After months of nights of going to bed when there was still hope or when all hope was gone. Months of waking in the morning to discover just how fickle cricket is. All hope dashed or resurfacing. Now there is an 18 month night to endure. All there is to hope for is good dreams. Resurgences of forms from the day in strange series and aberrant patterns. Ha, things won’t be so different.
The most unbearable thing about this entire Ashes series has been having to put up with Dean Jones’ incessantly rank expression of his opinion on umpiring. He feels a desperate need for the blanket use of technology. He says he seeks justice and the truth. His obnoxious, ignorant and frightening brand of rationalism is enough to make any cricket lover fear for the game that is held so dear – cricket is never rational. Cricket has never had anything to do with truth and the justice in which it deals is not a justice that can be easily pinned down, it can not be arbitrated from anywhere but within the immediacy of the game itself. Surely someone who has been involved in cricket as much as Jones understands the athleticism of the umpire, and the ability the umpire holds to lapse. As does a batsman or a fielder (unless they’re Dean Jones of course – if only the selectors had chosen him to bat at 4 for Australia they would have had no trouble retaining the Ashes. I think Deano may be the only player in the history of cricket never to have been dismissed for less than 150, his average must be huge). Sure the umpires’ errors effect the game, as do the errors of the batsman or fielder or bowler or groundsman or selector or coach. But it is never determinable how the game is changed. It is easy to say Warne dropped the Ashes when he put KP down during the last test, but its only wishful, frustrating speculation. Warne should be replaced by a robot, then we would know the truth. Geraint Jones would do well to call for the institution of electric wicky. The electric wicket keeper would bring justice back to test cricket, making it just like how it is in the backyard. The beauty of cricket is multifaceted, it is crystal – one of these facets is the magnificent occasion of having a philosophical uncertainty over the two states of being in or out. A batsman is, in practice, only ever in or out but one can be theoretically out while still being in, or theoretically still in while reading magazines on the balcony. Take this facet away in the interest of truth and justice and the game is nearing implosion. Jones’ technological rationalism, while clearly terrifying in prospect, is also deeply flawed in itself. And this is comforting. During the last test Warne bowled a ball that turned to such a degree that Hawkeye (one of the priests of truth and justice) did not recognise it as a delivery, it stated fervently that the delivery did not exist. Time and time again, throughout the series, Jones himself was heard to overrule the technologically based presumption of in or outness. A clear edge that the snickometer (p.o.t & j)failed to record as such was still, to Jones, a clear edge. Which brings us to what Jones’ really believes (he is too stupid to know this himself) – the only truly just arbiter of in or outness is Dean Jones himself. What Jones’ desire really demands is that at every stadium around the world there be built a throne, high up behind the bowlers arm, atop columns. In this throne sits the emperor. From this vantage point, behind balustrades, Dean Jones raises his thumb, or turns it to point to the ground so far below.
When I was playing u/14s cricket for the Merimbula Cricket Club in 1989, Dean Jones came to our presentation evening. I won the batting aggregate trophy and had my photo taken with the emperor himself. That photo sat, and probably still does sit, proudly on top of a bookshelf at my parents’ house. Now all I ask is, not that it be burned, for that is the stuff of great contests such as the Ashes, but that it be fed to the silverfish. I wash my hands of you Dean Jones. You are a traitor to cricket. Usually I’d be all for a bit of betrayal but you are in no way a traitor who commands respect (you are no Brutus, no Judas, no Aguirre) – based only in lame stupidity and arrogance your turncoat beliefs hold no value.
The Australian govt and Cricket Australia must enter into a serious and dedicated joint campaign to bring El Warno back to Australia. Failure to do so would be a disgrace to our country’s heritage and would undermine all that we hold dear. El Warno occupies a special place in every Australian’s heart and it is only right & just that he should be here for us in a time of need.
Seeing endless shots of the public of London cluttering the rooftops around the Oval for a distant glimpse of the cricket, it was hard to feel sad about the result. They filled the windows of every surrounding apartment, they stood on roofs on the other side of the city with binoculars, veritably the people of England had taken to the skies.
I am more saddened by the fact that the Ashes are over. I can’t contemplate watching any other 2 teams compete in a test match now. It won’t seem like a real test. It will be as though its a multiple choice test or something.
That final 1st session was the greatest session of cricket I have ever seen. England scoring at over 4 an over, Australia pressing hard, creating chances, taking plenty of them. And Lee’s final over before lunch at KP. Holy shit. Surely the players don’t have to go off for lunch, surely lunch is offered to the fielding side. The Australians weren’t hungry, they’d clearly had their Weet-bix, stocked up on Milo. They could have kept go go go go go go go going all day.
After lunch the sadness set in. Sad that there wasn’t going to be a mad run chase, a final breathless last ditch attempt. After lunch, nothing.
cricket’s twisted fragile narratives & crazy ironies – the sublime El Warno, Australia’s last great hope, powering his team to unlikely victory, puts down the catch that sinks all hope. K “Wearing the earrings its not going to make me cover drive any differently” P who has dropped 6 out of 6 catches in test cricket is put down by El Warno. KP’s 6 drops have barely cost England a dime, El Warno’s one (final) indiscretion costs the urth.
Surely this means pm howard will lose the next election.
Flintoff’s name resonates somehow with the whole Ashes idea – flint, fire, fire out, flint off, left with the ashes, he’s left with the ashes, he’s gone and taken the ashes away with him… only one man can stop him now. EL REY (of hope) WARNO – and he will need the help of a certain volatile muttering.
poor form of the Australians, indifferent form of the umpires, and now the weather’s form has sunk to all time low. It could be a sad end to the most magnificent series.
But Flintoff! His promise just grows and grows toward true immensity.
“I promise all readers that every drop of sweat we have in our bodies will be left at The Oval. We will give everything we have and more to win back the Ashes.”
Next Sunday night sbs are showing a documentary on the history of light. I hope it will help me to understand the light rule.
Sunday 18th September
08:30 pm DOCUMENTARY SERIES – LIGHT FANTASTIC – Let There Be Light
This four-part science series explores the phenomenon that surrounds and affects nearly every aspect of our lives but one which we take for granted, light. Greek and Arab scholars, and later Europeans such as Descartes and Newton, all tried to understand light to gain a better understanding of God. Tonight’s first episode examines how much of modern science’s origins came from the desire to penetrate the divine nature of light. Presented by Cambridge scholar Simon Schaffer. (From the UK, in English) (Part 1) CC
Ah, to once again see Justin rest his sweet head on the great Pillowman’s pillowy chest! This is what the waiting is all about.