Phrenomenology

I blame Watto, obviously. Do I need to say why? Getting out on 30 is fine, but the hubris of that horrible, speculative, selfish review obviously set off the kind of Lords cosmic ruckus once again that led to Swann’s horrible ball, Rogers’ horrible lbw, Rogers horribly not feeling he could review the horrible lbw… no good was ever going to come of Watto’s review, and so it was. With each successive wicket, I shook my tiny fist at Shane Watson. He’s not a cancer, he’s a canker. A blight, and a bonehead.

Sillygisms

“You know when you’ve hit it,” Vaughn was saying at lunch time. 

 I will bite the next cricketer who says this. Or rather, Socratsy will:

Vaughn: You know when you’ve hit it.

Socratsy: How do you know?

V: You can feel it.

S: You know you’ve hit it because you can feel it.

V: Right.

S: I’m with you, Mr V. If you felt it, I reckon you definitely hit it.

V: There you go.

S: But you’re trying to say the opposite: that if you hit it, you definitely felt it.

V: That too.

S: HOW SO that too?

V: When you hit it, you feel it.

S: How do you know?

V: Because you feel it.

S: No, we’ve been through this. You know you’ve hit it because you feel it. That means IF YOU FEEL IT -> you hit it. It doesn’t mean that IF YOU HIT IT -> you feel it. You’re getting tangled up between your ratio cognoscendi and your ratio essendi.

V: ….

S: The fallacy of the converse.

V: ….

S: You’re reasoning backwards. And you’re thinking of all the times when you “knew” and no one else was sure, which gives you a false impression of privileged knowledge. And before things like hot spot and reviews, you had no way of knowing that there were times when you’d hit it and hadn’t felt it, so I can understand you thinking those times didn’t exist. But I never even got started on my reductio ad asburdum rebuttal.

V: Oh, please do.

S: If it is true that you feel it every time you hit it, then you’re saying that Philip Hughes asked for a review of a ball he knew he’d hit. That he knew he’d hit the ball, and asked for a closer examination of the situation. Can you tell me why he’d do that?

V: …

S: Right. But I still prefer the fallacy argument. It’s always better to keep Philip Hughes’ head out of things, including for Philip Hughes.

Other things

Boofcam: It's like the Academy Awards, something happens and there's a cross to Darren Lehmann for a reaction shot. A commentator referred to the Australian team as "Darren Lehmann's men".
Has there ever been such a celebrity coach? 

Longroom cam: I lerved KP giving the cordon rope post a good bang into the floor on his way back to the sheds.

I wish Mike Holding had an advice column. It would be called: Ask yourself and every reply from Aunty Mike would start: "Ask yourself..." or "I ask you...". Then after every reply, there'd be a PS from Geoffrey Boycott: "Well, if you'd asked me..."

Le quatorze juillet

I had indigestion watching the countdown last night, though that might have also been about eating too much Bastille Day lunch.

It was a good show. Tension was relieved by heckling the pretty boys: "Don't come the Blue Steel with me, Mr Finn, your cheekbones won't save you now!"

The commentary seems unusually weighted towards the English, numbers-wise, this series. I haven't seen any Australians in the commentary box on the television – where's Warnie? – and on the radio there's just Jim Maxwell and Glenn McGrath against Aggers, Bloers, Tuffers, Boycott and another one whose name I can never remember but who is definitely English. It's not that they're not appreciative of the Australians or not critical of the English, but in a game like this especially, they can't not have an undertone of excitement at an English success and an undertone of anxiety at an Australian one. That's why you balance the numbers in the commentary box, so everyone has someone to emote with. And even as Australians, Jim and Glenn don't give you a whole lot to work with on that front. 

Geoffrey Boycott offers some relief because he has the sort of temperament that relishes misfortune and is suspicious of success. When the English are doing well, he is the voice of doom, and when they don't do well, he is the cackle of glee. Of course, a lot of his satisfaction is because he "could have told you that was going to happen." Like Terry Alderman, Geoffrey lives in a state of permanent amazement at other people's stupidity, but he has a lot more fun with it.

Glenn isn't exactly setting the airwaves on fire with his contributions. The other day he was trying to get mileage out of the fact that the Australian uniforms are cream and the English ones are white. He didn't actually have anything to say about it, it was just "So... one thing you notice is... the Australians, their clothes are cream, and the English... they wear white..." and then dead air as the other commentator waited for a point that never came. He may have followed it up with a plug for his wife's art gallery in Chippendale. 

He did call Aggers (I think it was Aggers) on the POV problem though when the latter referred to the wickets of Agar and Starc as "relieving the tension a bit". A pause, and then Glenn: "Well, a relief in tension for... the English spectators". And Aggers actually tried to argue that a couple of wickets could equally be a relief in tension for Australian viewers, but he sort of tapered off. He seemed to realise that he was basically saying that Australians would be grateful for the opportunity to abandon all hope ("Now I can give up. What a relief!"). Yeah, thanks a lot.

Can't think of pithy sign-off... ever notice the Australians wear cream and the English wear white?

God help me, he was only 19

All Hail Ashton the Astounding of House Aegar, the First of His Name, Hero of Trent Bridge, Sustainer of the Hopes, Judge of the Length and Punisher of the Short Ball, nineteen years of age, a bit of a Cutie and a Very Good Boy, according to his Mother, Sonia.

There's not much to add. I – everyone – was speechless with horror at the first drinks break, I – everyone – was speechless with delight at lunch and I – everyone – was crestfallen when he was caught on 98. My "everyone" is a bit parochial of course, on the first two counts at least.

I can only add: Warner's moustache has to go. Hopefully he leaves it in Africa.

Test 1, Day 1

It's funny how quickly you forget. Australia lost the toss and us on the couch and in the studio were going, "This is all right, our bowling's stronger than our batting, we can put our best foot forward and shield our ulcers from that crumbly top order for a bit." And our bowlers were indeed a force - when they managed to hit the pitch - and we had those Sassenachs on the run and made some of them very cross indeed, ahem Trott.
Going into our first innings, it seemed like maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Except that, hang on, what were we just saying? Our bowling is stronger than our batting. The bowling. Stronger. The batting. Weaker. Something about a "crumbly top order". Something about ulcers. That's right.

Lookalikes

I think Nasser Hussain is quite dashing-looking generally, but when he was doing some analysis of Bairstow's batting last night they found a horrible camera angle on him  that made him look like Dobby the House Elf.

On the subject of Bairstow, I am still looking for the appropriate Ronald Searle illustration. He has an unpleasant nostrilly schoolboy look.

And speaking of unpleasant, I listened to the streaming Grandstand commentary for a bit, and I was enjoying hearing all the old boys again - Bloers, Aggers, Tuffnell - but then internet echo started making Bloers sound like Davros.

Latecomers

Well, obviously I love Steve Smith at the moment. He's surprisingly reassuring for one so fidgety. Wasn't he one of the great white spinner hopes when he started out? Please mum, can he be our all-rounder instead of Wotto?

As for our littlest baggy green, I'm reading the Game of Thrones books at the moment, so I prefer to think of him as Aegar.

He gave me hope on the names for things front. I watched him bowl a couple of balls and turned to my couch companion: "Would you say he "flights" the ball a fair bit?" "Yes." Yes! On the other hand, I thought Peter Siddle had abandoned his first delivery when he was actually just practicing his run-up and didn't even have the ball in his hand. Note to self: small, round, red.

Defenestration

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The window for pre-Ashes thoughts is rapidly closing. I’d better jump through it.

I thought sacking Mickey Arthur was rearranging the deckchairs, but then I heard they’d given the job to Darren Lehmann, and then I saw said Lehmann at the press conference and, well, he’s a stroke of genius. Stroke as in cat. He was completely mesmerising. That smooth, heavy-lidded, drop-dead calm… I think the word is sangfroid. Beware the big man with long eyelashes. For all his goofy smirks - and that sly, winking undertone is a bit of a mafia kiss in my opinion - he’s terrifying, charismatic, self-possessed, in short, everything that the Australian cricket team is not and one yearns for it to be. 

Someone on the Back Page asked whether he’d be able to maintain team discipline, as “good old Boof”, and I thought “Are they crazy? Have they seen him?” I would not want to run into him in a dark hotel corridor if I was coming home after curfew. Well, maybe I would, in a parallel universe, but not the rhetorical “I” that is a member of the Australian cricket team. He’s another Buddha Warrior of course, and bless him for giving a soupçon of excitement and hope to what was a wholly depressing prospect. The reality will hit and no doubt blow the soupçon out of the soup, but I sure needed the lift.

Having said all that, Mickey Arthur’s performance at the same press conference was extraordinary grace under pressure and compelling in its own right. I have no actual cricket judgement on these turns of events, I just emote with the times, like a baby groping at a mobile. That’s also about my level when I’m watching the game, something brought home to me more often now I watch cricket with someone who actually knows the names for things. I see a man get out because the ball went “through” him. “So, was that… the blockhole?” “No, that was the gate”. I see a batsman go swish (yes). “Was that a… sweep?” “No, that was a drive”. You’d think I’d pick these things up after almost 15 years watching. It makes me wonder what I’m actually looking at. Coloured shapes in motion, apparently. Fuzzy dice.

Speaking of superficiality, I got a little look at some of the English players during the ICC Champions Trophy and was struck as always by how peachy their complexions are. It seemed to me watching Cook that “thin skin” can go the other way, he seems to be lacking a layer that would stop you from seeing his thoughts. Pouty when things don't go his way, despite the jawline. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or not, it just seems so different to a hide like Steve Waugh’s that seemed impenetrable in either direction. 

I used to think English cricket was floppy because their summers were so mild, and while they were traipsing on village greens, every other cricket-playing nation had developed a playing style hardened in one sort of furnace heat or another. That’s past now, of course. I suggested they burn the smelly dressy gown and they did. We may need to have a look at the smelly baggy green. Ashes! Ashes! Ashes!