Extras

Shane Watson throws England’s bowlers

You’ve got to feel for England’s bowlers. How were they supposed to react to Shane Watson?

They prepare themselves for bowling at stubbly-faced munchkin, Phil Hughes, but against all expectation are suddenly confronted with a creepy-looking, gym-bodied albino instead.

It must be like bowling at a fearful ghost. Not the kind that uses its telekinesis to wreak havoc, but one who instead tidies up and puts you on edge by making you wonder what the hell it’s got to look frightened about.

Graham Manou’s playing

It’s entirely in keeping with Graham Manou’s unremarkable tour that it should take us until 6pm to realise he was actually playing.

Considering the Australian players with most column inches have been Phil Hughes and Mitchell Johnson, low-key Manou might be a cause for concern.

We know that he’s a wicketkeeper, but Ricky Ponting might want to think about giving him a bowl on the grounds that the batsman is unlikely to notice him running in.

Matt Prior – not a pan-handed buffoon

What is fate there for, if not to be tempted?

‘Hey Fate, come out and play. We’ve got a Bagpuss box-set and a bumper pack of Ryvitas for you. Come on. You know you want to.’

Our point was something about Matt Prior not dropping the ball very often and looking beefily competent with a bat in his hand to boot, but that’s probably going to get lost amid much discussion about Fate’s somewhat irregular tastes.

Dropping Mitchell Johnson

Dear Australia,

Please retain your erratic kack-hander. His ingenious bowling tactic of surprising the batsman with a delivery that isn’t a full-pitched, legside wide really lends itself to our unsophisticated ‘repeat until funny’ approach to writing a website.

We have upwards of 200 “jokes” wherein Johnson grasps at the air three feet to the left of the item he was aiming for – be it a toothbrush, a door handle, a sandwich or whatever.

It would be a crime to waste these works as we fear we have not carried out sufficient repetition to cause mirth thus far.

Kind regards,
King Cricket

1st Ashes Test 2009 match report

Price writes:

After driving down to Bristol on the Friday night, drinking a skin-full of Guinness, getting four hours sleep and suffering a packed train to Cardiff, we took our seats high up in the grandstand.

The raging hangover subsided (through the means of hair of the dog) and we sat enjoying the much cheaper beer than Lord’s or the Oval, the brand new Test venue and the Barmy Army trumpeter belting out some of Australia’s finest ditties (Neighbours, Home & Away, Tie me Kangaroo Down Sport etc.)

At lunchtime, Dan of ‘a cricket hat on an unusual head’ fame gave me my birthday present. It was an actual laminated set of Bat for the Draw Top Trumps he had spent hours making. I was absolutely beside myself with excitement:

As the day drew on, the dark clouds moved in and the rain came down. We sat huddled under our umbrellas trying to pass the time waiting (in vain) for a break in the clouds. Dan suggested we play the Chocolate Bar – Movie title game (e.g. “The Horse Whisper”, “City Snickers 2: The Legend of Curly Wurly’s Gold”) and when we ran out of ideas, the Politicians – Fruit game (e.g. “Che Guava”, “Barrack Banana”).

When we realised the rain was not going to stop, we hightailed it back to Bristol where we went and drank the infamous Exhibition Cider from the Coronation Tap. I remember nothing past 8pm. Dan tells me we had an amazing curry.

Thankfully we got a lift to Cardiff on Sunday, as in my ever worsening state I doubt I would have survived a train journey. Most of the day was somewhat downcast as although we were sat in the sunshine, there were lots of annoying Australians nearby gloating. (Not that there are any other kinds of Australians of course). However, come 6.40pm, their mood seemed to dampen, which was nice.

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk – but on no account mention the cricket.

Mitchell Johnson’s bowling problems

Australia coach, Tim Nielsen, has some positive words to say about Mitchell Johnson, who’s currently trying to read this article on the bookcase four feet to the left of his monitor:

“It wasn’t like he’d lost confidence and all the things were falling apart and he was bowling 85mph and didn’t know where it was going.”

No, Tim, it was like he’d lost confidence and all the things were falling apart and he was bowling 90mph and didn’t know where it was going.

What’s your point, exactly? That each wide didn’t last as long?

Ian Bell for England – good or bad?

Knowing our depth of feeling about Ian Bell, you must be desperate to read how we’re going to cover the news that he’s likely to replace Kevin Pietersen for the rest of the Ashes. It’s heated debate like what follows that makes the cricket world tick.

Angry that Ian Bell’s back?

You are wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Ian Bell being back is not remotely a bad thing.

Happy that Ian Bell’s back?

You are massively, massively wrong. You couldn’t be more wrong if you were angry that he was back. You wouldn’t be less wrong either. You’d be exactly as wrong. Those two diametrically opposed opinions are precisely equal in their wrongness.

So how should I feel?

You shouldn’t feel anything at all. Imagine you’re arriving at work on a Tuesday morning and looking into the faces of your colleagues. You should feel numb like that.

You should feel that same level of cold emotionless that you’ve developed as a coping mechanism for dealing with the empty pointlessness of your mundane life.

The website is moving in a bold new direction

You’ve all no doubt noticed that the quality of our writing’s been pretty mediocre over the last few weeks. Maybe it’s the pressure of covering the Ashes. Who knows? Whatever it is, we’ve decided it’s a time for decisive action.

KingCricket.co.uk needs a kick up the arse and how do you inject new life into a stale website? By taking up an inflammatory point of view and beating your readers over the head with it, that’s how. Just look at Britain’s tabloid newspapers – they know what they’re doing.

So, with this in mind, we’ve decided that the way forward is to not really have any kind of opinion about an event that may or may not happen.

Kevin Pietersen’s achilles is giving him grief. If he misses the next Test, someone will have to replace him. That man may well be Ian Bell – someone about whom everyone seems to have a strong opinion.

Not us.

We will not be happy if Ian Bell plays in the third Test. We will not be unhappy if Ian Bell plays in the third Test. We will be somewhere between apathy and indifference and ideally we won’t even notice him or his absence until the fourth day.

We’ve been really warming to Ben Hilfenhaus as well, because he’s been ‘kind of okay without pulling up any trees or anything’.

How to write an Ashes blog | part three

Welcome to part three of our informative series of posts about how to run a cricket blog during the Ashes.

For our third lesson, we’d like to stress to you just how important it is to use the right equipment.

You should type on a keyboard, have your words appear on a monitor and then publish your work on the internet.

You should NOT type on a steam iron, have the words appear on a wigwam and then publish your work on a fountain pen. Those items should be used for the purposes for which they were intended, namely ironing, inhabiting and italicising.

It might also be worth remembering that you shouldn’t do frantic hand jiving when attempting to compose an article either.

Also, don’t set fire to anything.

Ashes blogging part one | Ashes blogging part two | Ashes blogging part three

The Andrew Strauss catch of Phil Hughes

Phil Hughes edged a Flintoff delivery to the slips. Andrew Strauss scooped it up, but did it graze the turf? The umpires didn’t refer it, but if they had have done, Hughes would certainly have been given not out.

The heart bleeds. The Australian view is that Hughes would definitely have gone on and made 260. Our own view is that if you’re in the habit of edging balls to the slips, you’re not batting that well.

Of course, neither argument can hold sway because it’s all supposition. However, what we do know is that this kind of pedantic nit-picking and straw-clutching is exactly the kind of thing that gave rise to the term ‘whinging Poms’.

Was Phil Hughes actually out? Look in t’book.