Posted by jrod on December 30, 2008 under NSW, VIC | 
It is a good time to be Vicotiran.
Chris Rogers and Damien Wright sensed this.
David Hussey has always known.
Oh, so you don’t believe me.
Brad Hodge, test spot.
Bryce McGain, test spot*.
Cameron White, test spot.
Peter Siddle, test spot.
And now, from no where, and here is where we thank Merv Hughes, Andrew McDonald.
How the fuck is this happening.
Is Merv beating Andrew Hilditch up.
Suddenly it is raining Victorians, and not before time.
Remember when a test player was injured, or dropped, or retiring, and you said to yourself, I think whatshisname could go straight in, shame he is a vic.
No more.
Now even when there are other options, even NSWelsh ones, a vic goes in.
White/McGain before Casson.
Siddle before Bollinger.
Now McDonald before Noffke, Henriques, Geeves, North, and Smith.
There is a chance that there has been a huge mistake, and that Andrew McDonald is not the man who was supposed to be picked.
Congratulations to Andrew, and lets hope we can get a Vic to stick in the side for a while.
*He did get a spot, if not a test.
Posted by jrod on December 28, 2008 under TAS, VIC |
Australia’s Hussey may have lost all semblance of form.
But Victoria’s is still simmering along nicely.
While hundreds have been very hard for him to grab in 4 day cricket.
Apparently all the extra time is what has been bugging him.
15 overs is all it took him, and Xavier Stutter Ball Doherty may never be the same again.
100 off 47 balls.
He even did a double act, following up with the ball as well.
Actually a triple act, 2 wickets as well.
I propose the Big Bash be renamed in the man’s honour, The Future PM’s playground.
The man doesn’t man handle 2020 attacks, he cuts them down, he is like a 2020 spartan.
It’s as if the white ball has slept with his missus.
He is one huge part of why Victoria are the number one ranked domestic 2020 side in the world.
The other is the bearded barbarian Dirty Dirk.
Michael Dighton is a white ball run machine.
Dirty Dirk cleans up that mess in the first over.
George Bailey seems to live to fuck with Victorian bowlers.
DD wipes that cheeky smile off his face as well.
Game over.
That is one hell of a double punch.
At least we know in this crazy world that somethings stay the same, Victoria have the mad skillz in 2020 cricket.
Posted by jrod on December 24, 2008 under VIC |
The Vics are on top.
Toast that on Christmas day.
Posted by jrod on December 17, 2008 under VIC, WA |
Something happened on day three.
The warriors went from a fordable foe, to rotten cheese.
These things don’t just happen though.
Dirty Dirk cut their heart out.
Andrew McDonald ate it however.
It was pretty brutal.
They lost 9/98 on the day, and the game was over before Jewell and Rogers went out to bat.
Dirty Dirk is now the leading wicket taker in the country, and has a bowling average of 19 whilst doing it.
Not too mention his strike rate of a wicket every 6 overs, that is better than his strike rate for falling over.
The man is all over the shield season.
Some people still don’t rate him, but they are people who cannot understand the animal nature of the man.
The see the falling over, the wide balls, the terrible fielding and they say, oh he is not a proper cricketer.
No he is not, he is a barbaric warrior who takes wickets.
The man makes opposition batsmen piss themselves.
He gets wickets with an alarming consistency.
In essence, he does the job with brutal force while others are still tucking in their shirts.
Victoria has crawled on the back of the big man this year, and with Rogers and Wright playing pretty damn good as well, they would have to be red hot favourites for the title.
And if they do, Rogers will get credit, Wright will be applauded, and their will still be dick heads who don’t rate Dirty Dirk.
That is ok though, he is too uncouth to be anything other than a cult figure.
Posted by jrod on December 16, 2008 under VIC, WA |
Gerard Wright is all over Western Australia at the moment.
Taking the first 4 wickets wasn’t enough for him, so he crashed in with a 60 to save the day.
Just as Victoria was putting in the standard collapse.
Victoria started by tripping over to 4/59, then McDonald and White steadied the ship quick smart.
They both made half centuries in good time, but when they went, Victoria went back into standard mode, and before long were 8/193.
That is when Wright and Crazy Clint came together, and bugger me if they didn’t put on a hundred run partnership at 5 an over.
Who would have put money on that?
Virtually no top order batsmen could work tis deck out, and 9 & 10 slap it around everywhere.
It was a gutsy partnership really, as they knew they were all out once their partnership was broken, sorry dirk.
This meant the vics went in with a lead of almost one hundred, and Dirty Dirk did what he does best and got rid of SOS Marsh.
The game is still in the balance, WA still has a stable of scary fuckers in the shed, but there is a calmness about victoria this year, and you just feel they are going to get home.
Lets just hope it doesn’t take another Clint Gerard partnership to do so.
Posted by jrod on December 15, 2008 under VIC, WA |
Victoria might have had more downtime than they expected in recent times, as have their opponents, but they were right on the money.
Gerard Wright has always been a tuff sonofabitch on helpful surfaces, and he took the first four wickets.
In that bunch were Marsh, North, & Pomersbach.
Not fucken bad.
Later on Dirty Dirk fired up to finish off the tail.
And the warriors were scattered for 211.
Being that the vics won the toss and sent the warriors in, you can hardly say 211 is the worst score ever.
However you would still expect Victoria to get at least 250.
Bandy must be making some waves over west, batting at 3 in this line up is pretty damn special.
And he did it with style.
66 and a bunch of 4’s and a 6 to get there.
Now all we need is a Chris Rogers hundred.
And we know how much he likes doing that.
Posted by jrod on December 12, 2008 under SA, VIC |
When I was in Australia no one seemed to care much about Pakistanis.
I blamed it all on a guy who played at my club who would appeal and send you off in the nets by the Salman.
No one liked Salman, ofcourse little of this had to do with his nationality, and mostly the sending off in the nets, and for those few unlucky enough to bat with him, his complete lack of single taking when he was facing until the last ball of the over.
But now Salman, or as I tried to nick name him, the big fish, has departed from club cricket, Pakistanis are finally getting a fair go.
It all stared with Usman Khawaja from NSWales.
Who in being picked for NSWales, has been the first Pakistani born cricketer to ever play for Australia, if you catch my drift.
Then South Australia couldn’t find any more talented players in NSWales or Victoria, so they went looking overseas, and found Younis Elvis Khan.
Khan has contributed a respectable 217 runs (one hungy, one fitty) @ 43 in 3 matches, but has spent most of his time watching the Hebrew Hammer Klinger bat.
So he has really earnt his money.
But he has other commitments mid season, or whatever, and so South Australia thought they would dip back into the well, and since its 2020 season, and Graham Napier is buys in Wellington they have picked Sohail Tanvir (subject to the indians not touring Pakistan).
The worlds best 2020 bowler, just pipping out Dirty Dirk Nannes for the title.
Since when has Adelaide been so into the brown sugar?
Since they produced Australia’s first ever aboriginal test cricketer, I spose, but this season they will have had one aboriginal player in my man daniel christian, and two Pakistanis.
Not too mention Michael Klinger, who is not called the Hebrew Hammer because he looks like Adam Goldberg.
They will perhaps be the most multicultural first class team in Australia since Richard Chee Quee (China), played alongside Greg Matthews (fuck knows).
If nothing else this does open up the One Aboriginal, Two Pakistanis and a Jew walk into a bar jokes.
cricketwithballs
Posted by Moses on December 9, 2008 under NSW, VIC |
The hair is real
I was reading an excellent new blog (well I just found it anyway) called
The Old Batsman which I’d recommend you all check out.
While there I came across an interesting story about Nathan Bracken learning to bowl spin to get himself back into the Baggy Green Test squad.
For mine the idea has a lot of merit. The selectors get wood when someone can bowl slow. Spinning the ball does not appear to be a necessity, nor is a decent record at shield level. As long as you claim to be a spinner you can get the baggy green for a test or two before getting dumped quicker than a knocked up Britney.
In recent memory we gave Beau Casson a test in the West Indies before dropping him and tearing up his central contract, Bryce McGain was a virtual selection before his shoulder imploded, Cameron White got 3 Tests as our very own answer to Ashley Giles (not that anyone ever asked that question), Jason Krezkya played a test and took 12 wickets to be dropped then picked up a training injury, and Nathan Hauritz also had a shot in Adelaide.
Bracken is tending towards the Funky Miller style of right-arm off breaks in the 90-95 kph range, and this makes a hell of a lot of sense. As the worlds’ top ranked one-day bowler he has the experience, temperament and man-hair that will help him become a success in the spinning role.
Also it’s refreshing to see a player who on paper really could be in the Baggy Green squad go and do something about it rather than just bítch to the media about non-selection. Brad Hodge if you’re reading this, give yourself an uppercut.
The final reason this is a good idea is that Ricky and the selectors are abnormally excited by any player who has a dual purpose. We’ve got Andrew Symonds as a specialist no 6 batsman who doesn’t score any runs/gun fielder, Shane Watson as a bowler/opening/no 7/catwalk diversion, Michael Hussey who bats 5/bowls impotent medium pace/couriers hats to fine leg, Simon Katich to open the batting/not bowl cause Ricky doesn’t give him the ball and Matthew Hayden to apply pressure to the top order/preach the gospel/píss off the 3rd world.
Curiously, Bracken claims his biggest obstacle in becoming a spinner is talking his captains into throwing him the ball on a short run-up. Here’s a brainwave, bowl well in the nets and prove yourself to them. Or even better, bowl the first ball normally then just fúck ‘em and bowl your spinners. If you’re half decent they’ll be on board in no time.
Tags: all rounders, andrew symonds, ashley giles, baggy green, beau casson, brad hodge, bryce mcgain, cameron white, colin miller, man hair, matthew hayden, michael hussey, nathan bracken, nathan hauritz, shane watson, simon katich, spin bowling, test squad
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