To entertain or to win?

This is a no-brainer question. So why does it come about?

This is nothing to do with Ambazonia, or is  it?

England went 2-0 down in the current cricketing ashes series. If you don’t know about the ashes, and who doesn’t?, you probably don’t want to know … otherwise please look it up  … somewhere.

In both tests, for that is what a five-day cricket match between nations is called, England “had Australia exactly where they (England) wanted them”, but both times, England then crumble!  Well in cricket it is called “collapsed”, which is when a batting side is bowled out for very few runs. What are runs? What is bowled out?

Since you’re asking, runs are runs, they are the count of how many times the batting side runs between the wickets while they are batting. What are wickets? You probably don’t need the meanings if wicket, for there are two, actually in two ways too! The wickets first are the three wooden pillars behind the batters, who used to be batsmen, until recently when it became more appropriate to call them batters… I was saying there are two lots of these “wickets”. That is one definition. There is also the second meaning which is the idea that the bowling side has “got the wicket” of the batter and the batter is “out”.

Now with this rudimentary grasp let us look at this (un) important question. Or maybe not. The debate is raging among the pundits as to how England should have won both tests and now he 2-0 up rather than down.

For about a year now since England hired a new coach and appointed the supremely talented captain Stokes, they have breezed past all comers including the likes of India and South Africa. In case you did not know, and why should you?, when it comes to cricket neither of India and South Africa are not a push-over. You have to be good to cope with them, never mind beat them. England did. Comfortably. In fact prior to the current ashes series, England boasted something like a 10 wins in the last 11 tests or something similarly impressive so in the run up to the ashes talk was of how badly Australia would be beaten.

When England opened the batting in the first test at Edgbaston in Birmingham and piled on the runs with their refreshing play the pundits seemed to have figured it right. But, baz-ball, the name this new brand of cricket is called, proved to be double-edged as it provided the momentum to accumulate quick runs, but later ensured the “blameless recklessness”, even with Geoffrey Boycott sitting in the executive box, that ultimately snatched an unlikely defeat for the jaws of victory.

To step back a bit baz-ball is attacking “blameless” play where batters will not be blamed, even by Geoffrey Boycott, if they “give their wicket” away playing reckless shots. Stokes also reassured fans and the curious watchers that England would focus on entertaining rather than winning, Ambazonia News would infer, unlike the vulgar Australia who compete to win. So when England found themselves in a spot of bother, or should we call a sticky wicket, they stuck to entertaining. It was certainly entertaining to see wicket after English wicket tumble. And yet they kept the captain’s word!

Now having made nearly 500 runs on the first of 5 days, England decided they would quite like to drive home their dominance by getting Australia in to bat in the final hours of the day. England expected a couple of wickets to make it a perfect day.

That was not a disaster as it turned out. Australia did not collapse and by the end of the first innings there was only a handful of runs in it in England’s favour. What is an innings? Why are you asking Ambazonia News? Ambazonia will eventually get the same chance to trounce England that all teams do, but the Ambazonian Cricket Board does not exist yet … An innings is the batting teams time at the crease, which is the name of the rectangle between the wickets where the batters run to accumulate runs. It is the runs they get before 10 of their wickets fall or, as in the first day story, the captain declares. A declaration is when a captain declares, that is beckons out their batters before their wickets have fallen, usually, again as in this example, because they feel that they have enough runs to bowl out their opponents before they can match or better the runs. Australia were bowled out and the lead of 7 for England, that is since Australia managed only to accumulate 7 runs fewer than England in their innings, hardly vindicating the captain’s decision to declare.

In England’s second innings they went for baz-ball again but this time for several spells, they “gave their wickets” away. They bravely stuck to their methods and attacked the Australian bowling even if a previous more sedate England would have heeded the conditions. Ambazonia News would like to suggest that someone bowls a scrum guide into the England dressing room so that they could assimilate the idea that solving one problem as it arises on its merits would not remove the entertainment. At times the batting was as logical as a boxer attempting to break their opponent’s fist by hitting the fist with their jaw.

This time they made fewer runs and did not declare. Then, true to the entertainment mantra, they set about Australia with more attacking field placements … When side bowls their fielders attempt to catch the batters out. A catch happens if the batter hits the ball in the air and it is caught by the fielders before it touches the ground again. With only 11 fielders a captain has to place then with caution, or abandon, where they think the batter is going to send the ball. The bowler has to be accurate in where they land the ball to force the batter to play shots to get caught out or be bowled out directly. The other ways to be out other than being caught would be if the ball gets past and demolishes the wicket – the wooden pillars or if it hits the batter’s pads without first touching their bat, and they are in front of the wicket at a height where the ball would have gone on to hit the wicket.

As it turned out, England were right about Australia. The Australians batted cautiously, some said negatively, and made their runs much more slowly than England and at times looked destined to lose. Ultimately when the Australia played the shots to make the runs and win. But they were definitely less entertaining than England.

What did the entertaining captain say? That he did not mean that they would not mind losing when he issued the instruction to entertain freely .

What has this to do with Ambazonia? Well, when Ambazonia News promotes collaboration it is always for the greater aim of winning the restoration of our independence. Just like entertainment in the ashes will not be fêted if a test is lost, unity will do nobody any good in Ambazonia unless its effect is to bring the restoration of our independence.

We must not use up our maegre resources trying to engineer “unity” as nice nice as unity would be!

Ambazonia will prevail even if we keep hearing lamentations about a lack of unity. We must be mindful that some of those lamentations are from the enemy’s psychological effort to drain our resolve. Too late!