AGB Cricket

THE AFRIKAANA BROTHER

Whenever anyone mentions Hansie Cronje was a fine South African, superb captain and all round great guy, but, I reflexively think of Stig O'Tracy, who had his head nailed to the floor by Dinsdale Pirhanha: "He was a smashing bloke. He used to buy his mother flowers and that."

Cronje appeared to own eight properties, two trust funds and four businesses, as well as 19 bank accounts into which more than R10-million had been deposited between 1995 and 2000. Intriguingly, none of that R10- million could be accounted for as salaries, endorsements or any other declared income. And that was just the South Africa-based segment of his portfolio. Cronje had also received more than 60 payments into bank accounts – some of which were rumoured to be be jointly held with other international cricketers – in the Cayman Islands.

IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME OVER ALL FUNNY

The most beautiful construction site in the world:

From hallowed turf to hollowed ground

THE wreckers have been. Now for the job of rebuilding Adelaide Oval.

The Advertiser this week captured the first images of the world-renowned ground stripped bare of three of its famous grandstands.

DR JEKYLL AND MR WIDE

Good Mitchell is welcome back any time. Bad Mitchell...

Mitchell Johnson thought of quitting

MITCHELL Johnson revealed today he lost his love of the cricket and would have contemplated retirement had he not been sidelined from the game.

“The injury did come at the right time. I'd probably lost a bit of interest in playing the game. If I didn't get the injury, if I kept going, I could have got dropped and that could have been it. That (retirement) could have been on the cards for sure.

“I guess being away from the media helped a little bit, not copping it day in, day out. So that's been a bit of a relief.”

RESURRECTION SHUFFLE

CA will have to look for a new bowling coach after Big Red McDermott today pulled the pin due to the travel. Fingers crossed the new bloke is as successful as McDermott appeared to be in the last 12 months with his get-it-up-there tactics, although it is just possible the batsmen Australia has recently attacked have been pretty dire:

McDermott quits as Australia's bowling coach

The man who resurrected Australia's fast bowlers, Craig McDermott, has quit after only a year in the job, leaving the team in the hunt for a new fast-bowling mentor as it builds for the Ashes.

McDermott said the demands of being on the road had played a big part in his decision.

Nevertheless, it was refreshing to watch the Aussies swing the ball and continually get batsmen caught driving and slashing, and there is no reason to think the new bloke will revert to the toothless bowling of 2009-2011. I hope.

THE YORKSHIRE TRIPPER

Visa: it's everywhere you want to be; except in Koo Starc's pocket:

Starc deported over visa error

Mitchell Starc, the Australia left-arm quick, will not be able to make his Yorkshire debut this week after being deported following a visa error that initially led to him being detained at Heathrow for more than four hours.

He will now have to fly halfway around the world, fill in a couple of forms correctly and then fly all the way back again.

TAWNY PWNY (Unframed)

Parry:

First decent article on cricket this guy Richard Hinds has ever written!

Clarke growing into leadership with ease

FOR Michael Clarke, the tour of the West Indies presented its share of challenges.

Thrust:

Thanks Tony. Keenly await your 1st decent piece of commentary.

THIRD TEST: WINDSOR PARK

Home computer, Foxtel, blogging from my laptop, but still there's the Demons.

Name: Polly. Born: 17th Apr (same day as Murali - now there's karma). Weight: 3.02 kg. Height: 50.5 cm.

SECOND TEST: QUEENS PARK OVAL

No home computer, no Foxtel, blogging from my phone, and then there's the Demons. But you've heard all that before.

FIRST TEST: KENSINGTON OVAL

No home computer, no Foxtel, blogging from my phone, and then there's the Demons. What a shemozzle.

ODI SERIES

What the hell? No one told me there was an ODI last night. I feel insulted to have missed a match from the Arnos Vale Ground, Kingstown, St Vincent, and also missed Darren Sammy's post-match litotes: "Losing six wickets for seven runs set us back a little bit."

Is the series even on television?

TYPICALLY TROPICAL

No surprises in the Test squad for the West Indies:

• Clarke
• Watson
• Beer
• Cowan
• Forrest
• Haddin
• Harris
• Hilfenhaus
• Mike Hussey
• Lyon
• Pattinson
• Ponting
• Siddle
• Starc
• Wade
• Warner

DON'T MENTION THE BORDER-GAVASKAR TROPHY

Dean Jones mentioned it once and he thinks he got away with it:

THE WORST PERFORMERS

India. The BCCI and some of its players must realise that it is very important to play well away from home. I am over their excuses. If it was not for the courageous performances of some countries when fighting away from home through World War I and World War II, we would not be playing cricket today! I know I am pulling a long bow here, but you must ask yourself, if we lost both those wars, would we be playing cricket?

Long bow? Mark Waugh as quirky is a long bow, but an understandable misapplication if Slogger Slatts is your favourite commentator:

SPECIAL COMMENTS

If I were Channel Nine, I would be hiring Mark Waugh. I love his quirky humour, his straight-forward, blunt analysis and his opinions. Mind you, I still love listening to Bill Lawry and Michael Slater.

"Special" comments is right, but.

DEARTH BOWLERS

Starc, Christian, McKay, Lee, Hilfenhaus, Watson, Pattinson:

Unmentionable pacemen must step up for death bowling

FORMER Test paceman Damien Fleming has called on fellow Victorian James Pattinson to step up and take ownership of the death bowling duties in Australia's one-day side.

Australia might have won the first of the best-of-three one-day international finals against Sri Lanka in Brisbane on Sunday night, but that wasn't evident from the grim expression on Michael Clarke's face afterwards, with the Australian captain bemoaning poor bowling during powerplays and in the dying stages.

"Hasn't been good enough throughout the series and unfortunately it continues to let us down," Clarke said.

Not sure about this:

"There is no better time to bowl," said Fleming, who famously did the job for Australia at the 1999 World Cup. "You can win the match for your country. That's a pretty important job.

The Way Back Machine:

49.1 Fleming to Klusener, FOUR, stepping back and driving the covers, amazing stuff, can he do it yet again, McGrath pitching up from around the wicket

5 runs needed off 5 balls

49.2 Fleming to Klusener, FOUR, driving thru the wide long off, and again, too wide of Mark Waugh in the deep

Scores are tied, Australia will go to the final if the match remains this way all 11 in the infield

49.3 Fleming to Klusener, no run, pulled down the wicket, to the mid on, Lehmann with the run out chance, Donald too far backing up

Direct would have been out

49.4 Fleming to Klusener, OUT, run out gone, Australia have done it AA Donald run out 0

IN: "DROPPED" OUT: "RESTED"

The NSPGU has only made one change to the F50 squad for the tri-series finals:

NOW hear this. The selectors want to make one thing very clear: Ryan Harris has been dropped, not rested or even rotated, from the one-day side.

• Michael Clarke
• Shane Watson
• Dan Christian
• Xavier Doherty
• Peter Forrest
• Ben Hilfenhaus
• David Hussey
• Mike Hussey
• Brett Lee
• Clint McKay
• James Pattinson
• Matthew Wade
• Dave Warner

The squad for the West Indies F50 is the same as above, but also includes Klutzy Haddin, Lyon, Nathan and George Bailey.

SAME DIFF, DIFFERENT E.H. DIFF

Does any side that visits Australia whine quite as much as India? Malcolm Conn lays into their "over-paid, over-indulged, over-aged bunch of prima-donnas":

Indian team a "rabble with no redeeming features"

CAN India find anything else to whinge about?

Thank goodness Tuesday night's game against Sri Lanka in Hobart will be India's last on this tour - barring some major mathematical quirk of results which will see them make the finals.

SPIN BOWDLER

Should there appear on the scene the kind of cricketer Gideon Haigh refers to in the following grab about homogenised cricketers, I would certainly relax my rule about gagging sportsman until they are 35 years old. Whether such a character is likely to emerge is another kettle of clichés entirely:

The lot of the players in Australia at the moment is intriguing. Their ranks contain intelligent men with well-informed views at a time when cricket is gravely maladministered, and in dire need of strategic guidance and moral leadership.

Yet virtually the only time they are ever heard from are in sterile, formulaic press conferences overseen by protective minders, in dreary, bowdlerised ghosted columns, or in advertisements.

How would our modern professionalised and commodified version of the game cope with a smart cricketer who ignored his minders, who offered trenchant opinions on the game and its administration, who wrote columns because he had something to say rather than in order to earn a bit of cash, and who preferred to keep a distance from official sponsors whose proximity made him feel like a bit of a dick?

It is a reasonable question to ponder: will professional sport become more, or less, sterile? My jerked knee says "more", but you never know.

THE HAYDEN SAY

If Flatty Haydos was indeed speechless, we would be spared The Hayden Way. There's always an upside:

Matthew Hayden says former teammate Ricky Ponting deserved better

"It was disgraceful treatment of our modern-day Bradman. I feel speechless. The logic that (Ponting) was left out so we can prepare for the next World Cup is just lost on me. It just looks as if he is being pushed further and further away from the team and I don't understand why ... we should be celebrating the fact that he is still around and available to play."

WROTES AWKS

Uncommunicative? No. Uncoloured? No. Uncovered meat? Possibly.

Most likely? Uncoordinated: awkward, clumsy, maladroit, Klutzy Haddin.

Unco inhabits alien vocabularies - well, Scottish - but to me unco is a distinctly Strayan word, and I love distinctly Strayan words. (Pity no one says "go beresk" anymore.) Sorry to come over all nationalistic, but unco is a grouse word.

Just as impressive is where this grouse unco appeared. It must have taken some guts to paint such a tidy tag at the top of that building.

Or it was done by a mad back-packer named Hamish.

UNDEAD BALL

CLOWN CORNER

SINE QUA NON SEQUITUR

I don't know what planet Ducking Beamers is on, but on Planet Tea non sequiturs are fun. Whats more, they provide goats to scape. Can anyone seriously imagine a world on which a statement like "Courtney Browne dropped Steve Waugh on 42, thus costing the West Indies 158 runs, and the Test" is not a statement of unadulterated fact? I mean, come on:

I have a real problem when commentators wonder aloud how “expensive” a dropped catch may be, and do that that thing where they calculate the number of runs scored after the incident in question. This logic assumes a linear narrative — that is, batsman is dropped, batsman goes on to score runs, therefore, drop led to defeat. But it’s also entirely possible that different realities are created with each ball.

TOO DREW

I'm always knocking radio callers for their botched memories, but recently I, myself, experienced a similar phenomenon - twice.

First, I would have sworn Ian Robertson was a Channel Seven commentator when Melbourne beat Carlton in the first week of the 1994 AFL finals, but it turns out Drew Morphett and Sandy Roberts were the commentators. How I could forget bloody Drew is beyond me.

Second, I have always thought that when Australia drew with South Africa in the 1999 World Cup semi final, Australia progressed through to the final because it had previously beaten South Africa in the first group phase:

Wish I had been there

The 1999 World Cup semi-final at Edgbaston had it all: violent swings of fortune, and the tightest possible finish. "It was a compressed epic all the way through," said Wisden, "and it ended in a savage twist." Australia looked forlorn after making only 213, but Shane Warne dragged them back into it with four wickets, including a replica of his legendary 1993 "Gatting ball", this time to bowl Herschelle Gibbs. Now South Africa were on the ropes, but Lance Klusener pummelled some quick runs, only to fall short at the last, when Allan Donald was run out. It was a tie - but not really, as Australia went on to the final thanks to a superior net run rate in the second group phase.

WU KOO

Which final over was Andrew Wu watching on Friday night? What composure did Koo Starc re-gather? The five balls Starc bowled to Angelo Matthews gave Starc every chance of emulating the five balls Bruce Reid bowled to Allan Lamb during Reid's final-over meltdown against England in January 1987 (I do not remember Simon Davis's over):

With Sri Lanka needing 18 to win in the last over of the match, Starc conceded a four and a six from his first two balls but re-gathered his composure to close out the game. In doing so he avoided joining the likes of Bruce Reid and Simon Davis as players whose teams suffered improbable defeats after final-over meltdowns with the ball.

Starc's almost-over was a shocker. You could even make a case that the ball which fluked Matthews's wicket was the worst ball of the over.

A Sri Lanka team-mate runs in with some drinks and a possible instruction or two for the batsmen. Starc to bowl the last over

49.1 Starc to Mathews, FOUR, Angelo gets the boundary off the first ball, hammers the shortish delivery through midwicket, man in the deep puts in the dive but touches the ropes

49.2 Starc to Mathews, SIX, Angelo has put Sri Lanka on the brink, what a stroke under pressure, takes on the pitched up ball, gets front leg out of the way and mows it over long off, punches the air as soon as he sees the ball sail away

49.3 Starc to Mathews, 1 run, swings a full delivery on the leg side, gets only one this time to deep square leg

Seven off three, well as someone says, it went down all the way to the wire, in fact

49.4 Starc to Prasad, 1 run, low full toss, he somehow drops it towards point, and they take on the throw, direct hit and he was gone, Ponting has his hands on his head, Angelo is back on strike

One big blow should do it

49.5 Starc to Mathews, OUT, but he has holed out, oh dear, heartbreak for Angelo and Sri Lanka, Australia and Starc can breathe now, makes room for the short ball, winds up and has a crack at it, but can only spoon it in the air as far as long on, Australia get together, they will be a relieved lot

AD Mathews c Christian b Starc 64 (101m 76b 4x4 1x6) SR: 84.21

Mind you, the Wuster could merely have been taking his cues from Mathew's good manners:

Starc's ability to bounce back in the face of adversity impressed Angelo Mathews and prevented the Sri Lankan vice-captain from stealing victory for his country. ''The latter stages the pressure is on, when the bowlers are under pressure they tend to crack, but he held his nerve pretty well in the last couple of overs,'' Mathews said.

A BOY, LAMED, SUE

They'll settle, but:

Nathan Bracken sues Cricket Australia for $1 million over knee injury

FORMER Test seamer Nathan Bracken is suing Cricket Australia, alleging negligence for failing to adequately deal with a knee injury that "ruined" his career. Bracken, who played five Tests and 116 one-day internationals for Australia, is arguing that Cricket Australia's doctors and lead physiotherapist cannot provide "competent" medical advice to elite athletes.

OPTICAL CONFUSION

Here we go again:

Ajmal comment sparks action confusion

Saeed Ajmal, Man of the Series as Pakistan whitewashed England 3-0 in the UAE, sparked confusion over his bowling action by giving an interview in which he appeared to claim that he has special dispensation to exceed the limit currently permitted by the ICC. However, it later emerged that Ajmal has an abnormally natural bent arm similar to Muttiah Muralitharan although the exact degrees involved remained unclear.

ANYHOW, HAVE A HINDFIELD

Ambush marketing at the cricket. एक प्रकाश है:

Cricket Australia pulls Hindi adverts amid tobacco link

Cricket Australia has withdrawn Hindi advertisements displayed during recent games with India after warnings they could be promoting tobacco.

A Cricket Australia spokesman said: "We asked [the Indian government's] advice because we are not familiar with the Hindi language. They came back and said it's an Indian mouthwash - or at least they said it's not a tobacco product.

A number of complainants suggested they were for chewing tobacco.

Mouthwash, chewing tobacco, same diff, diff diff.

HIT THE BALL BACK AT ME LIKE A BULLET...

... never a chance to move.

Brett Lee should do the "chainsaw" to cut off the offending tootsie:

Lee out of tri-series with broken foot

"Brett Lee sustained a fracture of his right foot when he was struck by a ball in the last over of his spell during the KFC T20 against India at the MCG on Friday night," Cricket Australia team doctor Trefor James said. "He was able to complete the over however the foot became more painful and swollen the following day. An x-ray has confirmed a fracture of the small toe and we now expect Brett will return to cricket in four to six weeks."

WHO'S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD INDEPENDENT GOVERNANCE REVIEW?

Lord Woolf's review of the International Cricket Council lobbed yesterday.

But already - as you would expect were you a cynical beast, unlike me - there appears to be a competition between the ICC (Woolf Report) and CA (Crawford Report) to see who can adopt the fewer number of recommendations:

Damning review of ICC governance

AN independent review has slammed sections of the International Cricket Council, taking aim at full members such as Australia for their role in the mismanagement of world cricket.

However, there is already talk in cricket circles claiming the authors have gone too far and whispers that India will snuff out any hope of the reforms being adopted.

FLICK THE SWITCH?

Wednesday's T20 at the West Sydney Wastelands had rock all going for it, and would have had even less than rock all going for it if it was not for Cow Corner Warner's switch hit, which re-started the debate over the shot's legality:

Dave Warner's blow ignites debate between left and right

DAVE Warner's sensational 100m switch hit for six in Wednesday's Twenty20 match has reignited debate over the legality of the shot.

Dave Hussey loved it, I think:

Teammate David Hussey - a batsman - is a fan of the shot.

But Hussey admitted he got frustrated with Warner when bowling to him at training. "Dave does it to me in the nets all the time. It frustrated me, so I beamed him - I tried to hit him in the head. It didn't go down very well, so we had a bit of a falling out for a couple of moments."

"No, no, no. You hit him on the head. You naughty moose."

ADJUDICATE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE

The DRS in Bangladesh is not for the faint-hearted (he says, while manfully resisting the urge to use "The Umpire Strikes Back") and would necessitate colourful graphics on the big screen:

Umpire kills Bangladeshi cricket fan with bat

A CRICKET umpire killed a teenage spectator in Bangladesh by hitting him on the head with a bat in a dispute over a contested decision.

"The two argued over a not-out decision by the umpire. He accused the umpire of bias. At one stage, the umpire became angry, took a bat and hit the young boy on the head," Hossain said.

The umpire was being sought for questioning but had gone into hiding, he said.

Thanks, Biggy Baby.