in my utopia the ahmedabad rockets play test matches
On Monday morning after the conclusion to the test I sat on the tram in a daze. I had taken my book from my satchel and was planning to read it but I just sat there with it in my hands as I thought about the cricket. My breathing was all over the place. I was basically sighing or maybe even panting – there was exhaustion and tension and exhiliration all involved in the make up of my gasping. And I hadn’t even satyed up to watch the England innings. I only heard about the score on the morning news. These magnificent last ditch efforts by the Australians (or should I attribute them more precisely – El Warno and Lee) are all well and good but just not quite good enough. Its tantalising stuff.
Its a shame there’s been so much whingeing from the Australian camp about substitues (ok, it’s a pretty iffy tactic of the Poms but it should be pursued quietly along the proper channels) and the umpires (certainly the umpiring’s been poor but only in the same way that Hayden’s form has been poor, or poor old Dizzy – misfiring players get replaced by other players, not by computer animated simulations.) Its not the outbursts on the field that are a problem, that’s heat of the battle stuff, the frustration after having worked so hard takes over, as is reasonable. Its in the days between matches that losing teams need to keep their gripes tightly quiet, to speak is to be a sore loser and displays in some sense an acceptance of the fact that they are not cut out for copping sweet blows and going on to really challenge a dominant opposition.
A: McGrath’s regeneration continues. Body part by body part. During the Edgbaston test he took the opportunity to renew his legs, now he his working on his upper limbs. Dizzy’s awful, sad form slump begins to make sense if you think about how strenuous this process must be for McGrath. Physically regenerating a body part is no problem (that same old elbow one day, spanking new model elbow the next), but the new body is nothing without a force character in which to embed itself – the McGrith needs a structural charisma. It seems clear that Dizzy has sacrificed his mojo to the cause. McGrath will play at the Oval, but shortly after that he will disappear from the scene – mystery will surround the event. But Dizzy, in his new starring stooge role on Pizza, will have a full understanding and a certain pride. From out of 2 great Australian bowlers, one youthful force, greater than any that have gone before it, comes to tear up the cricket world with its pace, its control, and phenomenal ability to move the ball in manners that not even the master of the dark Welsh art of reverse swing, Simon Jones, could imagine. He will be tall with a blonde mullet and he will mutter.
One of my International Research Assistants of Mystery found these postings to the Deluxe Bicycle Club’s Chat Group – reminding us of that magical first test where le tour and le ashes melted into one another as if in a dream (and Australia were still comfy winners):
Comments: …Brett Lee’s next ball to Vinokourov is short of a length, Vino opens the shoulders and swings but miss cues and the ball skews high, high into the air and just past the outstretched fingers of Gillespie who is fielding at deep mid wicket. Dizzy stumbles backwards and pulls up just short of a giddy precipice and just in time too as, moments later, a breakaway group of riders containing Cadel Evans, Michael Rasmussen and Shane Warne plummeted by on the treacherous descent of the Col du Telegraph and, I don’t know about you Phil, but I think Warney’s been sneaking powerbars out of the KOM’s musette bag…
Comments: Brilliant mate, love it.
But will Warney be dropped on the first climb up the stands to Col de Bay 13?Or will he attack as they descend from the outer?
Now we just need a pommie equivalent to Gabrielle Gate to bring us some fine gordon blue brit cuisine b4 the first over.
C’arn Cadel.
“Noel Coward once said that he could handle the despair; it was the hope he couldn’t stand.” From Gideon Haigh’s Ashes Diary.
I quite like the hope. I don’t think my hopes can possibly be disappointed from here on in. If I’m hoping for great cricket matches then I can’t be happier with the way my hopes have already been met. The thing that was becoming an issue for me was faith. The faith that no matter how good England are (and they are amazingly good – especially their bowling attack) my boys will not let England win these Ashes. Some sort of faith that England don’t quite deserve it yet (the current Australian team certainly doesn’t deserve to lose) and that justice will be done. Obviously this faith has been wavering. Hayden hasn’t produced the immensity of batting that I was sure he was going to – none of the batsmen had until Ponting on Monday. Gillespie has found nothing to provide fuel to faith. I was sure El Warno was going to complete that century on Sunday, I had complete faith in him, yet I was let down once again. My faith was strong after Edgbaston even though Australia had lost. The fight they provided was more than I had ever expected. I took this as an entirely good omen. After the first four and a half days of the Old Trafford test faith was gone, I was sure I would awaken to the news that Australia had been bowled out in the second last over. Close things were going England’s way – they had done everything to deserve it. Everything, it turned out, except win. Ponting’s quest was one of immaculate application. Faith is restored. My feeling after Edgbaston was that England wouldn’t win another test this series. Obviously that idea had been dismissed long ago. It is now back in force. Faith has been putting on this wonderfully exhilirating binary dance – a series of zeroes and 1s. May this spectacular light show go on, from this point on it will be superficial. The overall faith in the boys is as solid now as it ever was.
Clarkie is still to unleash his full powers (waiting for the right moment, the ultimate test, when everything is on the line).
Hayden is still due to annihilate.
El Warno may never score a test century but his greatness is unquestionable – he is forever redeemed.
McGrath has a new foot – his rejuvenation has begun, piece by piece (Brett Lee was given the grisly hand me down – it’s good to keep a high quality spare).
Ponting has graduated.
Perhaps Dizzy can even become a new master of reverse swing – he has 8 days.
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.
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.
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.)
Personally I don’t buy into the hysteria being spread by the likes of David Koch on Sunrise or in the faithless press. (The loss to Bangladesh was far from embarrassing – it was fantastic, couldn’t have been better. It was, surely, an aberration and an aberration in a truly irregular series of aberrations, but frankly it was just great). When it comes to cricket one should never let faith desert oneself with any degree of rapidity. Faith must be eroded away like a rock. The work the Australian team has put in over the last 20 years has lead to an immense form, the belief in which can not be let go of lightly. Still, I am well aware there are times when reassurance is required.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, in the lead up to his tour of the Forest of Cedar to battle the ogre Humbaba, Gilgamesh has a series of 5 terrible nightmares – mountains rise up and fall upon him, and pin him down. On waking from each he is comforted by Enkidu who convinces him to go on and to rid himself of the fear that has been set in him. I have no doubt that Jason Dizzy Gilgamesh Gillespie’s nightmares are about to come to end, his Enkidu has been working hard and Dizzy will smite Humbaba in the neck. Dizzy will no longer be restrained by the weight of the mountain or the difficulty of moving underground, he will lead the Australian team to the usual glorious victory.