Tagged with aus vs pak …

Jul 24 2010
19 Comments
aussies, pakistanis

Thank you, Pakistan

How can anyone not like this fucking country?

That was one of the most amazing test matches I’ve ever seen.

Bowling a team out for 88 on the first day, and then limping to the line with 3 nervy wickets in hand on the fourth day.

Pakistan give you everything you need, they do farce, drama and anarchy in one ball. And they do them all better than other teams.

This test had to be the best of Pakistan.

Not that this was the best they played, far from it, at times they were really ordinary, I mean how else can you only win by 3 wickets after being in front on the first day. That takes true madness.

But that is the best of Pakistan.

That sort of free flowing nature between utter shit and perfect genius. Like a professor who cures cancer one day and drives his car into his swimming pool the next.

If they were going to beat Australia for the first time in the lives of many Pakistan teenagers, they had to do it their way.

If this was some calculated professional win that they dominated from the start that finished with no drama, it wouldn’t have been very Pakistan.

This was awesomely Pakistan.

When most teams bowl a team out for 88, they win easily, but why would Pakistan.

It would be wrong.

They gave their fans a reason to think about killing themselves, and then a reason to run around hugging random strangers. This was perfect.

Just look at what they gave us in one test, sudden new captain, brilliant bowling, solid batting, rubbish field placements, the chance of losing, good catching, rubbish out fielding, loss of plot, steady chase and then an ass shaking finish with people playing stupid shots, the use of bad camera work, and the winning runs going inches from the hand of a fielder.

This wasn’t a Sydney sequel, this was a Pakistani reinterpretation.

When Gul hit the winning runs I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, piss myself or yell, and that is Pakistan. The best I could do was a sort of grunt hurrah.

And they beat my side. I should have been furious, but this was such a great test I forgot about all that and just marvelled at Gul’s slap.

Sure I’d kill myself if they were my side, but fuck I love having them in test cricket.

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Jul 23 2010
12 Comments
aussies, pakistanis

Previously at Headingley

Australia

They might be about to draw a series they would have marked down as a win, but they got to see Smith unleashed and can now get rid of North with no heavy conscience.  Also Douggie finally got it right.  Better late than never.

Pakistan

In the field had plenty of their old problems.  Have the bowlers to defeat anyone, but their fielding was often sloppy, their captain looked confused and they didn’t look like they were trying hard.  With the bat this was a whole knew Pakistan.  Cold, calculated and calm.  You know, until they lost two quick wickets and looked like shitting themselves.

Who’s in front

Australia, no, Pakistan. Pakistan, they should still get home with only 4 wickets down.

Play of the day

Ben Hilfenhaus put in a great fielding effort where he tried to mimic some of Danish Kaneria’s best work.  He followed a ball down to the boundary and let it trickle into the rope as he ran past it, over it and beside it, all seemingly at once.  Few fielders beat the ball to the rope, but Hilfy might have.

Honourable mention to the Headingley power grid for going out.  The press box fell into chaos, people were ripping their clothes off, smearing feces all over them, stabbing people with pens, and having to check the scores on their iPhones. Oh the humanity.  The best moment was when it was confirmed how lazy you get with the TVs in the room as it took several Australian journalists –myself included – about 30 seconds to work out if Paine or Clarke was facing up.

Testicular moment of the day

Before today, Smith was seen as a bits and pieces project player, today he was a proper test cricketer.  No Australian cricketer had counter attacked Pakistan on this pitch without looking like a fool.  Smith looked like a superstar.  Even when the new ball came out he was in charge.  This was a ballsy attacking kick ass innings; it was not the innings of a test number 8.

Working class moment of the day

Imran Farhat was lucky early, but then was the rock in this innings.  The first Pakistani to make a 50 in this game.  But he is still Imran Farhat.  If he fails in the next test, or somehow Pakistan stuff this up, people will still going back to abusing him.  He is Pakistan’s Shane Watson.  And he will need a lot more than one top innings to change people’s mind.

Weird factoid of the day

If you have automatic toilets and the power goes out, they aren’t automatic any more.

Question of the day

Have you ever noticed how most cricket laws seem to be made to stop play from happening, rather than encouraging it?

Read the recap at crikey.

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Jul 23 2010
7 Comments
aussies, pakistanis

Reasons for Pakistanis and Australians to be confident

Pakistan

In this series Douggie Bollinger is bowling like he is taking ether before going out on the field.

Ben Hilfenhaus bowled shithouse in the first innings, his shoulder could still be injured.

Mitchell Johnson.

Steve Smith has bowled one over in this test match.  He has only ever bowled NSWales to victory once, and he had a few more runs to play with.

Marcus North isn’t going to take 6 wickets.

The bowling unit is leaking runs and giving away quick starts, if they do that again this is 50% over.

Umar Akmal only needs an hour at the crease to get Pakistan home.

Smith didn’t seem to have many problems.

It’s only 180.

Shane Watson can’t bowl from both ends.

Australia

They’re playing Pakistan.

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Jul 23 2010
2 Comments
aussies, pakistanis

Previously at Headingley

Australia

Their front line bowlers were pathetic; their back up bowler saved their ass.  Then the ball stopped swinging and they eased the ball around the poorly throughout field.

Pakistan

Didn’t make enough of their great position with the bat, and yet again let Shane Watson get to them.  Once Australia got on top they seemed to lose all real energy and played like they were bored.

Who’s in front

According to the bookies, Australia is.  Barely.  They still have a big job to do, but they were definitely playing like the winners in the afternoon.  Pakistan will need someone to ignite them otherwise… Poor bastards.

Play of the day

There was some competition for this today, Shane Warne seemed to laugh so hard at the comedy run out of Danish Kaneria he couldn’t speak.  But Umar Amin beat that.  Amin faced a bouncer from Hilfenhaus that he dropped under, but left his bat up for.  The classic periscope.  Not only did he leave the bat up there, he held it form enough so when the ball crashed into it, the ball rebounded to square leg and he was caught.

Testicular moment of the day

No matter how much you hate him, Shane Watson is here to stay.  Like Chlamydia.  Pakistan probably wish there was pill or ointment to get rid of him.  He was the perfect bowler for this situation; slow enough that the ball would swing, and innocuous enough that they would attack him.  I don’t really understand how he got six whole wickets, but it seems fairly impressive to me.

Working class moment of the day

Mohammad Asif is perhaps the best bowler in the world at the moment.  But that pesky potential teenager keeps getting all his media.  Just before the bad light in the afternoon he bowled a spell were there were two amazing deliveries that deserved wickets.  There were close LBW shouts, appeals for caught behinds and more than a few play and misses.  No wickets came.  And I bet the Katich dismissal will be played a few times.

Weird factoid of the day

Only Hussey and Ponting of Australia’s top six batsmen do not have a wicket haul.  Katich (6/65 vs Zim), Clarke (6/9 vs Ind), North (6/55 vs Pak) and now Watson.  Hussey and Ponting are massively under performing with only bests of 1/3 and 1/0 respectively.

To read about how Marcus North is nondescript go here.

To read a full review of the day go here.

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Jul 22 2010
8 Comments
aussies

Shane Watson defiles Murali’s day

What sort of man is Shane Watson?

Don’t answer.

Not content with turning the Pakistani batting line up into his bitches, he also completely embarrassed his own bowlers with a display of bowling competency.

But to do it on the day the world should be bowing down for Murali, that is just unfair.

Murali had done what he needed to do, took the last wicket in a dramatic way.

He knows how to work a crowd.

Keep them interested thinking that it might just all go wrong, then after a protracted last wicket partnership take the wicket and let the crowd and team mates take over from there.

It was perfect.

The lighting was right, his family were crying, the crowd was roaring, his teammates carrying him and a seemingly slow motion celebration happening around him. All he needed was some music composed by James Newton Howard and a crane shot starting on a close up of his face before moving back to show the whole scene.

But Shane Watson is not a fan of bowlers who deliver the doosra, ask Saeed Ajmal.

And he knew that there was one thing he could do that would dirty Murali’s magic day, and that was him taking wickets.

Nothing ruins a magical day like Shane Watson’s bowling.

He is like rain on your wedding day, he makes everything wet and women cry because of him.

And he knows it.

Six wickets, talk about taking the piss.

Five at Lord’s was bad, but this was one more, scary.

Cricket just feels wrong when Shane Watson is taking wickets.

Before he went out to bowl he knew this was Murali’s day, and look what he did.

Disgusting behaviour.

Murali deserved better than that, Shane.

You pig.

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Jul 22 2010
2 Comments
aussies, pakistanis

Previously at Headingley

Australia

Have had slightly better days.

Pakistan

Losing the toss in this test might be the greatest thing to happen to Pakistan cricket since the invention of the wrong’un.  Only need one good session in the morning and they are off and racing.

Can Australia win

Sadly, yes.  In some ways an Australian win would be the greatest thing because of the come back element.  But if it leads to mass suicide in Pakistan, is it worth it.  They were 206 runs behind in Sydney; will they even be that far behind this time?

Play of the day

When Ricky Ponting went out there was so much excitement from Pakistan than Asif high fived the short leg – Amin or Ali I assume – and clear knocked him over.  But then didn’t even stop to pick him up.  Getting Ponting out is so good you can knock over a team mate and ignore him.

Testicular moment of the day

As brilliant as the Pakistani bowing was, it was the batting that really surprised.  And that was Salman Butt.  Sure he only makes runs against Australia, but these were very good runs.  It was a captain’s 45.  It was as important, if not as exciting or well executed, as Ponting’s knock at Headingley last year.  If Butt goes out early Australia might have 5 or even 6 wickets by now.  An important 45.

Working class moment of the day

Tim Paine probably only has two tests to stake his claim on the keeping job.  He was by far Australia’s best batsman in this shitty innings.  He chose to do the team thing and go after quick runs when Douggie was with him.  This meant going out in an ugly way as the top scorer of 17.  Then after sacrificing himself after out batting his team mates he was peppered with utter crap down the legside making him jump around to defend his bye total.

Weird factoid of the day

At the start of play there were more people paid to be at the ground than there was paying punters.

Read more at crikey.

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Jul 21 2010
6 Comments
aussies

Australian cricketers to their parents: Please save us

Dearest Mothers & Fathers,

We need you now more than ever.  While we understand that we are all grown adults, sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and admit that you need help.

Our problems have been going on for some time, and although we don’t like sharing them with you – we try to be self sufficient – but we just don’t know what to do anymore.

As our parents you may already know of our troubles.  It is with the moving ball.

For years it has teased, tormented and haunted us.

It is now constantly stalking us.

It crawls on our skin, scrapes at our veins and eats us from the inside.

When it is around we are dying inside, the slow torture and inevitable end are almost too much to handle.

And we don’t want to deal with it anymore.

So if you could send money, call people, start petitions, write MPs and organise things so that we don’t have to deal with this any more, we’d be greatly appreciative.

Yes we are grown men, and yes we should find a way to deal with this, but we haven’t, and we can’t.

Just let us come home, we like it at home.

This hardly happens to us at home and we have the support structure of our family and fri3nds to help us.

What do we have here, nothing, just angry types who speak funny and laugh at us.  They want us to fail.  They like seeing us suffer.  This isn’t right; we should be with our loved ones.

We NEED you.

Please just help.

We don’t like the moving ball, we don’t want to be here and we don’t think you should make us stay.

Help us, we are your sons, don’t let us suffer.

Yours in love and hope,

The Australian Cricket team

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