cricket with balls

As Radiohead almost said*, anyone can score a hundred. Anyone. Jrod’s done it. I’ve done it. Hell, even Monty Panesar has done it. All it takes is timing, a bit of good fortune, a lot of patience and, in my case, the rather benign bowling of your own grandfather.

Scoring a hundred is child’s play. Sachin Tendulkar has almost a hundred of them in international cricket alone, and he’s only 3′6″ in his stockinged feet. Scoring 99 is something special, though. Scoring 99 not out even more so. After all, given the number of hundreds that are scored around the world, how many of them are truly memorable? But a 99? Well, just about everyone remembers those. From Mike Atherton falling flat on his arse against Australia at Lord’s in 1993 (he never did make a hundred there), to Shane Warne butchering his chance of a maiden first class ton against New Zealand in 2001, 99s are the kind of innings that fix themselves in your memory.

An unbeaten 99 is even more special, because history shows it is almost never the fault of the guy who made the runs. Sometimes it is pure ineptness at the other end, like Dewald Pretorius failing to survive two balls from James Kirtley so that Andrew Hall could make his maiden international hundred. At others, it is pure selfishness, like Graham Thorpe denying Alex Tudor the first century by a nightwatchman in Test history, against New Zealand in 1999.

To this list, we can now add Michael Clarke. He may have benefited from the most significant drop in the annals of Australian cricket since Lara Bingle’s knickers hit Brendan Fevola’s shower room floor, but Clarke can take solace in the fact that the only thing which stood between him and a truly forgettable one day hundred was the selfishness of a cheese-faced toddler named Steven Smith. Really, he should be grateful.

(*Radiohead wrote a song called ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’, and have since devoted their entire career to proving themselves wrong)

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.

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.

The Allan Border Medal is pretty new. Australia have been pretty handy since 2000 the list of players who have won the award is tasty.

McGrath, Waugh, Hayden, Gilchrist, and Ponting.

There is a name missing, SK Warne.

Warne probably would have won one had he played one-day cricket between 03 and 07. In 06 he was Australia’s best test cricketer and won an award that said that, but not the AB. Because the point system is allocated for all international games for the Allan Border medal, Ricky Ponting won was the winner that year.

I don’t agree with the system, the best test player should win the major award, even if that is Collin Miller.

This year the best test player was Simon the Krab Katich.

He was Australia’s most consistent player in the voting period. By last summer he had turned from an embarrassing eyesore to Australia’s best batting eyesore, and he kept that up for the year.

The fact that he won the award does tell the story of Australian cricket in 09. A recycled player well into his cricket twilight averaged 48 with the bat and was Australia’s best test player.

Australia’s best player in all forms of the game was Shane Watson. In one day cricket he was destructive with the bat and ok with the ball. In test cricket he was savage with the bat and handy with the ball.

Other than his occasional moments of monumental stupidity, which we all have (I once shaved my head but left my fringe), he has been a force.

It hasn’t always been pretty, during the year he has traded metrosexual insults with Jimmy Anderson, made missing a test hundred an artform, abused Gayle like a 3 year old would, and stalked Phil Hughes spot like a CIA assassin.

But the big bastard is the best-performed Australian cricketer in all 3 formats of the game (had he played in more tests he probably would have won the test award too).

They give you the medal for that sort of hi-jinx.

He deserves it, doesn’t mean the whole world will suddenly warm to him.

Ofcourse the real winner of the night was Haley Rich Bracken (whose name I had to look up when writing this) for wearing a mermaid costume that should help her singing career.

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

Like Ganguly doesn’t have an employee to wash his face.

The stunt double pretending to be Warne is doing a great job.

Has anyone ever read the paper with more intensity.

The IPL is back in India.

The IPL is back, so are the weird ass ads.