David Maddox: The Greens - not all is how it seems

I notice that James Mackenzie, that tireless spindoctor and general dogsbody for the Green Party in Scotland, has come up with a surprising admission on his Two Doctors blog.
As the world leaders sat down to discuss nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, Mr Mackenzie the official mouthpiece of a party supposed peaceniks, announced that he wants to increase his own personal nuclear arsenal from two to three.
He was talking about his collection of board games - apparently he already possesses Confrontation and War on Terror, which sound more like George W. Bush's hobbies. Far be it for me to suggest that this is a sign of latent megalomania in the otherwise urbane and personable spin doctor, but it does appear that for him subconsciously, as in a misquote of the James Bond movie, the world (let alone Scotland) may not be enough.
However, we must hope he does not become a global domination because the world may be left lacking. As his blog shows he probably would not allow either chess or cricket to be played, thus depriving civilisation of its two best past times.
His objection to chess is that he believes computers are better at the game because they can process more information. Yet the only time the world's best player lost to a computer was Garry Kasparov against the second Deep Blue constructed by IBM.
Subsequent investigations have suggested that IBM may have cheated and used other grandmasters in a bid to boost its share price. The company quickly dismantled the computer before any checks could be made or a rematch could take place.

David Maddox: Fielding at silly point again

It's good to see that I have returned from a fortnight's holiday and the great Scottish cricket debate has a bit more life in it still than England's bowling attack had today at Edgbaston against the Ozzies (as evidenced in this picture on the right of England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff).

When I left bouncers were still be aimed at the head of Nationalist Glasgow list MSP Sandra White (pictured below left) for putting down a motion calling for the sport to be removed or at least reduced on Scottish television.

The furore seems to have been the reason for a visit by SNP Sports Minister Shona Robison to an under-15s game to show that the Nationalists are not prejudiced against the summer game and SNP ministers even welcomed an idea by Labour's Richard Baker of getting Neds to play the game as a distraction.

However, it appears that Ms White, whose name at least reflects the proper colour of cricket attire, has not been stumped.

Instead she has sent down another googly in the form of another motion backing the BBC Trust's demands for sports to be returned to terrestrial television.

The following is the text of the irate e-mail I received which more than explains it.

"It's interesting to note that Sandra White welcomes the inclusion of the Scotland World Cup games and Commonwealth Games 2014 but fails to mention in her motion that the BBC Trust also recommended the inclusion of England Home Test Matches and the Cricket World Cup Final and the 20/20 cricket final. She really doesn't like cricket does she !!!"

I don't think anything needs to be added.

Tom Peterkin on more cricket

The Scottish National Party would appear to be attempting to win over Scotland's cricketing community after Sandra White's silly complaint about alleged excessive coverage of the Ashes series.
Tomorrow Shona Robison will go to Arbroath United Cricket Club's picturesque ground Lochlands Park to lend her support to the Scotland team playing in the European under 15 cricket championships.
Robison is quoted as saying: "Cricket has a long and proud history in Scotland and is one of our fastest growing sports."
She has also reminded cricketers that the Scottish Government has recently come up with £415,000 for the game.
A somewhat different view than that expressed by White when she suggested that cricket was a minority sport in Scotland.
Howzat for a clip round the ear, Sandra?
It's perhaps not surprising that Robison knows about Scotland's cricketing tradition. Her husband the SNP MP Stewart Hosie has occasionally turned out for Panmure rugby club, a fine sporting institution that shares its ground and bar facilties with Forfarshire Cricket Club in Broughty Ferry.

David Maddox: Liz Smith goes out to bat

There are plenty of politicians who fancy themselves as sportsmen. Just recently we learnt that First Minister Alex Salmond reckoned he might have been a Wimbledon champion had he kept up his tennis.

Any follower of the MSP football team will realise that there are plenty there who think they could have been SPL stars in their day. Of course, Fife MSP John Park has gone down in legend as a political version of Chopper Harris for his now infamous tackle on Chick Young last year - he's still dining out on that one.

But there are few politicians who really cut the mustard as sportsmen and women.

In Westminster the double middle distance gold medalist Lord Sebastian Coe was probably the most world class sportsman to become an MP, although his former colleague Lord Colin Moynihan was also a gold medal winning Olympic athlete as a cox in the rowing team.

Holyrood has had far less genuine sportsmen and women. Former First Minister Henry McLeish played football for East Fife, but the one international sports personality is Tory MSP Liz Smith.

Ms Smith won seven caps for Scotland as a cricketer and the picture supplied shows her practising up with the bat before a game.

It is not known how good she was as figures for her batting and bowling are not available. But she did memorably manage to clean bowl a fellow political hack, John Robertson of the Sunday Times. He went for a duck in a hacks versus MSPs match a couple of summers ago on the second bounce of a slow delivery from Ms Smith, something he is yet to live down.

Ms Smith, though, is living proof that cricket is played and supported in Scotland by Scots. And she has written a fascinating rebuttle in today's Scotsman against the views behind the demands to get the sport off TV made by some of the Nationalist MSPs, most recently in a motion by Glasgow list SNP MSP Sandra White.

Tom Peterkin on cricket

Like David Maddox, I was irritated to learn of Sandra White's pathetically parochial moan about the amount of coverage devoted to this year's Ashes Series.
Like many Scots, I look forward to this great sporting contest and even - shock, horror - hope that England do well. To suggest that cricket is of little interest to Scots shows at best a misunderstanding of a great Scottish sporting tradition. At worst, it suggests a knee-jerk antipathy to all things English.
Growing up in Forfar, one of the greatly loved personalities in the town was the late Nigel Hazel, a famous Bermudan professional who seemed to play forever and hit many mighty sixes for Strathmore. Elsewhere in Angus, Kirriemuir's most famous son J.M. Barrie also loved cricket and gifted the village cricket pavillion complete with a camera obscura.
Barrie took his own team the Allahackbarries to Kirrie to play a match to open said pavillion. Included in the side was the famous Australian test player Arthur Mailey. Another talented cricketer to play for the Allahackbarries, was the Scottish creator of Sherlock Holmes Conan Doyle, who was a First Class player. Scouring the internet the other day, I discovered that my great uncle W.C.G. Peterkin scored 47 for the Grange against the MCC at Raeburn Place a few years before he was incarcerated in a POW camp during the Second World War.
As someone from the West, White ought to realise that there is a flourishing cricket scene in her neck of the woods. After all, that great West Indian batsman Gordon Greenidge was once professional for Greenock while Mike Denness, the Scot who captained England, was born in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire.
In the coming days, I doubt very much that we will hear English complaints about the amount of coverage that will be devoted to this week's Open Championship. Scotland gave golf to the world and England gave cricket. Both games are enjoyed by people in both countries - something that we should perhaps recognise in a modern tolerant Scotland.

David Maddox: Fielding at silly point

There are two things you can count on in the summer months - cricket and the newspapers' silly season.

And, as seems to happen most years when there is an Ashes series, the SNP have managed to combine the two.

This time Sandra White (pictured top left), a Glasgow list MSP, has put down a motion calling on cricket to be removed from terrestrial television north of the Border because there is little interest for it here. Strange she should make the complaint considering that it only appears on news bulletins as Sky holds the rights to the game.

But even a cursory look at the evidence shows that she is wrong about cricket not being widely followed in Scotland.

There are 160 clubs registered with Cricket Scotland (including the Grange in Edinburgh, pictured right). Around 28,000 Scots play the sport, not least the Scotsman's own team, and thousands more support it. Some argue it is more played and better supported even than rugby and you never hear the Nationalists wanting to ban that sport from the television.

Scotland has also had some success competing against first class county teams in one day competitions and on the international stage. They have gained full international status in the one day game and got to the semi-finals of the 2005 ICC Trophy.

There have also been some notable Scottish players. Two of the current Scottish team play for first class counties Navdeep Poonia for Warwickshire and Kyle Coetzer for Durham.

My favourite is arguably England's greatest captain Douglas Jardine (pictured left), inventor of the infamous Bodyline bowling attack to tackle Don Bradman in the 1932/33 Ashes series. His name still still brings up the bristles on the Antipodean back.

Then there was the famous win in 2007 of Freuchie in the National Village Cricket Championships at Lords.

The sport has a long history here in Scotland too with the oldest club Kelso dating back to 1820.

Ms White of course is following in the footsteps of her fellow list SNP MSP Christine Grahame, who complained about the Ashes being on TV too much in 2005. Notably, she is yet to win a constituency contest in the Borders where cricket is most popular in Scotland, despite trying in a marginal seat three times which was one of the SNP's top targets in 2007.

It could be argued that the Nationalist dislike for the summer game comes from its historical sentiment over its origins in Scotland. It was first played by English soldiers stationed in Scotland in 1785 after they had put down the Jacobite rebellion along with Scottish Hanoverian soldiers at Culloden.

But one has to ask, as some political parties already have, whether having a go at cricket is a convenient way of having a go at the English without actually saying so as it is clear they consider the game to be an English one. It is certainly an easy way of trying to stir up anger over English interests being put over Scottish ones in television coverage.