Aug 27 08:44PM

It took an obdurate 67 from debutant Joe Denly and a consummate display of death bowling by Owais Shah for England to steal a tense two-run victory over Ireland in their one-day international in Belfast.

After Duckworth and Lewis waded in to have their say following a rain delay, Ireland's revised target of 116 looked paltry when Ryan Sidebottom was given a hiding by 18-year-old student Paul 'Biff Boff' Stirling.

England secured the Ashes last week, but if the ECB's website is to be believed, this match was the start of a new brave and dynamic brand of cricket complete with tawdry marketing terms to make even an NPower girl blush.

"The long-term goal is to be the number one side in the world," Andrew Strauss declared proudly on Sunday - one assumes that he was confining that ambition to Test cricket, but he will be relieved that no time-frame was specified.

The ECB have confirmed there will not be a domestic 50-over competition from next season, suggesting that South Africa - the world leaders - have benefited from not having one. Such searing logic perhaps overlooks the minor fact that Graeme Smith's side have better and more experienced one-day players, many of whom ply their trade in England anyway.

If the first overs of play at Stormont were anything to go by, perhaps the ECB should lobby fervently for the format to be scrapped at international level too, as England's batsmen arrived and then departed as quickly as Peter Siddle from a London nightclub.

The Civil Service Cricket Club must have been laying on some cracking snacks in the pavilion as first Ravi Bopara, then Jonathan Trott, positively raced back to the shed for ducks with such haste that one AD Mullally's record in 1999 for the shortest stint at the crease looked in doubt.

The man responsible for the carnage was veteran seamer Trent Johnston, who gave his old mate Brett Lee a lift by taking four wickets for 26 runs from his 10 overs to scythe his way through the England top order.

Three England players - Denly, Adil Rashid and Trott - were making their ODI debuts and, despite the regular meetings mid-pitch between in and outgoing batsmen, only Denly managed to hold firm. The Kent batsman's knock was Chris Gayle-esque in its composure, only without the boundaries.

While that is meant as a compliment, it is possible for a batsman to be too calm and collected at the crease and to 'do a Sunny' - an attempt to emulate Sunil Gavaskar's famous, if mind-blowingly dull, 36 not out off 174 balls back in 1975.

Before play got underway, Matt Prior was less than bullish: "It's not ideal to be turning around and getting straight on a plane. I had to make a quick dash home to pick up my coloured pads and one-day kit. But the boys have got their heads around it now."

The England wicketkeeper played possibly the most circumspect innings he has produced all summer with 29 off 52 balls before having his memory jolted that he was playing an ODI, and promptly holed out at long leg.

We have spent the summer describing Prior's dismissals as 'shots best left to games played in pyjamas', but when he finally found himself fully clad in red, his demise was no less frustrating.

Paul Collingwood was the only player remaining from the side which last played on the ground back in 2006, and his steady nine off 23 balls provided a fond reminder for the locals of England's stand-in captain.

Colly's dismissal gave you the sense that he had caught sight of a rare bird as he cast his eyes into the sky while playing a slog across the line - it was a shot best consigned to a vintage Duncan Fearnley-wielding tail-ender down the village green.

Shah looked every inch an English Gordon Greenidge in dancing down the track and swatting Kyle McCallan into the top tier (or bottom tier if you prefer) of the stand for six, but then looked every inch himself when miscuing the very same shot to fall for 21.

Luke Wright went berserk in his innings of 36, which included two humongous sixes, before he attempted an overly ambitious bottom-handed hoik and failed to clear John Mooney at long off.

Despite getting off to a boundary-laden start in their eventual reply, Tim Bresnan removed both openers in identical fashion: loose cuts, snaffled by Collingwood at point to prompt a gut-slapping celebration from the Yorkshireman.

The ball was changed after just six overs as German umpire Paul Baldwin agreed with Collingwood that it was not doing enough off the seam (or something like that) and Stirling's breezy 30 was ended by Rashid with Ireland in the ascendency.

Enter Shah: A heady cocktail of inspiration and insanity must have contributed to Collingwood handing 'Ace' the ball, and his distinctly average off spin dismissed John Mooney, Regan 'The Fridge' West and Alex Cusack.

Shah then had the unenviable and frankly ridiculous task of bowling the final over, but he came up trumps again to finish with three wickets for 16 runs and clinched an unconvincing victory for his side.

The post-Ashes euphoria had indicated that Ireland would be facing a side on the brink of breaking into cricket's Big Four, but England's ODI side clearly has work to do. However, the apparent void in the spin department has been emphatically filled. That man? O.A. Shah.

SHOT OF THE DAY: Wright's second maximum took the term 'hefty hit' to a new level as the bowler in question, McCallan, had an expression of bewilderment after seeing a perfectly good delivery dispatched over Cow with a heavy-handed flick.

STAT OF THE DAY: When Andre Botha struck a sublime boundary to bring up the Ireland 50 at the start of the seventh over, it occurred to a few beady-eyed spectators that it took England a full 17.5 overs to reach the same score. Credit Duckworth-Lewis at that juncture!

USER COMMENT OF THE DAY: "Cricket is a supreme and unique game which tests the mind and the body. It is about calculation, patience, confidence, enjoying the pressure, speed with control, rules, opportunity for every player to perform, passion, rebuilding, aggression with friendliness, emotion, commitment, dedication, history, tradition, custom. Cricket is a way of life and is not just a game but also a great lesson of life. It is a game for gentlemen and this is written in response to the cynics. Thank you." That was an extract from Heart_break_kid3000's book: '101 Virtues of Cricket': Cowers puts it in the 'Ian Botham on Fishing' category of cricket literature - high praise indeed!

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