Tag Archives: 2005 bitterness

Dafydd Jones remembers the 2005 Ashes

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dafyyddafyyd Jones was born in Dyffryn, Glamorgon, on the 1st August, 1989. All his life dafyyd has been very proud Welshman and a huge cricket fan. He passionately supports his national team, England, and used to try and fit in by flying the Union Jack at home games. He did however struggle to locate the Welsh dragon on this representative flag and could only find the cross of St George, the man who slay his mythical dragon, so now he flies the Welsh flag and his favourite players are Simon and Geriant Jones.

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.

A Dissenting Boon

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Here’s some vintage footage from 1987/88, and I believe it does a great job of illustrating how the administracrats have taken the fun out of the game. What’s wrong with a little passion? What’s wrong with a little bit of confrontation? This is a great spectacle and is a world removed from the sanitised game we get these days.

Boony reckons he got a roughie on this lbw decision, to be honest it looked pretty out to me – maybe struck him outside the line of off but it doesn’t even approach Aleem Dar’s level of incompetence circa 2005.

What I love about this clip though is just how pissed off the little Tasmanian gets. Swearing his head off at the umpire and all the way to the boundary and then some. The crowd duly pitch in with the búllshít chant and everyone gets on with the game.

I wonder what penalty Boony would cop for this under today’s ICC Code of Conduct? It’d have to be a Level 2 offence minimum as he is definitely “showing serious dissent at an umpire’s decision by word or action” in addition to “using language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or of a seriously insulting nature to another player, umpire, referee, team official or spectator.” A Level 2 offence would cop a 50% to 100% of match fee fine in addition to a 1 Test or 2 ODI ban.

Here’s a few recent examples of dissent and the penalty imposed

Level 1 offences

Lecture

Stuart Broad questioned the verdict of umpire Russell Tiffin to award a wide.
“I got called into the match referees’ office for dissent, but it was just a talking-to, nothing more than that.” said Broad “I’d have probably been fined my whole match fee if my dad had been the ref”

20% fine

Jacob Oram was given lbw by Australian umpire Steve Davis and openly showed his disgust at the decision by glaring at his bat then punching it on his walk away from the crease.

30% fine

Ricky Ponting was fined for moving from his fielding position towards the pitch as part of his appeal, appearing dismayed by the umpire’s decision and in the wake of that decision appearing to make a comment to the official.

40% fine

Adam Gilchrist pleaded guilty and was found by match referee Jeff Crowe to have breached the ICC’s code of conduct when he questioned a run-out decision by umpire Aleem Dar during a one-day international against South Africa.

Level 2 offences

65% fine

Virender Sehwag was on Sunday docked 65 per cent of his match fee for exchanging words with Umpire Billy Bowden after he was declared leg before wicket on the fourth day’s play on Saturday. Considering his past record, it was decided to only penalise him with a fine.

75% fine

Moin Khan stood his ground after being given out leg-before to Irfan Pathan by Simon Taufel on the fourth day of the match.