Jarrod Kimber's Blog, page 50
September 24, 2012
Forget the ‘M’ word
Minnow.
Noun
• a small freshwater Eurasian fish of the carp family, which typically forms large shoals.
• a small or insignificant person or organization: the paper is a minnow in the national newspaper mass market
“We’re not minnows.”
Trent Johnston, 2012.
Odd terms in cricket seem to be the norm. The original meaning for Chinaman allegedly comes from when an English player couldn’t believe he’d been bowled by a West Indian player of Chinese heritage and said in a largely racist way: “Fancy being done by a bloody Chinaman.” If a player said anything like that today he’d hounded in the press and suspended by the ICC. But yet we still call left arm wrist spinners, like Brad Hogg, Chinaman.
It’s doubtful that in modern cricket we’d ever have another racially motivated term come through. New deliveries are usually named by the bowler, a quick thinking member of the press or Tony Greig. And shots are mostly named after the batsman who plays them, or just a simple way of describing the shot.
If you aren’t one of the eight main teams in cricket, the boys club as the outsiders call it, you’re referred to as a minnow. A small fish of insignificance. Hardly worth talking about, mostly patronised, not seen as professional or good enough for teams to tour. In the 1983 World Cup the minnow Zimbabweans defeated the mighty Australians. In 1999 Zimbabwe played magnificent cricket. In 2003 John Davison set the tournament alight for Canada, and Kenya made the semi finals. In 2007 Ireland defeated Pakistan, and in 2011 they beat England. Over the years Bangladesh have often claimed big scalps as well.
That’s not even to mention that the very host of this tournament was a minnow who only 13 years after gaining Test playing status won a World Cup. Sri Lanka are the ultimate heroes for countries like Ireland, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and even Bangladesh. They went from non-Test playing to World Cup-winning in 13 years. When was the last time they were referred to as a minnow?
Minnow is a term I’ve always used. Associates and affiliates makes the teams sound like their insurance firms, and minnows is the term that everyone not associated with the non-Test playing world uses frequently.
Until a few days ago I never even realised that the smaller nations hated the word minnow. After a chat with the Afghanistan photographer and Ireland’s Trent Johnston, hate is the exact word some of the people from the associate nations feel about the word minnow. They feel it denigrates them as cricketers, patronises them, and doesn’t take their deeds seriously. Johnston probably has more right than most to hate it. He’s spent years being branded this way: “I’m sick of hearing minnow on the TV”. Perhaps the worst time for Ireland was the two months of constant minnow referencing when Ireland made the latter stages of the 2007 World Cup.
Afghanistan’s cricket team is their No. 1 ranked sporting team. According to Johnston, the Irish Cricket team is the No. 2 ranked sporting team in Ireland. These are not minority players or freak shows. Afghanistan, Ireland, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe have probably spent more time preparing for this tournament than any of the major teams. This is their main chance of notoriety. They are full of professional players, coaches, analysts, fitness staff and administration. They came here to win. So far, with two of them heading home, and only must win games for Ireland and Bangladesh left, their chances are slim.
When they do win, they’re seen as comedy upsets or plucky amateurs who’ve downed the arrogant professionals. None of these teams win enough for their own liking. They all do what they can do to improve with average facilities and little finances. They’re aware they need to win more consistently to gain our ultimate respect.
But perhaps these sides have earned enough of our respect for us to stop using a word they believe, quite rightly, belittles them. We could stop using the term minnow in honour of all the time and effort professionals and amateurs have put into making their national sides stronger, especially those from nations that aren’t traditional cricket playing nations. These people have grown the game, often in places where it needs the most help, and I think the least we can do is just stop using a term they don’t like.
It’ll be hard for cricket fans and the media to stop saying it; it’s inbred so deep in cricket’s odd lexicon. But the good thing about cricket is that no one will settle for associates or affiliates as the name for long before someone comes up with something better. This time, perhaps it will be something a bit more respectful than calling anyone who doesn’t win regular Tests a small fish of insignificance. Cricket doesn’t really need the “M” word, but it does need sides like Ireland and Afghanistan.
September 23, 2012
Learn to swim, England
Harbhajan Singh has been on the outer for a while. So long in fact that he found himself back in Division Two County cricket playing for Essex. His career was not ever, but with Ashwin taking the main job, and players like Ojha as back ups, it looked like the end for India’s fighter. There are, not unsurprisingly, a lot of English players in that competition. Bhajji played five first class games and five List A matches, he had varying success. It’s doubtful that in all ten of those games he’d ever seen as many bad shots played against spin. It’s fucken doubtful that if Bhajji was playing on this pitch in England, even against division two batsmen, that they’d rush to leave the ground like they did tonight. Or if they did, they’d probably make it prettier.
The pitch was ok for spinners. OK. Not anything more. I’ve seen many pitches in the UK that spin far more than this. For England, it was nothing like what they got sliced and diced on in the UAE. And Far from the one that fell over on at Galle.
Graeme Swann bowled well on this surface, but India simply sat on him and handled him well.
England could barely handle the bat when the spinners came on.
They devolved from sensible cricketers to the crazy families you see on the apocalypse preparation shows. Shooting at imaginary invaders and stocking up for the inevitable mushroom cloud (AJmal) or global financial global crisis (Ashwin). It wasn’t even one of the obvious players that ended their world. Piyush Chawla is the player Indian fans abuse when they’re tired of abusing Rohit Sharma.
To most of us, these looked like standard non lethal spinners, to England they were the black plague, and the English players ran madly towards the hills with canned food and shot guns.
It was as bad a batting performance as England could muster against on a fairly benign surface against a new bowling attack without their oldest and most reliable bowler and their best T20 weapon.
This is the same Indian bowling attack that has the Indian media permanent state of panic. Some wanting four bowlers, some five, some eleven. Tonight they dismissed England with three as easily as you like, a few nights back they couldn’t get close to Afghanistan.
You need a research grant and a team of technicians to look into who played the worst shot.
Alex Hales didn’t even wait for the spinners. Morgan’s cut shot was to a different ball on a different pitch. Kiesvetter’s flick waft should be burned before any child gets a chance to see it. Bairstow’s slog against the wrong’un defied science. Buttler backed away so far he was at the SSC when he missed his ball. Swann went for a wander. And Tim Bresnan brought back memories of England’s horror winter with a sweep shot.
All this while KP was stuck in a studio with a grin stapled to his face while Dermot Reeve through a ball at him.
It’s impossible to believe England played this bad, and yet we’ve seen it all before. In their minds, England seemed to be playing on a ghost pitch from their past and not the quicker than everyone though pitches that are actually being prepared at Premadasa.
There are no dead rubbers for a while now and far bigger killers than Bhajji and Piyish Chawla lurk around the corner. Unless England learn to swim against the spin, their fans are the ones who should be heading to the store to buy all the canned food they can carry.
The end times may soon be upon England, and they’ll come slow, but well flighted.
Result: India didn’t make as many as I thought they should have, rested key players, gave some lesser lights a go, and still absolutely beat the fuck out of England with the bat, and it wasn’t like England’s five man attack was having a good day either. Indians might even give Chawla and Shamra a day or two of less abuse.
Kiwis drown in the jamshed
I love Pakistan cricket.
In fact, to prove my love for Pakistan cricket, I’ve never once punched Shoaib Malik in the face.
I’m not sure I love Nasir Jamshed. Maybe I do, and I just don’t know it yet.
The first time I ate pizza, I thought, that’s not bad, I’d like that again.
I only had one piece.
It never occurred to me that what I was eating was the single greatest food ever invented. It just tasted ok, and one piece lead to one whole pizza, which lead to two, two lead to three and three lead to the time I once ate 13 pizzas in 8 days.
So far I like what I see of Jamshed. It’s not much, it’s probably only two pieces worth. But he can play, and Pakistan need an actual batsman.
Not a Nazir like psychopath, not a wild hitter like Afridi, not a suicidal freak like Umar, not a dour plodder like Hafeez, not whatever the hell Kamran Akmal is, and not Shoaib Malik, ever.
Nasir could be what Pakistan need to help this amazing bowling attack win this tournament.
In typical fashion New Zealand fought their way back from utter disaster to lose with honour. Ross Taylor batted at six, so let’s pretend that they took this game as more of a hit out than an actual game type game.
Result: Shahid Afridi is 32 years old.
Two Chucks at the World T20 – day 6
George Bailey smiles and Yuvi moves.
September 22, 2012
Australia shifts doom to Windies
It was a breezy night in Colombo; the smoke should have cleared from the ground. It didn’t.
The Australians were forced to play perpetually under this hazy cloud of doom. Every time a West Indies player hit a six the fireworks went off, sometimes straight at them, as if to add burn wounds to the wounds from Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels. The wounds from Gayle were largely self-inflicted as Shane Watson dropped him before he’d even got started.
It was perhaps only this smoke cloud that slowed West Indies down.
George Bailey spent so much time talking to his bowlers his voice must have turned into the mwa mwa mwa mwa of the adults in Peanuts. Always with a calm look, and even a smile. I wonder if he has two smiles, and whether long-term team-mates of Bailey can tell the difference from his natural smile and the one he puts on as he jogs over as someone looks for the ball. A few more nights like this, and Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Glenn Maxwell will be able to tell the difference.
Bailey tweaked, shuffled, changed, renovated, modified, adjusted and occasionally transmogrified his fielders. He could do nothing to stop the magnificent monstrous murdering that the West Indies batsmen dished out on his hapless bowlers. Bailey has been under much pressure from fans, Ian Chappell and about the non-selection of David Hussey – he didn’t need a night like this.
That would have been how I’d written the game up if the rain had came an hour earlier. Yet 9.1 overs into the Australia innings, they’d made West Indies look like slow movers. David Warner didn’t even need Watson at the start, he was on mission of destruction, and might have been unlucky to be given caught behind. From there Mike Hussey and Watson hit the ball wherever they pleased. They hit it hard, hit it often, and by that magical 9.1 over mark, it was only the biblical downpour that could stop them.
The question mark over Australia is their Hussey-less middle order, with Mike at No. 3 and David carrying the drinks, it seems their most likely weakness. It would have been a great test for them in this innings. Had West Indies got any wickets, the middle order would have been given a brilliant platform to chase a large total in a match that didn’t matter if they won or lost.
Instead they ended with an easy 17 run D/L win, the pressure of the final overs lost under inches of rain.
People will still question Bailey’s job, the bowlers ability to stop the flow and the seemingly questionable middle order, but Australia has won two from two so far, which is quite far from the apocalyptic visions earlier in the night or before the tournament began.
Result: My pick to win the whole tournament bowled like cricket had been invented just to embarrass them, and they dropped a catch even the Afghanis would have laughed at. Shane Watson was MOTM, and when the happens, the whole world smiles.
Sri Lanka fail in tiny bash
As if the ICC hadn’t conspired enough against their own tournament, now whichever god, sentient being or brand of alien you believe in was taking down this cup without a cup.
First night, boom, Richard Levi’s ass and Dilshan’s ego should have started this tournament with a clash of two teams who can actually win the tournament.
No, instead we get than on day 5, the first day the rain turns up.
What can you learn from seven overs, can you accurately judge the character of a human being in such a short time.
It’s like saying, “that guy’s a dick” when they cut you off in traffic.
You don’t really know their a dick, or care, but you feel the need to say something because it happened in front of you. And in this case, you’re not even the driver, you’re playing with your phone in the passengers seat. And you’re not in any rush to get there, as even if they beat you, it still doesn’t matter. And you should have turned off the road days ago. And you never wanted to go this way anyway. And there are no good food places on this route, only fried chicken and juice bars. And who gievs a fuck about a t7 game when both teams have already qualified.
Result: A crowd of people turned up to watch a cricket match in Sri Lanka. Although I once saw more people line up to see a port that had just been built in Hambantota.
September 21, 2012
Professional English cricketers defeat professional Afghani cricketers
The story of Afghanistan cricket is absolutely amazing. It’s got a book, a documentary, and is mentioned in almost every article about them. So much so that their cricket deeds are often an afterthought. That these cricketers come from a war torn country, that some were refugees, and that some have had to overcome amazing hardships is a phenomenal story.
Just to make it from the bottom of the Affiliates to the top is nothing short of inspirational. But they have, twice, and it’s perhaps time we focus on what the men before us actually are. Cricketers.
When, on the eve of the World Twenty20, Hamid Hassan told ESPNcricinfo that he might not be able to play the tournament, he looked on the verge of tears. This was a man who had spent months and months in the gym at Lord’s, sweating and working. Hassan did this because he is a cricketer, and he wanted to be the best cricketer he could be, overcome his injuries and play in this tournament.
This is a professional cricket side. They haven’t been professional for long, but they haven’t been picked off the street a week ago. They’ve been together as a unit for months; they were runners-up to Ireland in the qualifying tournament and then spent over a month in Dubai, simply preparing to play in this tournament.
They deserve to be spoken about as cricketers, not charming curiosities.
Shapoor Zadran started the England match with a wicket maiden. It wasn’t charity because of his past, he just bowls really well at times. Even though the speed guns don’t suggest great pace, he seems to hurry top class batsmen. And he virtually bowled Kieswetter off the face of the bat. Shapoor opened up with Dawlat Zadran; this double dose of Zadran is brilliant to behold. Both men are natural wicket-takers; they attack at will, leak runs, but also look like taking a wicket at any time. At times both got startling bounce and worried the England batsmen. Their keeper, Mohammad Shahzad, who’s vertical leap is not as impressive as his stroke play, simply couldn’t reach one ball.
Samiullah Shenwari is a legspinner with a stop-start jaunty action who mixes up his pace the way you have to in T20 if you don’t want to end up bowling only one over a game. When he uses flight it’s clever, his quicker ball skids on, and he can spin the ball. Karim Sadiq, their veteran allrounder, bowls much like David Hussey – less spin than fast balls off a few quick steps. When Sadiq was bowling with Shenwari, Afghanistan were holding on. England had scored only 84 runs in the first 12 overs, despite scoring 37 in the fifth and sixth over alone.
Then their fielding fell apart, and everything went with it.
It didn’t fall apart, it shattered on the ground like a crystal vase spear chucked down from a third-story window. Once it goes bad, they’re a team almost incapable of any defence. Giving away overthrows is almost a prerequisite for this team, even if there is little or no chance of a run out. Mohammad Shahzad seems to abuse a player every second over for not backing up a throw. Occasionally a ball will go straight through the hands or legs of an Afghanistan player, reminding you of how far they still have to go. Catches are at best a 50-50 proposition, and they even managed to step on the rope when taking a simple catch off a free hit.
These are proud men. This fielding would embarrass them; this fielding would embarrass a club side. Their bowlers would feel rightfully let down. They could, and should have done better.
They had a chance at redemption with their batting. They couldn’t do it. Against India they refused to give up. Against England, they did it absolutely. Their batting plan is to hit the ball as hard and as often as they can. You can see them get the shakes when more than one dot ball occurs. It’s going to work sometimes, and not work at others. For Gulbodin Naib it worked, for the others it did not. Maybe it was them playing their normal reckless game. Or maybe, to their credit, they realised that if you’re chasing 197 and your team only likes to hit boundaries, you might as well encourage it. Even if it does end with you on 80, a loss is a loss.
Every team in this World Twenty20 has its own set of unique circumstances. Afghanistan is just another team. If we think of them as anything else, we’re doing them a disservice as cricketers. I hope they left the field disappointed that they hadn’t done their best. I hope their captain and coach abused them for their sloppiness in the field. I hope their batsmen were embarrassed, that they asked their analysts to burn the recordings; that bats were thrown, kits were kicked and tears were shed.
This is not what they came here to do. They’ve failed. They can do better. Now they need to use this failure, channel the embarrassment and make themselves into the cricketers that their talent deserves. That is what cricketers from all around the world strive to do.
They’re cricketers with an amazing history that most of us will never be able to fully comprehend, but they’re also just cricketers. They do warm-ups, drop catches and love to hit boundaries. They’re probably just taking it one game at a time while trying to get some momentum. It’s what cricketers do.
Bangladesh narrowly beat Prince Brendon
The IPL was not built by Brendon McCullum, that was the scheme of Lalit Modi.
But McCullum’s role in opening the tournament with a hundred was pretty important. There were no opening night jitters for him, the gold pads at the non-strikers end did not blind, he simply smashed the shit out of the ball remarkably well.
McCullum always bats like he’s angry with life, and especially the ball. He carves, slaps and beats it.
Today, he did that to Bangladesh.
If McCullum sniffs a weak attack, they’re often cactus. The better sides might let him get away, but they often stop him before it’s terminal. Ordinary sides seem to do nothing to stop him.
I liked Bangladesh under Jamie Siddons, they were accountable to a violent looking scary guy, and it seemed to at the very least stop them from days like this happening often.
This was the first game between the Test playing nations, and Bangladesh managed to make New Zealand look better than butter, even with James Franklin playing the anchor role. On today’s evidence, in a tri series between Bangladesh, Ireland and Afghanistan in any format of cricket, they’d be lucky to make the final.
We all have bad days ofcourse, I had to go back to my hotel room 4 times this morning because I kept forgetting things.
It’s just that on Bangladesh’s bad day it can often look like they never left their hotel.
Result: Crashraful second top scored for Bangladesh, no one was seriously injured and Bangladesh lasted longer in the tournament than Zimbabwe.
two chucks at the world t20 day 4
Have you ever wanted to see an english player touch another english player in the groin while posing for a photo, this might be the two chucks for you.
