The Heavy Ball
Do you know your county cricket alphabet?
A quick primer for those who think the IPL is the only cricket that's played in April and May
Steve Coleman
05-May-2012
Dog Four-legged creature that generally accounts for 50% of the crowd on a foggy third day at an out-ground in the middle of nowhere. Despite their attendance alongside a foolhardy owner being reported in every single newspaper every single April, cash-strapped clubs seem to have been slow to pick up on the possible revenue stream of selling canine season tickets.
Ramprakash, Mark County stalwart who recently scored his 631st hundred on his 57th birthday. A rare breed of cricketer who you watch hoping he gets a hundred so beautiful it makes your knees weak, then gets given out caught behind off his toe so that he explodes with apoplectic rage. There is genuinely nothing funnier than Ramps with steam pouring out of his ears. Dropped and recalled at least 40 times by England, he has a career on the speaking circuit as part of a Waldorf and Stadler routine with Graeme Hick to look forward to when he finally decides that enough is enough.
Rain In most outdoor professions, rain means that you lose out on money. Building a house? Sorry, that needs to put on hold - go hungry this week. Landscape gardener? No work for you this April. County cricketers are a different breed, though. When the inevitable rain comes lashing down, they get to spend a month indoors, sleeping and playing cards in a lovely warm pavilion while still picking up a nice paycheck at the end of the month.
Full postTime is healer, time is killer, time is light, time is darkness
Yes, it's time to check in on what your favourite stars have been broadcasting
Alex Bowden
03-May-2012
Tino Best's modesty corner
"Training like an Android...#traininsaneorremainthesame"
@tinobest
Androids don't train, Tino. They're built for purpose. Their bodies don't adapt to training overload, improving as a consequence. They're machines. If anything, regular use will cause their components to deteriorate.
"Training like an Android...#traininsaneorremainthesame"
@tinobest
Androids don't train, Tino. They're built for purpose. Their bodies don't adapt to training overload, improving as a consequence. They're machines. If anything, regular use will cause their components to deteriorate.
"Another week of hard work #traininsaneorremainthesame ...sprints + Mileage +Bowling with Coach Drakes #95mphalways .."
You see! It was 97mph last week. You're slowing down.
Full postYou see! It was 97mph last week. You're slowing down.
Cricketers turning politicians? We won't stand for it
Our protagonists decide to put a stop to the nonsense
As told to Alan Tyers
01-May-2012
Dessie and I were sitting in the drawing room, watching the rain trickle dispiritingly down the window pane and attempting to keep our spirits up with a Terry's Chocolate Orange. Dessie was in unusually cantankerous humour. He had muttered quite vilely through the first hour of The Voice, entirely spoiling my enjoyment of a programme that I believe to be the BBC's most splendid acquisition since the young Angela Rippon.
I have already written a letter to the ECB, urging them to consider Jessie J as a possible chairman if and when Giles Clarke is ever toppled from his perch. I expressed in the most fulsome terms that she has just the right blend of enthusiasm, steely judgement and clarity of vision that cricket in this country needs. It does her case no harm that she would bring the finest set of legs to the top table of English cricket since Raman Subba Row was in his pomp.
However, Dessie - who has been impossible all week since news emerged that Sachin Tendulkar is to enter the murky world of politics in his homeland - was not to be swayed by my attempts to jolly the evening along. When he picked up an ashtray (signed by Chris Tavaré, and damaged by Chris as well, when he dropped it and cut himself quite badly on a chipped corner) and looked set to hurl it at the screen and the blameless will.i.am, I intervened and asked him what on earth was the matter.
Full postIPL ratings racket exposed
Public asked to be on the watch for subversive elements who think they have a life
R Rajkumar
29-Apr-2012
Police claim to have uncovered a nefarious IPL racket with connections to the Mumbai underworld and beyond, according to unconfirmed reports.
During the course of a daring late-night raid on a series of houses in the otherwise respectable neighbourhood of Noida, near Delhi, a Special Operations Force reportedly arrested scores of people suspected of being engaged in the illicit and subversive activity of not watching IPL matches.
"I don't want to say anything too soon," said new IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla. "But we appear, at last, to have stumbled upon the mysterious reason why television ratings for this year's IPL have been suffering of late."
Full postHow to write about the IPL without offending Indians
Easy-to-follow methods clearly explained, with helpful examples
Sidin Vadukut
27-Apr-2012
Once again the Indian Premier League has burst upon the theatre of international sport, and subsequently relegated every other game into the dim, blurry background. This might make aficionados of other sports such as football or ball badminton uneasy, but it is the truth. More than ever before, cricket is permeating and influencing other disciplines.
For instance, it was impossible for me to watch the recent Real Madrid - Barcelona football match in the Spanish La Liga (The League) without constantly being reminded of the full-bodied, full-length dives that cricketers like Jonty Rhodes, Paul Collingwood, Yuvraj Singh and Sourav Ganguly have perfected into an art form. Clearly footballers are beginning to seek inspiration from their gentlemanly counterparts.
However, this poses a unique challenge for the foreign journalist and sportswriter, who has no option but to tackle this new, rich, powerful yet sensitive beast. Namely, how to write about the IPL and Indian cricket without being seen by Indian audiences as a jealous, vindictive, short-sighted, jealous, often English, jealous bigot, who is still steeped in orientalist theories.
Full post'Life is a pilgrimage from nowhere to nowhere'
That and other world-class offerings in our round-up of the notable cricket Twitter action of the week
Alex Bowden
26-Apr-2012
Tino Best's modesty corner
"Once given the chance I'm gonna bowl at the speed of sound #97mphAlwayz"
For the record, Tino, sound actually travels at 340.29 metres a second. 97mph is more like the speed of a Vauxhall Cavalier going downhill on a dual carriageway.
"Once given the chance I'm gonna bowl at the speed of sound #97mphAlwayz"
For the record, Tino, sound actually travels at 340.29 metres a second. 97mph is more like the speed of a Vauxhall Cavalier going downhill on a dual carriageway.
Film appreciation with Graeme Swann
"The disparity in fitness between Katie Holmes and Maggie Gyllenhaal playing Rachel Dawes in the batman movies is quite staggering."
@Swanngg66 (Graeme Swann)
"The disparity in fitness between Katie Holmes and Maggie Gyllenhaal playing Rachel Dawes in the batman movies is quite staggering."
@Swanngg66 (Graeme Swann)
The silent partner
"The advantage of being with Sidhu on a cricket talk show..is I get a lot of time to think : )"
@sanjaymanjrekar
Full post"The advantage of being with Sidhu on a cricket talk show..is I get a lot of time to think : )"
@sanjaymanjrekar
A jolly cold day in the MCC soup
A new series in which English and Indian protagonists get into trouble with the piracy police and John Major
As told to Alan Tyers
19-Apr-2012
During my, dare I say it, distinguished military career (Territorials), I have found myself in tough conditions on more than one occasion. Losing that tank on Dartmoor was a blot on the copybook, to say nothing of the hot water I got into when the Battalion Commander, a fellow cricket lover, discovered that it had been appropriated by a former Somerset stalwart. A professional of Colin Dredge's standing really ought to have been more responsible than to be driving a tank through the village of Frome, Gillette Cup victory high-spirits or not.
Until this last weekend, the coldest I had been in my life was the night I spent crouching behind that tank waiting for Dredge. I knew that sooner or later he must pop out to relieve himself of the impressively large flagon of scrumpy I had watched him purchase earlier in the evening, and that this would allow me the chance to leap through the hatch, fire up the tank, and make good my escape before the press got hold of the situation. I don't know if it was the discipline of all those years bowling on that unhelpful Taunton pitch, or if Dredge was genetically blessed in the bladder department, but it was many, many long, cold hours before he emerged to answer the call of nature.
As I say, that lonely night in Frome was the coldest I had been, until a visit to Lord's last weekend to watch Middlesex do battle with Surrey. I travelled to the game, as I do to all matches, with my dear friend Dessie, an Indian gentleman with whom I have shared digs on the Finchley Road for several years.
Full postShaz, auctions, and free hits explained
A handy reference for those unfamiliar with IPL jargon
Steve Coleman
17-Apr-2012
IPL Joyful forward-thinking saviour of a decrepit, outdated, bacon-and-egg tie-wearing snoozefest, or pointless capitalist distraction for louts, created by Beelzebub himself. There can be no balanced middle ground on this opinion.
Shastri, Ravi Younger readers may find this hard to believe, but Shastri was actually a largely boring player before ascending to legendary pundit status. See him now in all his eye-popping, mad-uncle glory as someone unveils a Dilscoop and it seems impossible that his signature shot was the "Chapati" - a flick off the pads that pretty much every batsman can play. The IPL is the perfect platform for his human megaphone impression, with his voice at the Mumbai v Delhi toss in 2009 registering a decibel level slightly above that of a jet plane engine.
Team names Everything cool has to have a name. It sets you apart from the common folk, can make you sound like a loveable superhero and makes it easy for fans to lock horns. "We are the Daredevils!" "Who cares, we are Warriors!" The problem that nobody really thought of was that uncool things have names too. Creating a team is a rare opportunity to make history, which makes it all the more baffling that Chennai decided they were perfectly happy to be called "Super Kings", thereby condemning themselves as "The Hoff" of the cricket world for all eternity.
Full postA starter kit of the Pakistan Premier League
How to be cooler and more successful than the league across the border
R Rajkumar
15-Apr-2012
A successful Pakistan Premier League is vital for the resuscitation of international cricket in Pakistan. With potential corporate sponsors already making encouraging noises (Team India®, one of the biggest brands in South Asia, is reportedly keen on sponsoring one of the teams, to be called the Sialkot Team Indians), it is important that the tournament is planned and executed without a hitch.
Its success simply has to be guaranteed, and preparation is the key. Yes, the IPL has been a grandstanding success and then some, but it isn't perfect. Your premier league can be even better, PCB. Are you listening?
Here's how to do it:
Full postA concerned father writes
What do you do when they take your child away from you? Keep a diary, of course
As discovered by Samantha Pendergrast
12-Apr-2012
Everyone keeps asking me how I feel today. How do you think I feel? Like a parent of an adorable baby that grew into a buck-toothed teenager - one who likes to hang out with a set of undesirables who are clearly friends with him to take advantage of his father's fame. Like Alexander G Bell would feel if he saw what the News of the World used his invention for. Like Chris Columbus would if he saw America today.
What kind of idiot gets Bollywood stars to perform in Chennai? Talk about an audience disconnect. And Katy Perry? I hear the other two headliners shortlisted were Ringside (Joaquin Phoenix's band) and Shinee, a South Korean boy band.
Not that there weren't any good moments. The poetry at the start was lovely, and obviously inspired by my philosophical and moving speech at the closing ceremony in 2010.
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