Baggy Green vs Seth Efrika preview

Test Cricket!

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.

Pitch Report

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.

Injuries

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.

Fantasies

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.

Cliché Tossers

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.

What colour was the couch?

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

Donald Duck forgets to run

Anti-Siphoning

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

  • 1st Session: 1:30pm to 3:30pm
  • 2nd Session: 4:10pm to 6:10pm
  • 3rd Session: 6:30pm to 8:30pm

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.

Crystal Ball

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.

Sachin’s Record – footage

Well done to the Victorian cherry popper, a solid batting effort over many years has been rewarded with his place in the history books until Punter gets his act together.

Here’s some footage showing the reaction from the crowd of 287 paying cricket fans, superb effort from the Mohali locals to show out and support their national hero as he takes his place in cricketing folklore.

Just imagine how many runs Hussey would have got, had we picked him at 20 !

First Test – get your teams in!

Ok readers, it’s time to pick your test team from the massive pile of talent currently being paraded in the Pura Cup. I managed to only pick three Queenslanders, bonus marks if you pick a team with less ;)

My First XI
1 Hayden
2 Jaques
3 Ponting
4 Clarke
5 Hussey
6 Symonds
7 Gilchrist
8 Hogg
9 Lee
10 Johnson
11 Clark
12 Hilfenhaus

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Here’s a few of my thoughts on the current crop of players going around, please post in the Commments anyone you feel I’ve missed, under or over-rated.

Openers
+Hayden (incumbent)
+Jaques (weight of runs over 3 years, NSWelshman)
-Rogers (injured, going out of form)
-Watson (sh1thouse, probably injured again, not an opener)
-Hussey (not an opener, needed in middle order)

First Drop
++Ponting, Rick
–Hodge (never rated him. pretty ordinary against spin. Only positive is he hasn’t shortened his name to Rick)

Middle Order
+Clarke (incumbent, looking forward to some runs here, also taking wickets)
+Hussey
-Hussey, Dave (double Huss, lots of puns, a Huss in the city is worth two in the bush… ok bad I know)
-Katich (another triple century and he’ll be pushing someone out)
-Haddin (close as a specialist batsman)

All Rounder
+Symonds (good one day form, bowling half decent, fielding, team morale)
-Nofke
-Dizzy (119*!)
-Simpson
-White (should have been in the T20 W/C but bowls too many pies)

Keeper/Batsman
+Gilchrist (will need some runs though.. more exposive than Haddin but I feel less reliable)
-Haddin (Taken over Macgilla as the most unlucky aussie cricketer – must be spewing Gilly didn’t retire!)

Quickies
++Clark (my only automatic pick of the bowlers)
+Lee (incumbent, NSW)
+Johnson (great ODI form, confident in Brisabne)
-Tait
-Hilfenhaus (so so close, will stick him in the first 11 for the second test in Tassie at the expense of the least performing quick)
-Bracken (man hair)

Spinner
+Hogg (3/21, 58* and 5/62 at MCG, no-one can pick his wrongun, sticks his tongue out like a champion)
-Macgilla (ordinary at SCG, can’t bat, getting over knee injury)
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I’d love to hear others comments on what I’ve written above, feel free to argue any of these points and I guarantee no offence will be taken. Cheers, Moses.