After Grog Blog

FIRST TEST: BOWLED PERSONNELITY

PREAMBLE

So, both sides can bat, but can either side knock over the other side twice? Around here the loss of both McGrath and Warne has been discussed at length. Both had a confidence inspiring knack of picking up wickets at crucial times, but just as importantly, they could put the clamps on a scoring rate. Can our new-look attack cover their loss? We had a hint against the Shrees when we struggled to put them away at Bellerive - admittedly, not a minefield - and starting today we will further find out where our leather-flingers are at against a superior, if under-prepared, India.

India have their bowling issues, too. According to the Herald Sun they sent out an S.O.S to have both Ishant Sharma and Munaf Patel picked. The Hun shouldn't have been so quick to pick. India decided to stick with Kumble, Harby, Zaheer Khan and RP Singh. If Straya get away to a steady start, it's hard to see that attack rolling us toot-sweet. As always with Straya, though, you worry about their tendency to get themselves out. In Adelaide in 2003 they let right-arm-ordinary Agit Agakar run through the line-up, then Gilchrist dropped Dravid and India pinched a win out of nowhere. Very much cowboys v. Indians. Calcutta 2001 Straya were desperate to keep their winning run going, but fell victim to Wee Wee Laxman's double century, then, on a difficult last day wicket, still chased a win instead of shutting up shop. That profligacy cost us a Test match.

Did I mention chasing records? There's a coincidence. Did I mention dropped catches? Touch wood. Did I mention dodgy umpiring? Well, I didn't mention dodgy umpiring, but for the record the umpires gave us a hiding in Calcutta. Not that I'm complaining. Not at all. Just pointing out the facts.

Anyhoo, for me, it's all about the bowling.

A good start: Ponting won the toss and Straya will bat first. No one seems to know what the MCG pitch will do, but if Straya can weather any early awkwardness, batting first is probably the best bet; what's more, it reinforces the decision to pick Hogg in preference to Larry Tait.

And I'm glad we didn't play four quicks. If the four bowlers were guns, say, Marshall, Ambrose, Holding and Garner, you'd pick them. But if you think the significantly less deadly Lee, Clark, Johnston and Tait are all good enough to play in the one match on anything other than a concrete green-top, you're kidding yourself. Hogg had to play.

DAY ONE

It's a measure of how good Straya have been in recent years that a score of 337 on Day One attracts the Herald Sun headline: CRUSHER KUMBLE Indian captain spearheads Aussie demolition. Which is definitive enough until you read in the same paper: HOW ABOUT THAT Kiwis finally find form at Bangladesh expense. That's alright, I can take a joke. Still, the first headline is a fair indication of how much cricket has changed in recent years. Time was a score of 250 on day one at the MCG was considered a good day's work; 300 almost a batting miracle.

Nevertheless, 0/135 to 9/337 is 9/202 which ain't great. Especially when you considered most got starts. A point which seems to have eluded Tony Grieg, who at 5:56 said: "These Aussies always fight it out, no one's going to give their wicket away." What's he on? Hungry, Reverend Flatty, Clarke, Sidey Roy, Church (the zombie cat in Pet Sematary) and Georgie Hogg were all set until they got out to shit shots. Thankfully Flatty cashed in, but Hungry's was one of those dismissals you had a hunch might change the momentum given that Kumble, ever since his first over, looked as if he might provide some discomfort. The rest were lame: Clarke forgot to move his feet; Roy tried to crowbar the ball through mid-wicket; Gilly slung across a wide one; Hoggy slashed at his first ball with the second new ball. If that's not a paragon example of "give their wicket away" then I'm Bhagwat Chandraseker.

But what about India? Well, their bowling was good, but not stellar. Kumble, right from the time he came on, looked dangerous; Zack Khan was steady; RP fair to middling; Harby got better as the day went on. But like Nick mentioned in the comments, their fielding was dreadful. Was it Greg Chappell who taught them to escort balls to the boundary? Which makes the fact they took their catches, not that they were blinders, galling. A couple of drops and we might have been sitting pretty. In recent years we've benefited big time from other sides' charity, but now that the other side pouched most everything, it will be interesting to see if we, in turn, hold all our catches. If we start dropping chances, as we did in 2003/04, I'll have a fit.

Two connected questions. Is (now) 343 a bad score? And, how is the pitch? Bill Lawry is convinced batting yesterday was easy and that the pitch is only going to get better. ("Nine wickets in a day is almost unheard of.") That's despite batting on the MCG being an awkward prospect all season. Tony Greig thinks yesterday's score wasn't too bad and that Straya did pretty well. So it's good or it's bad, which is typical of a sports coverage covering all angles, but if it gets any gooderer, then Straya will be in trouble as I don't expect India to chuck their wickets away... well, that depends on what Yuvy Shwing gets up to. And given tail-enders Johnston and Clark got starts, too, we now get a very real chance to see if our new attack can restrict a good batting line-up in, what would appear to be, favourable conditions.

Did I mention India have no coach?

DAY TWO

I think Bruce sums it up best:

Dravid's pathetic start set the tone for the day. For all their talk of taking it up the Aussies it was only Tendulker and Ganguly who showed any aggression and Kumble could only add some defiance at the end. Even with their targetting of Hoggy he has only gone for the same rate as India did.

Even so - there will be enough time to chase down 400 - if they are good enough.

After Straya had been rolled for what Flatty called a "par effort" - I'd say "slightly below par" but I don't want to confuse anyone strolling in here from a golf blog who thinks "slightly below par" is a good thing - it was a huge relief yesterday when India came out and wasted the first session. Two for thirty odd in the best part of two hours was dreadful stuff and allowed the Aussies to dictate the tone of the day, despite Tendulk... sorry, The Little Master Maestro's attacking 62.

Not surprisingly, Spanky turned his analogies, metaphors and similies loose on Dravid:

Jittery Dravid fidgets and folds

RAHUL Dravid endured a day of torment at the MCG. At any rate it seemed like a day. Apparently his desperate effort lasted only 103 minutes but time hung heavily over the ground. Pressed into service as an opener, he poked around anxiously, seeking a humble run and the relief that it might bring. After an eternity he opened his account, but before long he was trudging back to the pavilion, wondering what had possessed him to take up batting.

Ian Chappell could be right: India need to look at selecting Verandah Slog and moving Dravid back down the order. The caveat, of course, is that Slog's been playing like a slug and his selection would be a gamble. What's more, Straya seem to have worked him out. In 2003/04 he was allowed to stand and swing and picked up a squillion runs square of the wicket. There's nothing more galling than batsmen being gifted easy runs in their hitting zones, but 2004 in India Ponting employed sweepers on both sides of the wicket which meant Slog's main source of supply was dried up and he had to start improvising to find runs elsewhere. It was one of the first obvious differences between Ponting and Steve Waugh. So it was good to see Ponting doing the same thing yesterday. By employing an in-out field, all the Indian batsmen, including TLM, had to hit out of their comfort zones to eke runs from odd places. That's when they were bothered eke-ing for runs. Have you seen a modern Test side turn threes into twos and twos into ones quite like India did yesterday?

Or was it the pitch? There have been countless column inches written on the state of the MCG wicket, but no one seems to be able to say with any conviction whether it's a good or bad deck. It reminds me of the MCG pitches from the seventies and eighties. It’s not as low, slow and crumbly as then, mind, but given the number of batsmen who got out to bad shots, it could well be one of those pitches that are easy to get in on, but hard to stay in on. The ones that kept low, greater in number on day two than day one, would certainly have played on the minds of the Indian batsmen, but then Flatty and Hungry came out swinging. Still, whatever you think of the deck, Lee and Clark were special, Johnston was steady and Hoggy bowled a lot better than 2/82 looks on paper. Clark was obviously the pick and of the doubters mentioned in the press I’m sure Travis Bichel, for one, will revisit his opinion that Larry Tait should have come in for Clark.

But Bruce’s last point is a disturbing one which, I assume, echoes all out thoughts: a 400 lead is not enough. If the Indian bowlers can roll us today, they, more than any side in world cricket, are capable of chasing a target on a low, slow pitch.

DAY THREE

Peter English on NGASAEB:

Declaration shuts India out

Setting targets is one of the great games played by a team in command. Australia have done it a lot under Ricky Ponting and he still doesn't know when a chase is too small. At home, he has not lost a Test and he has become less generous in the size of his declarations over the past couple of years.

Become less generous? I'd suggest targets of, in decending order, 648 in Brisbane against England, 557 in Perth against England, 506 against the Shrees in Hobart and now 499 against India in Melbourne is quite the reverse; numerically, anyway. What's more, if we assume that India are a better batting side than all the others; that India are more comfortable on low-slow tracks than all the others; that the weather is not going to be a factor, unless you pity Straya out there in the scorching Calcut... Melbourne sun; and that we are now down two bowling greats, then a target of 499 is significantly more generous than the others. Nor should you discount the fact that in all those Tests, batting a further hour or so would not have made any difference to the result.

Road Worriers

Greg Baum on something Wicky mentioned yesterday:

Glitch in pitch not a big hitch

A CRICKET pitch is like an umpire, politician or mother-in-law: it's always to blame. Pitches are either too slow or (rarely) too fast, bounce too low or (rarely) too high, are too flat or menacing to life and limb. None are made as for the wee baby bear, just right.

Rudely, fingers are pointing at this one, and at the whole concept of drop-in pitches. But why? Certainly, it is a piebald thing, bare at the southern end, thatched at the other.

But the three days of this match have yielded 9-337, 11-234 and 7-325 respectively, a feast of cricket.

Without doubt this has been an enthralling Test. Sadly, though, an enthralling Test that ends early is bad news for the Test hosts, who fail to meet budgeted attendance estimates, and the official broadcasters, who lose advertising revenue. For them, boring long is better than enthralling short. So don't expect the people who run the game to start calling for difficult decks.

(That's not even getting started on limited overs cricket where a significant percentage of "memorable" matches have been played on difficult tracks.)

As for yesterday's play. Well, the Strayan batsmen still got out to dumb shots, but at least they had their heads down and scored runs before the dumbness. A lot of the runs were scored with the assistance of the dreadful - "languid" according to Kerry O'K - Indian ground fielding which kept giving us quick singles, turned ones into twos and twos into threes. What's more, Ponting should have let our batsmen score more. But at least they didn't get rolled for an ugly low total, leaving an eminently gettable target.

Not that the experts agree with us here at AGB mansions. The pundits have ritually informed us, and with palpable certainty, that Straya are going to win comfortably because the pitch is getting more difficult - as opposed to "harder" which is easier - to bat on, so who am I to argue... fingers crossed.

DAY FOUR

The choke's on them:

Ponting salutes 'hunters'

HAVING found a new way to win - by suffocation - Australia's increasingly dominant cricketers will march to Sydney intent on squeezing more life out of India's champion batsmen and on equalling their own world-record streak after demolishing Anil Kumble's team inside four days at the MCG.

One of the more infuriating things for cricket fans, apart from "wickets" off no balls, dropped catches, missed stumpings, wasted wickets, overthrows, sloppy fielding, Nathan Bracken's hair/head-band and John Bracewell, is leaking easy runs.

It used to shit me to tears when Steve Waugh set full-on attacking fields, confident he had runs to spare. Yeah, so he won plenty, but I still didn't like it when he gave up easy runs. Personally, I just didn't see the need.

One of the things I liked about the Windies in the 1980s was that as soon as a batsmen had scored in a certain area - mainly fine leg or third man, since they rarely pitched it up - Lloyd or Richards would immediately block off the shot. It didn't seem to stop their juggernaut. Having a gun side helped.

The sub-text of the Windies' tactics was that the bowlers bowled to their fields: short of a length with a field to suit.

Waugh would have wanted disciplined bowling, too, but if it went tits up like, say, Calcutta in 2001, he was stuck for answers; worse than that, the bowlers would go looking for wickets in the wrong places.

Take UnZud in 2001. The Kiwis planned to leave most everything outside off, which lured the Aussie bowlers into bowling "to them" only to be picked off through the leg side.

Ponting isn't like that.

It's not that Waugh was a dummy and Ponting a clever-clogs, it's just that while Waugh might over-attack, and then occasionally lose his way, Ponting has fine tuned Waugh's attack with some cleverly targeted defence, Windies style.

I mentioned Verandah Slog up above. In 2004 [Correction!] Ponting Gilly & Ponting blocked off his scoring zones, which meant he had to go looking for runs with riskier shots. Here in Melbourne Ponting employed an in-out field with a variety of short covers, short mid ons, short mid offs, and judiciously placed sweepers. He blocked, for example, Wee Wee Luckshmun's flick through mid wicket. This meant, especially on a sluggish MCG, the Indian batsmen had their scoring zones covered and their runs dried up.

Naturally, the bowlers had set roles. It would have been madness for Punter, and not a little galling for us punters, had he set an offside field, 6/3 for instance, and then the bowlers put it on the batsmen's pads.

With that in mind, Straya picked three quicks Clark, Johnston and Lee and told them to just ping, ping, ping in the same spot, then backed them with appropriate fields.

Johnston wasn't plonking the ball outside off because, coincidentally, that's the way it was coming out of his hand; he was doing it because Ponting had told him to do so and then covered the offside in the right places. If the Indians wanted to score big off him, they had to go over the top, or risk a tug through the onside. The bonus was Johnston had the ball wiggling around, luring the batsmen into slashy prospecting. All he needs now is to develop one that ducks back a-la the Zack Zaheer no-ball that "got" Sideshow Roy.

Clark, of course, was Clark. Say no more.

And Lee has curbed his youthful zest - revisit, if you have the stomach, his rubbish to Pietersen at the Oval in 2005 - and turned into a much more disciplined L-Flinger.

Naturally, none of them lived by line-and-length alone. There were just enough bouncers to mix things up and force the batsmen onto the back foot, but not too many.

And Hogga is not the best leggy of all time, or the tightest, but while batsmen continue to misread his variations, he will be a valuable member of the team; he can bat, too, which is more than you can say for Stewie Whatsisname.

Which leads me to, in an extraordinarily smooth segue, today's Age.

Criticism far from constructive

SHANE Warne called him a goose and Ian Chappell said his own daughter could have coached the Australian side with more success. Both were terribly insulting comments from two icons of Australian cricket directed at former national coach John Buchanan. Both men are entitled to their opinions — they have earned that right — but seriously, men, what was the point? The comments were juvenile and out of order; neither offered any constructive analysis but were just harmful character assassinations.

Ian Chappell the commentator, as opposed to Ian Chappell the blowhard - there is a distinction - would hardly expect to commentate without a director. Someone needs to steer the good ship Nine.

It's not like it was in the old days: Ian McGillivray knocking a pencil on the desk and calling the game from a wire service. Nine has all sorts of technical and cosmetic details that need attending to: commentators, statisticians, cameras, microphones, dials and... errr, knobs.

Chappelli can take a stab at them all if he wants, especially the role of head knob, but I'm sure you'll agree the coverage would be a complete f**k up. (Stop right there. While there is plenty to take pot-shots at, Nine do a professional job.)

So if he's prepared to accept Nine's professional advances since 1979, then surely - surely! - he has to accept cricket's professional progress. To do otherwise would be both pigheaded and, as Chuck Berry writes, juvenile.

It's here the role of Simpson, Marsh, Buchanan and now Tim Nielsen has guided Strayan cricket's professional progress.

Let's face it, all Strayan Test cricketers can bat, bowl, field and combinations thereof. If you've ever played cricket you know how good grade cricketers are, how good state cricketers are, and in turn, how much better Test cricketers are. Understatement alert: Test cricketers can play a bit.

But it's what the coaching and research have been able to add to that raw talent that has made Straya what they are today.

There is no way Ponting alone could cover the myriad demands imposed on a coach, captain, fitness guru, bowling coach, batting coach, spin coach, fielding coach, coaching coach, etc.

But feed him all the necessary information and you get what you got yesterday: a versatile plan carried out by a variety of bowlers bowling to a variety of specific fields based on a variety of research done by a variety of specialist coaches all marshalled by what the Yanks would call a Head Coach.

What's more, if Chappelli has access to the developments afforded modern cricketers, including a Head Coach, he would have had ten times the success he had back when Les Favell was telling him what to do.

Did I mention India had no Head Coach? They have an Almost Head Coach, but for some strange reason Gary Kirsten in only along for the ride.

Of course, it could all go to shit in Sydney. The toss of a coin, a dud decision, a dropped chance, another "wicket" off a no ball. TLM has a day out. The SCG is smaller, too, so containment is less achievable than it is on a bigger MCG.

Still, the scene is set for Straya to equal their run of sixteen victories that ended in Calcutta in 2001; only this time when you put eleven talented India cricketers with their lack of attention to detail and "languid" fielding up against talented Straya Inc with all its advances in the last six years... well, you've got to concede that we have a head start.

As Tony Grieg put it yesterday: "This fifteenth win is hot foot on their previous record."

THE YOMEGA MAN

Not spruiking yo-yos, just getting dibs on any future headline for this fillum:

Triumph of Will

There’s an incredible sense of loneliness and despair in director Francis Lawrence’s I Am Legend, which for a good portion of its running time proves to be a surprisingly hard-edged and intelligent science- fiction thriller—certainly a good deal sharper than one might expect from a holiday blockbuster starring the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

This is the third big-screen adaptation of Richard Matheson’s cult fave 1954 novel, and we’ve walked these empty streets before—not just with Vincent Price in 1964’s The Last Man on Earth, but more memorably alongside Charlton Heston in that bonkers 1971 cheese-fest The Omega Man. Devoted fans are already setting the Internet ablaze, debating and dissecting this new film’s diversions from Matheson’s sacred text.

Despite a sledgehammer-like advertising blitz - often a fair indication a film's a dud - I Am Legend looks as though it might go alright. More than alright if it's even remotely within cooey of any "bonkers 1971 cheese-fest".

LIFETIME ACHEIVEMENT AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN BONKERS CHEESE FESTS

Paul Koslo, with a pedigree rooted in The Omega Man, Vanishing Point, Mr Majestyk, Heaven's Gate, countless TV shows AND Chained Heat II, deserves our acclamation for his fine body of work.

SPOILERS!

Sort of spoilers, anyway, since I'm only guessing.

Put this review: "the wife and daughter he sent to the country when the city was quarantined" together with this review: "as for that ending … sigh" and what do you think you're going to get? Sigh... what you won't get is Will Smith dead in a fountain.

CHAPPELLA

So Ian Chappell's daughter Amanda would have done a better job coaching Straya than John Buchanan.

Ian Chappell launches attack on John Buchanan

TEST great Ian Chappell yesterday launched an extraordinary attack on John Buchanan, claiming his own daughter, Amanda, could have done a better job than the former Australian coach.

In response to radio talkback that Warne could not have worked with Buchanan had he been Australian captain, Chappell replied: "It's a simple decision. The captain is 95 per cent important, the coach is 5 per cent important. Guess who I am going to worry about first?"

"Shane Warne would have been a magnificent captain for Australia."

"A lot of people refer to John Buchanan's record as coach. How many wickets and how many catches and how many runs did he make?"

"He didn't make any. His contribution to those victories in my opinion is absolutely nil."

"Is someone going to tell me that if my daughter had coached Australia, would the results have been any different?"

"I am here to tell you the results wouldn't have been any different at all. In fact, they might have been better without him there."

What's biting Chappell? Again he's taking pot-shots at Buchanan in particular, and coaching in general. Surely it's past time he accepted cricket's moved on since "Les Favell told me." It's not hard to see why Warne shoots his mouth off, that's what he does; what's more, Buchanan regularly tuned him. But Chappell? Build a bridge and get over yourself, pal.

No wonder I just discovered this: "ian chappell" wanker.

SHTAKEOUT

Do you remember those two Stakeout films with Emilio Estevez and Richard Dreyfuss? Of course you do; although only barely, since you've been trying to repress the memory ever since. Well, wrack your little grey-cells and rate them out of ten; say, from 0.8 to 0.95. If you then multiply your rating by ten you will arrive at the rating for another stakeout film, last year's The Lives Of Others. Das Leben der Anderen to its friends, or more pointedly, its comrades.

Leigh Paatsch, whose name suggests he might know a good German vilm when he sees one, rated it the best film of the year in yesterday's Herald Sun:

This supercharged psychological thriller marked only the first feature from young German writer-director Florian Henkel von Donnersmark. Filmmaking debuts rarely arrive so fully formed. Mind-bending twists and subtle shifts in tone were effortlessly deployed throughout a gripping portrait of life on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall in the 1980s. Hollywood is already labouring hard on a remake, but they won't get anywhere near the punsishing perfection here.

Fingers crossed Hollywood aren't looking at Stakeout as a template.

Broadly speaking, DLDA revolves around the lives of five people: actress Christa-Maria Sieland, playwright Georg Dreyman, Stasi officers Anton Grubitz and Gerd Wiesler, and politician Bruno Hempf.

The five are drawn together in a relatively simple plot: vat kat Hempf is obsessed with Christa-Maria and instructs Grubitz to "find something on" Dreyman so that he can have a clear run at Christa who he is already... well, pestering is too light a word. Grubitz in turn orders Wiesler, his top investigator, to set up a surveillance post in Dreyman's roof-space.

For various reasons I rate the likes of Narrow Margin, The Killing and Ride Lonesome as close to perfect films. They are not my favourite films, although I like them very much, it's just that they get it right. They contain no false steps; they are not too long; the scripts are tight; there is no unnecessary garnish.

DLDA is that sort of film.

And more.

The performances are astonishing. Sebastian Koch as Dreyman is probably the lesser of the five, but that's not of itself a bad thing since the other four are all brilliant. Martina Gedeck is sensational as Christa. Ulrich Mühe is startling as the "good" Stasi officer who develops a conscience. Mühe was an actor in East Germany in the 80s and lived the kind of life depicted in the film. (Allegedly, anyway, since his recollections are a matter of some contention.) Former stage actor Ulrich Tukur is sensational as Grubitz, the "bad" Stasi official with sense of humour; it's not a nice sense of humour, but it's a sense of humour nevertheless. And Thomas Thieme plays the horrendous Hempf. Have you seen Happiness? Well, recall Dylan Baker, the filthy rock-spider who molests kiddies...  and recall the part of you that can't help but like him. The same goes for Minister Hempf.

The mood is klaustraphobic. Of course, this is East Germany, so you knew that going in. You know the Stasi are everywhere, you know what the main protagonists will be up to. But that doesn't make living it through a film any less of a completely enthralling experience in which there are no black and white resolutions.

Then there's the look of East Berlin. The GDR is often criticised as a cold grey place. It probably was. But on film I've always found it to be a strangely beautiful city. Obviously I wouldn't have wanted to live there, but the stark, damp, empty East Berlin streets that so often show up in the movies hold, for me, a strange allure.

If there's one DVD you get over Christmas, make it The Lives Of Others, one of the best films of this century, if not The Best. A great grey film. If nothing else it will keep you entertained when your crazy aunt starts on about that time you picked your nose on Santa's lap.

BLOG FOR THE FORSAKEN

Happy birthday Michael Hurley: he is the pork of crime.

His 1976 LP Have Moicy, a collaboration with the Unholy Modal Rounders and Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones, was named "the greatest folk album of the rock era" by the Village Voice's Robert Christgau.

Hurley's song "Hog of the Forsaken" is featured in two episodes of the HBO series Deadwood.

Happy birthday me. Yesterday I was 45, guess how old I am now. And in case you're inclined to ask, I don't feel a day over 46.

Other December 20 related News!

1917: Cheka, the first Soviet secret police, founded.

1968: The Zodiac Killer kills Betty Lou Jenson and David Faraday in Vallejo, CA.

2006: Shi Yuejun, Chinese serial killer. Executed.

1991: Paul Keating becomes teh 24th Prime Minister of Australia.

2007: Straya play New Zealand at Bellerive.

LIP SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

You may have noticed the odd recent comment going AWOP (Absent Without Posting). Don't panic, Chri Captain Mainwaring! This is due to TypePad's New! Spam Folder. So far those gobbled include three from South Straya's finest (after Studley Cornes, the Snowtown barrels and Don Dunstan's pants), Wicky and Nicky. Sorry, boys. Anyhoo, it was a doddle to reinstate your meisterwerk as bona fido comments. Woof!

Over the past few months, we’ve been busy rolling out new features for the comment service. Today, we added out another great new feature – a spam folder for comments and TrackBacks, similar to the spam or junkmail folder found in your email service or program. This feature is available to all users.

What does the spam folder do?

The TypePad spam service prevents over half a million of pieces of spam from reaching TypePad blogs each day. But there are some messages we can’t quite be sure about. Is a comment about a mail order pharmacy on a blog about healthcare spam, or a part of the discussion? We let messages we’re unsure about through our spam filter so you don’t miss legitimate comments.

Until today, that meant that comment and TrackBack spam may have still been published on your blog. Now that we’ve added spam folders for comments and TrackBacks we can let you see messages we’re unsure of without automatically publishing them to your blog. Any messages we think may be spam will be put into the spam folders found on the comment and TrackBack listing pages.

If you find a message in a spam folder isn’t spam, simply select it and click “publish” in the dropdown to publish it to your blog. If you find a message in your regular comment or TrackBack folder, simply select it and click “report spam” to unpublish it and move it to the spam folder.

We heard from many of you who used the word and IP banning features that you sometimes miss legitimate comments from those addresses or using those words. We’ll now put comments flagged by those features into the spam folder so you have a chance to review them.

Update: Thank you for all of your comments letting us know that the spam service is being overaggressive in categorizing your blogs' comments as spam! This is great feedback. We're working on a change that will help keep legitimate comments out of the spam folder and will post an update when it's done.

Good old TypePad. I've been using it for over three years now and it's virtually never missed a beat. Touch wood. It really is the best blogging system. Touch wood. I know this because I used a wooden imperial ruler with a steel insert down the side to measure the height of my blog, a K-Tel areometer to measure its specific gravity, constructed a scale of 1 to 23 from the numbers in the top flap of cigarette packets, and calculated that TypePad is 25, while Troppo is minus 6.

JSMEG

Thanks, Biggy Boy. This one just has to be recorded for posterior.

TREV07

Trevor Grant on The Conservatives vs. New Cricket.

Can't-do attitude traps sport in time warp

THE man from the BBC almost choked on his peppermint tea.

It was 30 years ago. The somnolent cricket establishment had woken in fright to find Kerry Packer plundering its players, dressing them in strange new colours and giving them a white ball to play with.

Suddenly innovation was everywhere, most noticeably with the television coverage.

LEATHER REPORT

According to Spanky, we have leather-flingers galore? Not sure everyone agrees.

Spanky:

Australia mines a rich vein of talent Kiwis can't match

Barely a year ago, fears were held that the fast-bowling stocks were emptying as fast as the sugar bowl at an Indian tea party. Glenn McGrath had retired, Jason Gillespie had slowed down and the long-serving Queenslanders had lost their edge. As it turned out, the worries were misplaced. Indeed the pace stocking is bulging.

Pat:

Day 5 at Bellerive is the harbinger of grey days ahead for Oz. We should not forget amidst all the praise of Lee, and talk of 3 pronged pace attacks that only one thing stood between Australia and a 500+ run defeat.

The effortlessly brutal flogging of everything Oz threw at Sangakarra, compounded by our inability to remove Malinga (42 no) is an omen of very bad tidings.

Me:

Naturally, most speculation has centered on our attack, with the emphasis on our ability to replace Warne and McGrath; especially their ability to pinch a wicket when things were starting to dawdle. We all remember Sydney 2004 when the Indians spanked us for 705, and none of us want a repeat. That! was gruesome. Stuey Clark is an admirable McGrath clone, but Lee worries me. Johnson was good in India with the white ball, but has he got what it takes in proper cricket with a red agate? MacGill can bowl, but despite being a wicket taker, he's never really been able to take control like Warne. Would Magilla have been able to turn Adelaide last year the way Warne did? And I've seen bugger all of Hillfenhaus, but as long as he can put it on the spot, I'll be reasonably happy.

I'm a pessimist. Quite obviously we have more depth than all the other teams, but we still lack that lethal cutting-edge. Don't forget: Sydney 2004 was awful, but so was Antigua 2003 when the Windies chased down 400+ with Warne missing presumed slim. It might have been a dead rubber, but our inability to get rid of Omari Banks and Vasbert Drakes with Martin Love dropping a sitter off Banks reminded me of Karachi 1994 when we couldn't get rid of Inzi Potato and Mushtaq Ahmed with Ian Healy missing a stumping. Listening to that Test on the electric radio wahless was every bit as painful as Headingly 1981 and Adelaide 1993.

From what I can gather, our School of Excellence routinely churns out capable first class bowlers. However, it's a big step from the Puras to the B-Green and if we are to continue our domination of world cricket it will be as much to do with the ability of our bowlers to step up that big step to the top step of the cricket steps as it will be to do with the other teams' crappiness. And, as was the case with Kumar At No.3, luck.

Tell me I'm wrong.

STREAM OF INVECTIVE?

Water coarse? Or just a Flooding Creek?

A RED PEN RUNS THROUGH IT!

KIWI UNDERHAND STINKS

Those flightless cricketers can flock off:

Slinger Shaun Tait brands New Zealand a disgrace

STUNNED paceman Shaun Tait has branded New Zealand "a disgrace" for questioning his action ahead of the Chappell-Hadlee one-day series opener at Adelaide Oval today.

Black Caps skipper Daniel Vettori shocked journalists by speculating on the merits of Tait's slinging action during yesterday's pre-match press conference.

Vettori inferred coach John Bracewell had concerns about aspects of Tait's action, saying: "Braces is a better man to comment rather than me, but whenever someone bowls fast I think those questions are asked."

"I think people are going to speculate on it. Whenever someone bowls fast it's the first thing people look at and it's up to people who are able to comment on it, to comment on it.

"He bowls fast and over 150km/h so whenever somebody like that steps up into the game of international cricket, people take notice."

[TT: No one ever "took notice" of Thompson, Lillee, Roberts when they stepped into international cricket and bowled fast and over 150km/h. They took cover.]

Champion off-spinner Vettori was responding to what appeared to be a prearranged question from a New Zealand journalist.

Ok, tin tacks here.

Tait's action is not pristine; if by pristine you mean Thommo. Nor are Lee's, Akhtar's or Malinga's. (And I don't mean Laslinger's low arm.) Each of them, at times, has had a kink in the action - Tait's is by far the least kinky. But if you are prepared to accept that "were Ian Meckiff playing today, he'd be fine", then you must also accept Tait, Lee, Akhtar and Malinga are also fine. The 15 degree rule has seen to that. Whether you agree with the rule is another thing.

Naturally, there will be a whole heapin' helpin' of what's good for the goose... "You bin Murali, but you refuse to bin Tait. You, Sir, are a double-dealing swine." Well, I categorically reject (pompous enough for ya?) any suggestion the kinks of Tait, Lee, Akhtar or Malinga are in any way similar to the structural travesties of Murali, Harby or Johan Botha. The former are fast bowlers with occasionally wobbly arms, that latter are blatant throwers. If an Aussie bowler came on the scene chucking offies like Murali, I would be the first person to jump up and down. And apart from anything else, Murali and Botha have botha been cited as chuckers, Tait hasn't.

(To my knowledge the only fast bowler with a hideous action is Jermaine Lawson.)

So, where does that leave the Kiwis. Well, either they ARE NOT aware of the rule change, which makes them dumb cvnts, or they ARE aware of the rule change, which makes them sly cvnts. Which do you think it is? Keep in mind John Bracewell is involved, so it's probably a bit of both.

Former Test spinner Bracewell added fuel to the fire by instructing journalists to ask match referee Roshan Mahanama about the legality of Tait's action.

Like I said - sly. And devious.

Now, it could be a Mundine: an outrageous statement to drum up excitement. But I doubt it. More likely, after copping a hiding on Tuesday followed by a snipe from Tait they were scared, UnZud decided to pull a Sheedy: say something outrageous as a smokescreen.

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.

MONDAY NIGHT LIVE

Write Sarah Nicholson and Maureen Ryan - taking turns or at the same time, I'm not sure - in today's Herald Sun:

A YEAR ago there weren't many who would have thought Tina Fey's show, 30 Rock, would have lasted an entire season, let alone take the best comedy award at September's Emmys ceremony.

But through sheer hard work, and what Fey only half-jokingly calls "a nasty competitive streak" honed during nine seasons at Saturday Night Live, Fey's comedy survived and thrived.

Having watched the first episode of 30 Rock on Seven on Monday night, I lean towards the opinions of those who thought it wouldn't have lasted the first season. It was sloppy.

30 Rock is a sitcom set on the set of a sitcom, TGS.

Fey is both the head writer of 30 Rock and the head writer of TGS. Nice going. Alec Baldwin, the new George Segal, plays the station executive who spends most of his time tormenting the staff, and rock all time executiving. The rest of the cast are the stock ensemble of oddball characters who inhabit Sitcom World.

The trouble with Monday's episode is that while noble aims point it towards great shows like TMTMS and TLSS, it's execution was more like a SNL skit with pinches of the horrible MB. Too much is OTT. Not that OTT is, of itself, a bad thing. But if you get it wrong you look less like, say, The Producers and more like National Lampoon's Barely Legal.

So far, based on my extensive one-episode exposure, they've got it wrong.

The reviewers have probably seen more than me. Stephen Matchett in The Strayan:

The absence of canned laughter in this American comedy is the give-away: 30 Rock's audience will not need artificial encouragement to laugh, because this is terrific television where the script is the star.

Well alright, the script seemed ok first off, but what is it with American shows and canned laughter? If a show has a laugh track, are the makers automatically acknowledging it is pants?

It is often the case with so-called off-beat shows, especially the ones FTA put on telly after 10:30, that them the makers, and us the watchers, need a little time to find our collective feet.

That 30 Rock won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series is a fair indication it tidied up its act. The Emmy judges wouldn't have, couldn't have, awarded the statue to the show in its initial form.

Worth a shot.

(While it's tempting to shit-can the Emmys, not all previous winners are rubbish: Get Smart, TMTMS, Taxi, Cheers. Just some: The Cosby Show, The Wonder Years, MB, Ally McBeal, Everyboby Loves Raymond. Actually, I was unaware The Wonder Years, Ally McBeal and Every Loves Raymond were comedy series.)

LEERS

At the end of 30 Rock you, like me, probably turned over to ESPN for the NFL. If so, you would have missed most of the show that followed 30 Rock. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia is a lurid sitcom about a bar in Philly. On the ten minutes I saw, it looks like a pretty damn out-there affair. May be worth a look. Then again, maybe it's just pretending to be hard-core like, say, Rude Awakening.

SUP, DOC?

This. Was invigilating last night. What's that, you ask. Well, it's supervising exams. Pretty easy work, if you can get it. All you do is hand out the papers, then do the crossword or read something. I did both. The Age crossy was a doddle, the Sudoko a piece of piss, Target too easy to bother with, then I settled into reading the papers. I'd built up a pile in anticipation of my invigil. Not that there's all that much to read: the Hun, the Age and the Strayan were all knocked off quick stix. Then the supplements. It's mainly these I save for when I know I'll be able to get stuck into something weightier than the price of LPG, Julia Gillard's latest cut-n-colour, or illegally parked parrots. I kid you not...

Legal battle over ticket so where can I park macaw?

A LEGAL battle has begun in the western Greek city of Patras over a parrot that is facing a $740 parking ticket.

The local council said Coco's perch is illegally parked and was obstructing drivers because it partially blocked a metered parking space, the BBC reported.

To parrotphrase Graham Kennedy: parrk!

Anyway, the chunky reading in the weekend supplements which I'd put aside for times when I'll get a chance at a long, hard squawk, I mean read. To whit: the mysteriously named Age A2, the Strayan's Strayan Literary Review the Weekend Strayan's Review.

A2 is pretty slim fair, until you get to the back page when it bulks up with Catherine Deveny. There's hope for us all if she can get a gig writing in a newspaper. Childish sarcasm, barracking and being a stupidhead are my thing, too.

Last week's Review had a Graeme Blundell piece on Dexter. His review is longer, my review is better, so too my headline. I rung Graeme and he agreed. Well, that's a lie, but I'm sure he would have. He DID write that Dexter's girlfriend was "quietly sweet", so he was obviously phoning it in. (13th is right.)

Then I read a Gideon Haigh review of Simon Barnes book The Meaning of Sport. Yes, that Simon Barnes; our chum. It's a good review, containing Gideon's requisite number of big words: divagations, anyone? But it IS a supplement, so prolix verbosity is encouraged. And Gideon is fair with his criticism; it's not as if he has his tongue wedged up Barnes' fundamental precept.

Last of all was Peter Craven's review of V.S.Naipaul's A Writer's People: Ways of Looking and Feeling. Been a while for me and Naipaul. We used to thrash out his works back when I was keeping wickets at the Tooronga cricket club, but that was 15 years ago. I remember one day saying to Teebs at first slip "That Naipaul is a clever cvnt, isn't he, but what's he got against Anthony Powell?" Teebs replied that "He is indeed quite the literary giant." Nobby chipped in from gully: "He's still a cvnt, but." Nobby's big into Proust. My point here, though, is that I'll read pretty much anything written by Peter Craven. Big Statement: he's got to be the best writer of his type in the Strayan newspaper-o-sphere. He makes just about all his articles interesting, even if I have no idea what he's on about. Surely that's the mark of a good reviewer. He had another article in last week's paper The Trash Canon, which is all about Strayan crime writers. Excellent. He's fair, studied, knowledgeable, not a snob, and he must have read a shit load of books.

QWHAT? OF THE DAY

What a wordsmith! Ian Chappell brings his A-game to CricInfo:

Where's Verandah Slog?

The batsman's role is to score quickly in order to give the bowlers as long as possible to take the required 20 wickets to win a Test. Sehwag's batting leaves you with more time than a flight that arrives early.

How about we throw - pitch, even - to Mike Royko:

Priceless Baseball Interviews

A mighty debate has been raging throughout the Free World and also in baseball parks. It has not yet been fully resolved.

As everybody knows, it involves a $30,000-a-year baseball player. He is mad at the people who pay him. They are mad at him. He has been sitting on the bench. They have been letting him sit.

At last report, the manager and the player have talked things over and the player is going to start playing again.

But the big question, the heart of the matter, has not yet been answered.

The whole thing started because the player, who obviously values his opinions, said he wanted $50 every time somebody from radio or television interviewed him.

Having viewed and heard many such interviews, I am of the opinion that the people who watch or listen to them should be given $50.

As subjects for interesting interviews, baseball players rank only above prize-winning Angus cattle in the whole sports world.

For years, out of compassion for their fellow man, sports writers have been translating their grunts and nods into sentences.

Baseball players have shown their gratitude by occasionally punching the baseball writers, proving, if nothing else, that they have friends who read the papers.

(Up Against It, 1967.)

Admittedly we've moved on - from grunts to clichés - but you get the picture.

SEVEN YEAR DITCH

Honest question: just how often do parents return their adopted children? This one can't be the only case.

Parents return unwanted girl

A SENIOR European diplomat in Hong Kong has promoted outrage by giving up the seven-year-old Korean girl he adopted with his wife as a baby.

And it's not:

I didn't like my adopted daughter so I gave her back

The moment Julie Jarman set eyes on Zahina she was smitten. The seven-year-old girl from Tanzania was desperate for a loving home and Julie felt sure that she and her 11-year-old daughter could provide it.

Wonder if she kept the receipt.

PRAMBULANCE CHASER?

Wrongful Adoption

Adoption agencies often mislead adoptive parents about the medical or mental health background of the biological parents, or what is known about the child. This is against the law.

Have you been misled? Let us help you find out.

MIAMI SLICE

What would you do if you found out your adopted son was a bit strange? This is the age-old parental dilemma facing Harry Morgan, a Miami cop, who has discovered his son Dexter is a sociopath with a predilection for dissecting the local wildlife. Initially Harry figures Dexter will grow out of his hobby but as Dexter continues to get caught with bloodied knives, saws, machetes, hatchets, pretty much any shiny implement with a sharp edge, Harry decides his best course of action might be to channel Dexter's talents. So naturally, this being a television show, Harry turns Dexter into a good serial killer.

Dexter, the latest crime drama from Showtime, is based on the book Darkly Dreaming Dexter and started last night on Foxtel Showcase.

By day, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) is a blood-spatter expert with the Miami PD; by night, Dexter is a vigilante who hunts down and slices up criminals who have gotten off on technicalities.

"Another beautiful Miami day: mutilated corpses with the chance of afternoon showers."

Not that Dexter is a good guy, he's not; he's a very bad guy with no heart, no conscience and no self control over his compulsion to chop up people. It's just that, due to his father's guidance, he has been able to fake being normal and rather than chopping up good people, he only chops up bad people.

Nor is Dexter a creepy loner; quite the contrary, he's a creepy Mr Popular. He has a sister who loves him, lots of friends at the PD and a female commanding officer who, as they say in the classics, has designs. (At least in the first episode, anyway.) In fact, the only person who doesn't like him is Sgt Jimmy Doakes, who suspects Dexter is a freak, but doesn't know what sort of freak. Dexter even has a girlfriend, Rita, although she's not your normal girlfriend. Dexter likes her just fine because she hates sex. It's only in her occasional "better" moments when she gets all smoochy that Dexter finds her company distasteful. But he loves her kids, so that's good. Role model, anyone?

One of the great things about The Sopranos, Deadwood and The Wire, apart from their greatness, is that they provide a template for all other TV series to be compared against. (Yes! I should be better at assessing shows on their merit; but I'm not, alright.) The Sopranos' mood, Deadwood's over-the-top dialogue, The Wire's intricate, interweaving plots and all three's superb characters and interpersonal relationships. You can pretty much hold any TV show up against them and say "Well, it's not as good as The Sopranos". Which is what you'd say for Dexter, at least on watching the first two episodes. There's a sense those involved might be trying too hard to copy Six Feet Under for the quirk, Death Wish for the vigilante, Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer for the laughs and Dirty Harry for the cool, but not quite yet getting the balance right.

Still, there's plenty of time for the show to settle and the makings of an excellent Series One thread in the form of another serial killer who knows Dexter's identity and seems to want to challenge him to a chop off. And while Dexter is indeed "not as good as The Sopranos", if your taste in TV runs to macabre murders and merry mutilation, Dexter is the show for you.

WORLD SERIES CROAKIT

I'm with Greg Baum: the Benson & Hedges, Carlton & United, Carlton, VB, Commonwealth Bank World Series Cup triangular tournament is well past its use-by date. It's been a has-been since Straya lost the 1996 World Cup and decided to use it to trial potential World Cup players. (Not that there wasn't a world class selection of dud matches before 1996.) The downshot was a decade - decayed - of tedious summer TV filler. Although, it is still better than 99% of the shit in the summer FTA schedule.

From the Packer circus to a sideshow

It was once a fixture of the Australian summer, but the axing of cricket's triangular series was due.

THE tri-series was good while it lasted. I think. It's hard to remember. It's hard to remember many one-day matches and tournaments outside World Cups. It's the nature of the beast: fleetingly exciting, but barely outliving their day. Their one day.

But while the new arrangement is a better fit for today's schedule, and each old series was prone to blend into the next, there are plenty of great memories.

The Underarm. Of course. As it happened, I never saw the moment in question. Living up in the Pilbara we only had ABC TV; they in turn, only showed the Tests. The tri-series must have been a concession too far and was kept quarantined on Channel Nine. Actually, we didn't even have the Tests in 1980/81. Obviously crass, commercial cricket was a step-by-step adjustment for the buffers at the ABC. After Aunty telecast the slaughtered lambs in 1978/79, which was the last season the ABC owned the rights - whatever "owned the rights" meant to the ABC - the Pilbara missed out on the Tests until (I think) 1982/83 when they struck a deal with Nine to telecast Test matches to this wide brown land's cricket blackspots. The one dayers weren't shown until a few years later; in fact, I lived up north until January 1985 and I don't remember ever seeing a one-dayer on the telly. So I heard the underarm on the radio at a barby with a bunch of Kiwis. You might say their reaction was robust. Speaking of radio, it was via the ABC that I came to loathe the phrase "6WF and regionals will now leave us for the Country Hour." They said it like it was a warm and cozy invitation, but they could get well and truly fucked. I've never once wondered about the price of cows and completely AND absolutely resented Aunty's bare faced fucken audacity. Still do. To this day the two words "country" coupled with "hour" are enough to make me want to throw things and yell "Fuck off!" at the radio.

AB's Ton. In 1984/85 the Windies belted us in every one-day game through that summer, but in the first final AB smacked them for a hundred as we knocked up a tidy 250 odd and rolled them for about 200. (Remember, 250 was a pretty big score in them olden days. In the early nineties at the MCG I once watched the Windies chase about 230 and when the scoreboard showed their target run-rate had crept above four-an-over the crowd went "Ooooooo!".) Sadly, in the second match we knocked up an even better score, about 270, and had them 5 for about 180, but Logie and bloody Jeff bloody Dujon saw them home. Naturally, they spanked us in the third final.

Waugh's Catch. In 1988/89, not long after winning the 1987 World Cup, we had started to get our act together after the Dreadful Years. Still sadly, though, the Windies were belting us in Tests. But we beat them in a memorable one-dayer at the MCG in January; the win capped by Steve Waugh's great running catch that took him round the back of the sight-screen. There was some debate about whether the catch was legal because Waugh had taken it out of play after he caught it. It would have been nice had the catch capped the season, not just the match. As it turned out, we won the first final in a squeaker, got belthed in the second final at the SCG, then were on the end of a shocking DuckyLoo (or whatever the mind bending rain delay calculations were called back in the eighties) which allowed the Windies to pinch the third final despite only facing about ten overs.

Bevan's Four. New Year's Day 1996 at the SCG we rolled the Windies for about 180 and looked a good thing to win until we were suddenly 6 for 30 odd. Up stepped Bevan, who, with the assistance of Reiffel, Healy and Warne, managed to reduce the target to four runs with one ball left. The rest, as they say, is fruit for the sight-screen. What Roger Harper was doing bowling the last over is beyond me, but that straight four was gold.

Tony's Hat. The cricket details of this memory are very hazy. It was a one-dayer at the SCG in 1982/83 and I went with my cousin who had seats in the Brewongle stand. Going in through the gates before play my cousin suggested I buy a hat since it was that sort of day, so I purchased a green and yellow cap. Naturally, as soon as I put it on, the sky clouded over and it started to rain. We sat in our seats for a while, soaking up the rain, when my cousin started laughing at me. Turns out the rain was causing the green dye to leech out of the cap and stream down my face; oddly, not the yellow dye. Even odder, I was sure it was January 1982/83 but I cannot find a record of this match at CricInfo. Help!

PLUS CA CHUCK, PLUS CA MEME CHUCK

Patrick Smith's first point, that Murali used to chuck, is correct. His second point, that Murali no longer chucks because they changed the rules, is not. There is no way Murali propels every ball under 15 degrees; ergo (French AND Latin - sehr gut!) he still chucks.

Rejoice in the skill of the man who changed cricket

MUTTIAH MURALIDARAN used to chuck. He doesn't any more. The cricket world used to have a law that prohibited bowlers throwing the ball.

It doesn't any more. Murali will never be topped as the greatest wicket-taker in the world. We should rejoice that we have seen him spin his craft.

Murali has forever changed cricket, never mind set an unreachable mark. Bowling now is very different than it was just three years ago. The introduction of the 15-degree rule has seen to that. What Lance Gibbs couldn't do, Murali and his contemporaries can.

Nevertheless, apart from the rejoice bit at the start and the begrudge bit at the end, Patrick's article is a good read; especially his lash at Barnes Wally.

Yesterday, The Times correspondent Simon Barnes struck first, asking in The Australian that everyone prepare themselves for the resentment of Murali's feat that would explode from Australia.

Barnes might have missed former India captain Bishen Bedi's weekend claim. It was a measured observation that throwing was now a bigger scandal than match-fixing.

Barnes said that he had also written: "I said Murali's action had been authorised, which means you can't quarrel with Murali, only the laws of cricket.

"I said those who pick this quarrel must be prepared to argue about the angle between the longitudinal axis of the upper arm and the forearm in the sagittal plane."

Hey, Simon, who hasn't written that before?

Bowling to Barnes is a most difficult task, one even beyond Murali. When Barnes faces up you only have two stumps to hit, for the middle one is stuck firmly up his backside.

Barnes also likens Murali's world record to Bodyline, a tactic that he argued exposed the shortcomings of Don Bradman. So much for logic. That you placed nine men on the leg side, a bunch of them behind square leg, allowed Harold Larwood to throw the ball at the head of the batsmen, be they openers or tailenders, you fancy points more to the shortcomings of the bowling attack than it does the batting line-up.

KINK KONTROVERSY

Despite this Day of Infamy, this Black Monday, I don't want to go over old ground; I'll just scrap-book what the "experts" are saying in a calm and unbiased fashion.

Simon Barnes: mad Pom.

Stand by for Aussie outrage

NOW that Muttiah Muralidaran has broken Shane Warne's Test wicket record, brace yourself for a wave of resentment, most of it from Australia.

Jon Pierik: sensible Strayan.

ICC rule glosses over doubts

THERE has been mixed emotions for cricket fans coming to terms with Muthiah Muralidaran surpassing Shane Warne as the game's greatest Test wicket-taker.

While Muralidaran's grit and determination to overcome adversity and injury cannot be denied, only one question arises when the Kandy man's name is mentioned - is he a chucker?

While current rules suggest otherwise, the answer has to be yes.

Jon Pierik & Crash Craddock: two sensible Strayans.

Critics attack Murali record

MUTTIAH Muralidaran became the world's greatest Test wicket-taker last night and critics immediately demanded his name be scrapped from the record books.

Ben Dorries: Strayan dummy.

Wizard passes the test

We should love him for the colour and wizardry he has brought to cricket, not loathe him for the kinks in his action that have divided the cricket world.

Statistics don't lie and they tell us Muralidaran has played 29 fewer Tests than Warne and averaged 21 runs a wicket, compared to Warne's 25.

It is true that Murali's record is puffed out because he has 163 Test wickets against minnows Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

Why shouldn't we loathe him for the kinks in his action? We loathe Ben Johnson for the kinks in his bloodstream. And no sensible fan gives a shit that his record is puffed out with wickets against minnows. We give a shit that his record is puffed out by kinks in his action.

Greg Baum: sorta-sensible Strayan.

Murali's success is no optical illusion

MURALI'S had the last laugh. He now holds the world wicket-taking record, and it is improbable that anyone will take it from him any time soon. Posterity can argue all it likes about his entitlement, but his mark will remain.

Kuldip Lal: who?

Murali overcomes all to take world record

Muralidaran's bent-arm action, the result of an elbow deformity since birth, helped him impart considerable turn and bounce even on the most placid wickets.

The International Cricket Council cleared Muralidaran's action and even amended the law two years ago to allow a 15-degree flexibility in the bowling arm.

His action has not been questioned since by umpires, but critics remain, with former India captain and classical left-arm spinner Bishan Bedi labelling him a "javelin thrower".

Will Swanton: Ummm...

Bedi points finger at Harbhajan

LEGENDARY Indian spinner Bishen Bedi has branded countryman Harbhajan Singh a chucker and blasted the International Cricket Council for ignoring what he believes is a greater blight on cricket than the match-fixing scandal.

Bedi previously has been so outspoken about Muthiah Muralidaran's action that the Sri Lankan has threatened a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. But now Bedi has included Harbhajan Singh on his hit-list.

"He (Harbhajan) is not any different," Bedi told The Sunday Age yesterday. "The ICC is turning a blind eye to both of them. They are blind to this monstrous problem and it is unfair and undesirable.

Herald Sun: Strayan paper.

Vote early, vote often.

BALTIMORE RAVIN'

Great news!

The following items have been shipped to you by Amazon.com:

1. The Wire - The Complete Fourth Season - $27.49

Make no mistake. If you haven't gotten into The Wire by now, you are a complete dickhead.

Should you be so stupid as to reject my unimpeachable judgment...

"The Wire, the greatest programme ever produced for American television."

LIKE WET ON A BLANKET

At the risk of going MIL (Missing in Link), can the Troppo gatekeepers stop getting all Precious Pupp over comments. As mouth-watering as a long list of nominations sounds, a good stoush might further liven things up.

Bring back the biff.

WORLD SERIES QUICKET

Today's Sunday Age has cricket headed for another WSC style schism, giving it the front page treatment: quotes, graphics, documents, "cricket in crisis", beige arrows, the works.

Showdown: 30 years after Packer, the split is on again

AUSTRALIAN cricket is on the verge of the game's biggest split since Kerry Packer launched World Series Cricket 30 years ago today.

Cricket Australia has written to 11 of the nation's top players - including captain Ricky Ponting, Brett Lee and Adam Gilchrist - berating them for signing a memorandum of understanding to play in the highly lucrative Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament in April and May.

The guts: Stakeholders Sutherland is spitting chips senior cricketers have signed with the ICL, but didn't bother to tell CricAussie.

Despite the Age's ballyhoo, it doesn't sound like much of a crisis. Doubtless there's a disagreement, but it's one the two parties should be able to sort out over a steak, a good red and a roomful of lawyers. If anything, CA run the risk of exacerbating things by getting heavy handed and provoking the players into retaliation; especially when "It is possible that the Indian tournament could clash with Cricket Australia's obligations in Pakistan after its March tour." (I'm guessing "obligations" are not actually playing cricket.) But it's fair enough for CA to know why the cricketers didn't dish. Did they think they could join the ICL without anyone knowing? This is world cricket, after all, not me doing cashies on the side. The thing is, though, if I can get flicked for not getting permission, surely they can too.

I'm inclined to agree with Spanky; it's not a massive issue, more one of doing the right thing. The cricketers should have told CA first.

Cricketers forget manners amid all-you-can-eat feast

AUSTRALIA'S senior cricketers have forgotten their manners in the rush to grab a few bars of Indian gold. Judging from the contents of James Sutherland's unequivocal letter, they also have ignored legal niceties, contractual obligations and their responsibilities as employees.

Mind you, there's always the possibility the cricketers will say they did tell CA. Or that Andrew Symonds expression of reluctance to tour Pakistan was motivated by something other than security issues.

Symonds jokes about bombs in Pakistan

Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds has expressed reservations about touring Pakistan next year, saying there has been a lot of "bombs going off".

FUCKEN OATHS!

Last week (but for what seemed like five years) 774 invited callers to promise good deeds.

Day of Love Pledge

Remember the last time a neighbour popped by with lemons from their tree? Or when you pitched in at the local childcare centre's working bee? Then you'll know that warm glow you get from helping out.

Listen in on stories of good deeds done and call in with your Day of Love pledges.

One little girl even rang through to say she was going to give her pocket money to a homeless man. Awww. She also promised not to punch her little brother. Awww. Awww.

Dunno who thought up this sickening, sanctimonious, saccharine suck-fest, but look out if you are an ABC listener in another state; this kind of virus spreads faster than ebola at a Congan mission, and it's twice as toxic.

Speaking of pledges, here's the Green Guide's Movie of the Week.

Sadly, though, The Pledge is a little ponderous, its great and serious intentions lost in a desire by Sean Penn to make a muted slow-burn movie that will explode briefly into an agonised grief (rather like his big scene as an actor in Mystic River). One of the finest philosophical detective stories ever written is here a dirge with more artifice than depth. It is an American adaption of a European book.

If that's the Movie of the Week, what's the Turkey of the Week?

Sean Penn: has he ever made a good film? The Indian Runner: snore. The Crossing Guard: snore. Into The Wild: "After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness." I haven't even seen it and already I'm asleep.