cricket with balls

Old cricketers have a few options available to them.

Pundit, administracrat, coach, ICL player, or drug mule.

The first three require brains, or nude photos of important people, the last two don’t.

Had Chris Lewis played in the ICL he would not have trafficked illegal drugs.

If he was bowling to Craig McMillan and batting with Stuart Law he wouldn’t have time to put cocaine into cans and take it into the UK.

You can’t do both. Obviously.

The question is what is  worse, to be a drug mule or an ICL cricketer?

If Lewis had received a 6 month sentence, he could realistically be playing international cricket before the ICL players (talent, dedication and age not withstanding).

There is probably more money in playing for the ICL, if they pay you, not even Lalit can get you jail time for playing in it.

On the plus side prison uniforms are usually way more flattering than anything the IPL has.

The ICL has Mayanti Langer, in prison Chris Lewis is the Mayanti.

Going to prison gives you street cred, playing in the ICL means you hang with Chris Harris.

And in Prison you don’t have to deal with Tony Greig.

Chris Lewis has got it easy.

Napier is where it happened, as holy a place as any.

MS Dhoni is out, a back problem.

Did anyone know this was even a possibility.

I was reading waffle about Craig McMillan booth work.

Fungus on the pitch.

Sachin’s off drives.

Flynn’s hand and How’s record.

Kyle Mills saying he wasn’t up to it.

But where were the stories about Dhoni and a back complaint that could leave him out of  the side?

It matters not now, Our Prophet, Our God, Our spiritual Guide is in charge.

And now, even more so than before, India cannot lose.

Praise be to the Leader of Sehwagology, your Sehwagologists are on your side.

How you gonna beat God, son?

Jacob Oram, the perfect boyfriend, curly haired Adonis, highly skilled all rounder, who is made out of jelly beans.

Or

Craig McMillan, he of the golden ass, 2020 specialist before it existed, captain of some ICL team, and hard as nails batsman.

You have to pick a side.

Because Craig McMillan has said what has been said in every New Zealand bar where sentences can be constructed, Oram is a big fucken softy.

Although he didn’t use those words, he said wrapped in cotton wool and,

“Unfortunately, with Jake’s track record … he has missed some games that maybe he could have got through,”

Soft.

New Zealanders are sick and tired of their players not playing, and they are more sick and tired of their few match winners pulling out at the last minute before every test.

Ladies I am sure you know what the kiwi fans are going through.

Either put it in, and deal with the pain, or piss off and let some else who may not be as well equipped put it in, Superking my ass.

Oram has hit back at McMillan, softly.

“”I understand people who have never bowled a ball in anger in their lives having a bit of a go at me for potentially being on the soft side, but it’s extremely disappointing to come from an ex-teammate,”

If after teammate he added “who is a fat poofta”, the soft title may have been forgotten.

Oram goes further when he talks about all the times he has played hurt.

Two of them, a 2020 game and a one dayer.

Not really helping your cause there are you big fella.

I could imagine some kiwi supporters saying, that’s great Jacob, but where is the 30 overs into the wind stories?

In the wind I suppose.

Adam Parore also had a dip, but also took out Bond and Cairns, and I generally ignore Parore.

You have to feel sorry for jacob though.

This sort of harsh criticism can really get to a player, sometimes it makes them play through the pain just to prove a point.

We are sure that won’t happen to Jake, he is stronger than that.

Ian Smith is really pissed off by all this, but when we called for a comment he was out buying cotton wool.

So whose side are you on?

Craig’s or Jacob’s?

Personally I go with McMillan, he was a stocky tough sonofabitch, and I’ll always take their word over a soft as jelly beans allrounder.

cricketwithballs

The boys over at Sportsfreak take the trev barry trophy seriously.

So here is their recall of last years events. Unedited, which was hard to do with blatant anti victorian sentiments in it.

We’ve done this before.

So here we are then, New Zealand are about to start their defence of the Chappell – Hadlee series . In case you had forgotten, New Zealand beat Australia 3-0 earlier this year.

That’s right, New Zealand whitewashed Australia 3-0 earlier this year. That is why New Zealand are the current holders of the Chappell-Hadlee trophy.

It is generally believed that NZ may struggle to hold onto this trophy in games throughout Australia and Hobart over the next week, but Sportsfreak has been looking back on the spanking from earlier in the year and think we really have a good chance. The facts are plain to see.

Lets rewind to the events of February 2007. First of all it was the opener in Wellington, and a 10 wicket pants-down hammering

And what a match that was; Shane Bond terrorising the Australian batsmen on a green-top, and flinging himself around with no fear of injury to take a sensational caught-and-bowled on his way to a 5 wicket bag; the visitors limping to a total of just over 150. Yup, Bond sure has the wood on the Aussies.

And then Stephen Fleming, probably the best OODI captain in the game, and an in-form Vincent cruised to an easy victory without loss. It’s worth noting that neither Ponting nor Gilly got any runs.

Then it was off to Auckland. This time Australia did get runs (although once again nothing to speak of from Ponting and Gilly), in fact they scored over 300 of them. This was always going to be tough, but Ross Taylor showed his class on low, slow pitches to pummel his way to a century. He was ably assisted by Peter Fulton and Craig McMillan, genuine world-class batsmen in this form of the game.

Cameron White helped out too, by bowling 3 overs in which time he got the ball to land once. Proof that New Zealand can handle the best bowlers Australia has to offer.

Off to Hamilton it was for Australia to regain some pride – and it was here that New Zealand showed its more charitable side. We let Hayden play himself back into form (something NZ did all season in fact) by knocking up over 180 as Australia once again went well past 300.

And then NZ thought they’d make it interesting by reducing itself to 40/4 in the chanse. But once again Fulton changed the course of the innings before Macca once again turned the screws in hammering his way to a century.

A memorable victory was sealed, and the 3-0 scoreline was completed.

So there you have it. It was a comprehensive wiping of the floor Ponting and Gilly were ineffectual and Brett Lee went wicketless. They are regarded as the back-bone of the Australian team, but Fleming, Macca, Bond, Fulton and co had no problem.

We really can not see why it should be different this time around.

Visit Sportsfreak.

I actually did some research, well not really, and I found out that the population of New Zealand is 300 people, and then I checked out Sri Lanka, and they only have a few million.

So I came up with an idea, why not join the two teams together.

Ebony and Ivory baby, the first ever south sub continental pacific side. Boom.

Think about it.

They are both struggling against real test teams, they are both from islands, and they both have odd looking spinners.

It’s a match made in heaven.

The world could spin for another 2000 years before someone related to Bush blows it up, and Sri Lanka or New Zealand aint ever gonna be the number one ranked test teams.

Sri Lanka will be good, frequently, they are a naturally talented cricket nation, but De Silva and Murali have been there only top class champions, that’s a pretty poor return. Also they still haven’t produced a sh1t hot test match quick and they’ve been around for 30 years.

The country is always in turmoil, Ranatunga walks around like he is a Bollywood Clive Lloyd. Politicians pick old dudes for tours. For all their talent, they rely on a bloke with a freak show action, and outside of Kumar and De Silva, their batsmen are good, but never really good.

New Zealand are always better than they should be, which is lucky, cause they should be completely f*cken awful. No one thinks about cricket better than the Kiwi’s, but have you ever thought why, because they are not very good at the game.

Its not their fault, they have a basketball team, two rugby teams and a cricket team to pick from 300 residents. Once you take out the women, old people, young people and the disabled, who do you have left, 60 dudes and Helen Clark.

But if you take New Zealand’s team and mash it with Sri Lanka’s team, you have something.

Sanath and Fleming at the top, Kumar and Taylor in next. Oram and Silva in the middle, Vettori and Murali with the spin, Bond and Malinga with the new ball. And Vaas as first change and number 7.

That is a more than handy side, throw in Craig McMillan (I know he’s retired but I’m not ready to say good bye just yet) and Mahela and you got yourself a squad.

That is a side that could beat the evil South African robots, and certainly make Australia bat twice, if nothing else.

And if that side isn’t enough then we could throw in Mohammad Ashraful, and any other Bangladeshi player, until they are good enough to play on their own.

Roy Dias to coach.

Mark Greatbatch to look after fitness, Ranatunga as dietician and Martin Crowe on public speaking, grooming and how to generally be as smooth as Martin Crowe.

Sounds like a plan to me.