Every time I see him on the Australian team sheet I think it’s a weakened team. And it goes back farther than that, when he played for Victoria in the old days I felt the same way.

For years I’d be one of seven people in the G watching him for Victoria and telling the other six people that I didn’t rate him. Only for one of them to point out that he’d taken 4 for 60.

I should love Clint McKay. I should talk him up in random conversations and wear a t-shirt that just has his face on it. Clint McKay grew up 15 minutes from where I did. We should share a Northern Suburbs of Melbourne bond.

Instead of complaining about him I should be worshipping his head-swaying run-up, fetishizing his good lengths and eagerly anticipating his back of the hand slower ball.

A friend of mine had heard McKay might be their team’s overseas player and wanted to know about him. All I had for them was that he was tall and had a good slower ball. I could give them no more information of a guy who I’ve seen bowl probably 40 times.

To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen McKay not take wickets. But somehow I never seem to remember how he took them. They just appear over and over again.

He’s just one of those bowlers who takes wickets. In 18 ODIs, Mckay has 38 wickets at just under 20. That’s the sort of numbers that make any sort of preconceived perception sort of irrelevant.

And as I was writing this, he was Australia’s only bowler who looked like taking wickets. And then he was the only Australian bowler to be hit on to the cathedral by MS Dhoni, before following up with a waist-high no ball.

I’ve always felt that when someone hits McKay the ball goes further. He doesn’t get hit for small sixes, or gentle fours, people just hit him really hard. That could even be the whole reason I have had this thing against him.

Wickets are good, but everyone remembers the big hits.

That will probably be the case here again. McKay’s three wickets were handy, but I’d think more people will talk about how Dhoni almost killed spectators who were over a hundred metres away to win the game.

People are fickle like that.

You can watch it here, if you feel the need.

I also wrote this.

-

Brad Hogg’s comeback and George Bailey’s rise don’t seem to have made people all that angry.

That’s odd, isn’t it?

Australia have picked an oldy and a dude to replace a dude with roughly the same record of the other dude who is slightly older. Where is the disdain, the outrage, the editorial’s sprouting anti-Victorian intent and how Australia are overlooking their future for some old dude the commentators all like?

Australia have picked a player who has been retired for years. I’m not even sure we knew that Justin Bieber was a thing when Brad Hogg last played, and Zach Galifianakis was a fat funny dude starring in such classics as Speed Freaks. Hogg isn’t exactly Bob Simpson, who was dragged from a retirement village to save Australian cricket.

I suppose if your lifestyle-hosting career is working well or you’re dating a famous model/actor/it girl, you don’t need to make a comeback at 40, but for Hogg it makes perfect sense. Statistically you can make an argument for Hogg. His economy rate is 5.4, he takes wickets, and no one has a better strike-rate on twitter abusing Mitchell Marsh. The only number not on his side is his age.

However, if you see Twenty20 as a way of easing young Australian cricketers into the team, then picking a guy who’s been retired four years who is only year younger than your selector is odd.

Then there is Bailey, who I am really glad is being given a chance to captain any Australian XI, but it’s not as if he’s hitting the captaincy with a stellar Twenty20 season behind him.

And age is also quite odd, as he’s a few months younger than Michael Clarke, and only a few months older than Cameron White. There’s no doubt Bailey can captain, he’s won more than his share of silverware, but so has White. Neither White nor Bailey made a cracker in a high class and low performance Melbourne Stars middle order this year.

You’d think that one of these decisions, if not both would be the catalyst for the first vicious attack on the John Inverarity reign as chief selector.

But it’s quite clear that virtually no one cares. Australians may casually enjoy the Big Bash League, and they may even make the trek down to see the odd match, but at the end of the day, you could have a man with a rubber chicken stuck to his head as captain and some bloke’s dog as the spinner and people would still spend more time discussing Shaun Marsh’s form or whether Punter (Ponting) should retire.

For all the hype and concern, Twenty20 is still just that thing people watch

The scoreboard has a sort of don’t mess with me attitude. The ducks in Queens Park’s look more sinister than most. And the light towers have a violent look to them.

My first memories of the WACA involved Geoff Lawson’s jaw, or what was left of it after Curtly Ambrose tried to decapitate him. For a few years the pitch changed to a PG rating, and the allure of the WACA almost disappeared. Now some of the brutal mystique has returned. The pitch is once again fast and bouncy. Once you’ve worn a few on the hands and chest, like a scene from a bad disaster film the pitch slowly opens up and lets the bowler aim at massive cracks.

Then there is the heat. Perth is hot. I don’t want to get into specifics, but I’m washing undergarments over here more than David Warner hits boundaries. Peter Siddle looked like he was too tired to celebrate a wicket on day one. Siddle and I are from Melbourne, so maybe us handling heat means little, but in Perth even the Indians have been complaining about the heat. I’m counting that as hot.

There is something slightly wrong about the stands too. Any ground with grass hills on both sides should be lovely, but the WACA still feels ominous. The Inverarity is the sort of stand that would be used for a prison football match. The inside seems to have been made to survive a riot. The TV and Radio press are at the top of the Lillee/Marsh stand, with only one disabled toilet – well I hope that is all there is, otherwise someone is playing one hell of a joke on me.

The written press have no room of their own due to their numbers. Cricket grounds in Australia are always surprised at the amount of press India and England have. So at the WACA, almost all of them are dumped out behind the grass bank in a square-of-the-wicket hospitality tent. It’s not bad, unless you’re in the front row in which the heat of the sun and your laptop bring you to a slow boil. They don’t even have their own toilet over there. The punters and the press near the Shepherd gate share a concrete box, which strangely has no urinals and is backed up ably by portaloos, with no humanity at all on a hot Perth day.

The WACA doesn’t even make it easy to commentate. The ABC are commentating standing up, just so they can see the entire ground. They have five cameras stationed directly in front of them. It looks more like a comedy skit about the different way TV and Radio is treated by sport.

The stewards here are scary. They don’t guard, they aggressively patrol waiting for patron or press to roam slightly out of line. If you walk up the wrong hallway, an elderly woman with a name badge will tackle you. Discussions about staircases here are brutal. And if you’re standing where it says no standing, even on a non-match day, you will be moved by any means necessary.

Even the WACA press conference room (which is actually a weight’s room) leaks from a suspicious looking pipe that says waste.

Whether you’re facing Curtly Ambrose, waiting for the one toilet, getting food in the Inverarity dungeon or commentating on your tippy toes, the WACA has a real tough Test feel about it.

It’s kind of harsh and nice at the same time.

But this innings was more than that, even though it was exactly that.

David Warner didn’t just go out there and get his slog on.  He started with sensible shots, worked the ball into gaps, but away the bad balls and then bitch slapped Vinay Kumar the way the rappers talk about doing it.

Warner used thuggish brutality and batting smarts.

It was a top Test attacking innings by a guy who smashes the fuck out of the ball in T20.

It wasn’t Warner’s fault he was playing against a team drawn by unimaginative children.

All Warner did was what any good attacking Test batsman would do, he sensed the opposition were shithouse, and he beat the living fuck out of them.

Sure, he did it with lofted drives, risky pulls and a sweep through mid off, but that’s the tools he has.

He’s not a batting artist; he’s a batting Neanderthal.

Today he clubbed India on the head and dragged it back to his cave for some non-consensual loving, cave man style.

This innings was smackdown.

I mean there was even the moment where his cockiness meant he got hit in the head, but it was all for show, because there is no single substance harder than Warner’s head.

They probably spent most of that delay trying to find a new ball.

I think if I had a dog that was a bit unruly and likely to bite random strangers, I’d name it Warner.

I’d love that dog right up until the government made me put it down.

And can be a smart ass.

But he made 68.

During this innings i stopped breathing, shat myself repeatedly, cried, got angry, worried about everything and generally made an ass of myself.

While Eddie was patient, smart and played proper first day cricket at the pace he likes best.

This made me happy.

Actually, it made me miserable most of the time he batted, but now I’ve survived this innings, like a new born mother with a baby covered in crap, I am happy, tired, and my vagina is killing me, but very happy.

Eddie at the G, yes, a good fucken day.

like you

Eddie Cowan is just like you.

No, you’re probably not an overly hairy stoic opening batsman who plays the moving ball better than anyone else in your country while writing every detail of your life into a cricket diary.

But you read cricket with balls.

So does Eddie.

It goes further, because if you comment on cricket with balls, so has Eddie. He uses an equally stupid id that has nothing to do with his real name when he is annoyed with me, or has something that he thinks is humourous, he puts in in the comments.

It doesn’t stand out as brilliant or written in iambic pentameter, it’s just a decent comment.

cricket with balls’ own

We claimed Eddie Cowan before most cricket pundits had noticed he’d changed states.

There were many factors. One was Eddie seemed like a regular human being and not a cricketer, he had a sense of humour, could write a tweet (or comment) and could bat the shit out of the moving ball.

So we anointed him as the third ever cricket with balls’ own, the first being cricket with balls’ Bryce McGain, who we then got a Test cap for, and then cricket with balls’ Holly Colvin, who already had a test cap, but we once let her pick the chicken wing in a buffet we really wanted to eat.

Basically, being cricket with balls’ own is a good thing, and even though Eddie flatly refuses to refer to himself this way, although it’s never too late, Ed, we know it’s this early stamp of approval which has done wonders for this often insecure nerdy athlete.

writer

Lots of cricketers have books out.  Some of these cricketers have read their books, but precious few write them.  Eddie wrote his.

I know this, because I offered to write it for him, but he said he could do a better job.

Now, obviously he couldn’t, but that sort of confidence is why he is playing for his country on boxing day.

Eddie’s book is pretty fucken good, but he can and will do better.  Eddie will read this last line as me putting down his book.

podcasts

When I asked Eddie to do my podcast he said sure, but make sure I don’t get myself in trouble.

I then set him up to get in trouble.

It’s a sordid tale that involves a former NSP employee who often walks into changeroom giving unsolicited advice, who at that time was just a weirdo with no real job and bizarre theories about how he could make Sachin Tendulkar better.

I left it in the podcast because it was funny, and made this other man look like a buffoon.

Although Eddie and I weren’t laughing when this guy was given a made up job and a position on the NSP, which directly correlated with Eddie not being selected for an A tour.

I deleted that podcast, perhaps the only post of any kind ever deleted for editorial content on this site.

I did it because I wanted him to play for Australia, and a podcast of him mocking a selector may not help that.

batting

For every Virender Sehwag, there has to be an Ed Cowan.

Virender Sehwag bats the way gods should do it.

Ed Cowan bats the mortals do on their best days.

He’s not often pretty, and his back lift is probably an obscene gesture in some cultures. But he really tries.

On and off the field. His book is an insight of just how mental he is about batting and getting the most out of himself.

People like this are great drinking partners, in a whiskey on the balcony at midnight kind of way, but they often get in their own wy when it matters most.

Eddie, did not.

His batting was on top form when there was a spot on offer, and with Australia treating the moving ball like that beach ball from Dark Star, they needed him now more than ever.

fitting in

Cricketers are supposed to play call of duty and like Bon Jovi.

They aren’t supposed to study fianance, sit in the coern and write diaries and appear on extremely non-approved cricket sites.

If Eddie were in a war film, he’d be the one who doesn’t just jump over the hill, but who wears a peace symbol on his helmet while jumping over the hill and giving an inner monologue about the exact nature of war and men.

He’s not a cookie cutter guy, he’s not the normal athlete, he’s something else, and that should be applauded because if those of us on this site can’t appreciate Eddie Cowan for being an intense intelligent blocking machine, who can?

Celebrate this decision because someone like us, but with actual hand eye co-ordination and decent knowledge of nutritional requirements, made it to the place we all want to be.

Even if I didn’t know Eddie at all, I’d feel a kind of 5% of fucked up weird shit bond with him.  I don’t think I’m the only one, either.  He’s a cunt and good bloke, a smart ass and an asshole, a thinker and a wanker, the sort of cricketer you take home to mum and get drunk with while arguining and politics and the matrix.

As Hank once said “animals never worry about Heaven or Hell. neither do I. maybe that’s why we get along”.

Eddie, you hairy little fucker, I salute you.

For the 2011/12 season the Australians have put on a bumper crop of ads that showcase the very best in crickertainment, and where else to start but with Ponting’s pills.

Nothing shows that vitamins work more than having a fit pro athlete walk deliberately through a cricket ground. But this series of ads is more than just a slow purposeful walk; it’s a wistful recollection of deeds that Ponting has achieved. The only problem is that Ponting is so wistful, so sepia toned, and the INXS’ never tear us apart is so loud that you get little more than mumblings of something that sounds like it was very dear to Ponting’s heart. Or the ghost writer’s.

In one ad he mentions the number 200, in another, the number 13. Everything is else sort of lost as he moves slowly.

Ofcourse this ad isn’t about words, it’s about the scarf that Ponting wears. What a thick lustrous piece of reddish wool knitted together with care this is. It seems to wrap around his neck 17 times in one of the ads. Why is he wearing a scarf in an ad aimed at the summer market? Well it’s obvious really.

The scarf says it all, it transcends cricket and vitamins, it speaks straight to society as a whole as we all move into an awkward and terrifying future together. Ponting is just a man, he has achieved much, and he can look back at his childhood mullet and his parents in the stands with fond memories, but you still need to face the future. He may not be the Ricky of old, but his vulnerability, as highlighted by the scarf, makes us feel like he is one of us. Just an ordinary person who needs a big thick scarf.

We all look back at what we have done, and try and make sense of it all, but all we want is a bit of security, something to make us feel better in this big bad world, something to secure our vulnerable nature, to make us feel like it’s all ok and that we will never be torn apart. What we all need is a scarf. Ricky’s thick scarf.

And that is why this ad works, and why Ricky Ponting sells us vitamins.

I’ve never read Peter Roebuck’s book, but I have read similar efforts from ‘Norman Mailer from a posh school’ Ed Smith and ‘Dileep Premachandran without the western pop culture influences’ Aakash Chopra.

Chopra and Smith right some clever words, but they aren’t really one of us.

Cricket with balls’ Eddie Cowan is one of us.

He’s got that natural funny piss takey delivery, he’s not afraid to say something that might land him in trouble, and he is just the right kind of narcissist for this sort of book.

The other 3 are intelligent earnest individuals trying to unravel cricket through their writing, Eddie is trying to do that, but without disappearing up the giant anus of id.

If you go to buy this book on kindle, it comes up with “customers who bought this item also bought” Australian Autopsy, as the first result.

That’s pretty strong evidence that readers of here will like Eddie’s book.

Now I’m not a fan of the cover, or title, and I think Eddie will become a 10 times better writer than this book shows, but this is a quality book about a dude trying to play for his country while trapped in his own head.

If you want to know something about shield cricket, or are a tasmanian fan, there is something in here for you, it also has the best bromance since S Collins and j kimber.  Ed’s relationship with George Bailey is something special, and could have only been ruined by Ed detailing the moment when they truly embraced their feelings.

So, take a look and buy it if you think it’s your bag.

Think of it as a book written by that friend of yours who you first drank absinthe with, who’s just a little too picky with women and puts you down so well you have to like him. But you know, about cricket.

If you want to amazon or kindle with it.

Aussies can find it closer to home.

Or if you can’t find it, go into a bookstore and give them the ISBN 9781742233154.

But you should get it, because it’s Eddie fucken Cowan’s book.

But twice of recent times I’ve found myself agreeing with them.

It feels odd.

Like finding out your pedophile uncle has had himself chemically castrated, twice.

When Cricket Australia announced Pat Howard as the GM of team performance I thought it was a staggering non fuck up.

He wasn’t a good ol boy of Australian cricket, he wasn’t some guy who was picked because he’d been hanging around Australian cricket long enough and most importantly his role was one that needed to be filled by someone who actually knew what it was.

Howard was a top choice.

So knowing that the chairman of selectors was going to be picked I was expecting something truly horrible.

I was expecting Neil Harvey to be rolled out and for him to immediately recall Sam Loxton. Or Greg Chappell being rehired and given a magic wand.

Instead the first ever full time chairman of selectors is John Inverarity.

John fucken Inverarity.

It seems like such an oddly perfect choice.

It almost feels like they did it by accident, and only found out once the press release had been sent out.

Because Inverarity is professional, respected, intelligent, schooled, clinical, trust worthy and the exact sort of person Australia need to take over from the Bert and Ernie show from Greg and Andrew.

I can’t see how they could have picked someone much better.

That doesn’t mean it won’t go to shit. That Inverarity and Howard are the right choices is a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that they wont be tainted by the Cricket Australia alternate reality.

But they should be happy, they got it right. And that hasn’t been Cricket Australia’s way for a while.

They should be pouring orangina over each other’s naked body in happiness, and they would be, but the Krab is hard to get past.

It seems that when Simon Katich wants the news cycle, he digs into the cycle just like how he digs into the crease for Australia.

Well, how he used to dig in for Australia.

See how I still turned this negative.

It’s a gift. Hopefully one that CA doesn’t also have.

Specifically caps.

Some people ignored him, and they wore a floppy white hat and felt just as Australian as the others. Eventually a rule was brought into the team to ensure that no head would be unbagged for a session.

This faded sweaty odd shaped cap seemingly had mythical powers, perhaps given to it directly by Steve Waugh who putty his money where his perfectly manicured bouffant was when buying one of Victor Trumper’s many caps.

At that point it was as if the whole human existence before hand never mattered. Even though there was a time it may have been given out to people on tours and some players were given heaps of them and lost them or gave them away for fun.

Thanks to Steve Waugh’s help, the baggy green could now make a boy a man, man a man a god and make a god an ashes winning product that could be used for many wide ranging products.

It shit all over a top hat, with or without a rabbit coming out. It was the ultimate millinery piece.

At that point in time Australians also got very interested in their flag, and Australia day, two other things that they’d happily never taken much interest in before.

Australia was changing, and you were now UnAustralian (on a side note all people who use the word Un and then their country’s name should be beaten to death their country’s mascot) if you didn’t love the flag, do something Australian on Australia day or worship at the frayed bits of Steve Waugh’s cap you were somehow less Australian.

It was ofcourse just as bullshit as claiming that putting the baggy green on the head of a young cricketer made him a better cricketer than someone wearing a black, maroon, blue or pink cap.

Australian cricketers would have been just have good had they been forced to put on a hat made out of discarded chicken wings. Although flies could have been a problem.

That didn’t matter back then, people bought it. Even when after the first session of the day players who liked floppy hats changed their headwear without magically become shitter cricketers or committing treason.

Cricket Australia used this false prophet over and over again. Their first foray into the digital world was baggygreen.com.au. They sold ceramic versions. They changed the way baggy greens were given out. They stopped giving them to touring players. And they only gave out one at a time, not a bag full.

Plus, they called their last two strategy plans “from the backyard to the baggy green”.

Now even Cricket Australia has abandoned the baggy green. Their no plan isn’t about baggy greens, it’s about the skateboarding surfer dude, the BBL.

It’s no longer traveling the Steve Waugh path from out back to the top of his head, it’s now spending Thursdays nights at the BBL, and can’t connect with the Australian team.

Cricket Australia doesn’t do things on a whim, they market research their focus groups, so when they turn from the baggy green, you know something is going wrong.

The baggy green is no longer the cure to all that ails you, Cricket Australia’s holy grail for marketing and performance. It doesn’t make cricketers better and it doesn’t bring in the kiddies who want to be like Steve.

It’s almost like it is just a piece of material that was shaped into a cap and has no magical, mystical or otherwordly qualities in it at all. And that it just happened to be worn by talented Australian cricketers who were proud to represent their country.

This is why people replace caps, because no matter how good they look at the start, eventually they fade.