Jarrod Kimber's Blog, page 121

Andrew Hilditch is consistent

Had Michael Clarke not been selected captain of Australia's T20 squad, I would have given Hilditch a sloppy hug.

Australia's squad was just about as good as it could be, and for Hilditch, it was quite daring.  Going in with three strike bowlers who can all be quite wayward and a 20 year old untried leggie was a pretty bold move for someone once went trawling through the Sydney grade cricket bargain bins for a defensive spin option.

Hilditch must have realised that his previous T20 squads were p...

Test match Virtuosos

I've been a bit crook, so I couldn't take in any of the information that was emailed to me by Vijay.

But the dude clearly has a lot of information about test batsmen.

It is all about the best batsmen ever.

If you like long intellectual arguments comparing Hutton to Lara then you might like this.

Or you might want to kill yourself afterwards.

I think it is worth the trip over there so you can read the first comment.

Enjoy.

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Intikhab Alam declares the Pakistan Cricket Team is Mentally Retarded and insults all those with mental handicaps

It is a big claim.  Some accuse them of being shit, some of being match fixers, some of being shit match fixers, but mentally retarded, wow.

Let us look at Mental Retardation with some help from Wikipedia:

Delays in oral language development

Well Mohammad Asif called Shane Watson a "bloody white".  If you have been playing cricket for this many years and "bloody white" is the best insult you can give to Shane Watson I would say you have a delay in Oral devolpment.

Deficits in memory skills

Shoaib ...

the world t20 team report card

Afghanistan – Turned up with a bowling unit that most Minnows would be proud of, but their bowlers also ended up being their batting.

They were very loud, but showed real aptitude, but were kicked out of the library after being caught urinating on the technique books.

Australia – Finally selected a T20 team and got a test player to captain it. Took the gamble on 3 front line bowlers and it worked until their batsmen bottled it in the final.

Bullied their way around the schoolyard, and everyone ...

The beginning of the end for Boucher

There have been very few South African cricketers that I have cared about at all.

Andre Nel, Pat Symcox and Brian McMillan were all favourites, but mostly because I assumed they were all insane, a character flaw I like in cricketers.

Of the cricketers that are less likely to kill you, Mark Boucher is the one South African who I admire the most.

I probably shouldn't. Boucher's record with the bat is poor for a modern keeper, and while he started brilliantly (even breaking a record of the...

And Now For Something Entirely Predictable

It had to happen. Someone had to be an idiot and say it. Within hours of England winning the T20 World Cup, someone had to say that it wasn't a proper English team, because a third of the party were not born in England.

The surprise is that the idiot in question was Jonathan 'Aggers' Agnew, the BBC's own cricket correspondent who was, largely, basing his comments upon a conversation with Craig White, during which the latter opined that if you were not born English you never felt truly...

Andy Flower the Professional

That England deserved to win the World T20 Thingy is beyond doubt.

India can't get their excuses right, South Africa's retirement squad struggled, Sri Lanka had no form, West Indies waited for Gayle, Sri Lanka waited for Mahela, New Zealand under performed even for them and Australia were out played.

England was organised, worked hard, had no passengers, they got away with Wright at six and they played very sensible cricket when chasing targets.

That England did all this is the most...

England beat up Clarke

I'm not sure what kind of kid Michael Clarke was, but I doubt he was a brawler.

He looks like the sort of smooth adult that was also like Teflon in the play ground.

Perhaps people tried to abuse him, but he probably had team mates from various sporting teams who would step in for him.

Plus the teachers probably kept on eye on their golden boy, don't want the local cricket star being found dead behind the portables.

With all that in mind yesterday was probably the first real beating he has ever...

Australia win the t20 thingy

I cannot believe Australia won.

To defend such a low total, wow.

The batting might have been poor, but the bowling was outstanding.

The fielding was even better.

But special credit must go to the captain, what a special effort.

I have never been so proud.

Shame the men played like a team of busted assholes.

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Sachin Tendulkar & the Art of Sado-Masochism

Until today, the one thing missing from Sachin Tendulkar's extensive cricketing portfolio was a proper world record, one that counted for most people.

Ok, so he's scored more Test tons than anyone else. On the other hand, not one of those 47 hundreds has seen him pass 250. Granted, neither did Border or Waugh, but neither of them aspired to be regarded as the greatest Test batsman of all time.

And when you think of the greatest ODI batsmen of all time, you probably think of the power hitters, the Richardses, Jayasurias and Gilchrists of this world. But not the man who now holds that elusive record for a highest score – and in doing so made the first double hundred in ODI history, too. That latter point is no mean feat – there have been over a thousand more ODIs than Test matches, so it has taken almost as long for someone to make a 200 in ODI cricket as it took someone to make a 400 in the longest form of the game.

It was a very different kind of innings to Lara's 400, too. That was a knock of pure tedium, one man selfishly grinding his way to a record total in a dead rubber against an attack which included Gareth Batty.

Tendulkar, on the other hand, faced the world's number one bowler, opened the batting and brutalised an entire attack. It was the cricketing equivalent of shagging someone so long and so hard that you both know you are going to wake up sore in the morning, but keeping doing it because you're having fun and you know that, in some sort of masochistic way, they are, too.

Whatever you might think of the man, this was one hell of an innings.