The first time I heard about Michael Klinger we were both 16.
Now we are both old.
At 16 Klinger was a batting prodigy, and I was a dodgy leg spinner with a bad attitude.
Over the years I always wanted him to do well for Victoria.
It rarely happened.
Generally he would make a slow start, almost stop scoring, and then stay at the crease for a while before going out.
It was painful, no one liked it.
This went on for almost 10 years.
It got to the point where I named him the Hebrew Hammer; part out of satire and part out of hope.
It still didn’t work.
Then he went to South Australia and he made more slow runs in one season than it seemed he had in years.
It seemed a match made in heaven, the poor state side and the immovable batsman.
Last season Klinger continued his turgid batting.
Before the champions league it was probably almost three years since I’ve seen him bat, but boy, has he grown a pair of Teflon balls.
He isn’t just batting in the champions league, he’s fucken well leading the whole league in scoring.
In t20.
A form of cricket that is alien to him as Sunday mass is to me.
Every time I’ve seen him bat in this tournament he has kicked ass, and this is a man who used to fret over nudges off his hip. And then go out.
It’s like seeing your boring ex-girlfriend flirting in a bar with dozens of men when she wouldn’t even let you tie her up or watch her piss.
10 years I spent watching Klinger fuck about.
10 years.
Now he has gone off and become some sort of multifaceted professional batsman, while all I got is the misery of watching him take forever to fail.
I believe the only explanation for this is that some alien slug has entered his anus and is now controlling his every move.
Because we may test for performance enhancing drugs, but no one tests for manipulative alien slugs.
We should, because it is the most obvious answer to his change of fortune.
Don’t you know that all good things take some time
Someone said today about the fashion in which he grinds his way into the innings that he was South Australia’s Simon Katich.
He might also have taken a similar development as Michael Hussey, getting more relaxed and allowing himself to have fun at the crease. Family is a positive factor as well.
And as you are speaking of growing balls, Adelaide has some. It might have rubbed off on him.
Klinger is the new Jamie How
i like slow, boring batsmen. They are the dogs bollocks. Given the predeliction for champagne shot dismissals by many of the Aus batsmen, the more katich clones the better.
Klinger is more like Stuart Clarke than Katto
I remember when Khawaja was named in the Aussie squad (and even Mark Waugh had the decency to look sheepish) I was thinking just what Klinger did wrong to not even get mentioned in passing after the sheer number of runs he scored.
Watching him bat this tournament has shown he’s a guy who’s game is ready right now to step up to international cricket. Hope he keeps piling on the runs and forces a case – but at 30 he probably needs to debut within the next 12 months if it’s going to happen.
i agree with hewy, how many millions of runs do you need to get into the aust side? I reckon he’s got the goods to play test cricket now.