Crucket

Pakistan don’t like to be out of the headlines for long. However, the Clarke–Bingle circus had captured everyone’s attention so thoroughly, it was going to take huge story to get any traction. But the Pakistani management were up to the task. They have made a big splash by eviscerating their team. They have banned Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf indefinitely and banned Shoaib Malik and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan for a year, while fining three other players millions of rupees.

However, despite this monumental effort, the world’s attention remains on Michael Clarke’s private life. The sorry fact is, no amount of Pakistani self-mutilation surprises us any more.

What was Vettori doing in the long room while the boys were dealing to the Aussies:

Vettori hails most realistic video game ever

JRod sees the positives in John Howard’s nomination:

John Howard for President

I guess it will be fixed eventually, but the first headline I read about John Howard being Cricket Australia and New Zealand Cricket’s nominee for ICC president was “Howard gets the not for ICC role“, on the New Zealand Cricket website.

The “not” for “nod” is only a typo of course, but I would like to believe it represents some kind of subconscious unwillingness by New Zealand Cricket to accept that they are colluding with Australia to subject the cricket world to John Howard.

I also took some childish delight in selectively reading extra, unintended meaning in the press release, such as how “Australia and New Zealand considered a number of distinguished candidates of global stature” but decided to go with Howard rather than a distinguished candidate.

Peter Roebuck has made the case expertly, but John Howard is quite clearly a poor selection as ICC president, a joke almost. He knows little about cricket, his only contribution being to dissuade Murali to tour. And there was an eminently qualified alternative in New Zealand’s suggestion John Anderson. Furthermore, he is a divisive figure and is not going to be liked in the subcontinent.

Personally I despise Howard for being a nasty little racist, war-mongering conservative. His objections over the apology to the Stolen Generation is particularly offensive. So I am naturally unhappy to have him heading world cricket. I must admit though that I don’t expect him as ICC president to turn any boat people back to the sea or drag cricket into any illegal wars. Peter Roebuck is also trying to be philosophical about the selection, suggesting that Cricket Australia nominated Howard because the ICC needs a strong, uncompromising, bull-headed leader to give it some clout, for Australia’s benefit.

Let’s all hope, for the sake of cricket worldwide, that New Zealand wins the super over of the Battle of the Johns.

New Zealand Cricket has a very nice website, with loads of stats, great photos, live scoreboards, heaps of info and of course current news about the Black Caps.

One thing that has always amused me is how they push out press releases as news items with headlines and everything. These get to me through my RSS feed with the very nonspecific byline “from News”, so at first glance they look like they’re a newspaper article or a TV news segment.

“Full and exciting calendar for cricket lovers” was a recent “news” headline from NZC headquarters. And it certainly was news to me, coming as it did after I had waited out a month and a half of no international cricket and was struggling to raise any interest in the Bangladesh series.

I was further surprised to read in the article that:

The vagaries of international cricket scheduling will be highlighted over the coming two weeks as New Zealand, Australia, Bangladesh, Australia and the West Indies  compete in all three formats of the game in six different locations at the business end of the cricket season.

In order to manufacture interest in what is left of the season, we’re being enticed with being able to watch a team, the West Indies, who we aren’t even playing against. This is New Zealand cricket news right? And what is the trick of listing one of our opponents, Australia, twice?

You know to keep your eye on the game at a 20-20 match, right? Not just because of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nature of the action, but because some thug might be whacking a six RIGHT AT YOUR HEAD!

And be particularly careful when Ross Taylor is playing. He holds the record for 6s in 20-20s, with a massive 115 6s from 63 innings, including 28 from this year’s HRV Cup alone.

The guy’s a hazard!

Very interesting piece about Australasian cricket politics by Peter Roebuck:

ICC arena no place for this inexpert right-arm slow

Some very interesting news is coming out of India regarding the Indian income tax department’s assessment of the BCCI’s tax status.

The tax department has looked at the BCCI’s returns and has confirmed what many of us have been suspecting of the BCCI, that they are much more concerned about their bottom line than they are about advancing cricket. They have determined that the BCCI are “totally commercial” and that “cricket is only incidental to its scheme of things.” Despite pulling in 2.7 billion rupees in 06-07, the tax department has noted that the BCCI has not developed any infrastructure or constructed any facilities.

All power to the BCCI for making so much money out of cricket. However, that profit is only a good thing if it is used for the promotion of the game. So it is a crying shame that the BCCI are treating their surplus as a profit.

It is of vital importance to the game that the various cricketing boards operate as charities (or not-for-profit). Profiteering is simply incompatible with developing the game. Developing the game requires investing in youth cricket, improving facilities and promoting the game globally. None of which will draw short-term profit, or even long-term monetary profit necessarily. Running cricket as a business will push the game towards the lowest common denominator.

Also, if the BCCI are conducting their operations on a purely commercial basis, that casts an unpleasant light on their ICL bashing activities. If the BCCI trying to quash the ICL was simply the action of one commercial entity against another, then it looks awfully like uncompetitive activity. And involving other cricketing bodies such as NZC in this looks potentially like a cabal.

But even if you are happy with the BCCI making money and comfortable with cricket being run on a commercial basis, there is still the issue of the BCCI’s tax status. Until it was revoked by the tax department, the BCCI had charity status, presumably meaning its revenue is tax exempt. But if it is operating commercially, it should be paying tax. From its income of 2.7 billion rupees for 06-07 (pre-IPL it should be noted), it owes 1.2 billion rupees in tax.

In my view – much worse than a charity chasing profit, much worse than leveraging your size and influence to stifle competition – the filthy rich not paying taxes is the fricken’ worst.

When the news emerged that Shane Bond would miss the 2nd and 3rd tests of the Pakistan series because of injury, he made a comment about considering his future. This seemed a pretty heavy thing to be thinking about when you had just a tiny abdominal tear. It was clear then that he was revisiting all the arguments that lead to his first retirement from test cricket after the South Africa tour of 2007. It seems this year’s injury reminded him why he made that decision in the first place.

There have been two contrasting reactions to Bond’s retirement. Short of a Length nominated Bond for retiree of the year with the following valediction:

Shane Bond: Shane has always been very special. He has a last name that reminds you of all those horrible chemistry classes which dwell on elastomers or something like that. He had the kind of pace and swing a national cricket board would kill for. It takes talent (and bad luck) to end up playing 18 tests over a career spanning eight years, yet to take 87 wickets at an average of 22 and strike rate of 39 in those tests. With all of that on his resume, it should come as no surprise that even in retirement Bond did something different. He retired twice in 2009! First from the ICL (who are themselves a nominee! you might say he’s a reference to the ICL in coding terms. Then again you might not…) and then from Test cricket. That makes Shane so unique that he’s almost a shoo-in to win the award.

Whereas Sportsfreak remarks:

So that’s it then. Farewell Shane Bond from test cricket. Like stardust sprinkled loosely, quite a few nice shiny bits, but no real long-term illumination. It is easier not to miss someone when you are used to missing them.

A true assessment of Shane Bond lies somewhere between the praise of the first and the harsh truth of the second. On the one hand, Shane Bond was an exceptional cricketer, with an almost unbelievable bowling average of 22.09 and a strike rate of 38.7. On the other hand, he missed many, many more tests than he played during the length of his career. But you can’t focus on one of these aspects without acknowledging the other.

With Shane Bond in the team, New Zealand won five tests for every test they lost. You simply have to be astounded by that figure. Not only was he individually outstanding, as per his individual stats, but he lifted the rest of the NZ bowling attack. If this was all you could see of Shane Bond’s record, you would have to have rated him as the best bowler in the world. However, over the length of his career, NZ actually lost more tests then they won; his impact on NZ’s record was greatly affected by his regular non-availability.

So when reflecting on Shane Bond’s retirement, it is not just the incredible talent that Short of a Length celebrates that we will miss, nor we will dwell solely on his perpetual absences, as Sportsfreak does. But rather we will rue what might have been. What we missed because of his absences. What his legacy might have been and where New Zealand cricket might now be if he had played in 3/4 of NZ’s tests during his career rather than 1/4.