AGB Cricket

THE KFC BB GF AB & BJ SHOW

With Merv and Blewey.

JOLLY WALKER ALL STARS

Apparently there is a point to a sporting event where the competitors - they are nominally competing - spend most every moment smiling and joking and having a good time. Actually, more than a few smiles seem CA-mandated.

I like that Spanky says he doesn't like anything with pizzazz. If you've got anything to say about tonight's high definition pizzazz at the Gabba, say it here, preferably without pizzazz.

PLUG-A-LUG

Bill: "Give him a Johnny Walker, for goodness sake."

Slatts: "He might take the KFC instead."

GANGH BANGHERS

AGB hero Bashin' Bedi gets stuck into the Quicket:

Bedi averse to Twenty20 cricket

New Delhi (PTI): Indian Premier League may have hit a cord with spectators, but former Indian captain Bishen Singh Bedi on Saturday strongly criticised Twenty20 cricket, saying the game had "reached its lowest possible denominator" in the name of entertainment.

"I must say that cricket has reached its lowest possible denominator. May be it is popular because people have a herd mentality. They tend to follow everything blindly that is new to their eyes and taste without any substance," Bedi said.

"The administrators, the players, the franchisees, the media and the spectators are all responsible for this degeneration of cricket. And I am sorry to use such strong words that they are all collectively "gangraping" cricket, and we think that this is entertainment. In my eyes cricket is the biggest institution for character building," he told Sahara Samay.

Taking stock of the present day scenario in cricket, Bedi came down heavily on sportspersons and not the sport for deviation from its path.

"Cricket is not deviating from its path, rather, the cricketers are deviating from their path. There were times when the game and the player looked merged into one another, such was the dedication for cricket. Now-a-days, it has all vanished and lost into a void. And there are certain reasons behind it."

Thanks via hat-tippin' Boynton.

MAA KI BALL

Moneyball, cricket and the IPL. Remember this?

ACE ON BASE

Moneyball (The Art of Winning an Unfair Game) is a book about baseball by American sport's writer Michael Lewis.

The thrust of the book is that The Oakland Athletics, a team struggling against the big money advantages enjoyed by the likes of the NY Yankees, Boston Red Socks, Atlanta Braves have been able to stay highly competetive. They could not afford to buy, say, Pedro Martinez or Randy Johnson for gazillions of dollars and, instead, had to look extremely closely at the statistics of lesser credentialled players such as Nick Swisher and Scott Hatteberg in an attempt to keep up with the big boys.

How about this?

WINDOW DRESSING

In the same way I'm not against the EPL being big business, I'm not against T20. I don't take much notice of the format, but nor do I take much notice of ice hockey, tennis, horse racing, golf, any motor racing format or large mouth bass fishing. I pretty much contain my interests to AFL, Test cricket, NFL and major league baseball, but all the rest merrily exist without any input from me.

And they are all professional. Just like T20 is now professional.

Someone needs to tell that to the papers; Saturday's headlines were particular gloat-fests. The Herald Sun: Another Poor Return. Aussies win but million dollar batsmen fail again.The Strayan: Money cannot buy runs. Bad Day at the office for cricket's new millionaires.

Perspective, please. The combined total of the T20 Aussie bids was $7.39 million. Tiger Woods can make that in a handful of tournaments. Roger Federer likewise. Same for good AND bad boxers, loads of phoodboll players, and pretty much everyone in the American baseball except for the kid who picks up the bats. You don't see the papers getting stuck into the likes of Woods, Federer, Tom Brady because the make big money.

Mind you, what you do see is the press getting stuck into players who fail to live up to their price tag, which I suppose is what Saturday's papers were doing. It will be interesting to see if the IPL signees live up to their auction value. Imagine if Dhoni Kebab strolls out and makes a string of ducks, drops sitters, or is caught cheating like he might have been yesterday with his cheaty gloves.

That's the "beauty" of professional sport: your reputation is on the line. That's why I love major league baseball. Watching a clutch pitcher or hitter perform when the heat is on goes to the very essence of competitive sport. The same goes for Michael Jordan. He was not a superstar because he could sink buckets with his eyes closed, he was a superstar because he could sink buckets with his eyes closed with half a second left in a big match and everyone in the opposition trying to stop him.

That will be one of the attractions of the T20. Will players deliver? The cricket, from a purist's perspective, will mostly be crap, but big money has cranked up the pressure. Who will crack first?

Now stroll through this fine piece of work from Athers in the Times:

Arrogant IPL owners must admit mistakes

Twenty20 franchises need statisticians to show extent of first-year flops

Are Rajasthan Royals the Oakland A's of cricket? Devotees of excellent sporting literature will need no introduction to Moneyball, a terrific yarn about how the A's, a relatively low-budget baseball team ($41million - about £22million - to spend on players counts as low budget in American sport), consistently outperformed their more illustrious and wealthier rivals by dint of the unorthodox coaching methods of Billy Beane, their general manager.

Initially I thought the post on Moneyball was a dry old piece of work. But the comments are terrific. For the porpoises of this post, make sure you read the ones related to cricket. And read the others because they are good.

Thanks, Gaz.

CARNA KITTS

The IPL Twenny Twenny starts tomorrow. I'm not going to blog every match, I'm not even going to watch every match - is it on telly? - but there ought to be plenty to comment on; if not on the field, then certainly off it. So, for the next few weeks make this here your one-stop ink-blot for everything Quicket.

ROAD TO SERFDUMB

And another thing. Can people - and by people I mean pinheads who prefer the sound of their own rhetoric - please stop droning on about the IPL player auction. "When I heard about the hideous indignities at the IPL slave market, I choked on my larks tongues." Just shut up. Since when did slaves have a choice? Since when were slaves given big money for their work? It's no slave market. There was no indignity. There was just a bunch of highly skilled, willing participants ready to accept a lot of wonga for their services in an open and transparent bidding system. Pity it doesn't spread to the AFL.

Mark has more:

Shake Your Moneymaker

There have been a series of predictably snarky comments, both on the crystal box and in the chip wrappers, about the amount of money cricketers will earn from the IPL.

WINDOW DRESSING

The idea for an annual Twenty20 fiesta in India has been defended by all and sundries as a necessary "window" for fitting the short caper into the international schedule. Spin. If the T20 in India is a raging success, you'd have to be a very thick thicko indeed not to be able to see that other countries will want their cut and eat it, too.

Can you imagine the phoodboll countries looking at the English Premier League and concluding that because the EPL is too good they may as well fold? Of course not. The EPL is probably the biggest phoodboll competition on the orb - at least from our anglicized perspective - but there are plenty of other strong La Leegas, Seeriah Ays, Boondessleegas, and Copper Del Mericas; even our own Ay Leeg is looking to increase its profile. Certainly none have shut up shop because the EPL is currently rocking.

Crash has a fair point in today's News papers: India are laughing because the T20 festivals will strengthen their own player development. But it's not an entirely valid point. Has the EPL made England the best soccer nation? No. Who doesn't love it when the red tops embark on their yearly slam-a-thon of hopeless England (Swedes 2 Turnips 1), the cheating opposition (Achtung!) or the blind ump... referees (Swiss Banker!). What the EPL does, apart from churn big money, is increase the depth of soccer ability world wide.

In the same way I'm not against the EPL being big business, I'm not against T20. I don't take much notice of the format, but nor do I take much notice of ice hockey, tennis, horse racing, golf, any motor racing format or large mouth bass fishing. I pretty much contain my interests to AFL, Test cricket, NFL and major league baseball, but all the rest merrily exist without any input from me.

And they are all professional. Just like T20 is now professional.

Someone needs to tell that to the papers; Saturday's headlines were particular gloat-fests. The Herald Sun: Another Poor Return. Aussies win but million dollar batsmen fail again.The Strayan: Money cannot buy runs. Bad Day at the office for cricket's new millionaires.

Perspective, please. The combined total of the T20 Aussie bids was $7.39 million. Tiger Woods can make that in a handful of tournaments. Roger Federer likewise. Same for good AND bad boxers, loads of phoodboll players, and pretty much everyone in the American baseball except for the kid who picks up the bats. You don't see the papers getting stuck into the likes of Woods, Federer, Tom Brady because the make big money.

Mind you, what you do see is the press getting stuck into players who fail to live up to their price tag, which I suppose is what Saturday's papers were doing. It will be interesting to see if the IPL signees live up to their auction value. Imagine if Dhoni Kebab strolls out and makes a string of ducks, drops sitters, or is caught cheating like he might have been yesterday with his cheaty gloves.

That's the "beauty" of professional sport: your reputation is on the line. That's why I love major league baseball. Watching a clutch pitcher or hitter perform when the heat is on goes to the very essence of competitive sport. The same goes for Michael Jordan. He was not a superstar because he could sink buckets with his eyes closed, he was a superstar because he could sink buckets with his eyes closed with half a second left in a big match and everyone in the opposition trying to stop him.

That will be one of the attractions of the T20. Will players deliver? The cricket, from a purist's perspective, will mostly be crap, but big money has cranked up the pressure. Who will crack first?

Which all leads me onto another thing: the bagging of Roy, Ponting and Flatty for their string of failures. How come none of the experts zero in on the conditions? Those three batsmen, and loads others around the cricket world have, for numerous years, been able to rock up to a match and swing through the line on straight and true decks. Straya's whole Fifty50 - Frankie Leach used that term on Offsiders yesterday; bet he reads the AGB - philosophy is to swing big. But this season they haven't been able to do so; most every deck has been two paced and difficult to score on. Of course batsmen used to loverly roads have struggled. Then what happened yesterday? The SCG served up a run feast on a true pitch. A pity. Which have been the better matches? The low scoring scraps or Sunday's run glut? I've already seen yesterday's match described as a thriller. Balls! High scoring matches that suit their commercial imperative might be good for CricAussie and Channel Nine, but not for me. It can only be a matter of time until Richie Benaud works a T20 match and says "You simply must bat out the full 20 overs."

Will I follow the IPL? Yes, but not strongly. I was conceived in Calcutta, so I will follow Kolkata. But that's about it.

Having said ALL that, the threat to Test cricket, by far the best sport in the world, is very real. Mark asks a valid question:

How long before a centrally contracted English player decides that the lure of half a million a year for three years from the IPL is a better deal that about 20% of that over a shorter period from the ECB?

On a related note, Jonathan Agnew in today's Observer says that KP is looking 'distracted'.  I wonder why that is?!

Here's hoping Test cricket doesn't implode because players decided on cash before country.

More from Olly Reed at Aussie Cricket:

When Steve Waugh was trying to inspire his Aussie side to win in India, he christened the challenge the 'final frontier'. Now that saying is irrelevant. India has become the epicentre of the cricket world. For all the flack the BCCI cops you have to give them credit for the IPL. It's a great idea. It's the sought of thing we should be doing in Australia.

Read on.

EVERYONE LOVES TT

Greg Baum used... sarcasm:

Whatever else it is, TT is not cricket

Everyone loves TT, but remember basketball, the last sport that tarted itself up.

EVERYONE loves Twenty20 (TT for short — evidently an abbreviated game needs an even more abbreviated name). Fans love it for the atmos, the novelty, the fireworks, the din. Television loves it for the ratings. Administrators love it because television loves it. Players love it for the money — fistfuls of it.

When I saw the heading to Patrick Smith's article in yesterday's Strayan I thought he meant the speed and intensity of TT would eat up the fogey cricketers who were trying to eke out a few extra seasons worth of cashola:

Revolution will devour old fogeys

WHEN cricket was turned on its head by the World Series revolution there was some sympathy for administrators.

They might have been naive or arrogant not to be prepared for the devastation that Kerry Packer's breakaway league would deliver, but it was their trusted senior players who plotted in secret against them. They were betrayed from within.

Well... not everyone loves TT:

Greed, hypocrisy and forgotten fans

TWO months ago this column said loudly that the Australian cricket community needed to coalesce into a house of review and ensure that Cricket Australia is acting in the best interests of its constituents.

The need is greater than ever. In December the call to arms was, among other things, triggered by talk of Test match cricket being played under lights. Now it has more to do with preserving the integrity, uniqueness and relevance of Test match cricket per se.

TWENTY/20 VIS... Oh, shut up!

Didn't see more than ten minutes of the match on Tuesday night, but I did listen to it... on SEN. Yes, that's right, SEN broadcast the cricket from the WACA.

It wasn't much chop, but it wasn't dreadful, either. It was certainly different to ABC.

The commentators were Anthony Hudson, Mark Readings, Billy Brownless, Justing Langer and Rodney Hogg. Huddo, put a sock in it. The little bloke knows his stuff, but his shrill, grating voice borders on a crime: GBH of the Earhole. Readings - as in Otis Reddings - is your typical radio vocal robot; his smooth voice augmented by an American-style patter. Yes, awful. At least I never heard him say a player "got the job done." Billy Brownless is Straya's foremost exponent of Just Happy To Be There; thus he didn't do much more than wise-crack in the background. Gnome B.N. isn't up to it; a poor voice, wonky delivery, no great insights to impart. At least he wasn't George Grljusich. Ooops, I forgot. Hoggy was gold, but. With everyone and their pet theory talking up the possibility of a four prong pace attack in Melbourne Hoggy was asked "You think we should play four fast bowlers in Melbourne?" He doesn't mess around: "No. Madness. The drop-in pitch is a paddock. Everyone is very disappointed." I wish everyone would tell everyone else who keep talking up the possibility. You know, it could be one of those Edgbaston stings, or Gabba revisited: lull the Indians into thinking the Melbourne pitch is like old Perth, and get 'em to send us in on a road.

A fun time was had by all. Kind of fitting, really. Be interesting to see if they do it again.

Richard Hinds has more on Twenty20 in general:

Setting sights on Twenty20 vision

READERS of the less decoratively coloured sections of this newspaper might have noticed a few significant developments in the hitherto hit-and-giggle world of Twenty20 cricket.

In no particular order:

■The decision by several members of the Australian team to sign on for the Indian Premier League Twenty20 competition on lucrative contracts without the consent of Cricket Australia was reported to be the greatest potential cause of a player mutiny since the late Kerry Packer first wondered what Viv Richards would look like in pink pyjamas.

■The appointment of Lara Bingle's boyfriend (bloke by the name of Michael Clarke, apparently) to captain Australia's Twenty20 team against New Zealand was not considered a token gesture for a meaningless romp, but proof positive that the team's next captain had been anointed. (Clarke, not Bingle.)

■Cricket Australia announced that it would next season abandon the tri-series one-day format that had been an integral part of summer since 1979-80 when it was known as the World Series Cup. The official reason for the change was an international schedule that is now tighter than Kyle Sandiland's belt buckle after his Christmas pudding. However, the fading popularity of the (and yes, this does sound like an oxymoron) traditional 50-over game compared with Twenty20 might also be a factor.

The upshot?

Read on.

Back at Tuesday night. Was that the youngest commentary team Channel Nine have ever had? Dick, Slogger, Tubbs, Heals, Smuthy, JB and assorted players meant that there were no fossils, which was nice, but it also meant that any sort of analysis went MIA. Not that it seemed to matter because they, like the SEN funsters, seemed to be having a whale of a time. Dick was gushing, Slogger sucking, Tubbs mumbling, Heals chipping, Smuthy copping a pasting (no one does the "us poor Kiwis" sadsack quite like Smuthy), JB was probably the best. It can only be a matter of time until he gets a gig in the Nine booth on a permanent basis. He's heaps better than the rest of them. The players were good, too.

Players' off-the-cuff TV commentary a winner

UNSCRIPTED observations from Adam Gilchrist as the ball smacked into his gloves and typically irreverent commentary from Andrew Symonds as he ran into bowl during Tuesday night's Twenty20 game have strengthened the Nine Network's resolve to enliven more traditional forms of the game with such broadcasting innovations — provided the players embrace them.

Gilly will surely following Brayshaw; Sidey Roy was typically irreverent but is unlikely to end up commentating given his propensity to "do a Hoggy" and speak his mind; Danny Vetori was good value, too, despite being swarmed by flies.

Petrocelli: "And in closing, Your Honour, can I just take you back to the night of the match."

Two incidents:

18.1	Mills to Symonds, 2 runs, cracking catch from Taylor, sliding just inside the rope. There's a referral, but ... oh hang on, it's been given not out as he was deemed to have spilled it at the last minute, although he looked to have full control for several seconds
Hmm, a let-off for Symonds I suspect

And:

1.5	Bracken to McCullum, 1 run, tight on off, the ball poked to cover, and Symonds flings down the stumps, or should I say stump, his underarm throw at full stretch takes the one stick he had to aim for at the non-striker's
It's very tight, and various replays are inconclusive enough to award the batsman the benefit. The crowd are unimpressed, but they may have more of a contest now McCullum's still in, rightly too

Because I missed the game, I taped the Foxtel highlights. Now, I don't want to cast any nasturtiums here, but neither of those contentious issues were shown on the replay. In fact, they completely skipped over both Straya's 18th over and New Z'lund's 2nd over.

YUVRAJ SHWIIING!

Yuvraj Singh - again! Not sure if he can replicate his buckle & swash in proper cricket, but he's certainly on a roll in Sorth Efrica. So is Sreesanth. Serious question: Is he the worst behaved cricketer? The consensus around here is that he's a fuckenidiot! Just imagine the rumpus if he was an Aussie.

Still, it seems to me there's way too much in-depth analysis expended on T20.

Are Australia soft in the middle?

India's achievement in winning the cracker of a semi-final - and ensuring that there will be one world trophy without Australia's name on it - can hardly be overstated. Or can it? Were there signs of weakness in the Australian team from the start?

Losing to Zimbabwe was a shock of Krakatoan proportions. Ultimately, of course, it didn't matter: England suffered the backlash and the Aussie vehicle rolled on in to the Super Eights, the dent to the bodywork revealed to be no more than a scratch.

One pattern to emerge from the tournament is that successful teams can take the loss of three or four top-order wickets in their stride. Yes, a bit of careful rebuilding is required - take the singles and ensure no more wickets fall - but keep some big-hitters at the crease and hope remains. Pakistan came back from three early wickets against Sri Lanka and four against Australia. New Zealand almost seemed to base their approach around a rescue act from Craig McMillan.

It also seems to me Straya need to get Errol Alcott back.

India knock out Aussies as toll mounts

AUSTRALIA has been knocked out of the Twenty20 World Cup in the semi-finals by India, with the tournament taking a terrible injury toll on the world champions.

India will now play Pakistan in the final at Johannesburg tomorrow.

Mike Hussey became the third Australian to suffer a hamstring strain in a week as Australia went down to India by 15 runs in an entertaining, high scoring clash here early this morning AEST.

He will have scans today when the team returns to Johannesburg to determine the extent of the injury and is in doubt for Australia’s one-day tour of India. The team leaves on Tuesday for the seven match series, which also includes a Twenty20 match.