Rob's Lobs
When substitution adds up
Had RP been fit to bowl the 23 overs sent down by Tendulkar, Sehwag and Ganguly, in addition to the four to which he was confined, his strike-rate suggests he might have taken three wickets
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
For some of us, the only sports that count, that really hit the spot, are strictly team affairs. Those that draw on the collective spirit and - however fleetingly, in however delusory a fashion - persuade us that, contrary to Maggie Thatcher’s wicked self-fulfilling assertion, there is still such a thing as society, as community.
Utopian and fanciful as it may sound, there is evidence to back up this theory. Why else are the biggest sporting audiences, in the flesh and on the couch, generally those for baseball, cricket and sundry football and rugby codes? And no, the exclusion of Formula 1 is not an oversight. When did you last attend a Grand Prix and hear mass chants of “Go on Ferrari!”? Or, for that matter, “Give us an M, give us a small c, give us an L, give us an A, give us an R, give us an E, give us an N - come on you McLarens!”? And don’t get me started on cycling.
Full postRicky's dream
I was off my game, mate
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
The curtain opens on a therapist’s office. We hear David Bowie sing – “Alllll … you’ve got … to do … is … wiiiinnnn ...”
On the back of the door is a dartboard featuring the face of a man in a battered green cap, a dart in each eye and a third through his neck. The walls are bedecked with posters of Steve Waugh, Don Bradman, Paul Hogan, Kylie Minogue, Phar Lap and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, and a Mike Hussey “Diets for Hungry Cricketers” calendar. Lying on the couch is a man wearing a sports jacket, chinos, open-neck shirt and battered green cap. He is sweating profusely, a paperback entitled “How To Make People Stop People Hating Your Guts” clasped to his chest.
Full postMonkeyline revisited
At the height of it all, some Pommie journo living here wrote a column calling for Ponting’s resignation, for the way his team’s behaviour had shamed the country and undermined the spirit of the game, which in turn led to a two-year investigation of
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
The WACA, January 2028: A father and his teenage son are sitting together in the sparsely-populated Lillee-Marsh-Hussey stand, watching Australia play India in a Test match. Virtually ignoring events on the field, the boy flicks through a magazine.
Son (grumpily): Here, dad, help me with this question. I only need one more answer to win tickets to next year’s Ashes Twenty20 – some proper cricket, not like this crap.
Full postSymonds and the Samson Factor
It cannot be said that Symonds is widely characterised by his pigmentation
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
A respondent signing themselves “swaugh” has just taken me to task for declining to address events at the SCG and focusing instead on a pair of “apparent backstops”. (In the improbable case that it was really you, Steve, many humble apologies, but I am supposed to be a mere Pom commenting on primarily Pom-related matters.) What better way to start making diplomatic amends, then, than by hailing the godlike, even biblical feats of the man Indians currently love to hate even more than ICC umpires: Andrew Symonds.
In this morning’s Guardian, I read a report from Sydney by Reuters’ Julien Linden, detailing Harbhajan Singh’s punishment for calling Symonds “a monkey” and describing the latter as “the only black player in the Australian team”. Now I don’t know about you, but that’s the first time I’ve seen the greatest allrounder to hail from Birmingham depicted in such terms, in those express words. Andy Afford, the former England A spinner who edits the magazine All Out Cricket, swears he recalls once seeing Symonds labelled “half-aboriginal”, enough to rouse the ghost of Eddie Gilbert, but never “black”.
Full postA tale of two flatmates
"It's difficult to compare them," Peter Moores admitted four years ago, then did just that with consummate ease
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
“It is possible that the gauntlet-swapping of Matt Prior and Tim Ambrose will one day attract Hollywood - or, better still, Ealing.” Much as I deplore self-referential journalism, it was pretty much impossible, in light of the announcement of England’s New Zealand party, to resist plucking that little one from the attic.
It was written midway through the 2004 county season, at the height of the struggle for ownership of the wicketkeeper’s gloves at Sussex between a couple of ambitious south-hemispherian chappies who were born in the same year (1982), made their first-class debuts in the same season (2001) and also happened to be flatmates.
Full postVaughan reborn
Not only is Michael Vaughan showing signs of re-scaling the heights of 2002; he is also beginning to come to terms with what so many assume to be the toughest job in sport: captaining a cricket team
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Events in Kandy and Colombo over the past fortnight have given us Limeys even more reason to believe in the possibility of the improbable. Not only is Michael Vaughan showing signs of re-scaling the heights of 2002 [which is not, admittedly, all that unlike suggesting Michelangelo had another Sistine Chapel in him]; he is also beginning to come to terms with what so many assume to be the toughest job in sport: captaining a cricket team while fully justifying selection as a player.
On the face of it, Vaughan’s Test career endorses that hardy slice of cricketing philosophy: while responsibility may maketh the man, it usually plays merry hell with the batsman. England’s reigning overlord, after all, is averaging more than 20% less with the stripes than he did in the ranks.
Full postFielders of dreams
There is, however, one department of expertise for which claiming that we’ve never had it so good is entirely justifiable, incontrovertibly so
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Where are the new Lillees and Waqars? Whither the next Warne, Healy or Richards? Will we ever again witness an opener as gritty as Lawry, as patient as Boycott, as correct as Gavaskar?
These are just some of the despairing wails regularly heard from the cognoscenti. And yes, even those with a PhD in contrariness would be hard-pressed to offer much reassurance that all our tomorrows will be as rich in cricketing quality as all our yesterdays and todays. Then again, just as Ian Healy all but banished memories of Alan Knott, and Gower, Murali, Kallis and Ambrose trumped Graveney, Bedi, Botham and Roberts respectively, predictions of this ilk have a habit of coming back to give our self-appointed soothsayers all sorts of bite-sized impressions in the backside. Indeed, Michael Hussey’s quest to out-Bradman Bradman may yet deliver the biggest chewing-out of all.
Full postRauf justice
Surely the third umpire, the grandly-monikered Tyron Hirantha Wijewardene, should have been in a position to pick up his walkie-talkie and gently alert Asad Rauf to the bat’s involvement before he made a fool of himself
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
At the risk of being assailed from all sides for finally becoming a fully-qualified Whingeing Pom, and while emphasising that I yield to no woman (or man, for that matter) in my admiration for Muttiah Muralitharan’s oh-so fittingly magnificent closing spell, Ryan Sidebottom’s alleged “dismissal” in Kandy today infuriated as much as it dismayed.
How shall we remember this Test? Let us count the ways. Slowly, appreciatively. The gripping to-and-fro struggle for the upper hand between well-matched sides that kept us guessing until the last, confirming the five-day form as the most edifying and satisfying spectacle thrown up by the competitive arts. The sight of a spinner deciding matters with the new ball. The almost equally estimable bowling of Chaminda Vaas and Matthew Hoggard. Further proof that Kumar Sangakkara is not only the best willow-wielder currently residing on this particular planet but author of the most statistically-impressive sustained streak of form since Braddles. The batting of Ian Bell, Matty Prior and, in the aptest of farewells, Sanath Jayasuriya (thanks awfully for doing so much to preserve this plaything of ours, old boy). The awesome wicketkeeping of the lesser-known Jayawardene. The way Sidebottom’s curls make him look like Rupert Everett playing Charles II. Oh, and Murali beating Warney.
Yet a bitter taste lingers.
Full postAn undiluted champion
We Hebrews have a word for such occasions: mazeltov
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
You wouldn’t think there could possibly be anything more he could do to embellish the legend, but even as the warm breath of the Kandy Man’s most momentous feat enveloped the Asgiriya Stadium, came another reminder of his uniqueness.
When Fred Trueman became the first man to take 300 Test wickets at The Oval in 1964, he observed with typical drollness that, if anyone outdid him, he’d be “bloody tired”. Having sent down 38,000-odd balls to Trueman’s 15,000-odd, most of them in steamy, strength-sapping conditions, Muttiah Muralitharan had even more reason to prattle on about work ethics and sweat-drenched toil. Heaven knows he’d have been justified, in the heat of the moment, in hailing his historic delivery to Paul Collingwood this morning as the greatest ball of his career, an impeccable fusion of sorcery and sauce. What followed was as unexpected as anything he has ever served up for our delectation.
Collingwood was bewitched, bothered, bewildered and bowled by a ball that straightened: the “toppie” or doosra, or so we assumed. The author, astonishingly, disclaimed all responsibility: he’d tried to bowl the orthodox offie (as if anything he does can ever be regarded as such) but “the ball went the other way”, or so he confessed in typically disarming fashion to Sky Sports’ Nick Knight. Up in the commentary box, Sir Ian of Bothamshire was pinching himself black and blue.
Full postDear David Morgan
David/Dai, it will be on your watch, in 2009, that the ICC celebrates its centenary
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
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Dear David Morgan (or is it Dai?),
First and foremost, may I offer my heartfelt if somewhat belated congratulations. In graduating from the Lord’s Management Training Centre to be “elected” as the next president of our beloved game’s occasionally respected and ritualistically derided governing body, you have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Welsh takeover of cricket knows few bounds.
I’m sure you had your sights trained on the top job in rugby union (and may well still do so), but as consolation prizes go, this is preferable, surely, to a wooden spoon. Not least when it involves taking charge, albeit in mostly name only, of a business whose latest “consolidated financial statement” (accounts to you and me, squire) reveals a net surplus that has inched up, year-on-year, by the small matter of 700% ($4.98m to $39.45m).
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