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Showing posts with label New Zealand cricket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Zealand cricket. Show all posts
Jesse Ryder's on the storm
It took an attack on Jesse Ryder for me to figure out how much I love the man's rock 'n roll ways and his cricket. Here's to you, Jesse, cheers boss!
Learn to bat, bowl, sing n talk like Chris Martin.
Clearly, this is a video whose time has come again. As too, all things Chris Martin. What's on your play list - Cold Play's Chris Martin, who btw will be interviewed by Shane in his chat show, Warne's World.
Bored Profile: Ewen Chatfield
Bored Profiles: Chris Harris
(Left: Harris in tests, Right: Harris in ODIs)
Harris was not a cricketer, he was a quandary. When he played limited overs cricket, and pulled it off you wondered why he didn’t play more – and when he played some tests, you wondered, why did he even bother. Figures, he played well over 200 one-dayers, and barely 20 tests. Harris was responsible for the phrase “honest cricketer who gives it his all”. He was great off his own bowling, which is why captains were often tempted to make him bowl others’ quota in the death overs. Even though Harris has not played international cricket in years, his bald earnestness will always linger. Today, the Kiwis need more like him. Or Nicolas Cage. Either way, they’re the same person.(drawn on recycled paper)
Much ado about Bond
For about a year and a half, I kept hearing comments from folks around the Sheep-Belt(New Zealand, they call it) and their brethren from certain other countries about how the evil IPL and Lalit Modi were keeping their lode star, a certain Shane Bond, away from Test Cricket. Time and again, we’d have articles from Toms, Dicks and Harrys (never found a more apt use of this phrase, I must confess!) which ran a variation of “Monster India conspiring to keep NZ from becoming #1 test nation a.k.a preventing Shane Bond from playing test cricket”.
So, what happens now? The man’s given a reprieve, and the opportunity to play Test Cricket until the sheep come home. What does he do? Promptly goes ahead and retires from Test Cricket.
So?
Show your faces, my dear Cricket-savers from Oz, Eng and NZ. Come and argue that it was the greed of Modi, not Bond, that was the cause for him not being able to play Test Cricket. I’d love to see your tails between your legs, which is where they should be, now.
by Raj
Bond Nominated For Retiree Of The Year.
Over at Bored Member Achettup's Short of a Length, The Crammies - Nominations for Retiree of the Year are Flintoff, Symonds, Benson, Bond, Bucknor and the League. (Note, none of the nominees are know to us on a first name basis so)
Opening for Bond, particularly impressive:
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.
A bond with sport.
A curious coincidence occurred on a weekend this month that set me thinking. Up late night with nothing much to do, surfing the sports channels on Tata Sky late after midnight presented me with a spectacle that set my mind racing. Two sports channels (I think they were TEN Sports and Star Sports but I could be mistaken) were showing reruns of matches that had already happened. One was a Twenty20 match between New Zeeland and Pakistan and the other was an NBA regular season matchup between the Lakers and the Suns.
The first match I watched was the NBA one. Kobe was as usual putting up a show, and young Andrew Bynum was burning it up too while Amare looked like he was never injured, dunking with impunity. In between all this, anyone would be forgiven for not noticing a 37 year old veteran (37 in NBA basketball is very very very old) playing for the Suns. But this was just not any other journeyman. This was Grant Hill.
For those who didn’t follow the NBA in the tumultuous 90’s, Grant Hill was one of the greatest collegiate basketball players ever, who came into the NBA and was immediately seen as the potential successor to Michael Jordan in terms of what he represented for the league. Hill was an intelligent and superbly talented all round player of exceptional capacity, and was an A list superstar in his years at the Detroit Pistons. A measure of his genius can be found in the statistic that he is only one of two NBA players who have led their teams in points, rebounds and assists for three seasons, the only other player to have done it being the venerable Wilt Chamberlain.
Tragedy struck in 2000 when he injured his ankle and since then cruel jokes have abounded, most of them comparing Hill’s left ankle to an overused mine, alluding to the number of surgeries he had between 2000 and 2007. Having lost the peak years of his career to injury, Hill moved to the Suns in 2007 and has been performing steadily ever since. On that day I saw Andrew Bynum, a young Laker star almost exactly half Hill’s age turn him around easily and go for a dunk.
The unfairness of it all prompted me to change the channel, only to see (what I thought was) the sad end of another drama being played out. New Zeeland was playing Pakistan in a series of Twenty20s in Dubai, and Shane Bond was being carted around the park by the Paki batsmen. Already in the what-could-have-been mindset, this depressed me further. Again, this was Shane Bond.
I first noticed Shane Bond in 2001-2002 and what I saw astounded me. Here was a fast bowler, genuine fast, and had both control and pace. He was intimidating and everything you could ask for in a fast bowler. But it wasn’t just that. Brett Lee and Akhtar could bowl as fast and faster. It was the way Bond generated his pace. With all the other leading fast bowlers of his era, there was the criticism, warranted or not, that they were benders, that they chucked. With Bond, there was not the slightest question of any doubt. There was, and still is, a certain honesty about Bond’s bowling action that put him a cut above the rest. I guess the reason why Shane Bond and perhaps Dale Steyn are special, lies in the undeniable honesty of their bowling. When Akthar hit Dada on the ribs, the Indian fan in me automatically and unfairly consoled myself that he was a chucker and that it was ok. When Bond took 6 wickets for 19 against India, I didn’t have that consolation, because Bond was unimpeachable.
Over the years, as a back injury and participation in the ICL converted Bond into an unfortunate footnote in the annals of international cricket, the parallel with Grant Hill seemed appropriate. Both were immensely talented and both almost realized that talent and potential. Yet, even after their best years were taken away by circumstances beyond their control, they are still there, hanging on at the highest levels of their respective sports by sheer grit and determination.
In sport the champions are often celebrated to a point where we don’t often notice or acknowledge people like Hill or Bond. Yet, for me, these athletes represent the core value of sport itself. Their love for the game and the determination to play it at the highest levels despite all the trials and tribulations they have gone through make them the champions they are. The tragedy of Shane Bond and Grant Hill wont be noticed or talked about as much as the achievements of Sachin or Jordan, but these are also the people who make it all worth it. As I write this, Bond has just taken 8 wickets in his comeback test and Gill had edged his way into the starting five at Phoenix at the age of 37. Their little victories might seem trivial when compared to the feats of reigning superstars, but make no mistake, without them, sport just wouldn’t be what it is.
Here’s to hoping against hope and the triumph of determination and hard work against the formidable odds of battered bodies and old age. Here’s to Shane Bond and Grant Hill and Graham Alexander and all the others who make it worth it.
By Jian Johnson
The Daniel Vettori Conundrum
Dilshan swat sweeps Vettori for four; that pleased me immensely. At that precise moment I was able to address my warped relationship with Vettori.
Now Dan plays for the Delhi Daredevils, at least he thinks he does – turns up year after year at the IPL. Throws up in IPL1, plays a game or two, barely, keeps Amit Mishra out.
Then IPL2, where he plays again, keeps Mishra out, again, and gets smashed around in spite of that studious look. Then Mishra keeps him out. Or more like Yusuf Pathan keeps him out, isn’t that how all Indians should play him?
Turns out Indians don’t play him that well, seems more out of respect for his beard and glasses than his bowling. Dan looks so knowledgeable, you have to respect him.
But it’s a strange one with Dan, plays for Delhi, and I’d like him to do well, but more than that, I don’t want him to play. Maybe as a later order batsman, that really is his forte, or to stall a collapse.
Then when it’s an Ind-Kiwi game, let’s not even get into that. Had more than enough of him for one day.
Happy Bored day firangi Akash Chopra
Happy B'day Blair Pocock, you may ask who's that? Just like some may ask, who's Akash Chopra. Cruel. Blair's witch project took birth at Perth, and it faded away at Perth too. He scored no test hundreds, but like Chopra, hung around, and got himself that test avergae of 23. Approximately. On him, Jatman would have said, "nobody remembers 50s"
What do Sara McGlashan and Peter McGlashan have in common?
Looks like Sara, but is Peter
Looks like Peter, but is Sara
Would you believe it, they got the same parents. That’s right mate, Sara is the Kiwi keeper, Peter McGlashan’s sister. Bet they’re both gushing as they read this.
While Peter scored 56 in a losing cause vs. India yesterday, Sara outdid her bro, scoring two fat ladies (88) in a winning cause vs. SAF in the women's world cup.
Just shows, no matter what the gender, these South Africans are losers.
Btw Sara also keeps. If you do come by any childhood pictures of Sara pulling Peter’s pigtails while beating the shit out of him in a backyard game, send it to me.
‘coz you’re bored like I’m bored, got nothing happening but for the cricket.
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