The biggest sporting event on dafyyd’s calendar is of course the Ashes between Australia and Wales. and England. dafyyd is stoked that the Ashes are to be played in Cardiff this time, meaning he can go to a home game without having to visit another country for the first time in his life. dafyyd got tickets to all 5 days through his local cricket club, and can’t wait for the series to kick off. He hopes the test will last into the 5th day as he would love for nothing more than to celebrate his 20th birthday with a victory.

It pains dafyyd to reflect on his life as a Welsh cricket supporter, as he realises all to quickly his team have only held the most coveted of trophies for merely 462 days of his lifetime. Upon reaching his 20th birthday, that will be just 6.33% of his entire lifetime, which dafyyd realises all too well that in a two horse race that alternates home ground advantage, is a pretty písspoor effort.

He tries not to over analyse this, however sometimes he gives in to temptation and tries to aggregate it out over his lifetime. He thinks, what if we could have held the Ashes on the first Sunday and Monday of every month for my whole life, apart from December. That would have been sweet.

The happiest moment in dafyyd’s life was of course back in 2005, when England and Wales regained the Ashes for the first time in his life. He promptly joined the facebook fangroup for Aleem Dar, to show his appreciation for the Martyn, Katich and Kasprowicz dismissals at Trent Bridge, and booked himself a train ticket to London to watch the triumphant open topped bus through the city. Oh the happy memories.

Today’s news that The Wisden Cricketer are looking to interview fans just like dafyyd has made him very excited, as like many fans in that part of the world he has ignored the 2006 series and would like to relive past glory when, for 462 very very happy days, they held the trophy. Bravo dafyyd.

Ranga and Proud

Western Australia are awfully píssed off and seeking compensation after the original club championship was postponed due to men with guns. It’s a lot of cash they’re missing out on, and I feel a nice gesture would be for NSW Cricket to buy them a meaningful gift to ease the pain, perhaps a bronze statue of Simon Katich to stick up in the WACA headquarters..

You can bet the team we send to compete in India includes some names that have until this point played no part in the tournament such as Michael Clarke, Phil Jaques, Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Brad Haddin. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as any NSW cricketer will know it’s the privilege and also the curse of representing the state that breeds the big names.

I’ve put together a short synopsis of the 5 matches that have earnt us entry into the World Club Championship, and awarded 3-2-1–1 ratings as I feel they’re warranted.

Game 1 vs Queensland in Brisbane

Scorecard
A good bowling effort led by Doug Bollinger‘s 3/22 and well assisted by Moises Henriques 2/26 restricted Queensland early on, however Beau Casson 0/37 and Mark Cameron 0/34 got spanked allowing the Bulls to amass to 161. Thanks to opening batsman Phillip Hughes scoring 80(20) the total was chased down with 2 balls to spare.

Moses’ Player 3-2-1–1 Ratings
3 Doug Bollinger
2 Phillip Hughes
1 Moises Henriques
-1 Beau Casson

Game 2 vs Western Australia in Homebush, Sydney

Scorecard
Tight bowling by Aaron Heal and Marcus North restricted NSW to 6/148 off 20 overs. 18 year old newcomer Stephen Smith was my pick of the batsmen with 34*(21), Dave Warner 28(22) scored freely early on, while Phillip Hughes 35(34) and Dominic Thornley 23(24) got starts but failed to up the tempo sufficiently against WA’s slower bowlers Marcus North 1/27(4) and Aaron Heal 0/22(4).
Nathan Bracken 2/24 was the pick of the bowlers, Dominic Thornley, Stephen Smith and Moises Henriques generally restricted WA to the required rate of 6-7 rpo, while Beau Casson was again spanked leaking 0/26 off his two overs which gave WA the win and led to his being dropped for the remainder of the comp.

Moses’ Player 3-2-1–1 Ratings
3 Stephen Smith
2 Nathan Bracken
1 Dave Warner
-1 Beau Casson

Game 3 vs South Australia in Adelaide

Scorecard
A solid batting performance by South Australia saw all of their batsmen scoring at 6.5 to 8.7 rpo, however they lacked one batsman to deliver the killer punch in their accumulation of 160 runs.
Mark Cameron was tidy with 1/22, Thornley 1/27(3) applied the brakes nicely and Aaron Bird 3/35 contributed vital top order wickets while leaking runs. Nathan Bracken 3/38 gets the bogey rating despite 3 late wickets saving his figures from absolute embarrassment.
Dave Warner 35(35) got the Blues response off to an absolute flyer, nicely assisted by pedestrian Phillip Hughes 30(29) and Dominic Thornley 28(18)

Moses’ Player 3-2-1–1 Ratings
3 Dave Warner
2 Dominic Thornley
1 Mark Cameron
-1 Nathan Bracken

Game 4 vs Tasmania in Homebush, Sydney

Scorecard
A destructive top 3 saw the Tassie Tigers belt 194 thanks to Lockyear 51(29), Dighton 43(29) and Birt 44(17). Dominic Thornley 0/22 was pick of the NSW bowlers with his 4 overs going for less than Stephen Smith’s 1 over 0/23. Doug Bollinger while moderately expensive took the essential wickets of Dighton and Birt, thus keeping the Tigers total below 200.
The destructive form of Dave Warner had him off to play South Africa, allowing the return of Simon Katich 18(12) and despite a solid opening stand with Moises Henriques 42(25) the fireworks were absent down the order and 166 was all we could muster.

Moses’ Player 3-2-1–1 Ratings
3 Dominic Thornley
2 Moises Henriques
1 Doug Bollinger
-1 Stephen Smith

Game 5 vs Victoria at Homebush, Sydney

Scorecard
The penultimate match, NSW entered this 4th on the table with nothing to lose. A brutal bowling spell by dirty Dirk Nannes 4/11(4) hit the Blues hard early on, with Henriques 1(3), Smith 4(6) and Rohrer 7(8) his early victims. O’Keefe 6(6) fell to a run out and only opener Simon Katich 35(26) was able to resist the dark side of Dirk Nannes. Dominic Thornley 36*(36) came out in the 4th over with the score at 4/39 and steadied the ship, batting with the tail and taking the Blues to a depressingly low 128.
Douggy Bollinger 0/12 applied the pressure with some superb tight swing bowling, and Mark Cameron 1/17 kept the other almost as tight. Falling behind the run rate the Victorians shat themselves, giving up 5 run-outs, one each to Cameron, O’Keefe, Rohrer, Bollinger and Smith. I’ll give Simon Katich some credit for these as captain he would have been setting the fields. Victorian captain and serial whinger Brad Hodge summed it up nicely with “It’s a script on how to stuff up a cricket game”. Bravo.
A wonderful team effort from the Blues who now book their tickets to India, there is no villain from this match.

Moses’ Player 3-2-1–1 Ratings
3 Simon Katich
2 Doug Bollinger
1 Dominic Thornley
-1 None

Leaderboard

At the end of the regular season, the Moses’ MVP stands as follows:

6 Dominic Thornley
6 Doug Bollinger
4 Dave Warner
3 Moises Henriques
3 Simon Katich
2 Phillip Hughes
2 Stephen Smith
1 Mark Cameron
1 Nathan Bracken
-2 Beau Casson

Shot Dave

Not to say Dave hasn’t earnt this selection, his form in the shorter versions of he game is undeniable.

In late November he broke the NSW One Day record in 34.1 overs by hitting 165* (112) That innings included 19 fours and 9 sixes against the (then) table topping Tasmanian attack. One can only speculate how many he would have scored had we batted first!

This week he took apart a South Australian attack that included a devastating Shaun Tait and Pakistani import Sohail Tanvir with 65(35). He did have some luck, playing on to be bowled by Tait off a no-ball then smashing the free hit over mid-on for one of his 7 fours. Of the 4 sixes Dave hit the highlight was a Tait delivery which he dispatched onto the roof of the Adelaide Oval!

He started the match with that stupid double sided T20 specialist bat, then changed it after a few overs for a real lump of willow.

He’s also a handy slow bowling option, capable of ripping leggies and tight offies depending on his mood. So congrats on the selection Dave, and it’s good to see we are still breeding the big names.

NoteClick on the thumbnails to see the full pictures of these WAGs

Peach or Pie?

I’ve always loved Ashley Giles as an English bowler, he was so brilliantly useless and provided much glorious banter at various Ashes Tests over the years. “Hey Ashley, bowl the one that goes straight the other way” “Show us your googly” and “Nice Doosra” were all heard whenever the wheelie bin threw the arm over as Shane Warne spun our way to yet another Baggy Green victory.

Following upon Perth it was our view that we really did need to be maintaining more pressure through the spin bowling at one end, so we could use the fast bowlers in shorter spells

This quote from chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch makes very little sense to me. If we truly wanted a spinner to maintain the pressure, surely Ponting could have given Andrew Symonds a single over during the 414 run chase where his off-spinners may well have fulfilled that role. He’s still an all rounder right?

Krejza has a genuine wicket taking ability. It was just two tests ago that Krejza took 12 of the finest spin bowling players around. One should also note that he took as many wickets as both Lee and Siddle at the pace friendly WACA.

I’ve done a Peach/Pie analysis (c) of his bowling from the cricinfo commentary, whereby I identify each delivery as either a Peach, a Pie, or a “Pressure Ball”.

1st Innings Analysis

25 Overs, 151 Balls, 1 Wicket, 102 runs
12 Peaches, 16 Pies, 124 Meh
Peach to Pie ratio: 11/16
Peaches per over: 12/25 = 0.48
Pies per over: 16/25 = 0.64
Pie-Runs: 54
Average Pie Punishment: 54/16 = 3.375

Looking at the distribution of his balls it can been seen that Jason’s 1st Innings performance started very strongly and fell away after his 10th over (37th of the Innings). This period of bowling co-incides with the start of a 124 run partnership between Kalls and DeVilliers. Many factors could explain the drop in performance, among them Krejza’s fitness and Pontings fields/instructions.

2nd Innings Analysis

24 Overs, 144 Balls, 0 Wickets, 102 runs
15 Peaches, 7 Pies, 122 “Pressure” Balls
Peach to Pie ratio: 15/7
Peaches per over: 15/24 = 0.625
Pies per over: 7/24 = 0.29
Pie-Runs: 20
Average Pie Punishment: 20/7 = 2.88

From my analysis he bowled markedly better in the second innings, this being the innings where South Africa scored 414 and Krejza took the fall for releasing pressure. In fairness to Kreyza I feel that one pie every third over is quite acceptable for an attacking spinner, especially with recent history telling a story of Macgilla who was a renounded pie chucker but so long as he took wickets no-one seemed to care too much.

Cutting back on the pies is something he’ll need to work on, but sending him back to shield with the message to trade in some peaches for accuracy and Gilesness is not the message we want to be sending.

The Pies and Peaches

Peaches

10.3 Krejza to Smith, no run, Krejza forces the false shot from Smith, he tried to close the face of the bat too early to play on the leg side but was beaten by the flight and got a leading edge towards the off side
10.4 Krejza to Smith, no run, loud shout for lbw as Smith strides forward to defend and gets hit on the pad, not out says Aleem Dar, that was pretty close but Smith was a long way forward
10.6 Krejza to Amla, no run, good ball! Amla goes back to defend but gets an inside edge on to the pad, Krejza’s first Test over in Australia is a good one
25.1 Krejza to Smith, no run, turn and bounce! Smith moves back and plays an unconvincing shot, he could have easily edged that to slip
29.6 Krejza to Smith, no run, Smith drives away from his body at one that spins away from him and gets an outside edge behind point
31.1 Krejza to Amla, OUT, bowled him! Lovely ball! Krejza loops the ball up outside off stump, drawing Amla forward with the flight, he beats the batsman in the air, pitches the ball outside off stump and spins it through the bat pad gap as Amla tries to whip it on the leg side, that turned a long way to hit the stumps
31.6 Krejza to Kallis, 1 run, that’s mighty close! Krejza gives the ball air outside off stump, Kallis sees the width and tries to play the big cover drive, the ball dips on him and spins into him, it hits the inside edge and whizzes past his stumps
33.3 Krejza to Kallis, no run, Kallis moves back and across to work the ball on the leg side but misses and gets hit on the pad, the impact was outside off stump
33.4 Krejza to Kallis, no run, huge appeal for the catch at slip, Kallis got down on one knee to sweep but the ball lobbed off the forearm towards Hayden at first slip, the Australians thought it was off the glove
35.6 Krejza to de Villiers, no run, Krejza thinks he has a case for lbw after de Villiers pads up to one outside off stump, Asoka de Silva disagrees
37.3 Krejza to Kallis, no run, Kallis moves back and across outside the line of off stump and tries to play the ball on the leg side, he misses and gets hit on the pad

Pies

25.5 Krejza to Smith, FOUR, Smith gets down on one knee and sweeps Krejza against the turn towards the square leg boundary, he hit that with a lot of power
27.2 Krejza to Smith, FOUR, too short outside off stump, Smith waits and waits before cutting the ball hard through point, Hussey sprints after it but even his desperate dive can’t stop the four
27.5 Krejza to Smith, FOUR, that’s another long hop from Krejza, Smith moves back and pulls the ball from outside off stump between midwicket and mid-on for four more
35.1 Krejza to Kallis, 2 runs, Kallis leans forward to drive a low full toss through point, Kallis runs the second to get back on strike
37.5 Krejza to Kallis, FOUR, that’s a freebie, a nice and friendly full toss and Kallis capitalises by lofting down the ground for four, Krejza’s visibly annoyed with himself
39.3 Krejza to Kallis, FOUR, that’s too short outside off stump, Kallis is quick to move on to the back foot and cut the ball through cover point for four
41.1 Krejza to de Villiers, 2 runs, too short from Krejza and de Villiers moves across his stumps and pulls to deep square leg
41.4 Krejza to de Villiers, SIX, that’s an awesome shot! de Villiers steps out of his crease, gets to the pitch of the ball, swings his bat like a golf club, and smashes the ball with the turn over the deep midwicket boundary
43.6 Krejza to Kallis, FOUR, that’s a terrible long hop outside leg stump, Kallis gets inside the line and pulls towards the long leg boundary
53.4 Krejza to de Villiers, FOUR, that’s too short again from Krejza and de Villiers moves back and across and pulls the ball firmly to the deep
55.4 Krejza to de Villiers, FOUR, another long-hop, and de Villiers dismisses it towards the deep midwicket boundary with a pull off the back foot, Krejza bowls a long-hop every once in a while
57.2 Krejza to de Villiers, 1 run, that’s a full toss on middle stump and de Villiers swats it towards wide long-on
57.3 Krejza to Kallis, no run, Kallis moves back in his crease and defends a flighted delivery towards leg slip
57.4 Krejza to Kallis, 1 run, that’s too short again and Kallis has the time to move back and work the ball past the man at leg slip
59.6 Krejza to Kallis, SIX, that’s one of the longest long hops of the day, Kallis waited an age for the ball to get to him, he got under it and heaved it over the deep midwicket boundary, that ball deserved nothing less, even Chris Martin might have fancied his chances against that
69.1 Krejza to Kallis, FOUR, South Africa haven’t hit a boundary in a while so Krejza gives Kallis a full toss outside off stump, Kallis responds with a powerful cover drive for four

2nd Innings

Peaches

20.1 Krejza to Smith, no run, flighted on leg stump, flicked away towards a close in catcher on the on side
20.6 Krejza to Smith, no run, turn and bounce for Krejza! He drifts the ball into the left-hander from round the wicket and spins it away from the outside edge of Smith’s forward push
24.1 Krejza to Smith, FOUR, Smith moves back towards leg to make room and cuts the offbreak fine past the fielder at slip, that’s a risky shot but he gets four for it
28.4 Krejza to Smith, 2 runs, Dangerous shot, Smith gets down on one knee and sweeps a ball from off and middle towards long leg, he brings up 50 with that shot, well played! South Africa need much more from him though
38.3 Krejza to Smith, no run, Smith moves deep in his crease and plays the ball, he misses and is hit on the pad, Krejza appeals but that also pitched outside leg stump
40.6 Krejza to Smith, no run, oh brilliant! Krejza draws Smith forward and drifts the ball into him, Smith tries to defend but the ball beats him in flight and spins past the outside edge
91.1 Krejza to Duminy, no run, loud appeal for lbw! Krejza tosses it up outside off stump and Duminy strides forward to defend, he was a long way forward when the ball hit pad
93.2 Krejza to Duminy, no run, Krejza tosses it up on leg and spins it across the left-hander, Duminy goes to defend but the ball hits the pad and lobs towards the off side
95.1 Krejza to de Villiers, FOUR, caught? No it’s past Lee! de Villiers charges and smashes Krejza flat towards mid-on, he hit that extremely hard and Lee didn’t time his jump, the ball flew over his head, tough chance
95.2 Krejza to de Villiers, 1 run, de Villiers comes out of his crease and defends, the ball bounces off his bat behind him and Haddin comes forward and flicks the ball back at the stumps, he concedes an overthrow but it was worth a rty
97.1 Krejza to de Villiers, no run, Krejza spins the ball into the right-hander from outside off, de Villiers was caught on the crease as he tried to defend, he played the ball towards short leg
97.6 Krejza to de Villiers, no run, that nearly rolled back on to the stumps, de Villiers moved forward to defend and didn’t do a very good job of it
99.1 Krejza to de Villiers, no run, de Villiers gets down on one knee to sweep but gets on the pad, Krejza appeals but the impact was outside off
106.1 Krejza to Duminy, no run, nice flight and dip from Krejza, Duminy moves forward and defends
106.2 Krejza to Duminy, no run, Duminy defends on the front foot, shouts of “catch!” as the ball falls towards the short leg region

Pies

26.4 Krejza to Smith, 2 runs, full toss on middle and leg, driven wide of midwicket for a couple
30.2 Krejza to Amla, 1 run, too short from Krejza and Amla moves back to play the ball behind square
36.2 Krejza to Smith, FOUR, that’s a dreadful long hop and Smith helps himself, he moves back and pulls the ball powerfully along the ground for four
62.1 Krejza to Kallis, FOUR, Kallis is on fire at the end of the day! Krejza gives him a long hop and Kallis rocks back to pull the ball towards the wide long-on boundary, South Africa now need less than 200
62.2 Krejza to Kallis, FOUR, full toss outside off stump and Kallis moves forward and drives powerfully through cover for four, what’s going on? Kallis has exploded, he’s decided to hurt Siddle and Krejza for the short-ball treatment given to him by Lee and Johnson
91.6 Krejza to Duminy, 1 run, that’s short and wide outside off stump, Duminy moves back and cuts the ball towards cover where Hussey mis-fields
104.4 Krejza to Duminy, no run, Krejza drops short outside off stump and Duminy uses the width to cut towards point where Hussey fields
106.3 Krejza to Duminy, FOUR, JP Duminy! He moves back and takes advantage of the short length by cutting the ball powerfully through point for four

The guy is stock standard left-arm orthodox bowler, and from watching him I can’t help but feel he does not deserve to carry the scalps of the best players of spin in the modern game, such as

• K Pietersen (twice), once on 94
• V Sehwag (twice)
• S Ganguly
• Inzamam-ul-Haq
• VVS Laxman
• MS Dhoni
• CH Gayle
• SR Tendulkar
• Yuvraj Singh
• MJ Clarke
• A Symonds

Some bloke on the radio yesterday presented a workable theory on the Harris Factor. Apparently the guy is a complete wánker. Whether he learnt this strategy from Harbajahn or is a total knob jockey at heart I’m not sure, but giving the ball to the biggest prick in the team and letting him loose seems to be reaping dividends.

Mind you, it’s no small feat out-árseholing Smith, Kallis, and Nel, but apparently it’s his unique combination of lacking variation and skill mixed with his constant appeals as if to suggest to the batsmen that he could get you out at any time that has the worlds best batsmen drowning in honey.

His stats back this up as well, with 70% of his victims being caught in the field believing that they could hit this annoying piece of saffa shít into next week.

Paul Harris method of dismissal

All up there’s 8 votes this round, and the images are in the same order as the poll choices. You can hover your mouse over the pictures to see the names, and can also click the thumbnails for the full size and un-cropped picture to open in a new window.

Ricky losing Gillies trophy

10. Losing the toss
I’d love to see some stats on how many teams have won in India with a first innings defecit. Batting first is key and each test was controlled by the opening innigns. Losing 3 tosses did put us at a dis-advantage, but we could have overcome this.

9. Stupid and thoughtless Dismissals
If you hit the ball directly to mid-on and run you deserve an uppercut. There really is no excuse for this in test cricket, and Hayden, Ponting and Hussey are all guilty as charged in the 4th test. Other memorable brain farts go to the collapse in Mohail that set up India for a win, some of Haddin’s half-hearted spoon’s directly to fielders, and Clarke’s last over lapses.

8. Team Unity
Ponting’s on field spat with Lee in Mohali was the lowest point of the tour. It sent out a message of dis-unity, bad communication, and a team in crisis. These disputes no doubt often happen when touring, but for fúcks sake keep them behind closed doors.

8. Lacking the killer instinct in Bangaluru
Our run rate was simply too slow in the first test, 2.86 in the first innings was below par but the real lack of intent was blocking out Kumble at the end of Day 4. The pre-declaration slog has been sorely missing from this current baggy green squad, oh how I miss thee. The lack of urgency in the first test led to us running out of time with bad light when we could well have been leading 1-0 going to Mohali.

7. the SG Ball
Despite having Troy Cooley who is widely regarded as the best bowling coach in the business, our bowlers didn’t get the SG Ball to talk until Watson and Krejza achieved enlightenment in the 4th Test. Brendan Julian in an interview with Watson about the Indians bowling the new ball cross-seam after Day 4 Test 1, yet at the end of Test 2 the word was we didn’t realise what they were doing.

6. Ordinary fielding
All the direct hits we are used to have gone fishing. Roy, while missed with bat and ball, it is his presence in the field who’se abscence is hurting us most.

5. The spinner
Cameron White is not a Test standard wicket taking bowler. If we were after a part timer, David Hussey or Shaun Marsh would have been worth a nod, but we already have Shane Watson and Michael Clarke as all rounders. The team was never in need of a number 8 batsman. We needed a spinner, or at least someone who had the potential to become a spinner. The selection of Krejza was dictated by no-one else being in the squad, and turned out brilliantly. However, when McGain went home injured we should have called up another spinner to give us more options. Why didn’t we take 5 spinners over if only to get them some experience? We could probably lend them out to Indian domestic teams then pick whoever is performing.

4. Impotent bowling plans
The Mohali pitch was a road when we bowled and a minefield when we batted, then reverted to a road, then back to a minefield. The Indian bowlers to their credit got movement in the air and off the deck while our boys broke their backs bowling uphill into the wind.

3. Not bowling Simon Katich
Why the hell did Rick only bowl Katich in the third test? In the 40 odd overs of spin on Day 5 of the 1st test Katto could well have made the breakthrough. In the second test our attack was impotent as we waited patiently for Anil to declare, still no Katto. In the third test he finally got a shot and looked dangerous from the first ball. He bought some much needed aggression to the bowling crease and had to be seperated from Gambhir by Billy, then dismissed Ganguly. Perhaps the biggest compliment of all was VVS failing to pick his pearler of an arm-ball. So having finally tried Katich, seen him bowl well in Indian conditions, Rick forgets all about it and gives him just 3 tidy overs in the 1st innings in Nagpur on a wicket on which the Off-Spinners were lethal, surely the left-arm chinaman was worth a bit more of a spell?

2. Stars not firing
An ordinary series from Lee who through a hand injury, food poisoning and generally bad form picked up 8 wickets at 61. Ponting started with 123 then went on to score 143 in his next 6 appearances. Hayden copped some ordinary Rauf’s early on but in truth didn’t wake up until the final innings of the series, by which time Ponting had already surrendered.

1. Píss Poor Captaincy
Ponting had a very poor series in many respects, none more so than after Tea on Day 4. There’s been suggestions of match fixing, and lets be honest, that makes more sense than any of his explanations for taking the foot off. Time for him to concentrate on his batting, give the captaincy to Clarke, Hussey, or…. Warne – he’d probably come back to be captain, especially with an Ashes Series coming up.

Ponting changing his field, again

Our over rate is a national disgrace. Ricky threw a test match in order to play New Zealand, apparently out of his love of playing for Australia. I’ve already had my say on that, now I’m going to say some more!

Ponting was fined 20% and the remainder of the team 10% of their match fees, which equates to roughly 0.05% of their annual IPL cashcow. But the really big loss was the Border-Gavaskar trophy which at tea yesterday we were a good chance to retain. I’ve read that a suspension for Ricky was not even on the table, a captain needs to be fined twice in a 12 month period for that to even be an option. Now he’s lost the test, the series, and still got the first fine.

Is 90 overs a day an unreasonable ask? So many teams seem to have trouble with this limit. After taking out drinks, wicket and injury allowances and adding the 30 minutes overtime that has become a rule rather than the exception in modern tests, the target is to bowl, on average, 15 overs an hour or 1 over every 4 minutes.

I’ve done the sums to get a better idea of just how slow we were on Day 4. By Tea we had bowled 50 overs, leaving us 10 short of the target. Of these, Krejza had 15, Johnson 13, Watson 12 and Lee 10. So with an off-spinner bowling 30% of the load, we’ve managed to drop 1 over in every 6! That is a seriously písspoor effort. The general consensus is that Ricky’s tri-overly field changes and general farking around between overs is killing the rate.

There are many ways to increase the over rate while still looking to take wickets – how bout bowling Simon Katich? Or Lee and Johnson off their ODI run-ups rather than the full test run-up? Why not move a bit quicker between overs? These highly pampered stars are professional sportsmen right, surely a jog from fine leg to long off every 4 minutes is not too much to ask?

Is bowling Hussey a good alternative? Sure he hides the ball when running it but who cares when it doesn’t swing? He still has a decent run-up, and I’m in no way convinced that Mike’s all that quick getting through his overs anyway, though I haven’t got out the stopwatch to be sure. Even when Ponting realised the lapse and bought on Hussey he still didn’t speed up his general farking around with the field. Is moving deep mid on 3 metres left then 4 metres right more likely to take a wicket than giving Shane Watson another over when he’s swinging both ways? One excuse I heard from Nielsen was that the quicks were tired, perhaps they could have rested in the 20 minute tea break?

The entire team was fined for this, however with our díckless coach I choose to blame the captain. He’s the one leading out there. He’s the one constantly moving the field. He’s the one deciding the bowling changes, and the one who could be speeding things up.

I was also under the impression that Ponting has been going through a lean patch with the bat, turns out he’s scored 997 runs in the last 12 months so I’ll let that slide, for now..

Bástard!

Shane Warne - BnS Legend

I have spent the bulk of my cricket watching years observing Warne take apart all and sundry. His deception and mystery with the ball always amused me, his mastery of control both in the air and off the pitch, his ability to invent a new name for an old delivery every series, the mind games.. ah the mind games.

The man is so much more than the sum of his wickets. He polarises popular opinion in Australia, generally along the lines of gender. Womens magazines feed on his indiscretions, and I’ve boycotted many as a result. Here’s a comprehensive list of his misdemeanour’s including a Top 10.

Warney’s greatest achievement and one that all straight men aspire to, was getting a threesome with two hot chicks in the middle of a 1st class match, and going on to take 7/99. They even let him film it, then sold the footage to News of the World for cash and to promote their careers as Pommy and Kiwi slappers. Still, Warney in his playboy undies is a great image and one I’m sure he’ll be proud to show his grandson one day. It’s now immortalised in the Beer and Sport Banner.

While a test match century forever eluded him he could at times be brutal with the bat. I was at the Newport Arms when he got 99 against New Zealand and in typical Warney style wanted to bring up his maiden 100 with a 6. He holed out down cow corner to Daniel Vettori which surprised absolutely no-one. Turns out it was a front foot no-ball, though I have no doubt he would have found another way to miss the maiden ton regardless.

The 2005 Ashes for Shane Warne would have to go down as the greatest performance in a series of any cricketer in my lifetime. He took an incredible 40 Wickets at 19.92 which was 16 more than the next best bowler. What’s more he scored 249 runs at 27.66, and many of these came when all the batsmen failed. “His deliveries to remove Andrew Strauss at Edgbaston and Marcus Trescothick at The Oval defied logic and he can surely now make a justifiable claim to being the greatest bowler that has ever played the game.” [BBC]

Some inspirational words from the greatest site on the Internet, Nosedog’s Top Aussie Guide:

Shane Warne is a top Aussie. He is also a massive pisstank yobbo with a beer-gut who dyes his hair blonde and drives a red convertible. Warney has done some bad things. He once got paid 100 grand by Nicabate to give up durries for a year but he lit up heaps when he was pissed. Then he took money from some Indian bookmakers for pre-match information. He once smashed a camera cause a kiddy took a photo of his beer gut. Then he got toey on the phone and dirty-talked an English girly who wasn’t his wife. However, all Australians agree that Warney can be excused for doing these things cause he spin bowls like a genius and makes England look completely shíthouse. Warney could drink all our beer and then spew on our carpet and we wouldn’t care as long as he keeps taking wickets.
Warney is a top Aussie.

My best man took the piss out of me at my wedding as my Wireless router is called “Warney for King”, and my cat is named Warney. When it’s time for dinner and I call the cats in there’s no room for high pitched kitty kitty crap… instead it’s the familiar and drawn out “Waaarrrrnnnnnneeeeeyyyyy… Waaarrrrnnnnnneeeeeyyyyy…”