Tour Diary
The light-fingered policeman
After Scotland’s thrilling last-ball shocker over Ireland this afternoon, I left the picturesque Nairobi Gymkhana in buoyant, chirpy, looking-forward-to-a-beer mood
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
After Scotland’s thrilling last-ball shocker over Ireland this afternoon, I left the picturesque Nairobi Gymkhana in buoyant, chirpy, looking-forward-to-a-beer mood. It was a swelteringly hot day, compounded by the greenhouse of a press box we were caged in (although, it must be said, the view from it was magnificent – and a damn sight better than many Test grounds in England), and libation was needed.
After nearly half-an-hour Joseph, my cabbie, arrived in his Toyota banger. His wreck has just one redeeming feature: you can hear it rattle from about 1km, giving you just enough time to rise from your seat and flag him down in case the brakes aren’t working. Off we set, out of the Gymkhana and down the slip-road onto the main highway, but were abruptly stopped by a 4x4 in front of us who had been halted by a policeman.
A tall, furious man, spitting venom, he marched the driver through the traffic to another policeman – and then set his eyes on us. By this point, Joseph was getting decidedly edgy, but my classic, foolish Englishness kicked in. Clearly he’s just having a bad day. He is a policeman after all – there to protect the public and uphold the law.
Full postPass the pigeon, please
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
The conditions were perfect. A cooling breeze took the edge off a sultry day at Jaffrey's Sports Club, the pitch was firm and the players raring to go. Sadly, the opening match of the World Cricket League was an administrative cock-up.
The match itself went smoothly, bar a couple of injuries. Kenya were too controlled with their bowling, Bermuda too haphazard with their batting and a meek total of 133 was never likely to trouble Kenya who romped home with a whopping 31.5 overs to spare, and all their wickets in hand.
Full postNairobbery snobbery
I like Kenya
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
I like Kenya. The locals might be frustrated by the chaos but, for someone like me, from London – such a regimented city, more intent on watching us, not helping us – the ramshackle way of Nairobi suits me just fine.
“Look, Will,” says David, a man nearly the same height as a Nairobi skyscraper, a scorer for Cricinfo. “We’re going to cross the road here, right in front of this police car. He won’t care. Nobody cares!” So we did, and the packed police car, which had clearly been in more scrapes than was healthy, let us go. This was Nairobi’s main trunk road into the city and we parted the traffic like Moses.
“This is Africa. This is what happens. The police don’t care,” he said, gesticulating with his arms at the police on his right. “You could just as well be arrested for doing nothing as you could for killing someone.” Now, hang on. I know Nairobi is a dangerous place but surely it’s no worse than anywhere else? “It’s all Somalia’s fault. You can get a gun for 6000 shillings (about £40UKP). What sort of a country lets people buy guns so cheap?”
I had no answer. £40 for a gun? That doesn’t even cover my mobile phone bill each month. If I sacrificed my phone I could afford an entire armoury. Gun crime in Britain, in London especially, has risen exponentially in the past decade but the vast majority of people are concerned observers rather than victims.
Full postKaribu
“Karibu!” beamed Michael at the Nairobi Club, my halls of residence for the next two weeks
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
“Karibu!” beamed Michael at the Nairobi Club, my halls of residence for the next two weeks. Not knowing what it meant or how to respond, but keen not to appear rude, my only response was “ah! Yes, indeed!”, hiding my embarrassing ignorance behind a dumb, bumbling veneer of Englishness. “Karibu. It means welcome,” explained Daniel, the bubbling cabbie. Jolly foreigners...
In the taxi, when Daniel cheerily announced we had arrived at the Club, I was in two minds. The walls outside were steep and stained. Fortress-like from the outside, it oozed Victorian England on the inside. If anything, it reminded me of an English school; dark, looming wood panels on the walls, on the floor, and a large oak table in the “informal” dining room. Hopefully the food won’t consist solely on a variant of cabbage and spludge (the only word to describe that school staple, concrete porridge).
Revealingly, there were posters advertising the World Cricket League dotted around our journey to the Club - interspersed with mobile phone companies demanding our money and, bizarrely, a large mural of Tower Bridge in London.
Full postCakes, texts and tenors
In the otherwise venerable SCG museum, there is one hideously mawkish souvenir - a commemorative red hankie, one of several thousand handed out by the Sydney Daily Telegraph on the occasion of Steve Waugh's retirement in January 2004
Andrew Miller
25-Feb-2013
In the otherwise venerable SCG museum, there is one hideously mawkish souvenir - a commemorative red hankie, one of several thousand handed out by the Sydney Daily Telegraph on the occasion of Steve Waugh's retirement in January 2004. So the legend goes, Waugh never took the field without his lucky red snot-rag, and the paper rightly thought that such an item would come in handy for the 40,000 people bidding farewell to their hero.
For if there is one thing that the Australians do better than cricket, it is sentimentality. For instance, it is now 23 years since Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh all bowed out in the same Sydney Test against Pakistan, and we still haven't heard the end of it. Mind you, this match might just do what 2005 did for 1981 and bump that one down the list a notch or two.
Only one day in, and the game is already dripping with nostalgia. It all started yesterday afternoon, with the painting on the outfield of the sponsor's logos. Beneath the great big "3" of 3 Mobile, there are the text-speak motifs: "Thx Glenn" at the Paddington End and "Thx Shane" at the Randwick End (though Shane's contribution to the text-message industry surely deserves a commemorative blimp at the very least.)
Full postMonty's magnificent hirsuteness
Since his eight-wicket heroics at the WACA, Monty Panesar has not enjoyed the best of weeks
Andrew Miller
25-Feb-2013
Since his eight-wicket heroics at the WACA, Monty Panesar has not enjoyed the best of weeks. He went wicketless in Australia’s first innings at Melbourne, after being denied the forest of close catchers that he’d been afforded in Perth, and he had a stone-dead lbw appeal turned down when Andrew Symonds had made just 52 of his 156 runs. But today, at last, he’s got some news to cheer him up.
He’s just been named the 2006 Beard of the Year by those notable facial-fungus connoisseurs, the Beard Liberation Front. The organisation, dedicated to “the removal of a societal prejudice against the facially folically enhanced or bearded” sprung to prominence in the late 1990s, when its founder, Keith Flett, took exception to the tendency for New Labour politicians to shave off their whiskers to attract more voters.
In that regard, Panesar is clearly a worthy winner. He just missed out on the title of BBC Sports Personality of the Year, but he was still the highest-placed bearded contender in the competition - slotting into third place behind Zara Phillips and Darren Clarke. To judge by the proliferation of false beards in the stands last summer, he has done his utmost to make facial hair trendy again.
Full postWarne announces his retirement
1.16pm “Have you spoken to John Howard, and do you know if he’s retiring,” asks a reporter, as Warne exits stage left to laughter and a round of applause
Andrew Miller
25-Feb-2013
1.16pm
“Have you spoken to John Howard, and do you know if he’s retiring,” asks a reporter, as Warne exits stage left to laughter and a round of applause. That’s it. The man has said his piece. At the age of 37, with 699 Test wickets from 143 matches, with the prospect of two more games to come, Shane Warne has announced his retirement from international cricket, Australian domestic cricket and club cricket for his local St Kilda team. He will, however, continue to honour his contract with Hampshire for the next two years. Catch him there while you can, because you’ll not see his like again in a hurry.
“Have you spoken to John Howard, and do you know if he’s retiring,” asks a reporter, as Warne exits stage left to laughter and a round of applause. That’s it. The man has said his piece. At the age of 37, with 699 Test wickets from 143 matches, with the prospect of two more games to come, Shane Warne has announced his retirement from international cricket, Australian domestic cricket and club cricket for his local St Kilda team. He will, however, continue to honour his contract with Hampshire for the next two years. Catch him there while you can, because you’ll not see his like again in a hurry.
1.14pm
“We expect England to come out and play with pride,” says Warne, but he believes the coming weeks will be celebrational rather than emotional.
“We expect England to come out and play with pride,” says Warne, but he believes the coming weeks will be celebrational rather than emotional.
1.12pm
Warne says he discussed his retirement with, among others, Ian Chappell and his ex-wife, Simone, “who’s been there for the journey.” He wants to be remembered as “an entertainer, who enjoyed himself along the way.”
Warne says he discussed his retirement with, among others, Ian Chappell and his ex-wife, Simone, “who’s been there for the journey.” He wants to be remembered as “an entertainer, who enjoyed himself along the way.”
1.10pm
“Let’s hope they can contain the bushfires for a week, and let the rains to come along next week,” he jokes, when asked about the prospect of a 700th wicket on home turf at the MCG.
Full post“Let’s hope they can contain the bushfires for a week, and let the rains to come along next week,” he jokes, when asked about the prospect of a 700th wicket on home turf at the MCG.
Brett Lee's Ashes after-party
No matter how exciting an occasion is, there's only so much capital one can make out of the most isolated city on earth
Andrew Miller
25-Feb-2013
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Remember 2005? Remember England's Ashes rampage through every bar in the West End? "Freddied!" read the headlines in the morning papers, as Andrew Flintoff presented the acceptable side of binge-drinking during an all-night bender that finished with that open-top bus parade through Trafalgar Square.
Fifteen months on from that epic day's night, and it was Australia's turn for a bit of post-triumph release. It's fair to say that things were just a little bit more restrained. Perth, I suppose, is a good leveller. No matter how exciting an occasion turns out to be, there's only so much capital any victorious team can make out of the most isolated city on earth.
And so, while England's finest had bundled into the most exclusive nightclubs in existence, Australia chose instead to patronise one of the lowliest backpackers' hang-outs in the entire state. On Mondays, Perth rocks to the beat of the Deen on Aberdeen Street. It's Aus$10 for all that you can drink, and on the night that the Ashes were won and lost, that equates to a lot of beer.
Full postWhat is in an anthem?
Jacques Kallis, very much the cornerstone of South Africa's Test side, is embroiled in a controversy over his refusal to sing the national anthem
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
Jacques Kallis, very much the cornerstone of South Africa's Test side, is embroiled in a controversy over his refusal to sing the national anthem. A report in South Africa's Sunday Times suggests that Cricket South Africa will ask for an explanation from him after the Johannesburg Test.
The current anthem, first sung in 1996, is a combination of Nkosi Sikelel'iAfrika, which was a symbol of the resistance to Apartheid, and Die Stem (The Call of South Africa), which was adopted as the national anthem by the Apartheid regime in 1957. The issue regarding Kallis was first raised by a Sunday Times reader, Ebrahim Sadak, who wrote in to Cricket South Africa asking whether Kallis thought he was indispensible or "anti new
SA".
Full postMr South African Cricket
On the eve of the Test, we head to the suburb of Sandton, to the home to a man who was Mr South African cricket for more than a quarter century, Ali Bacher
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
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On the eve of the Test, as the evening shadows lengthen, we head to the suburb of Sandton, and a quiet bungalow that's home to a man who was Mr South African cricket for more than a quarter century. Aron Bacher, Ali to nearly everyone, captained one of cricket’s greatest sides, and then earned further renown as one of the best administrators that the game has seen. He eased himself out of the limelight after successfully planning and conducting the 2003 World Cup, and his association to cricket these days is limited to appearances at the Wanderers and SuperSport Park in Centurion.
Bacher walks slowly to the door when we arrive. Two bandages still cover his lower leg, a legacy of a second bypass surgery that he underwent last week, having first gone under the knife way back in 1981. "I've had about six escapes," he tells us with a smile later. "But I feel as good as new now. I walk three times a day, and might even make it to the Wanderers to catch play on Saturday and Sunday."
Bacher is an eloquent speaker, and he has no reluctance to admit to mistakes of the past. The rebel tours, which he helped organise, were a huge mistake in his view, errors of judgement that happened because "we lived in a cocoon during the Apartheid years". "Had I known that Apartheid would end, I would never have tried to organise it. But we felt we needed to keep interest in the game alive."
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