All posts tagged 'pakistan'

Cricket is a serious business. No, it is. You have only to examine Andy Flower’s furrowed brow and two minute warm up before answering questions as mundane as “were you pleased with Steven Finn’s bowling in the first innings?” to know that the world’s greatest sport is not something to be mocked.

But the first test between England and Pakistan at Trent Bridge last week had everyone in stitches. From the moment Kamran Akmal missed the easiest catch off Strauss on the first morning all the way to the finish when Kaneria and Asif were giggling through their tenth wicket stand, this match has had more laughs than a pack of hyenas with a particularly heightened sense of humour watching a baby elephant tripping over a stray beach ball.

The figures of fun, in some kind of order, were Umpire Tony Hill And His Amazing Shoulder Pads - inspiration for a prog rock band name if ever there was one -  Matt Prior And His Mislaid Tactical Brain, Kamran Akmal And Just About Everything About Kamran Akmal, and The UDRS And Its Effect On Previously Cocksure International Sportsmen.

Let’s take a closer look at the brand new reviewed and improved UDRS. It all started so well. A tiny inside edge from Trott onto his pads was missed by the on field umpire and LBW was the verdict. Trott referred to the third umpire immediately. Hotspot showed the edge, Trott was reprieved and justice was done. However, thereafter we were treated to a litany of madness. Two almost identical deliveries, both adjudged to be hitting the top of off stump, were referred, one by the fielding side and one by the batsman. Both were turned down so one man was out and the other was not. This set the tone for the ensuing brain melt evinced by batsmen, bowlers and keepers alike.

The most intriguing and unwittingly amusing consequence of the UDRS is how the decision to refer to the third umpire is made. For batsmen given out it involves a rather sulky trudge up the wicket to the non striker. We can only guess at the exchange but it looks something like: “What do you reckon? It didn’t feel out to me.” To which the response is usually “well mate, I dunno”, the subtext of which is “on yer bike, I want to save that referral for when I’m given out”. This was most in evidence when Azhar Ali was talked out of referring his caught behind decision by Umar Akmal despite there being no evidence of an edge. Umar was in the front line again when he used up a ludicrous referral on a straight ball, hitting the middle of middle stump on the last day, only for his brother to be given out erroneously 20 minutes later - but bereft of any referrals, he had to toddle off. Fraternal relations will have been strained to the max by that cock up.

As for fielding side referrals, England take the biscuit. The usual procedure is for a batsman to miss an intended sweep off a sharply turning and bouncing delivery from Swann. Swann bounces on the spot and screams for all his worth. Umpire turns him down. Swann struts towards to Strauss. Strauss turns away and starts sniggering. Swann teapots. Strauss gives up as if to say “ok then, if it’ll shut you up”, and replays confirm the ball is going over and past leg stump by about five inches. It’s as if England’s skipper is happy to be rid of the damn things so he doesn’t have to go through the rigmarole of talking his bowlers down.

As for Kamran Akmal he is now teetering on the brink of eliciting sympathy, so hilariously bad is he at keeping wicket. He’s the Benjamin Button of test cricket. The more he plays the less experienced he seems to become. Pakistan were largely outplayed throughout the test, but on the first day his missed catch off Strauss and stumping off Collingwood halted his side’s momentum. He had the commentators both on the Sofa and Sky rubbing tears of laughter from their eyes. Only Asif’s comical run out to end the first innings rivaled his errors for Carry On value.

And then we had to endure the farcical sight of watching Matt Prior’s senses depart for another continent. Having just smashed Kaneria for two sixes to take him to the 90’s, he then settled into a curious regime of taking a single from the first ball of six consecutive  overs, and watching an inexperienced number 11 block five balls. Why didn’t he just refuse the single until the third or fourth ball, hoping, not without justification, for a full toss or long hop from which to score a boundary? The result was initially frustrating but after 30 minutes, hysteria took over both at the ground and in my sitting room. What didn’t he understand about the simple mathematics of his situation and England’s obvious need to be bowling in the late evening at Pakistan’s top order?

To cap it all Kevin Pieterson told us that this was Prior’s best century for England. Given the other two were in 500 plus first innings totals against the West Indies, this is akin to describing him as the best wicket keeper in the match. But you can be sure of one thing; KP wasn’t laughing. He alone was, as always, deadly serious.

Where have all the test matches gone? No sooner has the Sofa settled back into the familiar rhythms of five day (and sometimes three day) cricket, with all that entails (like Zoob's 2 day anecdotes) than it's all snatched away again. The fixture schedule this summer is as barmy as it has ever been. Yee Gods, when I were a lad championship cricket happened consistently throughout the summer. 40 over games were regular Sunday fixtures, and the two other limited over bashes were shoe horned into the start of the season (B&H) or sprinkled every few weeks through June, July and August (NatWest/Gillette). Test matches, once they started in early June continued, once more at regular intervals, through the remainder of the summer.  You knew where you were. Three square meals a day with Bran Flakes to keep you regular.

So, having just got used to 4 day cricket and the resumption of tests after 60 days of transcontinental T20 thrashabouts (a proper three course lunch after a pain au chocolat for breakfast), blow me if we don't have to endure two months more of hit and giggle, with a single, lonely championship fixture in late June. Eight Mars bars a day with a plate of toad in the hole at 2 in the morning. The cricketing equivalent of impacted guts.

Presumably this is in a desperate attempt to match the IPL by concentrating all the T20 matches around the next 6 weeks and hoping that we forget any other form of cricket ever existed. The effect will surely be to leave England's players entirely out of nick by the time they play Pakistan at the end of July. The poor Pakistanis have to undergo 4 back to back tests to accommodate this tomfoolery. Yes, four. Insanity. The first test will be competed between one side that resembles Clint Eastwood emerging from the desert in the Good the Bad and the Ugly and another that has forgotten the rules (not the laws; they'll stay the same). Is this Modi's masterplan to destroy test cricket using Giles Clarke as the ironic agent of its destruction?

If there is anything positive in the crazy scheduling it is that England cricket matches don't clash with the football World Cup. Die hard cricket fans may complain that this is akin to Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper from a plane proclaiming peace, but the realists amongst us can at least be assured that when our game is played, it will be as close to centre stage as possible.

Thank God, then, for the Pakistan v. Australia test series starting on 13th July. If the England players will be out of nick come their next match, at least the Sofa team will have been warming up on their behalf. And in all likelihood, we'll be co-opted into the management team as "Test Match Reacquaintance Consultants". Just don't be surprised if Michael Lumb ends up taking guard on the first morning because Alastair Cook is undergoing colonic irrigation with a vibratory de-compactor to shift those Mars bars.

I have just compiled the schedule for international cricket in England this summer, ready to send out to the Sofa gang for availability checking.

Unbelievably, if you include the Australia v Pakistan matches, there are 57 days of cricket between now and the end of the season (equally unbelievably, the end isn't until 22 September). That's pretty much every other day.

As glorious a prospect as this is, it also poses a really tricky problem for me. How on earth am I going to get enough time off work to do even half my share of Sofa duty? I have already spunked way too much of my holiday allowance on cricket, and it would be quite nice to have an actual holiday at some point.

What I need is for the Sofa to go massive very quickly, so that I can quit my job and do it full time. This post is therefore a rallying cry for those who love the Sofa and want the it to continue. Tell everyone you know about us, write about us, tweet about us, spread the word any way you know how, and we might just make it to the Ashes next winter.

Help us get to 100,000 listeners. It'll be worth your while in the end.

(despite what it says above, the following opinions, grammar, spelling and syntax have been supplied by Jarrod Kimber of www.cricketwithballs.com)

According to Daniel, test match sofa is an anarcho-syndicalist commune.  This is his way of coming across as the lovable uncle you wish you had.  When Ahmer was heart broken it was Daniel who comforted him, but not because he cares about Pakistanis (he rates all former colonies the same way, like that thing he found on his boot) but because he knows that appearing to be on Ahmer’s side will win him more fans. Test match sofa is not an anarcho-syndecalist commune it is a fascist dictatorship where he regularly beats the other commentators, especially Tom.  His leadership style is styled on Lady Thatcher and Groucho Marx with a touch of Genghis Khan thrown in. 

Even though Dan clearly sees himself as superior to most other people, he does share several traits with other English supporters, the “can’t lose” attitude.  I don’t mean “can’t lose” in the way an Indian supporter who has the Indian flag painted on their face thinks can’t lose, I mean the way English supporters build themselves an emotional bunker so that no matter the result they end up winners.

Dan has already proclaimed that Australia will crush England.  So if Australia crush England, he can say, “see I told you so, I’m pretty clever”.  If England wins, he can streak naked through the streets of Tooting screaming about the power of the Empire.  Either way, Dan is the winner.  And this sort of defeated undefeatable loserism is how English fans shield themselves from ever having to look at their own ineptitude in sport. 

I, on the other hand, believe Australia should win because they are the better side.  I’ve studied this match with the asexual eagerness of a young Mike Hussey, and while I think England are a very cohesive unit, Australia should have the fire power with bat and ball to beat them. 

When Australia does win, it will be the greatest win in the history of organized sport, over coming adversity, impossible obstacles and Bangladesh. .  No team has overcome so much (including the Michael Clarke handicap) to be victorious. 

If, and this is purely hypothetical, Australia do lose, it will be Michael Clarke’s fault.  Because England couldn’t possibly play better than Australia to win.

Obviously.  

Either way Dan wins, because he has chosen both sides as usual, like a proper Englishman should.

On Friday I watched the bewildered eyes of fellow commentator Ahmer widen, fill with embryonic tears and slam shut to block out the hideous light shining from Jarrod’s triumphant teeth and I was filled with a fearful dread. Finally Ahmer composed himself and said softly “why are they always such bastards?” It was impossible at this moment to know whether he referred to Australia, who had just, unimaginably from their parlous position, stolen Ahmer’s moment of glory, or his own players who had made him believe and then coshed him over the head with the stinking, putrefying wombat of reality. “God must have many places for Pakistani fans in heaven, because he puts us through hell on earth” was his ultimate summation. And then I realised it was my turn next.

Today England take on the Aussies. They’re in better form than the Pakistanis were. They are well drilled, able to adapt their game to different conditions, as their stunning wins in both St. Lucia and Barbados attest, and have no pressure on their shoulders. Why shouldn’t we dream? We won our last ODI against them (albeit after losing the previous 6). Of all the teams in the tournament we probably relish fast bowling the most. We’ve got the bloody Ashes for heaven’s sake.

But believe me it’s not as simple as that. If you’d seen the encroaching smugness gather from the third last over of that semi on Jarrod’s widening chops. If you’d seen him lean ever so slightly further forward as the penultimate over yielded a succession of 2s, keeping Hussey on strike. If you’d watched with resignation and terror as he leaned back in his armchair, overwhelmed by a grin so mammoth his eyes disappeared into the flabby contours of his ecstatic face as the final apocalyptic six sailed over the mid wicket boundary, you’d know there is no hope. They always win. Because, Ahmer, they are always such bastards.