heavy ball
balls a culmination
day 8 poem
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Tag Archives: 2006/7
adelaide oval forever – day 3
matthew hayden has a very lovely pink bright bat handle.
i didn’t get to see much of the cricket at all today. mostly saw the bit where matty was batting. it wasnt much. the only notes i wrote today were these two-
1. heavy ball
2. balls a culmination
i think mark nicholas was about to try and describe the physics behind the ‘heavy ball’ that flintoff bowls but stopped. and the second was some reference to someting heals said about some delivery bowled by hoggard or someone. he was saying something about the epic history of work and effort that is behind every delivery.
day 7 poem
since david fine’s been writing poems to the tune of various little well known ditties i thought id take a liberty
to the tune of the unguarded moment (the church) and the character array of mean girls
see him disseminating information
i knew youd find him drinking
down those bars with carbs for dust
yeah the gags dont make me laugh
they only make me feel like catching
practice
(key : the first person (lohan) is KP the 3rd is el warno the 2nd is ponting & buchanan )
adelaide oval forever – day 2
the test match is utterly compelling. unchanging stands in delightful contrast to the fact that pietersen has turned mcgrath into an offspinner. even warne has swapped variation for perserverance.
adelaide oval forever – day 1
after seemingly endless sleepless nights anticipating the return of test match cricket to the tv screen the adelaide test commenced amidst a discourse on tradition and scoreboards that never change the 3 old stands at the oval are the exact same stands as when richie benaud first played there in 1650 though he conceeds they may have a few spots of new paint on them. this kind of talk always steeps that adelaide oval test in tones of sentimentality. upon the traditional cricket ground a traditional test match is being played. england are off to a sedate start. in delightful contrast (benaud) to the unchanging stands are the subtle and infinite variations of warne and stuart clark.
day 6 poem
cathedral end
benaud loves his scoreboards
that never change and wants all
his test matches sedated under
the sentimental spell of the adelaide
air the selectas too have shown faith
the scoreboard changes only slowly
and therell be endless sleepless nights
anticipating a return to 0 in this city weve
no affection for time
day 2
its gone high
right toward that beautiful blue sky – odonnell
early on nothing for england to hold on to. harmison is a very different kind of animal. he brings the game alive but this life anticipates width with a cruel humour – harmy flies into the outer reaches of ridicule. its kinda sad to watch. he has the ability and the limbs to throw everything back into those cruel laughing faces, if only he can regain control of those arms those long bones. today his width seemed infectious. england bowled poorly all morning.
slowly, overtime, they clawed their way back into some sort of distinction. thanks to concerted work by flintoff and hoggard there were glimmers of an england that could be competitive at some point in the series. by the end of his long long days in the field even harmison was at least improving.
things became very frivolous when warne came to the crease, a nice relief after the intensity of pontings effort. australia have learnt how to modulate innings. when they got their chance to bowl they (as always in the old days when we used to hold the ashes) gave england a lesson in how to bowl.
mcgraths 2 openers in 2 balls was a highly emotionally charged little period. after months out of the game at janes side, after the speculation as to whether he could ever get back, and playing in quite possibly his last test series in australia… the sentimentality in those 2 deliveries was huge.
warney bowled the flipper first up and it had kp fooled for a moment. love his frivolity. love the way he disseminates information. cracks and pointed gags.
v fine : day 2 poem
hussey v ponting
where will ricky go where will he take us
i go there with him and wait for the bowlers to come
to me
come to me
they can bowl that line out there forever
i give them nothing that could stretch my gorgeous positions
out of shape i wait for that gabba pill to
come to me
come to me
in my red label lounge
or securing the palings in my fence
modulating my innings during the drinks break
lemon lime tang cooling me to my heels
in these wide spaces i reflect upon the view
watching ponting sending rockets into that blue gabba sky
lifes good
lifes good
v fine : day 1 poems
harmison
a variety of bird phrases
infiltrate the stillness
occupying the moments
leading up to the
gabba opener hi
5 ends and the kfc ads begin
fuck the montages anthems
and huddles just bowl the
frikkin ball and
get searching for rhythm
ponting v marto
i see length
before anyone else
can marto sees width i envy
those vistas and the shots
he gets to feel in his hands
i experience only the swing
of the bat
there is no feeling
in my pullshot or
vicious front foot
AC/Gilchrist
i stood there and watched them celebrate
that day was the beginning
of the process
it all began there
a single cause to
devote life to
this missile tracking
technology will not bother me
the foundation of the narrative was laid
long before there
was anything to
seek revenge for
——–
day 1 : langer v flintoff v australia
the figure of hayden walking onto the pitch with the bat raised above his head one hand grasping the handle of the bat the other the toe, stretching his shoulders. an immense and stirring image to lead up to the first delivery of the 2006/7 ashes series.
but hayden proved insignificant. the day started off frenetically as rhythms, forms and settled periods of control were sought. harmison was bowling vicious lengths but along aberrant lines. langer was the first to find control and despite not quite finding perfect touch he owned the game for the first session. hayden disappeared completely with the score on 70 odd, a wkt which did nothing other than allow another immense figure to begin his challenge to langer’s supremacy. though flintoff’s celebration was powerful there was a sense that the roar was nothing but histrionics – flintoff himself appeared acutely aware that hayden was insignificant. flintoff v langer was the great epic narrative truly sprouting from the carefully tended soil of the gabba. it could have been decisive. as it turned out flintoff got his man but it was too late and flintoff’s efforts were too solitary. flintoff v australia. the wkt came too early for langer to claim any epic status for his innings. the way he batted today had a bitterness to it rarely seen. great batsman he is he badly wants to be achilles – i get the sense he’s building to a big finish to his career, something absolutely spectacular, there’s some careful diabolical plotting going on in justin’s sage head.
the rest of the day belonged to australia and ponting. controlled, patient, superbly executed, loving batting. dreary bowling. ashley giles becomes more boring with each test wkt he takes. england rarely appealed. before taking the new ball flintoff let the shadow from the grandstand grow until it was crossing the pitch at exactly the point the ball would be leaving his hand. flintoff understands light and shade and how it effects the ability to pick up the ball but was unable to find the precise lines and lengths he was hitting earlier in the day. the second new ball seemed innocuous.