Jarrod Kimber's Blog, page 40

Australian in game rotations against India with Gideon Haigh

MS Dhoni is better than Australia.

Moises Henriques has heavy sure feet.

James Pattinson needs resting from resting.

Fawad Ahmed is awesome.

Victoria are not.

There is nothing in Australian cricket that can’t be fixed by footy.

Listen here.

#blamepat – how Pat Howard ruined cricket for Australia

“I’m sorry Australia but test match has very quickly slipped away! I wonder how many test matches Pat Howard played in India @warne888,” said Damien Martyn as @Dmartyn30 on Twitter.

In case you were wondering Pat Howard, Cricket Australia’s general manager of team performance, has played no Test Matches in India. Rugby Union, the sport Pat Howard played, is not that popular in India. But had Pat Howard played Test cricket in India, would Australia have had a better day today?

Hugh Morris, England’s managing director, also never played Test cricket in India. His three Tests were all in England. But unlike you or me, and most importantly Pat, he knows Test cricket.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have played Test cricket, and those who haven’t. I assume, unless you are Ray Bright or Venkatapathy Raju, you haven’t played Test cricket. That means, for some people, you are not qualified to have an opinion on Test cricket. You can simply not understand what it is like to have played the game at that level. The pressure, the conditions, the fans, the stress and the constant post game interviews where people ask you, “how did that feel”. You have never dealt with any of them.

Hugh Morris’ England team beat India in India. And perhaps those three Tests he played were enough to help him guide a team to victory, but it’s probably more to do with the two Test quality spinners, the best swing bowler on earth, a captain who doesn’t sweat, KP, a brutal meticulous coach and the resources the ECB have put into their team being as well prepared as they can for big Test series.

Hugh’s job is not to teach anyone how to play cricket, but ensure that the team has the right coaches, equipment, backroom staff and “structures” in place to win cricket matches.

That is what Pat Howard is there to do as well. It’s a radical appointment, and for those who believe only cricket people understand cricket, it’s hard to understand how a rugby player can help. But think of Pat Howard as a fixer. Mickey Arthur, Michael Clarke or John Inverarity come to him with a need, and instead of them overseeing it, making cold calls or sending out hopeful emails, Pat Howard does. He also speaks to experts to try and find solutions to Australian problems, deals with player management, is involved in organisation and development, yet has very little impact with what happens on the field.

Howard doesn’t coach, select or bat.

Cricket Australia realised through the Argus report that it was no one’s job to do all that. So they made it one and gave it to Howard. Someone at the top of the tree, to oversee all aspects of Australian cricket. Clarke captains. Arthur coaches. Inverarity selects. But no one was really looking after the whole package. Someone to bring everyone together, to have a cohesive plan, and for someone to be blamed outside of the coach, chairman of selectors or captain when things go wrong. That is Howard’s job.

I’m no Pat Howard apologist.

I’m not even saying it’s a real job, or that he is worth his salary, I am definitely not sure how effective he is, or whether someone else could do his job better. I am not sure whether this job wouldn’t be better as just a fixer rather than as a grand title of GM.

But I fail to see how Pat Howard’s non-existent Test record in India, or his non-existent Test record anywhere, is the reason that MS Dhoni started putting cricket balls over the fence.

Of course, I am no Test player. So maybe I see this different than someone who has made a Test century in Chennai, but there are certain things that seem obviously not Pat Howard’s fault.

Pat Howard did not drop Dhoni, or even fail to run him out when given the opportunity. It also wasn’t Pat Howard who dropped Bhuvneshwar Kumar when flinging himself for a tough catch. That was Ed Cowan.

 

At no stage did Pat Howard demand that Michael Clarke only bowl Pattinson for six overs on the second day. Sure, he might have been involved in the informed player rotation management, but Pattinson’s under bowling seemed more to do with the bizarre inner team thinking than anything resembling a mid-match rotational process.

 

Pat Howard was not on the field to drop his shoulders as the Dhoni-Kumar partnership took hold. Not one mis-field was perpetrated by him either.

 

It was Moises Henriques’ ugly, across-the-line swipe that gave India a total they could pass on day three, giving them the upper hand in this Test. Howard has never played a shot that bad in India.

 

Australia haven’t played spin well, or in India well, well before Pat Howard worked for Cricket Australia, and realistically, before he even played rugby for Australia.

 

There is nothing Pat Howard can do to suddenly make Nathan Lyon better. Sure he can gets coaches, and invent a software package that can expand his mind, but unless he invents bionic spinning fingers or does and arm transplant with Warne, Lyon’s progress from handy spinner to good enough to run through Kohli, Tendulkar and Dhoni consistently isn’t really in his hands. You can enhance performance, you can’t play god.

 

It’s also no fault of Howard that Jon Holland and Michael Beer are injured, that Australia don’t quite believe in Xavier Doherty, or that Glenn Maxwell and Steve Smith aren’t close to Test quality spinners. All Howard can do is get Fawad Ahmed a passport and hope Adam Zampa is a slice of magic.

 

Australia have fast bowlers, and this pitch does not help them enough. However, Pat Howard does not control Indian groundsmen, even the BCCI can’t always control them.

 

Even the selection of the team isn’t Howard’s fault. Test cricketers John Inverarity, Andy Bichel, Rod Marsh and Michael Clarke picked this side. They decided on Moises instead of Maxwell.

 

Australia just aren’t that good at the moment, Don Bradman as GM, coach, chairman or tsar wouldn’t change that.

Better Australian teams than this have been embarrassed by far worse batsmen than Kohli, Tendulkar and Dhoni travelling to India. It happens.

 

I suppose most importantly, had Clarke caught Dhoni, had Australia taken a run-out, had Cowan caught Kumar, or if Dhoni had been given out with a dodgy lbw, and Australia might have had a lead, or be 80 for 0 at stumps with a small lead, would Pat Howard get credit for that?

 

Probably not.

 

Pat Howard’s job seems mostly to be blamed by former cricketers for poor performances. If something bad happens in world cricket it’s the fault of the #bleddybcci. If England lose an ODI, it’s #trottsfault. And anything and everything bad that happens in Australian cricket means that we #blamepat.

 

And what happens if Pat Howard is fired due to the pressure from Martyn or Warne.

 

The blame will just move to Mickey Arthur, who also didn’t play Test cricket in India, or anywhere, and also, shockingly, as Jeff Thomson once brilliantly noted, is not even an Australian. If Mickey is fired, we can blame John Inverarity, after all, he only played six Tests, and that’s not really a career. And then James Sutherland, another outsider who never played a Test in India, or anywhere.

Currently Damien Martyn is a mosquito repellant entrepreneur. Martyn has never been a mosquito or a candle. And unless he was sent into the wilderness unfairly after that shot in Sydney and studied science, I doubt he’s an entomologist. Yet, there he is, selling these candles using his fame as a former cricketer, his charismatic smile and his skills on social media.

Sure, I bet there are some experienced old timers from inside the mosquito repelling business who think he shouldn’t be there. They probably believe that he doesn’t know what he is doing. That he could never understand what it is like to be a real mosquito person. Can’t understand the pressures of the mosquito business. They probably know of many people are more suited to the mosquito set up. In fact, if the mosquito repellant is made properly, it doesn’t even need a salesman. They just see Martyn as another hanger on in the mosquito world, using modern methods to confuse people when the simple old school ways have always been the best.

I think they are wrong, and I think that Damien Martyn should be given the chance to sell mosquito repellant candles. If he shows over a prolonged time that he can’t sell the candles, even if the candles just simply aren’t that good, he’ll either step down will be simply replaced. If the candles do sell, people will just claim they were good candles, and that anyone can be successfully with a good product.

Luckily for Martyn, there is no mosquito candle press to heckle him. Unluckily for Pat Howard, whether he is successful or not in his job, there are some people he will never win over.

Although, as it seems like the main part of his job is to be blamed when Australia fail, he is actually doing it rather well.

no one loses like Victoria

List A cricket is so unimportant to the world; the finalof the Ryobi Cup is on a Wednesday. When the final started, there were roughly 120 people in the ground, and you had to do two and a half laps of the G to even find any overpriced food.

 

But perhaps the reason that so few people made their way out to the G wasn’t the overpriced food, the weird Wednesday final or even the fact that most people don’t know List A cricket still exists, but because Victorian fans are so used Victoria losing finals.

 

They knew the result before they even went. Coming into the final, Victoria had lost six of the last seven Australian domestic limited-overs tournaments. They’ve lost Ford Ranger Cups and Ryobi Cups. Twice before they have lost to Queensland.

 

So when watching Victoria in this final, the few people at the ground, or the few more watching on Foxtelwere just wondering how Victoria were going to stuff this up.

 

They started well with the ball, getting plenty of movement and keeping the Bulls scoring pretty slowly. It was only extras who looked like scoring early on.

 

“Too many extras. We’re going to lose because of extras, aren’t we.”

 

Then young allrounder Jason Floros came in and actually started scoring. The first Bulls’ player to look like he could make any runs.

 

“Floros, bloody hell, what the hell is a Floros.”

 

In the Bulls final over, Floros went six, four, six. 16 runs in one over, let alone 3 balls, is huge in a match where only one other player scored at better than a run a ball.

 

“Now we’re going to be beaten by a guy who should be batting at number five for the Canberra Comets.”

 

While 147 in 32 overs seems an easy enough chase, the ball was moving around, Ryan Harris was in form, and there was the pressure of a final chase.

“147, bloody hell, we’ll never get there now, 120 is the most we could ever chase with confidence. And that’s in 50 overs. “

 

When Quiney left early, Finch got a dodgy lbw, and Hill and Hussey went to poor pulls, the total of 147 looked a long way off.

 

“I told you we’d lose. Our only chance of winning now is if the rain comes before the Duckworth Lewis kicks in at 20 overs. But the umpires won’t do that, they hate Victorians.”

 

Then Peter Hanscomb and Cameron White built a small confident partnership, they edged their way up on the total, keeping it at a run a ball-ish so that Victoria had the chance to improve their record in the finals.

 

“Don’t be an idiot, this is just giving us false hope, we aren’t going to win this. We’ll stuff it up, just wait.”

 

Then even when White and Hanscomb went out, Victoria kept up the pace as McKay started bouncing balls off the nylex sign and Sheridan looked good as well. They did so well that they made the equation five off ten with three wickets in hand. A winnable hand in any game. Victoria had finally done it.

 

“We can still lose, not sure how, but we will”.

From there, Victoria lost three wickets for two runs to lose their seventh final of the last eight.

 

“I can’t believe we lost that. Oh, yes I can. Of course I can, it is what we do, we lose finals like champions. No one loses like us. Mind you, it was the umpires fault, they hate Victorians, the whole cricket world is biased against us. Chris Rogers hasn’t played a Test since he became a Victorian. How is Cameron White not Test captain yet? Why is there a final anyway, we are clearly the best side in every game that isn’t a final, it’s bloody rigged mate. I blame New South Wales.”

 

If Cricket Australia really want crowds to come back to the Ryobi Cup, forget about playing the finals on weekends, tinkering with the rules or even getting the big named players to turn up. What they have to do is make sure Victoria is in every final, and that the final isn’t played in Melbourne.

If your team was playing Victorian in a final in your home town, why wouldn’t you turn up, you’d be all but guaranteed a victory and your chance to see the Vics embarrass themselves.

cricket news hurl: batman beats batsman

Caleb Martin knows his cricket. Why else would the NZC ask him to toss the coin in the second ODIbetween New Zealand and England? That’s why when Caleb, 11, said, “Ross should still be captain. They should bring Jesse Ryder back too,” you know it came from a learned mind.

Sadly for Caleb, and all right-thinking cricket fans, Jesse is not back, and fans of ODI series that have little meaning in life will have to just enjoy the fact that KP is around. Or you can just do what people do anytime England play an ODI series, blame Jonathan Trott for the losses, and abuse him during the wins.

Johnson Charles has recently been really really good. Charles has made actual international hundreds in his last two innings. Now, for a guy who used to professionally play and miss for a living, this is a huge thing. Charles bats as if he’s in the middle of a sizzurp high, but first Australia and now Zimbabwe have felt the wrath of the Johnson as he continually slapped them around the head.

Saeed Ajmal did roughly the same thing to South Africa, but as we all know, South African heads are solid things. Pakistan, well mostly Ajmal, with help from Richard Kiel lookalike Mohammad Irfan, tried to get their team over the line after the batting did what the batting does, fails against the new ball and constructs tedious partnerships of grittiness that also ultimately fall short.

 

Yet with only one bowler, a Tanvir Ahmed and a low-scoring batting line-up, Pakistan got within four wickets of beating the best team on earth in their home. What did they get for all their hardwork? People questioning how mentally tough they are. Now they have lost the series. And one day when archaeologists dig up this match in years to come, they will be just as confused as we are about Tanvir Ahmed.

Australia resumed cricket’s new money partnership in India this week. Moises Henriques made his debut and continued the fine cricketing tradition that Portugal has. R Ashwin tried to do an Ajmal, but without the cheeky look on his face. Harbhajan Singh looked lost in the first innings without Ricky Ponting to torture.

Punter and Bhajji (quick sitcom idea: Ponting and Harbhajan are mature students sharing a room together at a private business school but can’t stand each other) have been brought together. With Ricky Ponting as thenew captain of the Bhajji’s Mumbai Indians. Ricky Ponting is also playing for Surrey this season. And Ricky Ponting was fined 250 bucks for throwing his bat in a domestic one-day game. No one is sure where he will find the money.

According to a cricinfo commenter called feature writer, “I was one of about 800 people at the game. There was nothing in it. Ponting tossed his bat in the air…it even looked like he was trying to toss it up high and then catch it…but it landed too far in front of him.” Had Ponting done this in a nationally televised Big Bash game, Mike McKenna would have married him.

A former Mumbai Indian, Sanath Jayasuriya, has come out and said that young Sri Lanka players should be kept away from the IPL. That should be easy. If I was a young player who’d barely made any money from cricket, was worried about cashing any cheques from the SLC, and who knew that I could have a serious injury at any time that keeps me from playing, I know I’d listen to a player who happily accepted money from the IPL.

The other cool slogging portly opener of the 2000s, Virender Sehwag, has finally admitted that his eyesight was going and has decided to bat in glasses. It is quite a shock to think of Sehwag’s eyes. For much of his career it seems that he never really saw the ball, but merely felt it penetrate his aura and then swatted it away in as dramatic a way as he could without moving his feet. Sehwag, the founder of the religion Sehwagology, who is also known as Jatman, was not wearing glasses when he was shocked by a regulation edge from David Warner, that he then dropped.

Sehwag’s crime fighting friend, Batman, took on cricket and won this week. England-based company Adelphoi wanted to use the term ‘batsman’ for a bunch of cricket related products, but DC Comics and Commissioner Gordon, wouldn’t let them. The name was deemed too similar to the caped crusader and people (idiot people who are clearly too stupid to live and can’t tell a dude in a cape from a dude playing a cricket shot) might get the two confused. DC comics took them to court, and won. DC, who are like the Big Bash to Marvel’s IPL, obviously hate cricket and don’t realise that when Bob Kane killed Bruce Wayne’s parents, it was years after WG Grace had died.

Batsman isn’t really a new term.

If you need proof cricket is struggling for recognition in England, it can’t even beat an emo American superhero who needs eight years off. Hopefully something similar happens in India, and the BCCI have to take on DC Comics. Batman Vs Shroni is something I need to see happen, especially while TV’s batman Adam West is still alive. It turns out that Batman is the hero cricket deserves, but not the one it needs.

Those who hate David Cameron got their vengeance this week when he was bowled trying an on the up drive against an Indian kid. It was less cool than Bob Hawke hooking a ball with his jaw, and more cool than John Howard bowling an offspinner that dribbled in front of him like a dying slug. Progressives believe the shot was a visual representation of his big society rubbish. The anti-EU people believe that being part of the European Union affected Cameron’s footwork. Militant homophobic activists believe the shot would have been successful had the UK not passed its gay marriage law.

Cricket’s laws were changed this week when kicking the bails as you bowl became a no-ball. It seems like a staggering overreaction for a non-issue involving Steven Finn’s right knee. The knee that changed cricket. Look, if you care about this, you’ve probably read about it. But chances are you don’t care, and are probably baffled at how quickly this law changed compared with how long it took for the three men behind square law to come in after Bodyline. If you play club cricket and get no-balled for accidentally doing this as a one-off, and it costs your team a wicket, feel free to abuse Finn via twitter @finnysteve.

One club cricketer who made hay before the latest anti-bowler law came in was KG Colts player Vikas Dixit. Dixit, who is 16, took all ten wickets in the Delhi & District Cricket Association match against, well, I couldn’t find who it was against, and Vikas doesn’t care. “I got three of them bowled, two lbw and five caught,” said Vikas. It’s the details that count.

The England Lions could do with a Vikas or two. So far they have lost to Victoria, a Victorian 2nd XI and to Australia A. They also lost two of their players when Ben Stokes and Matt Coles were sent home for drinking. I half expect them to leave Australia without James Taylor at this rate.

Losing to Victoria these days is not hard to do, especially with Fawad Ahmed, the universe’s greatest-ever Pakistani Victorian legspinner on the scene. This week he played his first Shield game. This week he took his first five-wicket haul in Shield cricket. Then he won his first game of Shield cricket. Then he put his underwear on the outside and saved a baby from a drugged-up elephant. He’s that good. He’s Fawad Ahmed.

I bet Ahmed could beat batman.

If you’ve got anything you think should be in next week’s cricket news hurl, email cricketnewshurlatgmail.com or tweet #cricketnewshurl.There was also mention of a cricket bat from some bail hearing in South Africa this week. But it wasn’t reported enough to make the hurl.

 

Moises Henriques is not the new Keith Miller

The search for the new Shane Warne (Steven Smith, Cameron White) and the new Glenn McGrath (Stuart Clark, Steve Magoffin, Peter George, Josh Hazelwood, Jackson Bird, Trent Copeland) is a recent development. These are merely fads – a modern world looking for quick fixes.

Generation after generation, Australia have been trying to clone another kind of player. A Royal Australian World War II fighter pilot, full back for Victoria, the best thing to ever come out of the suburb Sunshine and Michael Parkinson’s first man crush, Keith Miller.

Australian cricket has never quite found a player since who can bat top order and be a consistent wicket-taking bowler. Not Ricky Ponting bowling, not even Mark Waugh bowling, but a constant bowler who can take two to three wickets a Test, bowl proper spells, while giving them balance, variety and insurance.

Bowlers who can bat a bit have always been around for Australia, and they ruined the art of wicketkeepers who are batsmen. But a batsman who can bowl, really bowl, that is a mostly mythical creature. The cricket gods don’t bowl down many players that can average over 35 with the bat in the top six, and fewer than 35 with the ball while averaging something near two wickets a match.

In recent times, Australia had Steve Waugh, who was handy in good conditions, had a decent bowling average, but took fewer than 100 Test wickets due to many reasons. Michael Bevan tried for a moment, and even had a batting average higher than his bowling average. But his batting average of 29 and the fact he never really wanted to bowl ended with him leaving cricket.

Then there was Shane Watson. A teenage top-order player who could bowl at 145ks. The Australian selectors did well not to pick him at 15. Big things were hoped of Watson, but all those hopes on his broad frame seemed to collapse repeatedly. Currently he is not bowling, but soon he may be bowling again, before an injury that forces him from bowling, that will lead to him to wonder if he will ever bowl again, followed by a bowling stint in the IPL. The person who changes his profile from batsman to allrounder is probably the most tired in cricket.

In the mid 2000s Watson’s body was like the Pakistan top order against the new ball, and so the search moved on. Before he had even played for New South Wales, you could hear whispers or just read articles about Moises Henriques. He was, the next Keith Ross Miller. Henriques bowled a decent pace, was smart enough to captain the Australian Under-19 side. And batted top order.

His second first-class game, when he was still a teenager, he took 5 for 17. It wasn’t whispers any more. The New South Wales media could have talked up Henriques at this point if they were discussing the merits of arm guards. Not that it all went well, like many young allrounders Henriques’ early career was odd. Not bowling and batting at four one game, in at eight and bowling 20 overs in an innings the next.

Mostly he was playing limited-overs cricket. Not often starring, but doing enough as a young man with either bat or ball to grab some attention. If you looked at his career as a series of small highlights, you’d think there was a real player there. The talent was there, even if the consistency and big performances often weren’t.

After nine first-class games, he played limited-overs cricket for Australia. He bowled okay, made no impact with the bat, and was sent back to domestic cricket to develop his game.

Now this is the bit in the superstar’s career where he goes back, fixes his game, and gets picked soon after and by the age of 26 he is a fixture of his national team. Henriques went back, and didn’t really improve. In 39 first-class games he’s taken only one more five-wicket haul. And despite his bowling average of 27, he only takes two wickets a game. Which as a batting allrounder is okay, but his batting average in first-class cricket is 30.

Australia ignored him, but New South Wales persevered.

Dan Christian went. John Hastings went. Ed Cowan went. Peter Forrest went. Phil Hughes went. And even Usman Khawaja went. All young New South Welshmen who left for opportunities, new or more, while Henriques didn’t make a first-class hundred for his state.

First class wise, his batting was rooted in the handy half-century. His bowling seemed to lose all venom as he veered into bowling straight medium deliveries that even club cricketers don’t fear. In List A he became a rare wicket-taker who could be fairly economical. As a batsman he barely made a mark at all.

Outside of Australian domestic cricket, Henriques was famous for being the man who gave us Kieron Pollard at the first Champions League. In his last 12 balls, Pollard faced ten from Henriques. One a wide, and one dot ball, but also the three fours and five sixes that took him from 7 off 7 and left him at 54 off 18. Pollard could not have made any more mess from Henriques if he had a chainsaw and some plastic matting.

That was about the time the hype stopped. Anyone who saw that match, or heard about that match, or even saw the face of someone who watched that match knew that Henriques would take some time to recover. Occasionally he would appear in the IPL or county cricket. It was rarely pretty.

Then this year Henriques was being talked about again. This time it wasn’t as an all-round superstar, no one could make that claim anymore. But they could say that despite his record, and an average of eight with five county matches for Glamorgan in 2012, he finally seemed to be coming of age: improving, understanding his game, becoming a player not a potential.

The best way to prove this was to start the Shield season with 161* against Bird, James Faulkner, Luke Butterworth and even Jason Krejza. He backed that up with three more fifties in his next five games. Bowling wise he didn’t do much work, but still took 14 wickets at 18.

It still took luck. Had Shane Watson planned to bowl, Henriques would probably not have been in India. Had Andrew McDonald been fit, Henriques would probably not been in India. Had Steve Smith or Glenn Maxwell bowled well in the warm-up matches, he would not have been in this side.

The man who was once thrust into Australian colours based purely on potential, now had made it on the back of actual performances and luck. Henriques is now no longer seen as a top-six player. But at No. 7 in his first Test match, he batted like one.

R Ashwin had tortured the Australian top order, but Henriques did not look outgunned. He was solid as rock on the back foot, safe as he needed to be on the front, never allowed himself to get bogged down and put away the bad balls when he had to. It had the composure, discipline and authority that few players younger than 30 have brought to the Australian team in these Argus times.

Even with a dirty low down slog-sweep to end the innings, compared to Usman Khawaja’s headline grabbing 37 and Rob Quiney’s composed 9, Henriques’ innings was a proper Test innings. Those innings were in the safety of home conditions, not in the mysterious subcontinent. If Channel Nine still have the cricket rights next year, someone over there might be making a “68 reasons to love Moises Henriques” poster in a few months time.

Who knows if this is just a lucky one-off from a man who has been given a tour by chance, or the making of proper Australian Test player. It is now clear that Henriques is not the special talent that can join the batting allrounder’s Valhalla.

At this point in Australian cricket, hoping for a Keith Miller would be optimistic. However, they will happily accept any assured away performances from a 26-year old in his first Test. That said, if Henriques does take 5 for 12 in the first innings of this match, the title of the new Keith Miller will be a lot closer.

The mystery of orthodox spin with Osman Samiuddin

This is the podcast where we talk about Saeed Ajmal’s canal.

How Vernon Philander is like Mike Hussey.

How Tanvir Ahmed may be the greatest allrounder ever.

Dean Elgar.

And how the Pakistani Super league has given up and given the whole thing to Javed Miandad.

Listen here.

Ellyse Perry: the one legged hero

The ghost of Rick McCosker’s jaw is never far away in Australian cricket. No matter what the injury, if you can perform, you should.

An Aussie batsman once told me he couldn’t sit in a chair at the end of the day’s play, but he still fielded the next day even though it was the fourth innings, just so his team-mates didn’t think he was soft. That is how it is in Australian cricket. The team comes first, your health second.

In the Women’s World Cup final, this couldn’t have been shown more obviously than when Ellyse Perry came on to bowl. Perry had missed a great deal of the tournament with an injured ankle. Her replacement, Holly Ferling, had done so well that Perry needn’t have been tested. But she is a star, and she wanted to help win the World Cup for her team. Australia took a gamble on her fitness.

With the bat, Perry’s ankle held up. She slogged her way to 25 off 22, the only Australian batsman with a strike rate above 100, and woke up an innings that was dipping into a coma.

When she came on to bowl, West Indies had handled the new ball well. They’d built a platform, not lost a wicket, and still had Stafanie Taylor and Deandra Dottin to come. Australia needed Perry.

Instead of steaming in and firing through the openers, Perry barely got to the crease for her first attempt. She pulled up, limped and looked worried. As did every other Australian player. It didn’t look like she’d get through a ball, let alone an over. The second attempt was much the same. It ended in no delivery, pain and worry.

It was then that the captain Jodie Fields shot a look off to the dressing room. It wasn’t a happy look. Australia’s gamble was about to cost them ten overs of a strike bowler, and Fields was suddenly trying to work out how she was going to make up for that. Perry could have limped off. An injured ankle for a fast bowler is death.

But Perry refused to give up. Her third attempt was painful to watch, it was someone hurting, someone who didn’t trust her body, but somehow she delivered a ball. Nothing great, but one more than looked likely. Her team-mates screamed their support. The ball was left alone and went through to Fields, who kept the ball and ran up to Perry. It was the briefest of chats, perhaps just mindless support. Fields knew how important every ball Perry bowled was. It was the difference between West Indies having a chance to win, and not. Whatever was said got Perry through the over.

With her sixth ball, Perry took Kycia Knight with a dodgy lbw. Perry’s seventh took the edge of West Indies’ gun, Taylor, but the evidence on the catch at slip was inconclusive. Perry’s tenth ball, she had Taylor out caught and bowled. Perry’s 15th was Natasha McLean’s wicket. After three overs Perry had 3-2-2-3.

Perry might have limped her way through it, but it was West Indies who never recovered. She could have stepped back from there. The job was done, the clichés were ready, and the game was just playing out to what was a fairly predictable result. She could have been hidden in the field, stood back on one leg, and let the rest of her team cash in on her brilliance.

She wouldn’t allow herself to become a passenger. Perry kept giving it her all. She raced around for run-outs, dived to stop singles, threw herself threw into the air unsafely, unwisely and ungainly to catch Deandra Dottin. And continued to bowl.

Perry bowled her entire ten overs, often limping in between balls or overs, but she just kept going until Australia had won the World Cup. In her last over, Perry bowled a bouncer. It was a special effort, courageous and skillful.

An injured ankle is not quite as sexy as McCosker’s broken jaw but what Perry did deserved to be added to illustrious list of Australian cricket propaganda.

It’ll start as a gutsy effort that won a game Australia should have always won. Yet, in a few years time, as people forget the details and just remember the result, it’ll be known as the World Cup Ellyse Perry won on one leg.

cricket news hurl: the jim ban

They lied to us. Jesse Ryder is back. This week he hit the winning runs for the blackcaps (BLACKCAPS) in a backyard cricket game for some TV show I have unsurprisingly never heard of. Although that news was overshadowed by the biggest news of the week: Steven Finn has shortened his run up by five metres. FIVE METRES.

Finn and his team-mates managed to overcome the kiwis, despite being massively underpaid according to the English players’ union. Unions, which generally suggest their members are overpaid, said that the Jaguar-driving England team should be getting more from their ECB overlords. And the union has a point when you look at how much money the ECB makes. But the players all make more than most of us could steal, so they will have to make do with muted applause for winning a three-match T20 series.

There is not enough money in the world to give to Saeed Ajmal right now. His bowling performance against South Africa was Steve Davis-defying. Although it was nearly overshadowed by Vernon Philander’s one millionth five-wicket haul and the always* entertaining chats about DRS.

In the Women’s World Cup, they had no elite umpires, no DRS, no semi finals, and, bizarrely, no national anthems. Because they had no semi finals, and not all games were televised, it gave conspiracy theorists and professional cynics (I am both) the chance to wonder if Australia’s last Super Six game was lost on purpose. If you were a women’s cricket team, and you had a chance to play England, New Zealand or West Indies, you’d try and fix it to play West Indies. Well, I would. For what it is worth, the Australia women tweeted apologies and disgust at losing to West Indies. But if I was fixing this match to rig the final in my favour, I’d tell people to tweet their disappointment as well.

It’s also possible that the West Indies are just that good and that they now may beat the Aussies in the final. If they do win, they will be the first team outside of England, Australia and New Zealand to win the Women’s World Cup.

 

The West Indies men’s team beat the Australia men’s team in their T20 this week. It’s not that exciting, except for the fact it was West Indies’ first win there in 16 years. Paul Reiffel played in the last game, and umpired in this one – he is clearly an unlucky charm.

Straight from there, West Indian man Chris Gayle played his first Bangladesh Premier League match of the year and started a bit slow, 27 off 29, then was out for 114 off his 51st ball. Yes. I know. Wow. Twelve sixes were included. Mind you, he brought up his hundred with a single. Boring.

Unlike the slow-moving Chris Gayle, New Zealander Louie Chandulal smashed his way to a hundred. His fifty took nine balls, before bringing his hundred up in the 5th over. At one stage he hit eight consecutive sixes, which coincidently, is his age. Before going out to bat this kiwi kid was pretty confident: “I told my Dad, I was going to be Jesse Ryder.” For his effort he received a chocolate bar. I didn’t see the bowling, but you’d doubt it was much worse than what Gayle faced.

Sadly for a bunch of other kids, in South Africa, cricket turned bad when they were struck by lightning as they put out the covers. Nine King Edward VII schoolboys ended up in hospital after this freakish accident. Two of them only survived because there happened to be a father at the ground who was a trained paramedic.

Something nicer to come from cricket this week was the film Kai Po Che, which debuted at the Berlin Film Festival. The film is about three guys who set up a cricket academy in Gujurat. And what isn’t filmic about that. The film is described as cricket, love and politics, which makes it sound like the film is about the Shroni (Srinivasan and Dhoni) relationship.

Instead Mr Srinivasan was busy this week rejecting Jim Maxwell’s accreditation and continuing the ban on Getty images for Australia’s tour. I know the BCCI will lose money by not owning the commercial rights of all photos taken at the ground, but how much do we want to monetise cricket? And yes, the ABC is not made of money, and therefore couldn’t pay for the rights, but surely Jim Maxwell sweating in a stairwell while on his phone for the odd score update is not going to dent the BCCI’s bottom line. Surely we want as many photos and as many sexy-voiced cricket commentators at games as we can. This followed the fact that Star and the BCCI went to court to block companies from sending out SMS scores of matches. Is the BCCI in some sort of financial crisis I don’t know about? Did they spend so much on Kane Richardson that they are going to sell the ‘83 World Cup on eBay? Also, as we all know, having Jim Maxwell in your ground is priceless. I bet as we speak there is a Getty photographer taking snaps of Jim.

The BCCI can come across as heartless and money hungry, SLC just comes across as inept. When sending an email to tell the world of their new Test captain, they spelt Angelo, Anjelo. It has also taken the bizarre step of no longer dealing with agents (which will at least minimize the amount of calls it gets when it doesn’t paid the players). It is making central contracts mandatory (hopefully the paying of them too). The Sri Lankan sports minister is fighting with the SLC over TV deals. And they are still in a war with their team manager.

But they have the fifth best women’s team in the world, and the best Eshani Kaushalya.

As great as Kaushalya is, this week’s best performance has to go to Nic Maddinson for making a match-winning 85 against South Australia, and eating a toastie while out in the field. It is believed the toastie involved some kind of cheese. Unfortunately for Cricket Australia, it did not appear like the toastie was from any of its sponsors.

Mind you, Cricket Australia does have a lot of sponsors. It also has 13 betting partners. However, it would like to distance itself from betting a little bit, and may put a clause in the next TV rights saying that no betting ads can be shown during the cricket.

Most cricket betting ads are pretty ordinary. But cricket ads are great. If you don’t believe me, visit the wasted afternoon blog’s ‘A Visual History of Cricket Marketing’. Here you will see Geoffrey Boycott advertising Cathay Pacific with a forward defence, Doug Walters auditioning for a Wes Anderson film and a virtually naked Tony Greig. In the blog’s recall of the 1990s, you can see images of Troy Corbett wearing Victorian team shorts.

Victorian players no longer wear shorts, but they are still great. This week they beat the England Lions again, then moved into the List-A final by beating South Australia. That was partly inspired by some slogging from John Hastings. But mostly it was because of the great Pakistani Victorian legspinner Fawad Ahmed taking 3 for 47 off his 13 overs in his first real match for Victoria. We love him.

If you’ve got anything you think should be in next week’s cricket news hurl, email cricketnewshurlatgmail.com or tweet #cricketnewshurl.*never

Drugs! Gambling! TV Deals! Hot button cricket chat with Gideon Haigh

Being that Gideon Haigh and I are no experts on drugs in cricket, we talked about it for ages.

We also discussed Cricket Australia’s 13 betting partners.

And how much the big bash costs or works.

Listen to all the hot button here.

make yourself a digital cricket god

You’re on this site, so there are two things I know about you:

You like cricket.

You are a nerd.

This means you are the perfect person for a cricket game.

Luckily, there is a new cricket game, it is called Official Ashes 2013 cricket game.

With a name like that you probably get what this is.

As a man who has played many a cricket game, I am excited.

My cricket gaming experience can be summed up easily.

Allan Border’s cricket, which required bowling swing that started off the pitch, through to EA cricket which had fielders that could be propelled like Kieron Pollard on speed, Shane Warne’s game allowed you to be Don Bradman without the effortless arrogance and eventually to wii Cricket, in which any shot could go for six, even by accident, and I once sprained my wrist bowling legspin.

So I know my games, and I don’t know this game, as my free copy has not arrived yet.

But I do know this, this game needs you.

Why, as a marketing gimmick, but what a marketing gimmick.

You are your club can be inserted into the game, and you can play home matches at your home ground.

I know.

Now this can only happen if you are from England (I assume Wales as well) or Australia, but it’s an Ashes game, so that makes sense.

If you’re part of an Australian cricket club, like say Coburg Cricket Club, apply here.

If you’re part of an English cricket club, like say Barnes Cricket Club, apply here.

Now, you’re probably a bit shit at cricket, or old, or fat, possibly dealing with a case of scurvy, so you are never going to get your own avatar on a computer game, which is why any of us really live, so these game people are really helping you out.

I assume for this write up I get a free copy of the game, and my own character in the game.

Every cricket game needs as many right arm inconsistent leg spinner and largely ineffectual sloggers as it can.