Somebody asked me this.

Thanks

Post from: EveryJoe

Asia Cup Rules

I don’t mind when people boo me. The more they do it, the more I’m going to play hard. Actually, it gives me pleasure that everyone knows me at the ground. It inspires me to do well.

                                                                                           – Harbhajan Singh
Source

That’s very brave of you, Haar-bhajan. Booing inspires you to do well. Does it inspire you to do well against Australia only? Doesn’t it inspire you to play well against other countries, say, Sri Lanka?

Anyway, are these men your friends, Bhajji? They’re quite brave, too.

Watch Harbhajan Singh dance.

Post from: EveryJoe

Harbhajan Singh is (Not Quite) Brave.

England came in to the game knowing that anything other than a win was likely to signal the end of their World Cup. We were once again treated to the promises and assurances that the game would be raised, and initially, it looked as though that, for once, had actually happened. England’s bowlers appeared to gel as a unit with the odd bit of magic from some individuals. Although wicketless, Jimmy Anderson got things started and returned economical figures. Sajid Mahmood showed that he has got some talent… somewhere… as he claimed two important wickets in Jayasuriya and Sangakkara. Flintoff was looking close to his best and perhaps the main disappointment has been Monty, who has struggled to take wickets. Sri Lanka genuinely struggled, and after a mid-innings wobble set England a target of 235 – undoubtedly a below par score and a fair representation of how well England bowled – and fielded – and really signalled an opportunity for England to get some points on the board.

The question marks surrounding England’s batting, though, remained – 235 was a relatively low target – could they hold it together and see the runs off?

The English reply got off to a terrible start as Vaughan was out for a 3-ball duck. Despite it being a sharp chance by Sangakkara standing up to Vaas, Billy Bowden, arguably the best umpire in the World, had nothing short of a shocker, as replays show that Vaughan was nowhere near it, and he was, in fact, caught off his pads. Vaughan trudged off unhappily, but would have been even unhappier 10 runs later when Ed Joyce joined him. There was no mistake there, however, as he was plum LBW. That brought KP to join Bell, and the two of them put on a good partnership to raise England’s hopes to 130/2. But Bell was out again in the 40’s although the nature of the dismissal could be described as unlucky – KP drove a ball straight back at the bowler, Jayasuriya – who had the sense to flick the ball on to the stumps. Bell had grounded his bat, but at the very moment the ball broke the stumps, Bell’s bat lifted and he was fairly dismissed. A freak dismissal, certainly, but it was cheap nonetheless. England then did what they do best – crumble into obvlivion – and they did it in style. KP chipped a Murali doosra back to him, Collingwood walked across his stumps to be LBW and Flintoff holed out to mid on to leave England reeling in the 130’s with 6 down. With Ravi Bopara and Paul Nixon at the crease, it really looked over for England and at that point it was just up to Sri Lanka to finish it off.

But a remarkable 80-run partnership between Nixon and Bopara got England to within a whisker of actually winning. Faced with a run rate of around 10 an over, some remarkable batting from the two, including a reverse-sweep six from Nixon off Murali, it was really impossible to call how it was all going to end. The crowd were going nuts and for a change this World Cup really felt like it had come alive. Nixon ultimately fell trying to lift Malinga through the covers, which left Bopara and Mahmood with the task of scoring 12 off the last over, with Dilhara Fernando to bowl it. That was then reduced to 5 off 3, then 3 off 1.

Everyone watched with baited breath as Fernando ran in to bowl the final delivery, only to watch him not let go of it. Most of the commentators put it down to nerves. I believe he did it on purpose, so as to destroy the concentration of Bopara. I say this due to the smile on Fernando’s face after he did it. His plan worked, however, has Bopara failed to connect with the real final ball, leaving England 2 runs short. Bopara had done enough to secure him the man of the match award and the utmost adulation from any English cricket fan anywhere.

Despite it being a wonderful game of cricket to watch, it really should never have gone down like that. England should never have been in a position where they needed 100 from the last 15 with only 4 wickets in hand and no-one from the top 6 at the crease. Certainly, it was a bowler’s pitch, but there were too many soft dismissals higher up the order and as the game revealed, the reliance on KP and Collingwood to win the game on this occasion didn’t pay off.

The consequence of this loss is that England must now win against Australia if they are to have even the slimmest of chances of getting to the semi-finals. England certainly looked better in this game, and it’s not unlikely that to have such a close game will give us a great deal of confidence. Couple that with our recent victory over the Aussies in the CB Trophy and it doesn’t seem like an impossible task. But Australia are currently at their deadliest best and are routinely scoring 300 runs against better bowling attacks than England, whereas England have struggled in every match. The only thing that will work in our favour is a slight psychological advantage over the Aussies.

As Billy Birmingham might say:

Not an impossible task; but pretty f*cking close to it.

Post from: EveryJoe

Sri Lanka beat England to the finishing post

Warne might be on 704 wickets after Day 1 of the 4th Test, but Murali is hardly slouching, currently hovering around the 680 wickets mark. An important distinction which is consistently overlooked is that Murali is some 30 matches behind Warne. When Murali passes 700, which he inevitably will, it seems likely that he will actually achieve the feat faster than Warne managed it. Will people still be bothered by such an achievement by then? Murali has arguably been the better bowler this year, managing a staggering 9 5fer’s, but for some reason you never seem to hear Murali heralded as one of the all-time greats or spoken of in the same regard as Warne.

Take a quick glance at their respective stats, and focusing on Test matches, there’s a story there, since with the exception of wickets, Murali beats Warne in every column:

Considering that Warne has bowled some 600 overs more than Murali, the 30 wickets difference really seems inconsequential. Murali’s strike rate suggests he ought to get those wickets in about 270 overs, some 330 overs faster than Warne.

It seems constant speculation over Murali’s action has robbed him of the recognition he deserves, with the only notable accolade in his career to date being Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1999, compared with Warne’s longer list: Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1994, One-Day International Player of the Year – 2000, Selected as one of five Wisden cricketers of the century, 2000 and Test Player of the Year – 2006.

Will it really take 1000 wickets to make people remember Murali? That would really piss on Warne’s bonfire.

Post from: EveryJoe

If you were Murali…

Two moments to watch out for:

1) The look on Sangakarra’s face as he realises what has happened, and realises his innings is over
2) Brendan McCullen giving Murali a smug little pat on the stomach as he runs past.

Classic. Let it be a lesson for anyone out there – while the ball is still live, stay in your crease!

(video found via The Corridor)

Post from: EveryJoe

Schoolboy Error

Yes, this is an International blog, and I will comment on International cricket issues, but I really make no bones about the fact that I’m an ardent English supporter, and my allegiance lies 100% with them. I am a critic, but I’m also a committed England fan who wants to see them succeed. So when you consider the recent performance of the English test and one-day sides, it’s proving a struggle to put a new spin on things as they stand. We’ve heard the usual rhetoric – “lots of injuries”, “we’re preparing for the Ashes” and “erm, lots of injuries! Oh, have we used that already?”.

There’s only so much you can take before you start to question things. England’s track-record in prolonged winning streaks is pathetic. If you take a quality side like the Australians, you’ll see a long history of success with intermittent blips where they have the odd shocker. The England side always feels like it’s the opposite – basically poor, with the odd purple patch. And it’s during the purple patch that people forget about all the down-times and speak up England as real side beaters and potential number 1’s in the world.

That’s probably a harsh thing to say because as number 2 team in the world (in tests at least) you need to have performed consistently to achieve such a ranking. But the one-day side is seriously lagging behind, last time I checked it was floating around 7th in the world.

And so, what of the losses in the Twenty20 and the 2 ODI’s against Sri Lanka? Well inevitably the England-camp spin doctors will talk them off with the usual bullshit PR speak – “we need to work harder”, “we will come back stronger”, “we will learn from our mistakes” and “we have a lot of injuries”.

Frankly, I’m not bothered. I’ve written off this Sri Lanka series – that’s not disrespecting them – but it’s over, we’ve been beaten, we know it, so let’s all move along please. Pakistan is the next challenge and it’s important to go in to that series refreshed, revived and ready for action.

But where’s the time to prepare for it? What are the chances we’ll just have a repeat of the last Pakistan series?

Post from: EveryJoe

Curious absence?

With the exception of Steve Harmison coming back from injury, and Tresco and Strauss, the side is virtually brand new. And this statement is based on a sound bed of absolutely zero fact, but, a few of the players in there just don’t look good enough to be in an England side. In fact, the average age of the England one-day side playing at Lord’s today in the first Eng v SL ODI is 26. I’m 26, and not a good enough cricketer to be in the England side. I wonder when I’ll get the call?

Post from: EveryJoe

We don’t like change

Jayasuriya scored 40 and took 2 wickets, accounting for England’s timebomb KP. Mahela Jaywardene captained the Sri Lankans superbly. Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss, the two most experienced English players led from the front, and only just failed to see the English home. Collingwood managed 4 wickets.

And what of that timebomb – KP – England’s secret weapon – the man who took to the field with St. George’s painted on his face (when the guy is technically South African)? Well, he holed out for 17, displaying his lack of maturity and experience. All the more telling was after being dismissed, instead of joining his team-mates on the side of the field in the dugout he went directly to the dressing room, refusing the requests for signatures from the awestruck audience of kids. Guaranteed had he blasted 50 off 15 balls it would have been a different story. One further thing was evident – when KP’s unorthodox batting style is working, it’s lauded as remarkable and incredible – when he’s not connecting it looks ungainly, and frankly, quite village. Early in the image we saw him dropped after a hoike which he then followed up with a mistimed 7 iron in between two fielders.
I’m not specifically trying to pick on KP, after all, I’ve recently changed my mind about his place in the team. As I alluded to in that piece, though, KP is not yet the finished article. (Is anyone claiming he is, though?).

England’s loss here tonight won’t be too much of a disappointment. Twenty20 cricket is a misnomer in itself – it’s so radically cricket to any sensible form of cricket that on the night either team could win it. Let’s not forget that England thoroughly stuffed the Aussies last year. On the back of the Test series, another loss is a drop in the ocean. Good and bad things will come from it – Tresco looking in top form, Strauss scoring a few, Harmison bowling at over 90mph. Bad points will surround both the injury to Ed Joyce and no serious contribution from the new boys.

The Sri Lankans will be ecstatic and really rounds off a very successful tour for them. Performances from the likes of Malinga and Kaupgedara throughout the tour have displayed that as and when Jayasuriya finally actually definitely for-certain retires, there’s a new breed of players coming through to develop a quality Sri Lankan team.

Post from: EveryJoe

The value of experience

Day 4 of the final test match between England and Sri Lanka. We’ll be chasing over 300 – and it’s a hard one to call. I don’t see England having a snowball’s chance of getting the runs and winning, but salvaging a draw would require batting for 2 days, which also seems unlikely – when you consider that the English batsmen will be facing The Little Wizard – Muttiah “Murali” Muralitharan.

On a wicket that will be heaven sent for his style of spin bowling, don’t be surprised if he walks away with all 10 second innings wickets.

Post from: EveryJoe

Murali to get all 10

Experience ought to warn us though that a good first day rarely means something in English cricketing history. Breath will be baited to see if we can make the most of the advantage in day 2.

Post from: EveryJoe

Eng v SL, 2nd Test : Day 1 : Some observations