Wide Shut

There was a hit song in the 80s called "Wide Boy" (Nik Kershaw?), and I never really knew what a wide boy was or how I'd use the term in my daily life, but thank you Shaun Tait, now I do.

Oh, World Cup, you went on and on and then all of a sudden you were an overnight flop. I went to bed at around 1, setting the radio alarm for 3, and then just lay in bed listening to the game play itself out with my eyes closed, every so often muttering "Wide boy...".

When I turned it on the commentators were clucking about how poised the game was, possibly even a bit tipped towards Australia. India were 4 down and needed about 90 from 15 overs. I think maybe the heat or the noise gets into the commentators' brains. The week before when Australia were 8 down for 169 against Pakistan, Ian Chappell started criticising Shahid Afridi for not being aggressive enough in his tactics. Nine down for 176 and still, apparently, he doesn't know how to "press the advantage". And at the end of the innings the Pakistani team should not be having a celebratory huddle on the field but rather rushing into the dressing rooms to "work out how they're going to make 177 runs". Sigh.

Is it the same psychosis or just automatic pilot that led one commentator last night to trot out the "cometh the hour, cometh the man" line when Ricky Ponting was heading towards a hundred? I am glad Ricky had a good innings but when there have been so many other hours that called for that Man, better hours, needier hours, hours and hours and hours of waiting and waiting and waiting for the man, games where nothing happened, twice... Well.

I blame World Cup commentator bitterness not on the gloom of Australia's performance but on how I feel about Harsha Bhogle's new hair. Harsha, for shame.