Jimmy does his job

It’s been rough to keep an eye on all three test matches.

With Tim McIntosh playing a dashing innings, and South Africa strolling home, all my time has been taken.

But I still had a few moments to see England fall apart.

Their weapon of choice was the nightwatchman.

James Anderson’s one job was to get Freddy through to stumps.

Instead he took a single.

Now there are many problems here.

Using a nightwatchman is a terrible practice that was invented by soft cock batsmen.

It has no place in cricket, and any batsman who can’t go out to face 8 balls probably shouldn’t be playing test cricket.

But when you do it, surely the job is for the tailender to take the last over, not take a single to put your last batsman, one who is set, to face the last few balls.

Even if the nightwatchman goes out the loss is negligible.

Because it’s Jimmy Anderson.

And other than not making ducks, he has little other use as a batsman.

There is a reason I brought up that factoid about Anderson’s duckless batting career, and not just to sound like a train spotting cricket tragic dickwad.

It’s because Anderson was on zippo when he took that single.

He had not a cracker to his name.

It’s a harsh call to say he took the single, thusly abandoning his job, just to keep his steak alive, but I have been called worse than harsh before.

Either way England have worked themselves into a unwinnable position, and the chance of losing 2 nil in a 2 test series.

At least Australia took 4 tests to do that.

cricketwithballs

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