I’m not really sure what that means, but it will happen.

It will be a wednesday thing, I won’t link to them every week here.

It is my first real non comedy type deal.

But you should go check it out, I think of it as Bill Simmons meets Keith Stackpole with a dash of Alan Alda.

The column is called Hooking & Pulling, and if you all rush over there they might keep paying me.

I’ve written about finger spin and left arm quicks so far.

Like you, my career in Shield cricket was tragically shorter than I wanted.  While you got 4 games with the Vics, I played none at all.  This hurts me, so I can imagine that it hurts you too.  But you can deal with heartbreak in better ways than by destroying your old flame.

You’re obviously a modern man.  You’ve probably got a blackberry, an iphone, home and work laptops and a pedometer.  But that doesn’t mean that old things are shit and can be discarded.

James, you and I are not so different.  We both put pants on before leaving the home.  We both love cricket.  We’ve both watched Victoria win a Shield final.

That is where we differ, for me, the Shield Final is the pinnacle, a game of cricket as good as first class cricket can get.  Where two sides play off to prove their worth, the odds stacked in the favour of one side, buy giving 22 players a chance of proving that they are test worthy.

For you it is the wrapping around a Quarter Pounder.

The 2007/08 Final sucked balls for Victoria, but the selectors were watching.  Hughes and Siddle jumped older players, Bryce’s performance put him down the list, Beau Casson got test out of it and Simon Katich proved his rebirth was not some fluke. It was a cracking game of cricket, NSWales at near full strength, Victoria proving they were a hell of a side.  It went 5 days, there was a result, Stuart MacGill told Nick Jewell to stop being a drama queen.

James, how could you deny anyone this?

The shield season is not exactly long at the moment; teams only play 10 games each.  It breaks down like this:

3 in October

8 in November

5 in December

2 in January

6 in February

6 in March

1 final in March

If you can play 6 matches at the start of March, you can play 6 at the end of October. Start the season a week earlier and you could have 8 matches in October and you can scrap the January games.  If you can play 8 in November, you can play 8 in February.  And surely you could fit in a boxing day game once a year, or the day after boxing day. Then it would be:

8 in October

8 in November

6 in December

8 in February

1 final March.

January, when most Australian cricket fans are really interested, becomes your 2020 month.  The rest of the season is for proper cricket.  And March is your final.  Having it at least two weeks earlier than it is now.  No first class cricket is lost, and most importantly, the final is still there.  If you think this is cramming cricket in a bit much, then jettison a few one dayers, have all teams play each other once, and play two sides in their region twice.  If that is even an issue, which I doubt.

The final doesn’t have to go, and neither do any games.  Australian domestic cricketers will play at least 30 days less than their English brethren, and that doesn’t need to change, it just needs to be re-jigged.

Forget being the modern man, the bitter man, or the cut price Australian Lalit man, and just try and do what is best for the game.  And if you think that is cutting the shield season, then perhaps it is you who is not best for the game, and you should trot off into the commercial world to re-brand some breakfast cereal.

Yours truly,

Jrod

After a morning of watching cricket players singing on YouTube (Abdul Razzaq is my favourite) I stumbled across the live IPL stream. I was greeted with Pommie Mbangwa and Shane Warne speaking with an awkward delay. When Pommie spoke, Warne’s lips moved and vice versa. Was a nice effect.

Whispers had come back to me that the picture quality was poor on the IPL’s YouTube experiment, but the picture worked for me. You could see Dirk Nannes’ magnificent facial fuzz and Graeme Smith’s cold, dead eyes. Warne’s teeth were as luminescent as always and Harsha Bhogle’s hair was lustrous.

Clearly when they came up with this online stream no one thought of the serious problems it could lead to. The cheerleaders are harder to ogle. If the light is not on these unnecessary dancing girls properly, it leads to pixellation and the girls can look like they’re characters from Samantha Fox Strip Poker (made in 1986).

I started off by enjoying the experience, but then I realised that even though the site looked friendly enough, there was a seedy secret. After the first over I looked around the page to see what else they had. Under the video I found a live Twitter chat stream coming through that said 14 for 1 was the score, but I had seen no wicket. Three minutes later I saw Dirty Dirk Nannes get one, which took the score to… 14 for 1. We were on a delay.

I might not have worked this out without the help of this live Twitter feed directly below the footage. From then on in I watched the Twitter feed, and if someone said “four” or “wicket”, I set my mental egg timer and then scrolled up in time to watch it.

Being that I was in sunny London, I got a KP Brylcreem ad that had been made for the internet, but was put on way too loud and made my ears cry. Like Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Michael Kasprowicz did. This seemed to be their only ad, and it was shown so much that I wanted to find the man who invented Brylcreem, dig him up, and make him watch it. Imagine if KP was batting and all you had was KP ads. You’d overdose on KP. Not how I want to go.

My cat, Spartacus, seemed confused that the IPL was on YouTube, and he never stayed long in my office. He went back to the lounge and waited for me to turn on ITV. (He is a big Mandira Bedi fan, although he was hoping she would wear an IPL logo sari).

The Twitter feed quickly became more interesting than the game to me, as most of the tweets were about illegal places to watch the IPL online. Quite often these people were saying the YouTube link was down, even though it never broke for me. Then they flogged their dodgy link.

When Graeme Smith was out, I was watching the young Ladda bowling on my screen, and he had four balls left in his over. Smith eventually was out in front of my eyes in the next over. It did annoy me, but I also felt like a cricket soothsayer, one who could sense the dismissal was coming before he saw it.

I doubt many people in the world just sit on one website when they are on the internet, so it is impossible not to go to your Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Myspace, Bebo and Friendster to know what is coming next. And that doesn’t even include Cricinfo’s genius ball-by-ball coverage (editor, is that what I was supposed to say?). The ways of being in front of YouTube are many and varied.

After getting bored with the game I started playing around and found out you can see alternate camera angles with the “fun feed”. Big mistake. I can’t believe anyone could watch more than two minutes of this. All I had was a close-up of Shane Warne watching the cricket for 30 seconds, the cheerleaders’ empty stage, vox pops of the fans in the dark as a poor interviewer just got screamed at by a bunch of young fans, and extended cheerleading shots. I can only imagine this “fun feed” is for stalkers of cricketers who love watching women dance and children yell.

Then the feed went down.

Not knowing what to do, I decided to click on one of the many illegal feeds while I waited for YouTube to come back on line. I was amazed that the illegal feeds were actually up to speed with the game. When the YouTube feed came back up, it was one full over behind the illegal feed. Does Lalit know about this? I wouldn’t want to be the one who tells him. So I stayed with the illegal feed. It isn’t quite as pretty, and you can’t even make out Shilpa Shetty (I assume it was her) from a distance. But you do get a variety of ads.

Then the illegal stream crashed. I went back to watch the YouTube stream, and saw the over I had just seen. That annoyed me, so I found another illegal feed, but the sound was rubbish on this one.

That was enough. I went back to my couch. Watching cricket wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

Even though it went on too late, it was fairly well timed for me as I usually finished my work and then got to watch a match. I remember Marsh, Nehra, Watson and Tanvir having a good time while Rajasthan used the power of Warne.

For the second one I was in London, and the time zone was perfect for me. Sometimes I’d even watch both games in a day, but generally I’d just pick one. I remember the dog, FIP, Dirk’s beginning, commentators on a slide, Dilshan’s rebirth, Dravid doing well early and Symonds turning up with a professional hangover and helping Deccan win.

The tournament being in South Africa had little effect on me, other than a Radelaide Oval type effect where the commentators had to keep mentioning how amazing it was that the tournament had been moved late. It was an impressive thing, but saying it every 12 minutes dulls it for me.

My favourite part of the IPL is not the IPL at all; it’s the champion’s league. A tournament with teams from most of the best cricket nations in the world, what is not to like.

There are things that piss me off about the IPL, but there are things that piss me off about test cricket as well. Some of the reasons aren’t even directly the IPL’s fault, like the fact it has no place in the ICC schedule and that players from poorer countries might flee for it.

But the real reason I don’t hate it is because it entertains me.

Not always for the right reasons, but I know that for a month and a half there will be a show on the TV that I can watch.

It won’t always be a great episode.

Sometimes it will feel like a re-run.

I may not like all the characters.

The plot may mean noting to me.

And in a week I might have forgotten what I have seen.

But at the time, I’ll sit down and watch it.

Like I would for Zimbabwe Vs West Indies, except more often.

I can’t hate anything that entertains me, even if it can be shit and annoying some times.

It’s like some emmy nominated American sit com; watch it, and throw it away. Oh, and remember to groan when there is an unnecessary famous cameo.

It may not have cheerleaders and Lionel Ritchie, but it does have Shakib Al Hasan.

I’ve been a fan of his for a while now, but in this match he has performed some amazing feats.

Winning the toss and bowling even though you have four spinners in your team.

Bowling himself for the most overs even though his best ball for two days was naked junk.

Spreading his field regardless of the situation of the game.

Fielding like it was his first experience with a cricket ball, including dropping a catch.

Then batting for stumps with aplomb until closing his eyes and skipping down the wicket to give up his wicket only for his team to use a nightfuckingwatchman for a number 7.

If you told me he finished the day by sleeping with another player’s wife or burnt down a nandos on the way home I’d believe you.

Moyo captained an awful game in Sydney, but compared to Shakib in this game Moyo is the Robocop of captains.

If I was Jamie Siddons I would rip the limbs off Imrul Kayes and beat Shakib with them.

Which is a win/win situation.

Some drag queen dancing acts, except with the drag queens.

Bollywood stuff seemed to be happening as well.

Costumes that some people were comparing to klu klux klan on twitter.

Then Ravi yelled.

Andy Bichel did some commentary, he sounded like Danny Morrison on ketamine.

Lalit was missing most of the time, but in his place was a lady in a red dress, an obvious homage to the Matrix.

Brad Hodge looked pissed off.

Many snatch shots of the cheerleaders, none on super slow mo, maybe next year.

Angelo Mathews continues to not exist.

The Chargers song was remixed, still shit though.

Owais Shah had cut down his sleeves to show off the guns.

There were time outs, but they weren’t strategically named, but they were strategically used.

The IPL has ads between the balls, they are louder and less awkward than the Channel 9 versions.

ITV brought out Hoggard, Hick and some dude and some Indian chick for their coverage. Hoggy was ok, the rest were ordinary and only the Indian chick had done any research.

Gilly seemed to keep hitting the ball in the air and not getting caught.

I never thought I’d say this, but I wanted fake smiles from SRK.

Rohit Sharma continues to vie for Indian batsmen most likely to be assassinated.

The game fizzled out.

The Windies beat Zimbabwe.

Nap.

The IPL has started, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a carefully stage managed event that had shit western acts, lots of dancing, two teams making decent totals and Andy Bichel.

Mrs Skiver is looking as gorgeous as ever, Skiver Jr is being cute and mischievous, Pietersen is finding some form and Cook has even hit a boundary.

I hop into the car and turn on Test Match Special, point the front end in the direction of the office, and then it happens.

Next thing I know, I’m headed for a ditch. I wrest the steering wheel violently to the right and the next thing I know I’m a mile down the road a bus queue of local schoolgirls is about to receive an intimate internal examination courtesy of the bumper of my car.

I back up, check that the car is no more dented than usual, and set off again. I even wind down a window to keep me awake. And in moments I am halfway to work and passing through a graveyard that definitely isn’t on my usual route.

Blearily, I rub my eyes. I wasn’t this tired ten minutes ago.

And then I realise the cause. TMS have only got Mark freaking Butcher on commentary.

Mark Butcher, the man whose voice could sedate a rottweiler at 100 paces.

What, in the name of all that is holy (and several things that aren’t, including me) is he doing on the radio during the school run? Innocent lives are in danger here. You can tell the cricket fans, they are the ones weaving about the road like Paul Smith on a long walk home. Sooner or later, someone is going to take out a nursery.

It shouldn’t be allowed. Not without the emergency services being on red alert. And the whole programme should have a recorded message, with a text along the lines of the warnings you get on some medicines:

WARNING: This broadcast contains Mark Butcher. If you feel drowsy, do not attempt to drive or use heavy machinery. The BBC accepts no liability for loss or personal injury caused by the tedium of listening to Mark Butcher, including, inter alia, gnawing off your own limbs, setting fire to your children or wanting to listen to Coldplay

And then you think “Well, that’s not too bad, I can write about him butchering another hundred by slogging” and have to remind yourself that he was bowled having a tame little prod at the ball.

Heck, the guy even teased us by hammering his way from 80 to 94 in the space of five balls from Shakib Al Hasan, leading everyone to think that a skied slog to mid-off was only moments away. Instead of which he went into his shell and played with uncharacteristic caution, nurdled another five runs and then got himself out.

But that’s the thing about KP. He disappoints you in so many new and original ways. Like back at the start of his career, when every time you thought he was going to beat his Test best, he would run himself out. Or having a massive hissy fit and quitting as captain, just as he was starting to make a decent fist of it. And you don’t even have to build him up in order for him to disappoint. He’s quite capable of doing that all by himself.

And then he goes and ruins my bloody articule, too. I was all set to point out that only 12 of his Test dismissals have been to left armers and that, whilst some of those have been to purveyors of utter filth, such as Paul Harris, Ryan Hinds and Yuvraj Singh, a third of them were to Daniel Vettori at a time when he pretty much was the New Zealand bowling attack. But now he’s gone and got himself bowled by a man who, at the time, had a bowling average of 87.43.

Bastard. Evil, evil bastard.