cricket with balls

Dale Steyn is now rated the best bowler in the world according to statisticians.

Not mathematicians, that’s an important distinction.

But as interesting as that is, the more interesting thing is the player who is rated 100th in the world in bowling.

Ricky Ponting.

You may have heard of him, used to be bald, used to get into bar fights, used to be Tasmanian.

Apparently 5 wickets in a 116 tests means you qualify as the 100th best bowler in the world at the moment.

Over on the batting side of things King Kumar has been dethroned after an unsuccessful attack on the west indies.

He must have a twin brother because there is no way this is the same man who demolished Australia in Hobart.

So the new world number 1 batsman is King Probot Michael Hussey.

Number 2, Jacques Kallis.

I told you they were taking over.

The 100th best batsmen in the world is Ashwell Prince.

That’s not on the ICC list, just from my experience.

There are two possible outcomes to this test match.

Either Ponting plays the innings of his life and India lose.

Or India get Ponting out and they win.

There is no other player in the Australian batting line up who can make the runs required to win them the game.

Sure I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

King Probot Hussey is in scratchy form. He is not batting bad, but he has definitely lost that sense of invincibility from before. I sense a Jimmy Adams come down in his future.

Michael Clarke is a teddy bear, and I cannot see him handling the pressure of a 400 run chase well. If he does, I will stand and applaud, because he is doing it from the weakest form in the side.

Big Roy is seeing them well, mind you he has had more luck than Homer Simpson. I would doubt if he could contribute more than a stylish 70 in a chase like this. If he did make a big score, would make the chase one hell of a spectacle.

Gilly is a legend, but he is not the Gilly of Hobart 99. He is just a mere mortal who dabbles with spectacular deeds now, and with Kumble probing at him, I just can’t see him making the bulk of these runs.

Brett Lee is a bowler who bats, not an all rounder, Johnson can hold a bat, Clark bats like a tail ender should and Tait deserves his spot at 11.

It’s Ponting or bust.

…
Perhaps famous is a strong word, but I was quoted on stuff.co.nz, in fact I don’t even care that I was quoted, the most important thing is the term proboters is taking over the world.

Hopefully one day Mike Hussey will have on his tombstone,

“Here lies Mike Hussey, or as you may know him, King Probot, may he rest in a safe and calculated peace”.

Yeah that would be cool.

It would almost be as cool as Dirk Nannes playing a 2020 game for Australia with “Dirty” written on his back.

…
Shaun Pollock has retired.

Yawn.

I checked my previous posts to see how many times he has been mentioned on cricket with balls.

There was two, one was by Sime and it said

“Old man Pollock (Shaun) was in the dressing room, in between stints as a substitute fielder, plotting his second cricketing life, as a wicket keeper, donning the gloves in what can only be described as a bizarre piece of footage from the players balcony.”

The other was my post, Shaun Pollock of the dead, which was hated by most people. Especially people from the BBC site I placed it on, which is probably why I like it.

In this post I mention that he had almost no impact on me, and since I’ve written over 400 blogs now and mentioned him twice I think you get the idea.

He didn’t even make my post about evil South Africans.

He is a Eunuch, he is beige, he is platonic, he is a pop star, he is a fibre enriched breakfast serial, and if he didn’t have red hair, I may have never even noticed him.

Everyone has a story about how they saw him do something great once, except for me, perhaps I slept through it.

My problem with him is that at no stage did I ever feel like he was pushing his talent as far as it could go.

I always felt like he was holding himself back, like there was more to give, but that he felt comfortable with his efforts.

He played like a proboter, when he could have been anything.

Who does that?

I wasn’t born with his talent, but if I was, and I played my cricket as a medium paced handy batsmen I’d be fu©ken horrified with myself.

In his retirement speech he said he thanked god for his talents.

Well Shaun if I was god, which is a possibility, I’d smite thee from this here land for eternity.

Fancy mentioning god when you play cricket like a scientologist.

I am in the minority here, I can already see other people calling him a great, a brilliant flame haired red head who was a phenomenal all rounder.

The Pro Shaun Pollock movement will mention his amazing statistical record as proof of his greatness, well if that’s the case, Mike Hussey must be the second best batsman of all time.

I’m used to being in the minority, (not racially, or sexual preference wise, but politically and in my liking of Ian Harvey) and I stand by my final quote in the original post,

I choose to forget your career.

This is a remix of my proboters theory, thanks to Dinnie for encouraging it.

Every cricket generation a new breed of cricketer evolves. Like the fish growing legs and apes having $ex for pleasure.

The 30’s gave us the run machines.

The 80’s gave us the perfect all rounders.

And the naughties, the 00’s or whatever you call them, has given us the Proboters.

A proboter is a PROfessional roBOT cricketER.

Their king is Michael Hussey, a man whose talent seems to be only marginally better than the average first class cricketer, but whose results make Ricky Ponting and Inzy look below par.

Michael Hussey is not a bad batsmen, his technique is solid enough, his eye pretty sharp, but it’s his instincts as a robot that separate him from the pack.

He slogs over midwicket like a normal batsmen, but some how when he does it, it doesn’t have any real danger to it. Only a proboter could suck the fun out of slogging.

While he is King, he also has a large number of minions infecting the current game.

Jacques Kallis, the man who bats as if his average is more important than life itself. He could make a calculator look exciting.

Mahela Jayawardena, his batting is pretty, perhaps a little safe and nice. Not so probotic, but it’s his captaining that gets him on this list. He sounds as if he came straight from a corporate positive speaking seminar.

Brad Hodge, he is the Michael Hussey without the Mr Nice guy programming, oh and without the baggy green type thing.

Paul Collingwood is the man that makes you appreciate how great KP and Freddy are. The man can often look more out of his depth at this level than a pygmy dwarf with no hands, but he makes runs, not a bucket full, but enough of them, consistently.

Shaun Pollock, Stuart Clark and Chaminda Vaas are all bowling machines. Line, length, no real anger, no real emotions, even their celebrations are usually calculated. But they are all wicket machines.

A proboter can even be an attacking cricketer, like the aforementioned men, but they only attack when the odds have been carefully calibrated in their favour.

They graft out runs.

They place balls into gaps, along the ground or scoop the ball in the emptiest parts of the paddock.

They nudge, run hard and convert 1’s into 2’s, 2’s into 3’s and generally play the game in a way that mathematician could enjoy.

If Symonds, Gayle, Yuvraj and Afridi are the wild beast men of the game, then the proboters are the layers and accountants.

Forget squash balls, monkey chants, 2020 underwear cricket, dodgy Indian bookmakers, Australia’s dominance of world cricket, chucking records or Martin Crowe press conferences, this is the biggest danger to world cricket at the moment.

World cricket doesn’t need these problems right now, it’s boring enough as it is.

Measured, exact, precise, and calculated aren’t words that are going to get anyone erect.

Oh and as a side note, by no means do I think they are bad cricketers, boring but not bad, most of the players listed are in elite class at the moment, they just don’t make me wanna turn the telly on.

Give me a Gayle swipe or a Shaun Tait wide anytime.

And feel free to use this term when impressing your father in law or that know it all dude at the office.