Posted by This is so wrong. How can we be sure we’re really us? Maybe later we can go near some normal people for a minute to check that we still detest all of humanity.
It’s Twenty20’s fault. Bowlers get 24 balls to influence a match and for the majority of those deliveries the batsman tries to slog them into next week. If they slog successfully, everyone cheers. If they miss and get bowled, everyone looks disappointed and says that the bowler was lucky.
Look at some Twenty20 bowling figures where a bowler’s taken three wickets. Do you think ‘well played’ or do you think ‘three bad shots when they were slogging at the end’? To our shame, we default to the latter.
So good on Glenn McGrath for taking 4-29 for Delhi Daredevils against Bangalore Royal Challengers and for doing so through skill. For all the ‘imagine Matthew Hayden and Mahendra Dhoni batting together’ fantasies, it’s been McGrath and Mohammad Asif, Delhi’s new ball attack, that’s been the most exciting pairing – mere bowlers.
It’s not that they’re the most spectacular bowlers, because they clearly aren’t. It’s that they’re of the highest quality and with flat pitches and odds loaded towards the batsmen, everyone’s wondering if there’s anything a bowler can do or whether they’re merely cannon fodder.
Miserly old Glenn McGrath must hate being seen as a source of runs. He’s probably only bothering to take wickets because he knows that it means dot balls.
Now he’s not threatening THe England bowlers in every ashes series I’ve ever seen,
His angry mutterings when he’s been hit, no longer make me want to smash the telly.
His miserliness doesn’t make me want to throw my bat at his head.
I love him!
And Asif is like a young version of him. That worries me slightly, cos we’ll have to put up with him for a while yet, but it’s only Pakistan, and they don’t seem to have a ruthless bone in their bodies.
There is no-one who comes close to McGrath for teapotting with extreme style
Lalit Modi be knocking on your door looking for that photo soon enough.
Shh!
Same here — I find that I just cannot hate McGrath any more. All his “5-0” Ashes predictions (okay, so he finally got one right), his posturing, his angry teapot impersonations…it just carries something of the pantomime villain nowadays, a boogeyman behind the door.
It’s kind of the same with Warne, too.
I really really hope that that doesn’t happen with my feelings towards Messrs. Hayden, Kallils and Symonds.
Gaaah! I forgot to write my whole reason for posting.
A few minutes ago, I decided to start my lunch break by checking into Cricinfo. So I opened a new tab and typed in the address…only to find myself here instead, quite by accident.
Have you been engaging in some subliminal advertising, KC?
Score.
We don’t even start with the same letter.
My favourite grumpy McGrath moment has to be the first final of the CB series last year. Dropped catches, failed run outs, talking to himself and getting whacked upside the head thanks to Hodge, plus it was his birthday.
There was an epic amount of teapotting.
I like seeing quality bowling rewarded with wickets, but I’m rather uncomfortable with the Aussies still dominating everyone else. Even the ones I’ve never heard of, like Shaun Marsh, are at it.
I generally find my eyes straying towards the economy rates rather than the wickets column. It’s often likely to be counter productive to get rid of, say, Ponting or Dravid to then allow Symonds or Yurav to come to the crease… A fielding team would always be happier with 150/2 than 220/8. Seems there’s as much tactic is actively trying *not* to get some test hugging batman out, without it being “not cricket”