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Rohit Sharma to re-enter planet Earth
And other news you'll wish you had missed from around the cricket world
R Rajkumar
20-Jan-2014
Crowds gather to witness Rohit Sharma crash back to Earth
The Indian Space Research Organisation has confirmed that after Rohit Sharma's latest overseas batting failure, the batsman will be re-entering the planet's atmosphere somewhere over New Zealand in the next few hours as he finally crashes back to Earth.
The Indian Space Research Organisation has confirmed that after Rohit Sharma's latest overseas batting failure, the batsman will be re-entering the planet's atmosphere somewhere over New Zealand in the next few hours as he finally crashes back to Earth.
"Cricket fans and ufologists might recall that the batsman had been flying unaccustomedly high in recent months thanks to a freak string of consistent scoring prior to the tour of South Africa," said a spokesman for the space agency. "Well, it's time for him to come home now. Clearly, his mission is over."
Friends, family members and onlookers have been gathering at a clearing on the outskirts of Napier to welcome the misfiring batsman as he falls back to Earth. Sharma's capsule is expected to parachute down safely into a farmyard of cows, sheep, and Indian selectors, whereupon tradition holds that he will be given a routine health check-up and then immediately prepped to be sent up again on yet another ill-fated mission.
Full postCan you Wade through a Marsh?
And other life-altering questions from various parts of the cricketing world
Matt Cleary
17-Jan-2014
Manchester City's greatest ever player is Colin Bell, 67, who played 394 games for the club and scored 117 goals. He also won 48 England caps (scoring nine goals) and retired in 1980 a sky-blue legend. Yet in 2003, City reneged on naming the West Stand of the City of Manchester Stadium after Bell because, it seems, Manchester United supporters had hijacked an internet voting poll, delighted that the stand might be forever known as "the Bell End".
In Australia we haven't made the best use of names for our sporting arenas. The Australian Open tennis is on at the moment and it makes one wonder: why isn't Melbourne Park's Margaret Court Arena just called the Margaret Court? There's a centre court. "And now on Margaret Court… " Margaret Court could hold court on Margaret Court. They could call the pedestrian walkway from the city over the Yarra River the Todd Woodbridge. Indeed they could rename the Yarra the Mark Woodfjord. Kids could hit balls against the Ken Rosewall. ATMs could be Pat Cash Machines.
Similarly important questions of cricket include:
Full post'I got a funky, funky style with a funky swag'
The identity of this three-times-funky playa, and more, revealed in this fortnight's Twitter round-up
Alex Bowden
16-Jan-2014
The Ashes are over, careers are over, but inane outpourings, self-absorbed guff and cod philosophy are still being broadcast in 140 characters or fewer. Who dropped ten Aussie dollars? Who had a Star Wars marathon? Who's got a funky funky style with a funky swag? All these questions and more are answered below, whether the information's worth anything to anyone or not.
The series review
It pretty much all boils down to this.
It pretty much all boils down to this.
Regardless of all the wickets you really have to respect the density of those handlebars #tash #mitchelljohnson
— Moises Henriques (@Mozzie21) December 25, 2013The 2017 Ashes boot camp
When National Service is reintroduced, central contracts are discarded, and Bob "Oberführer" Willis rules with an iron fist
Scott Oliver
12-Jan-2014
Like cricket? Follow England? Okay, then you may well have heard that they were on the wrong end of an unadulterated, pants-down-and-bare-buttocks-spanked-raw thrashing in the Ashes recently.
It's the End of an Era - "Hugh Morris left, Hugh Milliation arrived," said one neutral (from Plaid Cymru's paramilitary wing) - and just as Flower Power gave way to tough stuff like punk and Vietnam, so this England team needs to have a long, hard look in the right areas of the mirror and purge the touchy-feely, wishy-washy, happy-clappy shilly-shallying that has become its unwanted trademark.
To a man, what they will find there - in the mirror - will be a parade of talentless, spineless, passionless, pride-deficient weaklings who have allowed themselves to be pushed around by some bloke who eventually, aged 32, worked out that all he needed to do to spook the Pommie batting was grow a camp moustache. (He loves to sling at the W-A-C-A, that Mitch.)
Full postEngland men facing the axe
England have the staff the size of a small country, and some of them may be deported
Alan Tyers
10-Jan-2014
There have been dark hints of personnel changes within the ECB's famously overcrowded coaching and support operation, while some on the playing staff are also looking nervously over their shoulders. It's all a bit hush-hush, but here are the most likely casualties
Unnamed senior player
Reason: keeps scoring more runs than other players. Must go. All his fault.
Reason: keeps scoring more runs than other players. Must go. All his fault.
Team kit man
Some players turned up in wrong kit, like Matt Prior said. Need to make an example of somebody.
Full postSome players turned up in wrong kit, like Matt Prior said. Need to make an example of somebody.
Time to dissolve English cricket
Fans have a strong case for petitioning the courts to do away with English cricket, because it appears totally incapable of repaying its debts
Alex Bowden
09-Jan-2014
It's being reported that Andy Flower will walk out on England unless he gets his way. What he allegedly wants is Kevin Pietersen out of the team. A lot of people are with him on this - they don't like Kevin Pietersen because they feel that he's the kind of person who'll walk out on England if he doesn't get his way.
Maybe they should both go. In fact, few people are doing much of any significance while they are with England - maybe everyone should go. English cricket appears spiritually insolvent at present. Perhaps we should just draw a line under it and move everyone into new fields. The cricketers have spent the last few weeks being wound up by Australian players, fans and newspapers, but maybe it's time for a different kind of winding up. The fans have a strong case for petitioning the court to have English cricket dissolved, because it appears totally incapable of repaying its debts.
It could work out well for everyone. Matt Prior was dropped a couple of matches ago and already he's out there saving lives, talking a man out of jumping off Pyrmont Bridge in Sydney. How did he do this? Perhaps he drew on recent experiences to emphasise how it could all be so much worse. Who knows? All that's clear is that his performance was far more accomplished than recent ones in front of and behind the stumps.
Full postAfridi tribe vows revenge on Corey Anderson
And other news you'll wish you had missed from around the cricket world
R Rajkumar
03-Jan-2014
Afridi tribe vows revenge on Corey Anderson
Shahid Afridi has formally vowed to avenge his name against Corey Anderson, the New Zealand batsman who recently displaced him as the holder of the record for the fastest hundred in ODIs.
Shahid Afridi has formally vowed to avenge his name against Corey Anderson, the New Zealand batsman who recently displaced him as the holder of the record for the fastest hundred in ODIs.
"In light of the slight to my name that has been perpetrated by your savage act, I am bound by the ancient Pashtunwali tribal code of my elders to avenge my honour," said a statement read out by a mysterious messenger who arrived outside Anderson's hotel room on horseback at dawn, dressed in traditional Pashtun dress and headgear. "It may happen in a few days, a few months, or even years down the road, but I will take back my record," the statement continued, before adding ominously, "and if I cannot take my record, I will be forced to adopt more direct means of revenge."
"Good day," the statement ended.
Full post'Roses are red, I'm going to bed'
Cricketers get lyrical in our first Twitter round-up of the year
Alex Bowden
02-Jan-2014
Paul Collingwood was enjoying his stay in Australia at first, as illustrated by this fantastically creative simile.
Always remember that feeling as a kid waiting to open my presents. Was like a kid at Xmas #santa
— Paul Collingwood (@Colly622) December 25, 2013On top of which, he says the Aussies are easing off a bit.
Full postCricket crystal ball: 2014 foretold
What does the year ahead hold for the game? We know, and so will you now
Alan Tyers
31-Dec-2013
January
On the flight back from Australia, England's team get drunk and trash the plane. But it is Kevin Pietersen who bears the brunt of the media flak once it is established that, although he had not participated in the incident, he had brazenly requested an extra packet of pretzels from the flight attendant.
On the flight back from Australia, England's team get drunk and trash the plane. But it is Kevin Pietersen who bears the brunt of the media flak once it is established that, although he had not participated in the incident, he had brazenly requested an extra packet of pretzels from the flight attendant.
After a shocking batting display in the Ashes, England's selectors are not afraid to take the hard choices. "Graham Onions will never play for England again," they vow.
February
South Africa and India play an intense one-Test series, although the BCCI is obliged to cancel the last three days to fit in an ODI tournament.
Full postSouth Africa and India play an intense one-Test series, although the BCCI is obliged to cancel the last three days to fit in an ODI tournament.
Doug Walters' surprise breakfast
How do you rediscover your pure love for cricket? Talk to Doug Walters for starters
Matt Cleary
27-Dec-2013
It was a generic speech after a generic one-dayer that sent me over the edge. Cricket, to my deep-seated disbelief and melancholy, had actually, incredibly, become… boring.
And this could not be. This thing I had worshipped since first worshipping the sweat from DK Lillee's moustache had become vanilla. And not in a good way like with ice cream, but in a sterile, mass-produced, generic, homogenised and sort of rubbish sort of way. And a once-fervent, even religious cricket-hound was jack of it.
I took up the remote and was soon watching polar bears getting jiggy on Discovery Channel. Too much cricket - sorry Richie, sorry Bill, sorry evil overlord of all sport - had become enough.
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