cricket with balls

Is Scott Styris the angriest man ever to play international cricket?

Well, maybe not ‘angriest’, but ‘angriest-looking’, because either I always choose to look at him at the wrong moment, or he permanently has a face like a pissed-off garden gnome.

Batting, bowling or fielding, you get the feeling that he plays the game with a scowl on his face and thunder in his heart.

Even as he was steering the Black Caps to victory yesterday, there was a black cloud hanging over his head, demonstrating his fury at only getting to play because Vettori was hurt, anger at the teammates whose profligate batting had threatened to take the game away from New Zealand, and of course pure rage at Mitchell Johnson for barging him – a barge which cost Johnson 60% of his match fee* and Styris 15% of his for retaliation.

Just look at the photos of him walking off after the game. Have you ever seen such a thunderous look on the face of someone acknowledging the crowd?

The man is clearly a seething cauldron of malcontent, even when life is going well for him. I’d hate to see him properly upset.

*You just know that Mitchell is going to get a telling off from mummy for this. He’ll be straight onto the naughty step when he gets home and no mistake

So, the international season in Australia has come to an end, and I’m drinking to it. Not because of the unbeaten Aussie summer. Thrashing two mediocre teams is hardly cause for celebration. No, because it means the end of the most annoying experiment in cricket viewing since, well, ever.

Bloody heart rate monitors.

What, I mean what, is the point of this idiocy? The whole point of introducing any sort of technology into a sport is to make it in some way better for the spectator. HawkEye, HotSpot, slo-mo cameras, they all serve this purpose. But what is the freaking point of a heart rate monitor?

It is not as if most of us are incapable of noticing that your heart rate goes up when you are running and it is no great logical feat to suss out that it might go up a bit more if you run and then hurl a small projectile 22 yards.

And it’s not even as if they put them on the interesting players, fer chrissakes. What is the use of putting a heart rate monitor on Mitchell Johnson, unless it is to give his mother heart failure of her own? How about sticking one on Chris Gayle, so that we can tell if he is really that laid back, or just clinically dead? Or on Shane Watson, to see if he actually is 98% straw? Hell, if we are being really interesting, strap it to Steve Smith and see if he’s yet mature enough to walk past a woman on the boundary without all of the blood rushing to his groin?

No, the only conceivable use for this technology is to fix it to the commentators. Watch Mark Nicholas’ bpm rise every time he passes a mirror. Measure Warne’s excitement as a tray of pies goes by. Do what the heck you like with it, just get it off my tv screen.

Kamran Akmal’s axing might make sense to anyone with fair to good eyesight and an understanding of the game of cricket.

But not everyone thinks so.

Kamran’s mother, who recently survived a heart attack, was so angry at her son’s treatment that she has ordered Kamran’s younger brother, Umar, to withdraw from the test team.

Umar was initially reluctant as he thinks test cricket is really cool, but his mother was having none of it, and threatened to tear down Umar’s poster of Aisha Linnea Akthar off the wall.

Kamran’s keeping was brought into question when he dropped Hussey, Hussey, Hussey and Siddle during the second test. Most people forget about the run out, because that is not a real dismissal.

Umar is very fond of his brother, but test cricket is really cool, so it wasn’t until his mother said his pocket money would be stripped that he did tell the team he wouldn’t be playing.

Soon after the Akmal matriarch realised that if she took Umar out of the team that would mean she would have no sons playing test cricket, and as she thinks test cricket is really cool, she decided to let Umar play, for now.

I spoke to her earlier today and she had this to say:

“I’d rather not be a tennis mother, but Umar is only 25 years old, or 19 in Pakistan cricket language, and he needs guidance. However, I followed the Mitchell Johnson Oedipus story closely and realised that by telling Umar to pull out I would be ruining the spirit of the Pakistani team, so I retracted my earlier request.  Test cricket is really cool, and I hope Pakistan kick Ricky Ponting’s hairy arms all around the wicket.”

Kamran’s father refused to comment, as he doesn’t know much about test cricket and is concentrating on his career as a senior model.

For what it is worth Kamran still believes he will play in the final test. He has been watching a lot of films about Proms in America where the story has it that the main awkward dude turns up on the girl’s door only to find out she has always agreed to go to the prom with the more popular, but hardly seen, jock guy.  In those films even though the dude is embarrassed his Prom night usually rocks, and mostly that girl (or a really cooler one) ends up with him.

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.

During the Ashes I said that the real Mitchell Johnson never turned up.

He couldn’t, he was busy.

As a few of the balls fans on twitter pointed out, this one was more consistent and better at hitting his targets.

It should also be pointed out that a current New Zealand cricketer thought this Mitchell Johnson looked like Daniel Flynn.

You decide.