Gilchrist Retires
Just a week or so ago Shaun Pollock announced his retirement and now we have another modern day cricket legend retiring - Adam Gilchrist. After the limited overs games against India, Gilchrist will put the gloves and bat down from international cricket, although he will be playing in one of the Indian Cricket Leagues (I can’t remember which is the “legal” one and the “rebel” one).
Gilchrist has been part of one of the most successful sides in cricketing history, and his batting ability changed the role of the modern day wicket keeper of that there is no doubt. Every side is now looking for their Gilchrist, the wicket keeper who can score a test hundred against every test match side, and the second fastest test century of all time. Trying to live up to the best isn’t easy though as England have found! He is the sort of player who could have stayed on his batting ability alone - the fact that he also currently holds the record for dismissals makes his achievements all the more amazing.
I’ll miss watching Gilchrist play - he was very entertaining with the bat, a damn good keeper and always seemed to come across as one of the “nice guys”. Enjoy your international retirement Gilchurch (his nickname!)
KP Playing Golf, Ernie Playing Cricket
Sky Sports have released some particularly brilliant adverts for the coming few months involving cricketers and golfers in places you wouldn’t expect them! A raccoon friend of mine brought the KP one to my attention first - and the second one is also class with Ernie Els playing at the MCG! Enjoy!
Warne plays poker over professional cricket!
I couldn’t quite believe it when I read this today – Shane Warne will miss the start of the county season in England as he will be playing poker in Vegas!! Yes really, the professional cricketer will be fulfilling a sponsors request by showing up at the World Series over playing for the team he captains (Hampshire) in cricket.
I understand the demands that sponsors put on people, but this shows piss poor planning from someone, and I can’t believe that Hampshire aren’t more up in arms about it. He is supposed to be a cricketer, not a poker player and this looks like he’s just taking the piss out of them. Obviously he can only get away with it as Hampshire would rather Shane for 90% of the season (he’s already ruled himself out of Twenty20 again) than not at all, but does it really set a good example as a captain? I’m not sure it does..
I think he should forfeit his place in the tournament and give the chance to me!!
Pollock Retires
I’ve kind of lost a bit of interest in the international cricket world at the moment with all the goings on between Australia and India – and the other test matches between South Africa and the WIndies, and New Zealand and Bangladesh didn’t inspire me to stay in and watch any highlights, so it been a quiet time for me in terms of thinking about cricket.
However, I couldn’t let the retirement from International Cricket of Shaun Pollock go unmentioned on this blog, despite the fact that it was announced a few days ago. At the age of 34, Shaun has decided to jump before he was pushed by the selectors out of the team after a hugely successful career. From a purely selfish point of view it is disappointing he decided to do this the winter before the Proteas come to England, as he is a great player to watch. I’ve always considered him in the Glenn McGrath mould with the ball – a super accurate bowler who won’t scare you with his pace but will with the pressure he puts on you. He was a lot better than McGrath with the bat though!
I’m not sure he had to retire – despite the fact he had been dropped a couple of times recently, I would still pick him in the first XI of South Africa (probably over Nel), and he obviously thinks he can still play cricket as there is talk of him coming over to play county cricket in England.
This wasn’t particularly his finest moment (in the World Cup in his home country as captain), but it sticks in my mind as one of the most memorable things involving him. So below is Sri Lanka’s Sangakkarra “psyching” him out!
P.S. with nothing much else going on in the cricket world at the moment, the next couple of posts will probably be based on new equipment for the 2008 season so I can get you all to part with your money!!
A Line Under..
My opinion on the events of the Sydney test in my last post prompted Scorpicity of cricketfizz to write a lengthy reply to some of my observations and some of those elsewhere written about this subject. We’re both going to put a line under it after this probably as no-one wants to be going on about it for too long – lifes too short!
I was going to reply with some more thoughts on the difference of opinions on certain things to do with the umpires and match referees, but I’ve decided that without the hard evidence that only those people who were in the room heard when the Singh hearing took place that could be foolish. We would be going on hearsay and I don’t want to get that drawn into something that doesn’t involve my team and doesn’t get me that riled up.
Jonathan Agnew, a well-respected radio and print commenter he in the UK (and probably the world), has written a decent (although also long) piece on the bbc website. He has a lot of sense written in most of that post, and the short of it is saying the buck stops with the players in bring the game of cricket out of this, and I can see where he is coming from. I won’t re-hash what he says but I just urge you to read it, digest it and move on, I know I will be..
Australia vs India Goes Sour
The test series between Australia and India was supposed to be the two best sides currently playing test cricket and having a cracking series. Well the first test went one sided to Australia, but that was nothing compared with the fallout of the second test in Sydney.
Its difficult to know where to start with with all the things that are going on, but I’ll have a go from an un-biased English fan point of view. If we’re looking at the result first of all, it was a stunning win from the Aussies who showed the desire and belief to score quickly on the final day before bowling the Indians out - with Michael Clarke claiming an almost unbelievable 3-5 from less than two overs! However, there is a lot (and I mean a LOT) of ill feeling about the way that Ponting and his team went about winning. Some bloggers are getting a bit over the top (in my opinion) and claiming the result is fixed, cricket is dead, one showing the ill feeling back in India, amongst them.
On day one, Symonds nicked the ball behind but wasn’t given out and didn’t walk - big deal, this happens all the time and I don’t blame him. Then there was a possible grounded catch an another caught behind that was given in Australia’s favour. So are you telling me that 3 decisions cause all this fallout? Australia play the game hard, we all know that (jees we were on the end of it enough times), but to start moaning, demanding new umpires and then refusing to continue to tour just shows the Indians in a bad light.
The reasoning behind the refusal to continue the tour revolves around a potential racist comment made by Harbhajan Singh to Symonds, and if you believe what you read then there wasn’t an awful lot of evidence for this. However, don’t believe that you know the whole story as you can bet that the match referee made the decision he did for the right reasons - after a heated test he was hardly going to stir things up more just for the sake of it.
Anyway, I’ll probably get some stick for my view but this is a competitive game. Yes, it is a gentleman’s game as well and the boundaries get muddied every now and then but I think this was just an outstanding win for the most successful team for a while.
