Jarrod Kimber's Blog, page 32

Cricket news hurl: not a Sachin article

I think we can all agree the problem of recent times is a lack of Sachin Tendulkar articles. But this is not a Sachin Tendulkar article.

Not because I couldn’t retell my story about the day I almost saw him bat at the MCG in front of 300 people, any anecdote involving him and Jesse Ryder sharing the same field, or even how a woman once told me that Sachin doesn’t much care for cheese. It’s just that if there is an angle on Sachin Tendulkar, I am sure by now it has been covered. Here’s an interesting fact: the story of Tendulkar driving his sports car late at night to avoid Mumbai traffic has now been told ten million times more than he ever actually drove late at night.

But this is not a Sachin Tendulkar article.

This is an article about Sachin Tendulkar fans. Those who believe he gave Indians something to be proud of. Those who love the visual aesthetic of short men who can on-drive. Those who love legends. Statisticians who like to purr over the creation of previously unthought-of landmarks. And fans of athletes who represent not just a sponsor or team but a people coming of age. They are everywhere, these people. They have thanked Sachin with a consistency and proficiency that even Sachin would have been proud to produce. Eden Gardens did roses, songs and wax. David Cameron signed a picture of Sachin. Companies used ads to thank him.

Now you may think it’s over the top, or way off the mark, or not enough, but who are you, or I, to tell people how to idolise their heroes? The interesting thing is what happens next.

These people won’t cease to exist now that Sachin has gone. They will continue to eat breakfast cereals and watch TV. Never watching cricket again or committing mass ritual suicide would be far too extreme. But where do they put their energy, their love, and their very reason for being?

It’s quite clear I wouldn’t have asked that unless I was going to give my own answer. One that will be ignored almost instantly by a billion Little Master fans. But one that seemed valid as my plane flew over India while Sachin played out his career.

They should now love cricket the way they loved Sachin.

Without cricket, Sachin wouldn’t be Sachin. The same way Johnny Cash could never have been Belgian, Sachin would never have come from any other sport. Not football, basketball, tiddlywinks, handball, hockey or synchronised diving. Without cricket, Sachin could never have been the man he was for India. He was the right man in the right sport in the right country at the right time.

Sachin needed cricket as much as cricket needs India and India needed Sachin.

If someone writes a piece about Sachin that in any way shows him in negative light, the comment threads light up. But when his sport, the sport that made him what he is, gets damaged by yet another self-interested, political, short-sighted financial decision, it’s tumbleweeds from most cricket fans

Therefore, fans with nothing to do as Sachin leaves the game should do everything in their power to protect and support cricket the way they once did with Sachin. It won’t be cheating on him, as cricket is Sachin. It will actually be honouring him in the best way possible.

Because if something doesn’t happen to cricket soon, Sachin’s records won’t mean much. If Test cricket continues to be eaten away at, Sachin’s legacy will diminish. If nation v nation cricket becomes little more than the odd friendly before a global tournament, why will it matter if Sachin scored a hundred international hundreds? If the T20 leagues of the world finally take over, will new fans look at Sachin’s T20 career and wonder what the fuss is about? If World Cups aren’t played anymore, who cares if he won one?

Now, this is all looking at the darkest possible days, days that may never exist. But not days that couldn’t exist. These are days that, given the current trends and mismanagement, self-interest and general shortsightedness of cricket administrators, could definitely happen. If Australia, England and India continue to play each other more often than Gilligan’s Island repeats, how can the other countries finance their cricket? If only Australia, England and India host international tournaments, how will other countries grow their markets? If the ten Test-playing nations continue to prioritise domestic T20 leagues, where will international cricket fit in? And if they continue to not just ignore the outside world but actively try to block it from getting any pieces of their pie, only the Commonwealth will ever truly understand the brilliance of Sachin.

If my whole life was about Sachin, his legacy would matter to me. And any attempt at eating away at the sport he played would hurt me. I’d do everything in my power (angry comments, letters to editors, snarky tweets, endless petitions) to make sure it did not happen.

If someone writes a piece about Sachin that in any way shows him in negative light, the comment threads light up. But when his sport, the sport that made him what he is, gets damaged by yet another self-interested, political, short-sighted financial decision, it’s tumbleweeds from most cricket fans.

Any attack on cricket’s future is an attack on Sachin. Any time the game is treated poorly, it’s Sachin’s game that is treated poorly. Now that Sachin has said his final goodbyes, touched the pitch and started his own chant, all the attention and zealotry from these amazing cricket fans can finally start having an impact on the leaders of cricket.

Sachin was lucky to have cricket. Cricket was lucky to have Sachin. We were lucky to have both. Until there is an apocalypse or massive change in the way we live life, cricket will continue to be played. But how important it is, and the health of it, no one knows.

Whether you’re a Sachinista, Trumpeter or a Bob Blairite, these are your legends and this is your game. And the game needs all its fans holding the administrators to account.

Cricket news hurl: Welcome back, Jesse

People smiled this week. They smiled as they went about the mundane regularity of this prison-like experience we all live in. And it wasn’t even about Sachin Tendulkar. Most of the people in the world who smiled this week did so because Jesse Ryder is back. And because he is Jesse Ryder, he didn’t just come back and say hello, he came back and said hundred. HUNDRED. That is how you come back from a life-threatening attack. That is how you spit in the eye of a coma. Take that, attackers. Every other comeback in history shall now be rated on the Jesse Ryder scale in my heart.

Dan Vettori’s 15-month break from first-class cricket was also ended in style when he took a five-wicket haul. That is a semi-Jesse on the scale.

Sadly for Darryn Randall, there will be no comebacks. Randall (who played four first-class matches for Border in South Africa) was playing club cricket, wearing a helmet and playing a pull shot – all things many cricketers around the world have done. Horrifically, the ball struck him on his head and he never recovered. He was pronounced dead in the hospital. Randall was only 32.

South Africa and Pakistan are 1-1 in their current series. Pakistan failed, by one run, to chase down South Africa’s total of 183. South Africa fell 66 runs short when chasing Pakistan’s monumental total of 209. Afridi took three wickets in that match, yet some seemed to talk about it like it was a 73-wicket haul.

Taking three wickets in the UAE at the moment might be easy enough, but taking a wicket in any of the seven ODIs between Australia and India was all but impossible. And even if you did get a wicket, the runs kept coming. Someone like James Faulkner would come in and smash the quickest hundred ever by an Australian male in an ODI (Meg Lanning did it from 45 balls, 12 quicker). Rohit Sharma finally won fans over with the third double-hundred in an ODI by an Indian, or any human male. Rohit had to make the runs, as he had run out Virat Kohli earlier and would have been abused otherwise. Despite those two amazing hundreds, the best moments had to be Shikhar Dhawan making fun of Shane Watson’s injury, or the back-foot drive by Clint McKay. In a series of hundreds of thousands of runs, it was McKay’s shot that will stay with people forever.

Those runs will not be in vain, though. As they have clearly inspired the Karnataka State Cricket Association into starting their Green Wicket project at the same Chinnaswamy Stadium that saw more sixes than any other ODI. Although sadly for one-day seam bowlers, and happily for the planet, the Green Wicket project is actually not about producing wickets that seam, and is actually about conserving water and being eco-friendly. They seem to be conserving water well by creating concrete wickets.

At Eden Gardens they are going red, in a green way, when they plan to drop 199 kilograms of rose petals for Sachin Tendulkar’s 199th Test. Which seems like a lot, but will actually be a lot to anyone whose job it is to clean them up. Makhaya Ntini was given a fridge with his face on it for his 100th Test. Hopefully Sachin has at least one of those by now and will get a deep fryer made in his image for his 200th.

The ICC announced their five nominations for the People’s Choice Award. MS Dhoni, Michael Clarke, Alastair Cook, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers were nominated. But it is a fan vote, so Sachin may still win it. The ICC press release really made the players sound special: “The nominees will have displayed some of the attributes regarded by LG that reflect their brand and their qualities. Such as innovation, dynamism, strength in decision-making, performing well under pressure and executing a plan to distinction.”

Clarke will probably not win the award, and his dynamism was called into question by Ricky Ponting’s book, but his reprimand by Cricket Australia this week was all his own making. Clarke ironically gestured a decision for a review while playing Shield cricket. The decision was for a low catch. Which you couldn’t actually review with DRS, anyway.

As it happened in a Shield game, few would have seen it. And now fewer people will be able to connect with Shield cricket altogether since the ABC was so annoyed by its treatment from Cricket Australia, it has decided to not broadcast any Shield or Big Bash games. Being that the new radio deal was Cricket Australia trying to broaden their audience, losing the national broadcaster for the Big Bash is a kick in the marketing department. Fairfax, the new broadcaster, doesn’t even have radio stations in Adelaide or Hobart. Mind you, if you are in Australia, the Big Bash is omnipresent during the summer, so it may not matter.

Almost as omnipresent is Lalit Modi, who despite living in England and being currently banned for life by the BCCI, is running for president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association. It will be a tough vote to win for Modi as he won’t be able to kiss any babies at the RCA to win votes.

The chairman position of the PCB has had its own drama this week when it lost its interim chairman for about two hours. The Islamabad High Court suspended Najam Sethi, before the same court granted a stay order on the ruling until November 4, because the PCB asked nicely. Sethi is the editor-in-chief of the Friday Times, and he allowed himself an editorial on the constant court battles that the PCB has had recently. He alleged that the court has cost the PCB billions, and if we’re talking Zimbabwean dollars, he has a point. Sethi titled his article “This is not cricket”, but hilarious administration and political interference is as cricket as a wrong’un. And I only mentioned the wrong ‘un because Abdul Qadir has said he will apply to be the PCB’s full-time chairman.

General Haroon is having a mid-series break, but Haroon Lorgat did say it was his choice to step aside / nick off / politically disappear to make sure India toured South Africa. The weirdest part of his statement had to be: “I know the truth always prevails.” You’d think someone who has worked in cricket this long would have learned that isn’t the case.

The truth is Monty Panesar is currently reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Quick pause. He told the Independent: “I’m reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand at the moment, which is about an architect trying to make it through the world.” That is exactly what it is about; it’s also about objectionism. The revealing interview with Monty also had this look into his soul: “I’ll never forget the first time I saw the Magic Kingdom.”

A statue that should be shown in the Magic Kingdom, but instead ended up in Barnsley, was one of Dickie Bird. It stood in his hometown, finger erect, as a proud memory of the world’s most famous umpire (he has met the Queen more times than anyone’s read The Fountainhead). But the statue had to be taken down this week. Because, as you may have assumed, people were hanging underwear and condoms on the finger. It is not believed that this has happened to the real Dickie. The council will elevate Dickie’s statue to make sure his wicket stays uncovered.

Fawad Ahmed, who is almost as popular as Dickie Bird despite the fact that no one hangs underwear on him, took 6 for 68 (a double Afridi) this week. They weren’t the best figures by an Australian legpinner this week, but they were the best figures by a Victorian legspinner.

If you’ve got anything you think should be in next week’s cricket news hurl, email cricketnewshurlatgmail.com. Welcome back, Jesse, hopefully the world will shower you with 199 of whatever you’d like most.

Cricket news hurl: Zip-a-du-Pless-i

It’s not far from the M Chinnaswamy Stadium to the HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) Sports ground. But if you want to play for the Bangalore United Cricket Club, you’d have to make your way to the Old Airport Road for the game. It won’t be televised or tweeted about, and billions won’t live or die by the result. But there was Rahul Dravid, far from the Royal Rajasthan rampallions, just making a hundred in a Karnataka State Cricket Association Group 1, Division 2 match. Rumour has it, if you cut Rahul Dravid, he bleeds linseed oil.

With the amount of rain following Indian matches at the moment, Dravid’s next match might be a sellout. Despite the last match being washed out, Dhoni’s house was still stoned. Perhaps because throwing the stones at the clouds would have required an arm like Tom Moody. Australia lead 2-1 in that series, which should be cricket’s dullest scoreline, but Bangladesh and New Zealand’s 0-0 Test series was pretty dull. Especially when you include the fact that New Zealand’s warm-up match was also abandoned without a ball being bowled.

Luckily, and always, Pakistan saved the day. It was enough that they rode the Misbah to the top of the mountain to cut the head off the lion in the first Test. Beating South Africa once should have been enough to at least get the Misbah haters and fickle Pakistan fans to shut up for a minute, but instead they played the next Test. That turned out to be a big mistake. Misbah failed once in the whole series (no, two Tests is not really a series), and Pakistan gave up any chance of winning the series with a total of 99 runs. In the end, they lost by an innings and 92 runs, despite Misbah and Asad Shafiq trying to save their team in the second innings.

But even Misbah couldn’t steal the headlines in that innings (he became Dean Elgar’s first, and probably only, Test wicket). But Faf du Plessis’ zipper was the real star of the show. That is where du Plessis decided to “shine” the ball. The ball changed appearance, the umpires noticed, they replaced the ball, and a five-run penalty was imposed on South Africa, who were only a kabillion runs in front at that stage. Du Plessis has since pleaded guilty. GUILTY. And yet, all he received was a 50% fine of his match fee. That’s all. He was not beaten with copies of Wisden, not sacrificed on the altar of Lord’s, or even made to explain the spirit of cricket. He was given a 50% fine. The same fine Virat Kohli got for flipping the bird, Tamim Iqbal got for pushing Brendon McCullum, Stuart Broad got for showing dissent, and in the first Test of the series, Adnan Akmal and Robin Peterson got for gentle tussling.

Forget that, though, Harbhajan Singh was fined 15% (35% less, if that helps) by the ICC for having the wrong colour shoelaces. Other players have been suspended and vilified for tampering with a ball (despite the fact that every team in the world has done it one way or another). Du Plessis, GUILTY, received no ban, only a 50% fine, and a five-run penalty. He is being vilified on Youtube by the many videos of him “shining” the ball that the umpires had to replace. So far, no players have been suspended for having the wrong colour shoelaces.

If anyone was to be suspended for the wrong colour shoelaces, it would be Haroon Lorgat. General Haroon ended its current series with a bang when Cricket South Africa stood down/suspended/threw of a bridge (pick the one you prefer; CSA may not pick one) Haroon Lorgat at the wishes of the BCCI. Lorgat will not be representing CSA at the next ICC CEO meeting (the meeting where they suggest how to improve cricket before the chairmen disagree and do whatever they want anyway) and duties involving India’s tour. The series was also shortened/slashed/tightened to have only two tests. Lorgat will also be the subject of an ethics inquiry into his behaviour.

Hopefully, for his sake, the ethics committee looks into his recent behaviour as thoroughly as it did when the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations asked why their players had to vote more than once to get their representative on the board. Which was when BCCI-contracted commentator and close personal acquaintance of BCCI president Mr N Srinivasan, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, was voted into that position. You probably already knew that, but it’s fun to remember things like that in times like this.

Australian chairman Wally Edwards said this week that Australia made a mistake to discard Simon Katich. Edwards has said it just late enough for there to be nothing that can be done to save Katich’s career. Edwards has been chairman since 2011. Katich played his last Test in 2010. Edwards also said that even if Australia lost 5-0 in the next Ashes, James Sutherland would not lose his job. Australia lost their first home series since Justin Bieber was alive in 2008-09, when they were the No. 1 ranked Test team on earth. Since then, they have won one Champions Trophy, lost three straight Ashes, have had no major Test series wins, exited the World Cup in the quarter-finals, failed to defend the Champions Trophy, or win any World Twenty20 titles, and have dropped to five in the Test rankings. Of course, if Australia do lose 5-0, and West Indies draw or win in a Test against India, Australia will be ranked sixth in the world in Tests. But, to repeat, Sutherland’s position is safe. Katichaveraged nearly 50 in his last three years in Test cricket. His position was not safe.

Part of Sutherland’s success, and apparently bullet- and failure-proof exterior, is making Cricket Australia a lot of money, and that he takes big calls. For instance, when Cricket Australia decided not to run a slogan that the sponsor of the Western Australian Warriors wanted. The ad was to say, “Alcohol and sport don’t mix”, but Cricket Australia worried about other sponsors and made them pick another slogan. Brilliantly, when Queensland played Western Australia in the Ryobi Cup, it was officially a match between XXXX GOLD Queensland Bulls v Alcohol. Think again, Western Warriors.

Someone whose position was never safe was former Sri Lanka team manager Charith Senanayake, who this week decided to show just how unprofessional Sri Lankan cricket was, if there was anyone left who didn’t believe it was the case. On the Sri Lanka Cricket elections he was lovely and clear: “It’s not free and fair, and it’s politically influenced and manipulated. How can such a key position like the secretary’s post go uncontested?” The whole interview, onIsland Cricket, is nice. Nishantha Ranatunga, the man Senanayake believes had him fired, is the current secretary of SLC and the brother of World cup-winning Arjuna. He was also the secretary of the board at the same time he was CEO of the company Sri Lanka Cricket sold the TV rights too. I hope he didn’t drive too hard a bargain with himself.

If you’re too depressed to keep reading, watch the video of perhaps the most entertaining innings in the history of cricket . And the other where Queensland batsman Chris Lynn points out Yvonne Sampson, a TV host, behind him at a Ryobi Cup game   The camera finds her and then shows her simulating a sex act (the actual sex act described was actually a form of Dendrophilia, look it up). It was Cricket Australia who spent 800,000AUD on paying Channel 9 to broadcast this series, money well spent.

According to this article, Che Pujara is the eighth-best sporting stock on earth. “The man who took Rahul Dravid’s number three spot in the Indian order has already surpassed 200 runs in a single at-bat eight times in top-flight play, and soared over 300 thrice, an extraordinary feat (even if you don’t know test cricket from Jiminy Cricket)”. Don’t read that twice. Somehow this piece made news in India, but the best part is that there are four comments on the piece, (weirdly, two from the same guy). Two saying Kohli should have got picked. It proves one thing, forget cricket, what India really dominate is the comments sections of websites.

Not that all Indians are doing well. Ishant Sharma was embarrassed by James Faulkner for 30 match-losing runs in an over. Then an Indian dairy company, I’m not going to name them because they seem like ambulance-chasing meanies, released an ad that said, “Ishant, sharm hai kya?”, or for us English-only people, “Ishant, aren’t you ashamed?” No, he feels fine. He just lost a game against one of his country’s most hated rivals, live on TV, against a down-the-order slogger, where he was dacked (undies and all), in the cricket sense. No, he’s fine. He wants to reinterpret the entirety of Rogers and Hammerstein for a kids audience and broadcast it to the world. I hope they sold a lot of their dairy products.

Dan Christian, who may or may not be a fan of dairy, made 117 off 90 balls for Victoria. It was his highest List A score of his career. In 56 matches for South Australia and New South Wales, Christian never scored more than 100. He took six matches to do so for Victoria.

If you’ve got anything you think should be in next week’s cricket news hurl, email cricketnewshurlatgmail.com. Dendrophilia is a special love of trees. A special love of Christmas trees is probably X-Dendrophilia, or some other latin.   

cricket news hurl: special Sachin supplement

Every now and then an event happens that is so momentous that the normal news hurl is almost forced to be about just that issue. But the thing is, when everyone in the world is writing about it, it seems silly to focus on it as well. Plus, it wouldn’t be honouring cricket properly if we just focused on one man, so instead we will not focus too much on perhaps one of the biggest things to ever happen to cricket. We will just say this: Steve Harmison, you will be missed.

Australia scored lots of runs against India in the only T20 of the series. India scored more. There are now seven ODIs to come. You know what they say about a seven-match ODI series: “make it stop, make it stop, MAKE IT STOP”.

Bangladesh are currently hosting New Zealand in a run fest. Both teams put on huge first-innings totals. To make the tedium even thicker it then started to rain. Late on the fifth day many alternative folk female singers sing with quirky voices about funny things that happened to them that weren’t that funny.

Bangladesh and New Zealand should ditch Test cricket and get with the future, the Vatican T20 league. Always ahead of the curve, the Catholic Church (our style guide says we can’t make religious jokes, so make up your own) have their own cricket teams, the Pontifical Urbaniana (could be made up, can’t be sure) won by a run. Now they want an entire league. Father Theordore Mascarenhas is the chair of their cricket board (the (BCCV, I hope) has described the whole venture as “a kind of inter-cultural dialogue”. They are already talking like cricket administrators. Hopefully they’ll have a logo and stop accrediting websites real soon.

The ICC has a new logo for its Test championship. You remember the Test Championship, the mystical creature that was crushed by the corporate Champions Trophy, which had been crushed by the lack of interest it had always created. The Test Championship logo looks like an apple being attacked by a sci-fi worm. If you don’t like it, it’s okay. Chances aren’t the Test Championship won’t happen anyway.

Something far more likely to happen was Kane Richardson running out a batsman from six inches away from the stumps. Instead he gave YouTube cricket fans something special. With six balls to go, seven runs needed, and only two wickets in hand, he performed the worst underarm throw anyone over the age of two has ever tried as the ball was passed straight back to him and the non-striker had over-committed and given up. The best part is his hand going one way, and the ball going another. The worst part was when South Australia lost.

It’s the sort of mistake you won’t see at the two-day National Cricket Fighting Championships in Beijing. This 1000-year old sport involves cock-fighting, but with crickets. It is also broadcast, so Cricket Australia, ECB and BCCI are probably working out a way they can claim ownership of it. Man Zhiguo, a truck driver who has been involved in the sport for more than 40 years said, “They never admit defeat, they have a fighting spirit, so we all like them.”

Irfan Pathan is not a cricket, but he also refuses to believe his best days are behind him, and as a sign of the new professionalism and money in cricket, he has hired a personal physio to follow him around. “Of course, having a personal physio will help me stay fit and strong. I know I will be the first cricketer to do so,” said the man who once sconned Mark Vermeulen and opened the batting at the WACA. I admire his professionalism and attention to his moneymaker, but it’s not true. Shane Watson owns a private hospital, physio clinic and hyperbaric chamber.

Another man involved with the medical community this week was KP, who sued and won substantial damages against Specsavers, an English glasses maker who designed an ad concept so simple and annoying it entered the modern vernacular. KP’s views on their tag line is unknown, but he didn’t like his picture appearing in this ads alongside the words “‘Bat tampering’ in the #Ashes? Apparently Hot Spot should have gone to Specsavers.”

In more bad news for Hotspot, it has been dropped for Ashes. It’s official, Hotspot is the most unloved thing in cricket since Rohit Sharma. Imagine a world where a sports body decided that TV technology was so good that they would use it to decide on key decisions in their sport. They didn’t test it for years, or even try it at the lower levels, and more importantly they wouldn’t pay for it either. We’re in beta for a system that is even unloved by the people who believe in it, and now key parts of the system are disappearing because the TV companies, who have already been fleeced until they are almost penniless, are being asked to pay for it. DRS needs the same marketing team who made the Champions Trophy less of a terrible mess to help them out.

Something else that people love or hate is quotas. And in South African domestic cricket that is what we now have. And not just quotas, but incentives for teams to play black African players. England had similar incentive schemes for counties to play young players. According to Haroon Lorgat (this does not count as General Haroon news), “These new requirements are incentive-based, not quota-based”. When the ECB tried its incentive-based schemes, Adrian Shankar faked his age and played for two counties despite a severe lack of talent.

Dilshan, a player who actually played in Sri Lanka, and didn’t fake it like Shankar, retired from Test cricket. Dilshan was a flop as a middle-order batsman but remade himself into a vicious opening batsman. My favourite memory was when his thumb was removed from its socket at Lord’s and he just kept batting. His retirement was so big it was covered by LA Times and New York Times, and Vinod Kamlbi said, “In my opinion, this means the end of Test cricket.” Or Kambli said that about Harmison, or someone else.

Another opening batsman who likes to biff the ball made the news when he was forced to attend club cricket games after missing one to go to the races. True or false, David Warner could get into trouble locked in a cube devised by a Canadian sci-fi director who had no access to the outside world. Rhetorical. Well done to Cricket Australia for their anti-suspension. This time, I am sure, David Warner truly learnt his lesson.

While Warner was forced to play cricket, Christchurch Metropolitan Cricket had to call off most of its midweek competition, according to stuff.co.nz. “There was a lot of rain and the grounds are very wet,” operations manager Mike Fisher said. You cannot argue with that logic.

Cricket Australia has been quick to respond to rumours that the Ryobi Cup will be played in Cameron White’s backyard. A statement that it released on Bebo, Orkut and MySpace said, “From the performance of the pitches, and the way Cameron is batting, it is clear that this tournament is already being played in Cameron’s backyard”. Cameron White was born and raised in Victoria.

If you’ve got anything you think should be in next week’s cricket news hurl, email cricketnewshurlatgmail.com. Sachin Tendulkar has retired from Test cricket.

cricket news hurl: the ICC fail to beat Afghanistan

Pravin Tambe is the sort of spinner Australia would pick, except he’s good. A 41-year-old not good enough for regional cricket sends his team into the final of a tournament we may forget in three years’ time, but for now is important enough to have Dwayne Bravo and Suresh Raina in it. Tambe has no written bio on ESPNcricinfo, but I’m working on his. So far all I have is “superawesomeolddude”. Tambe is the perfect start to a news hurl.

Although this column may have to change its name as cricket is no longer news if an interim order from the Indian Supreme Court becomes more than interim. The ongoing argument between Star India, backed up in court by the BCCI, and mobile cricket score providers and the website cricbuzz, is about Star India believing the exclusive rights it bought off the BCCI mean that no one else can make money from live cricket scores. If the Supreme Court upholds this decision, then cricket takes one major leap towards becoming something cricket boards can own. One day, if we are lucky, cricket will be an upsizable commodity we can get a groupon for.

Cricket did feel like news when millions watched, tweeted, called their friends, and even stopped strangers on the bus, thrusting their mobile devices with live cricket “product” on them, to say Afghanistan would be in the World Cup. Yes, that country with the fast bowlers, sloggers and the world’s best Hamid Hassan. It “truly proves the power of sport” and this win is “more than just sport” and also that “cricket is the only game where Afghanistan are any good, so if not this, they’d be useless at everything”.

Even the ICC was impressed, excited and sharing the Afghanistan love. John Harnden, the World Cup 2015 chief executive, said: “This is a major achievement for Afghanistan and we look forward to welcoming it to Australia and New Zealand in 2015.” But maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. Perhaps the years of cut-price bourbon and playing Galaga have taken a toll. Wasn’t it the ICC who didn’t want Associate nations in the World Cup in the first place? Didn’t it vote that only the ten Full Members (conveniently the ten who also vote) could play in the World Cup, before it was shamed into letting other countries in? Yes, that is exactly what happened. So Afghanistan has overcome a dreadful government and an invasion by the world’s superpower, and beaten a semi-finalist of the 2003 World Cup, but by far their most unlikely victory was the one over the meanest men (almost exclusively) on the planet – cricket administrators.

Not that they overcame people like Harden, or the underpaid, overworked soul who sent out the email. Those people get paid to work on the sport they love. Many of them have to work at the ICC headquarters in Dubai. And if that sounds glamorous, then you haven’t visited Sports City, the sort of place that wouldn’t change much if an apocalypse hit it. At night I’m sure vagabond demons stroll around their car park to feast on the late-shift workers.

The decision to oust Afghanistan would never be from those men and women, who love the game enough to risk life and limb in cricket’s headquarter-graveyard. No, the decision was made by the unpaid chairmen of the ten cricket boards. The real ICC. It’s as important as the distinction between the BCCI and India, or legspin and offspin. The real ICC makes those sort of decisions. If it were up to the real ICC, Afghanistan would not be in the World Cup. One day, if we are lucky, cricket will finally stop being a sport of Gentlemen v Players.

For now that seems unlikely, and the spat between Cricket South Africa’s CEO, Haroon Lorgat, and the BCCI continues with gusto. It’s now officially a soap opera. I have decided to call it General Haroon. This week on General Haroon, the BCCI wants to know who at the BCCI didn’t think it would be a problem if Haroon Lorgat was hired. That person is now in more trouble than Haroon is, if the Indian Express is to be trusted. According to the report, CSA can get back the Indian tour by selling that person out. The BCCI traitor is more important than Lorgat. Also on General Haroon, the BCCI secretary has said the BCCI is “waiting” to talk about whether India will travel to South Africa or not. Waiting on chairman Mr N Srinivasan’s Supreme Court (What percentage of Indian Supreme Court hearings are on cricket right now?) hearing on whether he can stay in the job, or just until Miley Cyrus’ next music video, we don’t know.

Former BCCI president Shashank Manohar said Srinivasan should not have run for the top job, and that other board members suggested to Manohar that he should run. He didn’t, so now he is lazily slagging off Srinivasan instead. These are the days of our BCCI.

With @altcricket back online, the BCCI should be more concerned with ridding the internet of costly copyright infractions. On Youtube, you can even watch an entire innings of the Champions League commentated on in Russian.

That should be the weirdest cricket story this week. But it turns out Samuel Beckett and Andre the Giant bonded over cricket, in France. King Cricket explains it well. “What do an Irish Nobel Prize winner and an oversized French 12-year-old of Bulgarian ancestry talk to each other about? Well, apparently they would spend all of their commutes talking about cricket.”

Saeed Ajmal and Dav Whatmore had an equally weird relationship when quotes from Ajmal seemed to suggest in pretty clear terms that Whatmore was overpaid and wasn’t much use as a coach due to the fact he couldn’t speak Urdu. Dav took to Twitter to say how disappointed he was. A short while later he tweeted that Ajmal had clarified and apologised. Whatmore accepted the apology and clarification but still doesn’t speak Urdu.

Shane Watson was much more direct when he ran through Brad Hodge’s knee with his head. Hodge will miss the final of the Champions League. Watson was also fined US$750 for swearing in that match. The two incidents were unrelated.

It certainly wasn’t as good a match as Sarfaraz Khan had for India Under-19s. At 15 years and 300 odd days, Sarfaraz is literally (not literally) 1/8th as old as Pravin Tambe. In that match against South Africa U-19, he made 67 off 58 balls and took 2 for 9. He is the new Sachin Tendulkar.

The old Sachin Tendulkar brought up his 50,009th run in List A, first-class and domestic T20 cricket. Most of them made in pads that looked like they had already seen 50,000 runs. It was a milestone that no one in the entire world had ever thought about before Sachin got to it. Sachin is one of the greats of cricket, the Godzilla of cricket. We should all really bow down to him. Hopefully one day he will score more runs than the great Graeme Hick, who, at 64,372 runs, is miles ahead of Sachin. Hick is the King Ghidorah of cricket. Don’t bother looking King Ghidorah up – he isn’t as good as his stats suggest.

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.” This is probably what went through the minds of the ABC when they heard the new Cricket Australia radio deals. Waiting until after their season had begun, Cricket Australia is making the ABC share the Test rights, giving the Big Bash away 100% to another station, and asking the ABC to pay for Sheffield Shield rights. The first two must have hurt, but the third was a massive slap in the face for the broadcaster who has been commentating on cricket roughly 80 years, longer than twerking was a craze.

Perhaps Cricket Australia is just trying to bring in the billion-dollar radio deal for Sheffield Shield radio rights. The ABC might be upset by the fact that Cricket Australia is willing to pay Channel Nine A$800,000 to broadcast the Ryobi Cup while still trying to charge for the Shield radio rights.

This season Victoria is undefeated in the Champions League, Sheffield Shield and Ryobi Cup.

If you’ve got anything you think should be in next week’s cricket news hurl, email cricketnewshurlatgmail.com. Unlike most soap stars, Lorgat has never been in a coma or slept with a sibling. But Lorgat has come back from the dead. Well, almost.

The Campbellfield Cricket Club

This post is to celebrate the six year birthday of this site.

When I was six days old, or 13 days old (depending on which version of the story I was told), I was taken to my first cricket ground.

Seth Raistrick Reserve. Off Sydney Rd. Campbellfield. Victoria. Australia.

The Campbellfield Cricket Club.

The ground had no sightscreens, seemed far bigger than necessary and a concrete pitch with matting on it. It had short straight boundaries, and mid wickets for right handers that seemed infinite. The fence had no real purpose other than showing you were the boundary was. Or, if you were young enough, you could sit on the middle bar, and put your chin on the top bar as you watched the game. Out towards the virtually unused tennis courts was a bullants nest. And on the boundary the furthest from Sydney Rd was play equipment that was broken almost all the time.

It was always really hot there. The grass next to the fence was always yellow. On the ground itself it was always as green as in any Hollywood film. The clubhouse was a sweaty concrete box with no windows just the odd brick whole for air. The whole place was filled of smells of piss and piss (beer). Every part of it was covered with old bits of kit. It was like a Airplane graveyard, except it was full of half broken pads, random buckles and finger guards from cricket gloves.

The reason I was there was there at that age was because my dad was opening the bowling that day. Having a new born son didn’t mean a week off. It was cricket. Nothing got in cricket’s way.

I don’t have many memories of my father playing, a lack of knee cartilage meant that by the time I was old enough to see what he was doing out there, he wasn’t doing it anymore. He did make a comeback. But barely being able to walk for three days after 15 over spells he used to do for a warm up meant he didn’t last long. We did play a couple of games together when he was older, but never at our ground.

At his best, he was a steaming fast bowler with a kick ass outswinger. Later in his career he was that old guy who would bowl medium pace outswingers for days on end. According to him, and most guys who played against him, his spells went well into the second half of the innings before he had a break. Always on a length you couldn’t quite drive, always just in that channel. When he took hauls they were the kind you always dreamed of. Seven wickets, eight wickets or even one nine wicket haul. There was even once a hat trick. It started in a semi final, and ended in a grand final. It’s not technically a hattrick in two games, but he has the trophy, and doesn’t like people mentioning the legalities of hattricks. Dad couldn’t bat, not even a little bit. Yet somehow he managed some ok knocks from his automatic position at number 11.

My mother would often be the scorer. Batsmen would trudge off the ground pissed off that they went out to the fat bearded bloke who was slow as My mum, who always had a sense of the dramatic, would then remark how many of the batsmen the fat bearded slow bloke had got out. I never saw her do this, but I’ve heard the stories so many times its one of my strongest memories.

Both my uncles played there as well. My uncle Gary was an all rounder with a terrible temper who used a bat that even to this day I doubt I weigh more than. Somehow he had the strength to throw it long distances. As a captain, and fielder, he was a fan of leg slip.

My other uncle, Ross, was a fast bowler. A proper fast bowler. He would often regret that he couldn’t get the ball even slightly off the straight. Yet when he batted, he would often face up from square leg. Not as a cunning tactic, but where all good slogging tailenders stand.

My auntie Mazz was also on the committee. As was my mum, dad and uncle Gary. At one stage, or maybe at the same time, they were President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary. It was around this time that the club was referred to as Kimberfield.

My cousin Joel played there as well. Just once or twice, although like me, it was probably his first cricket ground, and he spent years there before moving into the country. When he did play there, he bowled the most technically correct legspin ever. The seam was almost always perfect from the first time he bowled, and he could rip a ball past you when in the mood. With the bat, he played a cut shot to every ball. If it was the only shot you ever needed, he could have been a great. But he never truly learnt another.

My family played hard. My uncle Gary once stole a run when a fielder threw the ball past the bowler when he was at the top of his mark. My father once ran out a batsman who after every shot would come down the wicket and clean the pitch. I was forced back on the field by my father when all I had was a broken fielder. I was swung at more than one time by talented batsmen I had sledged until they wanted to smack me.

It was how we played. Things were rough out that way. I once saw a man run at another man with a stump. Once he had been restrained, the game proceeded. I had a team once promise to beat the living fuck out of my faggot ass because I refused to walk. I was 15, their captain and lead protagonist were in their 40s. Our league was brutal when it wanted to be. The EBKCA. The B stood for Broadmeadows, which is pretty much were our club was, Broadmeadows has had a reputation since the day I was born.

In Hadfield (just back down Sydney Rd, behind the Fawkner Cemetery) players often played without thighpads and helmets, and, really oddly, gloves. They had a reputation for being a side that if you hit one of their players on the head with the bouncer, they’d throw it back to you and smile. If you wore a helmet there, you wouldn’t need your front foot.

Most of the players at Campbellfield were from the Ford factory, or had something to do with it. They were Macca, Simmo, Westy, Bluey, Gibbo and Pricey. Or something of that sort.

In the mid eighties a new clubhouse was built. It seemed like a palace compared to the old one. It had a committee room and everything. Plus a hallway that was perfect for hallway cricket. Anyone who played there had to learn how to face the short ball. One of the senior players, called Maxxy, also taught us the trick of how to bowl to pretend we were bowling with our right hand, when the ball came out of our left hand. It was a rubbish skill, but we loved it. Another player cut down a broken bat and gave it to my parents. It was my first bat.

Saturday night everyone was at the club rooms. Women, kids and men with huge red stains on their whites. The floors were always sticky from the beer. The whole place had a smoke haze. There was darts and a pool table. Plenty of meat to be placed into large bakery bread. Outside there was a play pen, that was infact a children’s jail. They even called it jika jika. It was probably put in because the clubhouse was next to one of the busiest roads in Australia. By the end of the night most of the tomato sauce ends on the floor or outside in the pen of jike jika, that made the dirt look like there had been a ferocious battle there, and not a sausage sizzle gone wrong.

The most important part of the evening was when the captains read out that day’s scores. It was the only time the club went silent. Blokes became heroes. He might have been a truck driver, or a former drug addict, during the week. But that night he was the bloke who took a five for against Craigieburn (fucken Craigieburn) bowling into the wind win the match. The players didn’t play for money, but a five wicket haul or a half century would get you some cash. It often didn’t make it past the bar.

The best captains would give you the fall of wickets like they were reading a novel. Every line would lift or deflate the room. The early collapse would be spoken of dramatically, like each wicket was still personally hurting the captain. Then there would be a partnership; two great heroes slaying the dragon from Pascoe Vale. The partnership would get bigger and better with every sentence until the wicket ended it. And the groans started. It would almost always be a fluke run out or great catch that did it. “Brucey would have made a hundred, but the bastard stuck out his right hand…” “I’ve never seen a run out like it…” My dad had a shaking head gesture that he greeted almost all the bad news with. I can still see it now. No matter how bad the total was, there was always a moral victory and a chance that they could win the game next week. They were almost always two day games.

I would sit in the corner, taking a break from the Galaga machine, to listen to all the details. Later, when Zoran would take spend hours clocking Glaga in one go and erasing my records I would question players about their games. Some ignored me. Some told me everything. Sometimes I would just listen to conversations. I learnt every swearword. I learnt to tell stories. And I learnt everything about cricket.

I did this for ten years straight.

Despite living on the other end of Cooper St in Epping, I played at Campbellfield, because it was my family club. I don’t even remember being asked if I wanted to play at one of my local clubs. It was only about 15 minutes to the ground. Cooper st was a one lane road with nothing around it at the end of Melbourne. It was basically a country road on the outskirts of an industrial area. We would pass the private tip. The public tip. A quarry of some kind. The Istrian (Australian Italian) club. Then turn left onto Sydney Road, at the Hume Highway bit. Then pass a couple of factories, one or two car yards, the Ford Factory and some houses.

That was about all you saw on the drive.

Next to the ground was a historical church with huge trees that the big hitters would drive into. For whatever reason, the church’s grass never seemed to be cut, and finding balls in there was impossible. I think I only ever went in there once. To attend the funeral of my dad’s friend Fuzz. His old wicketkeeper.

My career started when I was six fielding for the under 12s. I was so annoyed no one would let me play for real. When I was seven I was to play my first game of cricket At my first training session, I was hit in the balls without wearing a box by a composite cricket ball with a painted on seam. It was the last time I didn’t wear a box.

My dad was the coach. As he was of all the junior teams I played in for the next eight years. Fast bowlers were to keep a high arm action with a good seam position. Batsmen were to play on the front foot and forget about playing the hook shot. Spinners were encouraged, pushed and almost forced to bowl even when they didn’t want to. We played tough, attacking cricket, everyone got a go, but they were expected to give it their best. He was tough on everyone, he was extremely tough on me. We loved playing for him. Even the kids who were afraid of him. Which was probably most of them. In eight years we made three grand finals and won two.

Even when dad was well past forty, he would pick up an old cricket ball with no seam or shine, and would hoop it past me in the nets.

I played with Dom, Adrian, Sam, Tim, Ben, Andrew, Muhummad, Sammy, Anthony, Nirenda, Neil, Clint, Korkilla and Kevin to name a few. They came from all sorts of backgrounds. Australian, Irish, Italian, Lebanese, Bangladeshi, Indian, Greek and Sri Lankan.

In our final years the medal for the best junior player at the club was named after my father.

We were so much a part of the club that my dad would even take me down on Sundays to help clean the club with him. I would be given one task to do. And I’d generally do it badly. Mostly I would watch the McDonald’s cup games on the TV. The guys would take their breaks and I had to give a proper update on what has happening in the game.

Kicker was the mainstay. He seemed 200 years old. He was hard as nails and could put a bat grip on blindfolded half cut. I’m not sure if he ever ran the club, but if you’ve ever played at a real cricket club, you know the sort of guy I was talking about. No matter how close he was to my family (he coined the term Kimberfield) he would berate me for my footwork, and refused to accept I could bat as I wouldn’t put my foot near the pitch of the ball.

There was no proof he was any good at cricket, but he could talk a good game. He was like a yoda. Made of rubber, talked in weird sentence structures. He drilled catch phrases into you. When I first started playing senior cricket, I’d be a fine leg during my spell. Kicker would walk up and lean on the fence next to me. I learnt more about spin from the chats as he learnt on the fence than I ever did from anyone else. He lived on the corner of Campbell St at the base of the ground. I played with his grandson. His real name was Alf Littlejohn. It takes a special job to give a nickname to a man that well named.

There was also the Pres, Toney Panel. And so many others like Maurie who just worked their ass off to make it a successful club. They made the club run through raffles, gambling nights, cup days, presentation nights, barrels of beer and endless dim sims (friend and steamed) and at one stage a soft serve machine that never ever seemed to work. I think my dad was arrested once for selling beer there without a licesnse. Although, I doubt that stopped them doing it.

I had some great success there. And some pretty ordinary failures. I even saw my first ever porn there. As someone had stuffed the pages under the synthetic wickets in the nets that had replaced the matting. The next week I rushed back there to see some more. But it was nothing. The week after it was gay porn. I really didn’t enjoy that the same way.

When I started playing juniors and seniors at the same time. We would rush back to the club and I would eat 10 dim sims, all steamed, and drink a couple of cans of coke for hydration. My biggest concern was getting soya sauce on my whites. Then I’d be off to the next game.

We won the grandfinal of the Under 16s in my last game. The morning of that last day, I was not out on 60 odd, and Mick Gibbs, a club legend, and Trev, a really nice clubman, took me aside in the kitchen. They told me in no undcertain terms that I wasn’t a good batsman and I had to make this hundred as I may never get another chance. And anything less than a hundred would give the opposition a decent chance of victory.

It was the sort of frank and honest discussions I’d be hearing, or part of, since I was knee high.

I made 91 that morning at Craigieburn (fuck I hate Craigieburn, the club and suburb). But we won the game.

Mick and Trev could be honest with me, because they were part of my family. On the night of our last junior presentations, I gave a speech about how much I loved the club. I also mentioned that the seniors should spend more time helping out the juniors. That they had taken us for granted and that my dad had done far too much work. It was the same tough love that Mick and Trev gave me.

For the first 16 years of my life, Seth Raistrick Reserve was as much my home as my actual home was. My favourite possession was a CCC badge that was sown onto a floppy hat for me. It was green and gold, and had CCC on a pair of stumps. It wasn’t the same logo that they’d had since the club started in the late 1800s. But to me it was the only logo.

I’ve only played for two other clubs since I was 16. It’s now been more than 16 years since I played there.

Things changed and I never got to go back to Campbellfield like I always wanted too. The area and club has changed too. Kicker died. I’m sure many others have too. There is a McDonald’s opposite the ground. The Ford factory is no longer Ford. And that little one lane country road at the end of Melbourne, Cooper st, still connects my house to my club. But it now the tips and Istrian club have company with a hospital, market, shopping centre and a ring road on it. It is no longer the end of Melbourne.

This month represents the sixth year anniversary of cricket with balls. Since it started I’ve travelled the world. I’ve written three books. I’m making two films. I met my wife, and had a son. That is not even to mention the things that haven’t happened yet simply because of this site.

Without the Campbellfield Cricket Club, this site wouldn’t exist.

If you ever drive out of Melbourne on Sydney Rd. Past Fawkner Cemetery, beyond the Ring Road exits and just before the McDonald’s on the left there is an old brown single story 80s building. Behind that, a cricket ground. If you do drive that way, you’ve probably past it heaps of time without ever looking twice. It doesn’t look like much.

To me, it couldn’t have been much more.

Cricket news hurl: cricket fixes it’s twitter problem

There should be a TV channel devoted to Jesse Ryder, Gary Wilson, Andre Russell and legspin. There isn’t. Cricket on TV is very limited. It’s actual cricket (which there is a lot of), the odd themed cricket show, and cricket on the news when it is seen as worthy. But this week there was no election coverage for the most important cricket event of the year.

It made the news and was talked about on the cricket-themed shows, although weirdly, not as much on the cricket itself. But what I’d have liked were hours of panel shows talking about Mr N Srinivasan’s history, potential spoilers to run for the top job, what the exit polls are saying, spirited discussions between Harsha Bhogle and Gideon Haigh with graphs and logos behind them. How, or if, @altcricket’s banning from Twitter was BCCI-related. And pictures of what exactly a third of the BCCI officials were wearing when Srinivasan took them to Mahabalipuram for their beach holiday.

That is how important I think the president of the BCCI is. But not everyone thinks like me. Jagmohan Dalmiya, Niranjan Shah, Arun Jaitley, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Anil Kumble did not turn up to the AGM. The person in charge of the BCCI is in charge of, in one way or another, at least 70% of the game’s wealth. The people are voting on who is the most powerful person in our sport, and some of them didn’t turn up. And unopposed, the king bullied his way back to the throne. Now he’ll fight a potentially bloodier battle with the Supreme Court to keep his seat.

But cricket administrators have more important things to do. It seems they are cleaning up Twitter, one rogue user at a time. When the popular account @altcricket was banned, people smelled a rat. And there still might be a rat, but there is more to the story as well. The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse is a website that collects legal complaints from the online world. @altcricket has had three warnings on his Twitter account for posting links to illegal streaming sites, the last one over a year ago. The three organisations to claim the copyright breaches are the BCCI, ECB and ICC. But digging deeper, even Cricket Australia has claimed breaches for similar offences.

A Durham-obsessed mum, a soprano and cricket nut, and people trying to help international cricketers have been reported. Every time Shane Warne tweets for a link to watch a cricket match, or that he can’t see a match, many more people get reported. One Twitter cricket lover even tweeted an illegal link directly to @bcci and @cricketicc.

All of these cricket lovers have tried to spread the game to their friends or people they like on Twitter, and have been caught up in million- and billion-dollar TV deals at the same time. The blog Deep Backward Point tried to explain the DMCA American law that allows rights holders to make these copyright claims. What the tweeters have done is no doubt dubious and obviously not legal (they don’t call it illegal streaming for ironic purposes), but they are trying to spread the game to people who often can’t watch it. Perhaps if cricket officials did more of that, and less of protecting what they already had, they wouldn’t need to worry as much about illegal streams.

Maybe they could spend less time checking Twitter and more time and money on independent enquiries into corrupt practices from the people who run the game. The DMCA law keeps fans in check, the ASCU looks for corruption in cricket, but the man in charge of the entire game can take people on a holiday before an important vote and blatantly lie about who owns an IPL franchise and still run for the job.

Ravi Bopara (no breaches on his record) recently tweeted Owais Shah’s retirement before it was announced. In fact, for a few days, it was the only announcement, “Congrats to Owais Shah on a GREAT first class career. Finished with a fine century today. 45 first class 100s & a great man. Will be missed.” It’s even possible that Shah wasn’t going to retire and Ravi pressured him into it. Neither men, nor two of Essex’s best bowlers played in their last game of the year when they still technically had a chance of promotion. While it was only a slim chance, it seemed an odd choice for a club that not that long ago had a young player sent to prison for fixing and another banned by the ECB. Instead came the news that Monty Panesar (no illegal links from him either) had been fined for “threatening behaviour”.

Navjot Sidhu threatened his own well-being when he said he was going fast until he died for the stalling of disbursement of development funds for his Amritsar constituency. The overly dramatic statement from the overly dramatic former Indian opener never eventuated, and he never even missed a meal as his political plea was heard.

Another former player who likes to talk a lot is Darren Lehmann. This time Lehmann turned on up on BBC radio to tell the world that England play dour cricket. Thank you, Boof, the rest of us had our eyes and ears removed when we were born and had no idea. Australia play far more attacking cricket than England, yet their collapse-to-win strategy somehow lost the Ashes series 3-0.

According to his Twitter account, you can now call Shahid Afridi. “Over now the surprise was that I have got a special no to interact with my fans for the first time. 03245100100.” I tried to call it, but it didn’t work. I was just going to ask if he had Misbah-ul-Haq’s phone number. Which could have gotten odd.

Not as odd as the 150-year-old Manningham Mills Cricket Club being expelled from the JCT600 Bradford Cricket League because it refused to pay a 75 quid fine for the late return of score sheets. There is also mention of a lack of a groundsman. But luckily, full-time celebrity and part-time politician George Galloway is on the case. “I don’t pretend to know all of the facts of this matter…” – when has that stopped a politician – “…nor am I saying the club has been blameless. There have been problems, particularly over the payment of fines, but as I understand it all of the money owed has been paid to the league.”

The club could also change their name and re-enter the league. Although they can’t use the name Young Boys Drugmulla as that is being used in the Drugmulla premier league cricket tournament in Kashmir. There are 22 sides registered to play, but only one is called the Young Boys Drugmulla if this report is to be trusted, and I really hope it is.

It was sadder news when after only two short years in the Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship Division Eight West, the Haverhill IIIs have left the league. The club’s commercial director (I know), Greg Street, told the Havervill Echo: “I think it’s a bit of a shame, because it’s a good vehicle and platform for some of the younger players to play their cricket.” The good news is that the team will be running two teams in the Adams Harrison Midweek League.

Two players who have (probably) never heard of the Adams Harrison Midweek League are Andrew Strauss and Mike Hussey. Both these lovely men spoke out regarding their major recent controversies. Mike Hussey went out of his way to blame the Simon Katich choking incident on himself, which was odd. “He [Clarke] eventually got back and said it wasn’t my fault, don’t worry, he’d sort out his differences with Kato.” Wonder how Katich feels those differences were worked out. Hussey also doused the claims that he and Clarke had a falling-out on the night of his last Test. Yet the email about the incident seems stunningly accurate for large parts of it.

Strauss’ comments were about himself and KP from the South Africa series. They were not exactly sexy. He was disappointed, fair enough. KP got on his nerves. But I did like this bit, “He was alleged to have referred to me as a ‘doos’ — an Afrikaans word which means a ‘box’ but which in slang can have another more insulting meaning.” I was told once doos meant matchbox. Maybe KP meant that.

The extracts were part of marketing campaigns for upcoming books. Strauss’ appeared in the Daily Mail as a taster for his book, Driving Ambition. I’d say he was a better cutter than driver but Cutting Ambition might have put people off. Hussey has already used “driving” in the title of his book from six years ago, so this time his book, extracted in the Murdoch press, is called Underneath the Southern Cross. This is probably a reference to his love of amateur astrological studies.

Hussey played for Chennai Super Kings in the Champions League this week. The Victorian Bushrangers, Melbourne Green and Melbourne Red are still unbeaten in this year’s Champion’s League.

If you’ve got anything you think should be in next week’s cricket news hurl, emailcricketnewshurlatgmail.com. We claim copyright on every word used in this piece, but if something is factually inaccurate, it was added by the major cricket boards and their legal teams.

cricket news hurl – Enthusiastic crocodile pus ambassadors

Andre Russell took four wickets in four balls for West Indies A against India A. That is a double hat-trick, yet everyone calls it four wickets in four balls. It takes the magic away from it. Andre Russell does not have magic in his fingers; his fingers, hands, wrists and forearms are made of pure magic.

Mumbai Indians made even more magic this week when they unveiled their new hashtag for the Champions League. #ThisTimeFor10dulkar. They replaced “ten”, with 10, which shortened it by a character, and made it 104 times more annoying. It’s also unnecessarily didactic. As we are already doing everything for Sachin. Rock Hudson dedicated his performance in Seconds to Sachin. The ghost of a mischievous girl put a post box on the side of a bridge for Sachin. And I personally brush my teeth for Sachin every day, just in case I meet him.

The hashtag isn’t the only exciting thing from the IPL. Former ICC elite panel umpire Asad Rauf and current son-in-law and former Chennai Super Kings enthusiast Gurunath Meiyappan have both been charged in the IPL fixing case. It’s not great timing for Mr N Srinivasan as he tries to seek re-election as the chairman of the BCCI. There was also a court order restraining their special general meeting. There will be no cheerleaders in the CLT20 due to corruption (?) and morality concerns, unless the multi-year contracts cause trouble. And also an entire case coming back to life about IPL 2 and foreign-exchange regulations I wouldn’t pretend to understand. It’s all crumbling, and there may be no one to dance 25-second boring routines to cheer Srinivasan up.

There is also good news as Nike showed their new Indian shirts this week via a twitter campaign. Umesh Yadav and Ravi Ashwin both tweeted about it. Virat Kohli did not. It was only recently that Kohli and Nike were in the courts disagreeing over a contract. It was then that a Nike company statement said “The civil court had failed to appreciate that the company paid Mr. Kohli exorbitant sums of money under the contract, and has supported and nurtured him during his early days as a cricketer”. For some reason, the word nurtured makes me think of a young Kohli sucking at a sweatshop manufactured leather teat with a swoosh on it.

Virat Kohli is now the brand ambassador of India’s central paramilitary agency, the Border Security Force (BSF). He is their first brand ambassador. A better choice might have been Eileen Ash, who made the news this week because she is a 101 years old and still does yoga. She was also a former spy and Test cricketer. What a brand ambassador she could be. For pretty much anything. She can play a Test-quality cover drive and end a dissident’s life with a paperclip.

At the very least she could have been a brand ambassador for the Under-19 women of Kashmir who played in their first cricket tournament this week. The report talks of a keeper wearing hijab, and others wearing Australian cricket shirts. It doesn’t mention how good the keeper’s footwork was, or if the woman in the Australian shirt went out cheaply. It sounds pretty amazing and should have got more press.

Unfortunately it happened in the same week as the one when former Zimbabwe allrounder Guy Whittall slept in a bed with an eight-foot crocodile beneath him. Crocodiles beat hijab-wearing keepers. For most people, that would the toughest thing in their career. But Whittall played 46 Tests in a golden age of cricket with a batting average of 29 and a bowling average of 40. So a crocodile under the bed is probably better than facing Curtly Ambrose on any pitch ever. Being that Whittall has survived a crocodile and an Ambrose, he might qualify as the toughest guy on earth.

The players in Glasgow are getting a bit too tough, however. Glasgow cricket leagues are strengthening their dissent regulations as players have repeatedly given expletive-laden (the best kind of laden) rants to umpires. They are thinking of penalising teams for offences by taking runs off, or even yellow or red cards for the players involved. The third, and more expensive, option is to bring in DRS so players are far too confused to complain about anything.

At the SLC awards the hired entertainment did a satire skit to keep the audience amused through what would have otherwise been cricketers and cricket administrators giving dull speeches. They suggested using ARS (Audience Review System) to rig games and bring in money through SMS. They also made fun of Sanath Jayasuriya for, well, many things, but partially for when he was commentating and he said, “You can see the pus coming out”, when he meant soil. The audience laughed often. Jayasuriya did not, and has sent a letter to the SLC about how unhappy he is. You’d think he’d have more important things to worry about, being a politician and selector. Compared to Mahela Jayawardene, who was on a plane that was diverted due to a potential hijacking, being mocked seems kind of nothing. Jayasuriya’s character in the satire is a hapless politician who wore sneakers, and danced significantly better than Jayasuriya did on Indian TV. Jayasuriya would have been better off clapping politely and fake-laughing. When someone parodies you, you don’t make the news and become a bigger story. Because if you squeeze a parody, the soil comes out.

Jayasuriya’s old sparring partner Shane Warne made other headlines this weekend for this Twitter usage. Warne tweeted: “@ZodiacFacts Seriously,where do u get this crap from.Sum up a Virgo properly please & FYI also give us some interesting stuff, thankyou…” It was his most interesting tweet of the week.

Fellow Victorian David Hussey won the YB40 for Nottingamshire at Lord’s. Other non-Victorian Bushranger players were involved.

If you’ve got anything you think should be in next week’s cricket news hurl, email cricketnewshurlatgmail.com. Always check under your bed for crocodiles or Gurunath Meiyappan.

cricket news hurl: Misbah does Halloween

It is roughly 1000 hours until Jesse Ryder comes back from his ban. You probably didn’t know how many hours it was, but you felt him getting closer to your life. Jesse Ryder is like baby mugging; only good can come from him.

A win for Zimbabwe in a Test is the same. It’s pure goodness. When factoring in the troublesome government, the laughable administration and the fact that the players were boycotting training only a few weeks ago, this is the sort of sporting miracle that Americans would make into a Movie of the Week. There are lots of heroes from the game. Masakadza’s knock in the first innings, Brian Vittori’s five-wicket haul, Richmond Mutumbami’s runs at nine, and Tendai Larry Chatara’s second-innings haul.

But the reason Zimbabwe won is all over Twitter, it was Misbah-ul-Haq’s fault. According to @AmberHMK “Dear #Misbah, Go home. Please. We are not consistent. Its not us. Your fifties don’t make us win. Sincerely, #PakistanCricketFan.”

@AmberHMK wasn’t the only one. @mfaysaljamal said, “Only person is responsible and that is skipper misbah PCB must change test captain asap.” That makes it official, it is #misbahsfault. He was one of two batsmen who made over 30. One of two batsmen to average over 50 in the series. One of three current Pakistan batsmen to average over 40 in Test cricket. And the only batsman to not go out in this chase. It is obviously his fault. Had he batted for his team-mates, they probably would have won the series instead of ending with a 1-1 draw.

England have survived #trottsfault and their own weather to tie up the ODI series one-all. They have been helped by Ravi Bopara, who has averaged four with the bat and taken three wickets.

But more importantly he was on the BBC quiz show Pointless. On the show, Ravi only had to answer two questions. He got both wrong. In one he incorrectly assumed that Margaret Thatcher was the first female speaker of the house, while overlooking easier Ronald Reagan and Harrison Ford answers. In his second question, all Ravi had to do was name one Brad Pitt film since 2000.

Ravi said, “Brad Pitt does Halloween.”

Getting a political question wrong is one thing. But not being able to name a Brad Pitt film? He answered it like he’d been asked to make a cronut live on air.

Ravi also said he was a World Cup winner. I thought he was a World Twenty20 winner.

Within a year of taking over the job Graham Ford had taken Sri Lanka to the final of the World Twenty20. Now he is not renewing his contract. I got John the intern to look this up for me. When Sri Lanka hire their new coach, they will have had hired their 37th coach in the last five years. Charlie Austin, Arthur C Clarke and noted fashion photographer Mr Nigel Barker have all coached Sri Lanka in that time. Haroon Lorgat even had the job for a while.

Now Haroon Lorgat has a new job, CEO of Cricket South Africa, an appointment that seems to have no impact at all. On anything.

On a non-related note, India may not be touring South Africa after already downgrading their tour. Instead India will play Pakistan and Sri Lanka in some ODIs. People are claiming that Lorgat’s hiring, and how certain BCCI officials hate him, has had something to do with the talk of these ODIs taking over the South African tour. But the truth is, and you know it’s true, Sri Lanka are always playing India. Even right now, as Haroon Lorgat perpetually apologises.

A father of a cricketer was doing more than apologising this week. When a favourable piece was written by ESPNcricinfo’s professional Yorkshire parody, David Hopps, on Nick Compton, some commenters disagreed. Richard Compton disagreed with the disagreers. He also commented, having registered with his Facebook account: “Sorry my friend he played on to dernbach. As for temperament, perhaps you need to know a few things about him before you smart off. Look at the stats my mate.” Internet cricket trolls beware, there is a new sheriff in town, and he won’t take any guff about his son.

The New York police are also cleaning up their town, and they are putting together a secret dossier on where to watch cricket in New York, according to Gawker. The aim of this is apparently to flush out possible cricket extremists, and probably lock up some offspinners with dodgy actions. Now that it has been leaked, what it actually does is give cricket fans an amazing amount of information about cricket in New York. Singh Sporting Goods on 101st Avenue is a Guyanese store you can buy cricket gear from. Aladdin Sweets and Restaurant is owned by Bangladeshis and has a big-screen TV that shows the cricket. With this information and the fact that the New York cops already run their own T20 league, you could argue that they are doing more for cricket than the USACA.

The Champions League is marginally more popular than the NYPD Twenty20 Cricket Cup. If the IPL is Cary Grant, then the Champions League is Harry Dean Stanton after 12 hours in a vat of acid. But if you’re a domestic cricketer, you still want to be there. So when the visas for the Faisalabad Wolves didn’t turn up, people were worried that the Pakistan players would miss out on the tournament. I was also worried, as I was afraid my Faisalabad Wolves t-shirt would have to be shelved for the year. The visas have now turned up, and I’m wearing my t-shirt.

Unfortunately, the WACA has been shelved. Australian cricket’s unkempt child who refuses to wear new clothes has missed out on a Test for the first summer since 1976. With the World Cup being played in Australia for the 2014-15 summer, there are only four Tests scheduled against India. Some are saying that the WACA is missing out because India didn’t want to play at the WACA after what happened last time. I assume they don’t mean when writer Ashish Shukla had a weird substance leak on him in the WACA’s gym/press conference hovel. Although perhaps the fact that the facilities and crowd capacity aren’t as good as at the other four Test grounds played more of a part than a pitch that India have won 50% of their last two Tests at.

A ground that is doing better than the WACA is the Minamisoma Baseball Park. Last Saturday it hosted a cricket game between the British Embassy and a Tohoku team formed of local players. Minamisoma is in Fukushima, and the game was to show that the radiation was not that bad there now, since the earthquakes that affected the Daiichi nuclear plant. Tim Hitchens, the British ambassador to Japan, said, “The place where we have played today is perfectly safe.” The radiation level was similar to that in places in England, the pitch played better than The Oval when Ollie Rayner took 15 wickets. The British embassy lost by 34 runs.

Like a giant Toho fire-breathing hero, Clint McKay took a ODI hat-trick against England. It was a proper hat-trick, as it had three top-order batsmen batting properly. Clint McKay has continued the tradition of Victoria and hat-tricks. The first international hat-trick was taken at the MCG. So was the second. Hugh Trumble took two. Lindsay Kline one. Then, in recent years, Merv Hughes, Shane Warne, Damien Fleming and Peter Siddle have taken them. When a Victorian takes a hat-trick, which seems to be about once a week, it should be referred to as a Vic trick.

If you’ve got anything you think should be in next week’s Cricket News Hurl, email cricketnewshurlatgmail.com. Any errors in this piece were added by Misbah-ul-Haq.

Ireland Cricket: Part 2 – Building a fortress

Part one is here.

At Malahide the crowd was alarmingly not drunk. There was a lack of beer snakes and men running around in costumes behaving like morons. No one seemed to be thrown out. And attractive women weren’t whistled at every time they moved. Had it been an ODI at a ground in Australia or England, some of those things would have happened.

This was different. This was a group of intelligent fans who were there for the cricket, not the day out and to sink as much piss as they could. There were more kids and families than you would see at most ODIs. Almost every second person seemed to have a replica shirt on.

They knew the game too. For a while there was a pause when Ed Joyce stood on his stumps, but once the replay was shown, the crowd made the noise of “Oh, that makes sense” at once. They picked on Michael Carberry mercilessly, as you do when a bloke is making a mistake every time he is anywhere near the ball. They booed Eoin Morgan when he came out, and then applauded him when he made his hundred.

It was one of, if not the most, intelligent and respectable crowds you would ever find at an ODI.

****

All of Ireland’s recent history comes down to one decision: the ICC making them an Associate member in 1993. At that stage Ireland were very much amateur in every way. They were routinely smashed in county cricket’s List A competition. They had Alan Lewis, who would end his first-class career with an average of over 50, a bunch of handy club cricketers, and the odd naturalised pro. They were the sort of team that would lose by an innings in a first-class match against a current Irish side.

Yet someone at the ICC, which was largely an amateur organisation itself, believed in them. It was an accidental, largely out-of-the-blue decision. Scotland, who had spent decades beating Ireland consistently, had to wait another year to get the same status. But you don’t question the ICC when they give you a gift horse. You take it and ride it to pretty places.

It was in the 1990s that the passion of those who kept cricket alive really started to pay off. The Irish women’s team was in the middle of representing their country at five straight women’s World Cups. Northern Ireland played in the Commonwealth games. And for the first time, Ireland showed they were as good as Scotland, and then started to beat them. Yet most of this was only news inside the Irish cricket community.

In 1996, Joyce travelled to Melbourne to play club cricket at the Coburg Cricket Club in the sub-district competition. Joyce was not hired; he tailed along with a member of the club who had played in Ireland. The club was told he was the best cricketer in Ireland. In his entire season, he made one half-century, and played most of his time in the seconds.

No one who saw Joyce play that year would have thought he would become a dual international cricketer, or that Ireland would ever win a World Cup game.

****

In 2006, Paul Stirling was 16. At that stage, a young Irish kid who loved cricket would have heroes from other countries. Lara. Tendulkar. Warne. By 2007, their heroes were Jeremy Bray, Andre Botha and Trent Johnston. It was a big step. But as great as Johnston has been for Irish cricket, the next step needed to be Irish-born players as heroes.

Eoin Morgan was lost. Joyce had just come back. But it was Kevin O’Brien who became the hero.

Much like Johnston he is an allrounder who may not always get picked on either skill. His batting is better than Johnston’s, his bowling is worse. O’Brien has played in the CPL, but not much in county, IPL or Big Bash. He is just below top-level international standard.

But like the tennis player who saves his best for the Davis Cup, O’Brien plays his best cricket when he pulls on the shirt of Ireland. He may never make it as a globetrotting T20 player because there is something that changes within him when he plays for Ireland.

He came from a proper Irish cricketing family. His father and brother represented Ireland at cricket as well. His school had no cricket club. Without his family, he may never have made it to where he is now. But he has, and when he went to the wicket at 106 for 4 needing 222 from the next 27.4 overs, against England in a World Cup, no one expected Ireland to win.

They did.

Unless you saw the innings as it unfurled you can’t really ever take it in. The numbers 113 off 63 don’t look real. In real time it started off as a novelty, went into farce, then turned into hope and was ended by a run-out just as they got close. His innings was enough, though, and John Mooney finished England off in the next over to complete the biggest chase in World Cup history.

It was without a doubt one of the most amazing ODI knocks. This home-grown Irish bloke, who was hidden at the non-striker’s end during his first senior game of cricket by his brother, had given Ireland their best win.

When Ireland beat Pakistan, Kevin O’Brien was at the non-striker’s end. When Ireland beat England, Johnston was at the non-striker’s end.

****

Warren Deutrom looked like a proud parent as he gestured at Fortress Malahide and asked people what they thought of his baby.

It was probably the very opposite of what he felt when only a few days after Ireland had beaten England in the World Cup, the ICC announced only Test nations would play in the next World Cup.

Up until that point, Ireland had been situating themselves as the rightful next Test-playing country. They were setting up a first-class competition, which the ICC is now funding. They were getting professional on the ground, offering their players contracts. They were one of the first cricket boards in the world with independent governance. They had their own sponsors. Had now won games in two World Cups running, and were at least as good as Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. Outside of the World Cup, Ireland didn’t exist for most cricket fans, so how could they continue to survive without the tournament?

Ireland had assumed they were a member of the ICC until that point. Now they knew that Associate essentially meant “something we have on our shoe”. The ICC was investing millions of dollars in Associate countries like Ireland, and now they were saying that Ireland couldn’t even have the chance to prove that they were worth it.

After the cricket world mocked them, the decision was changed. But none of that bodes well for Cricket Ireland getting their Test status. There is even a chance that there will never be another Test-playing nation. With Test cricket being played less and less by the smaller nations already, why mess that with another team that is clearly not good enough to compete with the top four teams? A team that will clog up FTP dates and take years to become good.

But Ireland aren’t trying to become the No. 11 Test team. They want to become one of 12 teams over two divisions. And essentially they don’t want to play the top six teams until they are ready, until they are good enough to be promoted. As a Test team right now, you have nothing to lose by playing poor Test cricket for a couple of years. Being relegated, and perhaps given less ICC spoils for being in the second division, would mean that teams would have to earn their spots.

Ireland could also become the new New Zealand. For years New Zealand was a trip that was tacked on to larger Australian tours. It took them years to become a consistent destination of their own. Every team that tours England could play two ODIs or T20s against Ireland as part of their trip. Meaning that Ireland could move forward and sell their future plans to Sky, rather than needing the ECB to be involved.

All of this is part of the Irish cricket dream. And it may sound far-fetched, but it is not as far-fetched as Ireland chasing down over 300 in a World Cup game.

Deutrom is behind everything in Irish cricket. He is one of the most intelligent people working in cricket today. He knows that a lot needs to go right for Ireland to become a Test nation. His role is to make sure that he does everything that the ICC asks. If they still aren’t given Test status, it won’t be for lack of trying, professionalism or passion.

****

“We don’t want our best players playing for England” was a sign a fan held up at Malahide.

The feeling was the same when you talked to anyone involved: Don’t tell us we’re rubbish if England steal our players when we get any good. In seven years it has only been three players. But the best three. Take the best three players out of any team and see how they go.

The bigger fear is that the drain won’t stop. With Simon Kerrigan failing, Monty Panesar slipping and Graeme Swann coming towards the end, George Dockrell can’t be far away. Then there is Stirling. With England’s perpetual struggle at the top of the ODI order, a dashing opener could come in handy. And that’s not including the future stars who are in junior competitions.

It will only stop happening when Ireland become a Test-playing nation or become financially sufficient. Ireland hope that in the future the regulations about cricketers playing for an Associate one day and for a Test-playing nation the following day will be changed. Then if you want to choose to play for England, you have to give up four years of playing for Ireland. Possibly one World Cup and two World Twenty20s. It’s a nice idea, but the other Associates may not agree.

There are some fans who suggest that it suits England to not have Ireland as a Test-playing nation. That they can siphon off the odd good player and control the entire West European cricket rights. If only cricket worked that way.

To Cricket Australia, the BCCI and the ECB, the Associates are irrelevant. To those three boards, even the other seven Test teams are not relevant. These big three are hosting all the ICC tournaments; they are playing each other perpetually. They are running the game as they like.

Why would they want another team in Test cricket? They have already made it be known they didn’t even want more than ten teams in the World Cup. Votes are no longer counted at ICC chairmen’s meetings, so Ireland’s vote is not an issue. There is just no reason for the ECB, or any major board, to bring Ireland in. And none of the smaller countries wants a smaller piece of the pie, or have enough strength of character to make a big decision.

In the next five years, Ireland will have done everything the ICC asks of its full Test nations. Hopefully by then the political climate of cricket for greed’s sake will be replaced by people who put cricket first. If not, the only way for Ireland to become a Test-playing nation is by shaming the ICC into action.

****

Johnston used the new ball well for Ireland against England in Malahide. He beat the bat, seamed the ball, and took the wicket of Carberry. It was a typical Johnston spell. Reliable, handy and effective. After five overs he had 1 for 15. England were 27 for 3.

When he came back on, he truly looked his age. Those first five overs seemed to stiffen him. And with Bopara and Morgan in good form, there was little he could do to stop them smashing their way to victory.

The last ball that Johnston will ever bowl in an Irish shirt at Fortress Malahide was hit for six over cover to give the Irish-born Morgan a hundred.

At the end of the game Johnston jogged across the field. He was slow and stiff. You could almost hear his joints squeak as he did it. Eventually he hugged a bunch of family and friends on the boundary line. It was clearly an emotional time for him, leaving the ground after nine years of service to his new country.

Irish cricket has had many important players. Lewis, Joyce, Alec O’Riordan, Bob Lambert, Charles Lawrence, John Hynes, Kevin O’Brien, Lucius Gwynn and so many others all did their bit to keep it alive through all these years.

Johnston may not have been born Irish. But he was Irish cricket. As much as any of those names above.

****

Cricket Ireland has finished its home international season now. Its new and improved office is now looking ahead to the next games. It is working hard to develop new players, get more kids involved and find different revenue streams. But nothing is more important right now than turning Malahide CC from a club into a permanent international cricket stadium. It will fight every day to make sure Ireland is never again lost to the game of cricket.

But it needs more. With this much history, the sport deserves a home in Ireland. The country deserves for Fortress Malahide not to be a joke but to be their home of cricket.