cricket with balls

Sorry to break you out of your Ashes coma, but there are three other test matches going on at the moment.

WI vs. BAN

West Indies have dirty scabby strikebreakers playing for them, and if that isn’t bad enough the one I really wanted to see. Kraigg Brathwaite, isn’t fucking playing.

The scabs are pretty much a West Indies 3rd XI, and they are slightly ahead of Bangladesh, who have to win this game to prove they aren’t’ the genital wart of the cricket world.

PAK vs. SRI

Having lost the last game in a dramatically flamboyant style, Pakistan decided to keep that going and collapse on the first day of the next test as well. 90 runs on the first day of a test match. Special.

Sri Lanka are now looking good for a 2 zip result, and being that their bowling line up looks like decidedly nameless, that is a top effort.

ENG vs. AUS WOMEN

The Australian women were 5/28, and I was ready to go around and punch them all, then they were 6/257 and I was quite happy.

England are now 5/120 with a lot to do, but have a 60 run partnership going. A women’s test is a special thing, as they are lucky to play one a year.

NED vs. CAN

Netherlands are playing Canada as well, in what I assume is called the Dirty Dirk Davison cup. Had I known about this series I would have sponsored it. Although if I did, I would have spent months trying to work out what to call it.

The Cricket With Balls Trans-Atlantic shit fight, perhaps…

I know what you are thinking, “Jrod hasn’t told us who will win the World T20 thingy, how will we watch the game knowing this”.

Settle down sunshine, here is my guess.

Nether team will win, instead a giant squid will attack Lord’s killing everyone, especially the children and smurf dancers.

If that doesn’t happen I am torn.

Once Australia and India looked rubbish i thought Sri Lanka would win.

But…

I expected them to play the probotic children of the mechanic revolution (South Africa), and thusly win easily with their wizards and demons.

Now they are playing Pakistan, who has 5 bowlers I would trust more than Sri Lanka’s Junk bowlers (Sorry, Lego Hair Udana and Angelo), and I am unsure.

Sri Lanka still has the freakish team, but so does Pakistan, and they look more in form.

So i will go out on a limb and choose my third differernt winner of the tournament, Pakistan.

Shahid Afridi is almost as sexy as Natalie Portman at the moment, and he made me use this sentence on twiiter recently, “Afridi saluting the crowd is the moment I am more sexually attracted to a man than i feel comfortable with.”

Pakistan for me.

If Sri Lanka win I will go back to my original (read second) choice that the Lankans can win.

And for the women’s, I will remain loyal to my original (really) thoughts that the Kiwi side will win.

Unless England and CWB’s own Hilly Colvin win, and they I support Holly.

Some of you may think Ricky Ponting is the worst Australian cricket captain you can think of.

Would it fuck with your mind if i said he may not even be the worst Australian captain at the moment.

Karen Rolton played such an important part in Australia’s loss today it is hard overlook it.

Her field placings were, wait for it, Pontingesque.

She seemed to lose faith in some bowlers after one over.

Her complete lack of imagination or will to make drastic changes took Australia to an amazing loss.

Sure Claire Taylor helped, her innings in partnership with Beth Morgan was super mega good, but it would have nice to have seen her tested once or twice.

The poms were taking twos at will, yet Australia never moved in any closer from the boundary.

They scored off every ball that didn’t go to the bowler or to the keeper.

And Beth Morgan had one get out shot, the lap sweep, which see played about 9 times, mostly for boundaries, expect for the odd miss  and the one she hit into her jaw.

Yet Rolton never put the fine leg back, or put her finer where the ball kept going.

She just looked lost and confused, and she made me give women’s cricket the ultimate compliment.

I got so angry I forgot it was a women’s match and that I shouldn’t have cared, and upon completion I was so fucken pissed off I yelled ‘useless bitches’.

Had it been the men’s side who had preformed such a mind fuckingly poor effort in the field I would have called them fucken useless pricks.

So the women’s game is definitely gaining importance in my anger and care factor.

When you are along side Neil McKenzie and James Anderson, you’d almost have to say no to the award.

McKenzie’s 2008 was so good he was dropped 2 tests into 2009, and his 2008 yielded 3 hundreds in 14 tests.

And James Anderson averaged 29 in tests, and 74 in one dayers.

Surely CWB’s Holly Colvin would have been the better option than either of these two muppets.

Boucher also made it, um, that is cool, not sure why he is there. Averaged 27 against England and 33 over all, made one hundred for the year against Bangladesh. If he was picked because Sclyd Berry likes him I can respect that.

And ofcourse the token county player, also a South African, Dale Benkenstein, who had a cracking year.

While it is great that Wisden finally recognised women’s cricket, it’s just a shame Claire had to share the honour with lesser cricketers.

Ofcourse the whole system is a bit of a joke, if I was Claire I would refuse to be involved at all.

Sorry to keep harping on about this, but I couldn’t let the big news of today pass without comment. Forget what is going on in New Zealand. Forget whatever happens later in the Carribean. A woman has been named as one of Wisden’s fiver cricketers of 2008.

Not just any woman, either, but England’s Claire Taylor. You probably have heard of her, as she was player of the tournament in the recent World Cup. This, on the other hand, is recognition of her stellar performances with the bat last year.

There will be people who criticise this decision and who see it as yet another change wrought by new Wisden editor Scyld Berry where none was needed. These people are very wrong. 2008 was hardly a vintage year for cricket. The others honoured are James Anderson, Dale Blenkenstein, Mark Boucher and Neil McKenzie, which to my mind makes two awards for longevity, one for leading your side to a title and one for being the only man in the world more superstitious than me. On performance alone, Taylor deserves to be there.