AGB Cricket

HAND JOB

"The sightscreen must be correctly placed," yarped Tony Grieg on the perils of facing Murali. "You must be able to watch his hand closely. He does mysterious things with his hand and fingers."

Well, that's fine for the batsmen, but what about us mug viewers? Would Nine give us a close look at his bowling?

Being a cynical sort, I had my doubts, but they were in a corner. It would be wickedly inconsistent if they didn't show it given they'd already shown excellent high-res footage of Flintoff, Warne and MacGill.

So you could have knocked me down with a feather when they DID show a close-up of Murali's bowling.

Sort of.

You see, by "bowling" I really mean "hand". Whereas Nine showed full-view, side-on, wide-screen, Todd-AO, Vist-A-Vision high resolution footage of the other three bowlers' complete actions, with Murali, they instead shot from behind and tightly cropped the footage to show just his hand.

Duplicitous swine. Murali's presence on the field is not just a blight on test cricket, it's a disaster for the television coverage. We want to see the vision the Nine people are obviously hiding, but they aren't willing to show it, so they offer up a pathetic deception. What kind of chumps do they take us for? Do they think we don't notice? You can't tell me all of the Nine team are happy being complicit in this scurrilous snow-job. Hmmm. Then again, you probably can.

NB: Thanks, of course, to Pat for pointing out the uncanny resemblance between Murali and the Warner Weasel.

BENEFIT OF THE OUT

Michael Clarke: Superficially Clarke was dudded, with Rudy Koertzen accused of not giving him the benefit of the doubt. But. Rudy seemed confident Clarke had hit the ball then decided to check with the third umpire. It was an about-face that allowed the TV vision to introduce an unnecessary element of doubt; as it so often does. Rudy should have stuck with his gut instincts.

El Bee Tee Vee: It would be interesting to see what might happen if there are more appeals than the first two days. Imagine how much time would be added on a skittish track with, say, Harby on a roll in Mumbai. That would be some serious time lost. Or even here at the SCG on Day 5. And how will Shane Warne go? The umps have been alternately generous and stingy over his career. But going on balance, Warne may well have received the same number of wickets had all his dismissals been correct. It could be that LBTV will see him taking wickets at the same rate, but without any doubt over them. Anyhoo, here the LBTV has worked well. Hayden's was high, and Gilchrist's, Watson's and Lara's plumb. Inzi was 50/50 and thus not out, but if it was given out it wouldn't have been an injustice. (Bill Lawry is a fool. The turn wasn't taking the ball away, it had deflected off Inzi's pad.) One concern would be the McGrath appeal against Smith. It was referred to Daryl Hair with both the Nine goons and the radio plonkers confident it was high. But from the side you couldn't see the stumps.

Warngilla: Watching two leggies on a responsive pitch is close to as good as it gets. There's a bonus, too. The above El-Bee business adds spice to what's going on when Warne and MacGill are at work. Trying to guess whether something will be given out is a lark.

Hawkeye: It is right not to use Hawk (and Snicko) to "prompt" the third umpire. But it must gall those who claim it's infallibility. Nine cannot now confidently refer events to Hawk.

The super slo-mo: It is a terrific way to analyse the game. But bowling-wise I've only seen it used with Flinty, and only for one ball. Are Nine being selective? Spanky claims Fred chucks his faster one, but from this one shot the footage shows him to have a dead straight arm as he bowls. How about using it more often? I didn't see it used for Murali, but Tim Lane, writing about the use of technology in today's Age muses:

The whole theory behind the introduction of the third umpire was to seek to ensure that cricketing justice was seen to be done, yet we continue to see other injustices. We also saw a number of times on Channel Nine yesterday a montage of close-ups that included a side-on shot of Muralidaran's bowling action. If his arm didn't straighten, my TV set's got a kink in it. What is Hair to make of that.

The super slo-mo is a super concept. Better than Hawk-eye, Snicko and the sequence of red cherries - they are all reactive. SSM is different, it is an impressive coaching tool. What young bowler wouldn't want a close look at what the test players do with the ball? No go, tho. Is it because of Murali's rank chucking that Nine (in collusion with CA and the ICC) are deliberately depriving viewers of a chance to study a key element of cricket? Could this, in fact, be the reason Australia lack young bowlers?

The delay: Happily there is no delay between the TV and radio transmissions.

The Kat: Ignore the tightness of the decision, Katich was probably out, and focus instead on his tangle with Murali. It has always been common practice for bowlers to sneak in front of a runner and block his path. I once accidently-on-purpose backed into a runner to run him out. It happened to me in reverse. My block (can't speak for the other bowler) looked like an accident, but was 100% intentional. Yesterday, though, everyone in the commentary booth/s fell over themselves to suggest it was an accident. That is hard to believe. Each of those player-commentators would have at one time seen, or even done, the same thing.

Graeme Smith: Michael Vaughan has written that Graeme Smith is a persistent and childish sledger. Smith replied "I think it is pretty sad when things said on the field are taken off the field." This is a welcome change of tack from Smith given his earlier complaints of Australian sledging.

Kerry O'Keefe: KOK is an excellent commentator when he reins in the silly stuff. He knows his cricket and can put it across.

Rest of the World: The ODIs last week at T-Dome weren't boring because the ROTW concept is flawed. They were boring because they were ODIs. This ROTW test is good enough for me. So far, anyway.

Doubt? There is no doubt. Cricket is still the best sport. It doesn't matter whether you like the ROTW concept or not, it is still cricket and as such, it rocks.

UPDATE! Just saw Warne and MacGill on the super-slo-mo. Excellent footage. I look forward to the same from Murali.

THUMBS DOWN

Geoff Lawson: "The rule of thumb is that you add two quick wickets to your tally and THEN see how you are going." Fair enough - you are only ever two quick wickets away from a collapse. But he said it at a dicey 4/250. Add two wickets to that and you really are struggling. So stop repeating "The World desperately need a wicket."

Naturally, Australia lost a wicket soon after. Dumbness and mozzing. Sheesh!

LAWRY LOADS

Bill Lawry says some very funny things. No, really. He could well be a terrific bloke, but by Christ he trumpets truck loads of tripe. He's at his worst when the game means little and his call reeks of shill. Like last night when you lost count of the number of times he blared "The crowd are really warming up." Often-times he paired that with "Exciting stuff this." And naturally there was the standard barrage of "It's all happening here." It never seems to bother Bill when he says that last one; he once screeched it after just one ball of an ODI. Is it too much to ask that he vary his call a little? You can tell when he's winding up to belt one out and it sets my teeth on edge. There's his voice, too. Surely a Key Selection Criterion when picking a commentator is the voice. Bill's is a horrid nasally affair. But if those sins alone weren't enough to see him booted from the booth, surely the stupid things he says should see him flicked. "It's 1/62. You wouldn't get a better start!" Does he even notice the idiocy implicit in that statement? Likely, no. It is so far past the time Bill was pensioned off he is starting to fossilize in the booth. Appropriate for a dinosaur.

Nine has some quality, The Doyen and Heals shiniest among the gems, but others are utter duds. Bill is a scrubber, but at least he is better than Tony Grieg and no worse than Simon O'Donnell. And then there's Mark Nicholas; he is a ... well ... you know.

EDGBASTON SCREAMEMBERED

If only:

Clearly that was too much of a torrid reminder even for the hardened news-hounds at Fox who promptly changed the headline.

NOTHING BUT THE TEST

Mark Nicholas makes a good point about the upcoming Super Series between Australia and the ROTW:

It is a mouth-watering prospect, as long as Australia are champions - any other country would be slaughtered by a World XI that included them.

He's probably right. A ROTW side including the Australians against, say, Sarth Efrica, given Australia's domination against the Proteas, may prove rather ugly. ROTW versus India in India might be interesting though.

Which, come to think of it, raises an interesting question. Australia won't be No. 1 for ever. So, should India not become the next cock o' the walk as is regularly presumed - with their less than threatening attack, they still struggle to win away - who will become No. 1?