Names will so hurt me

Turns out there's more than one reason to dislike G. Bradley Hogg, Narrogin WA. He has a commentating gig on Grandstand and during a game - I remember not which - a batsman was hit by a ball in a sensitive area. Said Brad Hogg: *SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT ONCE KNOWN CANNOT BE UNKNOWN* "That was right on the tummy banana." Say it with me (now you've reached the point of no return): tummy banana. There are eight million penis euphemisms in the naked city; this has to be one of the worst. It will pop into your head unbidden and unwelcome and turn your smile into bile. I warned you.

Moving along from euphemisms, Mr Hogg also does a good line in malapropisms, though these are actually quite good and not grounds for dislike. He was talking about run outs he had known and the bad language that can go with them, and he said something along the lines of: "There would have been a few exquisitives." I like to think he meant sharp or finely crafted expletives, or perhaps, taking a different tack, quizzical expletives ("WTF", of course).

Later he said that Steve Smith's fidgetiness at the crease reminded him of Ricky Ponting, that they shared a lot of "incrasies". Incremental idiosyncrasies? (Philosophical question, Dylan-style: how many people can you share idiosyncrasies with before you can no longer call them idiosyncrasies?)

Other names

Like everyone else we've been calling Jim Glenn Maxwell "Big Show" in our house, because it's fun, but I've been looking for something else, because I'm contrary. Last night James Brayshaw said Maxwell "always brings the disco ball" to the game, so I'm thinking of switching to Disco. And saving Big Show for Jim. 

Still on the name thing. Last season we got into the habit of calling James Faulkner "Fuck off!", because we thought he looked like a bit of a dick, but over winter the meaning of the name changed, specifically when he told poor Ishant Sharma where to go with that 30-run over. Now he's done it again to England in Brisbane and we've warmed to old James "Fuck off" Faulkner, the scamp. He was compared to Michael Bevan after that game, but Bevan was more the slow, methodical burn, no? For me he was the Metronome rather than McGrath: the steady tick-tock that you hardly noticed until suddenly the impossible was in touching distance.

Brand names

I've kind of gotten used to BBL's Bunnings Warehouse Replay, but had to turn off the Fairfax radio coverage last night when we got a Power of Mushrooms Stat, even though the idea of a Ric Finlay on mushrooms was pretty funny.

Teed off

From last week's Sydney Morning Herald TV guide:

I think that just about covers all the bases. In the left corner, "It's a circus!" (frowny emoticon). In the right corner, "It's a circus!" (smiley emoticon).

I went to the circus on Wednesday. Sydney Sixers vs Hobart Hurricanes at the SCG. First, the setting. Bewdiful!

And not a bad game either, the Sixers turning around what looked to be a comfortable chase by the Hurricanes (getting to almost 100 of a 180 chase without losing a wicket) with a rain of wickets in the last few overs. There have been lots of good games this season, even though they all blur together a bit. There was the really high total one that was beaten and the really low total one that was defended, but don't ask me who was playing. 

I find my team allegiances fluctuate a great deal during the course of a match depending on individual players: I will support Katich or Hilfenhaus in the moment regardless of whether I want their team to win, though last night in the Scorchers v Adelaide game I was gunning for a little more pressure on Katich in the field just to see his captain cranky face. 

Conversely, no one much likes Brad Hogg in this house, with varying degrees of intensity. I think I've identified the problem. He looks like the brother of Tom Cruise who didn't get the looks but shares the disturbing enthusiasm, with an admixture of Graeme Swann annoying clown vibe.

  

Wednesday was a cricket-packed day. In the afternoon I was at the establishment formerly known as the Bradman Museum and which is now the International Cricket Hall of Fame. I wonder if that name change has something to do with evolutions in content: one of the largest sections of the museum is devoted to the Packer World Series revolution and is all praise. It's impressively up to date: a height chart on the wall had Chris Tremlett at the top of it and they had Michael Carberry's broken bat from the Sydney Test on display. There's lots of colour and movement and touch-screens and I learned more from one interactive display demonstrating the different balls and shots in a few minutes than I have in the last ten years.

Two Ads of the Ashes

 

KFC

I know people wearing a KFC buckethead haven't actually upturned an empty greasy KFC bucket with bits of batter still in the bottom on their head, but the suggestion is there and it's unpleasant. As a hat it offers inadequate sun protection and would obstruct the view of those behind. Moreover, "the lampshade on the head has come to symbolize the obnoxious drunk trying to be funny—and failing".

A good thing then that it doesn't seem to have caught on. I saw one twelve year old wearing one at the T20, and he took it off half way through the game, presumably because he felt foolishly alone.

KFC is a guilty pleasure of mine and I was up for doing a taste test of the "Australian burger" vs the "English burger". I suggested it to a visiting 9 year-old but he pointed out that the burgers at KFC are crap and indeed I have always found them disappointing.

But isn't it good Mitchell worked his way up from fresh-testing duty in the locker room?

Bet365

These have been on Fox for a while. Samuel L Jackson sells his soul in every sense of the word and beams in a betting ad from Hades.

Sydney Test

Wow, that was fast. And it seems that speed made all the difference. I'm not sure how I feel about that, as much as I lerv our man Mitchell. 

I used to think that the reason spin bowling drew me to cricket was that it was more mysterious than fast bowling. I thought I "understood" fast bowling as sheer mechanical force, whereas being able to manipulate the trajectory of a ball in the air after it left the hand, and then after it hit the ground the way Warnie did seemed frankly supernatural. I didn't understand fast bowling at all of course, because it also involves all of those things, but when it is about the difference extreme speed makes I feel like it's getting back to a blunt force thing. And I don't know how I feel about that. The physical violence makes me uneasy. I probably again underestimate the level of skill involved, both in doing it and playing it. That's something that can be said for the Morgan-Lee fracas: it really showed how much skill the professional players have in negotiating those kind of deliveries and not looking like a flailing idiot. It helps not being Piers Morgan of course.

Well done him

Kerry! I didn’t warm to Kerry O’Keeffe at first because the sounds he made made me uncomfortable (I am an easily discomfited soul). Not the Muttley wheeze-laugh, the groan-whine that comes after it. It sounded a bit dirty and it creeped me out.

The turning point came in January 2003 when Steve Waugh was working his way towards his last-ball century at the SCG. Everyone was excited, and Kerry was excited to the point that he started rapping. He started chanting the chorus of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”:

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow this opportunity comes once in a lifetime

It was excruciating in a “oh no, Dad’s rapping” way, and there was this appalled/stunned/confused silence from the rest of the box, and then it was the best thing ever. So inappropriate and so appropriate, the beauty and bravery of bringing Detroit hip hop into an Ashes Test commentary box, leapfrogging cultures and generations and classes. He wasn't even trying to be funny or clever. I was impressed.

Also impressive: the shrewd, dead-eyed biomechanical analysis. A real empiricist, all that staying up late pausing and rewinding. I understand nothing of biomechanics (see top), but I'd still love the way he'd size up players like racehorses and take them apart. It always conjured up an image of an earlier Kerry who'd spend too much time at the track, and where he came from is probably the greatest thing about Kerry. Kerry's persona is basically a loser. The loser he was/is/wasn't/isn't. It's the edge to all the playing the fool, so near and yet so far.

Kerry sayings: "Well done him", "How good?" and referring to players by their first initials and place of origin, as in "M. J. Clarke, Liverpool, NSW. Well done him".

With Roebuck gone and now Kerry, who will be the characters in the Australian commentary box?

Lookalike sweepings

I started calling Alastair Cook "Duckface" this season because he has striking bone structure like the character of the same name in Four Weddings and a Funeral, because anything with "duck" in it suits cricket glumness and because I'm mean.

I'm trying to sell the idea that Ryan Harris is the missing link no one knew existed between Anthony LaPaglia and Mathew Le Nevez, but my sounding board can't even see the LaPaglia bit which I thought was the easy sell in that equation so I don't know any more.

Would you instead be interested, as a T20 aside, in some Ben Cutting as Oliver Hudson?

Next time: the Ads of the Ashes