SWEEET

"Ooh! What a jaffa!"

-- Trevor Bailey

Happily Fox Twelve have restored the balance.

Tuesday they showed the First Test from the 1989 Ashes. How's this for an England pace "attack"? Derek Pringle, Phil "Strange" Appa-Freitas, Neil Foster and Phil Newport. Zing! It was interesting to listen to the commentators in light of the fact that England actually held the Ashes at the time. Not even a hint of the gloom to come, just mild surprise Australia won so comfortably. There was also a slightly spoken commentator who seemed rather on the ball. Every time he opened his mouth he had something worthwhile to say. Succinct, too. Didn't go on at all. Pity I don't know who it was.

Today they showed the First Test from the 1993 Ashes. Warne's first encounter with the old enemy. Super-hunk Brendan Bernard Julian running around. Plonker McDermott before he twisted his colon, or something. And for England. Chris Lewis, Andy Caddick, Graham Hack, Appa-Freitas, Tuffers, Peter Such. What ever happened to Such? Where's Marty McCague? We know what happened to HIM; he couldn't play. England: a machine.

Comments

[pat]

Taylor hits a ton in both 1st innings. Very underrated as one of the main causes of Oz's cricket resurgence. Partnered Marsh making test records to follow with statistically the best opening pair ever with Slater, even better than Greenidge and Haynes.

Alderman bags 10fa! Pure genius in England. I believe the oz selectors have blooded Watson to be our seamer for the Ashes tour. Reifle followed in Aldermans' footsteps, consistent line and length, stump to stump. Hopefully Watson can follow suit.

Was the '93 test the one where Warney bowled Gatting with a horrendously turning leggie to Gattings utter disbelief?

Wish I had Fox - I'm green with envy.

[Rafe]

This email bounced:

Hello Tony, to answer your question I do not live in Melbourne, although as a Tasmanian I think of it as my second home, I now live in exile in Sydney and follow rugby league as well as the Demons.

You might enjoy a piece that I did on the role of gambling in the rise of cricket.

cheers

Rafe

[pat]

you're an eels fan aren't you Rafe?

[Brett Pee]

Wasn't McCague one of those bloody turncoats ? Bought up in Oz but had to get a game with the old enemy. I sincerely hope that Border & co gave him a 'warm' welcome. Did he have much success ?

I think '93 was the year that Warnie bemused Fat Gat with the 'ball' of the century. I've seen the video and the look of bemusement on Gatts face was hilarious.

AND.....surely that 'pace' attack from England back then is a joke. Nobody could send out an 'attack' like that and succeed surely.

ps. The Poms are collapsing again. Only they could be 130 odd for 1 and collapse to under 300 or so. Pure comedy. Tony- rest assured , we have NOTHING to worry about this winter. See me if i'm wrong.

[Brett Pee]

Oh, nearly forgot, what a spanking the Windies have just received AND Brett Lee returning tight, wicket taking figures. Got a future in the 1 day game perhaps ?

[Tony.T]

Pat: That quote up top is what Bailey said when Warne bowled Gatting.

Rafe: Thanks, I'll check that out. Go Dees!

Brett: Lee was fantastic in the 2003 World Cup, so he's definitely got something to offer one-day-wise.

[Yorkshiresoul]

Dear Brett Pee,

Since when is 411 'under 300 or so' ?

Let's hope the Ozzies are better at cricket than math.

[Tony.T]

I don't vouch for my compatriots, Mike. I still reckon these Ashes will be tight. Even though the Sart Efrican bowling is piss-weak at best.

And I hope Ponting's captaincy is better than Smith's.

[pat]

Yorkshiresoul, poms were 7/278 and looked like they were going down in another english blaze of defeat. Great partnership 1st Vaughan, then once again Harmison.

If the poms drop Hoggard and replace him with Harmison and get themselves someone who can bowl they could have the makings of a team that could take on Australia A.

[Tony.T]

Pat, did you check out Smith's bogus captaincy? Talk about handing over the ascendancy. I guess having a crap attack may have something to do with his soft field placings, but shit, he sure knows how to let the opposition out of a jam.

[Brett Pee]

I spoke a bit TOO soon regarding the Poms collapse...Micky Vaughn came to the party, at long bloody last. Regarding Smith- the blokes a god down Yarpo way, but i don't rate him. He's young, for sure, but runs out of ideas quickly-got a big mouth though.

[Tony.T]

Yes. A very early call indeed, Brett. In fact, as a rule you shouldn't make those kinds of calls until both sides have batted.

Smith started off like a machine, but since he's been skipper he's struggled for consistent runs. In an ideal world he'd probably do five or six years before he'd even be considered captain.

Wonder if Strauss will go through a lean spell. Most batsmen do after thy've had a hot start to their test careers. You know, as other teams work them out.

[Brett Pee]

They reckon Strauss is next in line for England captaincy....that'll end his hot streak. Oh, and where was he born ? Joburg !! Another Pom ranked in the steep traditions of another country. Who next ? Kevan Pietersson ?

[Tony.T]

Stuart Law?

[Yorkshiresoul]

I rather fear that if we take Pat's advice and replace Hoggard then we wouldn't be taking any wickets at all.

Isn't Pietersson already being considered for a central contract ?

[Tony.T]

Oh, I dunno, Mike. You can always rely on Anderson to get a bag with short, wide trash.

The Hogg's bowling pretty well at the moment.

[Brett Pee]

Stewie Law ? He's not qualified for Pom duty is he ? AND he must be 40 years old now. The best overseas player we have ever sent over there and it was CRIMINAL he never played 50 tests.

Anderson hasn't played any crick for a while though...and it shows.He was the future of Pom bowling a while back...that did'nt last long.Cracks are appearing in their 'invincibles' already.Even Harmison has lost pace & direction and this is bloody good to see.

[Tony.T]

Law was given British citizenship two weeks ago.

Harmison's got some kind of injury. Not sure what, though.

[pat]

I believe that Law is the only Australian to ever get an unbeaten half ton on debut and never play for his country again.

PS. Strauss is gawwwwwwn.

[Tony.T]

Yep. He had a 100 partnership with Ponting before Punter got a very dubious Elbee in the nineties. Law got 54 not out in his only ever test innings.

I wonder if a shield cricketer has ever had longer hair than Law did when he started out for Qld.

[pat]

Don't know - that is a very good question. Good trivia question - who had the longest hair on debut for Australia?

The worst haircut on debut has to be Warney's half mullet / half $5 cut-price helmet head special.

[Tony.T]

What about Wayne Phillip's mullet circa 1984?

[Tony.T]

In fact, Phillip's mullet/mo combo. Tres chic.

[pat]

Took the words right out of my mouth. Looked like one of the guitarists from ELO.

[Tony.T]

ELO: Couple of weeks ago I had a young guy in a pub raving about how he'd discovered this great band called ELO.

What song. Pat?

Have you been all right .... through all these lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely nights

[pat]

"Telephone Line" from "A New World Record". Sadly, but true,
I even love their stuff from "Xanadu".
(accidental rhyme there)

[Tony.T]

Hey, nothing wrong with knowing ELO tunes. They weren't great, but they weren't bogus, either. Not sure about the Xanadu gear, though.

They were very ... ahem ... literary ...

Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot, they don't envy me ...

Deep.

[pat]

John Lennon said in a Playboy interview early 70's that if the Beatles were still going they'd sound like ELO - and it was meant as a compliment.

Personally they are one of my favourite bands. Dylan, Orbison and Harrison respected Lynne enough to make him part of the Travelling Wilburys.

And they were gutsy - willing to sing a pro-life tune "Living thing". Anyone can samsh a guitar and be 'non-conventional' but to be unconventionaly unconventional?! My rating 10 out of 10 :-)

[Clem Snide]

I've recently gone further back in time, leafing through some old Wisdens from the mid-late 1960's. It's quite amusing to read about the controversies of the day:
-much ado about chucking, with Richie Benaud leading the chorus of complainers
-complaints about the poor quality of English pitches, and how this was adversely affecting the quality of English batting, and resulting in the death of spin bowling.
-(terminally?) declining interest in domestic cricket and the financial pressures this was putting on county teams.
-futile attempts to arrest declining interest in domestic cricket by means of endless rule-tweaking
-successful attempts to arrest declining interest in domestic cricket with the new, shorter (one-day) form of the game
-declining standards of player behaviour
-players refusing to walk when they know they're out
-intimidatory bowling of bouncers
-complaints of "slow" over rates ( <30 overs per hour)

I suspect cricket traditionalists will still be complaining about the above in 100 years time. On the other hand, the prehistoric anguish over whether cricket should be permitted on Sunday, the Holy Sabbath, is hard to understand nowadays.

Also mentioned was the beginnings of the Seth Efrica sports boycott. Whereas Wisden was supportive of the Seth Efricans and contemptuous of anti-apartheid activists in 1965, that all changed dramatically with the D'Oliveira affair.

But what particularly caught my eye were the triangular one-day international series (Rothmans World Cricket Cup) in 1966 between the host country's national team, a West Indian team & a Rest of the World team. This was 11 years before World Series Cricket, and more than three years before the first official ODI between Australia and England. Unlike the English one day domestics, the ODI's consisted of 50 6-ball overs, with bowlers limited to 11 overs each. It was even arranged & sponsored by a cigarette company. Unlike the first official ODI, which was a hastily arranged substitute for a Test match, this was a properly organised contest, staged at Lord's. Kerry Packer eat your heart out.

[Tony.T]

Terrific comment, Clem. "Plus ca change, etc."

I wish Richie was more diligent of his stance on throwing these day. But I suppose with Channel Nine having a heavy involvement with Cricket Australia, he's not about to rock the boat.

I never knew about that 1966 ODI. Was it an officially recognised match? It stikes me as odd that the match in Melbourne in 70/71 would so stridently proclaim it's status as the first international ODI if there had already been one.

Something seemss NQR, as they say.

[Big Ramifications]

I wonder if a shield cricketer has ever had longer hair than Law did when he started out for Qld.

Gillespie was playing with a fairly long pony tail before he played for Oz.

Longer than Law's? Dunno - never saw Law's hair back then.

[Clem Snide]

Tony: Richie may need to be diffident and diplomatic about expressing his views on chucking these days, but his non-selections and non-nominations for his Greatest XI Of All Time spoke volumes. Plus he doesn't have to face Charlie Griffith's bowling anymore, so the urgency has diminished for him.

The Rothman's World Cricket Cup was a bit like WSC circa 1978/79 - strictly-speaking unofficial, organised by a private company which had bought up most of the top international players, written up in Wisden, and staged at the most prestigious cricket grounds. Ironically, Bob Simpson was Rest of the World captain. And like WSC, it lasted two seasons only.

One of the Wisdens also had a potted history of major cricket developments up until then. Triangular international tournaments date back to 1912, team-specific coloured uniforms died out around 1880, the millionaire cricket lover Sir Julien Cahn was buying up top professional players for his unofficial touring tests in the 1920's, and professional cricketers had been playing well-attended one-day cricket matches in the Lancashire League for decades before Kerry Packer came along. Apart from the marketing, World Series Cricket invented surprisingly little.

[Brett Pee]

Bloody Poms. Beaten S.A. from a seemingly losable position in 4th test. Bastards.

[Tony.T]

Big: Law had VERY long girly, hippie, bogan hair. Take you pick, it was much longer than Gill-Pie's

Clem: Richie's Greatest XI was dodgy. Good stuff on the ODIs. I look forward to Bill Lawry acknowledging he didn't captain in the "First Ever ODI". Or at least ALWAYS noting the "Official" status. If he doesn't, I'll pounce. He should be concerned.

Brett: I don't know what to make of the Poms. I guess it needs to be taken into consideration that the Sarth Efricans can neither bat, not bowl.

[Brett Pee]

Or, indeed, field.

[Tony.T]

Didn't see it, but they're usually OK in that department. Drop a couple, did they?

[Big Ramifications]

Is Bill's claim to fame being one of the two captains of the "First Ever ODI"? (The "I" standing for "International") Clem, were any of the early One Day matches you refer to "Internationals"?

Just wondering if I've missed something here.

ps: The first game I clicked on in your "Triangular International Tournaments" link tells me that a one T.J. Matthews got a hatrick in each innings of a test. I had never heard of this feat before.

[Big Ramifications]

Hat-trick, even.

[Tony.T]

Hatrick, shmat-trick.

From Cricinfo, Big. I give you Thomas James Matthews; Jimmy to his mates.

"Jimmy Matthews was a small, leathery, but remarkably tough legspinner whose place in cricket history was secured when he took a hat-trick in each innings of the Old Trafford Test against South Africa during the ill-fated 1912 Trinagular Tournament. Both feats came on the same day, and were his only wickets in the game. That particularly wet year was a good one for Matthews – he took 85 wickets at 19.37. He had only made his Test debut the previous winter, doing enough in the last three Tests against England to win selection for the tour. In all, he played more games on the 1912 tour (28) than he did in his entire first-class career in Australia. He did not resume playing after the war, even though he was still comparatively young, and for many years was curator at Williamstown."

[Big Ramifications]

I'm just wondering why his name isn't up there with Jim Laker or Garfield Sobers or Hanif Mohammad as having achieved a freakish individual feat in a match.

Or is it? And I've just missed hearing his name in all these years of being a cricket fan?

I also pinched this juicy titbit from a "cricket-forum.net" discussion:

*T.A. Ward of South Africa is the only player ever to make a hat-trick-completing king pair (T.J. Matthews being the bowler).

*T.A. Ward of South Africa was born in Rawalpindi. Rawalpindi India, not Rawalpindi Pakistan. Er, probably because Pakistan didn't exist back then.

[Tony.T]

Oh, I dunno. I've heard his name mentioned a few times. It comes up regularly when Hat-Tricks are taken.

Maybe he's not up there in lights because his career was so short and it was such a long time ago.

" ... probably because Pakistan didn't exist back then."

Took the words out of my mouth.

[Brett Pee]

a LEATHERY leg spinner ? Conjures up all kinds of images that does. Wonder if he had a zooter ?

[Tony.T]

Or a tweeter and woofer.

[Brett Pee]

Harmison is bowling like a donut in the last and deciding Pom test- awful, short, wide and not too handsome !! We will take some of that in the Ashes thanking him kindly. It is a happy thought to me that Andrew Flintoff has looked their best bowler down Yarp way, nothing too much to bother us Tony.

Their cricket has now taken a backward step by having it removed from 'free' to air TV.So apparently 66% of their own viewers are being denied the chance to watch a relatively successful pom side for the 1st time ever. I mean, their grass roots crick is none too strong and now the kids won't be able to watch the Flintoff's and Strausses of this world. This must have far reaching and long term effects on their game. More money for sure- but won't this enable their counties to bring in more overseas/kolpak registered players and harm their own blokes chances of progressing ? Strange.

Cricket only available on 'pay to view' ? Unthinkable it should happen to us !!!

[Tony.T]

Commercial TV stations have treated us like idiots for too long. Unless they show whole matches, cricket should be on Pay.

[Brett Pee]

The Dreaded Poms sneaked a 2-1 series vic over the Yarps despite only playing at 75% of their potential. Seen nothing to worry us Tony- Strauss is vulnerable to pitched up deliveries on off stick- McGrath take note. As for Flintoff- bring on Clarke when he comes to the crease, Vaughn- bring on ANYBODY. Steve Harmison has TOTALLY lost the plot, big time. His bowling average in the series was a monolithic 85 per wicket- toss,pure toss.

Verdict on the Saaarf Afikaaans ? They are unbelievably bloody negative even at home.

[Tony.T]

Saw Strauss stop and wait for the Third when he was caught. Just get off. Be interesting to see if the Aussies and Poms come to some arrangement about taking the fielder's word for it.

The Sarfies are badly captained and only have about two and a half batsmen. And how about that bowler who keeps going the batsmen? Nel? What a lunatic!

[Brett Pee]

Andre Nel is (desperately searching for the right words) a complete and utter tit. Anybody who follows 8 yards down the track and stares out a batter had better have the bowling to back it up. He doesn't and is extremely bloody irksome.

Isn't he the guy who was pulled over and caught for drink driving by our traffic cops a few years back ? On a Yarp 'A' tour ?

[Tony.T]

I know the likes of Merv Hughes and McGrath eyeball the batsmen, but Nel does it every ball. Even when he's tonked. He's a dickhead.

Dunno about his althercation, though.

[Brett Pee]

Yeah....it WAS him. Looked him up- bit of a troublemaker and hothead. We should have banged him up inside for 3 months.

Yarp one dayers- have you read that Kevin Pietersen is receiving a load of stick from players & crowd for playing for England and turning his back on S.A. ? He remarked that some of his abusers can "hardly even speak English". Probably 'cos their Aftikaan !!

[Tony.T]

I remember when Mike Whitney copped a mouthful from a Paki keeper in Perth. Later at a tribunal, the Paki keeper pretended he didn't speak English.

On the way out he said "Catch you later" to Whitney.