AGB Cricket

I WAS TAKEN IN CONTEXT, AND APOLOGISE IF I DID NOT OFFEND EVERYONE

2013-05-18T10:10:00+10:00

Shock me @crashcraddock1talking shit about ipl jealous prick. Get a real job. All you do is bag people. #getalife
— David Warner (@davidwarner31) May 17, 2013

BOARD GAME

2013-02-23T12:45:00+11:00

While Dean Jones is perfectly sanguine about the BCCI's prominence in world cricket, the Herald Sun appears less impressed with the Indian board's extortionate demands for Border-Gavaskar coverage.

SHILL BE RIGHT

2013-02-23T11:55:00+11:00

Dean Jones certainly knows which side his bread is coming from. Deano's money quote:

India the new world provider for cricket

When the Indian board isn't part of your income, people tend to have a point of view that it is ruining the fabric of the game. Then there are the players, officials and media outlets that are commercially involved with the BCCI. These people only have good words for the board.

FIRST TEST: MA CHIDAMBARAM STADIUM

2013-02-22T09:55:00+11:00

Can Australia's pace attack skittle India's comparatively inexperienced batting line up enough times to win a four Test series? Doubtful. Can Australia's dodgy top seven handle Rollerboy, OJ and Rashy enough times on spin friendly tracks to set targets for the bowlers? Doubtfuller.

Fingers crossed we win the toss in Chepauk and bat first.

FOOL'S GOLD STANDARD

2013-02-20T09:25:00+11:00

Stakeholders Sutherland has a strange interpretation of gold standards:

Anderson to head CA's integrity review

Cricket Australia (CA) has appointed former AFL administrator Adrian Anderson to review its integrity management.

CA chief executive James Sutherland says the review had been approved prior to the recent Australian Crime Commission (ACC) report on sports corruption and doping.

"Adrian set up the AFL integrity unit and that unit is recognised as a gold standard in Australian sport."

I SUPPOSE A DONKEY GRASS ROOT'S OUT OF THE QUESTION

2013-02-18T15:10:00+11:00

Warnifesto: Episode 3

Where is Australian Cricket At? Part 3 - Grass Roots Cricket

Firstly, thank you for the wonderful feedback on Part Two; I’m glad that the majority of you agreed with me and that my article created discussion and debate about team selection as well as rotation/resting of players.

ACRONYMRODS

2013-02-16T20:10:00+11:00

ICC, PCT, DRS, AHE, "an honest error":

ICC admit error in Kallis dismissal
The ICC has admitted its Playing Control Team (PCT) made "an honest error" while applying the DRS to the Jacques Kallis review on the second day of the Newlands Test and that the batsman was erroneously given out.

The ICC needs a table which lists its umpires' DRS controversies.

NONCE UPON A TIME

2013-02-10T12:40:00+11:00

Part I

Part II

ASTERISKY BUSINESS

2013-02-09T15:45:00+11:00

My first post on chucking from January 2003:

Rules is Rules

I went for my driving license in January 1980.

Never realised then how much I would write about chucking in the ensuing ten years: 145 posts and counting (plus countless comments).

One of the recurring themes during that decade, or decayed, is players calling out chuckers, only for the players to backtrack, protest they were taken out of context, then belatedly apologise anyway, before blithely announcing: "we're all good now."

Rarely have I posted about a cricketer or commentator who has stuck to his guns and, despite the usual rumpus about racism, optical illusions and "everyone does it!", continued to call out chuckers.

Not once during those ten years have I posted about a bowler who admitted to a fair cop:

Chucked out

FOR a young man whose career was ruined by doubts about his bowling action, Aaron Bird takes a surprisingly hard line on chucking.

“Rules are rules,” he says, “and everyone needs to live by them.”

Bird is also bullish about the potential of in-game testing:

He thinks the technology on the horizon for in-game testing of bowling actions is a great thing, but until then, “umpires need to stick to their guns. If they believe someone has a suspect action they need to go through the right process”.

He goes further to suggest international bowlers should be checked before they are allowed to play in the Bubble:

“Cricket Australia should be looking to nip this in the bud before it gets to the game stage, so if someone is coming over for the BBL and there's been a few questions marks about his action, maybe they need to get him tested before the competition starts,”

Pat Howard recently suggested Australia use overseas tours to rotate players:

Cricket Australia admits to rotation mistakes

Australia may seek to rest players more often on overseas tours rather than depriving home crowds of the national side's most high profile cricketers during the summer. Momentum is growing for the concept of using foreign assignments to give Australia's most heavily employed cricketers a break rather than home limited-overs games during January.

The corollary of Pat's proposal is that other countries may use Australian tours to rest their own players.

Not that Australia using overseas tours to trial players is entirely foreign. Adam Gilchrist's first ODI was in Faridabad in 1996 when he was being phased in and Ian Healy was being phased out. No doubt there were punters and pundits back then who screamed that they had paid to see Ian Healy, not some jug-eared debutante.

Seamlessly stitching together chucking and rotating: introduce in-match testing at Australian cricket grounds and you will guarantee international players are rested for Australian tours and the Bubble.

Is there even the remotest chance Murali, Botha, Ajmal and Hurlem Samuels would want to "bowl" in Australia if they knew an alarm was going to blare every time their arm flexed more than 15°?

This week's Blackest Day in the History of Sport and Everything in which the famed Australian notion of fair play was "shoulder-charged into oblivion" and we "killed a national icon with our own hands" - talk about your performance enhancing right there - highlighted two blights in the sporting firmament: drugs and match fixing. The ACC left out chucking, which I consider to be every bit as malignant.

TOO HARD BASKET CASE

2013-02-07T09:15:00+11:00

Darrell Hair on Asterisk of Galle:

"A couple of current umpires have said to me 'There is definitely something wrong with his action, but I'm not going to call him'. They are the ones who have to live with that. If you're an umpire you're meant to uphold the law so both teams get a fair shake. There's been some umpires who think, 'I'm on a good wicket here, I'm making good money, I won't rock the boat'. It's not my style, it's obviously theirs."

[This sentence is not online] "I think there has been a too hard basket for a lot of umpires and they've decided to let it slide."

Chloe Saltau in today's Age on how cricket's officials have been paralysed into inaction:

Bowler probe throws up tricky issue

MATCH officials are so reluctant to report flawed bowling actions that in-game testing represents cricket's last hope to confront the politically charged throwing issue.