Jarrod Kimber
Not always a bad thing to be a NSW reject
According to Malcolm Conn , Peter Forest is a New South Wales reject.
Jarrod Kimber
25-Feb-2013
According to Malcolm Conn, Peter Forest is a New South Wales reject.
And he is. Forrest couldn’t cut it at NSW. He had a great start, played for Australia A and was talked about as a potential future player for Australia before he slipped off the radar. Eventually he struggled to even hold a place with NSW.
At some states, a player with his obvious talent might have been given more time, but you don’t get long at NSW. You’re either the next big thing, comfortable being a well loved but underused back up, or you’re out.
Full postThe curious case of the random fill-in bowler
You know that point in Test cricket where everyone is enjoying themselves and then suddenly Mike Hussey, Paul Collingwood or Virender Sehwag comes on to bowl the 72nd over
Jarrod Kimber
25-Feb-2013
You know that point in Test cricket where everyone is enjoying themselves and then suddenly Mike Hussey, Paul Collingwood or Virender Sehwag comes on to bowl the 72nd over. I hate that bit.
I love it when random bowlers come on for a tactical reason. No one can hide their smile when watching Graham Gooch bowl, and angels giggle through giddy excitement every time Sachin bowls his off and legspin. It’s fun and different, and makes cricket at any level feel like it’s being played in a park.
But it feels like enforced fun gone wrong when in the last eight overs before the new ball anyone is thrown the ball and told they just have to get through their over’s as quickly as possible so the real cricket can resume.
Full postThe problem with Clint McKay
I’ve never rated Clint McKay
Jarrod Kimber
25-Feb-2013
I’ve never rated Clint McKay. Never.
Every time I see him on the Australian team sheet I think it’s a weakened team. And it goes back farther than that, when he played for Victoria in the old days I felt the same way.
For years I’d be one of seven people at the G watching him for Victoria and telling the other six people that I didn’t rate him. Only for one of them to point out that he’d taken 4 for 60.
Full postAngelo Mathews does exist, then
I once wrote that Angelo Mathews did not really exist
Jarrod Kimber
25-Feb-2013
I once wrote that Angelo Mathews did not really exist. He just seemed a bit too awesome. And not like other Sri Lankan cricketers. Angelo wasn’t a graceful middle-order mestro, or a tubby fighter. Angelo wasn’t a top-order slogger, or even a tricky spinner. That’s what Sri Lankan cricket was; we’d got use to their best players fitting these stereotypes. And suddenly here was this broad-shouldered (© Tony Greig), seam-bowling allrounder who could win a game batting, bowling or fielding.
It was too weird for me to process, so I just pretended he didn’t exist.
I felt like this when he fell over wickets against India, bowled Sri Lanka into a World T20 final, took a catch that went viral on Youtube and smashed Australia around the G. Now, finally after all these years, I am willing to admit that Angelo Mathews does exist, and he exists well. Really well. Weller than most. Peter Weller, well.
Full postStop the madness
Ben Hilfenhaus’ body is built for a purpose, and you can’t imagine that purpose was ever running, diving and throwing all in one motion.
Jarrod Kimber
25-Feb-2013
Ben Hilfenhaus’ body is built for a purpose, and you can’t imagine that purpose was ever running, diving and throwing all in one motion.
Hilfenhaus doesn’t have the body shape of an athletic fielder. He’s not a huge man, but he’s got a solid trunk on him, more tree than ballet dancer. There aren’t many moving parts. It just all seems to be made to propel the ball at a fair rate and swing it away.
That’s why it was odd that a Hilfenaus run, dive and throw was the final sign that India have just not been up to it this summer. The whole thinking behind the incident told you everything you needed to know about Team India.
A nightwatchman came in for a No. 7 in a dead-rubber Test that was already lost only for the proper batsman to try and farm the strike and be run out by a few centimetres when the opposition fast bowler threw the stumps down as India’s star batsman didn’t quite dive to full effect.
Full postNightmare for Yadav
The ball was floating through the air
Jarrod Kimber
25-Feb-2013
Umesh Yadav has combined every single bad ball in his armoury for one Test.
© AFPThe ball was floating through the air. It almost seemed to hang there, like a UFO or an orb. It seemed like a ball from a dream, as if I’d fallen asleep during the mega super punter-pup partnership and had concocted this surreal floating ball above Adelaide Oval.
It wasn’t my imagination, it was an actual ball, and Umesh Yadav had delivered it.
Even before Yadav had brought up his hundred runs, cricket nerds were sweating over the fact that he was going to bring up his hundred at better than a run a ball. The cricket nerd amateur comedian loves moments like these.
Full postThe curious cases of Hogg and Bailey
Brad Hogg ’s comeback and George Bailey ’s rise don’t seem to have made people all that angry.
Jarrod Kimber
25-Feb-2013
Brad Hogg’s comeback and George Bailey’s rise don’t seem to have made people all that angry.
That’s odd, isn’t it?
Australia have picked an oldy and a dude to replace a dude with roughly the same record of the other dude who is slightly older. Where is the disdain, the outrage, the editorial’s sprouting anti-Victorian intent and how Australia are overlooking their future for some old dude the commentators all like?
Full postIt's a harsh life at the WACA
The scoreboard has a sort of don’t mess with me attitude
Jarrod Kimber
25-Feb-2013
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| Any ground with grass hills on both sides should be lovely, but the WACA still feels ominous © Getty Images |
The scoreboard has a sort of don’t mess with me attitude. The ducks in Queens Park's look more sinister than most. And the light towers have a violent look to them.
My first memories of the WACA involved Geoff Lawson’s jaw, or what was left of it after Curtly Ambrose tried to decapitate him. For a few years the pitch changed to a PG rating, and the allure of the WACA almost disappeared. Now some of the brutal mystique has returned. The pitch is once again fast and bouncy. Once you’ve worn a few on the hands and chest, like a scene from a bad disaster film the pitch slowly opens up and lets the bowler aim at massive cracks.
Then there is the heat. Perth is hot. I don’t want to get into specifics, but I’m washing undergarments over here more than David Warner hits boundaries. Peter Siddle looked like he was too tired to celebrate a wicket on day one. Siddle and I are from Melbourne, so maybe us handling heat means little, but in Perth even the Indians have been complaining about the heat. I’m counting that as hot.
Full postA day Vinay Kumar won't forget
A seagull flew across the pitch as David Warner faced up to Vinay Kumar
Jarrod Kimber
25-Feb-2013
A seagull flew across the pitch as David Warner faced up to Vinay Kumar. Warner could have smashed it, but instead withdrew from the crease giving Vinay a pause.
It was as generous Warner was going to be.
My Indian friends mock Vinay’s lack of pace. Even I’ve compared his bowling to that of Damien Martyn. Others suggest that he might want to step up the pace as he was picked as a seamer and not a spinner. More than one said he was slower than Dhoni. And some even suggested he might have moved ahead of Dravid and Laxman in the retirement race.
Full postClarke’s not perfect but he’s his own man
At his home ground Michael Clarke wore a baggy green cap and long buttoned shirt while easing a clean-skin bat around for a triple-century
Jarrod Kimber
25-Feb-2013
At his home ground Michael Clarke wore a baggy green cap and long buttoned shirt while easing a clean-skin bat around for a triple-century. Then he declared, thinking of the team first and not individual records or even sentimental ones.
An innings like this should be the moment that Clarke goes from being a top Australian player to an iconic figure. The leap from player to legend. Australia captain-elect to Aussie skipper. It may do that, but with Michael Clarke, I just never feel like people are willing to let him be Michael Clarke. I remember a story about Clarke arriving in Australia after his scintillating slap-happy debut in India. It was all about him having done his hair before departing the plane. It was an odd story even then, but it was written to show that Clarke was a different kind of player to other Australians.
Over the years I’ve never really understood Clarke, but what has confounded me more is why others don’t like him.
Full post