It's often hard to make any sense out of how the media comments about cricket in Australia, so it was good to see this article in Australia's doyen of the free press, the Sydney Morning Herald. Here is, at last, is a common sense solution to Australia's cricketing woes. In fact, the secret to our continued success is so sensible and realistic, I'm surprised I hadn't thought of it. Read the article and tell me what you think.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/cricket/how-the-blues-can-win-back-the-ashes/2009/10/29/1256405474213.html
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The Bran Biscuit Sheffield Shield
Lord Wheatbix Sheffield must be turning repeatedly in his grave at the knowledge that he stands along side the great Aussie breakfast cereal as the symbol of all that is cricket in Australia.
All we need in the ensuing few years is the Orchy One Day Cup and Yoplait Twenty20 in domestic cricket and past, present and future sponsors would make the complete breakfast. In Tony Greig parlance, they'd be a great start in defeat and won.
After being Pura than low fat milk, CA was supposed to making the domestic four day competition - if you'll indulge my ABC speak - purer and hence the return to the original name of one of cricket's oldest and most enduring symbols. That resolve has crumbled in bran dust, almost as soon as Jimmy Sutherland boldly went where no corporate head had gone before ... into a venture with no major sponsor.
Couldn't we have had the Sheffield Shield ... pause ... sponsored by Wheatbix instead of the single phrase, The Wheatbix Sheffield Shield? I think I'd be afraid to let Brett Lee hold up the Shield when NSW win again this year, for fear he might crush crumble it between his fingers or spread vegemite over its back or take the rolling pin to it to make a pie base ... well, perhaps that's taking imagination a tad in the too far direction but the implications are still worrying. Have all our cricket administrators gone to the Sanitarium?
Just as well you're dead, your Lordship. In this post-Packer, sub-continental cricket world, tradition is no Shield from the sponsorship dollar.
How many Sheffield Shield's have NSW won? No idea, but Brett Lee does 9.
All we need in the ensuing few years is the Orchy One Day Cup and Yoplait Twenty20 in domestic cricket and past, present and future sponsors would make the complete breakfast. In Tony Greig parlance, they'd be a great start in defeat and won.
After being Pura than low fat milk, CA was supposed to making the domestic four day competition - if you'll indulge my ABC speak - purer and hence the return to the original name of one of cricket's oldest and most enduring symbols. That resolve has crumbled in bran dust, almost as soon as Jimmy Sutherland boldly went where no corporate head had gone before ... into a venture with no major sponsor.
Couldn't we have had the Sheffield Shield ... pause ... sponsored by Wheatbix instead of the single phrase, The Wheatbix Sheffield Shield? I think I'd be afraid to let Brett Lee hold up the Shield when NSW win again this year, for fear he might crush crumble it between his fingers or spread vegemite over its back or take the rolling pin to it to make a pie base ... well, perhaps that's taking imagination a tad in the too far direction but the implications are still worrying. Have all our cricket administrators gone to the Sanitarium?
Just as well you're dead, your Lordship. In this post-Packer, sub-continental cricket world, tradition is no Shield from the sponsorship dollar.
How many Sheffield Shield's have NSW won? No idea, but Brett Lee does 9.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Selection Via Media
Not that its a new concept - just ask Allan Border, who retired when the media told him too - but its seems my old friend Andrew Hilditch has developed it to a new art. Clearly no longer having Phil Hughes mobile number and not hip enough to Twitter him, Andrew told the media on the weekend that he expected to see the little leftie - or is that little leftoutie - opening the batting against the West Indies in that circuitous way that only a solicitor could, by telling Shane Watson he'd better get used to the idea of batting in the middle order ... which in turn was a message to Mike Hussey, that even though his last Test innings did it's best to save a Test series, Andrew will not tolerate his failure to play on off stump any longer ... than is absolutely necessary ... maybe not quite yet, but soon. Given the selectors form over the years, a century in his last Test innings is probably fatal.
One loose comment and the Australian Test batting order is into shuffleboard mode.
Nice.
One loose comment and the Australian Test batting order is into shuffleboard mode.
Nice.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Only In The Country Happened In The City
Recently the NSW Country U/17's travelled to the big smoke to take on their City cousins in a couple of Twenty20 games. Looks like the City boys got more than they bargained for. They won the game but the Country boys mastered the conditions ... (check out the link)
http://www.cricketnsw.com.au/nswca/htstart.cl?PT=ni&nd=9-10-09&newsID=nswca&newsClub=AA&seq=1
http://www.cricketnsw.com.au/nswca/htstart.cl?PT=ni&nd=9-10-09&newsID=nswca&newsClub=AA&seq=1
Monday, October 19, 2009
Happy Hooker Re-Hired
That Adelaide via Sutherland via Adelaide boy Andrew Hilditch, has had his cricket visa restamped by Cricket Australia and will be free to continue the splendid job he has been doing for our cricket reputation as Chairman of Shysters. If there is one thing to be learned from being a Cricket Tragic, it's that in Australia, we look after our own. Once that membership badge to the exclusive Australian Cricket Club is stamped, you have to die to be rejected and even then, they'll prop you up for months until the smell gets too bad.
It's interesting to parallel the fates of Sutherland's opening bats of the early to mid seventies. Hilditch was a Baggy Green vice-captain who kept playing the hook shot as though it was a short Roman sword in a Botham-assisted honourable death. He spoke well, even when handling his balls with foreign gentleman from the sub continent who Neverwaz. All this and hours of paying 12 year olds to bowl at him at all hours between dawn and dusk at Carringbah Oval proved his mettle ... apparently. It meant he was determined ... a thinker ... success oriented ... a man of grit, true grit ... or was that Rooster Cogburn?
Then he married Bob Simpson's daughter. Beyond death, the greatest career move is marrying the boss's daughter.
Appointed a selector in the second half of the '90's , when it was summertime and the livin' was easy and Chairman in 2006, his grim determination to prove the rest of the nation wrong is no different from his days as a hooker, when cheap shots, long hours for lousy pay and arrogant johns like Botham and Hadlee used him for their own means. Now, despite a growing concern among what the SMH describes as the "other 20 million selectors", fiascoes including Andrew Symonds and losing the Ashes this year have not been enough to stop Cricket Australia giving him a new contract. With twenty million to choose from, is he the best we can do?
John Dyson, on the other hand, although sharing a similar mediocre Test batting record, has always made his work memorable. He was a prolific run scorer for Sutherland and NSW and his two Test centuries both made a mark - a fine 127 not out as Australia saved the second Test against the Windies in 81/82 and but for the impossible freak Ian Botham, a match winning 102 and top score 34 in the debacle at Headingley in 1981.
Dyson seldom dropped the ball, even when caught out of position as anyone who remembers "that catch" at the SCG will attest. A chalkie, he learned his own lessons but has never been frightened to step out in faith and walk in the opposite direction from the "pink gin set" who generally run the game. Hence, he was a rebel tourist to Sarth Efrika and lost his job with the NSW Dept of Education.
Taking up coaching, he was Sri Lankan coach earlier this century and did some excellent work to point the Lankans back in the direction of international success. He was doing much the same job for the West Indies but by refusing to play the game the way the inept Carribean administrators wanted it played, he was sacked. He sided with and advised senior playes and joined them in refusing to sign contracts which locked them into poor returns for their effort.
John Dyson will find more work because he's too good a man manager not to but it won't be in Australia, where we grasp egalitarianism and rebellion as links to our national heritage but prefer not to employ people who demonstrate it in the every day.
We prefer nice people with round faces who's membership badges clearly show on their double breasted lapels. We trust solicitors more than school teachers. We'd rather the safety of earnest failure than the sweet smell of risky success.
We prefer Andrew.
By we, I'm excluding myself and the other 19,999,999. We, here, refers to Andrew and Cricket Australia. After all, when you're in the poo, it's best to use the royal wee.
It's interesting to parallel the fates of Sutherland's opening bats of the early to mid seventies. Hilditch was a Baggy Green vice-captain who kept playing the hook shot as though it was a short Roman sword in a Botham-assisted honourable death. He spoke well, even when handling his balls with foreign gentleman from the sub continent who Neverwaz. All this and hours of paying 12 year olds to bowl at him at all hours between dawn and dusk at Carringbah Oval proved his mettle ... apparently. It meant he was determined ... a thinker ... success oriented ... a man of grit, true grit ... or was that Rooster Cogburn?
Then he married Bob Simpson's daughter. Beyond death, the greatest career move is marrying the boss's daughter.
Appointed a selector in the second half of the '90's , when it was summertime and the livin' was easy and Chairman in 2006, his grim determination to prove the rest of the nation wrong is no different from his days as a hooker, when cheap shots, long hours for lousy pay and arrogant johns like Botham and Hadlee used him for their own means. Now, despite a growing concern among what the SMH describes as the "other 20 million selectors", fiascoes including Andrew Symonds and losing the Ashes this year have not been enough to stop Cricket Australia giving him a new contract. With twenty million to choose from, is he the best we can do?
John Dyson, on the other hand, although sharing a similar mediocre Test batting record, has always made his work memorable. He was a prolific run scorer for Sutherland and NSW and his two Test centuries both made a mark - a fine 127 not out as Australia saved the second Test against the Windies in 81/82 and but for the impossible freak Ian Botham, a match winning 102 and top score 34 in the debacle at Headingley in 1981.
Dyson seldom dropped the ball, even when caught out of position as anyone who remembers "that catch" at the SCG will attest. A chalkie, he learned his own lessons but has never been frightened to step out in faith and walk in the opposite direction from the "pink gin set" who generally run the game. Hence, he was a rebel tourist to Sarth Efrika and lost his job with the NSW Dept of Education.
Taking up coaching, he was Sri Lankan coach earlier this century and did some excellent work to point the Lankans back in the direction of international success. He was doing much the same job for the West Indies but by refusing to play the game the way the inept Carribean administrators wanted it played, he was sacked. He sided with and advised senior playes and joined them in refusing to sign contracts which locked them into poor returns for their effort.
John Dyson will find more work because he's too good a man manager not to but it won't be in Australia, where we grasp egalitarianism and rebellion as links to our national heritage but prefer not to employ people who demonstrate it in the every day.
We prefer nice people with round faces who's membership badges clearly show on their double breasted lapels. We trust solicitors more than school teachers. We'd rather the safety of earnest failure than the sweet smell of risky success.
We prefer Andrew.
By we, I'm excluding myself and the other 19,999,999. We, here, refers to Andrew and Cricket Australia. After all, when you're in the poo, it's best to use the royal wee.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
City United Three From Three
My new cricket involvement, Tamworth club City United, started the season with three wins from three starts today.
Centuries in first and second grade and a club spirit that is just bubbling along.
Club cricket and I are peas and carrots again!
Centuries in first and second grade and a club spirit that is just bubbling along.
Club cricket and I are peas and carrots again!
Check out our website http://www.cityunitedcc.com.au/
Friday, October 16, 2009
I'm Still Here
Apologies for the quietness on the Tragics but a combination of holidays and launching a new website for my cricket club have put me out of commission.
The new website is worth a look cityunitedcc.com.au
The new website is worth a look cityunitedcc.com.au
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Lango Goes Over The Wall
Sick of hitting it, Lango has gone over the wall and is on the road for a couple of weeks. Bleed quietly whilst I'm gone and I'll stitch you up when I return..
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