Sweet Revenge

They say revenge is a dish best served cold - which either means you are so upset you forget to turn on the oven, or you prefer a salad ... or, like Cameron White and David Hussey, you take your time before rubbing an opponents nose in it.
In Melbourne, Victoria have just completed a mammoth thrashing of the "eh" boys, with both teams chock-a-block with relative unknowns (your auntie's second cousin) and only Hussey and White as remnants from the Shield final played five years ago at the Gabba. In that game, Victoria were batted out of existence by Qld's first innings of 6-900, as Jimmy Maher and an unusually fit Shane Watson got doubles and Martin Love and Clinton Perron scored big singles. Victoria folded up their deck chairs early as another youngster, Mitchell Johnson took 10 wickets for the match.
Luckily for Hussey and White, who both featured in the Vic's second dig in Melbourne, James Hopes and Chris Hartley were fellow time travellers from that earlier match in Brisbane. It's so much nicer dishing out second and third courses of revenge in person.
McGain got second innings wickets but he's a leggie from old and unlikely to play too often above this grade. Too loose. Control was Warne's greatest virtue and as he was the first, a second is unlikely to surface for a while yet. As a guide to how long we may have to wait ... let's see ... by the time John Howard is out of cricket ...
Many said Victoria, despite their outstanding season, couldn't win a Final without Hodge and at 6-75 with their big guns having already shot their pop, Many was looking right. Who is Many? Must be a Jewish commentator? The opinions of the Zion Zealot hadn't figured on a tail that was intent on having runs to bowl at and successive partnerships from Matthew Wade, John Hastings, Doug Wright and Darren Pattinson quadrupled the precarious earlier position. It was this recover that turned and eventually won the match.
Faced with a fish they had let off the hook, many of the Northerners got starts but only Broad got runs. From there, Qld's game was like Hillary at the top of Everest ... it was all downhill. White and Hussey feasted and the lesser known Vics all came to the table for at least some of the courses.
The pleasing thing about the Victorian victory is that it was just. They have been the most consistent team all season and deserved another etching on Lord Sheffield's symbol of what was then Victorian colonialism. Apt, would you say.
For Hussey and White, it was just so much sweeter.

Putting in the hard yards

The eating of one's words is not so displeasurable for the taste as much as the mere fact one has to. This is certainly the case for some cricket pundits who have witnessed Bangladesh in test cricket of late. The fact they have not conjured a test victory should not detract from disciplined spin bowling and, at times, very entertaining batting. The cricket writers who have declared Bangladesh unworthy of test status should be thoroughly embarrassed at India being bowled out in under a day and England being forced in the field for scores of overs. This achieved by a mix of exuberant youth, committed coach and a passion for the game not dissimilar to that seen in India.

Cricket needs more world-wide appeal to remain current and ensure a future - certainly where test cricket is concerned. It has not been the luxury of upper class exclusively for some time now but it appears the ICC may beg to differ somewhat. Their dealing with the issue of the umpire decision review system is a case in point. Installing the UDRS has been made the responsibility of individual cricket nations and their boards. Inequity can be evident in various circles of life; sport being one, and Bangladesh are seemingly hapless bystanders of their own disadvantage which cost them 3 wickets against England in the first innings of the second test. While there may not be on-field bias against Bangladesh they can ill-afford the ICC ignoring infrastructure needs which help to provide a level playing-field. The people of Bangladesh will undoubtedly be buouyed by their team's performances of late; and their passion for the game will remain. But, ICC, give them a bloody break and help them get the UDRS for their test matches. If you feel they are a test nation then starting treating them like one!

Tendulkar - Is He?

The answer to the question you are mulling this morning about Tendulkar ... yes he is!

Yes, he is the best batsman you have ever seen and yes, he is likely to be the best player the world has ever seen. He has bettered the stars of his long era - Ponting, Lara, Dravid, Kallis, Border, Waugh, Jayasuriya (ODI) and Inzamann (ODI) - and as his career extends into its twenty first year, he continues to set new marks on the high jump bar he will leave as a legacy.

This record breaking first ODI double century is his 46th in that form of the game and he has 47 of similar, if not better quality, in Test matches. Who could have believed any player would score 93 international hundreds when Allan Border retired as the highest run scorer in Test cricket just over fifteen years ago? It used to be that the mark of greatness - or was it longevity - was a hundred hundreds in first class cricket and now this small lad from Mumbai threatens to chalk the cue on a much greater milestone.

Of course the old timers will talk of his exposure and longevity and muse on if-onlys about the champions of yesteryear. What might Bradman's record have been given the same length of time? To be fair, Bradman retired at age 47 and yes he did lose eight years to WWII. Tendulkar is nudging 37 but surely part of his genius has been to keep himself fit and mentally fresh, something that Bradman clearly failed to do in just the number of games he was confronted with, let alone the dramatically increased schedule of the modern player.

Tendulkar is a genius. It showed when I saw him score his first hundred against Australia in Sydney as a mere stripling aged 18, already in his 14th Test and coming into the match with only one previous hundred and an average of 35. Lots of promise they said but where was the bang for the buck? Another kid with lots of promise made his debut for the Aussies in that game but Tendulkar and Shastri carved him to all parts of the SCG, sending him to the dressing sheds with lots to do and 1-150.

Fast forward a decade and Tendulkar returned to the SCG with 82 runs in five digs in a series where others had provide the get up and go and he had three times wafted and sent Gilchrist jumping and twice walked across the crease to be struck, fatally, on the pads. Tendulkar was done. The maestro was myth. In heavy air and a turning deck, he was easy pickings for a side without the dynamic duo of McGrath and Warne. I scored the innings. He made no stokes outside the off stump till 100 and then the bowlers tired of his raised bat out there and bowled at his legs. Hello? 241 and 60, both not out - the first was technically the best innings I have ever seen. To cap it all, he caught Steve Waugh's last slog-sweep in Test cricket and ended any chance of a long shot victory. It was though the responsibility for carrying the spirit of the game flew through the air from Waugh to Tendulkar and was gracefully accepted. The little bloke ran to Waugh to offer his thanks and just maybe to reward his trust.

The next time he visited Sydney, he made another big unbeaten hundred, averaging 221 in seven innings there. Haven't we had all the favours in the home of the Blues?

It is, of course, possible to sum up all of the above descriptions of his batting ability into one, concise statement. Warne never bettered him. Ever. Both worked very hard to come up with tactics to defeat the other. Warne never won.

In the end, figures will only sum part of Tendulkar - the part that marketing gurus still like to use as promotion along side his still boyish looks. In the words of Yoda, "there is another". It is his generosity and humility and grace under pressure that the game should be even more grateful for. He is, without exception, the only player I have heard (except maybe for Gilchrist) who talks up his team and deflects the focus away from his own performances and does so believably. We all know the cove who milks extended compliments by first feeding the media cows some rich pasture. Dean Jones and Shane Warne come to mind and Greg Matthews absolutely screams to be included in my examples. If you look in your cricket dictionary under humble, it will say "see Tendulkar ... twice". Under the most extreme pressure, on the field and off, it was Tendulkar who added credibility to the sordid events of the disgraceful Aust and India clash at the SCG in January 2008.

Even since the late sixties, this Cricket Tragic has seen and read and talked about many "greats" of the game. The term is over-used and over-rated. Every generations thinks their crop greater than the previous. Brett Lee, for instance, was very good but he was never great. The same could be said of Dean Jones or Justin Langer or Matthew Hayden or Merv Hughes or Stuart MacGill. Very good but not great.

If Dennis Lillee is my greatest bowler (yes, in a coin toss between he and Warne, the WACA Wacker get my vote) and Sobers the greatest allrounder and either Symonds or Simpson the greatest fielder, then Tendulkar is the greatest batsman (decided with the same coin, this time with Bradman's head on the other side).

What a pity he is coming to the end. Still, when the real thing fades, such memories as his will suffice.

a stitch in time

sorry to be so abscent guys, very personal stuff going on in my life at the moment: very good stuff too. in brief -because this is not the place- i made first contact with my genetic mother, and over the 2 weeks we went through the full range of relationship development to get to a point now where we can look forward to the rest of our lives knowing each other.
pretty heady stuff to be sure!

anyway...

how was Sachins double!
i must say how pleased i am with this outcome; as an absolute champ and wonderful ambassador of the greatest game it is fitting that he snaffled this record before anyone else and when it must only be a matter of time before he wanes. maybe he never will!

against an RSA side with its complete compliment of bowlers Sachin has stamped his name indelibly into another page of the record books and maybe if current trends prevail just in time before the demise of ODI.


well done Sachin Tendulkar, you truly are the (little) Master!

An Interesting Weekend of Cricket

As much as I don't often comment on the "hit & giggle" cricket played when mummy isn't looking in those mad hours before bedtime, there are several things to be said about it and a weekend of very interesting domestic cricket.

At first blows, bravo to Cricket Australia for the backyard cricket - oh, they call it Twenty20 but we all know what it is - promotion in Hobart on Sunday. A combined bill which showcased the Australian women and men's teams was not only clever marketing but also provided a great opportunity for the women to play before a big crowd and gain some additional exposure. Don't get me wrong I have no beef with women's cricket. One of Australia's current best, Erin Osbourne is a Tamworth girl and any reasonable follower of the great game would recognise that talent is talent regardless of how it fills a protector.

The women's game was a nail biter ... I was down to my toe nails in the end ... and despite losing to the Sheep Shaggers, it was a terrific game in it's own right, let alone as a curtain raiser to Michael Clarke's mob.

Shaun Tait was fast, furious, reasonably straight and bowled three corkers for wickets. One can't help but think he was a resource wasted in misunderstanding and an unwillingness to accept that not all illness presents a physical manifestation and that mental illness = weakness is a bad equation. Interesting that a softer, more personable man is at the helm in this form or cricket, whilst the Professor of Tough saves himself for longer hundreds.

In a slightly longer format at the Gabba a day earlier, The Bushrangers won through to the final of the Ford Ranger Cup, despite missing four players attending to their higher calling, despite playing away from home and despite playing against echoes of former Test men, McDermott and Laughlin, who were both spanked for their inaccuracy and youth by Brad Hodge. Raising his bat in a century of adulation for the sixteen time in domestic one day games, Hodge is an exclamation mark Cricket Australia just can't erase. He was truly magnificent again on Saturday and if Tait has been talent squandered through poor management The Hodge can claim higher honours in that regard. Hodge has been one of the stand out batsmen of his generation. Forget the Lehmann hard luck stories or the Stuart Law coodabeen stories, Brad Hodge has given and given and given, in all forms of the game, even the most truncated and yet, he has been ignored, no shunned, by our national selectors for reasons only they would know. Merv Hughes, a fellow Victorian, should in particular be ashamed.

Well played Mr Hodge and in the short time left son, rub that certain Adelaide solicitor's snooty nose in it.

In the west, the home side are no certainty to pick up outright points against Tasmania, with three innings around the 250 mark so far and the Tigers scoring the highest of them. With two wickets down and still another 230 odd to get, the boys from across the Bass are a fare chance to get the major points.

A bit closer to home - only a bit - NSW have finally stood up. Tired of being the cellar dwellers in the Sheffield shield, several of the names have put some effort into their game in Adelaide and have the South Australians eating crow. Phil Hughes blasted an impertinent near double century and Forest, Roher and Nevill (who the hell are they) put more than enough on the old Adelaide scoreboard ... more than enough for SA to chase, apparently. Pity there are no bonus points because NSW will claim a huge victory today after Tamworth's own, Josh Hazelwood shook off a side injury for impressive second innings scalps, including going straight through General C with blistering pace. This boy is one to keep.

All in all, a great weekend of cricket although locally, City United's one win from four could be described economically as being consistent with the law of diminishing returns!

The Greatest All Rounder

It's one of the oldest debates in cricket and it has ranged from frothy cold beers in outback pubs when the shearings done, past suburban boundaries where young blokes claimed their current heroes and club sectretaries smiled and talked the greats ... and that's just here in the land of lithe bronzed men with steady smiles and a larrikin wit. The debate can be had among the pink gin set, it can have a calypso backbeat or be delivered with a subcontinental head wobble.

In the land of the long white cloud where men run quick and the sheep try to run quicker, there is no debate. They know their man Paddles is the King.

The world's greatest all rounder. Who is/was he?

Largely by experience, reading, trusting in the opinions of those I trust about such things and on the strength of one innings, Gary Sobers would be my man. The stats always said so - eight thousand runs, two hundred plus wickets and hundred odd catches. His versatility said so - left arm quick, left arm medium swing, left arm spin, field and take catches anywhere. He moved like a ghost - one minute there, next minute ... there.

I've long held this view.

I was flicking through the Hozstat pages in search of quiz questions and the list of allrounders the website proposes drew my attention. Criteria - 1000 runs, 50 wickets, 50 catches and the first thing that struck me was Nathan Astle's name, mid list. Must be something wrong with the criteria, especially since the name Imran Khan was absent.

Not content to accept this and in an effort to qualify what was on show, I decided to make some adjustments using a simple formula. Equating a century being potentially match winning, I allocated one point per run and twenty points per wicket, since a 5fa is as important as a century. Further, I allocated 30 points per catch, as three catches in an innings seemed to me as rare as a century.

Having sorted that, I decided that only players who had taken three catches in an innings, five wickets in an innings and scored a century (not, you understand, all in the same innings) would be included. I made the other criteria, 2000 runs, 100 wickets and 50 catches.

Realising now that players who played before the 1990's, when cricket match programs ballooned, would be disadvantaged, I divided the points tallied by the number of Tests played to give a form of match contribution average. The resultant table was ...



Batsmen who bowled miss out (the Waughs, Simpson, Hammond, Woolley, Walters, Gayle and Jayasuriya) and of course others missed their place on the 3 catches in an innings rule (Kumble, Kapil, Lindwall and even a superstar such as Astle). The three I had the hardest time leaving out were by criteria judgement were Greg Chappell, who was a bit more than a batsman who bowled, Keith Miller on shear guts and glory alone and Shane Warne, who failed by one run to score a Test century. I therefore compromised with myself and included Warne anyway, as a batting average of 25 is all rounder status at 8 or 9.

Bugger me. Look who's on top of the list!

sorry

sorry i've been absent guys, i'm in the middle of a very deep personal (but good) life experience at the moment and am completely distracted from everything but that which i'm experiencing.
stay tuned, i will be back.

stoph

The times they are a changin'

The tide has turned. The cricketing public have spoken. One day cricket as it is known has been exiled. Perhaps forever. Never has the format seemed so redundant as was witnessed in the last international. The Windies were 4/sweet bugger all and the game was a foregone conclusion. It seems the 50 over format has become a casualty of it's own origins. Hark back 30 years and the halcion days of the one day format and the death of test cricket, as was heralded. The television public wanted results and it wanted them today. No longer would it be satiated with laboured draws.
Fast forward to the present and the television public and live audiences demand results, not just today, but right now! They don't want, or need a whole day of cricket. It seems almost a toss of the coin is enough contest to soothe the masses.
What we are witnessing here is not the death of a cricketing format but the not so subtle shift of human nature towards instant gratification.
Cricket is as great as it ever was. It is the same game we grew up with. It's perception that has changed and will continue to change.
The question is, do we change the game to suit perception at the risk of jeopardising it's history? Do we want to see full houses at games that merely resemble the game we love?