23 November 2016

Mints wouldn't melt in his mouth




Thank you, Faf, thank you South African cricket team, thank you, South African cricket team auxiliary staff, you have achieved what seemed to be impossible. You have generated affection for the Australian cricket team and interest in this series by sheer force of relative unlikeability.

We weren’t really feeling much about anything, or nothing positive. The lukewarm flame of the first two Tests were hardly motivation to emerge from the cold soup of rancour served as entrée to this season.

But then your transgression, petulance, disingenuity and argy-bargy snapped us to attention and sent us down the surest path to support for one’s team: desire to stick it to the opposition. Just tell me, quietly, was this whole thing staged by James Sutherland?

I was fascinated by Amla’s performance at the press conference. I don’t know how anyone can be both artless and disingenuous at the same time, but he managed it. On the one hand I wondered if he’d been hoodwinked himself, on the other hand I wondered if he was the worst of the lot, complicit in a shameless tactic to use his piety as a human shield.

The renewed interest then had a knock-on effect on the perception of the extreme makeover of the Australian team. Whereas before it might have seemed a depressing exercise in deckchair shuffling (or perhaps a new set of cheap ones from Bunnings), now I’m… gosh, could that be a little bit of excitement? Oh what the hell… excited to see how the new bugs fare.

It would be nice to think the broom has swept aside some of the alleged Australian cricket team culture, à la Molesworth:

In order to sukceed all new bugs should take a vow of silence for i year. When a senior pass they should lie down and let him walk over them. They should ofer swetes saing go on take the whole bag. They must clean shoes and think of pleasing others.

Maybe it will be more like:

Head of skool: i am head of skool captin of games martial of the squash courts custodian of shooting and garter principal of the natural history museum.
new bug: So what? i am not impressed by wot I hav seen around here. The old brigade hav been in too long. There hav got to be changes. The younger generation is knoking at the door hav some buble gum.

Perhaps a happy medium would be best, as it always is. And, under the circumstances, go easy on the buble gum.

02 October 2016

Outrageous fortune


The season of Rugby League ends tonight with a Sharknado (Sharks + Storm, boom tish), so it is a fitting time for me to reflect on my recent addition of a winter sport to my repertoire.

My team is Parramatta, a legacy of growing up in Eastwood in the 1970s. I hadn’t paid much attention to them until a few years ago when I took up with someone who also happened to be a Parramatta supporter. It was 2012 – not the best time to start paying attention, nor for that matter the years after. In 2015 they crowned their solid record of losing from a leading position by showing there was no lead so great they could not lose it. Thirty-nil up against the Cowboys (the Cowboys!) at half time, in the second half it turned out the Cowboys had just been trying to make things a bit interesting for themselves. It was a plummet so steep it broke records. Not just disappointing but champions at disappointing.

The heartbreak of supporting a losing team is well-known, but what I hadn’t counted on was the heartbreak of losing individual players. When a Parramatta player starts to look gifted, useful, or charming I hear the rumble of distant thunder. It started with Jarryd Hayne, a player so good he had to not just leave Parramatta but code and country. Chrissy Sandow, a delight to everyone but his coach: also deported. Reece Robinson, a pleasure to watch and indeed simply look at: allowed to stay in the country, but obliged to switch codes. When Phil Gould said Semi Radradra was the best winger in the competition, I held my breath and waited for the terrible sigh. With Jarryd I have now experienced the pain of seeing a player return to another team, mitigated by the belated realisation that he is much better seen than heard and that, once heard, one doesn't want to see him either.

Most of that has been about the slings and arrows of the game itself but in this season of course the levees well and truly broke.

In the Herald on Friday, Andrew Webster conducted his own review of the past season and its exceptionally high level of “sinuendo”, starting with Mitchell Pearce in January.

Since then, the off-field melodrama has degenerated into a blur of match-fixing investigations, salary cap shenanigans, players consorting with bikies and brothel owners and being pinged for drug possession, sex tapes leaked through social media and whatever Sharks bad boy Andrew Fifita might do next.

He is politely non-specific, but it won’t escape anyone’s attention that between the bookends of a Rooster and a Shark is a nest of Eels. People were saying “How much more can Parramatta take?” back in the halcyon days of Corey Norman being busted with ecstasy. They eventually stopped saying it, because a) you get bored of saying the same thing over and over again and b) their question was answered: a lot, lot more. Bring it on: champion disappointers breed champion stoics.

The irony of course is that at the same time as the off-field shit has hit the fan, Parramatta has had a really good season on the field, certainly the best since I’ve been paying attention (though that is not hard). Without the 12-point strip, Parramatta would have made it into the finals. And the numerous departures of players, whether in nominious or ignominious fashion, have allowed an influx of some remarkable talents. One of these has been so tear-inducingly prodigious and joyful that I both can’t bear to mention his name – such is the fear of the distant rumble – and can’t bear not to. The nays have it, I won’t. I couldn’t bear the responsibility.

Maxwell Henry Norman Walker


I met Max Walker once. It was at the inaugural “Festival of Cricket” at Bradman Oval. I boarded the train to Bowral, a self-styled lady reporter complete with pen, notebook and camera. I had booked myself in for a whole day of panel sessions with various people on the cricket sidelines - selectors, writers, groundskeepers, artists - and was seated alone at a table in the marquee with my notebook out when Mr Walker came and sat next to me. “Taking notes?” he said, and chatted about the “mind-map” note-taking technique he’d picked up studying architecture. He was friendly and avuncular and it was nice. I believe Dean Jones’ when he said that Max Walker could talk to literally anyone. I’m not just anyone of course (of course!), but certainly anyone enough. In the days between autographs and selfies you (I) took photos of famous people. Do people look more like their caricatures as they get older? I mean that nicely: smiley, horsey, smiley again. I might read one of his books.

24 January 2016

I feel for you

 Inspiration thin on the ground with the ODI series. The feeling that India is more concerned about being "concerned" about things than winning in Australia - that winning may actually be beneath them - is nothing new. I have followed up my annoying Boyd Rankin “Full Toss” chant of 2013 with an equally annoying and compulsive “Shikhar Dha” rap, Chaka Khan-style, whenever Shikhar Dhawan appears on screen, which is obviously a lot.

A propos, we seem to be moving into a new Golden Age of the cricket moustache, assisted but not quite accounted for by the Movember phenomenon. The great summer of Mitch of course, some fine examples on the Indian team, and the delightful vision of Jake Lehmann laying down his volume of Valéry to deliver a 6 for the Strikers. Are we seeing the Batting Moustache coming into its own after the long dominance of the Bowling Moustache?

Another question to throw out there after yesterday’s final ODI: do we now think Dhoni deliberately delays his “run” in ODIs to make things interesting for himself?

Lots of Hussle

I’m so pleased the BBL05 final is bringing us some hot Hussey-on-Hussey action. I call David Hussey “the Sexy Hussey”, which I’m sure he finds ample consolation for never wearing The Baggy Green. When you throw Hilfy into the mix on top of that, I cannot but back the Stars tonight. They have the irresistible whiff of danger about them, whereas even Dre Russ can’t overpower the strong scent of Upstanding emanating from the Thunder.

06 January 2016

Sogfest

Bogfest, even. I was at the SCG on Day 2, when the last fitful efforts at play took place. I always feel sorry for the spectators when I see these days on television, but it was surprising how tolerable it was to sit watching the rain falling on the ground for most of 6 hours. Under cover, with mild temperatures, it was almost pleasant. It's a day out, the ground is pretty, one chats, or not, and grazes constantly from a full cooler bag of delightful foodstuffs. Expecting interruptions, I brought distractions – newspaper, knitting, trashy magazine – but I didn't even get to the last one. I have a theory that driving is enjoyable because you really can't do anything else while you're doing it and there are very few opportunities for guilt-free single-tasking in this world that aren't about work. It's the freedom of having no choice, between work and leisure. Waiting in the rain was a bit like that.

Chase Girly

Another situation where I wonder "What would CLR James say?" I'm disappointed to see that the analysis of the Chris Gayle Incident has turned to the idea of "cultural (in)differences", ie. that Chris Gayle Comes from somewhere A Bit Backward. That strikes me as simply chasing one instance of extreme rudeness with another. There are more churches per square kilometre in Jamaica than any other country in the world, but we can leave the empirical arguments aside here. We know a priori that Chris Gayle's behaviour is not appropriate anywhere, because his bad boy persona is built on not behaving appropriately anywhere. If there were a planet on which Gayle's behaviour didn't skirt the limits of polite society, he would change it immediately. That's his 'brand'.

In that sense I had some sympathy for the commenter who basically said, directing his comments to Gayle's employers rather than Mel McLaughlin, 'if you play with fire, you're gonna get burned'. I have never seen Chris Gayle not be palpably flirtatious in on-field interviews with female reporters and actually wondered how he would handle himself with Mel when the situation arose. There were plenty of opportunities to coach him on manners before this. I would not want that job, but that's the one they signed up for.