Tag Archives: chance

rest day

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cricket forces a rigorous relentless thinking of failure. in cricket failure is always opposed by glory. both are present and the net magnitude is zero. an error is always coupled with a perfect execution. the perfect execution isn’t always the result of skill being applied perfectly. an imperfect delivery can induce an error (clara tice) as much as any perfectly executed plan. so perfect execution resides in the domain of chance. a chancey conglomeration of events. when its perfect the net magnitude is zero. isn’t it always perfect? how can any delivery be anything other than perfect when viewed as the conglomerate it is – with the shot, the fielders, umpires, commentators… glory / failure error/perfect execution … never with any value. cricket levels. the individual cricketer probably doesn’t remember it like this. the pain they felt was too great for them to have been a part of nothing. the joy so immense it was surely a part of something.

but this is only personal nostalgia – based in cultures of vengeance cultures of heroism cultures of style…

the film ‘the final test’ begins with an american arriving in london keen to examine and understand all elements of english culture. the very first thing he is confronted with is newspaper headlines : england on verge of collapse ; england may collapse today… he is shocked by the countrys pessimism. quickly though he learns that the papers are referring to a test match being played against australia at kennington oval and immediately heads to the ground to watch. hutton bats superbly it rains a bit and england bat for 2 days to achieve the draw. the headlines australia produced to during and after the melbourne test would have had the american wondering why australians are such haters, so venomous and scornful. awful terrible A DISGRACE. All commentary is obviously lies but it has an impact on crickets personell. It impacts on the depth of failure they feel and on the glorious heights they attain. At a nostalgic level it plays its part in the conglomerate that produces zero. at some point nostalgia and chance become bound together. nostalgia and skill. nostalgia and error. nostalgia and reverse swing. nostalgia and the cut shot. nostalgia/chance and skill. nostalgia/chance and error. nostalgia/chance and reverse swing. nostalgia/chance and the cut shot. eventually cricket forces a relentless thinking of failure and chance.

400+ choking

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Packer is dead

The art of bowling has been eradicated absolutely

Hell, even the art of batting was absent from that game as the pitch and the ground itself seemed to simply expel balls

It was a game without a people, there were no players, no personality, no heroes – just a gound violently expelling balls into a crowd

crowd witnessed an incredible event, an apotheosis, something transcendant, fateful, a display of brilliant fate

mother of god everything operating perfectly

every gamble paid off

everyone, everything was choking with emotion at the sheer beauty of it all

for 1 day cricket where to from here…

commentary (DEANO!)

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DEANO’S posted a comment on my blog!

I’m a little concerned that one of his arguments for the use of technology in umpiring decisions is that some people are gambling a lot of money on the game. Really, if you’re gambling then you’re taking a gamble. Whether someone’s winning or losing big bucks on a cricket match because of a poor umpiring decisions or poor shot selection or poor field placings is all pretty much the same to me. A smart gambler will surely be studying the form of the umpires as well as the players. It still comes back to the point that umpires add a whole extra dimension to the way a cricket match moves. For the serious gambler this must be attractive – the extreme thrill of seeing cold millions slip away in a split second’s judgement. So many points on so many levels at which chance can instill itself.

Still, while I cannot understand Jonesy’s arguments for the use of technology in umpiring, it must be said that he’s a top bloke for getting involved in this blog – I am very happy and excited by his engagement and conviction.

the greatest test match since Edgbaston 2005

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Cricket is officially sexy.

In England the spectators and commentators are feeling the pinch – “The entire country can now take a breather as the series breaks for 10 days before Trent Bridge. There are many people who will need to go and lie down in a darkened room – with two Tests to go this is becoming the ultimate series.” In Australia, where distance can do nothing to thwart the emotionally harrowing intensitites that are being driven into our souls, we have the added problem of sleep deprivation – Ashes recovery booths are being set up all over the country.

It was eons ago that the the coyotes crept off to die quietly in a cave somewhere, ceasing their hopeless crying before the moon, leaving Michael Vaughan free to take all his chances with glee and amass a huge century to put England well on top from the outset. Generations later the coyotes might have perked up again as Ponting, after days of nothing but disappointment (another failed attempt at a century from El Warno being the pinnacle, the seductions of hope & ignorance of faith had well and truly begun to work their teasing ways), led Australia in the most remarkable, most spirited, of rear guard actions to win his team a draw. England’s massive chance to take a lead in the series went begging, the road runner beeped cheerily, smiled at the camera and sped on.

waste

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“Like a gang of pikey chancers, they couldn’t believe their luck at sneaking into the warehouse behind the guard dog’s back, but instead of making off with the goods in a calm and orderly fashion, they decided to whoop and yell and holler, and got themselves evicted anyway.”

The devastating freak accident to McGrath (slipping out to reinvent himself already?), Ponting’s generous decision at the toss (whatever, you guys do what you want, we don’t care), a pitch that McGrath could have made a test century on (oh the agony of lost opportunity!)- yet England make 407. All in one day, to be sure it was exciting but opportunites don’t come much more golden than England had them today, really they should have been 4/407 at stumps, going on to 550ish by tea tomorrow. As a general tendency it seems that the quicker you score your runs the bigger your scores need to be – along with the time you provide to yourself to complete a victory you provide time for counterattacks from the opposition, who also have the same amount of time up their billowing sleeves.

Trescothick was playing such a wonderful innings (I don’t think I’ve ever seen Trescothick play an innings before), such simple movements, barely moving at all but striking the ball with perfection. He was totally putting the Australian bowlers to the sword. Until, on 90, he gave it all away with an awful hanging of the bat’s edge in the path of a widish delivery from Kasprowicz. It was almost sad. English cricket is entirely wasteful. When McGrath went down it was not like all prohecy suddenly went out the window, but the chance that it provided to England was pronounced. England obviously couldn’t get a grip on the thick Spanish accent.

My favourite films from this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival

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The problem that one has to deal with after a bit of a mean & cruel post like my last one is that one really should be putting full support behind the loser, hoping with urgency that he will rise above himself and his oppressors and bring down their government. In the film Kung Fu Hustle for example I badly needed the perennial loser to undergo the freeing of his chi so that he could become The One, I needed him to unleash the full force of the Buddhist Palm technique and defeat the Beast and his Axe Gang backers. But I don’t feel any of this for England, I want them to never win the Ashes again basically. In justifying this I think it’s to do with the manner of loser we are dealing with. The loser in Kung Fu Hustle, when given the opportunity, grasps it with both palms and fully exploits it. The Beast lands a heavy blow and sends him sailing far into the stratosphere, so high in fact that he meets a Buddha on a cloud up there, The One takes the moment to pay his respects to the Buddha, accepts the blessing, and returns to Earth to bury the Beast once and for all. It’s that thing about taking your chances. Making your own luck. I’ve described earlier how Nasser Hussain represents another form of loser, that which has the world at their feet but lets it slip by, lets the opportunities fade. In Road Runner cartoons the viewer never, despite the incessant terrible fortunes of Wile E Coyote, wants Coyote to get Road Runner. This is because poor fortune doesn’t really play a part – there are always moments when Coyote has Road Runner within his grasp. But then there is always a pause – to ready the knife and fork, tie the napkin around the neck, or even just raise the arms a little higher and make victory-at-long-last all the more sweetly dramatic. At which point RR disappears underground, entering a tunnel, the entrance to which Coyote doesn’t make – and so he bites earth again. Nasser’s spirit haunts England still. In this article, Ashley Giles exhibits a paranoia that may not be ill founded – he feels that there are past England players undermining the efforts of the team in a bid to make sure they fail, for if they were to succeed the sad past would only seem all the more sad – the old guys would feel insufficent.

In the press the English lead up to the second test has been all ex players finding fault with and offering unwelcome tired advice to the current squad. On the other hand the Australian opening pair has exhibited a great flair for imagery and bristling atmosphere. Justin’s description of the English batsmen being in coffins (or MRI scanners) constructed by McGrath and Warne is chilling. But in terms of imparting a sense of cool foreboding, Hayden’s statement that he just doesn’t care about England was simply fantastic.

“In the run-up to the game, there had been a lot written about England, and I‚Äôm not trying to be arrogant when I say this, but I don‚Äôt really care about them. We know that if we are playing to the best of our ability then England will not come close to us.”

It caused a lot of fuss on the cricket blogs about the place but really, if Road Runner’s running at peak then WEC just isn’t going to come close is he? I love it. The general tidings are for a big Justin & Matty partnership. It would be especially great to see a century from Matty in this mode. What an incredible thing it would be to behold. The carefree century. Not in a joyous, high-spirited way but careless in that dark, brutal nihilistic sense. An absolutely reckless, uncaring, irresponsible mass of runs. Matty’s complete self-interest can only be understood when it is considered that the self-interest involves a deep, immanent interest in runs. A single huge desire for runs and nothing else. Matty assumes this desire into his being and puts himself in the precarious position of being nothing without runs. A big innings in this state would look and feel like a searing desperate violence – ‘Beat’ Takeshi in Blood and Bones. Its kind of awful but awesome – certainly compelling. It would be a wonderfully disturbing thing to see on a cricket field. I want it bad.

one last quibble about the one day rule changes

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The issue of the supersub has been solved. That leaves the ineffectual powerplays to sort out. The argument has largely been that the occurence of the powerplays should be up to the batting captain rather than the bowling. That’s just some lame reversal. Its so bleedingly clear that the powerplays should occur purely at random. A chance draw. Sometime between the 10th over and the 45th coldplay songs will blare out over the ground PA, sirens will wail, lights will flash. The powerplay is announced. Imagine the excitement for everybody just not knowing when they might occur, the flurry of activity when all of a sudden one comes about – just when the fielding side most needed it, or just when they were looking comfortable. Suddenly, by chance, everything is disrupted. And then another one.

Please petition the ICC – its such an obvious winner of an idea.

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.

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.

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.