Jarrod Kimber's Blog, page 81

The ICC win even before the world cup

There's no need to imagine, the truth is out there.

The ICC have released a PDF that hundreds or thousands of people have read the exact text that the ICC were asked to cover up by the police.

The black bars on the PDF do nothing in the words of Rainier Wolfcastle.

How many well known organisations in the world could release a easily hackable PDF of information that the police asked them to withhold from the public and days later still have no mainstream press cover the story?

Blogs have covered the story.

Facebook has covered the story.

And twitter has covered the story.

Soon I expect a youtube video with someone explaining exactly how to do it for the few people who want to know what appears behind the black line and haven't seen it yet.

Personally, I don't really care about reading the blacked out or not blacked out areas, plus I'm in the UK so legally I'm not supposed to.

What bothers me is the police and ICC haven't said anything. Do the police even know that their case has been compromised?

Are the ICC going to release an apology, or even a press statement about this massive mistake? Have they changed the PDF to make it more secure?

Or are we all to close our eyes, put our fingers in our ears, and pretend it didn't happen?

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You know the cricket world cup is here when you see a viral with Trent Johnston in it

It's a little known fact that before Trent Johnston became Ireland's Chris Cairns he used to hustle indoor cricket facilities with his bowl the ball onto a coin trick.

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Imagine if the ICC made a major error

We all know that in this perfect world the ICC never make an error.

Imagine that this isn't a perfect world and that they did make errors.

Imagine that in this error riddled world the ICC had to release certain information via the internet.

Imagine that they might redact certain bits of this information for legal purposes.

Imagine that you could actually read behind these redactions if you knew how to work computers in a hot shot manner.

Imagine then how silly and stupid they would look if the information they were legally obliged to hide could be read.

Imagine the furore.

Not that any of this would happen.

The ICC is too smart for that.

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Inside the Actor's studio with Peter Siddle

If you want to see this play, the details are here.

If you want to see Peter Siddle recreate Dennis Hopper's Sicily monologue from True Romance, print out the script and give it to him.

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What's wrong with Australia

There is a great blog that doesn't get updated as much as it used to, but when I think of my favourite cricket writers I think of Stuart from History of Cricket.

Quite often when I'm on a podcast or doing test match sofa I'll use a story and when I think about it I've heard it first on History of Cricket.

After the Ashes he wrote a piece on what is wrong with Australian cricket.

After the Ashes the last thing I wanted to do was read what someone else had written about a series and system I had just lived, plus I had a book to write.

The history of cricket tab remained open because I knew I would get to it eventually.

Last night I read it, and while it is far from a complete history of the recent Australian fuck ups (Stuart probably doesn't have time for that), it is a thorough examination of what is wrong from every level of Australian cricket.

I don't agree with all of it, but I agree with it more than I would with almost anything else and I don't think you'll get many better researched or clearer written pieces on how Australia went wrong. I don't care who writes it.

My favourite section is on the fans:

It was amusing to read comments from current and former players, as well as support staff and Cricket Australia, criticizing the fans' reaction to Australia's poor performances. Evidently, the fans are meant to never voice their disapproval when things are going wrong. Instead, they are just meant to blindly support the national side, regardless of how they are going. While supporters should remain loyal to their side, it doesn't mean that they shouldn't recognise obvious problems. True supporters of Australian cricket need to make sure that they continue to loudly voice their disapproval of the current system that needs overhauling. Otherwise, no changes will be made, the slide down the rankings will continue, and Cricket Australia will ultimately face ever more problems in attracting the 'fair weather fans' away from the rival football codes.

Stuart covers the media, players, coaching, CA and selectors.  Unlike me he never gets angry or pissy, and never makes cheap jokes about Michael Beer getting picked from a bus station.

If you're interested in Australian cricket, I'd suggest it is a must read.

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Out of the Ashes competition

I'm still getting entires to the competition, but it is over.

My ten DVDs haven been given away.

I am a giving man, so I'll tell you about the King's competition.

The sleeker sexier 2.0 King cricket is also giving away 10 copies of the DVD for those who follow these instructions:

50 words on how you'd get any non-Test playing nation to the 2015 World Cup
Send your entry to king@kingcricket.co.uk
Last day for entry

So, if you still want a DVD, but had a shit cricket origin story, get over to king cricket and work it out.

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Out of the Ashes: Cricket Origin stories

In honour of Taj Malik, cricket and Out of the Ashes, here is a few cricket origin stories for you. These are the competition winners each of them owning a copy of Out of the Ashes on DVD.

Andrew Lunn:

I was first introduced to cricket by my Dad. He would sit there for hours watching cricket on the BBC and I never took much interest at first. In fact, at first, it bored the hell out of me and I could not understand his fascination. As soon as he stuck it on I would just go and kick a ball about in the garden.

Anyway because I could see how much it delighted him to watch cricket, my curiosity was aroused and I forced myself to sit there and watch it with him. At first maybe I was just enjoying it because he was enjoying it but slowly over time, maybe many months, I started to pick up on the vagaries and wonder of the sport. Discussions of short legs and silly mid off's were the spark in my young mind to make me think there was a lot more to this sport than meets they eye. I just had to know more.

One of my earliest cricketing memories was staying up late to watch the Ashes down under with my Dad. It was about 11pm and the hype had been building all day, because England were almost in a strong position and Gooch was at the wicket. My Dad and I spent all day wondering if Gooch would take the Aussies apart. Anyway 12 o' clock arrived and Craig McDermott with his war paint on came steaming in. He bowled a full toss! Go on Goochie, smack it for six! Instead he smacked it straight back to McDermott for a caught and bowled. Classic Moment! From that moment on and for the next ten or so years I got used to fearing the hell out of the Aussies. They were absolutely awesome but I didn't care. In fact part of me almost revelled in their glory. What other sport can make the viewer admire the opposition in such a way.

Needless to say I have been hooked ever since. Cheers Dad!

The Alt Cricket Almanack:

Ravi Shastri introduced me to cricket. I met him when I was 10 years old. He told me: "If cricket is the earth, then I am your sun."  Rameez Raja appeared from the shadows, brushed Shastri aside and said: "Yes son, and I am your moon." They then both proceeded to explain to me the vagaries of cricket. I asked them about the LBW law, but they just said it was so complicated, that they'd been in the game for 20 years and even they didn't understand.  So they called in Rudi Koertzen and Daryl Harper. They proceeded to argue that sometimes it was just 'necessary' to give a batsman out, even when the laws would advise otherwise. The conversation descended into an argument about racism, cheating, and ice cream. Towards the denouement, an elderly lady with a delightful northern accent interrupted proceedings. She brought out a tray, with a steaming pot of tea and home-made strawberry jam scones.  Everybody shut the fuck up, looked at each other, and proceeded to scoff. It's irrelevant that Harper and Koertzen refused to share the same pot of tea as the other two. On that day, I experienced cricket's extremist tokenism, made-up rules and awesome teas. I was sold.

Jeffdreadnought :

Introduced by a teacher called Johnson

Who always took nets with his pads on

He coached a mean drive

But mainly took pride

In a craftily found single run

Abhishek Phadnis:

Javed chacha, our geriatric Hyderabadi manservant (and the only bowIer I ever hit for six. He was eighty-four at the time and the boundary was nineteen yards).  A devoted fan of food, Venkatapathy Raju (yes, parochialism is blind, tone-deaf and retarded) and Indian cricket, in that order, chacha declared Raju's omission from the Indian team a CIA conspiracy and announced he'd fast until Raju was reinstated. He was discovered discreetly tucking into a kebab six minutes later.

Ben Tumilty:

My teacher introduced me when he found out I was a leftie, as he needed an 'awkward' bowler, which I presumed meant 'shite'. I picked it up from there, yet my batting is probably more 'awkward' than my bowling nowadays… Yup, I'm still shite.

James Frost:

I was introduced to cricket by Steve Harmison. Before that 7-12, english cricket was just bad news in sports pages and a cursory glance at Middlesex results (inevitably more bad news). Since that spell of bowling I've been hooked – I just watched the entire Pakistan – NZ ODI series!

Gareth Davies:

Mike Lloyd when I was ten. In the cricketing hotbed of South West Wales. I was immediately introduced to the concepts of "joining the dots" and "pre-ssure, pre-ssure!" He'd coach the under-everythings 4 nights a week and play on Saturdays and Sundays. He's still miles, miles better than me. LAAARVELY!!!

Kartik Lotlikar:

My dad introduced me to cricket during the 1996 cricket world cup. The cable television that my brother and I had for so long begged for suddenly became a reality and we were soon finding that supersport was a far better channel than the cartoon network. The rest is history…

Mitch Hume:

Mum was born with a spinal problem where two of her cervical vertebrae were fused together, meaning she was hospitalised and had very limited movement until the age of 10. She would often lie immobile in bed and pass the time by listening to cricket on the radio. Surgery partially rectified her mobility issues, but she maintained a love of cricket which I inherited at a very early age. Due to her back problems she could never throw overarm, but she keenly became my first fielding coach and would spend hours using freakish wrist dexterity to flick a ball underarm everywhere in our backyard for me to take those speccy catches every 8 year old kid loves to try.  As a result I became a reasonable wicketkeeper, but (possibly, most likely not) due to my coach's inability to bowl, crap batsman. It mattered little – mum was always my number one fan, and could tell me exactly what happened after attending every game of junior cricket as a scorer, and a good deal of senior cricket too, often to my teenage embarrassment. She's still turning up, and I'm 24, but now I appreciate it a lot more.

Eddie Hunter-Higgins:

My brother (nine years older than me) was the one who introduced me to cricket.He would thrash me everywhere goading me for poor fielding and leg side balls. When I occasionally got to bat he would bowl vicious bouncers at me and use a ball that was half burnt to swing more. But still I loved every minute of it trying to best him and now I am a complete cricket fanatic watching every minute of cricket that I can and follow it all over the world.

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Out of the ashes review and competition

Cricket blogging is a largely solitary experience. It's usually me in a dank corner mumbling to myself "bloddy Hauritz, I'll get him, I'll win".

Then every now and then, people contact you.  Mostly it's a company who are offering you something vaguely cricket related that your readers will love, but just once it was the director of a cricket film.

I was given the film 'Out of the Ashes' not long after i'd seen fire in babylon, but due to the actual Ashes, it just travelled around Australia with me.  One one night back at my parents place, I told my mum about it, and she demanded I put it on.

My mum aint no cricket nut, her trip to the boxing day test this year was her first test match to the G since she used to go to perve on DK Lillee's chest.

She loved this film. She was cheering, laughing and crying as these kids try and make in in the world of sport and are utterly unsuccessful at picking up in Jersey. I now think she has a crush On Taj Malik, the coach.

I loved it too.  That two cricket documentaries like this and fire in babylon can exist at once should encourage people with money to fork it over for more cricket films, because they are clever, well made, inspiring tales that are entertaining to watch even to a casual cricket fan.

Cricket boards try to get new followers in with stupid cheerleaders, fireworks and rubbish websites, but a great film can convert someone just as well, is often cheaper to make and will last a lot longer than fireworks.

In this film you aren't following Afghanistani cricketers, you're following cricketers.  It doesn't matter where they come from, as important as that might be, these are just a bunch of young out of their environment cricketers who are trying to come together as a team.

Their coach, Taj Malik, is someone from every cricket club in the world.  The man who will stand on the street and teach two kids the game just because he loves it.  To me he is cricket. He is everything that is great about the game. And if I ever were to meet Tak Malik in the street, I think I'd just hug him for as long as I could before he wriggled away and ran.

I could give this film a real review.  Could talk about the excellent pacing, amazing camera work, classy editing and amazing story, but I won't, I'll just say this, if you ever find yourself in a situation where cricket pisses you off, buy, rent or steal this DVD, because if this can't restore your faith in cricket, nothing can.

Cricket With Balls has managed to steal 10 copies of this film from the distributors while they weren't looking. They can only be posted in the UK, but if you want one, email me at answers@cricketwithballs.com with the name and a brief story (50 words or less) of the person who introduced you to cricket. My ten favourite will get the DVDs and I'll post your words up here.

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A ODI recreated in blutack

Some of you may remember when the great AYALAC used to recreated matches with blutack, no, well here is his latest work via TWC.

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Uncovered headlines for twitter cricket stories

It seems that Jesse Ryder showing his distaste for being run out is a story in the Kiwi press.

I can understand, it's always big news when a batsmen is upset at being run out and tells people.

But twitter has so much more to give.  There are so many stories out there that deserve hours of press coverage, people looking over them with a fine tooth comb.

These are tweets from the last few days that should be made into stories.

Scott Styris marathon sex innings (tweeted by @NickyStyris)

@ well my man weighs 170lbs and our sessions last longer than an hour so what are you talking about?

David Warner and Brett Geeves cock scandal (tweeted by @Davidwarner31)

@brettygeevs don't know what kids would b following u but remember what u said to hughy that's right, lucky u were not playing, cock

Shield cricketers weaken Australian cricket with stupid tweets (@cphilipson27)

@13dsmith extra time migaloo

Stuart Broad loves shit films (tweeted by @stuartbroad8)

Just watched RocknRolla. Love that film. What happened to the sequel?! They even promise it at the end.

Flintoff's sexual relationship with Ravi (tweeted by @flintoff11)

life isn't the same without him ! By Ravi we love you http://yfrog.com/gy67cslj

What a weekend we had together nobody can take away the memories !http://yfrog.com/gz4omfj

Who will I watch dvd's with now ! I miss you Ravi http://yfrog.com/gye24ej

The last Ravi picture and my favourite , sweet dreams little fella , missing you already ! http://yfrog.com/h4s0fej

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