The Long Handle
What do you do with the baby and the bath water?
Throw out the baby, of course like the West Indies board did
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Wednesday, 13th April
I’ll be honest. I’m fast falling out of love with Kochi. First there was that business with the shirts. I mean, orange? Really? They said nothing about orange when they bought the franchise. Perhaps that was what all the squabbling was about. But there was no clue on the logo. I was expecting a regal purple outfit, with cool embroidered silver tusks. What did we get? Bilious tangerine. They look like fast-food servers on their lunch break, or street marketers promoting a new brand of orange juice.
And then there’s the not-being-very-good problem. This is a real hindrance to the committed supporter, particularly those of us who got carried away pre-IPL and had a little wager on the orangey ones to win the thing. We are in a for a rollercoaster ride, of the kind you get at illegal fun fairs, where the track isn’t quite finished and it all ends in disaster. Today, for example, when Yuvraj fell, I was leaping up and down like Javed Miandad on a trampoline doing his Kiran More impersonation. But a few balls later, I found myself committing an act of violence upon an innocent cushion as Jadeja completed his spell with one of those innovative “hit me” full-tosses.
Perhaps it’s the shirts, perhaps it’s the name, perhaps it’s presence of Sreesanth, but I am afraid there is no other word for it: Kochi are flaky. In fact, they are the new Kings XI Punjab. Yes, it’s as bad as that.
Full postThe Malinga Shuffle and the Rashid Problem
The County Championship and the IPL provide a nice counterpoint to each other, don’t they?
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Saturday, 9th April
This year the IPL and the County Championship began on the same day. It makes for a startling contrast. Flicking between the two is like travelling in time: from cricket 21st-century style to the late Victorian era and back again. In entertainment terms it’s like choosing between a frenetic weekend trip to a packed out theme park and a wander around your local door-handle museum on a wet Tuesday afternoon.
And internet forums are full of people prepared to argue to a standstill to prove one or the other is best. These days you can’t be a cricket pluralist; you’re either an empty-headed, face-painted Twenty20 fan with the attention span of a goldfish, or you’re a sad old fuddy duddy at war with the modern world, hankering after a colonial past in which the sun never set on the dullest way of playing mankind’s greatest sport.
But why must we choose? Why deny ourselves one or the other? Let’s cherish cricket in all its forms. Personally, at the moment the county version doesn’t really float my boat. But if fate allows, post-retirement I intend to spend many long afternoons quietly snoozing in the shires. The County Championship is like Parliament, the Law Courts and open-heart surgery. I don’t really want to watch it, but I’m glad it’s there.
Full postThe inscrutable silence of Graeme Smith
Also: the IPL is here
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Wednesday, 6th April
Graeme Smith hasn’t Tweeted since March 16th. This has upset some in the cyber wilderness who feel that they have been abandoned, Twitter-jilted, and can’t get closure without 140 characters from the man who used to be South Africa captain. It is true that he gave a press conference that was reported on by every sports news outlet in South Africa. But this isn’t enough for the Twitterati.
So to help him out I’ve come up with a tweet that will resolve this little unpleasantness and satisfy his disgruntled fans. He is welcome to cut and paste:
“Hello Losers. World Cup over. We didn’t win. Not captain anymore. Move on.”
Full postThe ballad of Shaun and Lasith
Also, a new method of calling at the toss, the art of losing politely, and lies about county cricket
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Friday, 1st April
April is here and it won’t be too long before we hear those familiar, gentle sounds of sploshing tea, sporadic clapping and elderly men snoring under the business supplement of the Daily Telegraph. Yes, it’s nearly county cricket time and to get us in the mood, here is a selection of today’s county news, only parts of which are true:
In order to give members a chance of seeing their latest signing, Surrey have announced that during the lunch intervals of Championship matches they will be using the Oval’s big screen to show highlights of KP’s recent hernia operation.
Leicestershire and Lancashire will be making history this season as they become the first county teams to merge. The new Super-County will be called Bankruptshire and they hope to play their home games on a patch of waste ground near Accrington.
Full postThank god for Twenty20
Which lets us watch endangered bowlers like Shaun Tait
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Tuesday, March 29th
Fast bowling comes as naturally to the human body as trying to carry a baby hippopotamus on your head whilst hopping backwards up a down escalator. We like to romanticise it, we talk about a fast bowler gliding on air to the wicket or accelerating gracefully, easily, like a panther in pursuit of prey. But close up, it’s a brutal business; all twisting tendons, splintering bone and grinding cartilage.
For Shaun Tait the journey to the crease is an agonising one. You and I couldn’t feel that much pain unless we spilt beer on the shoes of a nightclub bouncer. Even then, we’d probably only try it the once. But Tait does it again and again and again. He’s like one of those magnificent steam-powered contraptions you see at English county fairs, an impressive feat of engineering that could fall apart at any time.
Thank goodness then for Twenty20, a sanctuary where we can see endangered cricketers in their natural habitat, and where we hope Shaun enjoys many more years of stump-shattering, sightscreen-denting, helmet-clanging slingery.
Full postNew Zealand are the new Australia
What’s with all the mental disintegration
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Saturday, 26th March
Simon Doull, though he was loving most of what transpired in Dhaka, was not loving the intervention of Mr Kyle Mills. His goading of Faf du Plessis breached another of those codes that cricketers make up as they go along. Doully reckons its okay for blokes in the middle to sledge, but as the Victorians used to say, gentlemen who come onto the field of play wearing coloured bibs should be seen and not heard. Even though I’ve never heard of this rule before, I kind of agree with him.
But Nathan Astle doesn’t.
“It was a great move to get in the South Africans’ faces because they don’t like it.”
Full postWhat Dernbach brings to the England side
Rules, regulations, addresses, phone numbers and more
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Tuesday, 22nd March
When we first heard that this World Cup was going to last six weeks, we were all a little nonplussed, but I guess our questions have been answered. Six weeks? How on earth can they make it last six weeks? Oh, I see, that’s how.
But Mr Lorgat believes the thing is as long as it needs to be and not a minute longer.
“It should be remembered that we ICC officials need a break. The longer tournament means that we can go to the seaside, sample some of the excellent restaurants in this part of the world and just, you know, kind of chill, man.”
Full postDisappointment for Kenya, foam rocks for West Indies
Plus the eagerly anticipated third coming of Phil Hughes
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Friday, 18th March
Despite Old Mother Hilditch’s protestations to the contrary, it does appear that the Australian cricket cupboard is, to put it diplomatically, some way distant from being in a state of fullness. During the glory years, if you wanted the selectors to know who you were, an average of 60 was de rigueur. But these days it seems a couple of cheeky 30s is all you need to get your name into the selection tombola to win a baggy green.
In another era Phil Hughes and his extraordinary limbo-dancing, backward-shuffling, fly-fishing style might have been a backwoods curiosity, a minor provincial spectacle, an offbeat conversation piece on the side table of domestic cricket. But this is 2011 and Phil Hughes is not an eyebrow-raisingly unready rookie; he is the messiah. And judging by Mr Hilditch’s comments today, we can soon expect the third coming.
Admittedly the first and second comings didn’t really work out. But the Australian selectors have a useful little saying: “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably the beginning of a long and successful Test career.” So the fact that Phil Hughes has now scored some runs in a state game pretty much guarantees that he’ll be seen all at sea again in a Test match near you, soon.
Full postA run for Ricky
Please join Andrew Hughes' campaign to save Ponting from an ignominious future of sharing a commentary booth with Ravs and Co
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Tuesday, 15th March
In these days of 24-hour rolling highlights packages and surround-sound Shashtri, it is easy to forget that there is a downside to our sport. But right now, as you read this, there are ageing cricketers out there who need your help, men who face a bleak future of pro-celebrity golf tournaments, supermarket openings and sharing a commentary booth with Danny Morrison. Men like Punter.
Punter has fallen on hard times. He hasn’t scored a century in over a year. He doesn’t know where his next boundary is coming from. That’s why I’m asking you to support my campaign: “A Run For Ricky”. You don’t have to give much. Even a streaky single down to fine leg or a hurriedly scampered two off a misfield would help. Dig deep, ladies and gentleman and let’s try and make a little hairy fella happy.
Wednesday, 16th March
His fringe may hang forlorn where once it flopped; he may be coated in sweat with the exertion of walking back to his mark; his excess bodily baggage may give him the appearance of a man attempting to smuggle kittens under his shirt; but he is still Shoaib. And for true cricket lovers, the old tingle returns whenever we watch him get into his run and accelerate to the crease, his right arm stretched out beside him as though he was preparing to hurl a deadly poison-tipped spear.
Full postEngland's dew karma
You can’t do a sprinkler dance without some precipitation-related payback eventually
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Saturday, 12th March
On Friday in Chittagong, we witnessed two well-documented natural phenomena: the early-evening accumulation of condensed water droplets, and Englishmen complaining about the weather. At the post-defeat debrief, Mr Strauss and Mr Swann sounded like marine commandos returning from some dangerous amphibious operation, rather than sportsmen who’d had to play cricket on a bit of damp grass.
Their repeated use of the word “dew” in close proximity to the word “defeat” was, by the way, entirely coincidental. Let’s be clear: in no way were they blaming this dew-soaked defeat on the prevailing dampness that made it impossible to grip the ball or bowl straight. They were not suggesting, as some might, that this was a debacle borne of dew, a dew-induced lottery or a dewy farce; a dew-feat, if you will.
But it was karma. Mr Swann has spent the winter choreographing a surprisingly irritating dance modelled on a device employed for the purpose of distributing water onto grass. So the cricket gods have devised for him a fitting torment: to spend eternity bowling at tailenders with a ball that is never quite dry, no matter how many times he swears at it or wipes it with his special handkerchief.
Full post