what you wish for

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What a day. The MCG was the happiest place in the world. As Hayden felt his way through his shot continuum, bringing up an immensely touching hundred (Hayden bats like a cellist, the tones not demarcated by frets, playing with great feeling, building crescendoes and stuff) his fishing buddy launched a brutal assault on the protean bowling attack, at the final second of opportunity kick starting a long and heroic test career. And then there were more of those great wkts of his.

Andre Nel Ice Cold 3000

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The crowd shouting ‘Nel is a wanker’ could be far more ingenious and turn the chant into ‘Nel is a baddy’. He is the archetypal panto villain. The crowd should be shouting ‘he’s behind you’ to the umpire as he runs in to bowl. They’ve got the booing down to a tee it must be said. The air is always thick with nelodrama when he’s skulking around the corner!

he’s only got one shot

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Matthew Hayden is again constructing another supreme innings. I’m finding that he is pretty much, since the departure of Marto, my favourite batsman to watch these days. Hayden’s batting is unique in that he really does only have one shot. In park cricket there are lots of batsmen that will have this specification attributed to them by the team on the other end of their quickfire 50 built from hoiks to the leg. But Hayden’s one shot is an all encompassing one shot – it is a single shot with which through subtle late variations can send the ball to any area of the ground. Whereas your run of the mill superstar batsman’s array of shots tend to be well demarcated – Ponting’s on drive, his off drive, his pull and cut; Langer’s cover drive, square drive and pull shot – (all clearly different shots) Hayden’s array of ‘shots’ all issue from the same movement with only a carefully timed articulation of the wrists or arms or both to vary the angle of despatch of the ball. Rather than segregated distinct shots Hayden produces an inclusive movement that contains a continuum of forces and angles. His leave becomes a front foot defence becomes a drive (on or off, cover, square) becomes a cut or pull. When he is executing the single movement well he is the smoothest of cricketers. Watching this movement produces an hypnotic energy that stimulates a power that can perhaps be called love but is more important than that.

celebrate

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When Brett Lee clean bowled Jacques Kallis this morning after 40 odd days and nights of dot balls his celebration was unparalleled. He skipped high into the air, his fists appeared unsure of quite what move they could possibly perform to truly capture the joy of the moment – so they simply performed every move. And performed them to perfection. The cowboy roping steer lasso move was particularly admirable. Who would have thought that only a few hours later, shortly after the Milo Lunchbreak, this audacious celebration would be surpassed. Not once but three times. Andrew Symonds’ celebrations just got better and better with each wkt he took. He was only just staying on his feet. The whole of the cricketing world is praying that he scores a powerful blistering century in the second innings and retains his place in the side. Really with these celebrations it could be considered that he has done enough to cement his place in the side.

the comedy & the savagery

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Earlier in the day the cricket viewing world witnessed one of the great test match scores of 11 (unbeaten). Capably assisted by Michael Hussey (122) the MasterMutterer helped put on 107 for the final wkt. The SA field expanded and contracted, inhaled and exhaled as the two batsmen shared the strike to a precisely devised gameplan. If, on the fourth ball of the over, the field stayed spread, Hussey would push a single and the Master would face the last two deliveries. If the field contracted Hussey would smash the last two deliveries over the infield for either a 4 or 6 & the Master would be happy to see out a maiden the following over. The pattern was supremely executed. Crikey, its been a beautiful test match so far.

Gilchrist got some beautiful new keeping gloves for christmas too. White with gold flares down the back of the hand.

binaries

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ABdV’s innings today was like the evil twin to Hayden’s yesterday. Where Hayden rigorously left the ball alone outside off stump, ABdV would play and miss with similar application. I don’t think he deliberately let a ball go through to the keeper all day. Where Hayden would plunder the ball entering his refined strike zone to the long off or cover boundary, ABdV would slash at anything marginally outside off stump and edge it over or through the slip cordon for four. He was eventually out trying to cut a ball that hit his pads in front of off stump.

The two archetypes that would constitute the ABdV innings if it were to be digitised would be something like this:

1. Symonds to de Villiers, no run, a beauty! short of length outside off stump, moving away off the seam, gets beaten.

0. Lee to de Villiers, FOUR, short and wide outside off stump, de Villiers cuts hard, gets the top edge, just over Warne at first slip to the thirdman fence.

65 and 61 respectively, Hayden and ABdV then, themselves, become two equal yet opposing binary values defining the test match.

Nelodrama

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Hayden’s innings was a masterpiece. It reached its pinnacle during the spell from Ntini immediately following lunch. The ball by ball commentary read like this:

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, FOUR, good shot! pitched up outside off stump, drives well past the short cover to the fence.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, FOUR, good shot! pitched up outside off stump, drives well past the short cover to the fence.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, FOUR, good shot! pitched up outside off stump, drives well past the short cover to the fence.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, FOUR, good shot! pitched up outside off stump, drives well past the short cover to the fence.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, FOUR, good shot! pitched up outside off stump, drives well past the short cover to the fence.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, no run, left alone outside off stump.

Ntini to Hayden, FOUR, good shot! pitched up outside off stump, drives well past the short cover to the fence.

and on like that interminably. A binary innings. Both teams were in complete control. The South African bowlers (not just Ntini) with a stacked field covering the off drive were relentlessly pitching up outside off stump. Hayden was rigorous in his leaving. His patience was impeccable, waiting for that aberrant delivery which would from time to time enter his strike zone and disappear to the boundary. Two relentless modulations making up an utterly mesmerising innings. It was sad and a terrible shock when Hayden eventually played loosely at a ball that was clearly just a little too wide and edged to slip.

Urn Malley had been dreaming of Hayden and Ponting being still at the crease together as the evening came in, as the shadows lengthened and the sun’s angle made the persistent yet weary South Africans look like they were starting to blend with the gleaming golden grass. Golden exhausted fielders at the end of an epic day’s partnership.

Dreams shattered by the melodrama that is Andre Nel.

you can get it dreamin

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the long sleep between ashes series (from one day to the next) goes on soundly. there a slight stirrings, and there are dreams: of encounters with dream teams that crumble in a heap; vivid dreams set in pakistan full of hi jinx and subterfuge and with glorious endings; of golden dream boys dropped from the team; of brett lee shopping or singing; of a one day series in new zealand that defies even the logic of dreams with its frenetic nightmarish movement; of a batsman who can never be dismissed; and the greatest dream of all, an immense figure from the past returning to haunt the cricket world with a new prominence.

urn malley, like his fellow dreamers, searches for the fragments of time that have entered the dreams from the future. he looks for the patterns & associations that his sleeping mind discerns out of his compacted past, and sees the next ashes series playing itself out already

night night

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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.

save the umpires foundation

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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.