Tagged with windies …

Apr 21 2012
3 Comments
windies

silencing ottis

Ottis Gibson wakes up and knows something is wrong.

It all feels different now.

He checks his wallet; it’s lighter than he thinks it should be, but it’s still there.

His phone is switched off, but it hasn’t been taken.

His clothes have been pressed and are hanging up in his stylish and comfortable modern-looking hotel room that has a view of the ocean.

All of his belongings are neatly stacked in the corner.

His computer is charging on the desk next to a complimentary fruit basket and two bottles of water.

Still he senses something is wrong.

His mobile phone won’t turn on.

The hotel room phone has no ring tone.

No matter how much he tries he cannot get the mobile Wifi code to work.

His door is locked shut, more than locked, it’s like there is a dead bolt from the outside.

The balcony of his room is at least 12 stories high, and it is far from any other balconies for him to jump to.

Ottis is trapped.

He picks up the folder with the hotel’s amenities list in it as a last ditch effort to escape or contact the outside world.

There is none.

As he closes the folder in a defeated way his hand runs over the raised lettering on the front. His hotel is called the International Continental Club.

In a dramatic and slightly over the top way his eyes put together the first letters of each word.

I

C

C

He now knows why this has happened to him, he screams in a masculine but still fairly high pitched way as he looks straight up for inspiration.

Ottis is then back on his bed, sweating, panting, and clutching ferociously at the sheets. It was a nightmare. None of this really happened.

Just to be sure Ottis checks his mobile, which is still on and was locked mid-way through a rooftop level of plants v zombies. The hotel phone has a dialtone. And his front door is easily opened.

Sure his wallet is still a bit lighter. That makes sense though.

Ottis relaxes and prepares for another day as coach of the West Indies cricket team.

He runs some hot water and puts some toothpaste – the white stuff that helps people with sensitive mouths – on his toothbrush, and runs it under the warm tap to move it evenly over the brush.

Then he instinctively raises the toothbrush towards his mouth to brush his teeth, only for the brush to crash into his face, he tries it again for the same result.

The hotel bathroom is now fogging up, so he has to wipe at the mirror to see his reflection, he sees that his mouth cannot open, that his lips have literally been sewn together.

He slowly runs his hands over his lips and he knows who did it.

“I should’ve never doubted the efficacy of the obviously flawed, untested and inconsistently implemented DRS. I knew they’d make me pay, but I never knew they’d go this far. Damn you, ICC” is what Ottis Gibson would have screamed in that foggy hotel bathroom had his lips not been surgically sewn together.

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Apr 19 2012
aussies, windies

two attacking captains and an alien/god

When I was young I used to look out my window all night waiting for a UFO to go past, and during the day I would stare at cricket games looking for attacking captaincy.

Michael Clarke sent his batsmen out to slog and then declared giving the opposition a chance of winning.

Darren Sammy changed the batting order and took it upon himself to slog large.

Modern captains don’t really like doing things like this.

Probably because newspapers, websites, twitter, facebook and asshole bloggers abuse them for making mistakes. Being a bit defensive is a couple of day story, losing a Test you could have drawn is a couple of year story.

Or if it’s Adelaide in 2006/07, it’ll never go away.

So when two captains decided to actually try and win a Test, knowing that they might have to risk losing to do so, it was kinda weird.

Michael Clarke didn’t have to play aggressive cricket. He could have sat back and made sure that Australia couldn’t lose the series.

Darren Sammy could have played out the draw. I doubt it would have surprised that many people.

Test Cricket scoring rates went up, then the pitches started to get a bit fun, but teams were still largely conservative.

Sporting declarations had been eased out of the game.

But here we had two captains who were willing to look a bit stupid to win a game.

Clarke didn’t consult his PR team, Sammy didn’t talk about sweet sweet inner thigh honey.

They just threw it out there and had a go.

Their reward was for the game to end in a draw.

Which means if there was a cricket god, he’d be a real fucken prick.

It’s more likely that the cricket god is an alien who has been to Adelaide, and hates it when you shine a torch in their eyes.

Adelaide.

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Mar 05 2012
2 Comments
windies

the runako morton backlift

Runako Morton only made two impacts on me as a player.

One was that he wasn’t very good at Test Cricket.

The other was that he had the most extraordinary backlift.

I remember watching a Test match when he was new to the side, and I couldn’t help but like someone who faced up to every ball like his sole aim was to hit it as hard was physically possible.

I can only imagine along the way many people told Runako violently above his head in much the same way you’d see an axman hold it in a horror film wouldn’t cut it at international level, but he never changed.

It had two parts, one where he raised the bat to head height, and then another where he cocked it, more like a golfer or baseballer than a cricketer.

It was violent and also nervous, the bat twitched aggressively a bit above his head awkwardly like he knew it all could all go wrong but still wanted to do it anyway.

Runako actually wasn’t that bad as an ODI player, but I don’t remember that as much.

His backswing in ODIs would have been slightly odd, but not completely out of place.

In Test Cricket it seemed odd even in teams with Brian Lara and Chris Gayle around.

It probably won’t happen, but I’d like to think that after his premature death someone makes a statue at him at his home ground and they honour that bizarre aggressive and nervous backlift.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget watching Runako Morton prepare to face a delivery.

Runako, keep swinging.

Tagged ,
Sep 16 2011
2 Comments
windies

explaining the west indies squad

Annoyed by the fact that the West Indies have to tour England in Winter for a T20 TV contract series, the West Indies selectors have made up cricketers that will be touring.

These players don’t exist, and there will be no tour, it’s just a trick so that by the time Sky notice it will be too late and they’ll be forced to call off the whole thing.

It’s a genius move by the WICB, who are not known for genius, or even moderate intelligence.

To make it feel more real, they have even thrown in a few real names like DJ Sammy, Marlon Samuels, CWB’s Andrew Russell and Dwayne Smith.

But most of this squad is clearly made up names.

For instance, Nkruma Bonner might be listed as a leg spinner, but Nkruma was the code name for a Kazakhstan oil refinery, and Bonner is an American oil company.

It  goes on.

Johnson Charles was the name of the alter ego of Perry Mason in the first pornographic lawyer flicks.

It’s also quite obvious that Miles Bascombe is a paid for advertisement of the Bascombe road works company.

Derwin Christian was the original suspect in the assassination of Tupac.

Krishmar Santokie; a prototype Indian/Japanese whisky.

Ashley Nurse is a unimaginative stripper name.

The Danza Hyatt is the latest theme hotel in Vegas, based on legendary who’s the boss star Tony Danza.

And Christopher Barnwell was the original name of Winnie the Pooh’s lover.

Originally in the squad were Nixon McClean and Chadwick Walton, but on further inspection both were names of real cricketers.

Tagged
Jul 18 2011
7 Comments
windies

We are the West Indies – these are our pretty titties

The WICB is the least professional of the top 8 cricket boards.

Their players are revolting, they use their money for burger king, there first class system is a joke and key players pay their own physio bills.

But, look at these tits bouncing around, nothing says cricket like a pair of gyrating breasts next to a man who is wearing the WICB logo that you can barely see.

It seems that at one crucial artistic meeting someone forgot to say, “Hey, um, is it just me, or have we taken all the cricket out of this cricket video, surely instead of playing the drums we can get someone playing DJ Sammy’s head, or you know, someone playing cricket”. Alas, everyone was already too busy eating burger king and doing coke to notice.

Instead what we have is a fairly well made music video that references the West Indies a lot, but shows us portly men with body paint on, shiny people, dancing women and a dude with a paper mache green costume jumping.

There three very short shots of people watching the cricket on TV.

Oh, and what is with the dudes coming out of the TV like some Japanese horror film? Is that a reference to Jeffrey Dujon’s commentary style?

It’s a lovely effort, and the song is so catchy that you’ll be singing it to yourself while you’re on the train, but you know, what the fuck is it?

If it’s a music video, its ok, if it’s a cricket music video it’s lacking the cricket.

At the very least they could have had the stanford singers in there.

And was that Julian Hunte in the horse’s head costume at the end?

I don’t really understand this, but I can’t look away. Neither can TCWJ, who found it for me.

Tagged
Jul 08 2011
5 Comments
general balls

The global legspin conspiracy

VVS Laxman knows some shit.

He knows where Jimmy Hoffa is.

Can explain the UFO sightings over London on the 24th of June.

Is an expert on the differences between butter and I can’t believe it’s not butter.

Knows why the chemical compound of blu tack can kill you.

And can explain to anyone exactly how the Keys of Enoch work.

The VVS is basically cricket’s smoking man.

He’s seen it all, knows it all, and he’s always just one step ahead of you without making a fuss about it.

If you want to know the secrets of the inside out cover drive from the foot marks outside leg stump, he has them. But do you really want to know them, I mean, can you handle that kind of truth at 230 am in a freezing cold car park. No.

So VVS just travels the world, gathering more information that would blow most of our minds, and looks middle aged cool whilst doing so.

Because of all this knowledge you don’t expect him to make mistakes.

And today, he didn’t.

It wasn’t a mistake that made him leave a ball from the seemingly fucken rubbish bowling of Shiv with his foot out of the crease.

That was a conspiracy.

VVS knows too much, and to keep him in his place Mossad, iJazz Butt, the CIA and Ben from Ben & Jerry teamed up with Shiv to concoct an elaborate plan to embarrass him so that if he does ever speak up, they can point to this one moment and say, “Are you really going to believe a man who went out stumped leaving the ball from someone with 8 previous test wickets in 133 Tests.”

And all of us on our couches will agree that VVS is in fact not a trustworthy place to get our information from.

It’s actually the only plausible explanation. I mean no one is going to believe that someone as casually awesome as VVS would just not know he was out of crease, I mean that is mental.

And I don’t believe it could have happened without some sort of conspiracy, or legspin.

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Jun 11 2011
6 Comments
windies

andre the russell

There is something about Andre Russell, and yesterday just reminded me of it. If you are still undecided about him, I put a list together of Andre’s awesomeness.

Andre has a mohawk, well its more like a modern style fashionable mohawk, but it’s definitely not a fauxhawk, at worst it is mohawklite, which is still pretty cool.

This mohawklite glistens amazingly well when he is bowling.

Andre is W less. Andrew Russell would be a rubbish name for a big hitting all rounder.

He seems to actually like playing cricket, .

Wears a silver necklace, not a gold one, it makes all the difference.

Is athletic and keen in the field, moves to the ball like someone who was invented for the purpose.

When he has a good game, it’s hide your kids, hide your wife good. He doesn’t just burn your house down, he cluster bombs every house in your neighbourhood, releases a pathogen in your city and then goes house to house with a gas mask on with a home made ax to hack up any survivors (before taking a break and watching his team mates help save the city and rebuild the houses).

Sometimes pretends to be pulling out of a ball only to then go through with it, it’s a Keyser Soze delivery.

Clicks his heals together after taking a catch.

Has the highest score ever made in an ODI batting at 9.

Bowls really well to left handers, sure its becuase he falls over at the crease, but there are a lot of left handers in the world for him to fall over for.

When he hits the ball, it stays hit. Unlike other cricketers, who hit the ball but after a while the ball just stops being hit. When Andre hits the ball it stays hit forever.

Is cricket with balls own.

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May 16 2011
17 Comments
pakistanis, windies

A terrible pitch in Guyana

According to some reports the pitch in Guyana was the worst PR for Guyana since the Jonestown massacres.

People start lining up to drink the koolaid.

“Yes, it was a close match, but what a disgusting pitch”

“Low and filthy, the curator should be gunned down on an airplane.”

“Batsmen just didn’t get a fair go, it’s disgusting to think this was a test match pitch”.

You know, and other bollocks like that.

Fuck all that. The Guyana pitch was a proper test pitch, it was tough to get runs on, you had to earn everything, and even wickets didn’t always come easy.

Tailenders were the hardest to get out in this match, the Windies had a 50 run partnership for the tenth wicket in the third innings.  That’s not a terrible pitch, that’s a tricky pitch.

Two teams with limited talent and questionable professionalism just slogged it out.

It wasn’t a heavy weight contest, it was two fat guys mud wrestling after a night on the piss.

It was a contest.  On the last day of the test both teams could have won. It was low down and dirty right until Umar Akmal went out.

Both teams were scrappy, it was a test you try and survive as much as win.

It wasn’t always pretty, and there were few maximums or breath taking cover drives, but it had spirit this test.

And some of that has to go to this gutter crawling bastard of a pitch, who may look like an ugly bastard you wouldn’t wanna cross at midnight, but was actually the kind of salt of the earth kind of pitch that other pitches should try and emulate.

Test cricket should be hard, and not just on bowlers.

The ICC shouldn’t send any congressmen to check on this pitch, the bastard is tough, but fine.

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May 13 2011
3 Comments
windies

Liking Lendl

Yesterday I watched Lendl Simmons bat.

He hit his first boundary so far into his innings that everyone watching was asleep and missed it.

Then he was retired hurt for a while.

Before coming back and going out.

That was pretty much his day.

There are many reasons I shouldn’t like Lendl.

His technical flaws are quite obvious. He plays across the line for no good reason, and he reaches across like a desperate kid trying to get to the back of his dad’s special draw. To short of a length balls on off stump, his bat flies in from an gully and cuts across it to that his chance of middling the ball is limited.

He bats in two speeds, casual disaster and handbreak.

And yesterday he went off the ground retired hurt after getting hit in the pad.

The ball thudded into his knee roll and he went down like an assassinated politician in a spy film. He tried to bat on from this completely unforeseen ball hitting the pad incident, but he couldn’t and had to go off the field. He then didn’t come back onto the ground until the Windies were guaranteed a low total.

Yet, I still like him.

Even as he rolled around the pitch like he’d been kneecapped, his comedy bling necklace getting dirty and his slightly too big for his neck head thrashing against the turf, I still liked him.

I’m not sure why I really like him, I just do.

When his overly confident leg side flicks happen, I see them like a computer game, where his bat moves so quickly and in such a perfect arc that I can see the swoosh behind it. And as he stands upright with his bat pointing towards the sky I smile.

I don’t need to like him, or know why I like him, but Lendl is just one of those players that I get joy from and years from now when he is only brought up as nothing more than some callous bastards punchline, I’ll be upset.

You don’t choose the players you like, if you did, you may never pick the Lendls.

Tagged ,
Mar 20 2011
11 Comments
windies

Cricket with balls claims Andre Russell

In the history of cricket with balls we’ve only ever claimed three cricketers.

Cricket with balls’ Bryce McGain, Cricket with balls’ Holly Colvin and Cricket with balls’ Eddie Cowan.

Today we add Andre Russell.

Obviously we were talking him up before anyone knew or cared about him.

Now there are literally dozens of people who are talking about Andre, and while we’ve had nothing to do with his career or his obvious natural talent, we feel largely responsible for his rise.

When he took four wickets and made a dashing 49 against England, we felt like it was us.

Not just the jrod who is writing this, but everyone who feels like cricket with balls is a part of their day.

Picking a player before you’ve seen him or anyone else has mentioned him is often a fools errand.

What if the player is never seen again, the whole process was a waste of time. And worse, if they are seen and their very existence makes you want to vomit into the mouth of a passing grandmother.

When we saw Andre Russell, we didn’t feel this way.

We felt proud.

From his pointy haircut to his inability to control the urge to play stupid shots through to his fast medium bowling that has a technical hitch or two he is someone we want to see play, that we want to write fantastical posts on and who will raise in random conversations for no real reason.

This is why we are making Andre Russell the fourth cricket with balls’ own player.

Arise, cricket with balls’ Andre Russell.

We hope you’ll continue to be an unpolished all rounder that can splatter a stump, hit a mean six and wear the weighty crown of cwb’s own on that pointy hair of yours.

Now it’s time for two chucking.

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