And if you want an afghan cricket shirt slap one on right here.
cricket with balls
just another bullshit cricket blog
two chucks at lord’s
If you feel the need to get a bit of Curtly splashed on your chest, you can buy it here.
cricket pop culture references: the big bang theory “The Transporter Malfunction”
In what is sure to be a short lived new segment on cwb (I mean what the fuck ever happened to player profiles?) here is a new one, where I discuss pop culture cricket references.
I like to watch bad American sit coms while I eat.
For whatever reason good american sit coms don’t help me digest as well, so instead of watching Seinfeld or Arrested development, I watch how I met your mother, friends and the big bang theory.
It should also be pointed out that I don’t watch them ironically. Sure, some of the laughs are ironic, but I hate it when people say they watch shit tv just for the irony, no, you do it for the same reason as everyone else, shit tv can be comforting and it requires very little of you other than functioning eyeballs, reasonable hearing and steady breathing. And I’ve always been obsessed with American sit coms, I’ve even seen several episodes of the turkish version of the nanny.
The other day I was watching the big bang theory and it was an episode where Raj, the nerdy Indian one, was talking to his parents about a potential arranged marriage.
During their conversation the father asks, “why did you call us during the cricket semi finals” straight after a hilarious ‘we thought you were gay’ routine.
Now, I get it, Raj is Indian, his parents are Indian, so a cricket reference here makes sense.
But the phrasing “the cricket semi finals”, seems odd. Raj’s father would have said “why did you call during the India England semi final”, and would never have used the word cricket, as it’s India, and everyone knows what sport he is referring to. To make it more Hollywood, he could have said “why did you call when the cricket’s on, India are playing Sri Lanka in the semi final, and Agit Agarkar has bowled a maiden over”.
That’s not what they went for, instead we get an ordinary line of dialogue that doesn’t truly respect cricket or human speak, and thusly cannot help the game of cricket grow. Look at what the big bang theory has done for flash t shirt sales and weep at what it could have done for cricket.
The actor playing Raj’s Dad is also far better known (to me) as Babu from Seinfeld, the Pakistani restaurateur with fingers as mesmerising as that of Ajantha Mendis.
Perhaps his casting was simply hollywood’s way of bring India and Pakistan together, or suggesting they can’t tell them apart in the first place.
Strangely, this episode is far more known for the fact that it is Leonard Nimoy’s last acting role (at the moment). Few know this about Nimoy, but he was a wily club left arm finger spinner for his local side. And once bowled unchanged for a whole limited overs match before bowling limits filtered into club cricket.
The new chief warden and his brown gloves: Dave Richardson ICC CEO
America gets to vote on whether they want to be run by a Mormon with a cricketers name or a guy some of their country is convinced is a suicide bomber in waiting. But if they get off work on stupid Tuesday they can waddle down to their local booth and vote based on how much they care about gay marriage.
It’s democratic, when they count all the votes.
People even get to vote on Eurovision, even if occasionally they get beaten for voting against national interests.
Cricket is getting a new ICC CEO soon as well.
Haroon Lorgat is leaving; he’s tired of doing a job where everyone hates him and he can’t do much to change it. He left with a dainty air punch called Woolf.
So who decides who should be the new face of the ICC?
N Srinivasan, Giles Clarke, Julian Hunte and Sharad Pawar are four of the people looking for someone.
Like most people, I see these guys as characters from an American prison drama.
Julian Hunte is the old guy who runs in the library. Sharad Pawar is the guy who runs the mostly ineffectual white guy gang. Giles Clarke is the Latino big man. And N Srinivasan is the man in charge of the blacks who make up %70 of the prison population.
That makes Haroon Lorgat’s job essentially the head warden of a prison that is run by the inmates.
To take control of this sort of environment you need to be an extremely smart guy who shakes things up and have the body odour of pure confidence.
But in cricket’s prison drama it’s the most powerful prison inmates who vote on who the next warden is. So no one like that was going to get the job.
Which means that the short list of four candidates we got a largely silent ECB (one of Giles’ gang) executive. A mystery Australian who is either Cadel Evans’ agent, me or Lalit Modi in white face. An ex Adidas exec who left in a hurry. Or Dave Richardson.
They’ve shortened that list down to Dave Richardson. Some will applaud the fact a cricketer has got the job. That means little to me, the best person should get the job whether they were a kleptomaniac professional ballerina who suffers night terrors or a cricketer.
I appreciate Dave Richardson as a no nonsense wicket keeper who thought raggedy brown gloves were a must wear item while still finding time to learn lawyering while being a professional cricketer. It’s also nice that the ICC is being run by a keeper, as I was always told keepers couldn’t captain.
I interviewed David Richardson only a couple of months back.
What I found was a nice intelligent patient man. He was also someone who was extremely worried about what he’d said straight after the interview. His main problem seemed to be that I’d asked him too many questions about the political side of cricket.
That seemed like an odd position for a man who earlier that day was involved in the testing of the DRS, cricket’s onfield political nightmare.
Back then he was essentially the ICC’s person in charge of making sure the trains ran on time, a professional ICC type. Now his job is the most political in cricket. A job where he will be abused for the stupid decisions of mostly unpaid power hungry people who appointed him. All he can do is try to calm down the cricket public and hopefully convince cricket’s elite to occasionally think of the game rather than their own board’s self interests.
Whether you think Richardson is the right person for this extremely diplomatic position or not, you don’t get a say. Richardson is chief warden, and if he does anything the inmates don’t like there will be a riot. It’s a tough place behind the electrified fences of cricket administration.
Cheetahs, Dolphins & Stallions right on your chest
While looking for random cricket shirts that are probably only of interest to me, I found something that I thought would be of interest to everyone. Ok, not everyone, but people who like cricket themed t shirts that aren’t variations of “he bats for the other side”, “Bowling maidens over” or “I hate short wide ones”.
It’s now clear to me that I’ve failed to make cricket replica shirts cool. I gave it a go, but perhaps my love for them, and the one time I looked good in a Pakistani shirt under a sports coat, was a false dawn. As no one else seems to care about them. Not even my Lancashire shirt that was worn by Andrew Crook, or A Crook as it reads on the back, seems to excite people.
However, people love cool t shirts. And I think I’ve found the t shirts that could mend the fences between traditional crickey nerds and cricket hipsters. Bootleg Pakistan Domestic Faysal Bank T20 tournament t shirts.
Yes, they are as good as you’ve dreamed of. And I own every single one of these shirts. Because, because.
Dolphins are the second smartest mammals after legspinners. But you’ve probably been afraid of rogue tuna or looking overly effeminate. Now you can put a dolphin on your chest and not worry about anything. Other than being mugged by someone who wants your cool ass Karachi dolphin t shirt.
I’m not going to lie to you; the Rawalpindi team could have named themselves better. I mean they are synonymous with the word express, and rams are more known for head butting other rams. But I like this ram, he’s got a dark side, and while he’s not a devil worshipper, he’s not averse to dark shit, and why not that have that on a t shirt.
This one’s an easy buy for anyone who wants to have a slightly different spelling of the word whore on their chest. Your parents, wife or Rabbi can’t tell you off for having this on your chest, it’s just a cricket team from Lahore, isn’t it?
The silky stallions have still never taken my advice and changed their name, but everything about this t shirt is awesome.
I don’t really care for wolves. This team might have been better if they’d called themselves werewolves, and had Jason Bateman on the front, but I’m still skeptical. This one did come with a puff paint, and some people will like that too.
This is the ultimate in cricket t shirts. It’s a cricket shirt of a country that are the new coolest worn torn place that no one will want to tour who slog like maniacs and call each other bisexual when things go wrong. But to make it even better, it’s not even their country’s national shirt. It’s a domestic t shirt of a war torn kick ass minnow cricket nation. Wow. Also, it has a cheetah on it. A cheetah. Cheetah.
talking shit with Jack Shantry
It’s what it says in the title.
We discuss underpants, jet from gladiator, frape, weird bowling actions and being abused by 15yos from Notts.
John Wright is bacon and eggs
A café near my place is shutting down. It’s called the Looney Tunes Café and it has decent food and nice staff. But the owner of the building has decided that he wants a bigger glossier café in its place and the current homely style of café is not going to match his new building.
Now watch me say that John Wright (the soon to be former coach of New Zealand) is the Looney Tunes Café and John Buchanan (current New Zealand director of cricket) is the forward thinking building owner trying to get the most out of his investment.
It’s easy to make John Buchanan out to be the bad guy. A non-Test playing bookish nerd who looks like Ned Flanders who is overly fond of lawn bowls and ancient Chinese text. It doesn’t help that Shane Warne never misses a chance to abuse John Buchanan, or that several of Buchanan’s theories don’t really make much sense.
But NZC didn’t pick Buchanan by accident. They appointed the guy with the wacky theories to propel their mid range side to greater things. New Zealand is not a country rich with cricket talent or facilities; they have always been at their best when their team comes together as one unit to knock over the better sides. Even with players like McCullum, Ryder, Vettori and Taylor, they seem to rely on a team effort to win big games. And like the Oakland Athletics, they’ve only got so much to work with.
Buchanan has had success. Not so much with his theories or wackiness, but with his record. Take out his time with KKR in the IPL, and he’s coached one of the most successful teams in world cricket and won shield titles for a team that had never done it before. He’s successfully got inside the head of countless opposition players by “accidentally” leaking player dossiers. Even Shane Warne believes his maiden over theory.
The problem is that few cricket fans in New Zealand would know or care about this. John Buchanan’s just not well respected in New Zealand. Most people only know of Buchanan in New Zealand because he hired a lawn bowls administrator to work for NZC. You can’t put that up against John Wright. A former NZ warrior with two stints as coach. Old school, smart and universally accepted. It’s unfair to John Buchanan.
It’s also another reason why John Wright and John Buchanan weren’t ever going to be ideal partners. One believes in cricket laws and man management. The other believes in spreadsheets and KPIs.
NZC were betting each way on this. Hoping that this odd melding of old and new theories would somehow blend beautifully. It hasn’t.
John Wright is leaving.
New Zealand has lost it’s most respected coach, and people are talking about John Buchanan like he wants their team to be coached by a team of alien ninja turtle Avatars who sprout mantra’s from Tony Robbins speeches. Which he may.
John Buchanan is not as useless as many say he is, nor as good as NZC think he is. But the NZC have made their decision. They now need to find a coach who is reading from the same copy of the art of war as Buchanan is. Or they need to clear out Buchanan and start again.
If you are going to make a choice, make one. You may not be able to replicate the homely food of the Looney Tunes Café, but you sure as hell want to make sure the food is really good and that it matches the décor and setting of the new establishment to ensure the locals don’t get angry.
a movie about a crab
I’m a long way from finishing my first film.
But I think I’ve got my second one all set.
The good news is that it’s not going to take long to edit. The bad news is that it will take a long time to watch.
The film is a complete unedited split screen (from the side and straight on) of Shivnarine Chanderpaul recounting every Test run he has scored.
There will be no sound track, animation or montages, just Shiv’s face close to yours as he takes you through every single run.
Bam.
According to the far more stylish than Shiv, Ceci Masters, the poster would look like this.
Shiv has always been a weird one for me.
Partly because I automatically want to spell his name Chandrepaul, then I’d get confused as to whether it was re or er. Then I started calling him Shiv.
I’ve never really warmed to Shiv.
Shiv wears tape on his face, the cramping, or the fact he hasn’t moved himself up the order despite the West Indies top four often consisting of 3 rubber chickens and a groundsman who brought whites to the ground.
I admire him, because he has made 10,000 Test runs, and that’s no trip to Cleveland.
It doesn’t mean I have to like him.
The tension between us could even make this film better.
“So Shiv, tell us about the gritty 2057th run you took at the Basin”
“I’ve got 10,ooo Test runs you passive aggressive Stinkey Beetie, but I remember that one well. Nathan Astle was bowling around the wicket, and he got it a bit too straight, not straight strait, but leg straight, and I closed the face and turned it for one, Phil Simmons wanted two, but there was only one and it was the last ball of the over”.
Credits.
The title on this should be some pun on the name Wade
The first time I saw Matthew Wade keep he was horrible. Truly disgustingly bad. In the schoolyard we would have called him a bit shit.
It was like his gloves were ceramic tiles that had be attached just for the day. At the time I couldn’t work out why Victoria had been talking this kid up.
And kid was the right word, he looked 7.
Victoria’s wicket keepers usually look like angry men who you’d see at the back of dodgy pubs playing cards. Men like Darren Berry or Slug Jordon who could dismiss you with their gloves, chunky thighs or behind the wicket abuse. In my mind the skill of a Victorian keeper had to be judged in soft hands and vicious profanity, it seemed Wade had neither.
At this point it wasn’t clear if Wade had been allowed into a pub.
Wade’s batting was never in question. From the first time I saw Wade bat three things were blatantly obvious. For a tiny little 7 year old, he could really murder the ball. He was a fighter. And he could really bat.
At this stage it hardly mattered. Wade was a young man trying to make his way. Brad Haddin was the national keeper. Luke Ronchi was back up limited overs keeper. Graham Manou was picked for the Ashes back up slot before Tim Paine was Haddin’s unlucky back up. Paine was better with the gloves than Wade, was a solid more reliable batsmen than Wade. With Chris Hartleyaround as well, Wade might have been as far back as 5th in line.
But things changed quickly. Manou was seen as a one series back up (perhaps discriminated against because of the hole in his heart). Ronchi lost form and is now moving to NZ (like he always said he wouldn’t). Hartley could never shake the tag of not being quite good enough with the bat (he’s too good as a keeper for his batting to be seen as good). Paine’s hands have never recovered from facing Dirk Nannes (who can blame him). And now Brad Haddin has a family illness (no brackets here).
You can’t ask for much more luck than this. Not that Wade needs the luck. The player you see now is not the same Wade I saw back at the MCG with ceramic hands and the face of a 7 year old. His wicket keeping is not great, but compared with most international wicket keepers it’s not horrible. Most importantly he’s improving all the time. His face has also changed. Australian wicket keepers have a certain look more often than not. It’s that Marsh, Haddin and Healy face. Grizzled down by a working class life but with a touch of cheekiness to it and vicious squinty eyes. Wade already has that face three Tests in.
Wade looks, walks and plays like a fighter. He’s perpetually scrappy.
Wade also has a Test Century to his name. In only his 3rd Test. Haddin only has three from 43 Tests, and those came in totals of 481, 535 and 674. Wade’s was in a total of 328 when no other batsman had made a hundred. Something else Haddin has never done. It was the sort of Test Century you make in a really good day dream. The team are away from home, they’re struggling, and the big names have disappeared. In this knock showed he could defend, attack and annihilate when it was required. And most importantly that he was reliable when really needed.
According to Michael Clarke, and an ever-decreasing group of Haddin loyalists, Brad Haddin is still the number one choice for Australian Test keeper.
It’s hard to see that when Wade plays like this.
Matthew Wade has overcome cancer, improved his keeping at every opportunity, fights as hard as anyone in the Australian set up and has now shown he can seriously bat. Perhaps he’s not the man just yet, but he’s certainly more than the nervous boy I saw only a few years back.
County Banter with Alan Richardson (@alricho21)
I’ve started a new vodcast for cricinfo where I talk balls with grizzled county journeymen about their careers and stuff.
First one is with the salt of the earth Staffordshire sex symbol Alan Richardson.
I might link to them all here, or I may forget.
