When picked for the South African squad, he said no, my woman comes first, I will marry her instead.

No one was quite sure how that would play in the darkened ivory laden selectorial grotto of Cricket Australia.

Surely that was something that james sutherland could spin into a sponsorship deal, but how would the selectors feel.

Apparently it pissed someone off, A Voges does not find himself in the tour to the Sahara Desert to play Pakistan.

Even though two batsman are being ‘rested’ and two have been dropped.

The selectors are clearly telling the boy something, support dying in laws (think M Clarke) and we will allow it, but don’t support your woman, unless she is dying (think G McGrath).

Shaun Marsh and Andrew Symonds have come in, Cam White, Marcus North, Mike Hussey and Ricky Ponting are all out.

And so is Voges, maybe for ever.

Lets hope that marriage lasts, she tastes like beer and pizza, and she is a great woman.

If not, everytime she moans, or pisses him off he will stare at her with murderous intent.

Can’t you just see him on the rotten brown sofa, yellow stain on his singlet, signed stump in his hand, just waiting for her to turn before he takes to her like he did that day against NSWales.

I know.

I bet the selectors didn’t ring him either, I bet they just dropped the names to the media, and rang the inclusions.

They are good like that.

People who favour the test game will be happy.

But in reality, what the fuck is Voges thinking.

It’s not as if this will be his only marriage.

That said, it is only one day cricket.

Maybe he is saving himself for the 2020 game.

I don’t really have an opinion.

Questions should be aimed at  Voges wedding planner for picking these dates.

If I were to have an opinion, which i don’t, i would say that since cricketers have a 15 year window in their careers, perhaps knocking back international caps is a foolish decision.

Although i wouldn’t say that to the future Mrs Voges.

Even Tony Greig had suggested it before.

I am sure teams include it in training drills now.

I am sure you have seen it by now, but if not.

Voges added a little dalliance with the rope, which was nice.

Now the perfect boyfriend has added his own version, and people seem excited again.

Jacob’s was defnitley harder, but without tripping it doesn’t quite pop as much.

I don’t think either of these catches are the best of all time, they are clever and intuitive, and make great youtubing, but that is about all.

They have now picked another player I have hardly ever mentioned before.

And Adam Voges.

All because Ricky needs a break.

For a moment i thought Callum Ferguson had never penetrated these hallow halls.

But i was wrong,

See.

That was October 07.

The memories.

Usually i would be up in arms about such a selection.

However Ferguson has just made runs against the Vics, and i looked at his record this year, and it’s pretty good.

Quiney and Bailey must feel a little aggrieved, both would have thought they were closer to the national side, as they have spread their good work over a couple of seasons, and Quiney has made runs against NSWales at full strength, and Bailey just made runs against the Kiwis.

Ferguson is not a bad bat, but he just never seemed to kick on for SA, obviously al that time with Younis Khan has really given his game that extra edge.

Seems like an odd selection to me, but Voges will probably play ahead of him.

Although knowing Voges he will probably miss out, again.

Here it is.

Only, they took out the zombies.

Imagine you are held up in a castle, which is surrounded by Zombies,
and there are 5 people with you.

One is a librarian, two of them accountants, one unemployed X box
champ and a carpenter who did 6 months of kick boxing.

At this stage you are better equipped to survive the zombies than
Australia is to find a spinner.

You think you know how bad Australia’s spin options are, you really
don’t.

Forget about White’s straight’uns, and Krejza’s cameo on this test.

Back home the truth is even uglier.

3 games into the domestic season and the number one spinning wicket
taker is Marcus North with 6 wickets.

Marcus North is a batsman, a good one, and as a spinner is someone you
bowl before a break, or when your state doesn’t want to pick a real
spinner. His career first class bowling average is 44.

Next on the list is Nathan Hauritz, occasional Australian tourist with
a career first class bowling average of 49, and he has 5 wickets half
way through his third game. How he still gets a first class game for
NSWales is beyond me.

Behind him is Andrew Symonds, the best performed finger spinner
Australia has had since Colin Funky Miller and still in the doghouse
over his fishing.

Then Adam Voges, another batsman, who gets a bowl when Marcus North is
tired.

Rounding out the top 5 is Aaron O’Brien of South Australia, who has a
career first class bowling average of over 70, and a career batting
average of 25. He proves if you can hold a bat you can get a game for
South Australia at the moment.

That is what Australia has to pick from.

They haven’t had the best of luck with their spinners.

Shane Warne retires to spend time with the ladies, Brad Hogg retires
to tend to his sick lady, and Stuart MacGill retires because the fat
lady was singing.

Then they find Cricket With Balls Own Nice Bryce McGain in an internet
café searching dating sites, they offer him the job, he takes it, but
his arm is stuffed from all those years of moving his mouse around and
he can’t bowl.

So what do they have left, a batsman who doesn’t bowl himself in
White, and an off spinner with a terrible record on the field and not
much better off it in Krejza.

Not to forget Beautiful Beau Casson who went from being a test
cricketer to not being a regular in his state side without playing a
game in between.

Australia does not have a spin dilemma, they simply don’t have spinners.

What they have is part timers, White, North, Symonds, and Voges.

And journeymen, Krejza, Hauritz, Casson, and O’Brien.

There are young spinners coming through, Jon Holland from Victoria has
impressed a lot of players in his first year, and Steve Smith from
NSWales looks like a real talent.

Unfortunately Dan Cullen, Xavier Doherty and Cullen Bailey have been
“coming through” for so long now it looks like they have gotten lost.

If you were a selector looking for an Australian spinner right now,
you’d probably prefer to take on a few Zombies.

Although, you could argue most of these guys bowl like Zombies already.

Now be honest, better with or without Zombies?

What I think the team will be.

Katich (NSW) captain & opening bat, Peter Roebuck would be happy. I would have preferred to see Marcus North get the job. But one decided to stay in Western Australia, the other decided to move to NSWales. The Krab is a test player, for any other country, even if I hate him.

Phillip Hughes (NSW), opening bat. Is only a foetus, but can play, Made a few runs this year, and being that opening batsman in Australia are hard to come by probably not a bad choice.

Adam Voges (WA), 3. Been around for a while now, seems to have missed out as the Australian team’s back up one day batsman to Future PM. Can bat, but would doubt he will ever play for Australia.

Marcus North (WA), 4. When he makes runs, he makes them by the truck load. Has a great cricket brain, but has been an ‘A” guy for a while now without ever really looking like playing for Australia.

George Bailey (Tas), 5. Has been picked on potential, and the season before this. Is the batsman all teams try and get through in Tasmania,

Luke Ronchi (WA) keeper & 6. Anyone who saw him in the Windies knows this kid has a little sumtin sumtin.

Ashley Noffke (QLD) opening bowler & 7. This may be his audition for the same spot a month later when the big boys tour.

Beau Casson (NSW) chinaman & 8/9. Him Vs Bryce for the first test.

Ryan Harris (QLD via SA) first change & 8/9. Nickname is rhino, and does play like that. Strong as a mofo on ice, and can bowl all day full, quick and pretty damn well. Also a more than handy number 9, could easily be a number 7 in a weaker batting line up.

Bryce McGain (VIC) leggie & tail. If he out bowls Casson he gets a baggy green.

Doug Bollinger (NSW) left arm opener & tail. Could be the face of Australian bowling for the next ten years, Doesn’t look like much, but picks up wickets waiting for a taxi.

Peter Siddle (VIC) back up quick & tail. If he could stay fit for a whole season we could tell if he is the real deal or a lucky boy. But every time he plays he gets wickets, hard to argue with that.

Peter Forrest (NSW) back up batsman. No idea why he is here, oh wait NSWales. Saw him face Dirty Dirk one day sucking his thumb and asking for mummy.

Jason Krezja (TAS) back up offie & 7/8. Has a modest record but a confident lad who can bat a bit, would be lucky to play ahead of anyone here, but if he gets a game and gets wickets he could maybe leap frog McGain or Casson, but I doubt it.

Overall a pretty good squad.

Can bat till 9, or till 10 if Krejza plays ahead of McGain.

Bowling looks a lot better than the batting, especially with Noffke at 7 giving you an extra bowler.

Like most Australian A sides there is at least 7 players who would get a game for most test nations right now.

If the top order can make runs, could be a good series for the lads.

Players who would be a little miffed at missing out.

Chris Rogers as opener, he played a test match this year, right?

Luke Pomersbach, just because you look, smell, and drink like a lumberjack doesn’t mean you don’t deserve an “A” spot if you have made as many runs as he has.

Dan Cullen, without looking I’d say he probably still took more wickets than Krezja, but, I think someone else should get a go anyway.

Luke Pomersbach is playing in the 2020 game, Brad Hodge had his nails cut by Brad Hogg and has a back infection.

Didn’t make sense to me either. Pomersbach went to watch the game and ended up on the park, luckily for him he wasn’t drunk.

I like the microphones on the players, I just hope one of them swears.

7 balls in and Mark Taylor thinks the pitch is good. Next ball Patel takes the sort of catch that gives erections. Then Hussey gets beaten next ball.

Pup looks in good form, he’s playing for future endorsements, so it’s very important.

Kyle Mills, that hair.

Slater made his first bad taste joke about Pomersbach and drinking. Mind you it was 6 minutes after my first one.

King probot tried to kill Jacob Oram, who dropped the catch with all the grace of an uncoordinated 12 year old in dodge ball.

Patel is having some game, a one hander that will be replayed until the apocalypse and the wicket of King Probot, with something called “flight”, interesting new theory.

Spinners were the most important players at the 2020 world cup, Australia disagrees with that theory and picked about 12 fast bowlers for this game. I say this cause Harry Vettori jut got pup out.

Mind you it brought in Voges, so I’m happy.

James Brayshaw is commentating, what the fu©k? Was Greg Blewett already booked?

Voges nice slog off Oram, ugly and yet beautiful. My kind of batsmen. He looks in good touch, hopefully they find a helmet that fits him one day.

I wouldn’t say the game is really exciting me just yet. Roy has his serious face on playing the percentages he is, I’ll shut up, and he just put Scott Styris into Fremantle on his first nut.

There really aren’t enough performance artists at test matches I’ve decided, we need more people on stilts and unicycles. Oh and people sitting in dunking machines.

Our friend at sportsfreak just added his two cents,

I don’t believe I’ve seen this Voges before.

How are his parents previously related?

Voges was obviously put off by this and went out shortly after.

Do people really still eat KFC.

Pomersbach is in, must be time for another drink.

I saw this kid get off the mark in a state game at the G with a reckless charge. I knew from there on in he’d be my sort of chap.

For a brief moment I stopped concentrating and I heard JB talking about massages and Symonds, give him a weird South African accent and he’s the new Tony Greig.

Pomersbach just launched one, oh so pretty. I’m not even going to mention that I wrote in my bushrangers blog that he should have been picked for this game.

Not sure what happened with the Ross Taylor catch, he had more of it than a South African in a world cup.

Roy explained his cricket beautifully, ‘I’m not trying to think about it too much, I’m just watching the ball”.

Just had a brain wave, they should call the 2020 game the Lee/Marshall cup. Who’s with me?

15 off 7 for Pomersbach, nice start son, on your way to the change room have a word to Voges about the size of his helmet.

Kiwis did ok, Aussies should have made over 200.

Written but not edited, who has the time…

Lets start with Hopes. Cause I really like him.

Hopes is pretty much Ian Harvey Mark 2. There is no doubt the boy can bat. Unfortunately he has batting add. He get’s so damn excited. It usually results in him going out in the oddest ways. Probably why I like him.

A couple of years ago I watched Hopes open for Australia A. I was pretty excited, as by this time Ian Harvey had left cricket (I have a signed and framed Ian Harvey Bushrangers top in my parents spare room). I think I had tears as I had a new Harvey.

Hopes played the oddest shot I have ever seen to get out. It looked like he was about to do the Zimbabwean scoop he moved to the off side and just when it looked like he was going to get down and scoop it, he instead he stood up and tried to play an on drive with his bat 4 foot away from his body and was clean bowled.

If that description makes no sense to you, don’t worry I saw it the actual shot he played and it makes no sense to me either. But it was fucken hilarious to watch.

He is a big hitter. With a great eye. At international level he is probably a handy 7 or a great number 8. He probably wont have a strike rate below 90. He may even invent a new shot, he is that talented and that crazy.

Bowling wise, he is almost a replica of Harvey. His slower balls probably aren’t of the same standard, but since Harvey was the king of slower balls, you can’t expect Hopes to be quite at that level. He can be very hard to hit, and like Harvey is probably just a little quicker than you think.

He is athletic, talented the only question mark is his concentration, but since he just made a hundred in Pakistan against there A side perhaps he has conquered that. Also that shows he is confident on the sub continent, which could come in handy in India.

Voges, I’ve only seen him make runs once. That particular innings happened to be the time he made a hundred of 62 balls against New South Wales. It was some of the best hitting I have ever seen. Bill Lawry was on oxygen afterwards.

He is a bit of a late bloomer. Like Hopes he hasn’t spent years belting around County bowlers. He averages 50 in first class cricket. So he can bat. Anyone who gets a batting gig in West Australia can rally bat. their batting order over the last few years was Michael Hussey, Chris Rogers, Justin Langer Damien Martyn, Marcus North, Adam Voges, Shaun Marsh and Adam Gilchrist.

Let me tell you, that’s a better batting line up than South Africa, Pakistan and New Zealand (combined maybe?). So for Voges to break into that line up and hold his own shows how talented he must be.

the hundred I saw him smash was in Sydney so I’m sure he hit some spinners all around the place, MacGill I think. He just captained Australia A in Pakistan and averaged about 44 in three one dayers.

He apparently has a pretty good cricket brain and his left arm orthodox, or chinamen (cric info says orthodox I thought it was chinamen) can be pretty handy as well.

Now I’ve written all that neither of them will probably get a game.