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.

Second test

What now?

That's Laura Csortan, former Miss Australia. Maybe I need to improve my personal grooming. On the other hand, she's the troll.

I missed most of the first session of this Test because I was writing a Heckler for the Sydney Morning Herald. The Heckler editors sent a message via the Column 8 editors last Thursday that they didn't need any more Heckles of bike paths, oversized prams, rude waitstaff and mobile phone etiquette. What they did need, urgently, or so they said, were rants about "cosmology, architecture, literature and aggressive ducks". It just so happens that cosmology is one of my chief pet hates, so I got down to it. They haven't got back to me. My fault for buying into the grumpy old persons sections of the paper I suppose.

But I'll take the segue: as much as the grumpy old persons in the Grandstand box mutter about T20 cricket, they roll over like puppies when someone plays T20 cricket in the middle of a Test match. One of the South African commentators suggested Dave Warner's performance on the first day was like "clubbing baby seals". I'll say it was also like "tickling puppies' tummies". Mine included, what's not to enjoy?

At the other end of the spectrum, and the Test, was plenty of "real Test cricket". I tried to induce a wicket this afternoon with a nap, but it was like reverse Rip Van Winkle: when I woke up, nothing had changed. I'm glad to see Nathan Lyon doing well, because like many a spinner he looks like the kind to get sand kicked in his face, maybe by someone like Shane Watson. Peter Siddle reminded me that when I am on the treadmill and I think I'm pushing myself a bit, I am so not pushing myself, but that's why we watch them and not me.

There was a lot of talk on the radio about how "digging in" was part of the South African national character. I hope they meant something about velds, because if the English love a gritty stand because it reminds them of the Blitz, what special cultural symbol of intransigence do you think of in relation to South Africa?

Distractions

I've been seeing a bit of soccer, because my new friend's a member of Sydney FC. I am constantly reminded that one of the reasons I follow cricket is because it is slow enough for me to work out what is going on, but I still have my other skills to fall back on. To wit, my take on Alessandro Del Piero:

=

+

For these and other reasons, it's a lot easier to maintain focus when he has the ball.

T20 x 2

T20 I

I only heard about the David Warner “shot that rang out across the world” on the car radio Friday morning. Switch-hitting, eh? I always thought Mickey Arthur sounded like the name of a baseball coach. I’m in the “for” camp, naturally, because I can’t resist a showman, the freakier the better, but I will be interested to see whether T20 gives the English language “switch hitting” as a viable alternative to the football-inspired “shifting the goalposts” and the… cross-country horse-riding-inspired “swapping horses midstream”.

I also heard that Jim Maxwell isn’t pleased about it, but he has been a bit cranky this season generally. He was practically apoplectic at the Gabba about a notice on the board warning spectators against pitch invasion. This kind of killjoy authoritarianism is apparently the root cause of the decline of Test cricket audiences, he was really angry. I think he’s grieving Roebuck, and maybe he feels he has to stand up for the Spirit of Cricket “for two”, but he was always the more conservative of the pair, and maybe Roebuck was in fact a moderating influence.*

*I was about to get around to asking “Whatever to happened to Glenn Mitchell?”, which I have been meaning to do all summer, and jeez, I completely missed this. Get better, Glenn, I miss you.

T20 II

Well, Aaron Finch, obviously. Even while he was batting I thought he had a strapping “New Zealand” heft about him and indeed he appears to be a delicious amalgam of all of the charms of the New Zealand cricket team, including, unexpectedly, Daniel Vettori’s glasses.

PS. I like this picture on his Wiki page. No, really, not that, it's a really good kinetic shot - that baseball aesthetic again - and I find that cricket photography rather struggles with the "action" shot.

PPS. If you read down his cricinfo page, you'll see he got chucked out of the cricket academy for not keeping his room tidy. Behave.

Padded up

Obviously I had no thoughts about the 3rd Test. Or the 4th Test. Or did I? Possible scenarios :

• No thoughts about the Tests
• So absorbed in Tests that distance of reflection impossible
• Thoughts about Tests, but too absorbed in life to put them down

Maybe a bit of all three. David Warner’s century was certainly fun, and I recommend watching David Warner bat with menfolk around, preferably with a couple of them under 15. But otherwise it was all a bit of a fizzer, non? All the runs, yes, but how many runs does one batsman really need?

People will remember the runs, but I give you some other things that have left their mark on the 2011-2012 test cricket season:

The Bupa ads.

You have to dislike an ad that is coy about what it is advertising, but the real source of irritation in the "What would you do if you met the healthier version of yourself?" scenarios for me is their emotional palette. Where is less-healthy You’s suspicion and resentment? Where is healthier You’s pity and disgust ? And if science fiction has taught me anything, it is that any story that begins with you meeting another version of yourself, ends in a frantic fight to the death. Perhaps we could have a follow-up series: young woman selves suddenly leap at each other’s throats over the cafe table, older woman selves suddenly start chasing each other around the park, middle-aged man selves suddenly stab each other in the gut.

The drinks-break Gatorade bottles

These have morphed from one enormous comic phallus wheeled out onto the ground, to two smaller ones strapped to the backs of guys on segues, both remaining however within the realm of an early Woody Allen sex comedy. I look forward to the day they jump a genre and we see the drinks carriers arrive via Gatorade-bottle-shaped Thunderball jetpacks.

This year’s KFC

Still in the realm of hospitality, there’s the 12th man who carries the drinks, and then there’s the 13th and 14th men, Mitchell Johnson and Cameron White, who have the hidden but crucial task of sitting in the dressing room Fresh Testing chicken sandwiches for the rest of the team.

PS

I woke up in the middle of the night with a crucial codicil to the last post about Michael Clarke. You can’t separate the good looks from the marketability. When the Australian public looks at Michael Clarke, they see the face that launches a thousand products, but this only because when a marketer looks at Michael Clarke, they see a model. If Clarke seems especially promiscuous from a commercial point of view, it is only because he is the captain who can be let loose on an unsuspecting television audience during normal programming time and ratings periods. They don’t show those Steve Waugh Johnnie Walker ads outside of cricket matches, you know. And the "face" of Swisse during prime time is Sonia Kruger, not Ricky Ponting. For all we know, Steve Waugh was desperate to hock himself on the market, but what product would you stand him next to and make it look better?