There is a lovely article by Gideon Haigh previewing the annointed test series currently posted on the baggygreen website. (If you hurry you’ll even get to see a picture of Warney barbecuing some chops in a Foster’s baste).

I really like Gideon’s work, of course I do. It’s the work of a man deeply invested in cricket. It is oh so very sensible. So sensible it saddens me. This is a very sensible article about the likelihood that with all the build up the Australia/India test series will be a let down. Gideon is like some sort of emotional safety net, putting a soft landing in place should the series turn out to be run of the mill. Gideon, a cricket rationalist, tempers our emotive responses to the game with a steady wisdom and careful taxonomies of likely results based on historical experience. I know he loves the emotion of it all, I know he feels cricket as intensely as the rest of us, but he reigns the joy in for fear of the despair that comes when things don’t meet over-blown expectations. He doesn’t allow cricket to fly ahead of itself, make its bold proclamations of abundant glory and bring on the lemonade flavoured seas. Like in Lagaan – that epochal film that displays cricket at full power, in full flight. & if Gideon’s seen it already he needs to watch it again and again, at the cinema, in with the crowd cheering Bhuvan on to the inevitable but terrifyingly improbable victory. (It’s a true story).

Whenever I go in to bat I am certain that this innings will be the innings in which I make my maiden century. It is never a dream, but an absolute conviction. When I run myself out for 6 going for an impossible second bye, then I feel betrayed and dirty, my frustration is infinite. Until I start looking ahead to being in the field and seeing the brilliant, desperate run outs that I will in turn get to effect. I bags being Andy Symonds. (But then, when I’m out there, its enough just to love being on the grass, in the sun, sleeping a bit here and there, watching figures drift around.)

There is another great article I need to point out, also on baggygreen today. Its all about how McGrath’s return to form (which will undoubtedly be confirmed within the first few overs he sends down in Bangalore) can be attributed to Shane Watson lending his size 12 boots to the Pigeon. Glenn found them light and easy to move in, he found his rhythm and he flew. Stepping up into the boots of the young generation, the old master flies again. Now that’s a story.

& do read Gideon too, he’s very smart.