Forget Hotspot, what is going on with Short Leg?

More on that later.

Nigel Llong's decision? It seemed to be due to misplaced and exaggerated deference to Snicko and the on-field umpire. Llong was thrown by Snicko not backing up the suggestion of Hotspot, creating a doubt in his mind, the benefit of which he gave to the on-field umpire/Lyon. It shouldn't have happened: Snicko is more likely to give a false negative due to ambient noise than Hotspot is likely to give a false positive. On top of that, it's not clear that Llong should have even referred to Snicko after the positive reading of Hotspot: the directive of the ICC for the 2013/2014 Ashes tour was that Snicko should only be consulted if Hotspot shows no mark. That was then, I don't know what the directive is now. 

As I write someone from the New Zealand team is being ridiculously mild-mannered about the whole thing with Chris Rogers: no wonder their colour was beige.

Sexing the cherry

I find it hard to shake the impression the pink ball has something to do with Jane McGrath, so entrenched are those associations by now. In that respect, Pink Lady might come into its own as a suggested nickname, but otherwise I favour "gum ball", because it doesn't look like a colour that occurs in nature to me, or not on a fruit in any case.

Judi

Is doing well as both school boy and school master. He has a haughty way of raising his head and looking down his nose as a way of asking the question of the bowler when a review is in the offing, and also does a good lip purse.

Lookalike time

My take on Short Leg?

Mo Jo

Mitch casts a spell.

Mitchell Johnson's retirement lets me pick up exactly where I left off last time, when I marvelled at his talents as a model. Now I'm being invited to step back and appraise his contribution as a whole, I'm just going to say the same thing writ large: I think I'll remember Mitchell Johnson as the only player to have brought genuine glamour to the team since Shane Warne. It's not the same thing as good looks, although I am partial to a dimple. It's being able to create a sort of haze that draws and holds the eyes, that casts a spell over the onlooker, the spectator, the batsman.

As with Warnie, the appreciation of the glamour is mixed with ambivalence. In Warnie's case it had to do with reservations about Warnie the person, or so I am told. In Johnson's case, it was the old "mercurial" flicker. It was one of the ways he made you watch him – you'd hold your breath during his run-up and scrutinise the release, the trajectory, trying to work out which Mitch had turned up that day. Warnie had the hide of a rhinoceros, whatever was happening on or off the field, he banished question marks from your mind as he did from his own. Mitchell was skittish like a racing horse and so visibly tormented when things weren't going well. I ranked him no.1 in the "inner turmoil" (and outer turmoil) stakes during a bad patch in 2011 . The fact that he seemed to be one of the nicest people on earth just made it more agonising, but when it all came together... ahhh. Pure joy, great theatre.

I liked watching him bat almost more than watching him bowl, and I liked watching him bat almost more than watching anyone else bat - relaxed, clean, handsome. I just liked watching him.

Johnson made his debut on the Test team the summer after Warnie left. Who will be the next homme fatal?

Dirk Nannes

... has dropped rather on my "likeability" meter. I didn't hear his comment that the Australian team not rushing after Taylor to congratulate him was "horrendous" behaviour, I only heard his follow-up when he said it was trivial "in itself" but significant against a background of Australian lack of sportsmanship. The problem with taking "backgrounds" into account is that's also how prejudice works, and bad relationships for that matter. You see someone's actions only through the lens of what you already think and expect of them, and so that's all you see. In any case, whether he is right or wrong, he is certainly not saying anything new, which is why I turned off the radio when they started reading out love letters from listeners saying how glad they were that "someone" had "finally" said what he said. "Everyone" has "always" said what he said.

Mixed messages

All the ads during the cricket are for hardware stores except for the ad for the Windies test series that says don't be the guy at the hardware store.

The WACA

(It feels a bit awkward to post at the same time as the unfolding events in Paris, but after a certain amount of time glued to the news it starts to feel a bit voyeuristic and there's nothing more to be gained, for the time being anyway. I decided I was better employed in my role as a cricket voyeur.)

Davey Warner after 20 years at the WACA crease.

You asked for a Test series, you got the Australian Batsmen Achieve their Personal Goals show. Rumour has it New Zealand actually won the toss but McCullum said to Smith “No, no, after you.”

When the New Zealanders finally got a second wicket at the end of the day, for a moment it looked it could have been a no-ball. When the foot landed safely behind the line I said “Oh, thank God” out loud and Mr Batsy thought this was probably echoing the thoughts of Usman Khawaja.

New (or newish) Grandstand voices

Dirk Nannes is settling in nicely as one of the few ex-cricketer “expert” commentators on Grandstand not to be basically cranky (Mr Batsy’s wail of “Oh no, it’s Terry Alderman” yesterday could be heard from the other end of the house). I think it’s because he never represented Australia at Test level. Once you get that cap, it leave a mark, there will always be residual wounds, knots and itches and how you work those out (whether you work those out) will determine what kind of commentator you will be. Some carry them on their shoulders and are cranks (Alderman, Boycott, Lawson), some wear them like a red nose and are clowns (O’Keeffe, Fleming). The TV ones seem more well-adjusted on the whole than the radio ones, presumably because (1) they rub shoulders with other ex-players, a group therapy that takes the edge off and means no one can carry the “No one understands” chip or put up the “I know better than anyone else” hand; (2) they have usually had more successful careers; (3) their target audience contains fewer grumpy old men.

Dirk is so easygoing and likeable that he managed to use the expression “ipso facto” yesterday and still sound like he was down at the pub. That’s a trick Ed Cowan can only dream of.

Simon Katich. What can I say? My old flatmate gave the definitive verdict on Simon Katich on another reality show over six years ago: “He’s very Straight, isn’t he?” Nothing has changed. It seems an iceman on the field is a wooden man in the commentary box. The thrill of the hawk-eyed menace on the field ultimately relies on an certain internal stillness and rigidity of focus, and that’s what comes out on air. “You’d never see this field placing on the old WACA” was his idée fixe yesterday, said alas more times than it needed to be. (I still love you, Kat.)

This summer’s ads

Doesn’t Mitchell Johnson make it look easy in the protein powder ad? Not the lifting weights, the being on camera. Sportspeople are generally awful as models and actors but the camera loves him and he seems completely at home. Contrast Steve Smith in the Commonwealth Bank ad trying to be himself and make small talk. It’s like a bad date.

Star Spangled manner

From the Cricket All Stars Twitter feed: "Shane Warne, sachin tendulkar and Shaun Pollock". I guess that second guy is just some New Yorker getting a selfie.

I visited the cricinfo site this afternoon to check whether, as I suspected, the New Zealand team were a little less good-looking than in previous years, further accounting for the general lack of frisson in Brisbane. It’s a bit hard to tell from the official head shots, with their traditional anti-aesthetic. I had not noticed that Brownlie is a startled melange of Michael Slater and Damien Martyn. Complete with bed head (I hope it's bed head).

Anyway, I stumbled on the fact that the Cricket All Stars game was going on in Houston, Texas, so I turned on the television and boy, I was talking about good-old-days nostalgia, no lack of frisson in Houston. Such incredible fun, even before getting to the big guns got I warm and runny over Wasim Akram! Marais Erasmus! A miked-up Sehwag singing a little Indian song! Pollock winking! Fun, fizz, legends with the friendly sheen of middle age and the froth of T20. Who says Test cricket isn't boring? I know, I know, it’s too rich a mix: all smiles, zero tension and foie gras on truffle on fillet steak on duck-fat potatoes… not every day can be a holiday in the South-West of France. Really you need some edge for true frisson, but that just brings us back to the fact that the Gabba Test had no edge either.

The All Stars bowling attacks on both sides was naturally spinner-heavy, naturally heavy full stop, Warnie looks to have lowered his centre of gravity somewhat to be match-fit. But they hit plenty of sixes for a bunch of oldies, and apparently those Minute Maid Park sixes are well over 100 metres.

I never reported back on my visit to Lords, which was great right up to the very end, when the hitherto likeable tour guide hoped the whole thing “hadn’t been too boring for the ladies”. This despite the fact that I had known THE ANSWERS TO ALL THE QUESTIONS, starting with the fact that the first international cricket match was between the US and Canada in the 1850s.

You know you're in America when an 8-year old in the crowd answers the question “What got you into cricket?” with “Cricket keeps you energised… " Then – "You’re a Brian Lara fan?" – “Yes, ma’am". Bless, America.

Brief note x 2

One-sided games are only fun if it is us crushing England (anyone crushing England). Otherwise I find it a but depressing (that was a typo but SEE WHAT I DID THERE?). We are reminded once again that New Zealand are much better one-day cricket players than first-class cricket players, and it has nothing to do with sledging or not sledging. One of the Channel 9 commentators said it was like the bowlers "were bowling the highlights reel".

If you Google Image "one-sided", you get a lot of stuff about one-sided relationships and a little bit - this is a warning - about "one-sided" underpants for men. I have resisted poaching a picture of those as a header. Sort of a warning, sort of an irresistible temptation if you're anything like me. But you may regret it. But now you'll have to look.

Modestly onwards

All I know about this series is:

1. Burns and Khawaja are in the squad. 

I have seen this headline with a helpfully illustrative photo 4 or 5 times over the last week or so. I do not know how it can be a headline story that many times, but there it is. I wish them well.

2. McCullum and Smith: Worst. Trashtalkers. Ever.

McCullum: Rowr.
Warner: Grr.
McCullum: Rowr: the Sequel.
Smith: Um, grr.

This also seems to have been fleshed out into the limpest of "sagas". They're reaching, aren't they? I'm surprised no one has waved Chris Cairns under McCullum's nose, but that would just be rude, and these guys just aren't. Which is why it all seems very pumped up.

And Judi, Judi, Judi*, YOUR HAIR.

I've always thought a lot less happens in sport than there is media space to fill, so pretty much anything will do as a scoop. I look forward to something happening today, though I have also started wondering whether sport is like music: what was playing during your formative years always has a special intensity that later stuff won't ever live up to. You start going "it's not like it was before, they all look the same..." I've now been watching for long enough to have a "golden age" to look back on. It's an optical illusion, newness and shininess is in the eye of the beholder, but I suspect I'm going to have to accept a certain loss of magic.

* Steve Smith = Judi Dench IS A THING. If Ramiz Raja is with you, you are at the right party.