All posts by ralphyt

It feels like a very muted summer on the international cricket front. A clearly transitional and tired Sri Lanka did as they were told and succumbed to a distracted England during a mildewy June. Bell's caressed a few and increasingly looks like England's banker - Barrington with flair? - and Mahela J dazzled with his all-surfaces timeless class. Sangkarra confirmed what a sublime touch player he is towards the end whilst Mister Anderson showed the flickerings of his winter fire. Cook and Swann look in good nick but the silver flecks in KP's hair might point to too many cricketing miles on the clock. Albion needs him for what I fear could be one last hurrah before a 20/20 hay/pay day.

Beyond that, what can we recount of the summer so far? Probably not much, and the merry-go-round of domestic cricket, all fresh-youngsters, past-it Saffies and transferable England skippers (Strauss? Somerset? One too many ciders I fear) all point to a fairly interminable middle five hundred pages in Wisden 2012. I might find the pages on public schools cricket more digestible. Harrow 2011, now they were a side!

I consider myself an aesthete. The cultured ying to the vulgar yang of my fellow Sofanistas. Fine wines not Stella; authentic Tuscan peasant food courtesy of Signora Sophia, not a Scotch egg from Costcutters. We're a Strictly household, not X-Factor. And if Grange Hill were still on it would be barred on account of course language and racy hemlines. Tricia Yates, really, what were you thinking? Brian Sewell's bastard love child, if you like. Simon Heffer's bessie mate.
 
So it's fair to say that a lot of the modern world grates on me. I had to lie down for a week when The Daily Telegraph changed its typeface a while back. Don't people carry handkerchiefs these days? Do we really need Bargain Hunt when Pages from Ceefax encouraged reading? Alesha Dixon!
 
But nothing grates on me more in the modern game than Graeme to fuck buggering Smith.
 
Where do we start? He straddles the crease rather in the manner of a choleraic man chancing upon a French latrine. Do you have to make such a spectacle of your derriere, young man, enviably pert though it no doubt is? Then there's the railway sleeper for a bat. No Hutton-esque rapier for the Big G. Why bother with a sublime Mark Waugh-esque ondrive when a clanking inside edge to cow corner will do. The hands dear boy, the hands! They grip the blade like he's wringing a towel out on some ghastly Iberian beach. I can't lip read but I fear his language is rather choice. All this from a nation that gave us Mandela and Barry Richards too. Don't even get me started on the expectoration. I just feel sorry for his mother.
 
At least the Ashes and NZ v India offers us some hope. A dreamy duel between Dravid and Vettori, the Geek of Tweak. Swanny's loop versus Ponting's crisp shotmaking. Anderson's lissome trebuchet of an action and Clarke's delightful touch. I'm salivating just at the thought of it all. Only a few more sleeps to go. Tuck me up Hendo. Read me a story Tom.

Old age has loomed large in the news in recent weeks. Our continental cousins are kicking off at the mere hint of a modest rise in the retirement age to 62 and the smell of burning Citroens wafts across the Channel. Meanwhile, halfway across the world, The Risen Lord, our Father Sachin of Tendulkar stands on the cusp of his 100th international hundred at the infirm cricketing age of 37, having played for India for over 20 years. Does Suresh Raina give up his seat for the old man on the team coach? Does Sehwag help him across the road? India's finest goes on and on, getting better with age. Take note our Froggy friends.

Age, what's it all about? Liver spots, incontinence and Songs of Praise for Manny; a railing against the passing of the years for Zooby. Did we mention his rather fetching tramp stamp and new piercings? No, thought not. Leonard would be spinning in his grave at the mere thought. Stick to cords and sensible shoes Jonathan.

It does seem that with modern sports science a committed cricketer can play well past their mid-30s sell by date. Hadlee and Gooch showed the cleaning-living way and were ruthlessly effective at 40; Botham, a man of, ahem, enthusiasms, finished as an effective cricketer at 30. Tendulkar has a lot of cricketing miles on the clock but strikes me as a man who looks after himself. It probably helps that his missus is a doctor and he's gone easy on the ghee. Definitely lay off the ghee kids.

Of course, if you're still able to do the job then why not play on. The money's good and you're a long time retired. There's a lot of guff spoken about giving youth its head. Give me Wagner over Cher Lloyd any day; Rahul Dravid is probably peeling himself into a jumpsuit and practising the bongos as I type. The Indian middle order still does it - just - and the young pretenders strike me as front foot bullies, grown soft on dibbly dobbly medium pacers and fatuous IPL games. Meat and drink for Dale Steyn. We see it on the Sofa too. Hendo can still do a job. Admittedly he broadcasts from a commode and thinks we should be still be on the Gold Standard. And our glorious leader Danny is a case in point; the Keef Richards of cricket commentary, a 40-something in the ravaged body of a 60 year old. Just don't go falling out of a coconut tree young Daniel!

This week I've been fortunate to see an early showing of "Fire in Babylon" at the BFI London Film Festival. From the same director as the acclaimed "Blue Blood" it charts the rise and rise of the Windies side of the mid-70s, from being humbled by that urbane Aussie housewife Lilian Thomson to dishing it out to the "fat Botham" England side of the mid-80s, culminating in the famous "Blackwash" of 1984.

Whilst not wanting to slip into Pretentious Film Journo mode (I'll leave that to the J-Rod, except he actually knows what he's gassing on about), it's an enjoyable if not great film. It does its best to be a "When We Were Kings" for cricket by placing King Viv on a pedestal. The former worked as Ali had the superhuman, unbeatable Forman to rail against; I felt Babylon suffered as Sir Vivian never had a comparable figure to joust. Great craftsman though Lillee became in the late 70s, he was no longer the terror of the early 70s; Thommo burnt out brightly in the mid-70s, injuries taking their inevitable toll on the human trebuchet. Willis? Worthy, mercurial but not a great. Oh, and there's not enough funk. Or the Fugees.

So you leave the cinema with a slight longing for more. There are a few too many talking heads with too little to say. A Jamaican groundsman a George Plimpton doth not make, amusing though their asides are. There isn't enough focus on the sheer terror batsmen must have felt tackling hour after hour of express pace with little more than a toothpick for a bat and a felt cap for the noggin. South Africa is quickly brushed aside and the decline of the Windies empire from the mid-90s not mentioned. An outsider might leave the cinema thinking that Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad still ruled the world. Sadly they do not and we're poorer for it.

But here's hoping for a general release. There's plenty of great, great bowling - a feast given the drought in the world game over the last few years. You can enjoy the sight of Robin Marlar being given enough rope to hang himself - oh, sweet, sweet bliss. There's Viv of course, magisterial as ever, Clive, Colin, Andy R and Derryk Murray. And plenty of Michael Holding's syrupy tones.  It's funny how things change. The man once famous for drop kicking a set of stumps to Auckland and back is now the conscience of the Caribbean game. Poacher, gamekeeper.

Leaving the theatre I was struck by the demographic of the audience. The vast majority of the audience were men of a certain age and overwhelmingly white. Admittedly it was midweek and late afternoon, not the usual cinema crowd. But here they were, as the credits rolled, on their feet, saluting the heroes of the last 80 mins. You wouldn't have bet on that happening 30 years ago, now would you? God, don't you wish those times were on us again?

The Sofa has been warming up for the new cricket season by covering the closing games of IPL 3 his week. And what jolly good fun it has been.

When you cross the threshold into the masonic lodge that is Sofa command, you never know what is going to confront you. Of course, some things are taken as given. Discarded Stella cans, tick. Clouds of smoke of Icelandic proportions, natch. And Jarod poking Tom with a sharp shitty stick.

Mike popped in for the first game, filming the Sofa's take on "The Hurt Locker": shouty men with borderline personality disorders performing heroic work in difficult circumstances and trying not to get killed (shurely "sued"? - ed) in doing so. Give the man an Oscar! Manny was in residence, resplendent in his TMS t-shirt and, er, necktie. I assume the tie was for the camera rather than the Sofa's silverback indulging in acts of auto-erotic asphyxiation in the mid-innings break. Ubergruppenfuhrer Danny had also been rifling through the dressing up box, sporting a titfer and ebullient shirt - think less George Clooney, more Captain Sensible.  And also, as part of the Sofa's remit to innovate, Dev watched part of the Mumbai-Bangalore game in a pair of Lennon shades, trialling our Avatar-inspired 3-d glasses for enhanced listening pleasure. They'll be available for our listeners to download soon. Sod the t'interweb player, this is cutting edge technology. Oh! Sofia's shoes. How could I forget the shoes. Turquoise bliss! It was clearly too much for Dave the Bard, tuning in from his bathtub, busily soaping his bits as the Mumbai innings, er, climaxed. And who can blame him?

One notable absentee has been the Zoob, A conscientious objector when it comes to the trifles of the Twenty 20 game. he's been confined to an internment camp on the Sussex borders, left alone with Dame Kiri to bake greengage muffins and play Sibelius on his harpsichord. Hopefully we'll see him soon.

All this mayhem will be up on youtube soon - today, right Dev? Lend us your ears and, to quote a knight of the realm, "give us your effing money" and join us for the IPL final on Sunday from 1545!