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equatorFor a few glorious moments the other evening, I saw the future of English cricket. Not in South Africa, not in an indoor net, but in the safety of my own bathroom.
I have a two year old son. Bathtime usually involved me attempting to entertain him with a variety of bath toys whilst he attempts to throw the liquid contents of the bath over me.
On this occasion, I was attempting to retrieve a rubber duck which had been hurled into the passageway outside the bathroom when he suddenly stood up, shouted ‘cricket’ and threw a rubber ball.
Except that he didn’t throw the ball. He bowled it, with an almost straight arm (certainly straighter than some I could mention) and no extension at the elbow. The style was perhaps a little roundarm, but there’s time to work on that.
Was I euphoric? You bet! I made him do it over and again, just to make sure my eyes had not deceived me. I called my wife upstairs to witness the phenomenon and she narrowly avoided being cut in half by a full bunger*.
For 24 hours, jubilation reigned. My son was going to be a future England international, his good old British genes had won out over his American ones (my wife is from Kentucky) and everything about the future looked rosy.
You’ve guessed that there is a ‘but’ coming, haven’t you.
The next night, he stood up in the bath again, ball in hand. But instead of bowling it down the passageway, he looked across the room. “Arrrgh,” I thought, “Don’t hurl it at the mirror”. And he didn’t. Having glanced that way, he then, without looking, threw the ball overarm onto the landing. Like a quarterback hitting a receiver in American Football, right down to the eye-fake.
Oh well, they get paid more than cricketers anyway.
*Anyone wishing to make the ‘full toss in her crease’ joke can leave now, okay.
Maybe he won’t end up being a good quarterback. Maybe he’ll end up being a good fielder (i.e. Jonty Rhodes).
Paddles, thanks for the opening.
So when an epileptic exploits his condition to become a brilliant fielder, its cause for unmitigated celebration in whitey land. Weren’t the drugs that he took daily to control his condition performance enhancing? I would say they damn well were since its clear that his “gift” had a lot to do with his condition.
But if a brownie polio victim learns to bowl brilliantly, there’s never a mention of the hardships he had to face and the difficulties he had to overcome, its just a freaky birth advantage which he’s exploiting.
Jrod
My 3 year old slapped his friend while playing cricket in the garden today. I think india is set too, for the future.
That’s not exactly relevant, Jogesh, but ALL athletes are allowed to take prescribed medication, provided they declare it before competition. Rhodes is far from the only epileptic to play international sport – Tony Greig is another, for one.
There’s an odd misunderstanding about Murali. The news that his arm was ‘different’ came out long after the allegations against him. It was poor PR and, of course, mud sticks, whether it is justified or not.
Skiver, not Murali, Chandrashekhar.
My point is that Rhodes’ epilepsy clearly enhanced his reflexes and contributed to him being the incredible fielder he was, but it was never even suggested by whitey that it could be so, it was all about the struggle and the hard work and overcoming the illness.
In Chandra’s case, it was routine Orientalism – the polio left him with an advantage that allowed him to bend his fingers unnaturally and tweak the ball.
Yeah right, and Weissmuller’s swimming was greatly improved by his polio too.
I’ve never seen any evidence that epilepsy enhances your reflexes. Feel free to point me in the direction of that.
I don’t see your point regarding Chandra, unless you are suggesting that he didn’t get credit for his achievements because of his polio. Which, in my case at least, was nonsense – I was a kid during his era and didn’t want him bowling at my batsmen because he was good and took wickets, I didn’t even know about the polio and don’t think any less of him because of it.
It’s an interesting debate, but I’m not sure what it has to do with my son.
Skiver, I have been trying to talk the missus into breaking my son’s arm. Certainly Brett Lee and Shoaib have had badly repaired breaks in their youth which helped their pace.
I’m trying to sell it to her as an investment in the future.
Not working so far.
Hewy – make sure you get the correct arm. I didn’t and ruined my own career
I’m thinking both just to be sure.
Epilepsy is a neuromotor condition. Reflexes are too. Do the math.
With your son – none at all. I just used Paddles’ comment as an excuse. You arent getting the point, its not about you admiring Chandra, or me thinking Jonty is the most awesome fielder there ever was, its about typical whitey reporting and creation of stereotypes and myths.
Since you want a reference, try Said’s Orientalism for starters.
Re Murali, nothing subtle there, just a plain ol’ whitey witch-hunt. Similar to their attempts at neutralising Wasim and Waqar with ball-tampering allegations in the days of Paki only reverse swing, before whitey learnt to copy them.
As I said in a comment some days ago on chucking, its absurd to call spinners since theres no chance of bodily harm – they toss the ball up, not down.
I’m sorry, I addressed Jrod in one of the comments – i should have realised it wasn’t him when you mentioned your American wife – Jrod’s omnipresent book does mention that he’s married to an Englishwoman.
Why would you let your son play for England? At least let him get knocked back by Queensland first!
Your post doesnt mention the book – it couldn’t have been by Jrod!
Vico, check the author of the post. My children would actually be qualified to play for Australia, Sri Lanka or England. But i’d rather they play for Pakistan.
Jogesh, I’m not going to do your research for you, but as that chip is going to need surgery to remove from your shoulder, lets leave it there
Right on defender of the faith. Trying to pierce your caucasoid hifde isn’t my idea of a Sunday either.
I don’t think anyone should be throwing stones in a general direction on the racism front – by all means pick on certain racist individuals but don’t assume a whole race is racist. The comments about ‘whitey’ are actually racist in a much more obvious way than the are-they-or-aren’t-they insinuated racism of the tampering and chucking rows. I actually suspect these were more down to conservatism than racism for the most part.
Racism sucks, we all agree on that and there may well be closet racists in the media and even cricketing establishments of some countries but I think cricket is actually better than most areas of society.
It’s not only whitey who can be racist, by the way.
It wasn’t the ‘Aryan Supermen’ of the Australian team calling an opponent a monkey (have you looked at a team photo lately? They’re the most bizzare, freaky mix of genetic material than I’ve seen for some time)
Not that it should matter, but I’m of mixed race myself. A mongrel and proud of it!
Its a weird post to pick to push your barrow too Jogesh. It started as a lovely little heartwarming tale about Skiver’s kid. I have two little children also and a person can be protective about their children. And surely, if anyone is free of the racist taint it is a young child. I imagine when Skiver posted this he even thought that perhaps someday he would show the post to his child to show what Daddy was doing at the time and that the young fella was always in his mind, as my children are always in mine.
And then Jogesh you choose this particular post to try to make a political/historical point about metaculture, and not in a pleasant way either! You know I am with you Jogesh, I have told you this before, even though I am as ‘whitey’ as you can get, but seriously dude if you don’t choose your battlefronts more carefully you are going to wind up being about as relevant as the Warner Bros cartoon Tasmanian Devil.