Crucket

There’s only one thing to reasonably expect in a series against Bangladesh, a whitewash. Anything else is an upset – and that would be embarrassing. So it makes a lot of sense to talk up Bangladesh’s prospects before the first game of the tour, on the off-chance they do manage to fluke a win.

However, after last Friday’s 146-run caning, following up on the 20-20 mauling, I find it hard to see how you can continue to suggest that Bangladesh are asking questions. If they’re posing any questions, they are “Who was talking them up before the series and what were they thinking?” and “When does Australia arrive?”

Vampire Weekend:

Apparently the Indians have been training in Wellington for tomorrow’s match in Napier. The Mission Estate Winery Concert had filled up all the hotels.

“Is it a conspiracy? Or is it just an accident, designed to give New Zealand a significant advantage?” Or perhaps there is a less suspicious explanation.

Paul Ford blogs very infrequently over at Cricinfo (and merely infrequently at Stuff), and in his latest Cricinfo post he has deconstructed Mark Richardson’s article. It’s a nice read and I wish I had gone straight to this rather than trawl through the comments in Richardson’s article looking for a decent rebuttal.

However, I couldn’t help but trawl the comment of Ford’s post. Not much going on there, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Though I did find this piece of verbiage which, even allowing for English being the poster’s second language, is quite unique:

Am I missing something here! You guys have a strange way of welcoming visitors (read India). You humiliate a visiting sports person because his Shoes were “Dirty?!!!!!?”. A “humble” former player-turned-writer forgets to mention that the pitches were deemed very Bad for Cricket by several pundits. His “critique” forgets to observe His “humble” mate never faced a Bond in unfamiliar conditions on his way to getting 48 runs before he was out everytime!! Everyone forgets that 15 oC is At Least 20 oC less than what is faced anywhere in India – the limiting definition of “unfamiliar conditions”! All this, while there Are no complaints from the visitors about the pitches last time!! I quite don’t understand this attitude! Do you guys want to do an Oz? Or is it because you are the latest to suffer the monitory inferiority complex – or just now got a chance to exhibit it?! Or is it because you are self-guilty of having hosted a bad series last time. Or is it because you want to spice up a no-entertainer of a series? Or is it because you never wanted to host us, but are doing it only for the money? Or is it because you really want some free money without playing – but are ashamed of getting (begging for) it from India? Or is it because you guys are afraid of winning and so finding ways of covering your “posteriors” a prioi?! If it is any one of the above reasons, or any other, there is always a single different way of addressing your fears and recentments or goals. In India we call it honest front door entry with civility. Especially, since cricket is no Rugby! The story of Swan and Fox is as stupid and irrelevant as it gets. A Swan only has vessels that suite its eating habits. It takes money, resources, a while and more than a few visits by the Fox, for the Swan to be able to serve on anything other than is naturally available to it! With Money and resources, the Swan has consistently been serving more Fox-favoring vessels over the years! Well, the Fox is yet to design ONE Swan-favoring vessel!! It is quite not clear what is it that is pricking you guys?! God bless you guys to cool down! Or may be Dhoni can help you guys. But ask him Nicely!

While writing a little piece for the Herald, Mark Richardson found a phrase he really liked: “playing your boss at golf”. His point in this article was that while we can prepare wickets here in New Zealand that would gift us easy victories, if we want to be invited to play with India again, we have to prepare pitches that will give us close fought victories so that the Indians think they had a chance against us – just like if you were playing your boss at golf. (Though really, he just had a phrase he wanted to use and needed some context for it.)

He liked his little phrase so much that he used it again in an article for Cricinfo. But this time he overcooked his metaphor. In case we weren’t going to get it, he spells out that “New Zealanders and New Zealand cricket understand who pays the wages nowadays”. What seemed a bit cheeky in the Herald, became petulant and accusatory on Cricinfo.

And it ignited a firestorm in the comments, with rising anger towards Richardson, then tempered with some crowing about the strength of India’s new-ball attack and new-found likeness for pacey conditions, followed by some defences of Mark before degenerating into sniping amongst the commentors, with the thread culminating in what appears to be an Indian delighting in the Indian loss in the first 20-20 as it proves Richardson wrong.

Cheap Opening Shot Mr Richardson!

Oh this is a new low. The pre-emptive-whine strike – “We lost because India will not come back if we beat them”.

Wow! Shocking article. If I understand it correctly, Mr. Richardson is saying the following: NZ can beat any side in the world if it so chooses but since it is a poor cricketing nation, it has to kowtow to the countries that have money.

It is good to read your comments Mark, but pray tell me what is your achievement in cricket field. Have you done anything in any of the sub continent countries. How many centuries have you scored?

I can tell you what is brown, dry and steaming: Mark’s article.

I personally as an ardent Indian fan am PRAYING that NZC dish out greener tracks than in 2003. Regardless of the batting strength India are bringing with them, the bowling attack in India is unimaginably better than the last one which arrived in NZ.

Hilarious. Loving this. the so called slightest slight regarding indian cricket and all the trolls come out. Lets ignore the fact that most of what Richardson said was true.

The Indian reaction to this article is just bizarre – I am Australian, and I think Mark Richardson is spot-on. He points out that India are much stronger than NZ in most conditions (obvious), and that NZ’s best chance would lie in greentops a la 2002-03 (also true). Yes, India have Zaheer and Ishant this time, but can they use the conditions as well as the NZ guys who have grown up in them? Maybe, maybe not – but we won’t find out this time! NZ will prepare wickets India considers “fair”, no matter what disadvantage to NZ, because NZ Cricket knows it can’t afford another 6-7 year gap before India returns again. (They know that India would have returned much sooner than this had they experienced good batting wickets last time, rather than embarrassment!) Nowhere does he suggest match-fixing or anything like it. His only criticism of India is that its famed top six was outshone by their NZ counterparts on green pitches last time, which is a fair and accurate assessment.

Your so called boss actually lost in first T20 and proved the backbne of your theory completely wrong. Uhh.. I will pray for you Mark, so Boss can win the second T20 and you can save your face..hehehehehe

I’ve been worried since I posted on Symonds’ drunken radio faux pas that perhaps I was making something out of nothing. The Aussie papers and Cricinfo have been reporting Symonds as calling McCullum a “lump of s…” But those dots could mean any number of things. Perhaps he had called him a “lump of sugar” or a “lump of stilton”, with me unfairly jumping to conclusions.

But Stuff and the Herald, not afraid to call a lump of shit a lump of shit (or of triggering sensitive content filters), have confirmed the worst.