Get down, Shep

Clarke, you drip - I could get better drift whilst hopping.

My earliest memories of cricket umpiring relates not to Dickie Bird or to Shakoor Rana, but to David Shepherd.

With full acknowledgement of how subjective this claim is, I reckon Shep had as much of a hand in my enduring pleasure of cricket as Beefy or Richie.

For a glorious obituary, read David Foot's eulogy.

Anyway, rest in peace David. You were proper.

MVP, My Lord, MVP

Thank you, Michael.

Blu tack, Dreadlocks and blood on the track (just full of a good length)

If you've got five minutes to spare, you could do worse than watch this. If you find that you disagree midway through you can, of course, stop watching it and save yourself, oooh, about 2 to 3 minutes. But you could probably work all that out yourself. Anyway, give it a look - I laughed on at least four separate occasions (FACT).




Thanks to The Corridor for pointing it out.

Cheers Banger

Fetch!

I know I'm late in responding to the news about Marcus Trescothick but I didn't want the moment to pass completely without making note of it.

I don't think there's a single batsman I've enjoyed watching as much as Banger over the last 20 years - his slog sweeps will remain a thing of eternal beauty in my memory, I hope.

If sport is a metaphor for life, then this is death. Metaphorically.

And that makes me appropriately sad.

1st Test Wicket for enemy of Eternia

I have nothing to say about England's atrocious batting collapse. Nor, really, about the fantastic drainage system at Lords. So I shall resort to childish (and not all that accurate) "separated at birth" gibes...

He should be royalty with teeth like that

Last night, and this morning, it was crossing my mind to write something about the first Test against the West Indies at Lords.

There'll be plenty for me to muse on, I thought - the pleasure of getting back to proper cricket after the interminable pyjama session that was the ICCCWCWI2007 (Guardian Link), the irony of the fact that the West Indies have replaced their production line of fast, accurate pace bowlers with a production line of ponderous, inaccurate trundlers, the obscenity that is the modern international cricket schedule where a touring team are afforded one warm-up match (which was virtually rained off) before the start of the Test series, how great Monty Panesar is, etc, etc.

And yet all I could think about was the calamitous, disused graveyard of enamel that is Matt Prior's dental misdemeanour - in the words of Daphne and Celeste , "U.G.L.Y. - you ain't got no alibi; you ugly!".



Into the bargain, I spotted this little tit-bit (Corridor Link), and there's even more incriminating evidence on Prior - apparently he is possibly (and I'm quoting here) "a bit of a twat". Conclusive evidence, if any were required.

Surely there is an argument for ensuring that, if there's no obvious talent-orientated criteria by which to differentiate between two players for selection purposes, we should opt for the one that's easiest on the eye - if only to enhance the possibility of luring back the female demographic and giving the cricket bores amongst us a chance to show off at dinner parties (God, remember the heady aftermath of Ashes 2005 when you could talk to anyone, ANYONE, about cricket and they'd be interested? Ha!).

I reckon we should go with the Surrey pin-up, Jonathan Batty...



Sweet, he's even got himself a tan.

And under no circumstances should anyone ever mention Tim Ambrose as a candidate...



His nickname is "Freak" (source - Cricinfo). Say no more.

Of course, Prior's century was sumptuous in it's perfectly appointed arrogance but he's got a mouth like a Rusedski Family car crash and he's "a bit of a twat" (quote, ergo fact).

Done and dusted, Batty's your man.

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Strictly one for the cricket geeks

Whilst our house move is sorting itself out, I'm currently living in Bacup, with my in-laws.

Now, Bacup is a fairly unremarkable town in East Lancashire. Unremarkable, apart from the fact that during the 2006 club cricket season, they managed to convince Chris Cairns, the ex-Kiwi international cricketer, to be their professional.

From what I've heard, he cost them quite a packet in the salary department. However, I've also heard that he was worth every penny not just for his sterling performances with bat and ball (especially towards the end of the season) but also for the fund raising activities he generated.

Utilising his hefty array of cricket contacts, he got a cavalcade of NZ cricketers into the area and I've just found the following footage of a Haka performed in the Bacup CC bar - get your spotters books out and see who you recognise. I can definitely see Franklin, Vettori and McCullum.

Here are the lyrics if you fancy singing along: link to Haka lyrics.




Here's the link.

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