cricket with balls

What do you do if you are a cricket team who everyone expects to win things, but who suddenly find that the world is against you? People keep doing inconsiderate things like dismissing your very expensive batting line up for almost no runs, or hitting your equally expensive bowlers all over the park, and it feels like the whole world is against you.

In such circumstances, there is only one man who can save you. He might not have played any first class cricket for almost three years. He might have spent most of those three years on the golf course. And he might be almost 41 years old, but the only thing to do is to send for St Brian of Lara, saviour of slightly-rubbish cricket teams for the past two decades.

Surrey obviously feel that the only way to salvage their season is to call upon the man who spent most of this century dragging the West Indies side around on his back. The great saviour himself has deemed their interest worthy of a quick stroll over from his home in Trinidad to see what all the fuss is about.

And that fuss, in a very large part, must be about money. Surrey are happy to spend it in the hope of attracting even bigger crowds to their T20 games. Lara is happy to receive it if the price is right, it seems.

All of which is a bit odd. Lara is older than and has played less recently than any of Shane Warne, Matthew Hayden or Adam Gilchrist, all three of whom have struggled (by their own high standards) in the IPL this year. And Surrey don’t exactly have a good record with their off-the-wall T20 signings – anyone remember Chris Lewis’ comeback?

Of course, nothing has been signed yet, and it is quite possible that when Lara sees that he will be captained by Fotherington-Tomas, coached by a man who makes the WICB look like pussycats and put up with Andre Nel snarling around the place, it might lead him to return swiftly to the clubhouse.

On the other hand, for the first time in my life I find myself hoping that something does work out for Surrey. The prospect of Lara playing T20 cricket (a format which he has never played) is too enticing a prospect to ignore.

Until today, the one thing missing from Sachin Tendulkar’s extensive cricketing portfolio was a proper world record, one that counted for most people.

Ok, so he’s scored more Test tons than anyone else. On the other hand, not one of those 47 hundreds has seen him pass 250. Granted, neither did Border or Waugh, but neither of them aspired to be regarded as the greatest Test batsman of all time.

And when you think of the greatest ODI batsmen of all time, you probably think of the power hitters, the Richardses, Jayasurias and Gilchrists of this world. But not the man who now holds that elusive record for a highest score – and in doing so made the first double hundred in ODI history, too. That latter point is no mean feat – there have been over a thousand more ODIs than Test matches, so it has taken almost as long for someone to make a 200 in ODI cricket as it took someone to make a 400 in the longest form of the game.

It was a very different kind of innings to Lara’s 400, too. That was a knock of pure tedium, one man selfishly grinding his way to a record total in a dead rubber against an attack which included Gareth Batty.

Tendulkar, on the other hand, faced the world’s number one bowler, opened the batting and brutalised an entire attack. It was the cricketing equivalent of shagging someone so long and so hard that you both know you are going to wake up sore in the morning, but keeping doing it because you’re having fun and you know that, in some sort of masochistic way, they are, too.

Whatever you might think of the man, this was one hell of an innings.

No one cares about this Sri Lanka Pakistan test match.

Most of us thought it had already ended, but when a batsman is 300* overnight people start to take notice again.

Not because the game has suddenly become interesting, but because inside every cricket fan is a statistical pervert.

And the top score in test cricket is like the ultimate festish item.

We all want to see.

And all batsmen want to own it.

The chances are Younis will go out, and we will all start watching test matches where results might actually happen.

But if he doesn’t, and he ends up owning the sexiest pair of panties in the cricketing universe, then it opens up a whole can of worms.

Because as we all know, Brian Lara was happy to go through life with 375 on his tomb stone, until Matthew Hayden took his number away.

Then Lara snatched it back.

Now, incase you didn’t know, Lara has retired.

But with an Ego like that, losing a record that fetishisied (no, not a word), we can only hope Lara comes back out of a retirement to take the record with him one more time.

Wouldn’t that be romantic, especially if he came back and did it against Bangladesh.

Would be like Ali beating Spinks.

I am really looking forward to the upcoming test series between Sri Lanka and India.

And not just because I am sick and tired of looking at boring white cricketers.

I just can’t wait to see Ajantha Mendis beat Brian Lara’s record.

Brian Lara never took a wicket, in 131 tests, but I bet you money that Mendis will take at least one.

Then he shall be better than Brian Lara statistically, and in the eyes of the huddled unwashed masses.

Brian Lara was a fine cricketer, but did he ever invent a delivery, or did he ever bowl any mystery balls, no.

One word for that, soft.

Lara’s record is not that hard to get by, Darren Pattinson just did it, but Mendis will smash it, before he gets worked out.

In other news, Sachin Tendulakar is still playing test cricket.

Who knew.