Costcutting at Fox Sports? Month old boxing match replaces live Test cricket coverage

Cricket followers who are looking to check out the form of Australia's next Test opponents Sri Lanka will need to be glued to the box tonight, because it's the only day (of five scheduled) when Fox Sports, which has traditionally relayed the full live UKSky TV coverage of England's home Test matches, will be showing live coverage of the first Sri Lanka - England Test.

And the cricket isn't being replaced by live coverage of other sport: on Friday night Fox Sports 1 has scheduled (see http://www.foxsports.com.au/tvguide), a boxing match fought last month followed by a two hour kickboxing documentary and repeats of AFL games. Not one minute of live coverage there.

The Times list of world's 50 best cricket websites

Many unfamiliar to me but I'll check (most of) them out.

Cricket Central - The Times: The world's 50 best cricket websites

Bowlers strike back at Cape Town: T3 D2

England 7/241 (82 ov, A Cook 65, M Prior 52*) trail South Africa 291 (86.1 ov, J Kallis 108, M Boucher 51, J Anderson 5/63) on first inns by 50 runs with 3 wkts in hand:: T3 D2 at Cape Town

The bowlers of both sides struck back taking 11 wickets in the day for 253, seven of them in the first session for 76 and four of those South African for only 12 runs. Graham Onions removed Jacques Kallis, who didn't add to his overnight 108/189 (11x4), then Jimmy Anderson took the last 3 to finish with 5/63 from 21.1 overs.

When England batted they stuttered in the face of some sharp bowling from the South African pace attack, losing 3/64 before lunch and a fourth, Paul Collingwood for 19, soon afterwards at 73. The in form Alistair Cook and Ian Bell effected a modest revival by adding 60 before Cook went for a solid 65/136b (7x4). Bell was out to a poor stroke off Kallis for a gritty 48/121b (8x4).

6/174 was far from dominant, yet the South African attack began to flag as Matt Prior 52*/96b (5x4), Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann moved the total to what is IMO a healthy 7/241, still behind South Africa but within touch.

With 3 days left South Africa - still leading on first innings, England to bat last - look slightly better placed but I wouldn't put money on them. While their faster bowlers are doing well Paul Harris, their specialist slow bowler (as Geoff Boycott on TV described him after hastily retracting "spinner") is looking ordinary and far from second innings five-for material.

The first couple of sessions on D3 will be interesting. Unfortunately for cricket lovers here Foxtel has opted not to show the first session, preferring to show repeats of an AFL grand final from wayback. Not good enough. The AFL could be shown at any time.

Scorecard

Recent cricket blunders #3: Lawson's outburst

I'd read about Geoff Lawson's media conference outburst on Cricinfo, but it wasn't until I saw footage of it on today's ABC TV Offsidersthat I realised how boorish and culturally insensitive it was.

Not surprisingly, the video has been posted on YouTube several times: eg here.

Lawson has subsequently apologised but the incident unfortunately will not be forgotten by many people for a long time.

Playing the man

Paul Toohey in The Australian, usually regarded as a knowledgeable reporter on NT and indigenous matters, is trying to reinvent himself as a cricket and/or media commentator by putting the boot into Mark Nicholas, the front man of the Channel Nine cricket commentary team.

"Unctuous" is Toohey's description of him. IMO it's unfair. Nicholas's accent and general demeanour may ruffle some Australian feathers in the same way as the wind ruffles his hair, but he can, and often does, go beyond the usual commentary box cliches. He can read a game well, has strong onscreen presence which enables him to lead discussions with his fellow commentators and can communicate his views clearly.

Although we don't see much evidence of this in Australia, he can write well and to deadlines. During the recent Australia - India test series he filed reports on each day's play with the UK Telegraph which were published online soon after the close of each day's play. Check them out.

Several of the commenters on Toohey's piece have brought the ABC radio commentary into the discussion. IMO this isn't above reproach either. The commentators rarely describe field settings nor do they invariably give the score at the end of each over or after each run. It often looks to me as if they focus on the TV image instead of trying to paint their own picture.

I don't want to get into rating commentators but if I did Nicholas would be near or at the top of the list of this year's radio and TV practitioners. "Unctuous"? Rubbish. Try "authoritative".

Standing in the cyber slips cordon: the new world of cricket supporters and commentary

A good piece " Cyber sledging draws back cultural curtain" by Peter Lalor in The Australian.

Extract:

Controversial decisions are replayed on YouTube. Opinions voiced on blogs, private and commercial. News stories are beamed from the SCG to Channel Nine and Chennai. The emphasis and angle of those stories is rarely the same.

One thing has become apparent in the din of this feverish summer and it is that the modern game is played in front of an international audience whose opinions shout and shape with the immediacy and volume once reserved for the heartily lunged likes of Yabba on Sydney’s hill.

Should Yabba have shouted at Harbhajan Singh to leave our flies alone he may well have found himself featured at the top of the next hour’s news bulletin everywhere from Kashmir to Kochi and the subject of blog-analysis in Mumbai and Baroda.

“Fat Aussie Fool with Fly Fetish attacks her Bhaji! Effigy Burned in Punjap Protest!’’

Things have changed irrevocably.

Quantum physicists believe the act of watching affects the observed reality. Cricket is not immune, but this summer it has become apparent that its observed reality is affected by the number and cultural backgrounds of the observer.

Passions cool... for the moment

Cricket was still on the front pages today: "Spoilsports leave Test tour up in the air" was TheAustralian's (inaccurate by this morning) front page headline, accompanied by photos of Bhajji on the beach at Bondi and Brett Lee filming a Bollywood movie at the SCG , together with another review of the situation by Peter Lalor .

The Advertiser reached for the big fonts for its headline: "India gets ump fired", while The Age's was longer, but said essentially the same thing: "Howzat? Bucknor gets his marching orders as cricket's bosses try to appease angry India."

The Age did print some pieces which provided more food for thought (what a banquet we've had this week): "Cricket's racism bogy" Waleed Aly,(which includes the Spooner cartoon I mentioned in another post) and "Without grace, winning is nothing" by Philip Pond "a British expatriate living in Melbourne", which reads like a Private Eye Rev J C Flannel parody.

Peter Roebuck has been put back from page 1 into his kennel on the sports pages with a more even handed piece ("Australians not the only ones with issues here") than yesterday's, which elicited a stern rejoinder ("Indians find support in Pommy critique") from The Australian's
New Delhi correspondent Bruce Loudon. The Age's man in New Delhi Matt Wade ("A nation's wrath over honour slighted") reports on how he was hung out to dry as the token Australian on a TV panel discussion program.

The Australian has a photo gallery of some t-shirts on sale in India (with the option to switch off the captions) .

One for the road: after all the carrying on (and the opportunity for the Indians to spend more time in Sydney) the team bus was apparently involved in a minor accident, though the Indian media manager has denied that this happened. Hmm.

Australian media on back foot with online polls

In today's Crikey Thomas Hunter asks "Australian Test team: do we really hate them?" and claims, on the basis of online polls conducted by The Age, The Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph, Today Tonight and Fox Sports, that the Australian cricket team is on the nose.

Some commenters have pointed out that such polls are statistically dodgy. OK, but why are they so common nowadays?

Others say that people from overseas (code for Indian diaspora) can vote and thus skew the results. If so, why don't the pollsters break down the responses according to country of origin?

IMO a problem with polls (online or other) is their wording. Adelaide Now (aka The Advertiser online) ran one recently, posing the question: "Do the Australian cricketers play within the spirit of the game?".

The results are published in today's Advertiser (p79)

• Yes, they always do: 288 votes (12%)
• Yes, but in the heat of battle things aren't always clear; 464 votes (19%)
• No, they'll do anything to win: 1500 votes (63%)
• No, in the professional era there is no such thing: 128 votes (5%)
  

Dan Lato , the blogger/ columnist, comments (in print at p79, but not online):

This week Adelaide Now 's coverage of the aftermath of the Sydney Test has gone global as is obvious by the poll we ran this week. Indians are passionate about their cricket and the stirring online defence of their team is testament to the devotion they have to Indian players.

Questions for Mr Lato: (1) how many Indians voted in the poll, (2) how does he know?, and (3) if he does know why doesn't he come out and produce the figures?

Storms in Sydney as rain and controversy deflect attention from Australian revival: Second Test Day 4

Australia 463 and 4/282 (M Hayden 123, M Hussey 87 no) lead India 532 by 213 runs with 6 wickets in hand.

On the field, Australia batted through a shortened day's play, losing 4 wickets while adding a further 269 runs in the 78 overs that rain and the umpires allowed. Off it, controversy over alleged racist remarks and continuing debate about the ethics of walking or otherwise occupied a lot of media and the the public's attention (for more examples see here and here).

Back to the match itself. Phil Jacques and Matthew Hayden rubbed out Australia's first innings deficit and took the score to 85 before Jacques (42/82b) was caught in the outfield pulling Anil Kumble. Enter Ricky Ponting, who, on the cusp of the lunch interval, once again fell to Harbhajan Singh, who celebrated his success with a triumphalist gallop across the ground topped off with a double sideways roll.

At lunch Australia were 2/90: only 21 ahead. It was anyone's game.

Thereafter Hayden, batting with a runner (Ponting) and Mike Hussey reclaimed the initiative for Australia by judicious strokeplay, which over time wore down the Indians, especially Harbhajan who for several overs either side of lunch made the ball turn and bounce almost at will.

At 177, with Hayden 77 and Hussey 43, the rain returned. Sensibly the match schedule was rearranged, tea was taken and a final session of, notionally, almost 40 overs began soon after the rain stopped.

Hayden duly proceeded to his century, and Hussey to his 50 before the next interruption, at 213. When the 250 was posted Hayden attempted one more reverse sweep but was caught for a magnificent 123/196b (12x4). Michael Clarke was lbw first ball, leaving Andrew Symonds to avert the hat trick, which he did courtesy of umpire Bucknor, who turned down a very confident appeal for lbw (in Bucknor's defence, on this occasion, Hawkeye predicted that the ball would pass over the stumps).

With 7 overs still to be bowled the rain came back and the umpires called off play for the day, with Australia 213 in front: not enough to declare yet and, even allowing for some extra time to be played tomorrow, there's probably not enough time left to force a result. But then, the Adelaide Test in last summer's Ashes series looked dead in the water at the end of the penultimate day, and we all recall what happened on the last day then.

Scorecard

Cricinfo Bulletin

Parkinson's lore

Today, during the lunch interval of the Test, Channel Nine's Cricket Show featured an interview with (now Sir) Michael Parkinson in which, prompted by Mark Nicholas, he talked about cricket and some other sporting topics.

The full interview doesn't seem to be available anywhere: Channel Nine seemed to have stopped archiving the Cricket Show this season, which IMO is a pity, but an edited version was shown on tonight's A Current Affair.

Sir Michael began his media career as a sports reporter and, as he was a Yorkshireman, this naturally involved a good measure of reporting cricket. I remember reading his columns in The Sunday Times when I first went to England in 1968 . One phrase that sticks in my memory is his description of the life of a sports reporter in those days: "cycling the backside out of a pair of trousers". How things change.

The Age covers cricket's broad spectrum

Today's Age has some very good (or better) articles about what it describes as "the game's broad spectrum".

These range from the future of Test cricket (Greg Baum"'s "Put to the Test") , several pieces about the Australia - India series (including Alex Brown on Australia's apparent fast bowling riches, Peter Roebuck on Sourav Ganguly and Lyall Johnson's analysis of Mr Cricket's way with words) , Twenty20 IPL cricket (Mr Brown and Chloe Saltau's analysis of the player contracts) , and club cricket (the first of a promised series by John Hanlon).

There's also an historical item "Weighing up Bradman's MCG legacy", once again by Mr Baum.

The Age looks like being the print and online media outlet of choice for serious Australian cricket followers over the next few weeks.

Close contest strengthens future of Twenty20

India has defeated Pakistan by 5 runs at Johannesburg in the final of the inaugural world Twenty20 Championship.

I thought that India didn't make enough runs against generally hostile Pakistan bowling, though passing 150, from a not too difficult chance which Mohammad Hafeez not only fluffed but knocked over the boundary for 6, gave them something to bowl at on the slowish pitch.

Pakistan got off to a rollercoaster start: a wicket and 4 runs from the first probing R P Singh over, followed by a loose one by Sreesanth which conceded 21; Singh again took a wicket in his second; and then, surprisingly, a Sreesanth maiden. 4/31 from 4 overs set the pattern for the innings: each time as Pakistan seemed to pull ahead and position themselves for a final onslaught, they lost another wicket. 4/65 from 9 overs needed the middle order to fire, but Shoab Malik and Shahid Afridi were both dismissed by Irfan Pathan in the same over (6/77 from 11.4 overs). The 7th wicket fell, again to Pathan senior (whose brother made his international debut in the game). Misbah-ul-Haq launched an assault on Harbajan Singh but the errant Sreesanth took a wicket with his last ball (4 - 1 - 44 - 1!) . 8/138 from 18 overs became 9/141 from 19.5 overs.

An edged 4 from the final ball left 13 required from the last over. Joginder Sharma, not the best of the Indian attack, began with a wide: 12 required from 6b . Misbah-ul-Haq played and missed the next ball but hit the following one for six: now 6 required from 4 balls. For the first time in several overs Pakistan looked the likelier to win. But it wasn't to be as Misbah (43/38b) hit the next delivery to Sreesanth.

An enthralling game and one which will, despite the misgivings of cricket purists such as Gideon Haigh writing in today's Australian (and before the final was played), entrench Twenty20 even further in the international cricket calendar. Much as I enjoyed the final (and most of the other games I've seen), I'm not sure that I want it to diminish the amount of test cricket played between the stronger countries. But given the intense India - Pakistan rivalry and control of modern cricket, to which Haigh refers in his article (not to mention Australia's relatively modest performance) this is unlikely to happen.

Cricinfo's match package is here . The site also has a summary of newspaper comments (including Haigh's) from around the world.

A new recruit for Hampshire?

In today's Australian Peter Lalor reports that Shane Warne is giving some help to the England selectors in their quest for new spin bowlers.

England's chairman of selectors, David Graveney, admitted on Saturday he had sought advice from Warne, who leads county side Hampshire.

"We have swapped phone numbers and will stay in touch," Graveney told the England's Sunday Telegraph.

Graveney approached Warne for his thoughts on who should be used as a back-up spinner for Monty Panesar on England's tour of Sri Lanka. Warne is a booster for his young Hampshire team-mate Adil Rashid...Warne was enthusiastic about Rashid, who has picked up 27 county wickets and averages 44 with the bat.

Hampshire team-mate? Even the original report which Lalor quotes gets that one right: Rashid plays for Yorkshire.

Not a mickey mouse acquisition, I hope

Cricinfo, the pioneering and for so long the leading cricket internet website, has been acquired by ESPN a Disney company. The implications of this are unclear, though Cricinfo itself is, as you'd expect in the circumstances, optimistically upbeat about its future. I shall certainly hope that it doesn't change into a mickey mouse site.

Sledging

Warwick Hadfield, ABC RN's estimable breakfast program sporting commentator, has produced an interesting survey of sledging in (mostly, but not entirely Australian) sport. You can listen to or download the program (at least for the next few weeks) or read the transcript here.

I was particularly interested to see his (and Ian Chappell's) view of the origin of the term:

According to Ian Chappell, the former Australian test captain and a bloke who in his time did a fair bit of sledging, the term for insulting an opponent to get him or her to break their concentration is named after the singer Percy Sledge.

Back in those more genteel times, off the field at least, a bloke who swore in front of a woman was dubbed a Percy, or a Sledge. These days they are called comedians.

Long walk for spectators in Antigua

During the Channel 9 coverage of the Australia - South Africa match, Mark Nicholas bemoaned the low spectator turnout, which he attributed partly to lack of parking near the ground and to delays with security searches. As he spoke the cameras illustrated his point about the parking by showing a group of people (passers-by? potential spectators?) walking across a distant stretch of wasteland towards the ground.

Cricinfo 's report echoes his on-air comments and provides some other perspectives :

The commentator Mark Nicholas was disappointed the match was not a sell-out and said the locals were frustrated by the long queues. "A lot of them gave up and said 'no, I'm not prepared to wait two hours'," he said. "It's been one of the problems confronting spectators. The huge amount of security, that's one thing, the other is the long lines for tickets and long lines for food."

Nicholas said the remoteness of the site - "you can only park a mile away despite huge areas all around" - was a problem when comparing it to the previous venue. "The old ground was in the middle of St John's and it was very popular," he said. "There was a great party feel to the place, but it's going to be very difficult to rekindle that here."

The controversy dampened an occasion that ought to have been a proud moment for West Indies and for Antigua. "It's a very good stadium, it's beautiful and it's a tribute to the man, Sir Vivian Richards," Lara said. "It's been an awesome effort by the Antiguan people getting this ready, and it's going to be wonderful for West Indian cricket moving on. The infrastructure is good, so now it's time for the manpower."

Not everyone was impressed with the positioning of the new ground. Built on a greenfields site 20 minutes outside of St John's, many fans had to walk for several kilometres to reach the entrance, or pay for a shuttle service. An impassioned West Indian supporter told a local TV station that it was the spectator's right to expect to be able to park outside a new and purpose-built ground, while others complained that the spontaneity that had existed at the old Antigua Recreation Ground was missing from the new venue.

But Lara said there would have to be a change of attitudes all around as West Indian cricket gets used to its new era. "When you're talking about the improvement of facilities the spectators also have to adapt," he said. "It's not enough to be able to stay in the same areas or stadiums just because the atmosphere was great. We've had some wonderful times at the ARG, but now we move on to the Sir Viv stadium and it is something to be proud of over the years.

"Some of these stadiums were dilapidated. Georgetown and other grounds have been around for donkey's years. I'm sure people will adjust. I may have been disappointed with the crowd today but I thought the party stand wasn't bad here or in Jamaica. People are going to enjoy it, and I think the cricketers are very happy that we have facilities that are second-to-none. If you go to the MCG or Lord's the facilities are great. It's nice to know we are getting there."

Getting where, may I ask? Is cricket, by making it harder for local people (not just in Antigua, which has a population of about 70,000) to attend, cutting off its populist nose to spite its elitist face of corporate boxes, limited pay TV coverage etc? Mark Nicholas is astute enough to grasp that all the money that's been poured into infrastructure development for the World Cup will come to nothing if the once strong West Indian cricketing cultures which have produced players of the calibre of Brian Lara and Vivian Richards continue to languish in the face of official indifference and competition from other sports.

The Australian and The Age have more about the topic.

YouTube cricket coverage banned

The ICC has moved to ban YouTube coverage (almost all of it apparently short clips of highlights) of World Cup matches

Peter Black at Freedom To Differ and Andrew Miller at Cricinfo have excellent pieces about the decision.

Here's an extract from Miller's "Once more cricket shoots itself in the foot":

A game run increasingly by lawyers for lawyers, has deemed it necessary to go to war on the very online enthusiasts who can spread the word of a game whose reputation has been dragged through the mincer.

It is an astoundingly short-sighted decision by a ruling body that has once again shown it is completely lacking in a sense of priorities. God knows that cricket could do with some good publicity at present. Only 24 hours ago, the ICC's Lawyer-in-Chief, Malcolm Speed, was telling Cricinfo how wonderful the match between Australia and South Africa at St Kitts was turning out to be. "Let's all just watch the cricket," he suggested when queried about the latest murmurings about Bob Woolmer's death. Mal, we'd love to. But 75% of your global audience have no means of tuning in.

Maybe I'm wrong to quibble. Maybe this tournament really is the "ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies 2007", as those interminable press releases implore us to call it, and we should feel privileged to be allowed access through the officially sanctioned channels. But it's not as if YouTube is about to start tapping into the rights-holders' feed and start leeching live streaming free-of-charge. That's not what it's about at all. The snippets that go up on that site are nothing more than snippets - short, sharp tempters that have the power to entice an untapped audience.

Strong words, yes, and justified. Will the ICC, or even some national bodies (including Cricket Australia) heed them? I doubt.

Warne's interview with Parky economical with truth?

While I've always had the highest regard for Shane Warne's on-field ability, and for many of the cricket-related things he's done off the field, I don't think that it's possible to gloss over the dark side of his cricketing life. Overlook them perhaps, but not deny or falsify them.

Alas, this may have happened with his recent interview with Michael Parkinson, as today's Age claims.
According to the paper the program was pre-recorded and then edited, with the executive producers Warne, Parky and someone with a foot in both their camps (and a hand in both their pockets) having the final say.

Here's The Age's summary of some of the discrepancies between the interview and the O'Regan report into the betting allegations:

WHAT WARNE TOLD PARKINSON"… He never told me he was a bookmaker. I didn't know that."

WHAT THE O'REGAN REPORT SAYS

"… John said he was an Indian bookmaker but he did not then ask Warne to agree to provide information in the future".

WHAT WARNE TOLD PARKINSON

"I then found out later, that when Mark Waugh and I were called into Cricket Australia (in February, 1995), that he (John) was a bookmaker, and that I'd given him information."

WHAT THE O'REGAN REPORT SAYS"By (early October, 1994) they had both accepted money from John whom they then knew to be a bookmaker who betted on cricket."

WHAT WARNE TOLD PARKINSON

"Once I found out that (John was a bookmaker), I never took any call again from him."

WHAT THE O'REGAN REPORT SAYS

"Shane Warne was never contacted after a call to Perth in early February 1995 and it seems that he had nothing to do with the cessation of the calls. John must have decided for his own reasons not to continue the contact."

WHAT WARNE TOLD PARKINSON"The bookmaker stuff was 13 or 14 years ago. I was 22 years of age."

WHAT THE CALENDAR SAID

Warne turned 25 the month he met John.

If it's good enough for India, why not for Australia?

Cricinfo reports that Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, Indian the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister has threatened to legislate for all cricket matches involving India to be broadcast on the state run TV network.

This issue has arisen before. When I was visiting India two years ago a court ruled that the state network should telecast the tests with Pakistan, which is what happened, and at short notice. I was expecting a relatively low standard of presentation, but once I got used to the multilingual commentary team, which switched seamlessly(when a word or two of warning wouldn't have gone amiss) back and forth between English and, I assume, Hindi, it was OK. In fact it reminded me that the pictures, not the words, are paramount in televised cricket commentary.

Speaking of television commentators, I see that Ravi Shastri has offended some of his compatriots for admitting to liking biltong, a South African dried meat product. Perhaps this deserves a separate post.

Some English media perspectives on the Ashes (and wine)

The English media were present in Australia in force during the Tests. I say were because many of their representatives have returned home, usually after penning their summaries of the series.

Here's a selection, in no particular order.

Simon Wilde of The Times has paid tribute to the Australian team, though he's placed them in the context of the 10 best teams as he sees them.

Simon Barnes also in The Times (reprinted in The Australian ) described where he thought the series turned: in the first session of the final day at Adelaide. I disagree with him (the second session was more important as England could should have scraped more than 40 runs for their last five wickets.

Also from The Times probably the two longest serving cricket writers in the world John Woodcock (who I'd assumed had retired from reporting the game) and Christopher Martin-Jenkins say their respective pieces.

For The Telegraph Simon Hughes provided some characteristically incisive analytical audio and video reports, often with Terry Jenner. (The blog to which I've linked his name doesn't give much of an indication of the quality of his work).

Michael Atherton also contributed to The Telegraph (as well as commentating on Sky Sports), while Derek Pringle, another one of the paper's contingent, seemed to sample more wine than cricket: though he deserved what he got (a "5 - berocca hangover") for washing down some high quality wines with ouzo.

For The Independent Angus Fraser and James Lawton wrote contrasting assessments: Lawton was very courageous (in the Sir Humphrey sense) to predict that England will have a much easier time of it in 2009.

In The Guardian Kevin Mitchell skimmed a lot of ground in a discursive piece which provided some interesting figures about how much Australian players (state as well as test) earn.

The BBC had a large pool of contributors, of whom Jonathan Agnew was at his best on the radio (but nevertheless still good in his online reports, which must have been dashed off in odd moments between commentating for both the BBC and ABC). Another worth looking at is Robbo , one of the many BBC bloggers, a voice (as forthright as you'd expect) from Teesside .

There were a few who dropped by briefly. In the New Statesman Jason Cowley wrote about the Adelaide Test, though it was obvious from his description that he was only there for the last one or at most two days (the only really hot day was the last one)

Finally, a couple of pieces designed to lift the burden of despair from English shoulders:

The Sun produced a list of the worst sports teams of all time, while back at The Times Simon Barnes wrote about Superteams , which in his opinion include the 2006 - 07 Australians though not the 2009 variety, whom he predicts will still be "a damn good team" though not a super one. I'd be very reluctant to stick my neck out so far ahead of the event: he could be right but his argument is based more on the assumption that Australia will be weakened by retirements than that England will revive. We shall see.