Posted by We honestly haven’t got much left to say about England’s batting, so let’s instead turn our attention to Hasan Ali’s hand and whatever the hell is up with it.
Here’s Hasan Ali’s hand midway through delivering the (apparently) fiendishly tempting wide one that did for Joe Root.
Strapping is a form of injury treatment/management that has always mystified us and this might just be the most mystifying example of all.
What the hell is wrong with Hasan Ali’s hand that he needs two bands of elastoplast around his hand at the top and base of his palm?
To be clear, this isn’t some coded attempt to accuse him of Bancroftian nefariousness because every cricket team is about eight per cent strapping anyway. Strapping is everywhere. The only thing striking about this strapping the way it’s been applied.
What is happening with Hasan Ali’s hand that this is necessary? Is it constantly trying to explode? Is the left of it being tethered to the right of it so that they don’t part ways? Did he trip while playing trains and brace his fall by planting his hand on the miniature track?
And to think, there’s been almost no coverage of this in the so-called ‘mainstream’ cricket press, maybe Elon Musk is right….
Or, less excitingly, he apparently “split the webbing between his thumb and index finger”, which sounds pretty nasty for someone who is employed primarily to propel a cricket ball forwards as quickly as possible with his hand.
I appreciate that this news only really explains the location of one of the bits of strapping. Perhaps the other is a common-or-garden bit of wrist strapping?
That is a good and clear reason. This is literally the only time strapping has ever seemed comprehensible to me.
Me?!
ME??
Probably a bit late for an edit.
Maintaining this “we” thing is very, very hard, you know. You’ve no idea how often we almost get it wrong.
Does the Essex vs Somerset match today hold the record for most Netherlands players involved in an English county match?
I think there were three: ten Doeschate, Snater, van der Merwe.
There have been occasions in the past where several Dutch internationals were playing county cricket so two-in-a-match must have happened several times before, but three may be a record. Possibly somewhat tainted by the fact that (unlike, say, Bas Zuiderent and the legendary Andre van Troost) none of them were actually born in the Netherlands.
Depends whether you include this sort of thing.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/419399/scorecard/419415/Worcestershire-vs-Netherlands-1st%20Round-Netherlands-tour-of-England
Yeah, I should have added the clarification “between two English counties” – though perhaps the Netherlands become an honorary English county for such purposes, in a similar way to other not-actual-counties like Middlesex or (controversial view forthcoming klaxon) Yorkshire or Sussex.
Gonna add “Glamorgan” to the list of “English counties, as classified by the mysterious mechanics of County Cricket”.
I’m not suggesting that the strapping is there for anything other than genuine reasons but I once bowled with my wrist strapped due to a bout of tendonitis. The ball swung like crazy.