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.

overcast clearing later

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By far the most exciting part of Thursday’s game was the flicking over to sbs to watch the finish to stage 6 of Le Tour. I liked the idea that was being bandied around about the sun at Headingley and the role it plays in cricket there. The suggestion is that there are only ever two teams that play there – the overcast conditions vs when the sun comes out. Weather and cricket of course have a close and intricate relationship – cooked pitches and moisture laden balls moving in clandestine directions; players with cold hands or suffering from heat exhaustion. So I like this Headingley mythology which really brings this to the fore, where the sun gets man of the match awards. But really, Ponting’s boys were disappointing. It was very disappointing that they couldn’t use the talents of the weather better – England certainly harnessed the form of the sun very well – it was inspired recruiting. The weather also put in a big stage in Le Tour – Persistent Rain moving up the general classification after a powerful lead out by Slippery Corners.

cold out played

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During the 2003/4 summer’s tests in Australia, the entrance of the players to the field was greeted with the sounds of the coldplay song clocks. This at first seemed an incredibly dull and obscure choice to greet the commencement of a session of fine test cricket. By the end of the summer it had come to seem appropriate. I guess (I thought) more through sheer force of repetition than any symbolic or analogical relation. For this ashes series bloody coldplay are working their way into my experience of the tour in another way. They release this song just before the tour begins that, well, the first time I hear it I almost die from boredom right there on the spot. I hope I never have to hear the song again. As things get underway a thread begins to run through my blog of a movement from beneath the ground to more astral positions. A launching forth from out of a secret underground dwelling – a base. I do hear that damn coldplay song again & again, of course. I realise its a frikkin theme tune. Lights, birds (remember Dizzy is a bird and he’s been wrestling with mountains), bursting, flying from underground – there’s lots of noise and unbelievably spectacular goings on – If you could see it then you’d understand. Now I’m driven to go and buy the single and I feel I am betraying everything I could ever be.

03/04 – coldplay have a song turned into a cricket anthem by the official dj to Cricket Australia.

(Even before that, I remember now, that tiresome sickly yellow tune used to be Warney’s theme for the one-dayers.)

Ashes 05 – now they’ve gone and written a song that is making itself into a cricket anthem.

Maybe coldplay deserve more credit, maybe there really is something fundamentally cricket-like in the tedium their music induces and the patterns they work with. This is not a research project I want to take on so I am giving it away to whoever wants it – it’s all yours.

the end of one day cricket as we know it

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oh my god how does one find the energy to write anything about last night’s final, the delirium of sleep deprivation combined with the emotional exhaustion, the wringing of anticipation from one end of the match to the other – and in the very end one is given a tie. Stomach tied in knots, heart bursting from a blank, empty emotion with no value either way or in any familiar direction. O my god what a seductive game – and we will never see its like again. This was the last of the old-school 50 over matches.

The McGrath and Lee opening partnership is so fantastic, I simply love it. When Lee bowls a cricket game goes astray, it loses its way, off the rails, out of control, it gets the speed wobbles basically. Which means there’s an opportunity for someone to take control. McGrath is the master of it. In a repeating binary pattern of 6 balls chaos 6 balls complete control the two of them are mesmerising. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful thing in cricket than McGrath’s spell last night, never seen a more beautiful thing than that map they show of where his deliveries have pitched. I thought Flintoff’s was exquisite (and Harmison, he’s just frikkin built to bowl – he’s a huge obstinate shape that appears not to be designed with any function in mind but to bowl) but McGrath just took the pitch daubing to a new level. I was sitting there on my couch with a cat on me (the cat watches the cricket purring away with her eye’s closed – it’s too much for the little sweet pea to absorb) clenching my fists in the air and shouting to myself – I love you so much Glenn McGrath! Oh my god Glenn! The cat wasn’t disturbed, she understood perfectly. It all made the last over so surreal and unbelievable – how could he send down such a dog of an over? After Australia had England 5/33 the game started drifting by like a dream, clouds passing behind a daydream, at times the match future would appear as in a vision. Even immediately after the 5th wkt fell scorecards were flashing into view that showed, after several very insubstantial partnerships at the top, one single great extended line that defied all logical progression yet was inevitable enough that one always knew England would come close in the end. The tail end of the dream was presenting itself early on, but there was no hint of McGrath bowling a nightmare final over such as he did. The emotion of the tie is an emotion of its own. It has no resemblance to happiness or to sadness, its not anger or frustration (how can you feel anything like that after you’ve been given such an incredible game of cricket?). The frustration comes on now that the tour schedule gives us the NatWest Callenge series. I can’t believe we have to put up with 3 more 50 over games (however much they fiddle about with new innovations in the rules) between Australia and England before we get close to the commencement of the Ashes. Surely after this epic game they could just cancel the Challenge. Who has any further need for one day cricket after this? (Who has the energy for it?) – This was the pinnacle man. Bring on the tests.

I worry about Dizzy.

the ghost of Nasser

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It is sadly clear that Nasser Hussain is still a liability for England even though he now gloats in the commentary box instead of moaning on the field. He proved last night just why England were never going to be good again as long as he was playing. Every comment he makes is filled with hardline conservatism and an approach that goes by the slogan – never, under any circumstance, take any chances. In an earlier entry that grappled with the Ashraful issue I wrote of luck and batsmen that take chances well. Hussain is a polar opposite to Ashraful. Hussain was the luckiest batsmen in the world, he always seemed to be given chances – given not out when he clearly edged it, given not out by the 3rd umpire when the catch was clearly legitimate, out on a no-ball, edges flying just beyond stretching fingers. Yet he still couldn’t ever manage to score any runs. He should have been averaging well over 60 with the sort of luck he had. Instead he ran at 37.18. Because he had no idea of the concept of chance, and no idea how to take it – in fact he was/is morally opposed to taking it. Last night Collingwood and G. Jones had the chances going their way for a long time. Sky balls falling between or just short of fielders etc all night. It was obvious that the chance factor would shift – it would become to thin for them to be able to keep a grip on it and it would slide of elsewhere. But Nasser thought it all meant that England would win – things are going their way so things would forever be going their way. Like when he used to play Australia and instilled deep into his team’s psyche that they were only useless because things were going Australia’s way and would be forever – what can you do when fate is against you? There was no thought that maybe they could take some chance for themselves. So last night Hussain prophesises English victory based on the luck of Collingwood and G. Jones. The very next ball Collingwood drives hard to Symonds at cover, sets off for a run, realises that he has driven hard to Symonds at cover and the run thing is perhaps not such a fine idea, stops, tries to turn, slips, and is run out. Kind of unlucky. Symonds doesn’t miss chances like that. Nasser misses everything. As a hapless spectre haunting the English team’s chances still, his voice drifts over the airwaves and curdles English blood with its ill timed comment.

Glinn McGrith & El Warno

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As revealed in a recent article on Baggygreen, Dennis Lillee is concerned about the future of Australia’s fast bowling stocks. The big question seems to be “where is the next generation.” Well as you may expect a blog as incisive and as full of revelation as this one does not happen without an abundant team of discreet minions buzzing throughout the cricketing world, infiltrating deep inside tours’ support personnel and into the close circles of cricketers’ friends. One of my little spies has a theory in regard to the next generation of Australian pace bowlers, and without giving anything away in terms of their identity or whereabouts I can safely say that the information they have at hand to base the theory on is reliable to say the least. The theory regards Glenn McGrath and an audaciously brave and shocking experiment that he is already in the early stages of implementing. If the experiment is a success (and my source is confident that it will be – McGrath’s planning and execution has always been one of his foremost attributes) it will see Glenn McGrath disappear from international cricket, in fact he will disappear from any earthly dwelling whatsoever. There will be rumours of a pig hunting incident, something going horribly wrong, a terrible shooting accident. Not so long after these rumours surface a bright young face will emerge out of the ranks of district cricket in Sydney and begin catching the Australian selectors’ collective eye as they scout for that next generation that Lillee fears a thiness within. He will rise quickly through the ranks and within a very short space of time, with barely a handful of state matches beneath his belt, he will be selected to play for Australia. From this point on there will be no looking back. People will keep saying, at least at first, that there’s something about him reminds them of the great Glenn McGrath. He will be unusually consistent with his accuracy. Perhaps he will be quick to mutter when the accuracy strays to the slightest degree. He will be mature beyond his years. In time though his greatness will rise so far above that even of McGrath’s that this speculation will soon be forgotten and he will become a true champion in his own right. Of course what will have happened here is that McGrath will have transformed himself into a completely new cricketer, a new being, he won’t just be reborn but will have done away with the identity of Glenn McGrath altogether (of course vestiges will remain – the new player will undoubtedly cite McGrath as a childhood influence). As McGrath now is able to repeat so accurately with such effective variation delivery after delivery he will succesfully repeat himself – a perfect, complex and deliberate metempsychosis. It has already begun my source says. One only needs to look at what’s happening to his hair. It was the hair (always look closely at the hair) that tipped my denizen of the cricket world off, and inspired further investigation. I can assure my readers that the investigation has been thorough and none of this is lightly transmitted to you the public. Please be careful how you treat this information.

McGrath’s long time bowling companion, Shane Warne of course is in on the act too – his concern with his hair and making himself young again has been much more public. Warney’s certainly in some sort of transitional phase – the hair, the life changes. But it’s nothing as monumental, nothing as deeply involved with the essence of being as McGrath’s experiment. McGrath’s work goes right to the soul of man and extends to the limits of the cosmos. I can’t see Warney being able to let go of his identity and become an entirely other cricketer. I imagine he will have to be simply a reinvented Warne, revitalised, a new man (god forbid a better man). His career beginning all over again from scratch. Watch for his first delivery in the Ashes, it will turn a mile from outside leg and clip the top of the off stump. The bastman will be utterly bewildered in exactly the same way that Mike Gatting was after Warney’s first ever delivery in Ashes tests 12 years ago. This one delivery will create a disturbance in the English psyche that will hinder their ability to play test cricket against Australia for at least the next 12 years. At that point Warne will have exactly doubled his test wkt count & his public scandal count – and he will have just split with his second wife with whom he will have three children. It is a different kind of repetition, a more brutal, more basic one perhaps, less subtle, more stupid – much more Warne-like. Exactly Warne-like. I do expect though, that when he returns from Spain for the Ashes he will speak nothing but Spanish, comprehend no English. That language is for the opposition.

Hayden-in-need-of-a-pillow

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The Ashes is going to be so hot! The first few overs of the washed out game the other night were so wildly exciting, such a heated, compelling contest, so deeply felt. It didn’t matter that the game was washed out, it was like enough had happened already, just the promise that was offered up of a game of such great immensity was enough. The Australian openers were back at their pounding best, taking Gough’s first over for 14 or so. The English were congregating at the bowler’s end trying to come up with a plan to stop them, it looked like they were panicing after just one over of the real Australia. But whatever plans came out of the snap meeting worked and England hauled the boys back in. Gough was taken out of the attack after 2 overs (In this day and age when its all about haircuts I was most disappointed that Gough so quickly lost the intimations of a mohican that he was sporting during his blistering 20 20 spell at the start of it all. He was smoking then, red in the face, steam shooting from his hair as it stood on end – since he lost the length, & he only lost about 1.2 cm, he’s been flat as a tack, flat as his shaved head – cricket is a game of the finest margins). Simon Jones bowled beautiful lines and to carefully set plans – it was exquisite bowling. Gilchrist was no match for this sort of application. As precisely as he bowled, Jones threw haphazardly and collected Hayden on the chest with an unnecessary throw in the very vague direction of the stumps. Unnecessary maybe but the action certainly didn’t lack in brilliant drama and consequence. It’s set a battle tone for the entire Ashes. Hayden was pounding his bat into the ground in fury, pounding his chest and waving his big arms. Jones was waving his hands about in apology as the English fielders converged on the injured beast to make sure it didn’t bound away to plot its revenge, or simply start tearing those sorry flailing hands from Jones’ body. The contests from here on in were just what you don’t need when you really need to go to bed. Harmison to Ponting from one end. Jones to Hayden-in-need-of-a-pillow at the other. It lasted a few overs before Jones claimed Hayden’s wkt and promptly began beating his own chest in victory. It was all damned fine Cricket. I expect blood in the Ashes – I want eyeballing, I want breathing down necks, I want the gloves to come off, I want the administration and the media to get over the idea that cricketer’s shouldn’t get angry and shouldn’t get into a good meaningful stoush. There was nothing untoward about the incident – it was all perfectly well directed towards building the intensity of the cricket to come. In the end the storms came to cool things down. What was so great about the washout was that it meant those tedious cricket writers had no opportunity to talk about how great the game was and write the Hayden-Jones incident off as gone and forgotten in the face of the pure cricket events that followed. The coming of the storms meant that the incident really took precedence over the cricket, it became bigger, inhabited the series – of course it always was just part of the cricket but now its been made clear. The game was rendered meaningless (as it already was in some way – both teams are in the final) so that pure intensities could come to the fore and feed into all that cricket still to come. So hot and sensible!

Ashraful of it

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Making your own luck

Riding your luck

We had a bit of luck

My luck is in

Strokes of luck

Cricket and fate have always sat in an intricate realtionship with each other. Which isn’t saying much as I guess fate, being one of those big cosmic concepts, kind of sits in an intricate relationship with everything, and it’s obvious that cricket, through endless series of intricacies is everything. But Mohammad Ashraful’s innings yesterday dealt deeply with such problems. The chance that he harnessed, the errant bundle of luck that he formed himself into (it wasn’t form, his was a misshapen innings to say the least). I think it was practically the first over that Ashraful faced when he lauched Brett Lee for 20 runs. A top edged six off a short ball – no control, could have gone anywhere, lucky to be alive. Caught at mid off, a wild slash making room for himself outside off stump – no ball called, dismissal stared in the face. Another top edge for six off a short ball. An awful flat bat thwack over mid-on with no timing and only just enough power to clear field and run away for 2 runs. On the last ball he actually played a good standard shot through the leg side for four. Only Lee could have bowled such an over. The luckish Ashraful had absorbed Lee’s power and and it fed the luck that he was allowing to consume him. With each delivery Ashraful intensified himself as luck. A mass of chance. Chance is perhaps a better word than luck here. I’m not even really sure if luck, as such, exists – I think cricket shows this. You can make luck, but then if you’re making it its not lucky anymore, its planned, its good play (this is why a cricketer being given not out by an umpire when they are clearly, technically, out does not trouble me – either it was part of their plan already or they will now have the chance to make something of it, which can be a very exciting prospect). Chance you take. At times, it is there for the taking. Ashraful took his chances, playing strokes of luck. Ashraful is interesting because what he actually does is bring chance with him to the crease, he doesn’t try and build a form from which to launch attacks and from there collect the vestiges of chance to ride upon. Ashraful bats backwards (he moves way outside off and plays Gillespie backwardly over leg stump). He brings chance with him to the crease, unleashes it, takes it, unleashes it, strokes of luck. And slowly settles down into something more solid. His is an acute understanding of fate. In terms of cricket shots he is all imprecision, but in terms of dealing abuses out upon fate and making luck his own (he is luck in a vaguely human form – perhaps he even looks more like luck than a human, he twitches, his head shakes) he is all precision – timing. He understands that there is a forecful element in Brett Lee’s bowling that also carries with it some chance for the batsmen who has the application to take it upon himself. Ashraful picks his moments. Chance & fate is a time thing. Ashraful is in his own time, a cosmic time, or he is the time of the cosmos, the future – he is the future of Bangladesh cricket. He needs to teach them how to find and take their chances. At the moment they are looking in all the wrong areas.

Chester-Lee-Street

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The game Australia are playing is a game of extreme measure and control. In the past week a lot has been said, jokingly, in desperate search for an answer to the strange problem that had arisen, about Australia lulling the English into a false sense of security. While I don’t buy this, and don’t believe for one moment that any of last weeks shananigans were planned, it is incontestable that there was something very lulling about the way Australia went about building its innings last night. It was careful, considered and patient batting. None of the brute domination that we are used to seeing, the beligerent power. Australia are starting from degree zero, slowly working up, making minor adjustments here and there – fitting their rhythms in with the rhythms of English conditions and English wickets. The total lack of panic that they have shown, the calmness they’ve presented must be worrying to the English camp. On last night’s performance they are getting close to tuned. Once the final, fine alterations are made Australia will be playing from a base that is already practically invincible, in full command with a total understanding of the environment and the forces that it is operating with. From here, at various points in time, timed with precision, we will see them launch back into the old intimidating style of abuse we are accustomed to. A carefully plotted route of drilling and launching. It will be phenomenal to watch. Lulling, and then a sudden sharp violence. A Kitano film.