cricket with balls

For months I have been living in a endless spire of two particular countries playing each other over and over again with the result ever changing. Today I had to give up a ame of cricket because I can’t move my neck, so the last thing I wanted, was to watch another one sided bashing of young kids.

The team that was losing is very likeable, they have a breath taking opening batsmen, a hard working all rounder as captain and a bunch of kids who all have some talent but didn’t look ready.

Then there was the coach, that embittered bald angry violent scowling hard man who had given three years of his life and probably a easier job somewhere else because he wants to make this a tough side to beat. He becomes the face of the team because he can’t hide his emotions and tells it like it is in interviews.

When the other hangers on cheered his opener’s many runs from front and square on the balcony, the coach was usually nowhere to be seen or way in the background gently clapping while the others celebrated like they had won the Ashes, World Cup, World T20 Asia Cup in one go. He expects these guys to make big scores, and doesn’t get carried away.

On Thursday this team started their third series against England this year, it has been 247 days since they have one an international match, they’ve never beaten England and yet again their opposition treat them like a joke by resting their ket batsmen and bowler.

It should have just been a continuation of defeat.

But there were changes made, the captain was given a break so another all rounder could come in and captain his side while making about his 17th comeback from injury.

He didn’t captain like they couldn’t lose this game, he captained like they had a real chance.

Their batting was plucky and safe, their main man hadn’t fired but they had 236.

A team that has performed this bad in the recent past shouldn’t be able to defend 236, but they kept hanging in, taking wickets, playing as a team, they even had time to give a mate an over for fun.

They had an ally in the opposition. A grizzled batsman who seemed to be batting for his career and not quite thinking.  The opposition also lost a man to injury during the game and their big middle order weapon never fired.

That didn’t mean this team of underdogs had it easy, it still went to the wire.

With 8 balls to go they looked like their team performance was in vain, but they kept at it, and they even had a moment of premature-celebration when they took the 9th wicket assuming the injured batsman would not come in.

He did, and that must have put them young team off.  Two balls later the opposition only needed 6 runs off 4 balls, and it looked all over.

That was the moment when the big bad old boy of world cricket steals the game and leaves the fans with nothing but embarrassment at ever having hope.

Instead a slower ball was bowled, the only opposition batsman that really scored was caught behind and this nation finally beat their one bogey side.

It was just a one dayer in just another meaningless series, but when they won it was everything.

The players celebrated like they had never won before, the coach transformed from the most miserable man in cricket to its happiest, the support staff were so happy they were almost hurting each other with bear hugs.

This isn’t going to change this team.

The next game against England isn’t going to be magically easier, this young side isn’t about to take world cricket by storm, but when you haven’t won in 247 days, a win is a massive event.

Maybe this will give them confidence, maybe it will be a blip.

But when this side wins a match cricket fan’s smile, and that is a good thing.

Well done, boys.  And I think I speak for almost everyone who loves cricket when I say that.

My neck is still very fucken sore, but now it is sore from screaming like a dickhead when you took that wicket.

Now, how about one more win?

Take it from me, commentary isn’t easy. You have to know what you are talking about, be able to describe things and think on your feet. And not swear. Not swearing is very important – unless you book Jrod, in which case you ought to know what you are getting and plan to pay the fines accordingly.

And sometimes you just have to keep talking. The stunt that was pulled on Henry Blofeld in his first BBC commentary is now the stuff of legend. I used to do audio commentary for the blind, where you have to keep talking or the audience really do think you’ve buggered off for a pint.

Similarly, I yield to no-one in my admiration for David Lloyd. If anyone has managed to blend insight with humour, wit with intelligence, in cricket commentary, it is Bumble. But tonight, he went too far.

The point of no return was when Bangladeshi wicket-keeper Mushfiqur Rahim managed to get himself smacked in the face by the ball. Now, I can forgive him for omitting to point out that this could only happen to Rahim, who is not only the smallest player I have ever seen in international cricket but possibly the smallest cricketer ever. Keeping wicket without a helmet was, for him, either ridiculously brave or ridiculously stupid. What I can’t forgive is the stick that he then proceeded to give to Rahim’s replacement, batsman Junaid Siddique.

Keeping wicket isn’t a simple job. Just ask Matt Prior. Being asked to do it at a moments notice is even harder, especially if you are not a regular ‘keeper. Junaid (or ‘Zunead’ as he seems to now prefer, which sounds like a Marvel Comics villain to me) was thrown in at the deep end by a management who didn’t think it worth bringing a second keeper on a fortnight’s tour.

I’ve done this stand-in keeper thing once myself, when my then-club’s temperamental Aussie keeper Treacle suddenly decided after 15 overs that he had had enough and wanted a bowl, ripped off his pads and refused to put them on again. It’s the most difficult thing you will do on a cricket pitch, for so many reasons. So when Bumble started laughing when Zunead let through five wides in his first over, I bristled. After all, if the bowler chucks the ball way down the leg side when he knows that he’s not got a regular keeper behind the stumps, where does the blame really lie?

There then followed patronising comment after comment during the rest of his commentary shift, a theme which was picked up by the lesser commentators on the Sky team. It was all extremely unfair to a man doing his level best in difficult circumstances.

Moreover, in the past few years, England have utilised Marcus Trescothick, Vikram Solanki, Paul Collingwood and Eoin Morgan as wicketkeepers in ODIs – the latter two in the same injury circumstances as forced Zunead to take over. I don’t remember the same level of snide commentary being directed at any of their efforts.

In this utterly pointless series, it is going to be hard for anyone to enhance their reputation. But David Lloyd and his colleagues demonstrated tonight that is still going to be easy to sully it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you join us on the opening day of arguably the most pointless and least interesting ODI series since time began, a series in which England will, inevitably, win what Ben Folds called The Battle of Who Could Care Less.

You have to feel sorry for Bangladesh. Not only are they everyone’s favourite whipping boys, they are getting royally buggered about by the fixture planners. Having been in England six weeks ago, they were then sent back to the sub-continent to play some one day games whilst England played some infinitely-more-lucrative-yet-equally-meaningless matches against Australia. Christ, when you look at the international schedule, you just know that the only reasons the ICC haven’t claimed ownership of the hole in the ozone layer is (a) they’ve not found a sponsor for it and (b) it’s not yet as big as the gap in Craig Kieswetter’s defence.

(And shut up at the back, it was a meaningless series and it tells us sod all about the Ashes, not least because the day I see an England Test side with Michael Yardy in it is the day I eat Jrod’s Hat)

Which means that instead of spending some  of the best cricketing days of the summer playing Test cricket, England are forced to noodle around whilst Pakistan finish playing Australia, a series starting later than it should due to a so-meaningless-it-couldn’t-get-a-sponsor set of one day games that was squeezed in by an organisation in no way desperate to make money wherever it can.

In all, England spend amost all of July with no international cricket, then madly cram four Tests into a month, then seven one day games into 17 days, as the weather gets worse and worse.

In other words, all England fans have to look forward to this month is three days of beating up a Bangladesh side who can’t even agree who their captain is supposed to be. I don’t know who arranges the international calendar, but whatever they are drinking, I want some.

There are several perks to working with Jrod. For example, it is not often that I get to be the least sweary one in a room. Or the handsomest. And it isn’t that often that you get a book acknowledgment which is more glowing than the one that the author gives to his English teacher. But what really makes it worthwhile are some of the conversations. The conversations are, at times, surreal.

Last week,  for example, I was accused of being like this guy, during a conversation in which the aforementioned Big Cheese revealed not only a poor grasp of the script of ‘Team America: World Police’, but of his own megalomania generally. But it did give me an idea. Suppose we here at the Balls went all Niyazov on the world and decided to rename the days of the week and months of the year after cricketers?

For example, November always starts with loads of fireworks and fun, but usually ends up being grim, depressing and throughly downbeat. It is no coincidence that the month of November sees more suicides than any other month of the year. Welcome, then, to the month of Botham.

Following Botham, we currently have December. It is a month full of anticipation, a long build up to a lot of wonderful things. Or is it? Isn’t it more a month of anticipation, usually followed by a bit of a damp squib at the end, when everything turns out to be nowhere near as wonderful as you expect it to be? In which case, we should rename it ‘Afridi’.

And we can go on. January could be dedicated to Cricket Administrators, because no matter how much the new year promises, you can guarantee that it will be fucked up somehow. February, on the other hand, is short and wonderful. You get paid more quickly, either the weather is decent or at least the long winter months seem to be coming to an end. It is, in a way, mercurial. Therefore it has to be Tendulkar month.

Then there are the days of the week. For example, Wednesday is a completely pointless day. Nothing good seems to come of it and it’s appearance usually only serves to remind you just how much work still needs to be done. A bit like Ian Bell, really.

And as for Monday, well, don’t you just want it to fuck off as soon as it arrives? Like you do with Ricky Ponting?

Whereas Friday is the classic day that usually starts well, then all goes horribly wrong. Forever. In which case we should call it ‘Ashraful’ instead.

That’s as much thinking as I am going to do. The rest of the days and months are up to you lot. Besides, I’ve got to get on with being a despotic headcase*.

(*I’ll concede that the banning of lipsynching was a pretty good idea. If only he’d banned street theatre, too.)

There was a moment on the last day when Mushfiqur Rahim kept getting hit on the fingers.

It wasn’t some important moment in the game. Bangladesh had already batted like left handed children using right handed scissors for the first time. The players and reporters were already preparing for their days off. Cleaners were coming into place. Old Trafford’s accountants were working out how much they had lost. And the sky programmers were busy planning back ups.

All of this was put on hold as Ajmal Shahzad kept hitting Rahim’s little fingers.

Shahzad is playing his first test, he has a first class bowling average of 33, without injuries he is about the 8th choice bowler in England’s attack. Yet on this day he regular beat up the hands of Rahim.

Rahim who has the best footwork of any Bangladeshi by so far that if Uday Hussain’s nephew was to start coaching the team and cut Rahim’s feet off, Rahim would still have the best footwork.

It seemed that the only thing delaying England’s win was Rahim walking around in pain or calling for the physio.

England knocked Bangladesh down, held back the one kid who could fight and let their wimpier kids kick the living shit out of them for a couple of hours.

Bangladesh have good days in test cricket, this wasn’t one of them.

Their last 19 wickets went for 213 runs.

But it was Rahim’s fingers that took the biggest beating.

With the game over he could have backed away and slogged like others did after him.

Rahim just kept getting behind the ball, kept taking the ball on his gloves, kept trying not to show the pain and played out 42 balls before he was eventually caught at mid on chipping a ball.

It was Bangladesh. A mediocre innings of much pain that meant nothing and gave even less.

Bangladesh lost in an embarrassing way.

Siddons is closer to going.

Tamim continued the rise.

And Rahim has sore fingers.