cricket with balls

Sportsfreak gives an in depth look at the ICC awards in all their glory.

And I stick my nose in as well.

Cricket has a bit of an issue for the next few weeks. None of it is being played. The cancellation of the ICC Champions Trophy 2008 on the back of the odd bombing has left a hole in a calendar which is normally splitting at the seams like Jacques Kallis’s strides.

So what do you do when you’ve got a hole to fill, and your target demographic has an increasingly brief attention span?

You organise an Awards Ceremony of course.

It’s been a busy day in Dubai . The period that this covers includes the inaugural T20 World Cup ( remember that? ), the bun-fight around Australia last summer, various totally forgettable South African victories, home and away series between NZ and England, and a series between Australia and Chanderpaul.

For those people looking for Prince Brendan’s name in the various categories, it does not include that IPL. That tournament is not run by the ICC, remember?

Sportsfreak looks at the various categories.

Cricketer of the Year: Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Dale Steyn, Mahela Jayawardene, Graeme Smith

The glaring omission here is Sangakarra. So is scoring 192 against Australia before being sawn off in a dreadful piece of umpiring just as your side is within sight of victory, and taking it with grace not good enough then?

Compare that with Steyn who got most of his wickets at home, Jayawardene who has been nothing flash this year and Smith who has hardly had his best year either.

Chanderpaul should walk in here.

CWB’s pick: is also the Chrab, although Roy and Sehwag must have been annoyed not to get a look in.

Test Player of the Year: Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Dale Steyn, Mahela Jayawardene, Jacques Kallis

Add in Kallis and take out Smith.

If anything that makes it worse. If there’s any justice in the world it will be Shiv again.

CWB’s Pick: Shiv again.

ODI Player of the Year: Nathan Bracken, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammad Yousuf

What a rag-tag bunch this is.

Bracken of Alice Band fame might be the best bowler in the world without a show of making a test side, but there is no award for that. He’s not even the top ranked ODI bowler.

Dhoni looks the part, and is probably only here for Indian TV ratings.

Tendulkar is probably past it now, but did manage to hobble around for a couple of match-winning knocks when it mattered in the finals series of the CUB trophy.

And has Yousuf played this year?

A farewell gift for Tendulkar here.

CWB’s Pick: Probaby out of Bracken and Dhoni, toss a coin if you care.

Emerging Player of the Year: Stuart Broad, Ajantha Mendis, Ishant Sharma, Morne Morkel

So what have we got here?

A fast bowler with comically androgynous looks averaging around 40, the lastest Sri Lankan with a strange delivery, another fast bowler who has a growth coming out of his neck who ruined Ponting’s year, and the latest in the South African production line of deranged fast bowlers.

A lot of people complain about there being no decent bowlers coming though, so that’s not a bad lineup really; Mendis should just pip Inshant.

Cwb’s pick: He of the adams apple.

Associate Player of the Year: Ryan ten Doeschate, Alex Obanda, Niall O’Brien, Thomas Odoyo

Ten Doeschate probably.

Cwb’s pick: I’ll go O’Brien.

Twenty20 International Performance of the Year: Chris Gayle, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Brett Lee, Yuvraj Singh

This must be a new category.

What happened in that T20 World Cup again? India won, so Dhoni must get some points. Not too sure about Gayle and Lee. But neither side made the final.

No, it has to be Yuvraj; he hit Broad for 36 in an over.

Cwb’s pick: I don’t get the question.

Women’s Player of the Year: Lisa Sthalekar, Charlotte Edwards, Claire Taylor, Nicola Browne
At last, a New Zealander to the fore.

Go Nicola Browne

Cwb’s pick: Charlotte Edwards, although if Lisa won wouldn’t it be cool trying to watch someone pronounce it.

Spirit of Cricket: Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, West Indies
Look, New Zealand is on a roll now.

The finalists here would seem to be thrown together by default really. It couldn’t be India and Australia after their prolonged bitch-slap / name-calling / leave the plane idling on the runway soap opera that dragged out for the first 3 months of the year.

England were omitted partly for revelations of previous minties-related ball tampering sins, partly because of Lord Collingwood’s run-out at the Oval and partly as a wind-up.

Obviously South Africa are ineligible for such an award while they have players who are too scared to travel to India, as well as Andre Nel in their team.

Pakistan are unable to have anyone around to their house any more, and they will go through 2008 without playing a single test match. Even limited overs specialists like New Zealand will get through 12 of these.

And Zimbabwe are Zimbabwe.

Sri Lanka should win it on the basis that they spent most of the 12 months having to play India and Australia. Although the ICC might still be feeling guilty about the World Cup and give it to the West Indies.

Cwb’s pick: who cares.

Umpire of the Year: Simon Taufel, Mark Benson, Aleem Dar, Steve Davis, Rudi Koertzen

Rudi Koertzen???!!!!! Lets save the worst until last.

Taufel by a mile.

Cwb’s pick: Steve Bucknor.

Of course, the luminaries who decide all this will probably go for more photogenic winners than we have to adorn the pages of Cricinfo.

But we would just like to thank our parents for making this happen.

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This is a Sportsfreak non jizz mopping rebuttal to my post about KP.

Some think KP lives in a fairytale. KP thinks he lives in a fairy tale.

A fairy tale where he can declare he feels very, very loved when scoring a test century at Lords. And that was before he was made captain.

Probably not the saccharine Disney type of fairy tale, but more the more modern Roy of the Rovers type fairytale, which was so popular in his adopted country around 50 years ago. Or perhaps even Billy the Fish.

You know the type.

He has never actually said he was bullied as a child in South Africa, but you can read that into the early chapters of this epic tale if you like.

But life was tough; make no mistake about that. And in any fairytale, Roy of the Rovers comic, and even modern Soap Opera, you must start from humble beginnings, and the evil that confronts you must be one-dimensional.

In our hero’s case it was the complicated world of South African sporting politics, and the fact that not all spaces in the team were reserved for white people. That, and growing up with Graeme Smith.

So KP huffed and puffed and made his way to a foreign land, where he could start a new life far away from home.

As George Lucas would tell you, in any good ripping yarn, the young hero must encounter his evil oppressors early; ideally at a stage where he has yet to learn his craft fully.

And look at that; so it was to pass. KP’s first trip was to the Evil Empire of South Africa, where the mean army of supporters of that Evil Empire turned their big hairy backs on him as he came out to bat.

These were only ODIs, but the script was hardly going to throw in the ultimate challenge before the book was half-way complete, or when the jaffas had barely been opened.

But he kept us on the edge of our seats. 3 centuries in 5 matches. A brave new pup was ready to claim whatever could be thrown at him. And within a year he was getting publicly drunk with the rest of them after he’d helped slay the biggest foe of them all.

The next few years saw one of those boring flat patches you get in stories, as you skim thorough the pages or Fast-Forward on the remote looking for the next battle. In short, he matured as a man, but you probably saw that movie too.

So, after a mysterious illness struck down his former leader, he made his debut as captain of his new land last week. Of course, it was not in a test that matters; that key chapter awaits.

So the new grown man is now Ruler of the Proud Nation.

His Rightful Place.

He has said he wants to be His Man, and a Modern Man.

There is no doubt KP is a modern man. There are lots of ways of working that out. The ever-changing hair cuts (the skunk one adding the comic relief which is needed in all stories), the ostentatious bling, and the clichéd iron on patriotic tattoos.

The tattoos are one of the few examples of bad script-writing really. If he was a true Englishman, they would be of his football club.

Never mind that detail. Being a modern guy, he likes the cameras being on him. The star of the story if you like. Note how he mastered a new range of stares, grimaces, and thoughtful poses for his test captaincy debut. He knew better than anyone that the cameras would be on him for a minute an over.

Of course, he started this reign with a century which turned out to be a match-winning innings in this meaningless match. Could he also strike the last blow?

Well there’s a twist; it was not to be.

But in the end it wasn’t some wicked demented gladiator like Nel, or wily Dark Knight Ntini, or even young but evil Prince Charming Morkel who ruined the traditional Roy of the Rovers ending.

No, it was Paul Harris, who is more like one of those unco extras that nobody notices in a Lord of the Rings film.

Now what kind of ending is that?

It’s the kind of non-ending you get in a soap opera. Tune in next time, and you will get more of The Adventures of KP. So Don’t believe a word of it ; he does write his own scripts.

He triumphed once more, and there are new episodes ahead.

Like the sands through the hour-glass…

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Sportsfreak like the follow on. They also like Billy Bragg and Bunny Boilers, but that has less to do with cricket.

I believe the follow on was invented by lazy captains, who were batsmen, and I don’t think it should ever be taken automatically.

England lost the toss, get sent in, and rack up 593-8 in under 2 days against South Africa. Then they dismiss the tourists for just over a third of that in under a day. They are on a roll, Monty is getting plenty of turn, the South Africans are playing him from the crease, so he enforces the follow on.

But then the pitch dies out, as it seems to do at Lords these days, the South Africans revert to type and play classic 1950s cricket by playing like brick walls, and Monty loses his zing. 3 wickets in 2 days, the match is a draw and people seem to think it is because he enforced the follow on. Somehow the theory is that England would have had a better chance of winning if they had 4 sessions in which to bowl the fatties out instead of 6.

There is an insidious modern way of thinking that the follow-on is bad, that the correct option is to bat on; thereby closing the game yet making the draw the most likely result. Some Aussie apologist even suggested during the week that the rule was an anomaly.

Anomalies are what test cricket is all about. Now, more than ever, that needs protecting.

This nonsense all started after that test in 2001. The one where Laxman and Dravid put on a million runs, and India came from behind to beat Australia in front of a few hundred thousand fans in Kolkata.

Anyone with an ounce of perspective can tell that this game was a freak occurrence. Laxman and Dravid played the innings of their lives, and Harbijan was unstoppable.

The scars from that have run deep though. Since that match, Australia have adopted the philosophy of not enforcing the follow-on. Ignore the thought of crushing an opponent when down, this is the plucking wings off an insect mode of winning.

The worst offender in this modern crime, worse than txt speak, is Australia and in particular Ricky Ponting. If you don’t believe that check out this drivel . Otherwise sensible people trying to find some moral high ground in playing cricket like it’s a cautious game of Water Dripping Death Ritual. And, to make it worse, David Barry jumps in and threatens to unleash statistics. Damn statistics. This is about principle.

What are to make of this rubbish? Is not enforcing the follow-on the new Aussie Way?? It’s hardly up there with sledging and claiming non catches. Greg Chappell and Greg Dyer must squirm at this new level of non sportsmanship.

The Brave Baggy Greens even adopted this snivelling approach against New Zealand of all countries. 320 runs ahead on the first innings, and you inflict Langer and the likes for 139/2 off 56 overs. Now that is just not right.

The World Trade Centre still stood in those glorious days when Laxman, Dravid and Harby pulled one out of the hat. People should get over it, and stop this torture.

If you have a side on the ropes you turn the screws.

To not enforce a follow-on is just wrong. It is the same as putting in a cover and leg-side sweeper in the first morning of a test match.

It is bowling finger spinners over the wicket into the bowlers’ foot holes.

It is bringing Kallis on to bowl in the first half-hour of a test. When you have sent them in.

It is coming off at the first hint of bad light when you have two batsmen set and the opposition bowlers are tired and downbeat.

It is coming in at 500/3 and grinding out a 120 ball 37* to help that average.

It is batting on for that extra half hour before declaring. Just in case.

It is the ring field.

It is the plague of the 21st century, and it must be outlawed; especially in Australia.

Good on you Michael. You did the honourable thing. It didn’t come off, but you can blame your over-rated spinner and the South African wagon wheels for that.

You were right.

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Us bloggers are still tipping away for the England V New Zealand tour.

Mind you I can’t remember the last time I saw a ball bowled in this series.

I am still coming second last, and I realised why, I still thought New Zealand weren’t rubbish.

My mistake.

New tips here.