Via broadcaster Glenn Mitchell: "The pink ball after 80 overs at MCG. It needs to be improved for d/n Tests to become a regular feature."
Via broadcaster Glenn Mitchell: "The pink ball after 80 overs at MCG. It needs to be improved for d/n Tests to become a regular feature."
A cricket newsletter from Beige Brigade HQ for New Zealand cricket fans who like a dose of optimism and a tablespoon of take the piss with their weekly cricket informational.
Thank Christ the countdown for the most eagerly anticipated Test series in 20 years is all but over, along with the wreath-laying, the name-calling, the shadow-boxing media beat-ups and the tortured rugby comparisons. The fireworks begin this week. Speaking of Smith and Warner, what is going on here?
We have put the Blacktown calamity behind us - thanks from the bottom of our beige hearts for that really thoughtful warm-up game Cricket Straya. Meanwhile, New Zealand is kind enough to host a Sheffield Shield in our own backyard early next year to ensure the Australians are well-adjusted to the local conditions in advance of the Test series. Tim Southee and Trent Boult can do the pitch preparation and we'll ensure Stevie Smith and Davey Warner are billeted out by some friendly and feral Dip Ag students eh? We really are suckers and remain a mere pimple on the hairy buttocks of world cricket administration.
One eagle-eyed retro cricket fan unearthed this article from the local rag in Adelaide, published in 1889. As French cricket aficionados say deliciously to one another: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose..."
A yarn was penned as part of All Out Cricket mag's 'Rivalries' series and it starts like this: "One of the most legendary feuds in New Zealand cricket history was between Richard 'Paddles' Hadlee and Jeremy 'Mantis' Coney, who shared a dressing room in the halcyon days of the mid-Eighties. They sweated and showered together as part of a Kiwi team revered "for grittiness, punching above its weight, facial hair, brown and tan kit, and the very occasional superstar..."
You should read the rest of it here - if only for the great shuttle diplomacy quote from John Wright and a pic of the most famous car in New Zealand's sporting history. And for some extra for experts, head to YouTube for the moving pictures of awkwardness.
Loved John Crace's acerbic and incisive piss-take pastiche of Kevin Pietersen's latest tome, On Cricket: "In cricket, as in life, we all have to move on and I think it's time to let bygones be bygones. When I wrote my autobiography two years ago, I didn't anticipate that slagging off every England cricketer I had ever played with might put a few people's backs up. What I said was always intended as constructive criticism - a chance to use my genius to improve English cricket for decades to come - rather than to settle some old scores with a bunch of losers."
I meandered out through the gate at the back of my house and ended up at Ben Burn Park on the weekend to witness a club cricket blitzkrieg of epic proportions. The NZ Cricket Museum described it as 'The Brutality at Ben Burn' which sounds like some Braveheart battle scene - not far from the truth: Karori 429/6 off their 50 overs with Wellington rep and good Catholic boy Stephen Murdoch plundering 257 not out (167 balls, 21 sixes, 18 fours) - the highest one-day score in the history of Wellington club cricket. Naenae whipped up 345 all out in response, with that hairiest of javelins Grant Elliott walloping 134 from 48 balls (14 fours, 11 sixes).
The Turbanator Harbhajan Singh got married to Geeta Basra from Portsmouth and it looked truly amazing. Quite orange, but amazing nevertheless. Hope his shoes were clean .
Spotted that the man The ACC call The Komodo Dragon, Nathan McCullum, is retiring at the end of the summer and moving to the north-east of the Auckland Isthmus. Love the way he plays the game. Don't love the clickbait headlines: "McCullum quits", "McCullum to pull stumps", but did enjoy this call: "Every now and then it's hard case when your little brother is barking orders at you... but he deserves everything he gets in terms of praise. He's worked his butt of and created this team along with Hess and Mike Sandle."
WATCH, LISTEN, READ
Watch: Brett Lee on a lazy Friday afternoon - having a random net somewhere in India - jeans on and surrounded by the adoring masses (and at least one bodyguard). A thousand selfies later...
Listen: The Baltika Greenkeeper Episode of The BYC Podcast is washed down with some east European lager as the boys talk about Werribee's pink ball specialist and Kev asks if a Test series win against Australia would trump the All Blacks' World Cup win. Violence Corner is in Pakistan with some female cricket-playing scientists.
Watch: Yarrow Stadium metamorphoses like a mowgli to a gremlin, but from a rugby paddock to a cricket field. Diggers, high-voz, cranes, trays, the works! New Plymouth District Council with the soundtrack.
Read: Ex-India captain Nari Contractor on the skull injury caused by a lethal Charlie Griffith ball in 1962 - and Charlie's take too: "He was struck on the head. The blow resounded all round the ground. I was stupefied. His skull was fractured and I did not know what to do."
Watch: Stephen Fleming and Daniel Vettori in 42 seconds of extraordinary voiceover work for something called Royal Stag's gin-flavoured cricket gear...or something like that.
Paul Ford is a co-founder of the Beige Brigade, and one-seventh of the Alternative Commentary Collective. You can email him here beigehq@beigebrigade.co.nz.
