Steve O’Keefe and Imran Khan

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Steve O’Keefe’s finally been picked to play a Test match for Australia. We mentioned him as far back as 2010 as being a spinner who wasn’t completely rubbish, but who was somehow being overlooked in favour of any number of slow bowlers who were.

O’Keefe’s the second spinner, so Australia haven’t reverted to punishing Nathan Lyon for being Nathan Lyon – he’s still playing as well. Mitchell Marsh is making his debut too and one can only hope that he’ll be as majestically inconsistent as his brother, Shaun.

Pakistan have also given two players debuts. Yasir Shah is a legspinner who played a solitary one-day international in 2011 when he also played two T20 internationals. We know nothing about him.

Meanwhile, Imran Khan is, as you might imagine, a pace bowler of some description. He’s down as right-arm medium-fast on Cricinfo, but that’s what they tend to put when they don’t really know a player. Being as Imran has neither a photo nor a written profile on his player page, we suspect that is the case in this instance. In classic Pakistan tradition, he was probably hired to drive the team bus but impressed in the nets where he was bowling with an orange.

At the time of writing, Australia were one wicket away from the inevitable Younus Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq rebuilding partnership.

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Coincidence?

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17 comments

  1. Cricinfo amazes me. For a website that has a lot of traffic, they seem to do little by way of house-keeping. Shouldn’t someone at some point look at all that filth and go, “Wait a second, maybe this is too cluttered. We should perhaps limit ourselves to scores and articles and do away with Facebook likes, cricketers’ twitter feeds ( Seriously, who in their right mind would want to look at what those people say on twitter?) in addition to all those ads”.

    Oh, and Imran Khan is literally the next Imran Khan. You read this here first. (Because recycled jokes are awesome).

    1. Something was said on the county cricket liveblog, to the effect that it’s something they want to get around to this year but haven’t had time to do yet. Too busy making all those videos, perhaps?

    2. I completely disagree, DC. Imran Khan is NOT the next Imran Khan. Imran Khan is the previous Imran Khan. Get it right.

    3. Good to know, B. Deer. Hope they get to it soon.

      Bert: I don’t understand your comment at all. I think when you say Imran Khan, you actually mean Imran Khan and not Imran Khan. Though I have no idea how someone could mix up those two straightforward, reverse swinging names.

    4. Damn, you’re right. I feel such an idiot. I really must apologise to both Imran Khan and his mother for the unintended insult.

    5. Obviously there is only one Imran Khan – he has faked his birth certificate to get back in the team. Not without precedent, as carbon dating of Aaqib Javed’s moustache has confirmed (perhaps).

  2. So much video on Cricinfo. Who actually watches them? My manager doesn’t need to know about Ian Chappell’s opinions.

    1. I have to wait for them to start playing, just so I can turn them off. Refuses to accept I don’t want them to auto-start.

    1. It’s a Test! A Test! A Test not featuring Bangladesh as one of the playing teams! I’m so excited you have no idea!!!!! 😀

  3. Any suggestions for decent radio stations, available online in the UK, to follow Aus. v. Pak.? As a fan of TMS, the last thing I want to do is listen the Pakistani/Australian equivalent of Ravi Shastri, say.

    (And apologies for spamming your comment feed, KC. This is what Test match excitement is doing to me.)

    1. Doesn’t seem like spam. Seems relevant and potentially useful if anyone’s got an answer.

    1. There are two Jayawardenes as well. This evidenced by my own eyes as I have seen both on the field of play at the same time.

      This Imran Khan business is surely a bit of political skulduggery by the big man, eager to cement his place in the pantheon of great leaders of his nation.

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