Test 4 second verse: same as the first

Well I take everything back about self-administered haircuts, because Mitchell Johnson's once-over with the clippers on the No. 2 setting seems to have worked a treat (a reverse Samsonism that indeed was always a favoured explanation of Warney's success with the ball once he lost the mullet).

And I very much enjoyed the starlet-on-the-red-carpet-back-over-the-shoulder-look he threw Collingwood after he bounced him: très femme fatale. A varation actually on the steaminess he created with Stuart Broad on Day 4 at Edgbaston.

Not that I saw this live. Another of my favourite books when I was little was Marion Holland's A Big Ball of String. A boy collects pieces of string into a Big Ball and then, when he is confined to bed with a cold, sets himself up so he can basically run the world from his bed by pulling on bits of string:
It probably says a lot about me that as an idea of a Good Time—or Dream Lifestyle—this still strikes me as just about unbeatable.

Anyway, I mention it because as the English prepared for their 2nd innings I hauled the smaller TV into the bedroom and set myself up in bed with extra pillows, laptop, weekend newspaper, pen and notebook and… fell asleep almost immediately. Lizard brain prodded me awake to see Mitchell Johnson being an aeroplane and England on 5/78. Well, now you're just spoiling me.

I greet the haunted look of the crumbly English cricketer like an old friend of course. As mentioned in relation to Captain Nasser, there's something about loss—especially of the gasp-makingly embarassing sort—that suits the English like a comfy pair of corduroy slippers and a smelly old dressing-gown they really ought to chuck into the fireplace but can't quite let go of.

Personally, I feel "Burn the smelly dressing gown" represents an improvement on the desperately vague homilies the English were getting from other sources:

Bowling coach Ottis Gibson: "Stand up as Men."
Everyone's coach Greg Matthews:
1. "Stand up."
2. "Have a look at the badge on your shirts."
3. "Get into it."

(I do love it though when Greg puts on his glasses, a thought Stuart MacGill echoed last night: he is transformed in the most unlikely fashion from haggard old ocker into the local pastor or headmaster.)

Meh

I saw my doctor yesterday (coincidence, not to put my nose back into joint) and she'd been asking people what they did once they realised Australia were going to lose (by which she meant when they got to around 7-down, not several days ago), for example whether they'd turned off the telly and gone to bed at that point. Since in cricket years I am only 10-and-a-half years old, part of me is filled with round-eyed incomprehension at tales of such behaviour:

Ten-year-old: "Dad, why are those people walking away? The game's still going isn't it?"
Dad: "Judge them not harshly, my child [my Dad being… oooh, Gandalf?], it is simply that they have already seen too much, and are protecting what remains of their heathen eyeballs from the retina-searing glare of Mr Flintoff's holiness."

The doctor herself said that once she knew the cause was lost she started gunning for Freddy to get a 6-fer and "wished he was on our team", which were bold words because she knows me pretty well and I was within biting range.

Personally, I had someone bring me the cat to hold and proceeded to sledge Graeme Swann: "Oh my God you have such a BAD HAIRCUT! Not even the BALLS to be a proper MULLET!" I know, harsh.

It's been a really draining game. I'm a wreck. As Mums say, someone's a bit overtired from too many late nights and getting a bit overexcited (ewwww).

Things

Ceci n'est pas une réception

In a game of many catches that weren't, my favourite was Billy Doctrove's non-take of the new ball late on Day 4. Was the problem his use of upwardly cupped hands? Downwardly cupped hands? No: splayed arms as the ball lobbed into the middle of his chest and dropped to the ground. It was like kindy, or, to be honest, a bit like how I might try to catch a ball. And as the SBS Circus people (who have been very kind to me) said, continuing the kindy theme, when Anderson received the now-scuffed object, he looked like "a kid whose new toy is whacked with a mash hammer".

SBS Team Pt 2

When I was really only 10-and-a-half years old, my favourite book ever was The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, with illustrations by Jules Feiffer. Which is probably why Greg Matthews' craggy raucousness these past couple of days has put me in mind of this:


The figure on the right is the Awful Dynne, and the boyish figure on the left is obviously Damien Martyn, though to be fair Damien has usually looked more entertained than this by goings-on. That he has managed to do so while barely moving his face has become a source of ongoing fascination for me. It's ridiculous to suggest he's been botoxed, but he does manage to channel all the expression in his face through just his eyes, the smallest of changes to his mouth shape and maybe the odd eyebrow lift, leaving vast expanses of facial acreage smooth and pretty and untouched. It's mesmerising.

This leaves Stuart MacGill, whose boxy weirdness, all angles, means he can only be the Dodecahedron (I think I even see some of his bowling action here):


PS.

I'm firmly of the opinion that an against-all-odds result like Cardiff is way more uplifting/downcasting than a straightforward win/loss like Lord's, and that the pressure will now be on England not to get prematurely dizzy and "finish the job", while Australia, and Mitchell Johnson in particular, can take some heart from a good go in the second innings, and let the pissed-offness focus their minds. That's my story anyway.

And is it my imagination, or are Ricky Pontings' fleshier parts (figuratively speaking) taking on a certain Steve Waugh gristle? That's a good thing. Well may everyone bang on about missing Warne and McGrath (and let's be clear, it's US who miss or don't miss Warne and McGrath, not the team, I don't think sportspeople have room for things like "missing"), but the people I wanted to see coming out of the sheds to stare down that second innings were Bevan and Waugh. Yes yes, wrong form of the game for Bevan, but still. Anyhoo, bring on Edgbaston, but not before I get some sleep.

The Go-To Girl

Because my technical insight into cricket is approximately nil, my appreciation of the game is rather like a pre-Modern worldview that relies on resemblances, resonances and random conjunctions to work out what’s going on. That’s my way of explaining my love of a lookalike.

So, I’ve worked out, probably long after everyone else, the exact element in Hauritz’s bowling action that gives the “girly” impression. It’s that flared left hand as he releases the ball:


It's the full-body equivalent of cocking a pinky finger when lifting a teacup to your mouth, and when it comes to flared hands, these people got there first:

But the Charleston connection was really worth pursuing. I mean, look at this:




Who'da thunk it? Ironically here it’s everything but the left hand that matches, but it made me realise that it’s also the pigeon toes and general Charlestonesque gawkiness that’s part of the overall effect of Hauritz's action. Mind you, a spinner's action is not always pretty: Stuart Magill used to look like a crow with a broken wing trying to take off.

I feel for Hauritz: it’s a game where physiognomy counts for a lot (how much does the squareness of Kumble’s jaw enter into perceptions of his honourable character? not to mention Flintoff, about whom more another time), and in an unusually hairy team he looks like he doesn’t shave yet, and amidst an unusually (for an Australian cricket team) good-looking lot, he’s rather plain—a man-child without being a boy-wonder.

But can he Charleston, or what?

Day 3 Cricket love

Briefly - Greg Matthews on public displays of affection in his time: "Marsh was too big to get your arms around and Greg Chappell wasn't worth the climb."

Reverse sweep

So it’s going to be like that, is it? Go on then, have your excitement. Just don’t start making a habit of it.

Gawd, how the English love a gritty stand, they get all this race-memory flashback to the Blitz. I suppose you can’t expect them to be stirred to full-throated identification with, say, sulkiness, hopelessness or please-don’t-look-at-me-I’m-not-actually-here-ness. Because that's what it was all about on Day 4, traumatisation to the point of dissociative personality disorder, pain so deep they actually seemed to be floating outside of their own bodies and looking down on themselves. “What, this old thing?” “Oh, that Ashes!”

And every ad break there was Ricky Ponting: “Tired? Stressed?…”

Some highlights from the previous few days...

Cricket Love

Haddin & North were wonderfully cuddly, but the stand-out for me was Hussey stroking Johnson’s face when he got I think Flintoff out. Oh my. Whoever is doing the slo-mo visuals at SBS/BBC knows their stuff. Cannot of course find a photo or video of it, because by contrast cricket photographers and other highlights-package people have their priorities totally wrong.

Lengthening shadows

At about the exact same time a friend texted me with “Doesn’t anybody in the Aus team shave anymore?” I was admiring Katich’s 5+ o’clock shadow as he came on to bowl. “Bristling” is just the vibe you want in a cricketer.

Geoffrey Boycott

I have a cricket book called The Strangers’ Gallery: Some foreign views of English Cricket (London: Lemon Tree Press, 1974), and in a piece called “Star Gazing”, purple-hued and comma-loving US convert Marvin Cohen says of Geoffrey Boycott:

You’re in the classical tradition, our nation’s true stylist. I see the classical age of the thirties, in the golden wonder of your form. Peerless! Today is not decadent. In you, old stability fortifies us. You’re an anachronism. Clean up the rot, of our tawdry age. Purge us. Restore our noble heritage. Boycott the present. Live, our only lineage.

Don’t you worry Martin, Geoffrey’s on it. The problem with the English cricket team? Too many support staff—would you believe there are people who carry the players’ luggage—and too many drinks breaks. Also: jewellery, natty socks—serious question marks.

And if you want a vivid definition of “old-fashioned test cricket”, here’s GB’s thoughts around the the time Australia were picking off the middle order on Day 5 in a very satisfying manner:

It’s just old-fashioned test cricket: one team getting on top of another team and… (a pause as the “producer” part of Boycott’s brain starts signalling frantically, but fruitlessly) … grinding them down.

To taste the sweet I face the pain

SBS has been doing little vox pops with the Australian cricket team between sessions, including one where they were asked about what motivational music they listened to. Amidst a lot of AC/DC, Mötley Crüe and “Eye of the Tiger”, was Shane Watson saying that “despite what you might think” his tastes would be, he was fond of a Whitney Houston song, “One Moment in Time”. No really, he said, you have to listen to the lyrics. No really YOU Shane Watson: Whitney Houston is exactly what I would have expected from you and those lyrics are really terrible.

Someone who I have now worked out is James Hopes declared cheerily that Celine Dion does it for him. He seemed so ugly and good-natured that I found this charming. Later when asked to name a food item like Shane Warne’s toasted cheese sandwiches that keeps him going during a Test match, he answered: “My X-box.”


The SBS team

Greg Matthews had me hooting on Day 2 when he started earnestly advising Monty Panesar through the television screen. It was sort of a reversal of when Miss Patricia on Romper Room would get out the magic mirror and say “… and I can see Timmy, and Catherine…” and she knew she couldn’t but the kids around the nation didn't. He finished his first point with a “my friend” that sounded just like Steve Vizard’s shonky Persian carpet seller on Full Frontal.

I actually kind of love GM's gaucheness and the way you feel he only has one “gear”. Like he’d be exactly the same and say exactly the same thing wherever he was, whoever he was talking to, no adjustments for audience knowledge, register, context, like a little toy figure you wind up and put down on different surfaces and it just keeps walking and making noises in its own way. He’s what the fug girls would call “secretly awesome”.

Damien Martyn: the word I think of is “fey”, in the sense (now I actually look at a dictionary) of “otherwordly” rather than “about to die”. In my head the word “fey” also had faint overtones of coyness/flirtatiousness, probably because I think the only time I have known someone to actually use the word is JFK to describe Jacqueline. It’s the eye thing and the soft-spokenness that’s almost like one of those devices to make people lean closer to hear you.

I’m already quite liking rather than just “not being bothered by” Stuart Magill.


Great words, bad, naughty reality

On Day 2 when Stuart Broad was not getting out Aggers said he had “all his father’s cussedness”. In the end cussedness was perhaps the word of the 1st test.

Philosophers sometimes have to think of a word to describe the way reality has a certain resistance to one’s expectations, desires, ideas, etc., indeed this is almost its defining quality. There are terms like “facticity”, “refractoriness”, Peirce’s “secondness”... Cussedness is all these things with the addition of “being determinedly and deliberately so” (like Keating’s “recalcitrance”) and “causing you to use bad language”. When the dictionary gives the second meaning of “cussed” as “cursed”, I understand it in the very worldly sense of “is sworn at”.

Test 1 Day 1 Twitter

First session

First word after first ball: "Tame". But I was ashamed of myself for saying it.

Superstition at the start: ale or lager more auspicious for Australian victory? I'm a lager girl, but it IS winter and the pale ale seems to speak to me when I look in the fridge. After first taking the lager I actually run back to the fridge to swap it for the ale before the first ball. TV or radio commentary? Choice inhibited because the cat desperately anchors me to the spot as soon as I sit down, but I move to the other TV after a bit so I can work at the kitchen table while watching and the radio pairings are a treat: Blofeld & Chapell! Aggers and Boycott! Gillespie at lunch! Delightful.

Hilfenhaus looked more dangerous from the start, though both he and Johnson improved after the first few overs. And I had heard Johnson needs time to warm up.

Did you see the Hilfenhaus's Warney-like Come on! when he got the breakthrough?

Did you see the smile on Johnson's face when he got his first wicket? I've decided Mitchell Johnson looks a little bit like Jamie-Lee Curtis.

Poor Bopara, almost wished him luck compared to the odious Pietersen. I like an Anglo-Indian. Remember that Mark Butcher innings? But now I can't find any evidence that Mark Butcher is Anglo-Indian and it seems rude to press the point. And am I suggesting he is any less English? Erk, digging holes here.

Second session

I do love the way Bloers talks about a bowler, he used to wax very fully over Brett Lee and for that I am sorry Lee is not in. But he's doing a good number on Hilfenhaus. They always come across like El Caballo Blanco show ponies.

Damien Martyn has an extraordinary wide/wild-eyed look in the SBS commentary studio, a bit psychedelic, reminds me of a ventriloquist's dummy. So is Stuart or Greg the ventriloquist? I'll be watching to see if one of them ostentatiously takes a drink of water. The small screen demeanours of people you normally watch making big movements on a big stage are so fascinating—Stuart Clark for example has some kind of eye squint/tic you cant stop watching once you notice it. Makes him even more endearing. Greg Matthews, here and now, looks rough as guts. He's so uncool I put him beyond good or bad a long time ago. Stuart Magill isn't bothering me, I'll probably really like him by the end of the series.

Third session

Ricky Ponting says: "Every day I need to become healthier and more energetic." Isn't there an upper limit to that trend? Surely.

Dammit, again NOT PIETERSEN.

Finally Pietersen, and so to bed.