new dimension of freshness
whiter teeth be great to have a lady
to hoik bricks at punter is so steady
im pickin cotton bobbin up n
down n my egos sayin
the kindest things about the angle
of punters bat as he strokes through the packed off
michael clarke
i watched the beautiful horses in
the cup charcoal chestnut
squares i should paint but the test
match begins in 2 days
my opportunity is vast i will be
elaborate strokes elaborate in
control again the field will
divide before me bring on
the doosra the expectation of
the land it
on a penny my spirit is unshaken this is all for
one all for warne
99.1 Panesar to Gilchrist, FOUR, cor, he’s given that some humpty and no little dumpty, using his feet and drilling it through extra cover. Bosh
the above description is from baggygreens ball by ball call of gilchrists 100.
it was gilchrist in his heyday. emerald haunt in overdrive
jen (dark crystal)
my fervour for revenge
led me here i do not need
the encouraging tone of the mystic summons
their tricks of righteousness i will bring down
the skeksis for my own desperate reasons alone
then the alignment of the suns is a dramatic
consideration only ve closely
studied the aesthetics of revenge
fintoff commands the shadows &
the hard twisted bodies and wills of the english
their beaks and their claws and stinking breath
are useless against my lithe body and beautiful
head my will is firmer than theirs they die now
for what they exacted upon
my gelflings ve purity &
goodness thats nothing but helpful propaganda
anyway my project is above histrionics the crystal
is a tool in a weak minded prophecy i use to form
alliances and delineate evil m a
skilled diplomat of revenge
as the day began the excitement was the same as in the lead up to day 1 in brisbane. it was as if the ashes were commencing all over again. everything was totally back on. every delivery was going to be vital. the game was about to explode into action. one explosive period of play from any cricketer could turn the series. gilchrist began to explode. shortly after he brought up his 50 bill lawry had him on a hundred before lunch. this made me think about how wonderful it would be to reside for a while inside the head of a channel 9 cricket commentator – the scenarios that get played out there, the fantastic ecstasies they live through. when warne reached 22 heals had him reaching his maiden test century.
throughout the early periods of play gilchrist was visibly and bravely battling his own fragility. he was circumspect and feeling for things that may or may not have been there. as i watched i could see these feelings becoming more certain. the explosion began to take shape. travesty of travesty when he fell to giles. giles had nothing but his own awful bowling to thank for the wkt. his only weapon is how poor his bowling is. i was actually getting quite angry watching him bowl today. i dont like writing negative stuff about test cricketers mostly i think theyre all frikkin ace, but im afraid ashley crossed a threshold today – im not going to hold back, he is shithouse. warne was fresh at the crease. it was really the moment for england to launch one last big press to keep the chance of victory alive. astoundingly giles went over the wkt and bowled into the rough outside leg stump. warney just kept padding him away. i found giles decision making completely unbelievable. warne himself resorted to this tactic during england’s first innings, but it was forced upon him by the new planet, the new god. giles was bowling to warne and he still had no belief that he could actually get him out. giles was as full of fear of the batting prowess of warne as warne had been of pietersen. ashley giles is a bane to the game of cricket. one can easily envisage, even without being a channel 9 cricket commentator, that had giles bowled in any ordinary combative manner, england could have gone into the second innings still leading by 130 runs or so. the sooner he is poached by the english lawn bowls team the better for cricket.
it was nice watching clarke reading the shape of the deliveries.
oh yeah and clarke was dropped by giles off his own bowling – a chance that giles barely remembered even to make an effort to catch. instead he ended up in this lawn bowls pose.
ah yes! clarkey’s in the team!!
the closer the side gets to comprising only players who were involved in the previous ashes series the more pure the revenge quotient
clarkey was only a very small child when the hard and contorted english cricketers killed all his people. it was only the kindness of a large wise peace loving puppet that saved his gelfling skin.
now the three suns will align.
clarkey has been summoned.
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
The selection comittee has met and decided that Australia must retain the same batting line up that has appeared in the previous 4 tests. Hayden must play. It would be cheating the narrative of the series if changes were to be made. Those that have dug their burrows must be the ones given the chance to dig themselves out. The responsibility must be borne squarely on these shoulders. They will be the desperate ones.
The desperation is very clear in the passion with which the Australian top 5 deliver their latest single ‘incomplete’ – the most powerful song to hit the charts since Robbie Williams’ heyday. While the lyrics of the song contain a certain sense of having given up hope, a resignation that now, with Steve Waugh long gone, the Ashes too are lost, the delivery of the song contains a searing emotion, a searing heart, that can only be built out of pure hope or even exact knowledge that it is within them to fill the empty spaces that are filling them up with holes – there is little room to doubt, in this impassioned and rawly honest self appraisal of where the Australian batting line up finds itself, that they will finally deliver that final telling blow. On the back of this song, the backstreet boys reaffirm their position as one of the greatest boybands in the world.
The second track on the ‘incompleete’ single contains the line – ‘lets not talk about a possible ending’.
It really is opposite world when Clarkey, far from freeing himself from the burden of restraint, takes this taut passivity upon himself to a degree hitherto unheard of. Watching him bat was wrecking my guts. The tension was massive. The wait continues. The Waugh–hole is beginning to show. These binary flickerings of faith are threatening to enter into a tedium of zeroes. But It is the very tension of the wait that provides me (yet) with the conviction that all is not lost. The wait must come to fruition at some point, and there really aren’t too many points left to go. The Oval must be immense for Australia. They have to play like they have been on the 3 last days of the last 3 tests for each and every day of what is going to be the ultimate test.
ah the frustration! Wating waiting waiting for some Australian player to lead a true and spirited fightback. Waiting for someone to launch themselves (in this topsy turvy world it is Flintoff who keeps launching himself deep into the spheres, taking his comrades with him) out of the hole that the Australians just keep digging themselves deeper and deeper into. They remind me of the creature in Kafka’s story ‘The Burrow’. It begins with a line something like, ‘I have just completed my burrow and I believe it to be perfect’. The rest of the story has the creature becoming more and more desperately paranoid about the noises of the small fry that he can hear tunneling in the earth around his burrow – he becomes convinced that the sounds he hears are being made by one massive predator against which his burrow will be no safeguard, slowly getting closer and closer. Despite this the creature is enamoured of his construction and will leave it only for the shortest snatches and only to watch over its entrance like a guard. Though it is clearly inadequate, he is unable to launch forth from his underground dwelling and the burrow becomes a trap. But of course there is still hope. In Deleuze and Guattari’s reading of ‘The Burrow’ the creature’s description of the dwelling is a ruse to trick the enemy. It is the enemy that will be trapped by the perfectly functioning machine that the burrow in fact is. The burrow is not a defensive trench, the creature fears nothing. Australia have forced England to make Australia follow on. Michael Clarke will never be in a better position to realise his full potential and free himself from the burden of restraint.