Crucket

With the BCCI offering amnesty to players in the ICL, the one remaining obstacle to the rebel NZ players returning has been breached. With the Indian board allowing their players to return to the fold, they will also drop their objection to NZ players returning to sanctioned cricket if they leave the ICL.

It’s an interesting move by the BCCI. Some are taking it to be an effort to exploit the ICL’s apparent difficulties. I wonder though if it might be an attempt to head the new APL off at the pass.

It has been a while now since the possibility of the rebel players returning arose, with the ICL offering to release the NZ players from their contracts. We’ve heard nothing since then, and it is reported that none of them have as yet taken up the opportunity to jump ship.

Were they waiting for this amnesty before making their move? Tuffey has certainly expressed his interest in returning and with his excellent recent first-class season he’d have to be confident of getting back into the Black Caps. Bond of course would walk into any team. However, he’s choosing his words carefully. He seems to still have his mind on the ICL. His contract is still worth $800,000 – that’s a lot to walk away from. But surely he can expect at least that much in the IPL.

We’ve got to expect that by the end of next month that both Tuffey and Bond will have handed in their ICL contracts and started warming up for the Black Caps.

Traumatised as I have been about the end of the NZ season, I haven’t had the will to actually check out the cricket in the IPL. I have been following the tournament however, but from the backroom so to speak.

I’m not much of a fan of 20-20. Who is really. And the IPL is too much of a circus to take seriously. But then again, it is too much of a circus to ignore. It is a garish, expensive, unselfconscious spectacle, more about the hype and humanity than the cricket. And no team better exemplifies this than the Kolkata Knight Riders. They have the movie star owner, the bizzare name, the superstar lineup (including NZ’s most exciting 20-20 batsman), the gold and the high-octane music video promo. And more lately they have had their share of drama the larger-than-life coach (John Buchanan) firing the celebrity captain (Sourav Ganguly). KKR are my favourite IPL team if only because their glare makes it hard for me to notice the others.

So I am loving this new blog Fake IPL Player. Written ostensibly by an IPL player who is not good enough to make the playing 11. His team can be described thus: “My team has a superstar captain…err sorry… ex-captain. We have a megalomaniac as our owner. Our coach comes with loads of attitude and baggage.” Yes, he’s from the KKR!

It is a fantastic read. Dispatches from the back of the stands. Detailing the drama going on in the team meetings with a bunch of superstar egos and what goes on in the clubs amongst the groupies. It’s Melrose IPLace, or something. Written with real enthusiasm and wit and studded with wickedly irreverent nicknames that require a guide to decipher.

There’s enough inside detail in the blog to believe it is in fact written by an insider. If you want to believe it really is written by a player than the clues point towards a chap called Sanjib Sanya. Other theories include a member of the KKR non-playing staff, a journalist or just a smart, well-informed fan. The more outlandish theories include any of Ganguly, Buchanan and Shah Rukh Khan himself. KKR themselves thinks the blog is “Poison pen writing of the dirtiest variety”. And that the writer is “very sick” and “perverted”. Now that’s an endorsement!

Since the series against India finished two weeks ago, ending the cricket season, I’ve felt like I’ve been floating on a becalmed sea – lost and directionless. You may have guessed by the fact that I’ve only been posting filler recently. I’m not the only one; Iain O’Brien took nearly two weeks to post his account of the final day of the 3rd test.

To save my sanity I have compiled the upcoming tours by the NZ team from the future tours programme and put together a long term schedule, in all its technicolour glory.

Its not looking too bad actually. A 20-20 lark coming up and then a tour of Sri Lanka in a few months time, which is a bit of a bonus at that time of year. Having a tour of Pakistan scheduled is not encouraging given that no one is going to go to Pakistan, but efforts are being made to ensure that the test series is played at least, quite likely in New Zealand. A bit of light relief when the Bangladeshis visit before the hard core assignment of the next 12 months, hosting Australia.

Not the IPL 2

So all the international tours are done and dusted and the State Championship has been fought out. The season is all but over, just one match to go:

On Tuesday, the solid ground of the Basin Reserve will feature a special 20-20 played between Fat Freddy’s Drop and The Black Seeds! Play starts at 12, entry is free.

* ring ring *

“Hello. Am I speaking with Ben? I’m calling from a market research company on behalf of New Zealand Cricket. Would you have time to contribute to a survey about the cricket at the Basin Reserve on Saturday?”

“Uh. Yeah, I guess so.”

“Okay great. What I am going to do is ask you about several things about the cricket at the Basin Reserve, and if you could answer by saying whether you were satisfied or dissatisfied with that aspect. …blah blah blah…”

“…blah blah blah…”

“Okay, you answered dissatisfied to three questions, so I’d like to ask you to provide more details about those.”

“Um. Okay.”

“The positions of the food stalls.”

“Yeah, I thought it was really stink how the queues were blocking the path.”

“The music on the loudspeaker.”

“Aw, less Neil Young eh.”

“And the quality of the cricket.”

“Well I’m glad you asked! I thought the quality of the cricket displayed by the Black Caps on Saturday was appaling and basically unacceptable. If I could start with the openers, no in fact, let me go back to the day before when the bowlers gave away too many runs to the Indian tail enders. This is not the first time they have done this – not even the first time in this series. Our bowling suffers terribly because we don’t have bowlers who can take wickets. But anyway, about Saturday. The openers. Really, when are we going to get some half decent openers? Christ, it’s the most important partnership in the whole innings and we cannot come up with a solution. I mean what’s up with McIntosh and Guptill? McIntosh doesn’t finish his footwork until his shot is completed and the bowler’s got the ball back at the top of his mark. And Guptill is shaping up to be a one-day specialist. And then after them we have Flynn, looking like a possum caught in headlights. The pivotal position in the line up and we’ve got a kid in his second season trying to fill it. Gotta give some credit to Taylor I suppose, though out before tea when we need him to bat all day is still a disappointment. And the less said about Ryder the better. Coming off a blinder of a double century where he batted for like eight hours before he played a loose shot and what does he do now? Hangs about for just a couple of overs before going for an ugly slash out wide and high. Expectations on him were too high though. Everyone going on about which records he is going to break, you could only expect him to have a failure. We’re putting too much faith in a guy in only his ninth match. Not that we’re getting much from our experienced players. Franklin’s been around for what, eight years now? Could be that his horse has bolted. So who does that leave? McCullum, Vettori – our last line of defense. Bugger all from them, leaving it up to the tail to save the innings. Pretty long tail too you’d have to say, by our normal standard. Still managed to put on nearly 40 runs though. That’s like a fifth of our total coming from the tail. Puts our specialist batsmen to shame”

“Uh. O-kay…”

“If you would pass my comments on to New Zealand Cricket it would be most appreciated.”

The Indian Series: Myth or Fact?

It would be a damn shame if rain were to disrupt the final test, though NZ needs all the help they can get. We’re only a couple wickets away from our rather long tail (though Southee can give the tail a violent wag)

Based on the 3-day forecast, play should start on time. However, we should be getting a mm or two some time during the second session. That might only be a bit of drizzle. The real rain shouldn’t be appearing until well after the scheduled end.

So it is not an escape that we can rely on. There’ll be nothing for it but to bat out the 80 or so overs that light should allow.

New Zealand’s run chase is now 5 balls old. Looking good. Playing safe. Not many runs though.

So the target is 617, with 5 1/2 sessions to play. Ignoring rain as a factor, as it is too random, the big question remaining in this game is what will the margin of defeat be. And, ignoring everything that has gone over the past three days, what would be a non-embarrassing effort by the Black Caps in this innings.

Ideally I’d like to see Guptill and McIntosh chase down this target before the end of play today. Realistically ideally, I’d like to see a repeat of the heroics against England in the last home test last year, where we scored 431 chasing 550 or so, even if it involves an unbelievable 77 odd from Southee – in fact, especially if. So maybe 450 is the absolute most I could ask for, a margin of less than 200. Realistically and just realistically, I’d like them simply to demonstrate that the first innings collapse was an aberration. Just a decent score on a decent pitch, given that it is late in the test. Something north of 300.

This is now the last chance for several of our batsmen to redeem some fairly middling efforts in the series. Ryder, Taylor, McCullum and Vettori have all acquited themselves very well overall. Guptill, McIntosh, Flynn and Franklin not so much. I would say that a decent series haul would be 200 runs over the 5 innings we have had. To get to that target, we’re looking at 113 or more Guptill, 144 for McIntosh, 91 from Flynn (given that he missed the 2nd test) and 119 from Franklin. Heh. 467 between them. How’s that for high expectations.