Category: cricket

KP’s coming home

Laurence Booth summarises just what Kevin Pieterson is up against in the South African IPL jaunt.

In the two weeks he’s there he’ll match wits with ex-best mate Shane Warne and his England team-mate / power-struggle nemesis Andrew Fintoff, and will captain Boucher and Kallis, who’d probably rather KP played international Cricket for South Africa.

Add in that the expat is as popular as a punch in the nuts in the Republic, where crowds aren’t renowned for subtlety (nice work Richie, BTW). He’s up against it – his planned jaunt through the exotic sub continent, before collecting US $1.55M has a very different look now, not that it will bother this supremely confident Cricketer. It’s a little known fact (to me, anyway. Ahem) that Pieterson has only three 5os from 29 attempts in T20, a poor return for a guy who’s made for the Ramones form of the game. He should do better than that at home.

Moles’ final day plan: concentration, application and a really big hose

SRNZPA:  Facing with three sessions to bat with six wickets remaining, optimistic Black Caps coach Andy Moles’ strategy is simple: “We’ve got everything we need – the players, the attitude, and a couple of fire trucks. You can’t write us off just yet.”

Should his middle order struggle early and expose the tail, Moles is confident torrents and torrents of water will give the Indians something to think about. “Coming from a hot climate, their bowlers will struggle with a high pressure hose, possibly two, hitting them square in the chest. I’d say the run ups will get rather treacherous, too.”

With pride on the line and Ross Taylor, on 69* overnight, the last recognised batsman, the Indian team will run out this morning with fire crews on standby, watching their every move. “A couple of caterers have given up their spot pitch side for some heavy duty fire appliances. The team can take heart that a simple phone call will put the square under a foot of water in three or four minutes.”

Basin day two report

Saturday at the Basin may turn out to be the most blogged about day ever, with Hadyn, and Ben doing write ups, and Robyn filing a n00b report. Here’s how my day went.

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Day one went fantastic for the Black Caps, who dismantled India’s star studded batting order like a 21st marquee due back at midday. The sun shone, and we had one more wicket to get at the close before getting stuck into the (big) total.

Day two. I walked into the Basin for the first time ever just after 12. After saying g’day to Graeme and son, and holding my breath through the field of bad vibes and disturbing weirdness that surrounds Sonny Shaw (don’t explore that site at work, team), Hadyn and I, and soon Dan were parked up on the bank. For those of us to used to ramming our knees behind a plastic Eden Park seat, stretching out on the grass was a real treat. The Basin Reserve is a fantastic park, the  elevated view from the requisite down-the-ground angle gives a great perspective.

Then we started watching Cricket, possibly the down point of the day. To me, the crisp (I’m being nice) breeze made it tough to bat, but just as tough to bowl in, especially into into the breeze. Ross Taylor was quietly playing to the conditions, waiting for bad ones and putting them away with sweetly timed on and off drives. No-one else wanted to do that, and our top order used the walk from the sheds to the pitch to the sheds again like a revolving door.

Ryder was more interested in staging a one man outlandish helmet exhibition than batting, much to the disgust of bloggers staying up late in the UK, and was soon back in the sheds, followed by pretty much everyone else. It was depressing, slow going – this Indian team may be full of rock stars, but they fuck around between balls and overs like Keith Richards trying to change a string. The over rate was disgraceful, and made the day tough going at times.

The tail enders weren’t about to let the crowd turn blue without getting their money’s worth, though. Every blogger’s favorite Ian O’Brien got his highest test score in front of his home crowd, while Chris Martin, yes, ‘Learn to Bat‘ Chris Martin hit Harbhajan back over his head for four. Good on him.

The final potential high point of the day was watching Sehwag knock it around, but turned to custard as Martin claimed him after only a couple of token swipes. From then it was shut up shop time until, I admit, we sneaked off early with beer and a heater top on the list.

It was one of those days that add to the purists’ sense of worthiness, but despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The great company of all the above, plus Fraser and Robyn, a couple of beers and great conversation made a challenging day’s play for Black Caps fans go by too fast. I was hugely impressed by the Basin, especially the ‘let everyone run around at the lunch break and smack balls at each other’ policy, and can’t wait to come back.

I have to note that I arrived in the capital Friday to a stunning day and extremely kind welcome from the Wellington digerati. I’m not sure if it’s the strong coffee or daily caviler laughing in the face of earthquake-induced certain doom, but the capital has easily the warmest web / community spirit around – the locals were incredibly welcoming of Auckland based half-arsed sports bloggers blowing in for the weekend. I even got free beer in classy surroundings. Ta.

I can’t stress enough the *awesomeness* of meeting up with the *actual people* we’re reading / writing to / twittering with over the intertubes. Let’s not forget it’s about connecting with people – there doesn’t always need to be a modem involved, eh.

Links on Friday

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Graeme Smith came out bat in Sydney with his broken arm, but Neil McKenzie isn’t impresesed by such heroics. In fairness, it seems Smith has some form in this area.

sportreview.net.nz tribute to nerds who upload their xbox moves to the Internet: here’s an amazing goal, a ball / face coming together, a player DYING (complete with loving replays), and a double slide tackle. I need to get my PlayStation out again.

This video is called ‘The worst football tackle ever?’ Yes. Yes, it is.

Think you know comedy? You haven’t been to comedy school.

* It’s been a cracking first week of the Stalkipedia, team, with stalks  on Chris and Lance  Cairns, Damien Martin, Frank Bunce, Jimmy Floyd Hasslebaink, Richie Richardson and Trevor Chappell added. Check out Farley’s encounter with Frank Bunce, it’s awesome – get in there.

Ponting rested to practice terse press conferences

SRPA: Ricky Ponting revealed he worked on his sandy-speedos press conference technique while rested from captaincy duties. A testing fixture list and a team that’s a bit shit means he’ll spend much of the next 12 months bristling at the media. “Preparation is everything – I could’ve spent the time arranging me tapes in the glove box, but I wanted to put the time in getting narky.”

ACB media training consultant Hugh Brantingham-Eton said “Even a champion like Ricky has to work on their game. I mean, he went out of his way to take offence at the Vettori / Haddin comments like a thoroughbred shitting on their trainer, but we still see areas for improvement.”

Scenario-based training tested Ponting’s self-importance and general fuck-knucklery in a variety of situations, like post match interviews, and walking through airports looking cross. “We worked on slagging groundsmen, whinging about match referees, blaming batting failures on car-parking issues and having a face like a smacked arse.” said Brantingham-Eton. “But we had fun, too, some afternoons we’d throw sausage rolls at journalist-shaped  targets, just to let off steam.”

Ponting is confident the extra training will keep him sharp: “It was back to basics. Sometimes all you need is ‘What the fuck did you just say?’, ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ and ‘I’m Ricky fucking Ponting, who the fuck are you?’, then a walk out. You can over-think this stuff.” said Ponting.