Stormed onto the world stage with lankiness and left arm swing. Disappeared into the left arm bowlers Abyss, but is now back occasionally. Is mostly known for not liking to smile, it is believed he will retire soon to play the role of the guy who never smiles behind the main bad guy. He was called the new Wasim Akram once, and the left armed Glenn McGrath, as of yet no one has called him professor fluffy pants. If you bought an Ashish Nehra that didn’t have a warranty, you might have wasted your money.
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The Jesus XI
Happy Jesus on a stick day. A day that is all about honouring someone who died so that we can all be perverts and animals, but you can’t eat steak, in case some is made of him.
In honour of Jesus dying I’ve compiled an XI of players who died, and were then reborn, or you know, other Christian type shit. Jesus, as we all know, was a wicket keeper.
S Katich – Found himself in a cricket career cave due to some horrific test form, but then his God, Bob Simpson, helped him, and thankfully we now have Katich shuttling around the crease for days on end.
M Sinclair – Impossible as it is to enjoy the way he plays, Sinclair is the one cricketer most likely to survive Sodom and Gomorrah. When the Kiwis are having a selectorial apocalypse, it is Sinclair they turn to. He will always live with us.
I Bell – If Bell truly was the son of God, Christianity would have died out by now. Instead Bell seems ordained by some higher power, perhaps Murdoch, to play the number 3 position for England. He coveted it while he had to wait out Pestilence (Shah), War (Bopara) and Famine (Trott) but he found his way back to number three.
M Hussey – Has never left heavenly earth, but what exactly was he doing between the age of 12 and 30.
K Pietersen – An outcast with his old religion he became the father, son and holy bail of a new one. It still hasn’t been smooth sailing, but he no longer has to bowl off spin, so that is good.
K Akmal – Crucified on the pitch for one of the most heretical displays of wicket keeping ever written about. But he will be back, you can’t keep a Pakistani cricketer away for too long. Even if he comes back as a kolpak.
A Flintoff – as was written.
N Hauritz – Outbowled by M Clarke and then shunned by his country, his state, and his knew state. One day four wise men decided to pick him up from the gutter he found himself in, and bugger me if he hasn’t stayed around since then.
S Bond – Needed to go on a spiritual adventure to India so that one day he could come back to New Zealand and tell them he was available for white ball games and then continued his spiritual adventure in India.
A Mendis – The man is full of mystery, but once you work it out, it is all kind of simple and you don’t really care anymore.
A Nehra – From a world cup final to the great abyss, but thanks to Lalit K, Nehra has been brought back so that we can all pray at his long limbs and permanent angry face.
J Patel (12th) – Is so good at being 12th man I couldn’t see why he wouldn’t do it for Jesus.
The apocalpyse
This was originally on cricinfo, but, even without swearing and perversions, I really liked it. for some reason I forgot to put it up before.
If the apocalypse were to come tomorrow, most of us would be dead. But if Hollywood has taught us anything it is that people always survive. While Kallis, Ponting and Dhoni wouldn’t make it, there would be cricketers who would. And it isn’t always the most popular or talented who survive the end times.
Nathan Hauritz cannot be killed by bombs or global pandemics. This is a man who couldn’t get picked for his state side, averaged over 50 with the ball in first-class cricket, and now averages 30 in Test cricket. There are no weapons that can keep him down. After the apocalypse he would just roam the earth with that sweet little boyish face of his.
Ashish Nehra went through a career apocalypse, but he is back. I wouldn’t bet on him struggling to survive a worldwide nuclear war. He’d still have that look on his face too, the one that makes you wonder if he has any joy in his life. He’d be in a group that lives in Euro Disney; his role would be of the angry one who doesn’t trust anyone, but he’d be rubbish at catching food.
Kumar Sangakkara would make it through. Then, after an appropriate period, he would take over the world. Artists would carve images of him, people would refer to him as King Kumar, and he would be a fair and just leader. His leadership does have problems, but his suaveness and massive intellect mean he would run the world for at least six years. Until he wants to relax and travel.
Ian Bell can never be killed. Regardless of an apocalypse he is going to be around forever. Still looking good and not making runs. In a dystopian wasteland he’d still manage to find his way into a well-stocked mansion, with others doing the work to make up for him. Even when the whole group dies of food poisoning, Bell survives. He is like a mythical creature that way.
Brendan Nash would not only survive an apocalypse, he’d prosper. Once the world had settled, Nash would move to a new location and just tell them he was always one of them. There would be hostility towards him at first, and mild curiosity, but eventually in this new and desperate land he would come in handy and people would even start to love having him around.
Paul Harris would survive. He might mutate a bit, but like a cockroach or a tax officer he cannot be eradicated. Harris will quickly improvise and become an expert scavenger and sell his goods at a reasonable price, considering the location he lives in.
The New Zealand cricket team would remain okay. They would be watching Eagle v Shark in Chris Martin’s basement when the flesh-eating disease spreads rapidly across the planet, killing everyone. Upon exiting the basement they would have some good times and some bad times, but basically they’d just survive. Even though 90% of the world’s population is dead, their crowd numbers in Test matches stay the same.
Rahul Dravid would never even notice the apocalypse. When the aliens came to kill everyone on the planet with their sonic weapons, he was batting. As we know, when Rahul is batting, nothing can stir him. Even two years after the apocalypse he is still out there, marking his guard, trying to get the sight screen to be moved and planning for what field the captain will set for the next ball.
How FAR?
My man Ashish Nehra is back.
I don’t know where he has been, but a journey travelled is a life experienced, or whatever.
In 2003 I thought he was Donald Sutherland in the Dirty Dozen, sure he didn’t really do a lot, but what he did was extremely effective.
Before the world cup final he was the only Indian bowler I was worried about, Srinath was older than bread, and Khan was erratic.
Then he was gone, and I missed him, I even lamented his absence here.
Now he is back, slightly thicker, more facial hair and a slightly busier than I remember.
He is only in the IPL, but that’s something I guess.
Plus he took a wicket that is doubly something.
Watching him play you can see how desperate he is too succeed.
When a catch was almost taken off his bowling, he was like a starving man, in the desert, probably thirsty, who then saw Natalie Portman holding a toasted ham and cheese sandwich whilst pouring beer on herself.
That sort of desperation is very rarely seen outside of reality tv shows.
the new bruce reid
Mitchell Johnson could be great left hope of Australian cricket. However at the moment the dude is a walking conundrum. He is built like a Jamaican sprinter. Can bowl quicker than most. Moves the ball. To me his action looks a little too much like a wind up bunny rabbit, its tight, whippy and it propels him in straight lines so I suppose it does its job. He seems to understand bowling. He is confident without being a dick about it.
However, there does seem to be two Mitchell Johnsons.
The first Johnson is all but unplayable. 140 clicks. Bouncy. Seam. And like all great left armers, huge swing. When he is this guy he storms in chest pumped out, slams the ball into the turf, is aggressive, confident and looks like he could sleep with virgins at will.
The other Johnson seems to bowl with all the brutality of Rick (Ricky) Ponting. No real swing or seam. Dead off the pitch and no real pace. There he seems to run in like a mid 90’s English first change bowler, shoulders hunched, placing the ball on the pitch, and getting smashed by average cricketers. Also dare I say it, impotent to promiscuous women?
Left arm fast bowlers are weird. No really they are. They are like pop stars. In the first 6 months you go, this guy looks really good, 3 years later you forget their names. Very few of them make the grade, but a lot of them get tried. They all seem to be tall, and look like they can take over the world, and then they disappear.
I saw Ashish Nehra bowl for India through out the 2003 world cup with Khan. His line and length really impressed me, he was tall, could move the ball looked like a real threat. I thought how good are these two left armers going to be. Khan the aggressor, and Nehra the silent assassin. Nehra is not even in the Indian team 4 years on, and hasn’t played an international match in over 2 years.
There are heaps of stories like this with left armers. South Africa had a blonde guy who was supposed to be amazing, disappeared without a shout. New Zealand have had a few that have looked good and gone. England had Alan Mullally (although he was an ass clown).
It’s up to Johnson whether he joins this list, or he joins the much smaller list of Akram, Vaas and Khan. To keep Australia on top of the rankings, you’d think he’d need to end up on this list. Cricketers of his talent don’t come around to often, but can he produce wickets on those all important five day games?
