The deflation of Sri Lanka

A lot of the life seems to have gone out of Sri Lanka since Murali’s retirement. On the face of it, the team’s much the same, but there’s a wrinkling and lack of solidity about them. They’re like yesterday’s balloon.

They haven’t shown much heart according to Russell Arnold. Maybe that’s because they haven’t been paid. A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. Anything else saps the will a bit, no matter what other motivations you might have.

So where worse to play than South Africa, where dismissals are pleasingly frequent these days? All out for 180 isn’t even particularly shameful by current trends over there. It’s not good, but we’ve seen worse and South Africa aren’t threatening a giant lead.

When we say ‘giant lead’ we mean how many runs more than Sri Lanka they’ll score. We don’t mean an oversized leash for Will Jefferson.

An open letter to King Cricket

Dear Sirs,

We the undersigned wish to register our not inconsiderable lack of a suitable absence of displeasure with the current state of article writing on your website. In particular, certain facts that are facts go repeatedly unmentioned in some articles, certainly nowhere near enough as they shouldn’t be, viz:

• Lancashire are the current County Champions
• England are the world T20 Champions
• England is world #1 Test Nation
• Lancashire are the current County Champions

When what future historians will undoubtedly refer to as the Annus Mirabilis (lit. up yours Aussies) happened, there was much talk of joyous celebrations lasting for decades. But honestly, it must have been weeks since any of the articles here mentioned that Lancashire are the current County Champions.

To be fair, it isn’t just you. We’ve had to write to Nigella about her latest Christmas cookery book, which is notable only for a complete lack of throdkin recipes, and the impact of being top Test nation is very sadly lacking from almost all economic forecasts for the UK.

Moreover, the latest edition of that definitive work on the visual representation of data, “Venn Will I See You Again” by Professors Heinz Wolff and Lesley Judd, doesn’t contain a single reference to the newly developed subject of Hubristic Graphing. It’s a sodding disgrace.

The internationally accepted minimum is two mentions of Lancashire per week plus six mentions of England per day. It is permissible to substitute a mention of Australia’s current Test ranking for one of the England ones. Please correct this or else.

Sir Glen Chapple
Sheikh Bert the Merciless, KBE, Astronomer Royal, Legion D’Honeur
Saint James of Anderson
Lord Moores of Macclesfield
David Bumble Lloyd, STC

Is everyone TOTALLY PSYCHED about the Big Bash?

There’s another Twenty20 league on the horizon. Kieron Pollard’s in it. Shahid Afridi’s in it. Alfonso Thomas is in it.

Chris Gayle’s in it too. He’ll be playing in Sydney and he’s really looking forward to being there.

“What do you call it: Bond Beach? Bondi? I will be there. I don’t like swimming or going in the water, but I’ll be there posing. I’ve been looking after my body so I have a lot to offer by posing.”

According to Cricket Australia, the Big Bash League is the most important development since agriculture. This stance is in no way undermined by the fact that Phillip Hughes is skipping it on the grounds that he wants to get better at cricket.

We feel we’ve got away with this one a bit

We wrote about Sachin Tendulkar at Cricinfo and, as Bert suggested, we criticised his technique. So far, most people seem to have correctly identified the joke.

We feel we’re being sucked in. Next time we’ll write a really innocuous piece about Ian Austin and thousands of people will send us turds in the mail. Well the joke’s on them, because the packages won’t fit through our letterbox and then we won’t go and collect them from the post office.

Read our piece about Tendulkar’s underwhelming 200 not out here.

PJ Hughes c Guptill b Martin

Maybe if you’re very lucky this Christmas, you’ll get a gift that is so good, you simply don’t know what to do with it. That’s how we feel about Phil Hughes being caught by Martin Guptill off the bowling of Chris Martin for the fourth time in four innings. It’s so perfect, there’s really nothing to add.

We’ve heard of bowlers having a bunny before, but not fielders.

Picture the scene:

New Australia coach, Mickey Arthur, is wearing a Chris Martin mask. Phil Hughes is padded up with bat in hand and he’s standing in front of some stumps. Behind him, at an angle, is a life-size cut-out of Martin Guptill.

“Okay,” says Arthur. “In this drill, what you have to do is avoid being caught out by Martin Guptill. You can hit the ball in the air through 350 degrees, but if it goes in that sliver towards Guptill, you’re out. If you keep the ball on the floor, you can hit it anywhere. You can also leave it – and for the purposes of this drill, if the ball hits the stumps, you will not be considered out. All you have to do is not hit the ball in the air at Martin Guptill.”

Phil Hughes nods, with a slightly frightened look in his eye and gets into his stance. Mickey Arthur then gently underarms the ball to him, aiming at his legs. Hughes backs away and slices it into the middle of the Guptill cut-out. “Keep working at it,” cries Michael Clarke from somewhere nearby.

By the way, regarding Australia’s batting collapses, we were wrong to blame the top order. If you lose eight wickets for 74 runs, you can’t blame the opener who finishes with 123 not out.

Has the Australia cricket team bottomed out?

On balance, we still think that they already had. Others will argue that being bowled out by New Zealand for 136 represents a further low, but we think it’s an improvement on being bowled out for 47.

That’s how bottoming out works. It’s not like bouncing back. When you bottom out, you’re not at your worst any more, but you’re still very, very close to it.

Australian batting collapses come thick and fast these days. Why is it happening?

Start

A proper collapse by definition starts with the openers, so Australia have got that covered. Since Simon Katich played his last Test this time last year, the openers have scored 15 runs or fewer on 10 occasions. That’s pretty special.

Middle

But the heart of a collapse lies in the middle order. You’d expect Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Mike Hussey to be able to halt a crumbling innings. But they don’t.

Actually, Clarke did stop one – Australia’s first innings at Newlands was essentially a collapse with an intermission, so we can consider that another black mark against Ponting and Hussey.

These guys hadn’t appeared in too many collapses until recently, so what’s changed? We don’t think age makes much difference, particularly for Clarke. Age is just an easy, catch-all explanation. We also doubt whether it’s lack of faith in the bowlers. The Newlands collapse happened with a first innings lead of almost 200 and South Africa having been dismissed for 96.

So why then? The mere presence of Brad Haddin? The metrosexualisation of Australian society?

Ending?

Maybe it is age. Maybe a minuscule slowing of reflexes isn’t exposed on a flat pitch or against the old ball, whereas on the occasions when the ball does a bit and the top order fails it suddenly makes the difference between survival and dismissal.

If the top order weren’t dog shit, maybe the old guys in the middle order would be knocking out hundreds and we wouldn’t even be mentioning their age. Problem is, the top order IS dog shit, so what do you do?

In our eyes, the middle order could work, the top order doesn’t. Our solution is that Australia should pick Mark Cosgrove and we’re not being dissuaded from this by the fact that he hasn’t scored any runs this season.

Technically we haven’t seen Phil Hughes’ latest dismissal

But only technically.

“I’d love him to be in the team,” said Ross Taylor before the second Test.

“I think his technique has improved out of sight,” said Michael Clarke.

“If Hughes plays in Tasmania then obviously Chris Martin will be bowling at him and hopefully Martin Guptill takes a third catch too,” said Ross Taylor.

Australia v New Zealand, second Test: PJ Hughes c Guptill b Martin 4.

Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball coverage says he tried to defend with an angled bat. We assume.

Virender Sehwag has something to shout about in one-day cricket

And it’s about time. We were talking about Sehwag’s unspectacular one-day record on this site only the other day. He’s properly addressed that now by hitting the highest one-day international score of all time.

Sehwag deserves a one-day record – not because he’s an exceptional one-day batsman, but because he’s an unforgettable cricketer. 15 hundreds in 240 matches is nowt to write home about for a one-day opener (Trescothick hit 12 in 123 matches, Upul Tharanga’s got 12 in 131). But 219? Hell, that warrants digging out the fountain pen and some coloured paper.

“Dear mum, played a top knock against the Windies today, so work’s going okay. Regarding the car, it seems to have stopped making that sound, so I’m just going to leave it and hope it’s sorted itself out. Finally, the cat had to have his teeth cleaned by the vet, which cost a bloody fortune – as usual – but he’s eating okay, so I think he’s fine as well.”

Stick Cricket now available on Android

Not as good as android cricket now being available on a stick.

Yes, that’s right, today’s entire King Cricket offering is a limp one line joke based around our love of robots and our luddite attitude to mobile phones.

We haven’t even explained what Stick Cricket is or included a link. That’s how lazy we are.

Andrew Symonds – reality TV star

Andrew Symonds: he’s just a hard-drinkin’, fishin’, pig-wrestlin’ Aussie who’s only happy doin’ outdoors things in the bush. He loved cricket, but life in the public eye was too much for him. The intense glare of the media made him crack.

Thankfully, all that’s behind him now and he can concentrate on his first love, which is appearing in reality TV programmes where the premise is that contestants are subjected to complete 24-hour scrutiny. Symonds is to be one of the contestants on Bigg Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother.

And how’s this for a quote?

“I am hoping to have a lot of fun inside the house and learn more about the Indian culture that I find very fascinating. I am also looking at this as an opportunity to showcase the Australian culture, which involves fun-filled activities like barbecues, throwing people into the pool and being completely at peace.”

Do any Australians out there have anything to add to that summary of the nation’s culture, or has Symonds pretty much summed it up?