Author Archives: Nick Whittock

About Nick Whittock

Nick Whittock’s 2nd book hows its (inken publisch) will be ready for the summer. In 2012 he had a chapbook published in the Vagabond Rare Objects series. It has a picture of a cricket bat on the front cover. His first book's cover was a reproduction of a photograph of cricketers lying on the ground.

2 sleeps (make the most of them)

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The excitement builds. The tension builds. The quotes come flying.

Of late, this is my favourite –

Matthew Hayden:

“Look, there’s always lots of talk about targeting players,” he said. “It’s the greatest load of rubbish of all time. The only enemy is really the cricket ball that comes down at you. Whatever is said and whatever is analysed doesn’t matter. What we have to do is bat and everything else will look after itself.”

It negates itself. And in negating itself confirms itself. It’s beautiful.

But who is this shadowy figure? (Clearly there was a Spanish interpreter on hand at the press conference.)

I am making noises in anticipation.

Ahab’s prohpecy

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Just a couple of days ago I happened upon the following passage from Moby Dick (Penguin classics 1992 edition, p 183)

– The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and – Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller in one. That’s more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies, – Take some one of your own size; don’t pommel me! No, ye’ve knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab’s compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way! –

The prophecy is of a force rushing underground to acheive an inevitable end. Of course, as with all prohecy, it must be left up to the commentators, those great interpreters, to decide which parts of the prohecy apply to which segment of the current or impending situation – There is no doubt that Melville had a pretty clear idea of who was going to win this Ashes series, it’s just a matter of nutting out the correspondences. Who is dismembered and who will be the dismemberer. Who is lagging behind and still playing just cricket? Sailing, tunneling or riding patiently on to meet their epic fate.

Schwindlig

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The epic poem can now go on. It has begun with a small ode from one of my cricket sprites – this sweet little guy writes in German:

sie haben die Haar

von dem Schwindligen

gammelig gemacht,

denn er endlich

ein Pfostentor bekommen hat.

endlich ist er die Spielbahn

entlang, mit Jubel, gelaufen.

mit dem s?º?üen Schwindligen

haben alle getanzt.

Here is an English translation produced through the Promt Online German – English translator:

they have the hair

from the dizzy

gammelig done,

since he, finally

a post gate has agreed.

finally, it is the play road

along, with cheering, run.

with the sweet dizzy

if all have danced.

1st innings (England)

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Long before all this we saw England bat. They batted strangely like Australia were batting early in the tour. Plodding, cautious. I have no doubt Bangladesh would have beaten them last night. The difference between England now and Australia then is exactly that now & then. Australia’s painful efforts from early in the season can now be seen as an origin, a grounding, for what they are currently producing. England’s painful efforts are an obvious regression. Australia have built up to the Ashes! England have dropped off. Australia are totally occupying the vertical plane upon which they now play their cricket. England have to put up scaffolds and fast.

Early in the day Dizzy put down an easy chance. He hit rock bottom, the shame he felt matched the pain of his followers (I was imagining careers for him post cricket – it wasn’t so bad actually, I had him pegged for a role in Pizza – It didn’t seem to matter anymore if he never recovered his form, as long as he was going to be a stooge on Pizza.) In the next over Gilchrist put down an easy chance. It was going to be difficult, on a wkt as good as that one, to rectify things after letting chances like those 2 go. But England have never been good at taking their chances. It was Ponting’s brilliance that stripped the tender feelings of fate away from them. An exquisite run out, Ponting clearly on top of his game and the team following. Dizzy bowled a tight spell – not yet venomous but tight. Enkidu had lifted his spirits just when all seemed lost. He got wkts. He got severely scruffled. He’d forgotten about that scruffling and how damn good it feels. Just when Pietersen seemed to be going to send Gilgamesh back into a new series of nightmares, Dizzy rose to it & cleaned bowled the English Humbaba. God, though, Pietersen, seriously could be one of the game’s greats – If he can get a break here and there from the selectors, from the English press and the public, so long as they don’t turn on their hero too quickly when he has a down turn. The English need to learn faith. The faith of Enkidu in Gilgamesh. They danced together in the Forest of Cedar.

Ma(r)t(o)

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I only saw Marto batting for a few balls but I have never seen him so brutal. In the initial stages of his heyday, around about the time of the last Ashes! tour to England, Marto had developed this ability to become one of the players that surrounded him. The peak of his form was his protean formlessness. He could become Michael Bevan. A right hand batsmen playing the shot of a left hander to such a degree of precision that you could not tell them apart – the way he could manipulate his elements and twist the lines within which his arms operated was an incrdible talent. He would often take on the aspect of either Waugh twin. Even as recently as India you will probably remember he basically was Steve Waugh. It’s Marto’s formlessness that provides him with his strongest form. He learns pitches, gets to know grass and disappears into fields. He struggled when the New Zealander’s defined a distinct Martyn form for him a few years back, setting fields that said ‘this is how Damien Martyn bats’ these are his areas. It took him some time to shake the form that he found himself captured within. Since India he’s been shedding it. Last night marked the complete end point of Marto’s form. That wasn’t Marto out there, that was Matthew Hayden. Brutal. The finessing right hander had become the most brutal left handed batsmen the world has seen. He was still holding the bat like a right hander but the shots he was playing were elementally Hayden. Hayden in his heyday. Pre-pillow. Out of the 2 or so shots I saw I have been able to discern an entire series of massive and brilliant innings for the churning sea god we will, for want of a better nomenclature, still call Marto.

Decision made

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At long last, a decisive decider. I went to bed after the England innings because I got frustrated trying to watch Le Tour on sbs (lets hope they get their satellites into gear before the Ashes!) I woke up at about 2.30am and turned on the television to see where the game was at. The first thing I saw was Adam Gilchrist bouncing about in slow motion celebrating his century. I figured Australia were on top. They had launched (This catch by Kaspro may have been a wasted effort so far as preventing a 6 went, but it showed clearly that Australia were now inhabitating a higher strata). Turned out they needed about 12 runs off about 793 balls. Marto smashed a few fours and that was it, Shep danced on 2/222 for the very last time and a ball or two later he broke the stumps and wandered from the field, receiving loving hugs from the players as he went. Perfect moment to retire, Shep, put ya feet up and watch the Ashes! What a guy.

2 Pontings

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There are at least two Pontings. The put upon and the up. Charlie Brown and a Miyazaki peasant boy who has just lead a victorious campaign against a greedy state backed foe. When he’s in the latter mode (and this is undoubtedly closer to his equilibrium state) he and his team are pretty much indominatable. There was a moment in last night’s game in which we witnessed the passage from one Ponting to the other. Charlie Brown dove full length to collect a catch in his right hand only centimetres from the ground. He came up as a different animated character. In that instant he was transformed. He retained the new form as he batted, and the unbridled joy of the peasant boy grew stronger. His team will follow him.

A key question will be whether ecstatic Ponting will have the strength to carry Dizzy up with him. Can he also take on the molecules of Enkidu? Drag Dizzy out of the depths of these despair ridden nightmares. I can barely stand to watch Dizzy bowl at the moment, it hurts me so bad. It is a pain I am willing to endure though – however long it goes on. I will watch Dizzy bowl endless wicketless spells in the tests if Ihave too. He will comeback sooner or later – this may depend on Ponting. (There is another surely failsafe method of getting Dizzy back in form that has been suggested to me by one of my cricket sprites – force him to listen to interminable recordings of Nasser Hussain’s commentary – the anguish he would be injected with would make him terrifying to face, it would be a rampage filled with awful rage. This would obviously be an inhumane suggestion, and the ICC probably has legislation that forbids it, not to mention the UN – & Bono would probably organise a concert – but it could be very effective.)

rule changes 2

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A few years ago, in the nineties, I have some recollection of an Australian tour of – was it Sri Lanka? As a team building exercise on this tour, the Australian cricketers all had to draw, from out of a hat, a particular facial hair style. The player was then required to grow & wear this style throughout the tour. It was a great idea but from memory they all just ended up wearing slight variations on the goatee. The idea, still, has mileage.

International cricket is currently experiencing a golden age in hairstyles. This is a boon that cricket’s administrators should be capitalising on. The clear way ahead is to give the cricketing public the power to decide upon hairstyles for players, which the player would then be required to maintain for the duration of the tour, or until a new hairstyle is demanded. Point deductions and fines for players not making the appropriate efforts should be harshly applied. The International Hair Styling Authority has already submitted a body of styles to the ICC which I am calling for them to adopt as regulation cuts immediately. A two tiered voting system should be put in place whereby, at the conclusion of each match, the public selects one PowerHair player and then selects the PowerHairstyle which the player must have ready to be worn in time for the next match. Players should be tested for hairstyle performance advancing product – if the readings are too low the player should face bans.

rule changes

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Its time the ICC stop nibbling away at the edges of one-day cricket and get serious. If they really want to reinvigorate the game, make it once again interesting for the viewing public, they need to do more then just add 5 overs of fielding restriction and give it a dumb name like ‘powerplay’. They need to really get deep into the way the games played. Make some changes which will test the skills of the cricketers in new exciting and more acute ways. My idea is that they give every fielder a little bat (a brand new piece of equipment!) and change the rule on catching such that to be out the ball actually has to travel not only to one fielder but through two fielders before it can be caught and the batsman deemed out. A catch can only be made by a second fielder after the first fielder has hit the ball, with his little bat, off its trajectory, along new lines, into the hands of the 2nd man. They could perhaps even award some sort of points bonus which increases with the number of fielders the ball travels through. They could deduct 5 runs from the batsman’s score for each fielder after the 2nd that are involved in the elaborate catch – or something like that.

And they really need to bring audience voting into the game for the supersub. Evictions by sms poll. That’s what one day cricket needs.