Filed under afghanistanis

Out of the Ashes competition

I’m still getting entires to the competition, but it is over.

My ten DVDs haven been given away.

I am a giving man, so I’ll tell you about the King’s competition.

The sleeker sexier 2.0 King cricket is also giving away 10 copies of the DVD for those who follow these instructions:

  • 50 words on how you’d get any non-Test playing nation to the 2015 World Cup
  • Send your entry to king@kingcricket.co.uk
  • Last day for entry

So, if you still want a DVD, but had a shit cricket origin story, get over to king cricket and work it out.

Tagged ,

Out of the Ashes: Cricket Origin stories

In honour of Taj Malik, cricket and Out of the Ashes, here is a few cricket origin stories for you. These are the competition winners each of them owning a copy of Out of the Ashes on DVD.

Andrew Lunn:

I was first introduced to cricket by my Dad. He would sit there for hours watching cricket on the BBC and I never took much interest at first. In fact, at first, it bored the hell out of me and I could not understand his fascination. As soon as he stuck it on I would just go and kick a ball about in the garden.

Anyway because I could see how much it delighted him to watch cricket, my curiosity was aroused and I forced myself to sit there and watch it with him. At first maybe I was just enjoying it because he was enjoying it but slowly over time, maybe many months, I started to pick up on the vagaries and wonder of the sport. Discussions of short legs and silly mid off’s were the spark in my young mind to make me think there was a lot more to this sport than meets they eye. I just had to know more.

One of my earliest cricketing memories was staying up late to watch the Ashes down under with my Dad. It was about 11pm and the hype had been building all day, because England were almost in a strong position and Gooch was at the wicket. My Dad and I spent all day wondering if Gooch would take the Aussies apart. Anyway 12 o’ clock arrived and Craig McDermott with his war paint on came steaming in. He bowled a full toss! Go on Goochie, smack it for six! Instead he smacked it straight back to McDermott for a caught and bowled. Classic Moment! From that moment on and for the next ten or so years I got used to fearing the hell out of the Aussies. They were absolutely awesome but I didn’t care. In fact part of me almost revelled in their glory. What other sport can make the viewer admire the opposition in such a way.

Needless to say I have been hooked ever since. Cheers Dad!

The Alt Cricket Almanack:

Ravi Shastri introduced me to cricket. I met him when I was 10 years old. He told me: “If cricket is the earth, then I am your sun.”  Rameez Raja appeared from the shadows, brushed Shastri aside and said: “Yes son, and I am your moon.” They then both proceeded to explain to me the vagaries of cricket. I asked them about the LBW law, but they just said it was so complicated, that they’d been in the game for 20 years and even they didn’t understand.  So they called in Rudi Koertzen and Daryl Harper. They proceeded to argue that sometimes it was just ‘necessary’ to give a batsman out, even when the laws would advise otherwise. The conversation descended into an argument about racism, cheating, and ice cream. Towards the denouement, an elderly lady with a delightful northern accent interrupted proceedings. She brought out a tray, with a steaming pot of tea and home-made strawberry jam scones.  Everybody shut the fuck up, looked at each other, and proceeded to scoff. It’s irrelevant that Harper and Koertzen refused to share the same pot of tea as the other two. On that day, I experienced cricket’s extremist tokenism, made-up rules and awesome teas. I was sold.

Jeffdreadnought:

Introduced by a teacher called Johnson

Who always took nets with his pads on

He coached a mean drive

But mainly took pride

In a craftily found single run

Abhishek Phadnis:

Javed chacha, our geriatric Hyderabadi manservant (and the only bowIer I ever hit for six. He was eighty-four at the time and the boundary was nineteen yards).  A devoted fan of food, Venkatapathy Raju (yes, parochialism is blind, tone-deaf and retarded) and Indian cricket, in that order, chacha declared Raju’s omission from the Indian team a CIA conspiracy and announced he’d fast until Raju was reinstated. He was discovered discreetly tucking into a kebab six minutes later.

Ben Tumilty:

My teacher introduced me when he found out I was a leftie, as he needed an ‘awkward’ bowler, which I presumed meant ‘shite’. I picked it up from there, yet my batting is probably more ‘awkward’ than my bowling nowadays… Yup, I’m still shite.

James Frost:

I was introduced to cricket by Steve Harmison. Before that 7-12, english cricket was just bad news in sports pages and a cursory glance at Middlesex results (inevitably more bad news). Since that spell of bowling I’ve been hooked – I just watched the entire Pakistan – NZ ODI series!

Gareth Davies:

Mike Lloyd when I was ten. In the cricketing hotbed of South West Wales. I was immediately introduced to the concepts of “joining the dots” and “pre-ssure, pre-ssure!” He’d coach the under-everythings 4 nights a week and play on Saturdays and Sundays. He’s still miles, miles better than me. LAAARVELY!!!

Kartik:

My dad introduced me to cricket during the 1996 cricket world cup. The cable television that my brother and I had for so long begged for suddenly became a reality and we were soon finding that supersport was a far better channel than the cartoon network. The rest is history…

Mitch Hume:

Mum was born with a spinal problem where two of her cervical vertebrae were fused together, meaning she was hospitalised and had very limited movement until the age of 10. She would often lie immobile in bed and pass the time by listening to cricket on the radio. Surgery partially rectified her mobility issues, but she maintained a love of cricket which I inherited at a very early age. Due to her back problems she could never throw overarm, but she keenly became my first fielding coach and would spend hours using freakish wrist dexterity to flick a ball underarm everywhere in our backyard for me to take those speccy catches every 8 year old kid loves to try.  As a result I became a reasonable wicketkeeper, but (possibly, most likely not) due to my coach’s inability to bowl, crap batsman. It mattered little – mum was always my number one fan, and could tell me exactly what happened after attending every game of junior cricket as a scorer, and a good deal of senior cricket too, often to my teenage embarrassment. She’s still turning up, and I’m 24, but now I appreciate it a lot more.

Eddie Hunter-Higgins:

My brother (nine years older than me) was the one who introduced me to cricket.He would thrash me everywhere goading me for poor fielding and leg side balls. When I occasionally got to bat he would bowl vicious bouncers at me and use a ball that was half burnt to swing more. But still I loved every minute of it trying to best him and now I am a complete cricket fanatic watching every minute of cricket that I can and follow it all over the world.

Tagged ,

Out of the ashes review and competition

Cricket blogging is a largely solitary experience. It’s usually me in a dank corner mumbling to myself “bloddy Hauritz, I’ll get him, I’ll win”.

Then every now and then, people contact you.  Mostly it’s a company who are offering you something vaguely cricket related that your readers will love, but just once it was the director of a cricket film.

I was given the film ‘Out of the Ashes’ not long after i’d seen fire in babylon, but due to the actual Ashes, it just travelled around Australia with me.  One one night back at my parents place, I told my mum about it, and she demanded I put it on.

My mum aint no cricket nut, her trip to the boxing day test this year was her first test match to the G since she used to go to perve on DK Lillee’s chest.

She loved this film. She was cheering, laughing and crying as these kids try and make in in the world of sport and are utterly unsuccessful at picking up in Jersey. I now think she has a crush On Taj Malik, the coach.

I loved it too.  That two cricket documentaries like this and fire in babylon can exist at once should encourage people with money to fork it over for more cricket films, because they are clever, well made, inspiring tales that are entertaining to watch even to a casual cricket fan.

Cricket boards try to get new followers in with stupid cheerleaders, fireworks and rubbish websites, but a great film can convert someone just as well, is often cheaper to make and will last a lot longer than fireworks.

In this film you aren’t following Afghanistani cricketers, you’re following cricketers.  It doesn’t matter where they come from, as important as that might be, these are just a bunch of young out of their environment cricketers who are trying to come together as a team.

Their coach, Taj Malik, is someone from every cricket club in the world.  The man who will stand on the street and teach two kids the game just because he loves it.  To me he is cricket. He is everything that is great about the game. And if I ever were to meet Tak Malik in the street, I think I’d just hug him for as long as I could before he wriggled away and ran.

I could give this film a real review.  Could talk about the excellent pacing, amazing camera work, classy editing and amazing story, but I won’t, I’ll just say this, if you ever find yourself in a situation where cricket pisses you off, buy, rent or steal this DVD, because if this can’t restore your faith in cricket, nothing can.

Cricket With Balls has managed to steal 10 copies of this film from the distributors while they weren’t looking. They can only be posted in the UK, but if you want one, email me at answers@cricketwithballs.com with the name and a brief story (50 words or less) of the person who introduced you to cricket. My ten favourite will get the DVDs and I’ll post your words up here.

Tagged , ,

Out of the Ashes – The Afgani cricket film

I love cricket.

Find out more here.

Tagged

the world t20 team report card

Afghanistan – Turned up with a bowling unit that most Minnows would be proud of, but their bowlers also ended up being their batting.

They were very loud, but showed real aptitude, but were kicked out of the library after being caught urinating on the technique books.

Australia – Finally selected a T20 team and got a test player to captain it. Took the gamble on 3 front line bowlers and it worked until their batsmen bottled it in the final.

Bullied their way around the schoolyard, and everyone sucked up to them. Next time they should stay focused until the end of the day.

Bangladesh – Tried hard at times but never had the firepower to scare Australia or Pakistan.

Truancy is a problem, if Tamim isn’t around the rest of the boys lose confidence. Perhaps they were promoted too quickly and could do well if they were to repeat this grade a few times.

England – Was the best performed and coached side in the entire tournament, Wright at six was a gamble, but their middle order stuck around and they deserved to win.

Polite, courteous, well mannered and simply a delight to teach. About time too, before this they were a disorganized bore that should have been spanked daily.

India – Arrived with a hangover, played like they were in a coma, picked the wrong side and then performed like their entire family had been killed by drunk drivers.

Spank them, send them to bed without their dinner, cut all extra curricular activities and make sure you give them a curfew.

Ireland – Showed yet again that they are a plucky yet largely untalented bunch. Bowling display against England was a masterclass in bowling slow seam.

Since Eoin has moved classes the Irish boys have looked slightly stupid, it might be time for remedial studies, again.

New Zealand – At times it felt like they were in the tournament, but that they also weren’t. They beat 2 of the Semi finalists, but not in the semi finals.

A very eager student who would do extra work than required, it was just that their best work was only just a pass.

Pakistan – Were shocking, brilliant and wonderfully insane, just like Pakistan should be. Need a captain, not an excitable poodle.

Were truant at the start of the semester, then came in late doing lots of work to try catch up. They almost passed but it wouldn’t be fair to students who turned up all the time, like M Hussey.

South Africa – had one of the bowlers of the tournament in Charl Langeveldt, and almost no one else. Picked the wrong team, stayed with the wrong teamand then failed to actually chase Pakistan’s total.

These boys are clearly too old for schooling, and didn’t look interested either. Perhaps getting them into the workforce would benefit them.

Sri Lanka – Surfed the wave of Mahela all the way to the finals, but outside of him and some isolated performances they were pretty ordinary.

Had one mature age student who was of no use, a cool student who didn’t seem interested and some experimental student who produced very little. Very disappointed in them.

West Indies – Teams who host these tournaments are usually useless, the West Indies proved that rule.

The entire class sit around waiting for Chris Gayle to do the work, and he can’t always be bothered. Andre Fletcher needs private tuition or home schooling.

Zimbabwe – Had a great array of spinners and almost entirely nothing else. Played good honest cricket, but are missing several components.

They seemed to be driven by fear of being spanked by their parents, but are generally a very poor academic group. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but Ray Price is surely too old to be at school, and I think I saw him beat up the Lunch Lady.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

South Africa invades Afghanistan

Most people like seeing minnows play well.  That seems to be even more true for Afghanistan, because they’ve been through some shit, and I don’t mean having to watch Paul Collingwood bat on the last day.

So when Afghanistan bowled well against South Africa it was a great thing.  Their leggie was exceptional, their quick was actually quick, and they did well to keep South Africa down below par.

Then they batted.

Now South Africa are well known for a bit of minnow crushing.  While other sides get complacent or feel bad for beating a developing nation, South Africa take pride in stamping the life out of them.

Against Bangladesh, South Africa put on big jack boots and stomp the toygers into the kitchen floor until there is nothing but a puddle of blood, flesh, fur and bones.

Compared to how they beat Afghanistan, their stomping of bangladesh seemed rather cuddly.

Coming out onto the ground in a good mood, Afghanistan had no idea the horror that was about to be unleashed on them.

Finding the bluntest saw they could find, South Africa started by cutting off each toe, finger, nipple, and testicle one after the other. Placing them all in front of Afghanistan.

They then cutting off one arm and both legs.

Occasionally they sprayed them with sulphuric acid or just burnt them with cigarette butts.

That took too long, so they they took a blow torch and went about burning different sections of skin, until the body of Afghanistan was either bleeding from being sawed, or burnt.

South Africa then left the room, leaving an opened door and let the bleeding and burnt Afghanistan to edge towards the door being dragged by their one arm, only for South Africa to come back in, close the door, pick Afghanistan up chuck it in a bath full of Dermestid beetles while South Africa sat listening to Phil Collins and drinking a glass of red wine.

It turned out that the beetles don’t eat live flesh so instead of finishing of Afghanistan they just wandered around,  but South Africa didn’t notice and had already left to watchold episodes of Herman’s Head.

The ICC sent in a clean up team. A week later.

Tagged , ,

The World T20 thingy (chapter 1)

The world T20 is here.

While some people see this tournament as a lazy encore to the IPL, I see it as short. And when it comes to short cricket, I like my tournament short too. This one gets going within the week so I will be previewing the tournament in similar short fashion over the next few days.

Afghanistan

Obviously Afghanistan’s reason for swift promotion is because people were sick and tired of Australia being the alphabetically number one side in world cricket. Afghanistan had better enjoy this tournament as no one knows what will happen when John Howard takes over the ICC, but it doesn’t scream good news for them.

Can they win a game?

They’ve found themselves with the heavy weights of the tournament from India and the heavy weights in general of South Africa. The South African team usually grind minnows down into a fine dust, but they are out of form. And as we know India are always tired after IPL seasons. Afghanistan will won’t win a game, but at the change of innings in one game they will doing ok, before a spectacular failure in the second innings.

Players to watch or not

All of them, because most of us have no idea who they are, and we all want to find a minnow player to love and hold.

Australia

Australia finally took T20 seriously when they picked Dirk Nannes. Unfortunately at the same time they picked a captain who so far has been amazingly rubbish at the format. Their overseas T20 record is Ed Wood bad.

Can they win the tournament?

Or any games at all. If the Barbados or St Lucia pitches have pace in them then Australia has the line up that can scare the skirt of people. If not, they have a whole heap unsubtle fast bowlers and are will need Watson, Warner and White to all have the tournaments of their lives. Yes they can win, but they need some luck.Yet again they find themselves in the group of death, but this is more friendly than the last group od feath, this is more the group of gentle slapping.

Players to watch or not

Daniel Christian will do something in this tournament. He is like a more loose limbed way more insane version of James Hopes. He could set the record for most runs in an over or take a double hat trick.

Michael Clarke has a career T20I strike rate of 108, when he is batting, watch Breaking Bad.

Bangladesh

The best thing about being Bangladesh in this tournament is that the chances of them losing to another minnow relies on them beating Australia or Pakistan. Pretty unlikely.

Can they make the second stage?

Australia and Pakistan are not the two worst teams to play in the first round of this tournament. Australia seem to have an allergy to this tournament, Pakistan have the ability to lose to anyone. Whether Bangladesh are as good as Zimbabwe might be the question. I’d say Australia will crush them with fast bowlers and one good performance by Gul or Afridi will be the difference.

Players to watch or not

If Tamim Iqbal plays, currently under an injury cloud, you must watch him. He bats like a little rubber ball flying around a small concrete room.

Watching their seam bowlers work is always fun, make it into a drinking game and down a drink every time you see a ball you could hit for four.

Tagged , , ,
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 9,049 other followers