I see ICC

It was probably worth Australia being knocked out of the ICC T20 competition just see Chris Gayle's impeccable cool abandon him completely when his team won.

First he fell over in his rush to get on to the ground, then he did a very awkward haka-style interpretation of the Gangnam style dance and generally carried on like a pork chop. This was after an innings of some amazing "talk to the hand" fours and sixes, flicked like lint off a new suit.

Speaking of off-field antics, they showed some footage of Sunil Narine being playful during training, including some very accomplished cuddling, and Harsha made the comment, "Oh those Trinidadians", which makes me think the talent for cuddles displayed by TNT native Adrian Barath could be a national trait. Now that I think about it, one of my earliest Cricket Love memories was a touching embrace between Ricky Ponting and Prince of Port of Spain Brian Lara. I have an old map of the West Indies above my desk, from which I know that Trinidad is home to the largest natural asphalt lake in the world. Could there be a little oxytocin in those fumes?

Commentary commentary II

I knew Ravi Shastri must be in the box when someone used the word "cognisant". Even Harsha said he hadn't heard that word in a while. Despite my whinges last time I've enjoyed the cosmopolitan approach to the commentary roster, with mostly Indians and South Africans calling the WI vs AU game, plus a bit of Warnie who sounded like he had a sore throat. These tournaments are probably like conferences. So much chatting!

Minnow winnow

I was probably more excited by the prospect of the qualifying rounds for this competition than the main event. Who is not overcome with curiosity at a fixture between Nepal and Hong Kong? Turns out Nepal has a very dashing-looking captain and Hong Kong has some pretty boys who can't catch for nuts. Nepal's Sagar Pun stood out, a very nifty batting-bowling-fielding package, and bowler Shakti "Shaggy" Gauchan who celebrates like a footballer. 

My heart was lost however to Afghanistan's portly, turbulent Mohammad Shahzad ("Shazam" around here), who suffered the indignity of getting out to the first ball of the whole tournament but was fortunate enough later on to be skying balls around those Hong Kong boys. The first one went so high he was pounding the pitch with his bat in frustration for some time before realising he'd been let off. It's been fun.

PS. This is Shazad's English Wikipedia page. He also has pages in Bengali, Pashto, Tamil and a very thorough one in... Vietnamese. I want to know who wrote that page.

Forward March

Now I have pay-to-air television, I can't really pretend those non-Ashes overseas tours don't exist and I don't see them. Turns out they do and I do!

So, the South African series. After the first one followed the same pattern as the Ashes tests I thought, again, is this just how it's going to be from now on? Every time we win the toss? Dodgy first innings with lower order save of top order, crunching bowl out of the opposition, effortless second innings piling on ridiculous lead, crunching bowl out number two. It was interesting seeing the new boys, and Phil Hughes trying to look pleased at Sean Marsh's 100. Alex's Doolan's aggressive 5 o'clock shadow reminds me of this character.

The second test was a relief from the Groundhog Day perspective, though it wasn't strictly necessary for the variation to go so far as losing. We sat on the couch on the last day watching Rogers and Warner do their thing and said "They're going to do it. They're going to bat out the day." But then I thought, when was the last time we did it? Are we batters-out by nature or even inclination? I thought the English loved of a gritty last stand, but obviously they have nothing on the South Africans who, as one commentator put it, seem to veritably "wallow" in the prospect of a good ole stonewall. I read today there was no television in South Africa until 1975, which somehow seems relevant.


Commentary commentary

I became unreasonably irritated by Mark Nicholas this series, which reached its apogee when I flew into a rage at some innocuous comment about the spectacular view from the Capetown ground.

Unreasonably, but not quite unaccountably. Firstly, how few Australians were commentating this series on TV and why? There was Tom Moody, the prospect of whom slows the pulse down considerably. Only Glenn McGrath is more dismal a prospect. We'd just started making jokes about Tom Moody always mentioning what would have gone on in the "team meeting" and then of course he never did it again. Maybe there'd been tweets. Why did the South African media get Andrew Symonds and not us?

Secondly, I've enjoyed the more relaxed boysy commentary style of the Foxtel folk, which was taken to the next level by Channel 10's BBL coverage, and suddenly Channel Nine commentary, or Channel Nine-style commentary seems unbearably genteel and stuffy and paternalistic. Mark Nicholas personified all of that. He was brought in to take up the Benaud baton, and it made me think about the influence Benaud has had on the feel of the Channel 9 coverage historically and whether it was time to let that go. Packer was of course the opposite of genteel and stuffy and paternalistic, but Benaud played a mediating role in that whole affair and was no doubt a reassuring plus ça reste le même presence for the benefit of the disgruntled ABC-viewing public. Nicholas is no Benaud in any case, whose gentility has a sort of mystery and glamour about it - sphinx-like with a certain camp.

Warner

I saw a Foxtel "ProFile" piece on Warner after the twitter hoo-ha that was obviously an attempt at some image reconstruction and came away from it with a worse impression of him than I had going in, which is either a comment on the competence of the producers or the nature of the beast. He's just a 13 year old boy on a school excursion, which is the problem but also why you forgive him. Take away the stupid send-offs and I am comfortable indulging the rest. He's becoming a bit of a Warne: the must-see player, the freak, the animal cunning on the field and obtuseness off it, the rhino hide and thus the fall-guy role he plays for the team, who can benefit from his boorishness while letting him absorb most of the flak for it. That said, the transition on the letters page from "Our team: hopeless losers, it's a national disgrace" to "Our team: ugly winners, it's a national disgrace" has been instant.

Last word for today on South Africa series: Faf du Plessis & Jay Mohr

 

BBL floorsweepings

I have some old notes about the BBL on a piece of paper that's now being a bookmark. "Coulter Socceroo" This was me thinking Nathan Coulter-Nile is too good looking to be an Australian cricketer and may have picked the wrong code. "Gilly straight man" is obvious, Adam Gilchrist was the good boy among the old boys in the 10 commentary box, though got in a sly dig now and again. "Birt Bopton" I have no idea what I was getting at there. Oh wait, it's "Birt Boston". Travis Birt: should be a baseball player. PS I'm going to see the Dodgers v Diamondbacks game at the SCG, very excited. "June" This is what Mark Waugh's nickname has become and just makes me think of June Carter.

The only real blot on the Channel 10 BBL copy book was the stupid and obnoxious million dollar celebrity catch stunt, surely one of the most cynical and exploitative contests ever devised, including of the celebrity. Don't come back.

Names will so hurt me

Turns out there's more than one reason to dislike G. Bradley Hogg, Narrogin WA. He has a commentating gig on Grandstand and during a game - I remember not which - a batsman was hit by a ball in a sensitive area. Said Brad Hogg: *SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT ONCE KNOWN CANNOT BE UNKNOWN* "That was right on the tummy banana." Say it with me (now you've reached the point of no return): tummy banana. There are eight million penis euphemisms in the naked city; this has to be one of the worst. It will pop into your head unbidden and unwelcome and turn your smile into bile. I warned you.

Moving along from euphemisms, Mr Hogg also does a good line in malapropisms, though these are actually quite good and not grounds for dislike. He was talking about run outs he had known and the bad language that can go with them, and he said something along the lines of: "There would have been a few exquisitives." I like to think he meant sharp or finely crafted expletives, or perhaps, taking a different tack, quizzical expletives ("WTF", of course).

Later he said that Steve Smith's fidgetiness at the crease reminded him of Ricky Ponting, that they shared a lot of "incrasies". Incremental idiosyncrasies? (Philosophical question, Dylan-style: how many people can you share idiosyncrasies with before you can no longer call them idiosyncrasies?)

Other names

Like everyone else we've been calling Jim Glenn Maxwell "Big Show" in our house, because it's fun, but I've been looking for something else, because I'm contrary. Last night James Brayshaw said Maxwell "always brings the disco ball" to the game, so I'm thinking of switching to Disco. And saving Big Show for Jim. 

Still on the name thing. Last season we got into the habit of calling James Faulkner "Fuck off!", because we thought he looked like a bit of a dick, but over winter the meaning of the name changed, specifically when he told poor Ishant Sharma where to go with that 30-run over. Now he's done it again to England in Brisbane and we've warmed to old James "Fuck off" Faulkner, the scamp. He was compared to Michael Bevan after that game, but Bevan was more the slow, methodical burn, no? For me he was the Metronome rather than McGrath: the steady tick-tock that you hardly noticed until suddenly the impossible was in touching distance.

Brand names

I've kind of gotten used to BBL's Bunnings Warehouse Replay, but had to turn off the Fairfax radio coverage last night when we got a Power of Mushrooms Stat, even though the idea of a Ric Finlay on mushrooms was pretty funny.

Teed off

From last week's Sydney Morning Herald TV guide:

I think that just about covers all the bases. In the left corner, "It's a circus!" (frowny emoticon). In the right corner, "It's a circus!" (smiley emoticon).

I went to the circus on Wednesday. Sydney Sixers vs Hobart Hurricanes at the SCG. First, the setting. Bewdiful!

And not a bad game either, the Sixers turning around what looked to be a comfortable chase by the Hurricanes (getting to almost 100 of a 180 chase without losing a wicket) with a rain of wickets in the last few overs. There have been lots of good games this season, even though they all blur together a bit. There was the really high total one that was beaten and the really low total one that was defended, but don't ask me who was playing. 

I find my team allegiances fluctuate a great deal during the course of a match depending on individual players: I will support Katich or Hilfenhaus in the moment regardless of whether I want their team to win, though last night in the Scorchers v Adelaide game I was gunning for a little more pressure on Katich in the field just to see his captain cranky face. 

Conversely, no one much likes Brad Hogg in this house, with varying degrees of intensity. I think I've identified the problem. He looks like the brother of Tom Cruise who didn't get the looks but shares the disturbing enthusiasm, with an admixture of Graeme Swann annoying clown vibe.

  

Wednesday was a cricket-packed day. In the afternoon I was at the establishment formerly known as the Bradman Museum and which is now the International Cricket Hall of Fame. I wonder if that name change has something to do with evolutions in content: one of the largest sections of the museum is devoted to the Packer World Series revolution and is all praise. It's impressively up to date: a height chart on the wall had Chris Tremlett at the top of it and they had Michael Carberry's broken bat from the Sydney Test on display. There's lots of colour and movement and touch-screens and I learned more from one interactive display demonstrating the different balls and shots in a few minutes than I have in the last ten years.

Two Ads of the Ashes

 

KFC

I know people wearing a KFC buckethead haven't actually upturned an empty greasy KFC bucket with bits of batter still in the bottom on their head, but the suggestion is there and it's unpleasant. As a hat it offers inadequate sun protection and would obstruct the view of those behind. Moreover, "the lampshade on the head has come to symbolize the obnoxious drunk trying to be funny—and failing".

A good thing then that it doesn't seem to have caught on. I saw one twelve year old wearing one at the T20, and he took it off half way through the game, presumably because he felt foolishly alone.

KFC is a guilty pleasure of mine and I was up for doing a taste test of the "Australian burger" vs the "English burger". I suggested it to a visiting 9 year-old but he pointed out that the burgers at KFC are crap and indeed I have always found them disappointing.

But isn't it good Mitchell worked his way up from fresh-testing duty in the locker room?

Bet365

These have been on Fox for a while. Samuel L Jackson sells his soul in every sense of the word and beams in a betting ad from Hades.

Sydney Test

Wow, that was fast. And it seems that speed made all the difference. I'm not sure how I feel about that, as much as I lerv our man Mitchell. 

I used to think that the reason spin bowling drew me to cricket was that it was more mysterious than fast bowling. I thought I "understood" fast bowling as sheer mechanical force, whereas being able to manipulate the trajectory of a ball in the air after it left the hand, and then after it hit the ground the way Warnie did seemed frankly supernatural. I didn't understand fast bowling at all of course, because it also involves all of those things, but when it is about the difference extreme speed makes I feel like it's getting back to a blunt force thing. And I don't know how I feel about that. The physical violence makes me uneasy. I probably again underestimate the level of skill involved, both in doing it and playing it. That's something that can be said for the Morgan-Lee fracas: it really showed how much skill the professional players have in negotiating those kind of deliveries and not looking like a flailing idiot. It helps not being Piers Morgan of course.

Well done him

Kerry! I didn’t warm to Kerry O’Keeffe at first because the sounds he made made me uncomfortable (I am an easily discomfited soul). Not the Muttley wheeze-laugh, the groan-whine that comes after it. It sounded a bit dirty and it creeped me out.

The turning point came in January 2003 when Steve Waugh was working his way towards his last-ball century at the SCG. Everyone was excited, and Kerry was excited to the point that he started rapping. He started chanting the chorus of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”:

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow this opportunity comes once in a lifetime

It was excruciating in a “oh no, Dad’s rapping” way, and there was this appalled/stunned/confused silence from the rest of the box, and then it was the best thing ever. So inappropriate and so appropriate, the beauty and bravery of bringing Detroit hip hop into an Ashes Test commentary box, leapfrogging cultures and generations and classes. He wasn't even trying to be funny or clever. I was impressed.

Also impressive: the shrewd, dead-eyed biomechanical analysis. A real empiricist, all that staying up late pausing and rewinding. I understand nothing of biomechanics (see top), but I'd still love the way he'd size up players like racehorses and take them apart. It always conjured up an image of an earlier Kerry who'd spend too much time at the track, and where he came from is probably the greatest thing about Kerry. Kerry's persona is basically a loser. The loser he was/is/wasn't/isn't. It's the edge to all the playing the fool, so near and yet so far.

Kerry sayings: "Well done him", "How good?" and referring to players by their first initials and place of origin, as in "M. J. Clarke, Liverpool, NSW. Well done him".

With Roebuck gone and now Kerry, who will be the characters in the Australian commentary box?

Lookalike sweepings

I started calling Alastair Cook "Duckface" this season because he has striking bone structure like the character of the same name in Four Weddings and a Funeral, because anything with "duck" in it suits cricket glumness and because I'm mean.

I'm trying to sell the idea that Ryan Harris is the missing link no one knew existed between Anthony LaPaglia and Mathew Le Nevez, but my sounding board can't even see the LaPaglia bit which I thought was the easy sell in that equation so I don't know any more.

Would you instead be interested, as a T20 aside, in some Ben Cutting as Oliver Hudson?

Next time: the Ads of the Ashes

Test 4, Boxing Doze

Went for a nap in the second session today and had to talk myself out of going back for seconds in the third one. The 'G, the scale, the crowds, the occasion, the zzzzzzzzzzz. According to Jim Maxwell, Clarke had even taken to "vigorously rubbing the ball on his trousers, trying to find some excitement there", that's how bad it got. Boom tish! Thank you very much.

Jean-Paul Boycott continued with the nihilism, declaring that Cook had got out with a "nothingness" shot and generally talking a mean streak. David Warner "would get his comeuppance" and the sport of golf in general was a con. And yet, you "need positivity in everything". I can usually enjoy Geoffrey, but he was a real horrible Christmas uncle today. In the context of recent chatter, it gives me some satisfaction that Kevin Pietersen has passed him on the list of all-time run scorers for England, with roughly the same average.

People booed Kevin Pietersen when he stopped and called for a physio in the middle of an over, but what they didn't realise was that only the physio had the spider to send after the fly he'd swallowed. Boom boom. Merrrry Christmas!

Waterloo sunset

I feel like the icon of the Australian victory this summer will be a great hovering Cheshire-like moustache. It's Johnson's of course (whose Cheshire smile is already pretty impressive), but it will have a life of its own as the prickly symbol of all the biff and Boof and snarly hairy manliness. And in the other corner will, alas, be a plate of crumbed tofu, symbol of the "1 percenters", as Kerry has started to call them, the namby-pamby book-learned carrot-munching sports scientists who clearly made off with the balls of the English team. It's a bit silly and a bit offensive in that rah-rah let-men-be-men way, but every series must have its mythology. It's been a remarkably consistent one. I can't remember a series where there have been so many similarities between the course and flow of each game, the same story told over and again, and not a story with any great twists. It feels a bit like a dream. I'm sure it doesn't feel that way to people who have had to work their guts out in the middle of the WACA in a heat wave. Plenty of beautiful cricket love out there at the end of the game today, lots of "hugshakes" to use Quentin Hull's slip of the tongue. Siddle and Haddin were a highlight.

For me the wait to get the Ashes back has really been since 2005 rather than 2009. In my mind the 2006-2007 clean sweep was a blip, a parting gift from the outgoing greats that couldn't be built on because of that. So this is sweet but it also means I'm hungry (already! the ingratitude!) to see us do it again in England. I have strangely no memory of the 2001 Ashes. I have no idea what I was doing, obviously not paying attention, but I feel like I've never seen us win in England.

I've mentioned my love of a wilty English cricketer previously and I do also love the wilty English cricket commentator. Someone like Jim Maxwell keeps to a firm school-principal tone whether times are up or down, but people like Jonathan Agnew get this wonderful sigh in their voice when they're losing, a sort of resigned wistfulness that reached its apogee when Aggers suggested to some downhearted English spectators that they contemplate the beautiful WA sunset. Geoffrey Boycott is philosophical in another way. On Sunday he described the ball of Siddle's that removed Prior not as a "nothing" ball, but as a "nothingness" ball. I think that would actually be quite hard to play.

Test 3 Day 1

Alastair Cook was presented with a silver cap for his 100th test, totally impractical for wearing under the Western Australian sun, and Michael Clarke got a cloth one with stitching on the sides saying "I played 100 Tests for Australia and all I got was this lousy cap".

Business as usual for a day 1 of this series: win the toss, bat, don't put in an especially convincing performance with the bat. Better than Day 1 Brisbane, bit worse than Day 1 Adelaide, but it hasn't been the days 1 that have decided anything this series or even revealed very much. Today's the day. It occurred to me in bed this morning in any case that a strong tail with puny forearms is a rather kangaroo-like arrangement, almost patriotic.

It also occurred to me that the English have only bowled out the Australian team once this whole series. They got us all out in the first innings of the first test and then not since. That must be immensely frustrating. I know commentators have said how downcast the body language of the English is on the field, and Alastair Cook is starting to show the customary dolefulness of the Losing English Captain a Long Way from Home with a Long Way to Go (LEC-LWH-LWG), but I think their problem is more rage, on the batting side at least. It's like the Australians are Darth Vader to the English's Luke Skywalker, breathing down their neck, whispering provocations and luring them into the red mist.

There was a beautiful bit of symmetry to the Johnson/Broad moment of last test when Broad spent an eternity between balls fixing a spike and generally stuffing around, only for Johnson to hit him for 4 - twice.

I was going to make ECB Protein Chocolate Brownies for this match but - surprise! - one of the ingredients (date syrup) is proving elusive and another (Magimix Musclemass whey protein*) only seems to be sold by the kilo at around $60 a pop and I only need 100 g. I guess the pros don't do things by tenths. I sincerely hope that sports ground caterers are like the tuck shop ladies in Jamie's School Dinners. The muttering! The arm-folding! The eye rolling! If I end up 'moving forward' with the ECB brownies, I will be using skim milk powder.

*The brand name of the whey powder is actually Maximuscle Promax, but Magimix Musclemass is how I remembered it when I was talking with the lady in the chemist and that is how it lives on in my heart.

Flat -> bumpy

More spice! That's more like it. Or more unlike it, because it hasn't been very like the Australian team to really spank opposing teams in recent times. It's a strange feeling. It's (a) a good feeling, lots of fun, whoops of joy; (b) a familiar feeling, because it used to be like this most of the time; (c) an unfamiliar feeling, because it's been a long time between spankings, and it was certainly before my time that we last spanked with such pace. It's sweet, but it almost seems too easy. What happened?

Favourite things

Favourite moment number one today was when Stuart Broad came to the crease to face Mitchell Johnson and instigated a long princess-and-the-pea hunt for an offending glint of light off a bolt on the side of the sight board. Then was bowled. Great set up, great punch line. I like Stuart Broad, he's a bare-faced, poker-faced gamesman and I take my hat off to him. Along with maybe Carberry, he's the only remotely likeable member of the English team as far as I'm concerned. Pretty much everyone else enrages me.

Favourite moment number two was Mitchell Johnson's "serious" face send off to James Anderson. The opposite of a come hither but seductive nevertheless. Mean girls! Channel 9 was also mean by playing The Big Pink's Dominoes in the break between innings (main line: "These girls fall like dominoes" Girls!).

Speaking of meanness, it always surprises me how commentators who harrumph about T20 and boorishness and generally espouse a mild-mannered ideal of the sport openly drool down the microphone at a vicious bouncer. Sort of like it's okay to try to break someone's arm but not okay to tell them you will. Okay.

Girls on fire

With the flambé intros, the rule seems to be that fast bowlers get a close up that makes them look like serial killers and spinners get a head and shoulders, except that Panesar got the serial killer treatment so I don't know anymore.

Lookalike corner

I once claimed Broad was a lost Hanson. Here's an attempt to sell Joe Root as a lost Windsor (with a soupçon of Diana Spencer?).

But this is the real one. I've heard Michael Carberry does a fine impression of Viv Richards, but I think he could turn his talents in another direction.

The big question is: 

What to cook for the next game?

Test 2, Day 1 - Adelaide

I found it hard to get excited about today. Before play, yes, and while Warner was still batting, yes, but once he got out it felt like the potential show was over and nothing really great or really terrible happened after that. The clatter before tea roused one eye open, and I loved Jimmy Anderson's smile at Watto when he caught him, but there wasn't anything really to disturb an afternoon nap. Flat, flat, flat. A drop in pitch, indeed.

So far we are fulfilling the neither-good-nor-bad forecast of the ECB Butternut Squash and Falafel Coronation. More spice!

Hail!

According to Stuart MacGill, England were outplayed on the first day of this test when Australia lulled them into a false sense of security with their uncanny imitation of themselves. Obviously they had me going as well. You guys! Such kidders.

Speaking of impersonators, there was some talk back in 2010 of Mitchell Johnson having an evil twin. You could never tell in a game if you were going to get real Mitch or fake Mitch. I think this game has made it clear that evil twin Mitch is absolutely the one we want and if the other one is tied up and gagged somewhere, we're comfortable with that. Don't shave the moustache Mitch, you need it to twirl. How many times have I stressed the crucial role of hair in this game?

And speaking of hair, I didn't think the "Armageddon" player backdrops were really working for Nathan Lyon...

... until I grasped the Nicolas-Cage-in-Con Air inspiration...

... which makes Nathan the natural leader. Do you think people would laugh too much if he grew out his hair?

And back to impersonators again, I was going to suggest that Tremlett was more Lurch in the end than any of the other monsters that get thrown up, then I felt bad about someone getting compared to a monster so much and decided to go down another track:

I know David Bowie is still many people's idea of a freak, but it's a comparison that preserves his dignity.

And on to something else. Great post-match press conference from Alastair Cook, he was the perfect pouting private-school boy, snapping "You don't need me to explain it to you" at a journalist when asked why England lost. You won't win friends with petulance, Mr Cook, ask Ricky Ponting in 2005. Keep it up though, because it's great fun to watch.

P.S. Is there a better advertisement for veganism than Peter Siddle? Plenty of energy and no high ground (as far as I know. His girlfriend is an animal activist). I would like to get my hands on some of his recipes, though I'm guessing he's a "food as fuel" sort and just inhales bananas and nuts.

P.P.S. Anyone else noticed Chris Rogers' manky arm guard? Maybe a lucky one like Steve Waugh's cap/hanky? It looked like he lent it to Peter Siddle. Who in turn seemed lent it to James Anderson. Is there but one arm guard in the world? No wonder it's manky.

Broadsides

Much as I love to see Mitchell "Guy's my middle name" Johnson get going with the bat, here we are again. Again with the B-team trying to salvage something from the A-team's wreck. Again with an innings where a stoic middle-orderer (how often is it Haddin?) partners plucky Tail-enders. They really are fun to watch when they make something of it, but it's not the way it's supposed to work. There was an audience comment pasted on the ESPN ball-by-ball commentary "England need not be complacent with their current position. These lower order partnerships are always a characteristic of the Ozs for the last few seasons". Yes, yes they are. Is it an official strategy? Why not straight out reverse the batting order? Is the problem with the upper order that they think they're batsmen?

Tremlett provoked much comment, mainly to the effect of whether he was actually flesh and blood. The word from the loungeroom was that he was Frankenstein, and in the same spirit James Brayshaw described him (his word was actually "that") as "an incredible physical arrangement". The word "unit" came up a lot. But he didn't fool Warnie, who spotted the human vanity in his figure-hugging body shirt. The England shirts show a fair bit of cunning tailoring. Darts the likes of which are normally only found on blouses. I'm guessing there's some very advanced sports science behind them, and then at the end of the presentation Q says, "they'll also look really hot".

We were going to listen to some Grandstand commentary and then found they weren't streaming online. Now here's the thing. My boyfriend is what's called a "hi-fi dag". In our lounge room there is... One set of speakers on either side of the television, another free-standing set around the sound system. Two large flat boxes, one black with with two big knobs next to the television and a silver one with the sound system with one big knob, and I know they are amplifiers. A turntable. A smaller silver flat box next to the silver amplifier that I'm pretty sure is a CD player. On top of that a smaller black flat box that according to the writing is a "pre-amplifier". Next to that an even smaller silver box that's a "DAC". And on top of that, my favourite, a small plain black box with nothing on it except a small button in the middle with the word "POWER" above. I suspect this is a flight recording unit so that other hi-fi dags can work out what cabling mistake my boyfriend made if we go down in a flaming conflagration.*

Now, is there a radio to be found in this array? There is not. It looks like we could be plugging in the digital clock radio from the bedroom (if I can find somewhere to plug it in), or even - god forbid - digging out my crappy all-in-one CD-cassette-radio from its box of shame in the spare room. Just like olde times!

Come on Grace, sit down by the wireless and I'll make us a cup of tea.

* Update: this is apparently a "buffer", whose purpose is "to make Jim Maxwell sound more chesty and less nasal".

Said are you ready

I decided to save the Falafel Coronation Surprise for an upcoming family picnic comprising several vegetarians. That might sound a bit mean seeing as I described it as 'vile', but maybe it will be more to their taste and either way there'll be more mouths to get rid of it. Meanwhile I have addressed myself to the matter of the famous Piri Piri Breaded Tofu and you can read all about it here.

I forgot to mention last time that I enjoyed a fair bit of World Series Baseball over winter. So many people who look like W. G. Grace (I'm thinking of you in particular, Mike Napoli) standing in front of other people who look like Hannibal Lecter. It's a winning combination. Plenty of Buddha Warriors in that code. I'm very pleased to learn that Mike Young, a former baseball player and coach born in Chicago, has been recalled to the Australian cricket staff. Hope he can improve the standard of cricket ground hotdogs while he's here.

I also didn't share my discovery of the Boyd Rankin Parlour Game. It's pretty simple. You see Boyd Rankin and you start singing the Beat's "Ranking Full Stop". Then instead of "Full stop... Rankin full stop", you cleverly change it to "Full toss... Rankin full toss" or even "Full stretch... Rankin full stretch" if he makes an impressive outfield catch. Rankin has a disappointing tendency not to bowl all that full, but to be honest it makes no difference to the game. I see him and even before he bowls I can warm up with, "Said are you ready, are you ready to toss (x 2)..." before falling back on the standard "Full toss, Rankin full toss" (x infinity). Draw out the fuuuuull and roll the r for maximum satisfaction. My endless source of amusement could make for a very long summer for others. Don't start me on my George Bailey "Mr Cellophane" whistle.

I'm ready. Play ball!

Micromanagement

Well, here's my 'in'. I can hardly hold back when the English go and put out a tour cookbook for the team. Mostly it looks like the sort of thing you'd get at an upmarket health spa. Lots of 'superfoods', lots of things chopped up and mixed together and a sort of faux multiculturalism - dishes that are Indian/Thai/Moroccan/Greek/Japanese 'inspired' or 'flavoured' rather actual Indian/Thai/Moroccan/Greek/Japanese dishes. Not much you'd need a knife for and no bones at all. The standout of the Herald's sample of recipes was the "Butternut Squash and Falafel Coronation", a sort of Coronation Chicken (above) as if interpreted by Mollie Katzen, which looked pretty vile, and hence will have to be tested out immediately.

Looking through the cookbook and catering requirements, I was mainly overcome with 'variety fatigue': tired of too much of the 'different' thing instead of too much of the same thing. It's deceptive, because obviously the idea is to cater to a variety of tastes rather than impose variety on one person, but if I was on tour I would want more food that could have come out of a home kitchen instead of a sanatorium. It's an openly over-designed diet – "Every item in the ingredients listings is there to aid the performance and recovery of the England Cricket Team" – and I think they should relax a bit for everyone's sake.

***

It wasn't a bad off season, though I thought I'd blown it when I missed Finch's 156 runs off 63 in England: surely there wouldn't be anything better to look forward to. There wasn't, in a way, because there were so many other spectacular runs fests that by the end they all ran into each other and lost their edge. I felt for poor George Bailey who managed to score so many runs and still be a charisma-free zone. A Cricket Australia honcho said that if he was picked for the Ashes team the deciding factor would be his 'character', and I laughed, but actually I'm starting to think the vacancy has a Zen edge and I suspect that's what's appealing to CA.

I'll be back for the Coronation.

Lights out

I had all my "damp squib", "bang to a whimper" remarks lined up, but they managed to put on a show in the end. I even predicted the Australians would open their second innings with Warner and Watson and went off to make popcorn, though that gambit didn't quite pay off. I suppose English supporters might have been whimpering at stumps, but it seemed poetic justice to me: if you wanted to win, you shoulda played to win, all the way through. 

I missed the "show" on Friday, a propos, and missed no show at all apparently, my friends seemed only to have seen red. Jonathan Agnew was crazy enough at the beginning of yesterday to hope - and think it possible - that England might declare, but I don't know what England he was thinking of. He'd seen Jim Maxwell propose to his lady friend the night before, so his head was obviously full of hearts and flowers and fairy dust.

I suppose there was poetry in the umpires getting the final word as well. I felt sorry for them, and a bit worried for their persons. I think a lot of the hoo-ha about the DRS in this series was more to do with poor umpiring on the field and poor understanding of the burden of proof between the on-field and third umpires. Someone somewhere has done a diagram of all the alternative universes that might have existed had all the wrongs been right. But what would we have had to talk about? Tony Hill giving Ryan Harris out lbw to an empty field must be one of cricket's most poignant images.

I mostly listened to the radio, reverting to the Fox team during the breaks. I really enjoyed Damien Martyn on the radio. For someone who had a bit of a reputation as skittish and aloof when he was playing, and who bizarrely ended his career by skipping the country in the middle of an Ashes tour, he just seems relaxed, smart, understated and easygoing. I don't know whether he is more so now than he was on television in 2009, or whether it's just easier to hear with the hypnotic effect of his face out of the way. He sounds very different to how he looks.

On the field, I really, really liked Steve Smith this series. I don't know how he conveys calm and focus when he is such a twitchy little bird, but I always felt like I was in good hands when he came out. Maybe it's that his nerdiness is reassuring. Something about his slight overbite reminds me of Judi Dench, but I'm not sure I can get many people to go along with that.

Maybe Ashes series seem so intense because most of the audience is sleep deprived and emotional in any given game. Ashes series on the other side of the world take over my life in a way that home series don't. They're more demanding, because I'm not on the light duties of summertime, and I will sit in front of a whole "day" of the cricket at night in a way I tend not to when it's on during my day and I'm going about my business. It's great, but messy - I have to go do some cleaning.

A little more conversation

I was dozing on the couch last night during the tea break, and BBC radio seemed to be playing an episode of Life Matters in which Mickey Arthur was "in conversation with" a Kleenex-soft interviewer about journeys, journeys, and growing the players as people. 

I don't know, Mickey. I was impressed with you at the post-sacking press-conference, still with you when you said you were taking Cricket Australia to court, and I didn't think there was anything so scandalous about your interview on Tuesday. But you're kind of losing me now, Mickey, and when you realise that your loss is Shane Watson's gain, you get a sense of how big a moment that is in my own personal "journey". I think you might be a bit smitten with people being so interested in what you have to say, and the more you say, the less convinced I am about your coaching style. 

Jim Maxwell muttered something about "control freakish" when TMS got back to the commentary, and that's just it with touchy-feeliness: it's as much a disciplinary regime as ice baths and laps of the oval, but a whole lot more intrusive because it keeps trying to touch you and feel you.

On your way, journey man.

P.S. Having just caught up with Darren Lehmann's latest shenanigans, I'm rather losing the love there as well. Firstly, that walking incident is so old and I can smell the sour grapes (verjuice?) from here. Secondly, it's not funny to ask people to gang up on someone, and thirdly, egging the crowd on in that way is a bit like the bloke in the band who pleads with the audience to dance - "come on, guys, get moving!" I'll do it when I feel like it and you can't make me feel it if I don't.

Gold'n green spiral

I went to bed about when Shane Watson came because I didn't have a very good feeling about things. There seemed to be some sort of Fibonacci thing happening where the number of runs scored since the previous wicket was half the number of runs scored since the wicket before that, and that sequence does not have a happy ending. I thought: if they don't lose any more wickets, they can manage without me, and if they do lose any more wickets, I can't help them and I can't cope with seeing it.

As good as that opening partnership looked and was, it was hard to get rid of the feeling that just one wicket would break the spell and that without the talismanic power of Warner in particular we'd be back in the desert of the real. Was there ever a glummer No. 3 than Usman Khawaja? Isn't that supposed to be where you put the best batsman? Isn't he supposed to be a reassuring presence? Why can I not put aside the depressing suspicion that they leave the better batsman down the order so that there's someone to clean up the mess after the traditional top order collapse. Or, equally depressing, to protect injuries.

Mark Waugh tipped the series before it started to be a 2-2 draw if he was betting with his heart and a 3-1 loss if he was betting with his head. It seemed sensible at the time and it would be nice to get one at least.

Chapelle's Beauty Spot

Moving right along, what about the set of GEM's cricket anchors? I expect Chenille from the Institut de Beauté and House of Hair Removal to be along any moment. Perhaps she will materialise out of the alien life-form on Skype in the background. Just what kind of show is this?

The picture above is from last night, but the night before the two Ians actually colour-coordinated their ties with the decor, thus reinforcing the overall womb-like pink glow.

Perhaps it's to create a supportive environment for when the Australian viewer feels the urge to adopt the foetal position.

KP POed

I wish I was young enough to know instinctively how to make a gif loop, but this will have to do. Pissing off Kevin Pietersen to this extent is surely a close second to retaining the Ashes. It is also a sign of my age that part of me was relieved when it rained so I could get a proper night's sleep.

Thoughts, briefly, as I am SO behind with my homework.

Geoffrey Boycott raised more philosophical issues than Socratsy during the Third Test, to wit:

• "There's no such thing as ifs, buts, thoughts..." and
  
• "How can you get rain wrong?"

Discuss.

Why is Jim Maxwell's the only voice you can hear at the back of the box when the other commentators are on? Is he unusually heedless of interrupting the broadcast or is it an unusually stentorian voice? You'd think the latter.

This season's ads:

Usually there's just relentless blokiness, but I noticed a lot of "girl car" ads in the first couple of Tests, eg. zippy Mitsubishis for girls nights out. My couch companion suggested that it was so menfolk watching the cricket could recommend cars to their girlfriend, but that seems poor thinking to me. Because after we both watched an ad for hot pink Asics runners, I turned to him and said "I covet those", and he said "What?"

At the other end of the spectrum, however, are the Schick Hydro ads, that once again show what lengths must be gone to avoid certain implications when selling grooming products to men. Lest you have concerns about a shaver with a moisturising bar, its effect is helpfully illustrated by a computer animated boxing match where a punch lands as a slo-mo blast of water. Why, it's like a FIST of WATER in your FACE. Like being GLASSED with HYDRATION. Like an EXPLOSION OF MOISTURE SHRAPNEL. Mrs Marsh, eat your heart out.

In for a duck

I don't want to say it was the duck that did it, but it certainly did it for me. As fine a dish as was finally served up by our top order, and as delectable as Khawaja's dismissal was unpalatable. I just thought you'd want to have a look.

Dread conviction

Well, all the second test did was go where the first test would have gone but for the grace of God. They are a bit sad in the end, miracles, because every time your team is in the shit, you say to yourself, "well, you never know..." and cross your fingers that something against the odds will happen. Then it actually does happen and rather than justifying your "you never know" attitude, it just seems to underline how unlikely it was that it was ever going to happen. Because it's fantastic in direct proportion to how unlikely it is. The more fun you're having seeing the miracle, the more you're pointing to the fact that this is probably not going to happen again in a long, long, time. 

That long time began with the second test, and this is where it put us:

This was an SMH poll the day after the last test finished (still 90% yes by the time the poll closed, though I don't supposed many people voted after the first day it was up). It was the day the "you never know" died. "You never know" is always a bit of a bluff, but it's part of the game and we vote with our hearts. Hearts officially broken!

In the great tradition of soothing the soul with the senses, I will be girding my loins for tonight with confit duck thigh, red cabbage and turnips. I am advised by a learned colleague that Shane Watson should gird his loins with the below: