AGB Cricket

ULTIMATE STIMULUS

Sports Online, in generously offering to relieve you of your hard-earned, is getting into the spirit of the stimulus:

Sports Online are proudly Australian owned and operated. As many Australians have recently received (or are about to receive) their economy stimulus payment, we would like to offer a selection of purely AUSTRALIAN sports memorabilia that is 100% Aussie through and through. You can be sure that every dollar spent on these sale items will be kept in our country!

What's more, they are doing it with a surprising piece of scamorabilia. Not merely your 500 ceramic caps or your 457 authentic replica Mobile Prepaid stumps, but with an actual one-off bat:

2007 The Ultimate Hat-Trick World Cup Champions bat
ONLY 1 AVAILABLE
Framed Price: $3,930.00 + $65.00 delivery

Who knew "one-off" was in the scamorabilia lexicon. Pity it's a generic bat and not a player's bat.

The timing of the release is serendipitous, too. I mean, Australia might have sagged in the world rankings, down to a gutter-grovelling No.3 for the first time, but the media cycle has a short memory. Australia have won the last three World Cups. Or as it is known round these parts: The Only Fifty/50 Tournament That Matters.

GLUT REACTION

You were thinking "Gee, at $295 that Ceramic Blaggy Green looks like a prime investment opportunity. Only 500? I better get on board quick sticks."

Later, watching your purchase sit on the shelf, you are surprised to hear that another, almost identical, 359 Matthew Hayden Ceramic Blaggy Greens are to be released onto the market.

(Framed Price: $295.00 + $20.00 delivery)

Framed?

Then your memorabilia broker rings up. "Bad news. Every Aussie cricketer is going to get a Ceramic Blaggy."

Coincidentally, or not, potential buyers of the Hayden Blaggy Green curious about how many Original Blaggy Greens were released will find it is the only item to have been removed from the cricket page of the Sports Online & Wide World of Sports memorabilia site.

BETTER BELATE THAN NEVER

The Old Bastman (a quite excellent blog, by the way) links to Gideon Haigh's belated but not dated tribute to Matthew Hayden:

Haigh and mighty

Gideon Haigh's farewell to Matthew Hayden in today's Guardian was a couple of weeks late, but to mangle a cliche, if it's good enough who cares how old it is?

Also mentioned is a sledge Hayden is reported to have given Zaheer Khan during the 2003 World Cup final:

"Smell that, Z?" he smirked. "That's your house in India burning down."

No doubt about it: gold. During the Strayan tour of India the commentators (can't remember which ones) were talking about the sledge in a way that suggested it was common knowledge. But upon googling it, there were only three mentions. Why does it not have greater prominence? Or it is another "You just dropped the World Cup, Hersh" moment?

And since when did Mike Atherton lose the plot?

PULLING THE PINK

BLAGGY GREEN

3 FOR 10,000

TOUR OF BOOTY

STUMP SCAM

Phone now!

AND I ASK YOU IS IT ANY GOOD?

Complete with "authentic facsimile signature."

SCAMORABILIA

A long overdue article on the sh1t flogged by the Nine commentators:

The frame game

CHANNEL Nine has been flogging the stuff for years. In the Sydney Test, it was Andrew Symonds’ turn. A "beautifully presented, personally signed" photo of Symonds, on bent knee after a belted drive, and underneath an actual swatch of willow from a bat used by Symonds in a 2007 Test match, complete with his year’s statistics, all finished in "a quality timber frame".

Titled A Smashing Year, this limited-edition "amazing collectable" of 250 pieces is officially licensed by Cricket Australia, authenticated and certified by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and two weeks ago, you could have it for just $728. Yesterday, its price was down to $693.

Only problem is, according to sports memorabilia expert Rick Milne, they’re worth next to nothing. Because by next year no one wants to buy them.

"At the Perth Test two weeks ago, Richie Benaud stooped so low as to be flogging some Adam Gilchrist tribute," Milne said last week. "I don’t think it’s a good look for somebody like Richie Benaud to be flogging that stuff, and there he was, saying, ‘Great memories of the brilliance of Adam Gilchrist, just call this number’. But the things on the secondary market are almost worthless."