Which one will die?

There was a sharp intake of breath in the loungeroom last week on reading that Simon Katich will be a contestant on Celebrity Masterchef. Oh stop it. Stop that right now. How much can a koala bear?

I’ve had a bit of a thing for Mr Katich ("S. M. Katich", as K. J. O’Keeffe would say) for a while, which Thing was cemented by his pleasing display of hirsuteness as Mr February in the McGrath Foundation "I Only Buy It for the Charity" Men Of Cricket Calendar, which Hirsuteness (yes, I can keep this up all day) was also clearly appreciated by the ladies in attendance at this year’s Allan Border Medal, who voted him best in the calendar show, pipping even Mr Dimples Mitch Johnson to the post.

But his on-field persona is about as far from the domestic sphere as you can get, if "trained assassin" is as far from the domestic sphere as you can get. In another one of those vox pops they had on SBS during the (snif) Ashes, the players were asked what was the funniest thing they had ever read about themselves, and Katich referred to a piece that described the way he watched the ball when batting: instead of going for the usual "like a hawk", it said "like he wants to stab it".

Not just balls, either: on at least a couple of occasions, Greg Matthews, doing run-downs on Australian "body-language" in the field, summed up Katich’s presence as "just wants to kill ya". "Look up and there's the Kat at silly point, looking like he wants to kill ya."

Then there was that off-field throttle incident... My cricket friend Sue says Katich has something called "Balkan Haut" (Sp? She pronounced it "hort", and I’ve interpreted it as the French haut = "high", but given the lack of evidence on the interwebs I’m starting to wonder if she actually said "Balkan Hawk"...). When she heard about the Katich-Clarke altercation, she was all "well, of course, it’s the Balkan Haut", which is apparently a cultural trait that manifests itself as a sort of imperious... stabbiness.

So how would that translate in Celebrity Masterchef terms? Virtuoso knife skills? Razor-shaved garlic à la Goodfellas? Stupendous pressed "pork"-belly dish that is then revealed to be fillet o' George Calombaris?

On top of it all, I read today in the Herald’s food section that Simon Katich has no sense of smell! Curiouser and curiouser. What an unexpected bundle of properties this man is turning out to be. It just shows that you can't tell everything about a person from staring at them for days and days while they play cricket. Who knew?

It says on the Celebrity Masterchef site that Katich is in Heat 4 with Wendy Harmer and Alex Perry. Turn it up, I say! Also whenever you try to click on or message Katich on the site you are directed to Eamon Sullivan. My money is on Eamon or Alex to be the first to "go"...

Winners but still losers. OK?

For a while there last night I thought the season had come full circle and I was going to have to suffer another Cardiff, i.e. long-running spate of prime English hopelessness expunged by late rally pulled out of collective arse (there’s a headline for you). Which would have set a tone for the future that… oooh, how would you describe it, ah yes, thank you very much James Anderson, "flattered" the winners.

But a couple of good wobbles in England's chase were a sufficiently convincing imitation of themselves to serve as a cautionary note to would-be amnesiacs.

I am getting a little concerned that meringue-based Continental biscuits are causing problems rather than solving - or salving - them. Nevertheless, I give you the James Hopes Memorial Brutti Ma Buoni biscuits:

(One of those wee figures on the screen is indeed Hopes)

Yes, it was pretty civilised here last night. Or that's my story as long as teapot mike is turned down.

Brief Cricket Love

Did you see Dorian Gray presenting the man-of the match award to Ricky Ponting this morning (Sydney time)?

He was described as a "NatWest private customer", presumably the winner of a competition or just the beneficiary of a bit of nepotism. To give an idea of the look, he might have been Stuart Broad's sister. Excellent contrast with hatful-o'-puppy-dog-tails Ponting.

Yes, but where's the biscuit?

I am not at all above one-day cricket, one of my most treasured possessions is my videotape of the whole 2nd innings of the second semi-final of Australia vs. South Africa in the 1999 World Cup, with which I have lured more than one unsuspecting (or suspecting, I suspect) male into my salon, and inflicted it on several nonplussed friends as I walked and talked them through the many highlights — Warney’s Gattingesque ball to Herschelle and hyperventilation after 3 quick wickets to bring Australia back into the game and himself back to cricket, the hair-raising last few overs with Reiffel piffing a boundary catch over the rope for a terrible 6, several near-run outs and of course Fleming’s dry-mouth last over and ten-pin underarm strike while Klusener and Donald’s brains exploded like fireworks and Hansie loomed in the back of the South African viewing area like Darth Vader.

What a night THAT was... but this week, Life got in the way of seeing any of the first match on Friday and Work has been pressing ever since, though the latter did mean I was up to see all of the second match out of the corner of my eye.

It’s true there now seems something a bit ungainly about the one-day form: neither the slow-down-your-biorythms-we’re-in-for-the-long-haul commitment of the Test nor the fasten-your-seat-belts-it's-going-to-be-a-bumpy-night hoo-ha of 20/20, it’s not “just right” à la Goldilocks but rather... oh, I don’t know, à la Hamlet. I won’t write it off just yet. I hate doing what everyone else is doing and everything cricket is obviously clouded by post-Ashes loss ennui.

I missed the old SBS panel and seeing the commentators at the ground, and I couldn’t pick the voice of the Australian in the box... a little bit Taylorish, but not.* I loved watching Johnson bat and I am waiting for Hopes to do something splendid so I can pronounce him brutti ma buoni and whip up a batch of the Italian biscuits of the same name. May as well continue a theme.

* It's Nostril Boy Mark Waugh, isn't it?

O Captain! My Captain!

(Ricky from the Useful Box archives, but obviously fitting now.)

A couple of days ago Terry Jenner called for Ricky’s head and waxed lyrical about Michael Clarke’s foreman material: “I was in England a month”, he said, (and) “Every press conference Michael Clarke did was superb.” “He’s never tired, never drained, never fatigued.”

Terry, you old fool. This is like being taken in by the preternatural resilience and sphericality of a pair of fake boobs. Look, good on Clarke for being such an enthusiastic study of Media Grooming 101 and thus relieving the rest of the team from what must be a very tedious chore for them, but his press performances are so bland and cliché-spacked he simply shifts the burden of tedium onto the rest of us.

I’m a Romantic: I have a soft spot for a flaw, even the odd wreck, and Ricky cemented his place in my heart when he disgraced himself at the Bourbon & Beefsteak in January ‘99 during my very first Summer of Cricket. That black eye was perfect, cartoon-like, and Ricky in general was — is — such a Ginger Meggs/Dennis the Menace-style figure, all scraped knees and pugnaciousness, that frowny look on his face at the crease like he might be busted any moment for stealing apples or breaking windows. Batting and bowling, his movements were all free, loose and boyish, I loved watching him. His fielding is still all boy but I think his batting body has matured and tightened up: the last time I saw him live he put me in mind of a little flamenco dancer the way he held his torso still and erect in a pose after a stroke.

Which brings us to Ricky's "smouldering" line in Cricket Love that I mentioned a couple of posts back. It’s already visible in the picture of Cricket Sad above, but this is more particularly what I had in mind:

I'm guessing this was taken during some after-match presentations, and there's nothing that's not wonderful here. A balm for the soul in these troubled times.

PS. So I guess I'm saying why I'll always love Ricky, sentimental old fool that I am, though not the same kind of old fool as TJ, and that I won't go out for Pup when I have Pig-Dog at home.

Fiddly while Rome burns

Or: When the going gets tough... the tough make complicated French biscuits.


For all the zen talk, I was thoroughly gloomed Saturday night and badly needed to split focus. Enter the macaron, a meringue biscuit with cult-like status, whose preparation attracts so much earnest discussion that in my mind it is now known as "palaver" biscuit. I am a sucker for insanely fiddly food items at the best of times, and these were the worst.

It wasn't enough alas to see me through the night. By tea on Saturday I was back on the couch, only instead of therapy I was having poison poured into my ear, à la King Hamlet. Reader, it broke me. I had to abandon play at 2am, bitterly conceding that the English had not only beaten Australia - that was ages ago - but me. It was a shell of a woman who yesterday sandwiched wee pink bikkies together with chocolate ganache.

Say die

It got very quiet on the couch last night. 10-and-a-half-year old cricket fan is not only at a sensitive age, but is still getting used to this "failure" part of the game. Ouchy. It seemed important to see it through, so see it through I did, and it did feel a bit like a long lesson in pain and all its varieties and stages.

Mostly it felt like homesickness. There came a point where I had to abandon the radio commentary - there were just too many English voices humming with satisfaction (entirely understandably) and Phil Tufnell's bedtime stories were no longer soothing but lonely-making. I badly wanted the company of "my" team: where's Kerry? Where's Flemo and Roey and Henry? I want my mum! Mike Holding was a blessed focal point of deadpan rectitude, he wasn't having a bar of anything and this was a great source of comfort.

When we took to the field again I pulled back and only half watched for a while because I couldn't bear being party to any hustle-bustle "positive" body language. Not just because of emotional weariness, but... well actually yes, emotional weariness, but of a more general kind, from the cumulative effect of too many "just gotta back ourselves"/"never say die" lines trotted out in the last 12 months. In my mind's eye it is Clarke who says this and to his credit Ponting has seemed to be evolving past it.

A few years ago New Zealand had a really good tour here and I thought they made great use of the freedom and invulnerability that comes from accepting the possibility - likelihood even - of loss. It's a virtue born of necessity of course, but Australia has suffered, and lost, from the lack of it, and I think the best Australia can do here is to make that peace and psyche out the English with their zen calm. That was and is the course I took/am taking in any case.

And bless Katich. By the end of the day/night I was chuckling out loud at his "fast bowler" face and tongue-poking stuck on top of his left-arm Chinamen.

Test 5 Day 1 Expectoration

I have a miserable sneezy cold so I peered at the first day of this Test through a cloud of tissues and puffy eyes.

Drop dead diva

I have found in my heart a seam of viciousness wishing ill on Freddie's last test. I don't know, I'm just over it: it's not all about you, Mr F.

Having arranged myself on the sofa under a granny blanket with my eyes closed and the soothing voice of Phil Tufnell in the radio ear piece, I dozed through Matt Prior's entire innings, but rallied to see Flintoff speared by Johnson. It was spooky: I opened my eyes, turned my head to face the teev and Flintoff swished and was caught. Extremely satisfying for me, but he was absolutely, sputteringly livid – the rage (and the shot?) of a man who has fatally come to believe his own hype. It seems the problem may not be that he is a Flintoff impostor but that au contraire he believes rather too much that he is Andrew Flintoff.

Warney and me: hope after all?

My fantasies of conversing with Warney never quite surmount the hurdle of realism and so tend to be extremely awkward, but I do now detect some common ground in our love of a lookalike. I thought his get of Vince Vaughn for Jonathan Trott was good work, though his specification of Vince Vaughn "as Jeremy Grey in the film the Wedding Crashers" made me feel a bit sad for how much hotel cable television he has watched in his life.

Vince Vaughn is certainly a better get than my own hazy (sneezy) thoughts of Trott as a vague morph between Simon Taufel and Jacques Kallis. The latter was probably only because Trott was having a go at his fingernails the likes of which I haven't seen since high school and Jacques Kallis is practically interchangeable in my mind with Jaws from Moonraker.

Watson: why?

My only really topical mutter over the past 10 days has been "like I care" to some further article about oh, something about Shane Watson's experience of batting I didn't get more than a couple of sentences into because the man can't seem to think without moving his lips.

All well and good with the batting, but so incredible did it seem that Ponting would call upon him to bowl towards the end of yesterday that when he was quite visibly warming up on the field Christopher Martin-Jenkins expressly discounted the connection between him "doing some violent exercises" and the obvious interpretation, explaining them as "just for the pleasure of giving his body a stretch".

Oh, were it the case. Can anyone match him for momentum-busting? Has any greater gift to the opposing side ever been wheeled out? He is all Trojan Horse with no Greeks. I have scribbled down from the commentators' remarks once his spell commenced: "his contribution with the ball has been generous", "cheap runs", "Trott looks more composed, is growing in confidence", and a shot from Broad – Broad – was so dismissive it was described as "just Go Away". Oh, again, were it the case.

My brain was at breaking point when Ponting persisted with him after the new ball became available. If he'd kept it up for one more over I don't think I would have been able to look at RP for some time and it was damn lucky Siddle redeemed things somewhat. A learned colleague of mine has described Ponting's failing as a captain as a lack of a sense of rhythm, which is clear enough from his acting, but this is insane. Was it the "over rate" thing again? Is Watson going out with his sister? Does he have a sister?

Ricky, please: Socrates also had a snub nose, it does not mean you have to be obtuse.

Get your leather on*

* As spake in Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Zero" which SBS has started playing during the cricket, an improvement on the previous dire anthems.

So much Cricket Love, so little time.

When a Short Batsman Loves a Tall Bowler

At the end of the Headingley test, Simon "Robocop" Katich showed he's not above a cuddle after all and Mitchell Johnson that he was worth the climb.

Katich is in fact only 7cm shorter than Johnson (1.82 m to Johnson's 1.89), but the scene reminded me of this one from the Cricket Love Archive between the 1.78 m Ricky Ponting and the 1.95 m Glenn McGrath (probably from the last Ashes in England, no later than August 2005 in any case).

Ricky actually does an excellent line in a more smouldering form of cricket love apart from the happy puppy style here, but that will have to be for another time.

And just to show that natura non facit saltus but that Katich most certainly does, here's a segue from the archive between the two scenes:

Happy day!

They call me naughty Lola

(Action Images 21/12/2008)

So, the win was good, though I think we certainly were spoilt with that first innings and second innings start, because when we didn't get the next 5 wickets in, say, half an hour, it was all pouting in the loungeroom, like, OMG are you serious? Borring! Helloo?

A highlight for me was the after-match presentations when the predictable sniggers at Billy "Chicken Man" Bowden gave way to shrieks of delight as Asad Rauf sidled up to the podium. The only way I can describe the look is to stress that he was wearing not sunnies but shades and that his clothes were, I strongly suspect, threads.

It was a mere formality to confirm that he hailed from the land of Imran Khan and this may simply be another case where I am late to the party as I have since found a reference where he is summed up as "just one cool motherf****r".

I am pleased of course to find that he holds his own in the cricket love stakes, and in fact seems a bit of a softie (see eg. here and here). But then who wouldn't melt in the capable arms of the Hon. Steve Bucknor, OJ, seen here on his last day of duties?

(Hamish Blair/Getty Images 22/03/09)

Business End

Dammit, I keep meaning to elaborate my theory about English wilty-ness, which I had to curtail last time because work beckoned and it's staring me down again like a pet watching me eat.

Ironically, one of my current work colleagues is a Frenchman who has been asking me for cricket updates ever since I explained to him a couple of weeks ago why I was up so late. Our cultures are united in their traditional disdain for the English of course and his response to my last bulletin was: "Bravo pour la leçon de cricket donnée aux Anglais", which I think is fairly transparent.

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.)

Test 4 overture

Oh I like this game. What's this game called? Much better than the other one, please don't bring me that one again. And who's this fella Clark? New is he? Just became available? Worth holding onto perhaps?

In response to egg-wearing Anonymous who predicted Shane Watson's dismal failure, it occurred to me last night that Watson does approach the "Queensland gladiator" model of opener demonstrated by Hayden. But I still find it hard to feel convinced in my waters by someone who reminds me of one of those over-pumped strawberries and I can't see any cuddles any time soon with the man Greg Matthews last night called "Australia's hard man", ie Katich. He also appears to be under threat from Phil Hughes over on the grassy knoll: someone needs to teach that man how to compose his face in less murderous arrangements.

Things from the rest of Test #3

So, Michael Clarke's new nickname in my loungeroom is "Rasputin", so many sure-death blows did he uncannily survive on his way to 100. Not able to catch him on a legal delivery or persuade his stumps to dislodge, the English eventually tried to "bore" him out, a strategy that became so tedious that when he hit a ball two-thirds of the way to the boundary rope on 96 I half expected the English fielder running after it to give it a good kick along and get it over with.

***

Earlier on Day 5, Shane Warne was captaining the English bowlers from the commentary box: just be patient, be patient, don't try and force it, don't get ahead of yourself, let it come, it'll all come, it'll come in a hurry, relax…










Sorry, where were we?

I'd heard of the "fog" that Warney was able to create in batsmen's minds, but as much as I love Warney—and I love Warney—I hadn't really extrapolated this to other areas, crediting him with more enthusiasm than sensitivity in such domains… until now. I've said enough. Too much. Area Shane!

Conspiracy theory 1

Not only does Nathan Hauritz's haircut appear to be a DIY job but Brett Lee's blonde is also an unpleasant urine-like shade suggestive of self-administered treatment. Have the English, recalling that Warney only started taking serious wickets once he lost the mullet, set up a secret Julio Embargo blocking professional hairdressers from approaching the Australian team? (Whereas Hilfenhaus appeared to get a proper haircut between the 1st and 2nd Tests, presumably before the embargo set in, and his fitness has—THUS—been preserved.)

Conspiracy theory 2

SBS's music selections have taken a confusing turn. They usually play snatches of uptempo songs from hip young Australian bands, eg. Temper Trap's "Science of Fear", which I haven't read too much into since I've just thought it was SBS being modern and Australian and uptempo—until NOW: these lyrics are the world's worst vote of confidence/terrifyingly prescient/might have a lot to answer for. They seem to describe the experience of a car crash happening in slow motion. Hmmm.

On Day 4 they started playing U2's "I Will Follow" – a little confusing, my brain started projecting follow-on situations that didn't exist and didn't really fit the song anyway. But this was nothing compared to Day 5's WTF multi-trumpet instrumental of "Frère Jacques".

Phil Jaques, obviously, but why? And why trumpets? I've heard the ACB can be less than direct when communicating with players, but... ? Theories welcome.

Look, what's that over there?

Test 3 Day 2 too painful to talk about. God, aghast at handiwork, has sent rain, without quite grasping the mathematics of possible outcomes from a 5-match series (omniscience? could try harder).

So, distractions it is. Curios from the Useful Box:

Curio 1

(NB. clicking on the image makes it bigger)

This is a piece by Ben Dorries from the Daily Telegraph the day after The Day the Music Died, ie 22 December 2006. I thought it wasn't at all a bad stab given how perilous this kind of thing can be (Marcus North was also named as a squad member in a side-bar). The accompanying article, discussing spinner options, suggests "Nathan Hauritz won't rate a mention", but who can blame him since he barely rates a mention now, doomed to be beige in the eyes of his beholders.

So, what did happen to Rogers, Jaques, Casson...? I ought to know, but I have an atrocious attention/memory span when it comes to the wider talent pool and rely on the kindness of strangers to tell me.

Nb. This was a much funner curio before the series sank into its current phase of gloomed oh-what-might-have-been-ness.

Curio 2

This is completely irrelevant (so much the better!), but is a personal Cricket Love favourite from the Daily Telegraph of 11 February 2003 (picture: Phil Hillyard):


I just adore the menswear-catalogue or even knitting-pattern-cover bonhomie here.

Shoaib: Ah-HO-ho-ho
Brett: Ah-HA-ha-ha
Shoaib: What am I laughing at Brett, ah-ho-ho-HO
Brett: It's a menswear thing Shoaib, you wouldn't understand... ah-ha-ha-HA
Shoaib: But it's definitely something over there, right? Ah-HO-HO-Ha!
Brett: As mine is over there. You're actually quite the natural at this. Ah-HA-ho-ha!
Shoaib: Ah-ho-HO-ho-ho ho! But of course. I am Shoaib Akhtar.

There is something to be said here about the tinkle-tinkle of gay laughter vs. the tinkle-tinkle of rain, or perhaps rainbow-like smiling-through-the-tears... damned if I know what it is though.

Test 3 Day 1 Mumble

I stayed up until 3.30 am watching the play after it finally started and then it seemed that they were doing well enough to manage on their own so I went to bed (plus it was THREE THIRTY). Kudos to the groundspeople, that outfield was whippet-like.

God is clearly trying to steer me back to a more charitable course when it comes to Shane Watson by making him an opener in this test. Because whatever I think in the abstract about the selection decision, and however Bizarro World Shane Watson and Simon Katich are as a couple, in the real world of sitting and watching him at the crease in this game, I can't want him to get out, I can't but want him to do well, I... I wish him well.

It was interesting viewing actually. Shane Watson looked like he was having the time of his life, and, well, if opening for Australia in an Ashes series in a must-win game isn't the "moment in time" he wanted I don't know what would be, so well should he wear a permanent grin.

And in the light of his public comments about Flintoff being his idol after 2005 I was intrigued to watch their... relationship? on the pitch. Basically it was Freddie on the one side looking florid and cranky and Shane on the other looking cheeky and troublesome - and being cheeky and troublesome I think, I caught the end of a replay where it looked like he had accidentally-on-purpose tripped Flintoff up a bit. A little bit Oedipal? I think it would be weird playing someone you've declared to be your idol, maybe even weirder to play someone who has declared you to be their idol, but then when I was growing up once you decided you liked someone that was the cue to avoid them at all costs and you would rather die than have them know so I might not be the best judge here.

I was going to take advantage of the rain to share a few of the wonders I found in my cricket Useful Box when searching for a picture of Freddie. I'll just leave it at the discovery of the first letter of Katich's 2005 dismissal "roar", which allows us to start a Sesame Street style word composition:

A Dish Served Reheated

We need to have a little talk about Freddie, and it should happen before more cricket happens because he is already turning into a bit of a moving target.

First Act: of praise

I have been mulling over Freddie since he announced his retirement, because he really was something in 2005:

In 2005 with him and Harmison and Hoggard it was like England, exasperated by endless criticism of the county system as an incubator of talent, simply decided to pull a bunch of thugs out of the pubs and off the streets (Hoggard out of a turnip patch) and unload them onto the pitch. They were such specimens of strength and health, but it was a Barbarian ideal rather than the usual Greco-Roman one. And then there was the beastie brain that eyed appreciatively the layer of fat that said they could not only survive the colder months but bring plenty of dead things back to the cave and elbow out the rest of the herd for more than their fair share.

Before I rummaged the above picture out of the Useful Box I searched on the net for Flintoff's spread-eagle stance as I remembered it and not finding anything to my satisfaction entered "blond viking" into Google Image instead and found this:

I liked the stance, but that really is more the Greco-Roman type and indeed I think we all know now how Shane Watson has been occupying himself while off with injuries (or how he gets them all?). What we learn from this however - Ponting take note - is that whoever faces off against a blond viking is inevitably a hideous orc.

But archetypal physiognomies aside, in 2005 it was also the special thrill of being caught up in a moment. The article that went with the picture of Freddie above is called: “Planets into alignment as Freddie stands tall with bat and ball”. It’s not that it was a fluke of circumstance but that whatever it was, was also the crowd and the time and the place and the season all coming together in that special sport way that turns a bunch of contingencies into something pre-ordained and makes you part of the action.*

* I keep thinking of Freddie as Milla Jojovich in the Fifth Element, and each of the elements of wind, earth, water and fire get activated and then there’s the big pash from the crowd/Bruce Willis and Freddie/Milla throws his head back and a huge beam of light pulses through him that pulverises the ‘Great Evil’ (Russell Crowe, even then?).


Second Act: but if this is a eulogy, doesn’t that means he’s dead?

So, I want to render unto Freddie what belongs to Freddie, but now we come to this now in 2009 and I’m pretty sure one of my French philosophers says that there’s something unholy about trying to repeat a passion.

After the last match one of my cricket friends was telling me about her turn-around on the Flintoff front (from Good Flintoff to Bad Flintoff) and I said yes, it all felt a bit reheated. And reheated is I think the word: a bit crusty round the edges and possibly only lukewarm in the middle. It’s obvious in one sense to say that it all seems a bit posey now, but I don’t mean his vogueing, more that it's like an amateur re-enactment, like he's playing himself, and it isn't completely convincing. I would not be surprised if he ripped off his own head in the dressing rooms to reveal Tony (or was it André?) Dimera underneath.

And he’s injured. Injured! Do you have any idea what that does to his Paleolithic stocks? Beastie brain has already curled up a lip and turned back to its cosmopolitan.

Of course in Edgbaston in 2005 and for some time after that we could enjoy Freddie because we didn’t know he and his mob would - could! - damn well win the whole thing. I’ll grant there’s a bit of “oh no!” going on here.

Nevertheless, please for your comparison:

2005 vs. 2009















I know my yoga teacher would say there’s a hell of a lot more heart chakra going on in exhibit A and I’d say she was right.

KP KO

I am very sorry to read that Kevin Pietersen is out of the series, because it has been a highlight of both games so far to see him make a dickhead of himself (following Nietszche's maxim to "become what you are").

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."

Test 2, Day 2: cosmic ruckus

Frankly, I'm a little concerned.

Because it would seem that Russell Crowe's ego, already thought to be planet-sized, in fact has the wildly bloated mass of an aging dwarf star whose imminent gravitational collapse threatens to engulf us all in a sucking black hole implosion.

This, however, would presumably resolve the game in a draw. I can see the scene in 100 years time when the Mo-cyborg is rolled out for his "stats" roll card on how the Aussies have always managed to avoid defeat at Lords: "Year X: saved by rain; year Y: saved by rain; year Z: saved by amazing rearguard batting by the bowlers, and then of course the 2009 Ashes when a seemingly inevitable loss was averted by the Russell Crowe Black Hole Catastrophe gobbling up the whole of Lords. There's meteorology and then there's METEOROLOGY, ya know? Terrible tragedy, but it saved the match and thank God Russ himself was also completely sucked up into his own dark, oh so dark Hole (har har)."

I called it a night just after they resumed following tea, when Katich and Hussey were ploddingly picking up the pieces of the first session. But I couldn't sleep and when I got up again and turned on the telly it was clear this was because my lizard brain couldn't find peace with all the cosmic ruckus created by collapsing Australian wickets. Six for 139! I took some pleasure in seeing Johnson bat, but even this was short-lived.

So Australia is on 7/150, it's total disarray, and in the middle of it all Nasser welcomes Russell to the commentary box with him and Warney. What would you do? What would anyone do? Russell Crowe would take the opportunity to launch into a musty and long-winded question about captaining strategy in the LAST GAME — cos Lord knows that's what's on everyone's minds at the moment — which he has clearly been carrying around in his figurative pocket all day like a crumpled acceptance speech and he may as well have decided at that moment to read one of his poems, because that's about how irrelevant and pontificating it was.

The question never got answered — possibly never got finished, it certainly seemed interminable — because then HADDIN fell, because ACTUALLY WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A TUMULTUOUS COLLAPSE. GOD.

There was more. It was horrific. Maybe another time, I don't think I can go through it again right now. Even Warney seemed embarrassed, and Nasser was speechless, but then nothing Russ said was actually designed to draw any response, it was just thud, thud, thud, lob out my cricket kudos, whack down some names, ho ho ho, here I am, baby. In the end Nasser just said: "Well... thanks a lot." Go Russ, please go.

What else?

New Ways to get batsmen out Pt II

Peter Siddle has a real Fee Fi Fo Fum aura when he's up, but clearly the blood of an Englishman doesn't agree with him.

Batting bowlers I

I'm enjoying Jason Gillespie's new career as the Voice of the Batsman. In Monday's Sydney Morning Herald he weighed in on the question of Harmison's recall, speaking, of course, from the batsman's perspective:

"It's just that unnerving bounce. Even when he does pitch it up, as a batter you're not quite sure whether it's there to drive or press forward to because he's so tall and he gets that bounce." (my emphasis)

Then again during the rain delay yesterday he was chatting with the older folk in the BBC commentary box about Andrew Flintoff:

Dizzy: "You always felt you were in with a chance with Andrew Flintoff…"
Other commentators, checking they've got this right: "As… a batter?"
Dizzy (totally blithe): "As a batter, yeah…"

The fact he says "batter" rather than the more orthodox "batsman" makes it even better. He's great.

Batting bowlers II - Hauritz: Orphan Annie?

Hauritz's hapless face under his helmet at the end of the day put me in mind of something, someone, some cartooned someone, and I think this is it:


But more worried. Meanwhile, before I got up again and saw the horrorshow x 2, my only real thought about Day 2 was:

Graham Onions = Ben Hilfenhaus + Reg Mombassa

Test 2 Day 1 Mutter

I struggled to get into the game yesterday evening, what with the comparative excitement of Masterchef and some work distractions, but those aside, could we have lacked any more lustre in that opening session?

Even after we got a couple of wickets, by 1am I was just feeling a bit tired, cold, cranky and ready for bed, but then I came back from cleaning my teeth and found Pietersen walking and it perked me up considerably. Out came the extra cardie and hot cup of tea and I saw it through to stumps while tapping away at a less demanding job on the laptop.

Some things anyway...

New ways to get batsmen out

1. Nathan Hauritz
I could swear I heard Phil Tufnell on the radio say that rather than create drama à la Warne, Hauritz tries to "bore" the batsman out...

Jim Maxwell called Hauritz's bowling style "polite", which I think is probably his polite way of saying "like a big girl's blouse", but hey, Stuart Broad looks like a member of Hanson (ner), and if death by politeness works, it works:

Hauritz (in high voice): "Please sir, would you be so kind as to give me your wicket?"
English batsman (without thinking): "Why of course, little girl, here you... arrrgghh"

2. Mitchell Johnson
I think Warney was up to his old bamboozling of Englishmen when he tried to put the idea to his commentary box colleagues that Johnson's "spraying them all over the place" could be a cover for smuggling in a "jaffa" (or a "peach"), even asking Mike Atherton whether he had ever confronted such a "strategy" during his career, and how he "coped". Poor Johnson. It was so unexpected when he finally got a wicket that when I looked up from the computer at the noise and saw Johnson's jubilation I thought I was watching a montage of "Mitchell Johnson's past glories" rather than something happening live. Has he caught "star fast bowler" curse from Brett Lee?

Cricket Love

1. You could hear the hum of mutual affection between Henry Blofeld and Phil Tufnell on the radio together, their different styles of Englishness (posh/cockney) reverberating nicely. I could imagine the Disney animated feature with them silhouetted against the sunset, Bloers a preposterous cravat-wearing turkey and Tufnell a sly streetwise rat.

2. Warney really purred in the BBC commentary box when he was asked how he felt about Nasser Hussain, sitting next to him: "I love Nasser", he said, "I loved playing with Nasser."

I think Warney probably loves Nasser for much the same reason I love Nasser: because his manifest pain was SO MUCH FUN when he led England on a really wretched Australian tour. I saw them play a one-day game at the SCG where they made all of 112 in their innings, and then Gilchrist and Langer (or Martyn?) came out and smashed so many fours and sixes the crowd started to cheer when they didn't get a boundary.* And the scoreboard kept showing close-ups of Nasser's face as his eyes followed the high, long, trajectory of yet another ball going over the ropes. He did that English-cricket-captain combination of wincing agony and gloomed resignation very well. And literal resignation I think following that tour.

He's also in one of the only pictures in my "cricket love" collection that isn't of the Australian team:


This is Nasser and Andy Caddick, and I should have made a note of exactly what the occasion was, but it was from the "wretched" tour (2001-2?) and may have been from the dead rubber Sydney match that England won.

It was a treat in any case having Warney commentating, even though someone has left the liquid paper within his reach and he has gone and painted his teeth.


*[England's total actually 117, and it was Gilchrist and Hayden batting, but 76 runs of their winning total of 118 was made in boundaries, including 15 from Gilchrist]