The Surfer
IPL teams race for Gilchrist
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
Adam Gilchrist is the man as far as Indian Premier League teams are concerned. Jon Pierik reports in the Courier-Mail on the race to get his signature.
In the Age Tim Lane writes about how Australian players, from the captain down, seem prepared to go to war for the right to play in India.
Full postIndia are on the right track
Peter Roebuck says it is unwise for India to be planning so far ahead of the 2011 World Cup
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
Peter Roebuck says it is unwise for India to be planning so far ahead of the 2011 World Cup. Instead India must set out to win as many matches as possible. Read the full piece in the Hindu.
Dhoni and his think-tank must also avoid the temptation to use inexperience as an excuse every time a match is lost. Responses of that sort display a lack of faith. Rather they should absorb the lessons and promote improvement. Players must become familiar with their roles.
Sharda Ugra in India Today says Dhoni and the young bats need to show India enough signs of why it was a good idea to ask Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman to go home, and not only by taking catching blinders or running fast.
Full postHayden the bananabender
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald Peter Roebuck dwells on the coming together of the old firm - Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist - and their effect on the opposition.
Sriram Veera
25-Feb-2013
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald Peter Roebuck dwells on the coming together of the old firm - Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist - and their effect on the opposition.
Others might favour playing the ball late and other subtleties, but the bananabender strives to dictate from the outset. It was the approach adopted by the likes of Colin Milburn and Charlie Macartney, a gentleman inclined to crack the ball back at the opening bowler's head at the earliest opportunity. Hayden was soon into his work, driving past the bowler with a restraint that belied the potency of his stroke. Already he was stepping forwards in a manner calculated to make Chaminda Vaas regret his loss of pace.
... Gilchrist took his time against some demanding pace bowling and alert fielding. Not that he dawdled. A bloke called David Hemery used to teach in England. In the 1968 Olympics he won a gold medal in the 400m hurdles. Anyone wanting to talk to him on the move had to break into a trot while the medallist was, by his estimation, walking. Gilchrist is like that. His idea of pottering along is to take only one risk an over.
Full postKasprowicz - one of the most likeable men in the game
In the Courier Mail Robert Craddock looks back at the career of Michael Kasprowicz.
Sriram Veera
25-Feb-2013
In the Courier Mail Robert Craddock looks back at the career of Michael Kasprowicz.
Inevitably he was defined by his hard yakka work in India, including the 1998 tour that almost broke him.
One night I rang him in his room and he confessed that minutes earlier he had broken down and cried on the phone to home, so physically and mentally distressed was he feeling. His voice sounded croaky and weak. I thought he was shot for the tour. Somehow he got through to win Australia the last Test. It was some effort.
He was branded a subcontinent specialist but once, with a West Indies tour looming, hinted to the selectors, "I do like pina coladas and coconuts as well, not just curries."
Full postAustralia's future is now
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
Ricky Ponting looks ahead in his column in the Australian, running his eye over the country's fringe and developing talent.
Adam Voges has been around for a while and hasn't had much of a crack at it, but he has done well when he has played. Brad Hodge is one of those who has come in and out of the side but been unable to nail down a spot because there is so much talent in the squad ... Shaun Marsh, Luke Pomersbach and David Hussey and those sort of guys are going to be the next generation of Australian one-day players, and you are starting to see them getting a go in the Twenty20s as a recognition of their efforts.
Gilchrist’s bat a wonder of the world
Peter English
25-Feb-2013
Adam Gilchrist speaks to the Australian’s Peter Lalor about his “Wonder Bat”, which dressing-room folklore says carries the same powers as one made by Homer Simpson. Since getting it before the 2006-07 Ashes, he has nursed it like “an orphaned marsupial”, but it finally broke in last week’s Twenty20.
It has been glued and pinned and preserved at every turn. If staying up nights with a cold flannel and a bottle of milk would have done the trick, Gilchrist would have been there. The axemen of the team will carry six or eight blades in their kit, but Gilchrist carries just three: the much-loved Wonder Bat, a practice bat and a spare.
Racism in other sports
It's not only cricket that's struggling to cope with the issue of racism
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
It's not only cricket that's struggling to cope with the issue of racism. Other sports have had to cope with racist controversies as well and their governing bodies have proved to be largely ineffectual, writes Marina Hyde in the Guardian.
... it was Fifa who imposed the paltry £44,750 fine on the Spanish FA for the racist chanting. It was also Fifa who fined the Cameroonian FA £86,000 for wearing the wrong kit in the African Cup of Nations that same year.
We seem to need a more radical solution than waiting on governing bodies to act on racism. Why should people be satisfied with this pace? At this rate black athletes will be taking abuse another 45 years from now, while some governing body or other churns out a milquetoast press release saying what a shame it all is.
Full postFat men can play
Jesse Ryder, the New Zealand batsman who was criticised by former international Adam Parore for being too fat, has found support from Hamish McDouall, who takes on Parore in his blog Googlies and Grass Stains .
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Jesse Ryder, the New Zealand batsman who was criticised by former international Adam Parore for being too fat, has found support from Hamish McDouall, who takes on Parore in his blog Googlies and Grass Stains.
When Ryder was selected a couple of weeks ago Adam Parore launched. Ryder had a bad attitude and was too fat. Parore invoked portly Jock Edwards and David Boon as examples of players who would not be selected in today’s fitness-conscious environment.
On the bad-attitude charge it was surely a case of the pot dropping a line to the kettle to indicate the kettle was of darker hue. In the first few years of his international career Parore was a disaster zone in pads - the kind of player who should have klaxons sounding when he walked into a dressing room.
Full postGood sports, bad sports
"What does it mean to be a "good sport"
Sriram Veera
25-Feb-2013
"What does it mean to be a "good sport"? Is it as obvious as simply playing fairly, or in these days of fiercely competitive professional rivalry does the very idea of being a "good sport" need renovation?" ABC's Radio Sports Factor investigates.
Major-General Michael Jeffrey, lawyer, blogger and cricket fan, Irfan Yusuf, Fairfax journalist and ABC cricket commentator, Peter Roebuck and Debbie Simms, manager of the Australian Sports Commission's Ethics Unit, form the panel.
Roebuck: The sort of outburst of nationalism that began in the 1970s when this country freed itself from English petticoats, in theatre, in comedy, in so many areas, politics, and so many areas it freed itself from that. Subsequent to that for 30 years there's been this great breast-beating tradition, chest-thumping tradition in Australian sport, in some Australian sport of course, not all of them. And that I think, I saw the SCG Test Match as basically the last statement of that, and I almost was challenging Australia to say, Well, we've sort of done that, we've established ourselves as a proud and independent nation now.
I think what happened at the SCG was partly that Australia regressed, because it's trying to be partisan I believe, but also that India started playing the old Australia, that it too is now establishing itself as a proud and independent nation, and those two, like two big bulls at each other, they came. There only used to be one bull in this paddock you know, and now there's two. And that's what happened there. So the Australians, I would submit are trying to move on a little bit; they've made some efforts in that regard. The Indians are determined to establish their right to the paddock as well, and so they're now playing, as they think, as Australia has always played.
Full postGloucestershire's academy trek through the Beacons
The Brecon Beacons in Wales are as bleak and lonely a landscape as Britain has, where the Royal Marines test their physical endurance and where the SAS trek 40 gruelling miles to whittle out the weaklings in their infamous Long Drag
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
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The Brecon Beacons in Wales are as bleak and lonely a landscape as Britain has, where the Royal Marines test their physical endurance and where the SAS trek 40 gruelling miles to whittle out the weaklings in their infamous Long Drag. Not a place for cricketers, then - or is it? Tom Davies and a group of Gloucestershire's academy players have been spotted up there with guttering pipe, bamboo and rope:
The first station was quite simple to find, the piece of equipment was a piece of guttering pipe. Then all of the other stations were hard but a good challenge of your map reading skills. We ended up on the top of Sugarloaf Mountain with a piece of guttering pipe, piece of rope, big bottle of water and 2 pieces of bamboo canes.
In my eyes this was a very good challenge as it showed how we could work as a team i.e. following maps, listening to what the team members have to say. Even though my team came last I thought that we worked well together but we failed to read instructions properly as did other teams which cost us a couple of time penalties.
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