Outside The Line

Putting The Torch Out With A Single Tear

Do the Indian curators regularly inject their pitches with Rohypnol? Because that might help to explain how often they seem to produce these utterly lifeless tracks, in which one man alone can rape and pillage and score 250 runs in a day. That is not to take anything from Sehwag's effort, which I'm sure was everything people have been saying it was, and more.

Sehwag has always seemed to me to be the one modern batsman both capable and worthy of snatching Brian Lara's record. Not every great player has that combination of attributes. Some definitely seem capable (e.g. Jayawardene, Dravid, Gayle) but, as much as I love them, I couldn't envision them as ultimate record holders. It just wouldn't feel right. Others (e.g. Tendulkar, Sangakkara, Gilchrist) are more than worthy of holding the honour, due to their personas and status in the game, but for varying reasons the task seems beyond their capabilities.

Lara always made sense as the guy to be in the record books... his talent was obvious, immediate, and blindingly brilliant. He was an athletic freak, possessed with gifts few of us can even fathom, not to mention a killer instinct and determination. Matthew Hayden, on the other hand, was a stodgy bully with great conditioning and an endless supply of stamina, but little else. That's not who you want standing the zenith of recorded Test batsmanship, is it? (Especially when his high score came against an emaciated third-rate bowling attack like Zimbabwe's.)

I have to admit, though, I was a little disappointed to see Sehwag looking a lot fitter, tighter, and sans stomach paunch as he scored his masterclass yesterday. I know that improving his fitness is bound to help his game -- and I bet it was contributing factor in his recent comeback -- but I can't help but feel a tinge of regret that he couldn't manage to do it through talent alone. After the retirements of Inzamam, Warne, Lehmann, etc., it seemed that Sehwag would be the sole carrier of the Arjuna Ranatunga Memorial "Lazy, Unfit, Overweight Player Excelling Solely Due To His Natural Abilities" torch that has burned brightly throughout cricket's history. But then Viru went out and got a gym membership and, alas, it was not to be. Although I guess triple-centuries at a run-a-ball are a decent compromise, right?





[On a different note... you have noooooo idea how glad I am to see Graeme Smith's South Africa take over England's mantle as the "Team Most Likely To See Opposing Batsmen Score Record Innings Against Them." I'm giddy. First it was Chris Gayle's 317, then Sangakkara's 287 and Jayawardene's 374, now Sehwag's 319... can we expect something magic from, say, Dhoni and Tendulkar in the next couple of Tests?]

Bullshit of Biblical Proportions

                                                

And Malcolm called unto all Test-playing nations, and said unto them: Hear, O World Powers, the statutes and the ordinances which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and observe to do them. The ICC lords made a covenant with us in London. They made this covenant not with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive today.

And in this covenant they declared unto us the word. And so it was that, out of the midst of the fire, atop the mount, for all to behold and cast their gaze, here, the immutable, the true... the word... The 'Future Tours Programme.' -- (Deut. 2006-2012)

Is anyone else sick as shit of this stupid FTP yet? Any gripe, new development, or even potential query about the state of cricket at the moment is just shut down, immediately, without so much as word of argument, simply by pointing a finger at the ultimate, sacrosanct Future Tours Programme. (It's a damn itinerary, for god's sake -- just change it if you have to.)

You mean to tell me we'll just jam-pack the cricketing schedule like a Mexican subway compartment -- giving the players about 72 hours to travel, rest and meet their future IPL teammates -- just so the sanctity of Bangladesh's scheduled tour of the West Indies in 2011 is not compromised? Are you kidding me? How have the players not revolted against this yet?

Here's just one illustration of this lunacy:

Meanwhile, India will tour Bangladesh in June for a one-day tri-series also featuring Pakistan, N Srinivasan, the BCCI treasurer, confirmed. The team will then head for Asia Cup in Pakistan before flying out to Sri Lanka in mid-July for three Tests and five one-day internationals.

So India will basically play... a bunch of ODIs against Bangladesh and Pakistan, after which they'll play... another bunch of ODIs in a tournament against... those exact same teams!! (Plus, Sri Lanka)!! And after that, for those who didn't quite get a strong enough Lankan fix... yet another batch of ODIs against Sri Lanka. Are the organisers actively trying to make us hate cricket? I don't get it.
 

Hey, Blame Jesus

It's funny, Dunedin probably has the highest rate of churches-per-capita in the Western world -- you can't go a single block along the main strip without seeing the phallic architectural styling of some house of worship or other -- and yet, by now, most of those stand empty, or leased out, or have been turned into bars, cafés, and nightclubs for the student population. After seeing the continuing erosion of their local influence, you'd think the damn church freaks would take a hint, huh? But no, they're still out in force, and for some reason that means I can't buy booze on a regular Friday night.

Well, if they insist on imposing their protohistoric desert morality on me, I figured I'd counteract it by spending my "Good" Friday engaging in as many godless, perverse, modern activities as I could imagine... so I proceeded to drink bad dinner-party liqueur from my friend Anna's parents' liquor cabinet, get pleasantly baked, illegally download a Sufjan Stevens album off the internet, play poker, gamble into the night, and then cap it all off by watching the dirtiest, most hardcore pornography that Red Tube has to offer. (I'm talking nasty squirting threesomes, and the like... stuff so extreme and out-there that it ceases to be erotic or stimulating, and become little more than an odd compilation of organic pistons pumping away mechanically.) Well, hey, two can play at this soul-shaping business, Mr. Christian Patriarchy, and my rites and traditions just happen to be a whole lot more fun than yours. (Plus, I don't go out and impose them on anyone else. So... who's the bad guy again?)

All of which is meant to stand as an explanation of why, by time I got up on "Holy" Saturday, I had missed most of the first day of England's last Test match against New Zealand. I woke up early enough, to be sure, but then I forgot the game was even on for a few hours. Shortly after I tuned in, the Kiwis had taken the second new ball, Kevin Pietersen proceeded to feather one outside off to McCullum, and all that was left was for the English tail to scam a few cheap runs late in the day, and for my recently-arrived German flatmate to get antsy and start asking me questions like 'Who's winning?' All in all, I barely got half a session's worth today, and not even a good half.

It becomes quite easy to overlook the smaller teams in the cricket arena -- the New Zealand's, Sri Lanka's, West Indies' of the world. Hell, I do it all the time, and I live in NZ. I guess it's because the focus of the media gaze is (naturally) centred on the bigger neighbours, while the little teams lie at the periphery of that gaze, somewhat noticeable through the wider lens, but rarely meriting their own close-up.

I'll admit the current New Zealand v. England series definitely feels quite tedious and beside the point at the moment, except for one simple fact... it's actually been spectacularly competitive and entertaining on the field. And that shouldn't even come as a surprise, really. New Zealand has a strange knack for providing some of the most objectively gripping home series in the world.

Since 2001, all major international teams have toured New Zealand at least once. Excluding games against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, 26 Test matches have been played in that time, across 10 different series. Of the twenty-six Tests, New Zealand have won ten, lost eight, and drawn another eight. Nine out of the ten series have gone on to their final game with the ultimate series result still in question. You can't get much closer than that. Just look at the series scores... 1-1, 1-1, 2-0, 0-1, 1-1, 0-2, 1-0, 2-0, 1-1.

If all the bromides are really true, and what cricket fans around the world are in search of is "a tight contest" and "a good battle between bat and ball", they should be tearing down the doors of the ICC's headquarters and demanding that more series be hosted in New Zealand. Or at least that they make the existing ones longer than two friggin' games! (Seriously, they give Sri Lanka two-game series against New Zealand. Sri Lanka!! There is absolutely no team better suited to play New Zealand than Sri Lanka... it's a proven fact. They should be hosting massive, gladiatorial, Best-of-7, home-and-away series between those two every couple of years at least. Huge battles to the finish, going back and forth, seesawing between two fully complimentary teams, eternally competing for the unofficial title of "Cricket's Favourite Sidekick Nation.")

Going Meta-Meta On Yo' Ass

The one-year anniversary fest continues, and with it comes a new award. The Rasheed Wallace Award (for best, coolest, and most original, but who for some reason occasionally disappears from the action for extended periods of time) goes to... well... the 'Sheed Award. For those who don't remember, the 'Sheed Award was supposed to be a special commemoration given out to anyone in the cricket world (player, commentator, coach) who emulated the great Rasheed Wallace, of NBA fame, and told the truth for once. Anyone who was asked a question and, for once, answered openly and without pretense. None of the usual sportsman bullshit -- not the vague, Tony Robbins victory babble, nor the "We need to work tighten the screws" vacuities of the dumb and mediocre.

The inaugural winner of the 'Sheed Award was Marvan Atapattu, who dubbed the Sri Lankan selectors "muppets" in the middle of the tour of Australia in November. That original blog post handing him the 'Sheed was also probably the consensus favourite for post of the year from the Outside The Line editorial board.

Unfortunately, we haven't seen any more winners of 'Sheed Awards, not because there have been no inflammatory statements in the few months since then (the whole Harbhajan/Symonds/Hayden fracas definitely attracted headlines), but because none of those statements have been released for any motive that wasn't self-serving. That is not the spirit of the 'Sheed. Its purpose is to commemorate, quite simply, the art of keeping it real. No macho posturing crap.

(Note:- Just quickly... that entire incident with Harbhajan was simply a bitch fight of the worst kind, from start to finish -- no light, no heat -- and I wanted nothing to do with it, which is why I didn't comment on it at the time. A century ago, the whole matter would've been resolved with a quick five-minute punch-up by the locker rooms, after stumps, on the first day of the series. In 2008, it gets dragged out for weeks in the tabloids, and then fizzles away into nothing. Cricket needs a real fight soon... what kind of hyper-docile, sedated society do we want to live in that we can't a few athletes smacking the gob out of each other every once in a while? Seriously, how cool would it be to have a highlights reel like this one below, only for cricket?)

Anyway, that whole "no self-serving motives" rule should probably discount Ray Jennings from eligibility for a 'Sheed Award. But since he's at least aiming his ire at Graeme Smith, that worthiest of targets, we'll give him a pass.this once. So congratulations Ray Jennings!! For saying what needed to be said, you are awarded a prestigious 'Sheed! Enjoy your glory.

Thirty-five!!!

I missed this when it happened, but apparently Marlon Samuels has gotten himself banned from bowling. That's funny enough by itself, but the real kicker is the actual level of the transgression. The angle of straightening of his right arm upon delivery was... 27 degrees for his off-breaks, 35 degrees for his quicker balls. Thirty-five!!! Want to see what that looks like?

Ultimately, that might go down as the perfect embodiment of his career. Marlon Samuels: a guy too lazy to even straighten an arm.

Now Sophomoric, And Not Just By Reputation

 

                        

The celebrations keep piling on at Outside The Line. First, the Australians get spanked out of the tri-series by Tendulkar and some of his nephews, then they lose their no.1 spot in the ODI rankings to South Africa -- who with Graeme Smith at the helm are even more odious and more fun to cheer against than the Aussies themselves -- and now, to top it all off, we also celebrate a birthday. Hard to believe, but it was a year ago that Outside The Line was inaugurated.

The original idea was to write a book, frame it around the period of the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean, and use the blog as a virtual notebook, ultimately feeding the book's live-from-the-scene travelogue moments. As is often the case, things didn't come near going according to plan, and the whole event turned into a massive clusterfuck of unimaginable proportions: Australian domination on the field, logistical roadblocks and money woes on the road, and a constant, unavoidable sense of doom hanging above the whole endeavour (and its jaded participants). It soon became clear that, this time at least, it just wasn't meant to be.   

I didn't think I'd even write about cricket again after the Final, to be honest. It was so brutal a kick to the balls that I couldn't see anyone but a textbook masochistic coming back for more after seeing Ponting raise the trophy in the Bridgetown twilight. Luckily, someone invented a little schoolyard game called Twenty20, the ICC got its head out its own ass to draw a breath for long enough to hold a World Cup for the new game in September, and like the typical junkie, I was hooked again. As Michael Corleone said, "just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."

And so we're here, one year in. In order to commemorate the occasion -- and since no one around here is above some shameless self-congratulation and the cannibalisation of our own previous work, here are some awards to commemorate a few of the more memorable moments from the past twelve months:

• The 'Dewey Defeats Truman' Award for the best news headline goes to this little gem from back in September. To this day, I still don't understand how it works. Speaking of which, where the hell did Andrew Flintoff go? Does anyone know? Is this his "rehab period"? Did he secretly die in a car crash like Paul McCartney, and right now the English management is searching for lookalikes throughout Manchester to use during the next Ashes series? Will they leave clues for the fans to decipher the mystery as well? Is Freddie standing with his back to the camera in the next team photo?
  

• The Shane Watson Memorial "We will not rest until his international career is over" Award goes to Mohammad Sami, who upon searching the archives appears to have had an untarnished record of pure vitriol and scorn hurled in his direction from this site. Not one positive word has been written about him in about half a dozen mentions spanning the last 12 months. Quite an achievement. Congratulations, sir.

• The Great White Whale Award -- for the player who just won't go away, who keeps drifting in and out our scope and haunting our dreams -- goes to Jacques Kallis. It's no secret, really; we hate the guy. We hate to see him at the crease, we hate all the centuries he gets, we hate the gap between his teeth, and we hate his fat ass. And yet we (well, it's probably just me) can't stop writing about him. His futile battle to defeat the "selfish" tag; the absurdly watertight defense of his; the strange paradox of his having the best temperament and most patience in the game, yet never managing to score more than 189 runs in an innings... we find him fascinating as a pure specimen, and from hell's heart we'll stab at it until we find out if it even bleeds.
  

(More awards to come.)

Shampoo Is Better! No, Conditioner Is Better! Get Me Ishant Sharma!

Sometimes I worry that the IPL will end up being managed like a cheapo Mickey Mouse operation, milked out of every cent, and then run straight into ground after a couple of years. I can't say that announcements like these help to assuage my doubts much.

It seems the Kolkata team will be called the Knight Riders. Yes, the Knight Riders. I'm sorry, but that's like naming your team the 'Delhi Dukes of Hazzard' or the 'Mumbai Magnum P.I.s.' What genius at what marketing department decided that was a good choice?

That entire team seems completely baffling in its construction to me. It appears as if it's being run from the deepest recesses of a palatial mansion near the mountains by some overgrown man-child of the Billy Madison ilk, the only heir to a billionaire oil magnate's fortune, who was given an IPL team for his 30th birthday present while he lounged around drunk by the pool, chasing imaginary penguins. (It's actually owned by Bollywood star Shah Ruhk Khan, which I'm not sure is a better or worse scenario in this case. Indian readers?)

How else can you explain some of the personnel choices so far? Could there be a locker room out there with less chemistry than this one? Ricky Ponting and Shoaib Akthar taking orders from Saurav Ganguly? With John Buchanan as a coach? Brendon McCullum and Tatenda Taibu? Was that necessary? Oh and the team's highest bid was for a 19-year-old who has played all of 20 first-class games and looks like he weighs 57 kg. Brilliant. (That is by far the runaway nominee for Ultimate IPL Draft Bust.)

Graeme Smith WILL Make You Hate The 9th, No Doubt About It

                

And so it happened, with barely so much as a whimper, let alone a bang. The event this site has practically been built around, from its very inception. The crowning glory of a year of blogging (and many more years of unofficial, but still unwavering, hatred and antipathy).

Australia are no longer big dogs. WOO HOO!!!!! YEEEEAAA MO'FUCKA!!!!!!! If we could actually afford champagne, the sound of popping corks would still be echoing across the entire antipodean continent ever since the day of the second final at the Gabba. Sure, Australia are still good. They'll probably continue to be very good for a long time. They'll be on or around the top of the ladder, never giving an inch, strong at home, competitive on the road, with a half dozen scary players who could still haunt your dreams and destroy all hopes. But they won't be AUSTRALIA anymore. They days of "The Mighty Australia" are over  -- now they're just another plodding, overgrown, graceless local power. (South Africa without the mental baggage, if you will.)

So what does that mean for Outside The Line? Should we fold up shop? Our basic predictions have essentially been confirmed... Australia's extreme dominance throughout the past decade really was due to the freakish occurrence of having three once-in-a-generation players (Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist) in the same team, with the addition of few overachieving left-handers and a culture of professionalism and competitive ruthlessness filling in the gaps. Of course, it would've been nice if their fall had been sudden and meteoric; if one loss (say, in the 2007 World Cup final) had triggered a chain reaction of blame, recrimination, and player after player being made to walk the plank into instant retirement and ultimate oblivion.

But cricket doesn't work like that. The days are long, the sessions are slow, and even revolutions proceed at the speed of molasses. But they still happen, as the IPL is bound to show everyone in a couple of months. And thank god for that. The sport needs it -- hell, this site needs it. Anyone who doesn't agree with that -- at least to some extent -- should be strapped down like Alex DeLarge, head clamp and scapula in place, and made to watch the current South Africa v. Bangladesh series on a loop for a couple of weeks or so.

Crying Global Reconstitution (Far, Far Away From The O.C.)

                  

Some might say that there are worse ways to spend one’s time than by traversing the picturesque green hills and valleys of southern New Zealand in summer. Those people have obviously not had to look for a flat recently. I’d been stuck doing just that for the better part of the last two weeks. It is such an odious, dehumanising chore, pure bullshit and pretense from start to finish. Doing it under normal circumstances is already painful, but during the first week of uni -- in a college town like Dunedin – it borders on the masochistic. It is almost as soul-crushing an experience as going for a job interview, and I doubt my ego could have handled too much more of it if I hadn’t found a place yet.

What does all this have to do with cricket? Not a lot, really, and that’s kind of the point. I have wanted to write about cricket, for sure. But the realities of living in an aging second world economy at the virtual end of the Earth – without a laptop – and seeing an international cricket scene that is hemorrhaging on the inside, desperate to change course, or change format, or I don’t know, just change something… it all can get in the way of the words sometimes. (Plus, I’m a lazy stoner.)

At the same time, although it seems as if there has been a lot of action and worthy raw material in the cricket world of late – tons of retirements, farewells, changes in squads, new captains, “heated” exchanges – a lot of it is just contrived media gas. There are no real goodbyes to be shared or nostalgic  testimonials to be recited because all the players who are said to be “leaving” the game of cricket will be IPL-ing it (or, if their agents sucked, ICL-ing it) up in mere months.

In fact, I think more than a few of those farewells and a televised tribute or two should now be rescinded, since McGrath, Warne, Gilchrist, Hogg, Fleming, Styris, Pollock, Inzamam, Ganguly, and all your favourites will be right back on your screen before you know it, kids. You thought they’d age gracefully, let the new guard come through, and move on along their ultimate existential paths? Think again. They merely took a breather -- they got their hair plugs, their blonde streaks, and (probably) their Botox, and were just given an assload of expendable cash by a bunch of rich tycoons with a boner for becoming the Indian George Steinbrenner (or its Roman Abramovich, for that matter).

As they say, welcome to the new world order, bitch.