cricket with balls

Looks more like the clichéd Australian wicket keeper than was ever thought possible. Hits the ball a long way and can, on occasion, stop a ball. . Has a rare hand condition that means he cannot feel the stumps when heis hands knocks up against them.  Once played cricket with Merv Hughes for a team called the comets. Has openly talked about the size of Phil Jaques nuts.

As seen on cricinfo; inspired by the dude who asked about saw:

One killer. Five cricketers. One house. Who will last?

When Virender Sehwag, and four other cricketers who aren’t Virender Sehwag, wake up in an old creepy mansion they have to face the toughest test of their lives.

Virender, Sulieman, Brad, Daniel, and Shahid all find themselves victims of cruel cricket related horror madness. Are they willing to change the way they play the game to survive. This is the horror film that puts the balls in the right area.

Sulieman Benn wakes up in the end of a hallway, it is pitch black but when he moves a TV screen appears on the roof above him. A blood covered skull moves its jaw bone and says:

“Hello, Sulieman. You are a humble, sane and talented international finger spinner yet you constantly bump into the opposition, trip players up or get in physical entanglements; in Australia you did all three. Did you do it for your team or did you just want some attention? Tonight, you’ll show me. The irony is that if you want to die you just have to have to behave as normal, but if you want to live, you’ll have to walk down this hallway and not bump into any of my friends who are all set up to explode at the smallest of touches, you might survive one bump, but not two.  The door is open at the other end of the hallway; it will be for the next two minutes, the time that your over is supposed to be bowled in if you are playing sensibly.”

A solitary light is turned on and it swings from side to side illuminating all the entire hallway of mechanical creatures that is in store for him and the open door at the end.

Daniel wakes up with his arms and head in a dry plastic tube and the rest of his body in a tank of water.  He struggles a bit, which triggers a voice recording:

“Hello Daniel. If you are tough enough to get hit in the face and then still want to bat in a test match, why don’t you just prove it? Let’s put your so-called “toughness” to the test.  In a few seconds a ball machine will start firing balls into your face, for every one you dodge or deflect will release a fresh water crocodile into the water.  If you are tough, you will take all the balls on the face and make it to the other end of the tank safely, press the water release button, if not, the crocodiles will eat you alive. Each ball will come at 90MPH, Jimmy Anderson pace.”

Brad awakes in a room filled with old machinery he has a letter around his neck.

“Welcome, Brad.  You’ve got fast hands, don’t you?  Now we are going to test them for once and all.  In each of these machines is a key, you will need all six keys to open the door, but the machines will crush the key if you are too late.  If you miss one key the door will never open and you will be stuck here to think about your past digressions until the air runs out.  If you get your hands stuck in the machine, you will be sucked in and crushed.  You’ve gotten away with manoeuvres like this before, think you can again, Brad?”

Shahid wakes up tied up in a body length straight jacket with a weird metal contraption on his head, written in chalk next to him is:

“Hello Shahid. You don’t know me, but I know you. I know you like to use your mouth, but could you use it to save your life? On the table in front of you is a ball of razor wire, inside the ball is a remote control that will release your shackles and open the door.  Since you are such an expert I am sure you won’t cut yourself too much or accidentally slit your throat.  You have 11 minutes, the average amount of time you spend batting, after that the machine on your head will bite your head in half.”

Virender wakes up chained to a vat of yellow liquid with a tape recorder in his pocket:

“Virender, this is your wake-up call. Everyday you embarrass other cricketers by playing shot after shot. Now you will have to change your game.  Your aim in this game is to dead bat the balls, so that the sulphuric acid vat positioned behind you does not break and pour onto you.  If you miss a ball, you will die, if you hit the ball too hard you will die, if you rush forward you will die.  For once you will have to play the anchor role. When you have gotten to the red button at the end of the room the ball machine will stop and your restraints will be released, but to get out of the room you will have to take a blunt axe to the body of an unconscious bowler who is chained in front of your small exit door.  From the time you press the red button you have 2 minutes to dismantle the bowler, if you don’t the vat then the Vat will time out and just release its contents in the room. You have destroyed many a bowler with your bat, can you do it with an axe?”

The first ball fires short and wide of Virender.

Buy the book, get a t-shirt, or donate to the whisky fund.

When I read about Sulieman Benn, Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson getting into a shoving match I wet myself in at least two different ways.

Then I saw it.

The play by play.

Haddin hits a ball into the ball short on the leg side; Benn and Johnson get in a tangle. Not that it is hard to get tangled with Benn. They collided fairly naturally; Johnson tried to push him away, Benn seemed to grab him and tried to get his leg in his way, and eventually they unentwined and the run was completed.

Haddin got pissed that Benn was grabbing at Johnson; I doubt he would have seen Johnson’s push from his position. He then had a go at Benn, with a bit of bat waving nonsense thrown in.

Then Benn got angry, mostly about the bat waving, as Haddin and Gayle had a fairly unaggressive chat. Benn then kept abusing Haddin (who seemed bored of it and walked away) about the bat waving and kept calling him big man. From what I could hear I believe he said, “Watch yourself, big man, don’t fucken point your bat at me, man.” Gayle didn’t try to do much so Billy came over, eventually.

Then later when Benn was bowling to Haddin he hit one straight back to Benn who feigned that he was going to throw the ball at Haddin/thestumps, probably the equivalent of the bat waving. It was a terrible feign, and obvious he was not going to throw, so much so that you couldn’t even say he was going to throw it at Haddin, as he never really cocked his arm correctly. It was more a wild swing of the arms from a 2 year old.

That was the end of the over and Haddin walked down mouthing off to Benn (Benn could have been mouthing back but that angle wasn’t shown). Benn did a big like point at Haddin, but Johnson got in the way, and Benn’s arm struck Johnson ever so lightly, and Johnson tried to swat it away like someone had poured ice down his top and Benn slapped his arm away.

Then Billy finally got sort of involved and Benn left.

The history.

Haddin and Benn have history, last tour they kept chirping at each other, and at one stage Benn thrust out his leg to try and trip Haddin. Not sure if that had anything to do wit this, but they clearly don’t like each other.

Perhaps Neil Broom and Benn are friends?

In this tour Benn has been yapping non stop to the aussies, and the funniest moment had to be when Watson was marking his guard to start the last innings at Adelaide and Benn was craned over him talking and talking.

Haddin has also been chirping a lot when Benn has been into bat.

The verdict.

What a load of shit. It wasn’t a shoving match; it was an accidental tap and some heated words. Haddin probably rented a high horse he has no moral reason to get on, and Benn overreacted and then dragged it out until it was almost painful to watch.

Perhaps if the ICC want to clean cricket of any sort of human emotion Haddin and Benn should be given a level one fine for the bat waving, feigned throw and swearing, but it still seems pretty piss poor to me. I can’t see how Johnson can even be charged.

But what about Billy, he could have stopped this at any time. What the hell was he doing? First he stood behind the stumps as Benn got angrier and angrier, then he took way too long to get down to where Benn and Haddin were clearly going to meet. Will he get fined for failing to act, will he get warned that he needs to get involved in these things and try and diffuse them. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen Billy stand around and so nothing while teams are getting heated.

My vow.

If any player gets suspended, and from the original charges it seems only Benn can, I will start a petition to get him freed.

Cricket is a passionate game, people get fired up. Things are said, glares are exchanged, bats are waived, and fingers are pointed. That is all good. Passion is why we love this game.

We want to see players who are out there to win, not collect endorsements. Benn is a fiery bugger, and I love that about him. If the ICC wants to take people like him out of the game then they have to get by this site first.

There are no fingers pointed or bats waived in my Ashes book, but there should be.

While watching the 2020 game yesterday I heard a phrase I have heard so often that it amazes me people still say it.

“You don’t see Yuvraj misfield much”.

Yuvraj has some good skills as a fielder.

He is also lazy, a little dozey, and on a bad day as fumbly as can be.

The sort of guy that will take the special catch and drop the dolly.

It isn’t Yuvraj’s fault, he is who he is.

But why do we have to hear it?

We know it isn’t true by the fact that it seems to be said at least twice every game he plays in.

Yuvraj isn’t the only one.

Brad Haddin missed two balls in last test match that the batsmen had left. You can’t get much easier than that.

The commentators expressed their surprise. Both times.

But when was the last match you saw that Haddin didn’t drop a regulation take or two.

It can’t always be the Lord’s slope.

And how often when he does so has he been called a poor keeper, or called for his shoddy keeping? Like say Matt Prior has been.

Some players just get the run in the box. Reality seems to run a distant second to how they are promoted.

Just once I want to hear, “Fuck me, Yuvraj, for a bloke with fielding skills you sure do fuck up alot”, or “Brad has fumbled again, I feel like I have said that 12 fucken times this test.”

A boy can dream.

Something wonderful happened on the third day of the Australia West Indies test, Sky lost access to the Channel 9 commentary.

As if that wasn’t wonderful enough, the stump mic was left on, and it happened to be at the best time ever, with Hauritz bowling to Nash with everyone around the bat.

It was only a few balls, but it was my dream come true.

One day I hope to infiltrate cricket so much that the broadcasters let me sit down and just listen to the stump mic.

I want to know what is said out there. Every boring word.

Nash is the sort of guy that would get sledged. He has that sort of victim look about his batting, doesn’t score quickly, always looks nervous, and isn’t about to hit a huge six to shut anyone up.

So it will surprise no one that the Australians got into him.

Most of the guys probably sledged him (if they noticed him), when he was a shield player, but now he sticks out like dog’s balls and the aussies were never going to let him go.

The sledging was not great, it was just about how nervous he was, how unsure he looked, some gentle questions about his demeanour, all that seemed to come from Haddin.

And Haddin also seemed to laugh at him when he left a short shit one which he should have put away.

It was just great to be that up close and personal.

I love hearing talk, even civil chat and shared jokes.

It felt so much more personal, and putting Haddin’s talk with Nash’s batting made the picture so much fuller.

I did feel let down when “Team Nash” wasn’t mentioned, but perhaps Haddin didn’t know about them.

Later on, when the product placement advertising came back on, they just paused for one moment from talking about Mark’s awkward friend Mick and the final of Australia’s funniest home videos for you to hear an Australian call Sulieman Benn a fucken lucky cunt.

It made me smile.

Check out my book, ashes 09: when freddie became jesus.