Tag: jrod

Cricket Sadists’ Quarterly out now

In between turning himself into a one man Ashes multimedia empire the likes of which has Rupert Murdoch reaching for the adult diapers, JRod has released the third edition of The Cricket Sadists’ Quarterly. It features Mr Sporadic Sport Blog himself, yours truly, with a piece called ‘How to watch cricket on telly’:

Before you do ANYTHING, you need to draw the curtains. Cricket is a summer sport, and while sunshine is great for sunburn and your neighbor’s fucking vegetable garden, it’s only good for ruining the picture on match day. Block that shit out. Next, you need to turn your television’s sound right down and turn on the radio. Don’t worry that the pictures are generally 30 seconds behind and you spend the day always knowing what’s about to happen like a amateur  clairvoyant – TV with radio is like mowing ‘I AM SERIOUS CRICKET FAN’ in your lawn. Plus you get a superior class of statistician on the wireless.

Buy the mag / download the mag. Get in there.

Photoshop Matthew Hayden and win a crappy DVD

In today’s Sunday paper, retired Australian opening batsman Matthew Hayden appears, endorsing VIP passes to Gold Coast theme parks. Hayden, famous for hosting weird BBQs in Regents Park like a homeless person and bullying Englishmen and Glen McGrath is one of cricket’s least loved players and a curious choice to sell anything to New Zealanders. Myself, I considered setting myself alight to prevent me even thinking about buying one of these VIP passes.

This will not stand. We cannot allow shitheels like Hayden to appear in our papers, unless it’s underneath ‘Australian ex-cricketer in punch in the face tragedy’ headlines or the like. There is no reason why Kyle Mills, say, couldn’t hold a card and look gormless to endorse this card.

So – Photoshop competition. Fire up your favorite image editing app (If you don’t have Photoshop, Pixlr.com is handy, or even MS Paint will do – sportreview.net.nz is no stranger to lo-tech, as regular readers will know) and get your entry in by 6pm NZ time, Sunday 8 August.

Here’s what you need to get underway:

– Original scan (jpeg, 183KB)

– Clear cut with blacked out sign (gif, 83KB)

Email your entry in either jpeg or gif format (ideally 500 pixels wide) to richard (at) sportreview dot net dot nz. You can also email me for the .PSD file of the above picture if you promise not to laugh at my pathetic photoshop skillz.

Points will be awarded for 1. being funny and 2. making Hayden look like a twat. See the entries after the jump…

Continue reading “Photoshop Matthew Hayden and win a crappy DVD”

Cricket Sadist Monthly issue one out now

Issue one of Cricket Sadist Monthy, the latest horse’s head from the Cricket With Balls stable is available now, featuring this here site’s contribution, ‘Kiwi cricket heroes of the 80s, where are they now?’. Here’s a taste:

Ewan Chatfield
Chatfield’s weeknight current affairs show ‘Chats’ was the scourge of NZ politicians and business leaders for many years. His hard hitting interview style was modelled on his bowling, with a nagging line and length, wearing down his opponents until they made a silly mistake. Unfortunately, his personal life was much like his batting.

You can order the actual magazine or download a PDF if you just can’t wait.

Book review: When Freddie Became Jesus

Cricket With Balls’ Jarrod Kimber has written his second book – Ashes 2009: When Freddie Became Jesus (links to bookdepository.com, for free delivery for most of the world).

Mostly, there’s too much Cricket in Cricket books – if we wanted to read a match report, we’d dial up CricInfo, you know. JRod skillfully runs through each test session by session, but throws in just enough jokes, offensive language and base innuendo to make it compelling reading.

On the NPower promotional girls: “Guys trying to pick up promotional girls is about the saddest thing you can see, like Hotel Rwanda followed by a news report on buring puppies.”

On ‘Random’ Rudi Koertzen: “Sometimes I think  he gives himself extra time by raising his finger slowly just so he can surprise himself.”

For me, the book’s peak is around the Lord’s test, from the scene from the press box, to almost killing Richie Benaud using Swine Flu, to a hilarious conversation between Rudi Koertzen and Billy Bowden (Are you sure, or do we need to go upstairs, Billy? There are no stairs here, Rudi.), to the most sublime writing about mass vomit since Stand By Me.

It’s also the story of HIS Ashes, his first in England as a writer; what the series means to him, his impending wedding and going to the Oval with his family – this backstory makes the book richer, without getting all Nick Hornby about it.

It’s well documented that JRod’s mission to turn himself into a Proper Cricket Writer from a standing start impresses the fuck out of me – WFBJ is a big step up from his first book. Buy a copy now, so you can bore your kids about him when he’s editing Wisden or sticking his keys in a pitch on the telly. Highly recommended.

Don’t steal this book

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Cricket With Balls’ Jarrod Kimber has already given the world one book, and now he’s turned the 2009 Ashes series into another – Ashes 2009: When Freddie Became Jesus.

Jarrod is well on his way to achieving his goal of being a Proper Cricket Writer. Obviously he’s writing about Cricket now, and bringing more filthy language and sex to the old game than an Ian Botham trip around the West Indies, but the thing I admire (as I’ve covered before) is that he’s fucking out there doing it. He’s moved halfway around the world to live in London, covered the Ashes from the couch, the grounds and the press box in fine style on the site, and he now has book on Amazon only a couple of months after stumps were drawn.

That’s good going. Here’s an excerpt. The Black Caps’ favorite blogger and premature retiree Ian O’Brien even gets to write a bit. You should really buy one.

Book review: The year of the balls 2008: a cricket disrespective

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I was lucky enough to win a copy of The year of the balls 2008: a cricket disrespective by Jrod of Cricket with Balls, with my 200 words. Here’s what I thought:

2008 was the year of Australia v India (twice), England v New Zealand (twice), South Africa in England, the IPL and South Africa in Australia. It was also the year of Sehwagology, Nice Bryce, Dirty Dirk, the Crab and mental images of the world’s top Cricketers shagging that prove very difficult to shift once you’ve read them.

Cricket With Balls’ 2008 blog posts have had a shit, shower and shave and been published in a book, an honest to goodness read on the bus, in bed and on the dunny book. Reading a book is totally different to reading the internet; you can take it in slowly and re-read each zinger without wondering what’s happening on Wikipeida and diving off to the next tab, comment or tweet.

If you read CWB, you’ll be familiar with JRod, the Rasputin of Cricket bloggers’ style. Cricket’s English traditions, Sub continent fervor, Aussie hard-nosed-ness, Kiwi niceness, West Indian cool and South African boring work ethic is great raw material for writing, and JRod’s blog combines a very Australian ear for a dirty joke, Lester Bangs’ passion, Peter Cook’s refusal to suffer fools and Richie Benaud’s love and respect for the game. You laugh a lot reading this 2008 Disrespective, but often feel like you could use a shower and vigorous scrub afterwards. Here’s a taste:

Sehwagology scripture: SEVEN – ‘You shall not commit quick singles’

Andrew Symonds goes AWOL: Symonds has broken clause 17.67a, ‘Drinking any alcohol is fine, but you cannot drinking in any bar that thinks Bundy and Coke is a cocktail.

Jaques Kallis having sex: Jaques will the enter the bed, still under the covers and position himself on top of you, being careful not to touch you in any erotic way.

On Stephen Fleming retiring: …he captained like a mad scientist, rather than the McDonald’s managers most captains are. Without guys like Flaming, Cricket would be stuck in the 1800s and we’d all be bored shitless.

CWB’s 2008 Disrespective is passionate, constructive, knowledgeable (I learned loads about leg spin. And a few new swear words) and, most importantly, realises that to take sport too seriously is to miss the point. As a blogger, reading an actual paper and cover physical book someone’s had the balls (ahem) to go out and make is deeply inspiring stuff. I think it’s fair to say Cricket With Balls has has improved Cricket. Simple as that, and a nobler achievement for a Cricket blog I cannot imagine.

Well done. Great nut. Onya. Support a guy who’s doing what you wish you could do. Buy a copy, don’t just win one.

Kicking a dingo when he’s down

Ricky defeat 090609

I was up early to see the Australians go out of the T20 World Cup at the hands of Sri Lanka (in their first game since the bus bomb in Pakistan). Nothing unites the cricketing world like an Ocker loss, here’s a selected run down from the blogs and that:

The Beige Holden points out Tricky Ricky is the biggest loser in international T20s now that he is responsible for 10 notches on other captains’ belts.

Jrod identifies the gaping holes in Ponting’s T20 captaincy (‘I do wish the Dutch were playing in the Ashes’), and speculates why they imploded like an NRL team on a brewery tour.

The Guardian revels in the Aussies’ upcoming fortnight in Leicester with all the potential for stir-craziness that entails, warning of ‘a national outcry if the England and Wales Cricket Board loans them as much as a Scrabble board.’

Balls’ book compo entry

Top Cricket blogger JRod has written a book: The year of the balls 2008: a cricket disrepsective. He’s running a competition to win one with 200 words or less on how CWB is ruining Cricket. Here’s my 198:

*Camera tracks past a pack of grizzly bears on crack patrolling the grounds of a darkened Hollywood hills mansion.*

PA: Mr Cruise?

Tom Cruise: This had better be good – Katie bluescreened again, I’m doing a complete re-install.

PA: You heard of Cricket?

Tom Cruise: Was I a Cricket player in Days Of Thunder?

PA: No…

Tom Cruise: Vanilla Sky? Fuck it, what you got, amigo?

PA: This… Cricket blogger is starting his own religion. Sehwagology.

Tom Cruise: You’re Fucking Kidding Me! That JRod shitheel usually peddles analysis as insightful as Andrew Flintoff ordering a post-Ashes win breakfast kebab! Now it’s a fucking religion?

PA: There might even be a T-Shirt.

Tom Cruise: I. Will. End. Him. Actually, fuck that. I’m going to end Cricket. Get me L. Ron’s reanimated corpse on line one…

*Cut to 2011. Montage of Richie Benaud sighing in a food court, Ian O’Brien blogging about scrapbooking and Lords being used for rolla-lawn before cutting to a hi-fi clearance outlet.*

Virender Sehwag: See this system here? This is Hi-Fi… high fidelity. What that means is that it’s the highest quality fidelity.

*Customer leaves, buzzer sounds as we see The Ashes propping the door open. Credits roll*