Another surrealistic technicolour yawn masquerading as entertainment
Opening/closing ceremonies of major sporting events stopped being fascinating a long time ago. I think it was the Lillehammer 1994 Winter Olympics where they irretrievably crossed the boundary into the realm of surrealistic technicolour yawns masquerading as cultural ballets. After Sydney 2000 (the one where Captain Cook discovered Australia on choreographed bicycles) I thought that […]
The AB Medal telecast 2003
I watched the Allan Border Medal telecast on Channel Nine on Tuesday night. All two-and-a-half hours of it. That’s a lot of cringing on my part.
Why The Urn shouldn’t come to Australia
“The Ashes” is a concept, not a trophy. The Ashes Urn at Lord’s is not in a physical sense the trophy of England-Australia cricket supremacy. There is no logical reason to bring it to Australia, even if we have been the series winners ever since 1989.
Boof playing pretend Australian captain
The ICC are holding their annual meeting of all the Test captains at Lord’s on Monday. Eight of the ten Test captains will be there. The West Indies will be unrepresented, with Carl Hooper apparently unavailable. More interesting is the fact that the Australian Test captain won’t be there. Steve Waugh isn’t making the trip, […]
Made for TV, not for people
Made-for-television cricket. We’ve seen a lot of it in the past five years dished out in the name of “globalising” the sport. Televised but meaningless one-day matches dished up for an insatiable market from the “emerging” regions of world cricket. Singapore, Toronto, Kuala Lumpur, Kathmandu, and even a park in northern Los Angeles have all […]
When it’s ok to be controversial
Case Study A: Adam Gilchrist speaks at a football club members luncheon.. asked whether he thinks Muttiah Muralitharan throws the ball, replies that Murali’s action “is probably not quite within [the rules]”. Official Reaction: The Australian Cricket Board charges Gilchrist with bringing the game into disrepute and issue a statement saying that they do not […]
It’s all just a commodity
So South Africa won the Australian one-day triseries for 2001-02. They defeated New Zealand 2-0 in the best-of-three final, and congratulations to them. We should be thankful to them, too, for sparing us from an episode that would have shown us just a little more evidence that cricket is nothing but a commodity for television. […]
Pakistan to replace WI on Sri Lankan tour
Pakistan will play one Test and three one-day internationals in Sri Lanka in January following the cancellation of the West Indies’ tour. The West Indies Women’s Cricket Federation decided last month that they would not proceed with their tour of Sri Lanka and Pakistan because of security concerns related to geopolitical instability in the south […]
WI shelve Asian tour but plan home triseries
The West Indies’ plans for their first international tour since the 1997 Women’s World Cup were shelved during November. The West Indies Women’s Cricket Federation cancelled its tour of Sri Lanka, scheduled for January, and abandoned tentative plans for a visit to Pakistan immediately afterwards. The war in Afghanistan, and broader concerns about security in […]
Top ten things you didn’t know about Martyn Ball
10. He played for Young England in 1989. 9. His nicknames (according to “The Cricketers’ Who’s Who”) are Benny and Barfo. 8. He is Gloucestershire’s only player on the Test leg of the Indian tour. 7. It took eight years at Gloucestershire before Ball was awarded his county cap. 6. The reason the England selectors […]