Jarrod Kimber's Blog, page 76

Why Adil Rashid's 11 wickets prove he is not ready for International cricket

Before last week there were people lining up on every street corner in the UK explaining why Adil wasn't ready for International cricket.

They generally pointed to the fact he was a roller not a spinner, that his consistency was poor, that he had a bad attitude and that he just needed to grow up a bit before he was considered a real international player.

Then he took 11 wickets, and some people saw this as proof he was now ready for international cricket.

They are wrong.

Here are the main reasons he is still not ready.

The England team wants a back up to Swanny, not a star. Taking 11 wickets over qualifies him for that position.
11 wickets just proves that Adil is all about personal achievements and not team goals. Kent still won with Tredwell only taking 2/52, you don't have to steal the headlines.
Sure he took 11 wickets, but he only made four, he just doesn't bring enough facets of variety to the side. James Middlebrook might have only taken 3/138 in the match, but he made a hundred, Adil should look into that.
11 wickets, means 11 wicket celebrations, which means 11 ways to show what a bad attitude he has.
Danny Briggs' 5 wicket haul was for well over a hundred runs, showing that he had the fortitude to really ride out a long innings in a patient way. Unlike Adil who showed no patience at all and tried to get through the opposition as quick as possible.
Adil doesn't show the innate class of a Batty or Dalrymple.
There was a real lack of maturity in his appealing, it lacked respect for the batsmen he had bamboozled.
Monty would have made his 11 wickets feel less obtrusive.
Clearly Adil is still a roller of the ball with little control, if the ball fizzed more he wouldn't need 11 wicket hauls to get noticed.
Worcestershire are one of the weaker top Division teams, their batting is made of green jelly, and they all expected to collapse to pace and not spin. Confusing them when Adil came on.
Azeem Rafiq would have pushed his case on twitter.

11 wickets is ok, Adil, but there is no need to show off.

This is cricket, show a bit of respect for your elders, the opposition and the spirit of cricket.

No one likes a show off.

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The first day of summer

The first day of county season is the opposite of the IPL in so many ways, but the amount of straw hats and the colour of the spectators as you walk in is your first two hints that it isn't going to be an IPL experience.

County cricket truly is one of the whitest events in human history, if the BNP really wanted to cleanse the UK of dark skinned people, they should stage county matches on every corner.

Racists are just never clever enough to use tactics like this.

Ofcourse, at the end of the day the colour does come in when the palest men in the world turn slightly red after a day of topless wrinkly sun bathing.

I've never truly understood men who take their top off when surrounded by other men, who are all together watching men play.

The only way people know you're pale on your chest in the first place is by taking your top off.

County cricket is a bit like the men with their tops off, it doesn't really need to be an event, but even a bare chested 73 year old white man is something for you and your friends to bond over.

In Australia there is no first day of the summer, there is no one day that true cricket sadists plan for.  I never went to a Vic match and knew 30 people in the crowd. Especially not the first day.

In England that is exactly what happens.

It's a reunion, it's the start of summer, it's cricket coming back to town, and old men rejoice all this half naked.

It's real cricket too, after weeks of world cup, with weeks more of the IPL, it's good to see fat man play in front of a ground with no music, crowd or atmosphere.

It feels right.

You can put your feet up on chairs , argue about the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and be amazed that Rory Hamilton-Brown can captain a first class cricket team without knowing how to run between the wickets.

It's not perfect, they have no crisps at the ground, you can only get pimm's from one bar, and they have no jugs for the Pimm's.

Everyone comes together though, and this is never more evident than the home made hot dogs they have.

Any day that starts with Gary Wilson, has Andrew Hall's bowling action and various large unemployed looking men yelling incomprehensible rubbish is a good day at the cricket.

In Australia I'd feel like a sad loner at the G watching the Vics, in England, County cricket unites all these sad loners into one place, and then denies them access to jugs of Pimm's.

If that isn't cricket, nothing is.

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Secret Ashes stuff from Gideon Haigh, Alan Tyers and Philip Pope

While you are waiting for the the pitch fork crowd to take down the ICC, you might want to enjoy a bit of reading.

Surprisingly, Gideon Haigh has a new cricket book.

I've only flicked through it for mentions of myself, it does seem light on for that, but you can feel how the balls has changed Gideon's style and it does cover the Ashes in an intelligent kind of way.

If you're into that.

Although, if you are going to buy only one Ashes book, you might want to wait a few weeks for another one. (Sorry, G-Dawg, but it's all about the benjamins)

The cover is inspired by Darren Gough's Strictly come dancing routine.

Alan Tyers has another book out with Beachy, and even though it still doesn't have mentions of me, it's clearly inspired by me, personally and professionally.

It's a collection of unpublished player diaries, like 'A beef history of time by Ian Botham' and Langer Management.

There are drawings of the diaries overs inside the books, including an Ian Bell inspired one with a box on it.

And then, if you're finished these two Ashes inspired books, or you can't read big words, there is always the 7 disc compilation of the entire Ashes, called, The Ashes a complete collection.

It has an inside story disc, which has a mostly outside story from people you've already heard heaps from.

It also has a story about how a cricket ball is made, a bunch of footage edited together from stump cam which is far duller than I imagined it could be.

There's a great section where you can look at people getting their head measured.

An explanation of hawkeye.

Slow motion footage for a while.

The best part is the WACA media centre tour, it's hosted by Philip Pope, yes, the Popester, who you may remember from imaginary flights from Adelaide to Sydney, takes you around for a guided tour, can you believe it?

Plus there is seven disks of Trott, Cook and Hussey batting, what more could you want.

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I am Sehwag

I don't often do extracts from others on this site, but when I read this story on India and Cricket by Wright Thompson, I just felt the need to show it to you. It's one of the best pieces I've ever read, on anything.

Since it is about 10,000 words, I won't put it all here, but if you like this, you should definitely read the rest.

I am Sehwag.

As Sachin grew up watching Sunil, Sehwag grew up watching Sachin. He saw Sachin's aggressive stance. He took what he saw, internalized it and spat out something new, something dangerous, even. There's a reason some old-school fans find him vulgar, and Deepak screams his name.

Where does something like that come from?

We leave Deepchand's house and drive toward the airport, past the endless storefronts featuring posters of bodybuilders. Strength is in. Out on the edges of Delhi, huge apartment buildings stretch to the horizon. Ugly concrete boxes, row after row of them. If Bruce Springsteen were from India, he'd sing about these streets. There are things being built here. There are things being torn down. A shepherd drives a flock of sheep down the road, turning them into a weedy lot, the proposed site of a cultural center. He wears a red turban, carries a staff.

Sehwag grew up in these badlands. He saw Sachin through the prism of the gritty world around him, looking past the grace to the power. Before Sehwag, Indian opening batsmen were supposed to take the shine off the ball. That's the cricket phrase. Take the shine off. Break it in. Wear down the bowler. Sehwag would take the shine off by going for fours and sixes. He got a reputation for dogging it on singles. And if Sachin gave birth to Sehwag, then a whole group of younger sluggers have taken it a step further. At least Sehwag still plays Test cricket. Some newer stars don't.

The Indian team is a blunt object, 15 men created not in the image of Tendulkar, exactly, but in the image of the new India that he both inspired and represented. Sachin carried the team alone in the '90s, but in the past decade a generation of hyperaggressive Indian stars came of age. Former captain Sourav Ganguly ripped off his shirt and twirled it above his head on the balcony of the uptight Lord's Cricket Ground in London. They are celebrities now. They frighten opposing bowlers. They themselves are not afraid. Two years ago, the team changed its jerseys from powder blue to a deeper color. It seemed less meek.

I am Sehwag.

"The aggression, the brashness," says Bhattacharya, the cricket writer turned novelist. "It's now something which Indians see that this is what we have to do to assert our place in the world. We've been f—ed over for thousands of years. Everyone has conquered us. Now we're finding our voice. We're the fastest-growing economy in the world. We are going to buy your companies. Our cricket team is like going to f—ing abuse you back, and we're going to win and we're going to shout in your face after we win. People love that."

We turn on Najafgarh Road. Shop workers give us directions. Everyone knows The Butcher. In the midst of this urban blight, there is a single planted field. This all used to be farmland. Now there are big piles of sand, the dust of something old waiting to become something new. White smoke rises from burning trash. Mechanics fixing motorcycles on the sidewalk tell us to take a right at the feeble old tree past the shrine to the monkey god.

This is Sehwag's street.

When his father died, the neighbors tell us, he moved his mother to a nice place in central Delhi. Other family members live in the house now. There, they point. That's his aunt. The home is down an alley, where Sehwag used to pound cricket balls. "He was always a long hitter," a man says.

The house has a big black gate and a bamboo fence to offer privacy for the patio. There's an orange lantern and a rooftop terrace. It's the middle-class home that Deepchand dreams of for his family. This is the home of a grain merchant who moved to the city from a village, wanting to build a new life.

Sachin is the son of a poet.

Sehwag is the son of man who sold wheat and rice.

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God hates the associates claims the ICC

The latest ICC press statement is rather clear:

"For such are false apostles,…. Such as those he had in view, who sought an occasion to depress him, and exalt themselves, and to get money from the ICC; these were "false apostles", or apostles falsely so called; they had the name, but not the thing; they were not called and sent forth by Haroon; they had not the grace of apostleship, or gifts qualifying them for that high office; the power and authority they exercised was usurped by them; they could not prove their mission by true and real miracles; nor had they any seals of their apostleship"

God hates the Associates according to the Westboro Baptist branch of the ICC.

Ofcourse, the ECB hate the Irish. They've gone all colonial on them.

Kicking them out of the world cup, then banning the players they helped turf from speaking up out their injustice.

These days it's called code of conduct. You may speak up, as long as we agree with what and how you say it.

I doubt Surrey, Glousteschire and the rest really care if their players are getting a little angry on twitter about a grave injustice, but the ECB is a fully fledged bureaucratic empire, they'll strangle you with red tape.

And we now know that all ten test nations have a dagger in the back of Ireland.

This democratic institution that no cricket fan votes on, yet all fund, didn't feel the need to vote Ireland out, they just all nodded their heads and it was done.

Ireland weren't one of the associates at the meeting, I'm sure Bermuda and Scotland fought hard for them though.

The important thing is the next tournament will be shorter, if they go ahdead with their 92′ style ten team tournament, with each team playing nine games in qualifying, plus two semi finals, and one final.

That makes the 2015 world cup potentially one match shorter than the 2011 world cup.

THAT MAKES THE 2015 WORLD CUP POTENTIALLY ONE MATCH SHORTER THAN THE 2011 WORLD CUP.

THAT MAKES THE 2015 WORLD CUP POTENTIALLY ONE MATCH SHORTER THAN THE 2011 WORLD CUP.

This actually makes it all easier to take.

All the test playing nations are equally to blame, they're all assholes, and the tournament has been shortened by a game.

If you still can't take all this, feel free to continue to contacting the ICC, enquiry@icc-cricket.com or @cricketicc.

Or their corporate partners, pepsi, hyundai, castrol, money gram, reliance or reebok. (Thanks Gary)

Then there is the online petition, which you should all sign and send to friends. (Thanks Tim)

Everyone who is on facebook should also like the Cricket Ireland facebook page.

And if you do facebook, twitter, blogs, myspace, bebo, or anything like that, pimp out all this information, it might all be in vain, but perhaps a viral campaign will annoy them, make them think straight, or just get them thinking about things that happen outside their business class lounges.

Also feel free to use this, it's ugly and badly made, but it does make a point.

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The ICC takes the world out of the World Cup: Fight for your right to Borren

The ICC is a group of upwardly static fools that make cricket administracrats look like an inbred cult that only feed on farm animals with manners. These people shouldn't be allowed to watch the cricket, let alone over officiate it.

They don't hate the associates, they hate cricket.

And if they thought that by banning associates the chance to even try to qualify for the next world cup everyone would roll over and play dead, then they are even more incompetent than every other stupid decision they've made shows them to be.

Only the ICC could ruin a tournament this well just because of a simple inability to plan it better.

The ICC is giving the ten test nations automatic entry into their invitational ODI tournament, even if they don't deserve it.

Ireland are the 10th ranked ODI side in the world. That isn't my ranking, or yours, or even Casey Kasem's, it's the ICC's.

The ICC thinks Ireland is the 10 best ODi side in world cricket, but they can't play in the world cup, they can't play off for the world cup, they probably can't even mention the word world cup without paying the ICC in the blood for a pre-teen virginal boy.

Ireland, The Netherlands, Kenya and Canada might as well quit ODI cricket for the next eight years, they clearly aren't wanted.

Why funnel money to them, why encourage them, why even call them cricketers.

Let's stop trying to grow the game, and just lock up shop.

I think we can cull it further though. Why do we need zimbabwe or bangladesh, and England has never even won it.

Pakistan without Imran are no hope, West Indies are finished, New Zealand just clog up the semis.

Australia, Sri Lanka and India all get in for winning in modern times, and South Africa get in just for laughs.

That seems as fair as what the ICC has done.

I'm not about to sit around while cricket turns itself back into an incestuous fascist dictatorship run by a bunch of semi professional failed wannabe politicians.

We've been there, it wasn't that much fun.

So here is the email address of the ICC, enquiry@icc-cricket.com it says it is for enquiries, so enquire why they thought it was a good idea to take the world out of the world cup.

Ofcourse, being the modern cutting edge dynamic enterprise they are, they also have a twitter feed. Their current question is what is the best game of the tournament. Tell them what you really think about them and what the best game of the tournament was including the associates.

You might be saying, contacting them will do no good, why bother.

That is fine, and you're more than welcome to do nothing at all, but if the ICC are going to be this arrogant and stupid, I think the least we can do as cricket fans is make sure how many of us actually feel this way.

Remember this, the next world cup may not have the world's tenth ranked side or Peter Borren.

So do whatever you want with the two links I gave you, but don't find yourself mumbling in a few years…

First they came for the associates and I did not speak out because I was not an associate.

Then they came for the Zimbabweans and I did not speak out because I was not a Zimbabwean.

Then they came for the Bangladeshis and I did not speak out because I was not a Bangladeshis.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

That is how Fascists work, and that is what this is. This may not be about saving your life, or the lives of jews, communists or trade unionists, but it is about saving a piece of your cricket.

Or at the very least, letting the bastards in charge know that you are angry.

Put on your best Borren face and get in touch with them.

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India is superpower

There are no more tracer bullets to dodge, the truth is now here.

India is superpower.

Frankly I am happy, as I have always assumed the Indian race was far superior to all other races.

All our problems are gone, let us bathe lustily in the knowledge that India owns us.

Now I can happily bow down before them and wait to meet their every command.

For too long I've waited for a powerful race to take over the world, and in India we have a beautiful race of people to enslave us all.

The things that I've always liked about our new global dictators include Sehwagology, Navjot's mouth, Kumble's poise, everything about Venkatapathy Raju, Bedi's anger, MS Gony's demeanour, VVS's hands and every single thing about Sachin.

You see, unlike some johnny come latelys who are just professing their love for India now they know they own the world, I've always loved them.

I don't have to prove my love, but if you buy a shirt as ugly as the one I wore here, it certainly means a lot.

My grovelling is pure and right.

India, in your hands the world will be shaped exactly the right way.

Your wrists will smash down that iron fist with elegance and class.

The world is yours Indian overlords, use it however you wish.

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Previously at the World Cup

India

Didn't bother fielding or bowling to defeat Bangladesh after Sehwagology opened the tournament. Had three weeks off, then made a shit load of runs against England, panicked, and then somehow ended with a tie. Beat Ireland without too much flare. Tried to smash the Dutch off the map, but had to settle for a five wicket win. Looked like they were going to embarrass South Africa before Steyn steam rolled them and South Africa's middle order got them over the line. Got bowled out by the sweet hips of Rampaul, but still easily beat a snoozing Windies. Kept Australia to a chaseable target, stumbled a touch before Shaun Tait brought them back to an easy win. Sehwag pushed them a few runs past a middle aged middle order of Pakistan with a bit of help from fielding.

Batting – Godzilla.

Bowling – Better than it looks.

Fielding – Better than Pakistan's.

Sri Lanka

Started with a bye against Canada. Lost to Pakistan without Malinga or a middle order. Stepped over the bloated corpse of Kenya. Was about to have their middle order tested by Australia when the rain came down. Did what they had to against Zimbabwe. Made a decent total against New Zealand and then destroyed them. Stopped England from ever getting a par total, and then had a party that only two were invited to with the batting. Had another game against New Zealand, this time it was closer, but they still got home with barely more than a trip.

Batting – Hard on top, soft in the middle, non-existent at the end.

Bowling – Predators.

Fielding – Good enough.

Who's favourite

It seems that India is, and with Mathews out, even more so.

Hospital watch

India

Nehra is out, just when he plays his best game. May not be a loss considering the pitch.

Gambhir is in, hamstrings are a risk, and he won't get a runner.

Sri Lanka

Murali is in, the man is moving like someone has nailed his feet to the ground, he can't get through the crease at all, he's still Murali though.

Mathews is out, was the one class ODI batsmen in their middle order, and his bowling could have meant that they played three spinners without too much fear.

What India must do to win

The reverse Shastri. They aren't perfect, and they probably know this, their last two games have been grinds rather than blasts, which is what suits them even better. There might be more pressure on them to win this than they can handle, but they have the batting to blow this bastard apart. What they can't do is expect the top two to do it, if everyone bats their ass off; Sri Lanka might not have a long enough order to match it.

What Sri Lanka must do to win

Tie the top order to the bedpost. They might not bat as deep as India, but their top four is pretty, and their bowlers are far more powerful than India's, so if they can squeeze out every run they can from their top order, that might be enough if their bowlers are on song. They also might not feel like they are worse than India, but can use the underdog nature and lack of pressure at the ground to throw all their shit on the wall.

Who will win

Sri Lanka, actually I have no real idea. One team has limited bowling and a great batting line up that can collapse. The other has a good bowling line up, a tasty top order and a line up from 5-11 that looks highly flammable. The reason I say Sri Lanka is that I picked them at the start of the tournament, and I think it would be nice if I was right.

Weird factoid about the final

Neither team can win, because old ancient cricket gods have decreed that you shouldn't pick a wicket keeper as captain.

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The final world cup vodcast sensation that is the chuck fleetwood smiths

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Make dot balls not war

This could have been the game to end all games.

But Pakistan were clever, whether it be the water, prisoners or Kashmir, they knew a polite loss was better for them.

Some will doubt this, they'll think that Pakistan were just not good enough.

The truth is the Pakistan government sent in two diplomats in their middle order, and they did their job to cool the contest down so much that by the end there would be no problems.

This was disappointing to me.

To the sickos who like that sort of peace and hand holding stuff, this was a victory.

To me this game lacked the sort of hyperbolic anger I was hoping for.

Sure Sehwag preached quickly, Sachin's innings was slapstick, and the Pakistan innings had a buried alive kind of feel, but it didn't feel that explosive.

For Indian fans, they don't care how they got there, as long as they do.

For Pakistan fans, they've got more important things to think about, like whether Rehman Malik is watching them.

Malik is watching me right now.

It's creepy.

He's far more aggressive than the Pakistani batsmen.

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