Jarrod Kimber's Blog, page 55

Cricket, the england way

“That’s the Chicago way” said Sean Connery as Malone in The Untouchables.

England are no Al Capone. In fact, they’re probably the opposite of the hot-headed mobster.

Unlike Australia or West Indies of previous generations, England’s style is not that of domination or brutality. England do what English cricket teams have done since cricket was first civilized. They take the shine off the new ball, take no undue risks, keep all the good balls out, and make sure that by the time the middle order come in their job is to simply cash in on stale bowlers and an older ball. They just do it far better than almost every other English cricket side before them. It’s cricket the England way.

To beat England you either have to play them in the subcontinent, or get past their top three.

It seems easy when written on paper, but in English conditions it’s like running through Buckingham Palace naked carrying a black bag.

It seemed like South Africa’s main plan, or their only plan, was to bowl wide of off stump. Repeatedly. Perhaps that was hoping that England would chase them. Maybe it was to test their patience. A whole day of that kind of bowling resulted in only one wicket from that plan. In the process they let England put together another one of their large grinding game-shaping efficient partnerships, and completely run away with the game.

If you blurred out the faces of the South Africans, you’d have had no idea if England were playing India, Sri Lanka, West Indies or Australia. All England’s home series look pretty damn similar. It’s all just a blur of Jonathan Trott working the ball off his pads for two and Alastair Cook refusing to sweat.

In almost every way South Africa looked lifeless. Dale Steyn was exhausted and during his first spell leant on the fence like he needed it to stand up. The fielding looked unathletic and slow. Imran Tahir runs like an old woman trying to catch a bus, and has unsuccessfully turned himself into a stock bowler. Jacques Kallis yawned his way through a few spells before waking up for KP. Morne Morkel started well and then had trouble staying on his feet. AB de Villiers did his best, but South Africa would have preferred him to be in the field. And Vernon Philander couldn’t live up to his strike rate on this flat pitch.

And this is a flat pitch. If Mark Ramprakash turned up and The Oval pitch looked like this, he’d take a bed out with him.

That’s more of a reason, than an excuse for how South Africa played. This Test series promised so much and, when Morkel bowled a straight one early on, it looked like it might actually live up to the hype. Then someone at the ECB put an old tape in the VCR.

It’s not all lost for South Africa, bad days happen. And watching the Untouchables could give South Africa some more clues as to how to beat England. “You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way! And that’s how you get Capone. Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?”

Everyone knows exactly what England are going to do, it’s just up to South Africa to do better.

Paul Nixon in the back of my car

It is just that.

He talks about fixing, ghosts and scary little men.

the timing of bailey

Cricket, like watches and clocks, is all about timing. When George Bailey came to the crease batting at No 7 in a rain-affected match in a series that Australia had already been smashed in, while most Aussies were tucked under their doonas, it was a largely pointless innings.

For Bailey, the uncontracted Australian T20 captain who has batted in five different positions in nine ODIs, it was the worst possible time to play what was perhaps his best innings yet for Australia. Australia had slipped to 5/77 off 19.1 overs. Their run rate was comically slow early on, compounded by a glut of middle over wickets, they were playing Duckworth Lewis cricket the exact opposite of how you should.

Australia ended up with a total of 145. After Bailey came in, Australia added 68 runs, Bailey added 46* of them. He did this while batting the last 10 overs with the tail. Waiting until the very end to hit out, he took 19 runs off 9 balls in the last two overs, including a monster six from James Anderson.

Unlike his previous innings in this series, Bailey looked in control of his game, and perhaps without Graeme Swann to hold him down, he found it far easier to score than almost all the Australian batsmen. The way he played with the tail was very clever, and when he decided he needed to hit boundaries, he hit or cleared them. It was exactly what you’d expect from a good quality ODI finisher in hard circumstances.

That the total was only 145 couldn’t be blamed on Bailey. And Australia did move the ball around a bit, but like at all times this tour, moving it around was not enough to get through England’s top order, and they got home quite easily.

On the social networks Bailey has copped a lot of flak for the way he has batted in this series. Far more flak than someone who averages 40 from nine ODIs probably should receive. In Bailey’s short career so far he’s been unlucky, not much on the field, but off it.

When he was the surprise selection as T20 captain, it was during a time when he wasn’t making runs, and became an easy target. After that he played two very important ODI innings in the Caribbean, but time zones and low scoring pitches didn’t truly drum home the importance of them.

The one innings that Bailey did play while Australians were awake and watching the TV was his scratchy 50 at the Oval. It was an innings where he fought back well, although he needed to after batting himself into a really deep hole early on.

This innings of 46* should repair his reputation, but I doubt it will. Those who don’t rate him won’t count this knock in a dead-rubber, sub-par total as anything special. Most will only see 46* on a scorecard and forget it minutes later. Hopefully the few who did see it will think of this innings as something worth getting off George Bailey’s back for.

At least for the time being.

Don’t believe the lack of hype, South Africa are playing England in a Test series

If you listen intensely you can almost hear the hum of a huge Test series coming up. That is if you have an ear trumpet and it’s aimed at Somerset this week. South Africa’s opening press conference is where the hype usually kicks off, but instead most of the England’s reporters were watching the inevitable result of Australia losing at Chester-le-Street.

Before I wrote this article, I’d barely even thought of the Test series. And other than chats about how stupid it is to have a three-Test series, or a little bit of Dale Steyn longing, it’s like it doesn’t exist at all.

I’m not the only one to overlook it. ‘Cricket Writers On TV’ is three cricket writers sitting around Paul Allott talking about English and world cricket. It’s a pretty simple show; there is breakfast on the table in front of them to show how intimate it all is. The closest thing to a special effect is Paul Allott holding up a newspaper to camera. It’s all very polite and proper compared to Australian or Indian cricket shows.

Sunday’s episode focussed on England’s dominance over Australia in the current ODI series. There was much talk of two white balls. England’s quality quicks dominating poorly-performing Australian batsmen. Aussie bowlers going home. Future Champions Trophy and World Cup chances. And the inevitable Ashes talk.

Eventually the chat moved towards Mark Ramprakash’s snake hips. And then about an hour into the show, they moved on to South Africa. That’s not singling out Cricket Writers On TV, because at least they mentioned the series, which many others haven’t.

 

It’s almost like in just over a week’s time there isn’t a series between England and South Africa, a Test series, the two best Test teams in the world. Most of the press and even on the social networks, few people have been talking about this series.

A series that has a bowl-off between Morkel, Anderson, Philander, Broad, Steyn, Bresnan, Swann and Tahir. It should be the only thing anyone is talking about, not the afterthought.

Some of this is because of The Rashes. A peculiar incestuous disease that only seems to affect Australians and the English. The Rashes makes everything about that one series, and even when people are watching a completely pointless ODI series, they can’t help but look ahead towards the “real” series in a year’s time.

The rest is scheduling. The press are no different to the players. Both have to work at this series even if they don’t want to. And while you want to start series previews and doing the hype, you’ve still got to write about how good Finn looks and what are the chances of rain in Manchester.

If this was an ODI series between England and South Africa, with an Ashes to follow (which probably wouldn’t happen), every single good or bad performance by England would be used as a way of talking about the next series. If Australia went to Switzerland like the South Africans have been, it would be major news, and would have been the punchline in many columns and bar chats. By this point, there would already be articles (probably by me and others) complaining about how long and pointless the faux pre-war talk is.

Instead South Africa have slipped into the country under near stealth as Australia have been bullied and bashed in this extremely early Ashes warm up. The South African team could play naked against Somerset and get less column space than Ian Bell’s good form or Australia’s problem with the moving ball. They’re currently receiving less chat than Xavier Doherty’s problems taking wickets against England’s top order in the middle overs.

As it was pointed out on Cricket Writers On TV, this could be the last Test series that Graeme Smith is captain of South Africa. There are nine-year-old children who don’t know what it’s like to live in a Graeme Smithless world.

Since 2009, no team with this much chance of beating England has arrived for a UK summer. Morne Morkel is at times pinky and the brain, a man capable of swallowing batsmen whole, who can also retreat into himself mid over and almost disappear. Vermon Philander couldn’t look more like a club bowler if his whites were stained with red, and his shirt was untucked, but his record is scary good. Dale Steyn may be only using his career as a calling card for roles in Hollywood films as viscous prison guards, but with talk of Anderson, and even Philander and Morkel pushing him for the claim of world’s best bowler, he should be spectacularly fired up for this summer. And let’s not forget Imran Tahir, who spent many a county summer playing with domestic batsmen like they were plastic soldiers he was melting in the sun.

A bit like this whole England v South Africa series, the hype will have barely started by the time it’s all over. Cricket Writers on TV, the rest of the press and even the fans can’t be blamed completely by talking about what is it front of them instead of looking ahead. It’s just that when the two best teams in the world are clashing in only a few days, you would probably want a bit more than it being second fiddle to discussions about how Ricky Ponting will go in a years time.

Especially as Ricky Ponting is not even in England at the moment.

no white jackets in australia’s future

Like all Australians, my proudest day was back on October 5 in 2009. It was the day when Australia proudly sported their white jackets as the victors of the most important prize in cricket, the Champion’s Trophy. That victory was enough to wipe clear any memories of getting smashed in India, losing at home for the first time since Dakota Fanning was born – beaten by South Africa – or handing back the Ashes to England.

In fact, no matter how poor Australia could be in Test Matches, they have managed to stay on top of the ICC ODI table. Not that it means much as MS Dhoni lifted the World Cup. But the point is, they were still pretty good.

Now, they’re not.

The current Australian ODI team has no No.3. They struggle to score against spin bowling. And their batting depth is even concerning the chairman of selectors. In this series, England have highlighted all of these problems with Australia. England have often struggled in limited-overs cricket, but with a near Test team, two white balls and a team that can run through any non subcontinental walls, they have smashed Australia so far in this series.

 

Eoin Morgan brought out the hammer against the Australian bowlers at Lord’s. Up until that point the Aussies had looked ok, not great ok, but ok ok, and they’d kept England down. Then Morgan hit the ball where he wanted and Australia had no answer.

In their chase, their lack of batting depth could not have been more evident by the fact that Steve Smith was batting at No.6, after not bowling. There were times when Australia found themselves in good positions, but with George Bailey chopping on to a limping James Anderson, David Hussey getting bounced out and Smith nicking behind lamely, they never quite got there.

At The Oval, Australia’s No.3 was Peter Forrest after George Bailey batted there at Lord’s. He made 12 off 30. Forrest doesn’t look like a natural No.3 ODI player. He has the ability to make big innings, but he doesn’t stamp himself on a match, and the fact that both he and Bailey have been there show that Australia are unsure as to who their No.3 is.

When Bailey did come in, he scored a half-century. But he, and several other Australian batsmen, just couldn’t get Graeme Swann away. Australia lost all momentum, and the chance to put a winning total on the board, Swann went for 3.37 an over. It seemed like midwicket was an industrial vacuum. It wasn’t just Bailey who struggled, and it isn’t the first time Australian batsmen have struggled to get the ball to the sweepers.

Some of these problems are not new, some are systemic, others have been exaggerated against England, and none have been helped by retirements of missing members. But Australia’s claim, however tenuous, on the No.1 ICC ranking, may disappear very shortly. Australia are clearly no longer a top class ODI team. And they will have to rebuild their ODI side much like they have with their Test team. Sadly for them, the next time the white jackets of the Champion’s Trophy are handed out, Australia will probably not be wearing them.

The spirit of Tony Greig

Lord’s is named after Thomas Lord’s, an ok cricketer from way back when. At one stage in his life, Thomas Lord’s wasn’t getting the cash he wanted from cricket matches. So he thought about building some houses on the land to really cash in on his investment. Instead he sold the ground to someone else. Truly cricket’s first great administrator.

I should state my thoughts.

I think the spirit of cricket is bullshit.

I think the MCC claiming it as their mantra is odd considering their history.

I think Colin Cowdrey was a great cricketer.

And I think Tony Greig is a joke.

So this MCC spirit of cricket Cowdrey speech was ignored by me. I assumed it would be by most people.

But, it won’t go away, as I’ve always said, two things will survive a nuclear holocaust, cockroaches and Tony Greig.

We’ve all spent decades listening to Tony Greig. He is a man who once suggested West Indians would grovel, commented that a white man marrying an Asian woman was a mail order bride, sells over priced ceramic baggy greens and regularly refers to Sri Lankans as little Lankans.

Greig’s had 32 years of my time to say something intelligent about the way the game is run, why give him another speech? When Tony Greig spoke to us for Death of a Gentleman, it was because we knew exactly what he’d say, how he’d say it, and how easy it would be to cut it into the film. It was cheaper and easier than getting an animated character to say the same thing.

During the rest of the film we’ve heard from far more intelligent and less heard people. My favourite was Deryck Murray. The man is a cricket legend, cricket administrator, gentleman and former UN delegate for Trinidad and Tobago. The perfect person to talk about cricket, administration and politics. Even Haroon Lorgat, who could have been encouraged to speak candidly for the first time once he had stepped down from his position.

The basic premise of the speech about the self-interest of boards and not putting cricket first is exactly what a speech like this should be about right now. What it needed was someone who had been involved in cricket administration who could point out what all cricket boards, and the ICC, were doing wrong.

Ofcourse, Tony Greig was an executive board member of the ICL, which is why he was picked for this speech.

There are so many men in cricket who would have liked to be let off the chains and talk about the issues in our corrupt, selfish and flatulent cricket administration. Perhaps some of those people aren’t the brother in law of the MCC President, but still, they could speak. Instead it was a wasted opportunity.

Even if Greig made correct statements, his own past and obvious problem with the BCCI was never going to make this the sort of speech that it should have been.

Singling out India and barely mentioning any other country was lazy, easy and fucken idiotic.

Other than Australia, Greig’s main exposure is to cricket in Sri Lanka. So where is the large portion of his speech attacking the SLC and the Sri Lankan government for the way they have mugged cricket and cricketers in Sri Lanka? Because you can’t attack the BCCI for self-interest and then not attacking Sri Lanka because of your own interests.

The BCCI is a self-interested organization. But you know, so is CA, ECB, CSA, NZC, PCB, WICB and even the little SLC.

A speech about self-interest in every form of cricket would be better than an attack on the BCCI from someone with the sort of past that makes people either mock him or ignore him seems like a complete waste of time.

Hilariously, the MCC and BCCI are very similar to each other, just in reverse. The MCC ran the game like an arrogant dictator for years, have now lost that power and are desperate to look like the good guys. Whereas the BCCI were the lovely people no one gave a shit about for years and are now quite enjoying being the big boys in town and looking after their own.

The MCC have been desperate to shake their image as a dinosaur and stay relevant in world cricket. Sometimes this means that champion cricketers like Charlotte Edwards and Claire Taylor are given honorary life members, day night Tests are pushed and minnow players like Hamid Hasan are given state of the art training facilities. At other moments they go looking to solve cricket’s problems with hocus pocus solutions like lie detector tests or even worse they go back to their bad old days of incestuous cricket bullshit.

If the MCC really wants to be a relevant organization in the future, they’d do their best to distance themselves from comical troglodytes with personal vendettas. Otherwise, they might as well build houses on Lord’s and just keep the museum.

This is not Steve Smith’s era

Steve Smith is barely 23 years old and he’s already a relic of another era.

Smith is the last of Andrew Hilditch’s big Ashes gambles. Some may argue that Andrew Hilditch’s reign became untenable years before he disappeared. But there he was in 10/11, seemingly sharing his position of Chairman of selectors with the National Talent Manager Greg Chappell. Between them they came up with three young players to save Australia.

Phil Hughes had barely made a run for the summer in shield cricket and was oddly brought back at the WACA to face Chris Tremlett and Steven Finn after being dropped because it was assumed he had a problem with the short ball. Usman Khawaja was brought in to bat at number three for his first Test, (Bradman batted at seven in his first Test, Ponting at five) against an attack that had routinely shredded Australia’s batsmen.

And Steve Smith was brought in for the Perth Test to bat at number six after Marcus North’s career was ended. Five months earlier Ricky Ponting was asked directly if Steve Smith was a number six batsman, he said no. But there was Steve Smith, walking out to bat at number six for his country with a slightly dodgy technique on a wicket that allows few errors.

The Test at which Ponting was asked about Smith at six was on Smith’s greatest international moment. Playing as a bowling allrounder and batting at eight, Smith had been part of the carnage at Headingley when Pakistan had bowled them for 88. In the second innings he came in with Australia 6/217 and a lead of only 48. Smith spent quite a while just staying in with Tim Paine and then Mitchell Johnson. It was a very patient innings from someone who rarely shows that trait.

When Smith was left with the tail, he exploded. Multiple boundaries of Asif, Gul and Amir showed his talent, and back to back sixes off Danish Kaneria showed how much he believed in himself. Three of these bowlers are now in disgrace, but in this match Asif and Amir were in another zone, and Kaneria was hit for more boundaries by Smith in that innings than the rest of the Australians had hit off him in the entire match. By the time Smith went out for 77, Australia had a lead of 180 and had a chance of stealing a match they shouldn’t have been close to. Yet, in that match, and in every Test he has played since, he’s gone wicketless.

The reason Smith was there in the first place wasn’t just a Hilditch hunch. Smith’s first full season of first class cricket he averaged 77 with the bat, making four hundreds. And finished the year with a 7/64 haul against South Australia. He was only 20. Clearly already one of the best fieldsmen on the planet. A breath of fresh air in a stale team. And Australia took that gamble.

It hasn’t paid off.

Three years down the track Smith is still not a number six international batsman. In five Tests he has two half centuries and an average of 28. In 31 ODIs he has no half centuries and an average of 21. In 20 T20s he has no half centuries an average of 15 and a strikerate of 108.

As a bowler in Tests he only has the three wickets from his first Test, as Marcus North took six wickets at the other end. In ODIs Smith averages 34 with the ball, but Michael Clarke didn’t even give him a bowl in his last match. Smith has only ever bowled out his 10 overs twice. In his last five ODIs he’s only bowled 8 overs, and three times hasn’t bowed at all. It’s in T20s his bowling has been most effective. An average of 21 and econ of 7.85. But he’s only bowled in two of his last six games. Which isn’t a good sign.

Smith is now an extremely experienced young cricketer. He’s played for Australia, New South Wales, Pune Warriors, Worcestershire, Kochi Tuskers, Royal Challengers Bangalore and even for Kent 2nd XI. Yet, he doesn’t seem to be improving at all. Being an energetic guy and a brilliant fielder only gets you so far.

Years ago I remember the late great David Hookes on commentary when Derek Crookes was being talked about as a great fielder. They flashed up his stats as they talked about him, and Hookes (thinking he was off mic) said something roughly like “with stats like that, he’d wanna be a {expletive deleted} good fielder”.

John Inverarity has already cut Hughes and Khawaja loose, hoping that they will perform and demand reselection. Now the same has to be done with Smith. Smith is a brilliant fielder, a flawed batsman and a rarely used bowler. In this era, Australia need more.

The cumming of cummins

“Pat Cummings is coming on to bowl” said the Essex ground announcer.

And that isn’t a typo by me, the extra g in Cummins was used for pretty much the entire match. Taking a five for and hitting the winning runs in your first test as a teenager should be enough for people to know your name. But Cummins is still fairly unknown to English audiences. Him, Starc and Pattinson are often grouped together as Australis young pace bowlers.

Starc looks a nightmare to face on his day, Pattinson is a beast of a young man but it’s Cummins who is the mythical cricket creature. The teenage pace sensation.

Watching him bowl in the dusk at Chelmsford was an exciting moment. His second ball ripped out Tom Westley’s stumps in a violent way. Ryan ten Doeschate seemed happier when Ravi Bopara was facing. Greg Smith played a classical forward defence to a ball that had bowled him several seconds earlier. Graham Napier didn’t look keen on getting behind the line. And the tail looked properly afraid.

It was what a fast bowling teen sensation should do, smash wickets, rush batsmen and scare tailenders. And if later this week was the first Test, Cummins could have his magical moment where he gets to bowl his first international ball on english soil, and give himself his “Shane Warne” moment.

The ball of the century was an amazing delivery, but had it been the first ball Warne had bowled in New Zealand or Sri Lanka, it wouldn’t have had the same effect. By the time Warne was playing in an Ashes Test, he’d help win a Test in Sri Lanka, taken a 7 wicket haul against the West Indies and demolished New Zealand. But in the UK, that meant little and his career started by bamboozling Gatting.

Imagine what it would be like if a teenage fast bowler was playing in the Ashes next week. Steaming in from the nursery end bowling his first ball in Ashes cricket. Even if he failed, it would be an amazing story.

Instead we have an ODI series that’s being played for financial and world cup 2015 planning reasons. A series that at best will be forgotten by the time the world cup is actually played. Perhaps we get lucky, and in one of the ODIs Cummins takes a bag of wickets. Although most ODI hauls are assisted by slogs and power play foolishness anyway, so it’s less likely to make any real impact.

By the time Cummins does play a Test in the UK, people will remember him as the young guy who played in a few ODIS the summer before. It wont have the magic of someone literally arriving from nowhere. You’d assume that by the time of the first Ashes Test, most ground announcers will know Cummins doesn’t have a g in it.

cricket pop culture references: west wing (what kind of day has it been)

If you watch the entire series of the West Wing (don’t watch the 9/11 episode, that’s shithouse) you’ll see on more than one occasion cricket pops up for no real reason.

Occasionally it will be something like “That’s just not how we play bridge. It’s not how we say cricket.”

Or when everyone’s favourite late 80s early 90s sit com actor John Larroquette wields around a cricket bat that was given to him by the Queen of England.

But, the single greatest mention has to be when President Bartlet decides to watch a women’s college softball match instead of cricket.

“If that’s what’s on, then that’s what they watch. It’s either that, or a cricket match

between Scotland and Bermuda. Now, I am an educated man, Charlie, but when someone tries

to explain cricket to me, all I want to do is hit him in the head with a teapot.”

President Bartlet was such an intelligent man that when terrorists actually attacked America, he was put on non-fiction programs to talk about it.

But, he’s made up a cricket game. Bermuda never played Scotland in any senior game until the 2005 ICC, yet this episode aired in 1999. It’s a lie.

You can make up things on TV for the sake of drama or comedy. So that’s ok.

However, I don’t know much about cricket on TV in America, but if games between sides as hardly watched as Bermuda and Scotland were on TV, than companies like Willow TV would not be necessary.

Outside of an ICC tournament, would this match be broadcast anywhere other than maybe Bermuda.

No, they went too far and because of this the gag of a man watching women’s college softball was completely lost.

The bat that was used in the West Wing by John Larroquette was given to him by Australian legspinner Colin McCool, who was a massive fan of the sitcom “night court”. McCool would quote lines from the first series when visitors popped in.

Illegal islands in the stream

In an Edinburgh hotel room I watched Mohammad Amir make 73 batting at number 10 to almost defeat New Zealand in an ODI.

I watched the match on an illegal stream; Giles Clarke’s archenemy. According to Clarke, cricket fans who watch illegal streams are defrauding their own sport by putting existing huge money TV deals into jeopardy. The very money that funds cricket and its administration.

If you choose to watch cricket on an illegal stream instead of subscribing, then in your own way that is what you are doing. Now maybe you have a vaild reason like having no money. Or you find subscription TV is little more than a stream of reality TV shows where Americans abuse each other while buying things from storage lockers. Having watched a fair bit of illegal cricket streams, I’d doubt there are many people out there who can afford paying a subscription and still watch illegally.

Watching illegally is really annoying.

When Sachin Tendulkar made his 100th 100, It wasn’t shown on TV in the UK. So I went looking for an illegal stream as he got close. The first three websites wouldn’t work at all. The fourth would, but because of the sheer numbers of people watching, kept shutting down. An ad came up in front of the action several times. The sound and vision were never once synced. The screen pixelated for almost the entire time I watched. And more than once it just randomly paused so I was miles behind the live action.

Watching illegal streams is never straight forward.

But why did I do that day, or for Amir and Ajmal’s partnership, and again recently for Kumar Sangakkara’s flirtation with a double hundred? Because none of those matches were shown on TV in the UK. And I wanted to see them.

I wasn’t trying to rip off any subscription TV company; it was just the only way for a cricket obsessed person in the UK to watch these big moments. There is no reason to show them in the UK, unless Sky had a dedicated cricket channel, so I have to find them elsewhere.

These illegal streams might be pure evil for a cricket board trying to earn their bread, but they are sometimes they only way to watch cricket. And they’re not the only ones.

The youtube uploaders, like the phenomenally proficient robelinda2, place illegally taken TV clips online. TV companies despise them, and see it as stolen content. For cricket fans people like robelinda2 give them cricket gold only a google search away. Robelinda seems to spend all his time fighting with Indian fans or uploading classic and obscure cricket moments. Currently he has over 1700 videos on youtube. Including Martin Love making 146 against South Australia, Devon Malcolm yorking Viv Richards, Rohan Kanhai making 118 for the World XI in 71/72.

How would you see these otherwise?

New fans find these clips and fall in love with the sport. Old fans who have moved on may come across one accidentally and rekindle their love. And for the rest of us who are obsessed it gives us something to watch when there is no live match to watch on TV or illegal streams. Broadcasters could spend hours uploading all the content they own on vimeo and YouTube, but are often handicapped by rights deals or a lack of vision. Instead they spend a fair bit of their time, and some cricket boards time, chasing these people down and taking their videos down.

Then there is the internet radio commentary sites like Test Match Sofa and Pitch Invasion who watch cricket on the TV and commentate on it. It’s not illegal, but certain cricket boards have called it immoral. By that they mean they haven’t found a way to stop it, or make money from it, and that it upsets the radio companies who pay to get into the ground and commentate.

Ofcourse, if you do pay for cricket rights, you also get access to the players and board. Meaning you have to be a bit more safe in what you say and how you say it. Pirate internet commentaries do not. They can be a much more loose, vitriolic and even a sweary form of commentary that attracts a whole new audience who may not like polite talk of cake and pigeons. While the radio stations who own the rights are angry, in real terms this provides them with a competitor for the first time, meaning they have to improve their product. Which is better for the cricket public and the radio station. And most importantly it gives the cricket fan another way of consuming their favourite sport.

Some of these illegal, or immoral, websites and uploaders are doing this for purely financial gain. They are nothing more than theieves who are stealing content. But others are doing it for the love of cricket. Regardless of the intentions, while they make life hard for cricket boards in certain ways, there is no doubt that they all help promote the game of cricket.

How else would we watch ODIs between New Zealand and Pakistan when staying in foreign hotels, listen to commentators swear at shocking decisions or watch clips of domestic Australian cricket from the 90s.