Psychology of Cricket
It’s a very detailed piece, with many quotes from relevant academic studies and if you’re up for an education read then I’d highly recommend it. Some of the topics covered are the fitness of cricketers, the likelihood that during a 3.5 hour Test Century a batsman will sprint for just 90 seconds, and how world class batsmen can anticipate the ball about to be delivered from the bowler’s body language.
I swear I’ll get zero work done today. I’m so excited with the Aussie vs South Africa Test Series about to start. When it’s summer, in Australia, I can tell you that cricket’s the number one game in town. Just ask anyone around.
Have been reading from the curator, he reckons the wicket was slow last year due to the domestic T20 final being 3 days prior to the WACA test and that stuffed his preperation. Surely we can chuck this garbage cricket indoors or something, just don’t fúck with our Test Cricket.
So here’s hoping for a green top that gives the Aussie and Saffa quicks all the assistance they could ask for. I want to see the WACA back to being the fastest and meanest pitch on earth.
Stu Clark’s elbow giving up is terrible news for the Baggy Greens. Fortunately Side-Siddle is no slouch, he’s got a lot of heart and will bowl all day uphill into the wind, then rather than rest up in the lunch break he’ll get out his favourite axe and chop some wood in a relaxing David Foster tribute.
My fantasy team, the “Hairy backed sheilas”, is looking pretty good, despite being unable to afford all the NSW players and Hussey. Seems the folks at cricinfo have priced the Blues out of contention, which is understandable as we fúcking rock. In the end Lee had to be dropped, his pricetag of 100k was making it tough to get Clarke and Haddin.
The only good thing to come out of Clark’s injury is Siddle happens to be the cheapest bowler on the park, meaning I can afford more NSW players.
It’s time to claim my prize from the Chappell/Hadlee series, I’d like JRod to write a review of the 2007 Sheffield Shield final in the style of a madly patriotic New South Wales supporter.
I’m honestly not too worried about the toss in Perth, it’s more what we do with it. Batting or Bowling there’s going to be opportunity to impose your will on the series. I’ll be upset to miss the cliché’s due to work so will have a go myself. The bowling team will want to take early wickets to put pressure on the middle order. They can do this by bowling in good areas and pitching it up to allow prodigious swing with the assistance of the good Doctor Fremantle.
South Africa certainly used to be the All Blacks (Rugby World Cup vintage) of Cricket, but have they grown up? Ponting’s been trying real hard to get Smith to talk, alas young Graeme’s learnt a lot from his chronic foot in mouth of 1995. The saffas have Duncan Armstrong on the staff too, and I hear that he’s been involved in beating Australia in the past.
Donald Duck forgets to run
On advice from a Beer and Sport reader that I met in the pub (how random, I have a reader!), I’m going to keep my bítching about institutions to a minimum and will seriously try and get it out of the way in advance.
Perth Tests are always the worst for Aussie audiences getting rectªlly reamed by Channel 9. The schedule of play for NSW/VIC is
For those of us who have jobs, that third session looks prime for watching on the telly, however, those fúcksticks put on their shíthouse news and current affairs shízer so we get nothing between 6pm and 7pm. Sometimes they’ll delay the news by 10 minutes, so we’ll see the end of session two, but miss the first 40 mins of session 3.
Best of all Foxtel are forbidden from showing it as channel 9′s right to exclusive coverage is protected by law. Even though they’re not actually showing it, so, by law, they have the right to deny me coverage of the cricket. C9′s Sydney number is (02) 9906-9999 and I’ll be sure to call and yell abuse at 6:31pm.
Sure the Saffas have 2 guys who bowl over 150kph and swing it. We’ve got three.
Sure they’ve got a spinner who can contain, we’ve got one who turns it and takes wickets.
Sure they’ve got a settled and in form batting line-up. Um.. oh dear.
I’m with Oooh Aaah. 3-0 to the Aussies.