Posted by We’re not entirely sure why someone would choose to stalk a cricketer other than Rob Key, but for some reason that’s precisely what Adam Carroll-Smith decided to do.
He decided that he wanted to bowl a ball at Sachin Tendulkar, which is even more bizarre, because there are professional cricketers who go out of their way to avoid doing that.
He wrote a book about it. It’s called Chasing Sachin. Pleasingly, based on the chapter we read, it isn’t rubbish and nor is it particularly about cricket, which is a major drawback with the majority of cricket books. We aren’t even going to hold against him the fact that his first contact with cricket came AFTER the Fugees had released Killing Me Softly.
You can read a sample chapter here and then, if you like it, you can order Chasing Sachin here
“We aren’t even going to hold against him the fact that his first contact with cricket came AFTER the Fugees had released Killing Me Softly.”
Rubbish. Piffle. Shocked at this laxity from you, King. Is this the Permissive Society I’ve so often been warned about? Gah.
I like the look of this book. I hope it doesn’t culminate in Adam bowling to Sachin Tendulkar though. I do hate it when these ridiculous plans come to fruition. It feels as though people are poking fun at my own inability to get stuff done. Like laundry. And painting the hall.
Set your sights even higher, string, and they may come off. Instead of just painting your hall, make it the goal to paint the hall with Douglas Marillier.
Seek to do your laundry alongside Roger Telemachus.
Gotcha. So this weekend I should aim to:
1 – take a trip to Carpet Right with Scott Newman
2 – take some stuff to the charity shop with Peter Martin
3 – borrow Michael Carberry’s wallpaper steamer to strip the rest of the paper off the dining room wall.
Don’t forget Ravi to help you with that tiling you keep putting off: http://www.kingcricket.co.uk/dont-get-a-cricketer-to-do-your-tiling/2008/06/19/
“Pleasingly… nor is it particularly about cricket, which is a major drawback with the majority of cricket books”
Can’t work this out. The majority of cricket books displease you if they are particularly about cricket? Or despite it not really being about cricket, it pleases you, when that would normally be seen as a drawback for this type of book?. Or cricket books should really be about something other than cricket, if the truth be told? Which is it?
Cricket books shouldn’t be about cricket. Cricket books about cricket are generally pretty tiresome.
Tiresome? Have you been watching too much Downton Abbey?
Never seen it. Tiresome felt like the right word though.
Best cricket book I ever read was Balham to Bollywood. There’s a little cricket in it, but not too much.
“…nor is it particularly about cricket, which is a major drawback with the majority of cricket books.”
You’ve got this completely wrong way round. I think you meant to say that the major drawback with literature in general is that there isn’t enough cricket in it. I can prove this quite easily:
Great Expectations – no cricket – dull
Pride and Prejudice – no cricket – dull
The Castle – no cricket – dull and a bit confusing
Venus in Furs – no cricket
On the other hand:
Bob’s Big Book of Cricket – full of cricket – an excellent and challenging read.
So there you have it. And it also holds for films too. Who here hasn’t enjoyed The Matrix? Everybody, that’s whon’t. However, rewatching it while assuming that Hugo Weaving is continuing to play Douglas Jardine as he did in that Australian series from the 80s turns it into a vastly more enjoyable affair, and makes it a hell of a lot closer to the truth than what they originally intended.
I think you are both on to something. Many books could be improved vastly by not being about what they purport to be about.
A tale of two cities – get rid of the cities and simply have “A Tale”.
The art of captaincy – ditch the captaincy and have some tony hart-style art antics with Mike Brearley
One day – forget the days and just make it “one”, a riff on the U2 song of the same name
Conversely, these could be eminently improved if they were about cricket:
Newsweek – loads of boring articles about current affairs. A cricket slant would improve it no end
For whom the bell tolls – Robert Jordan would not have got into so much bother had he realised the Spanish dont play cricket and avoided the place like the plague
Downton abbey – Does lord downton bowl or bat? How quick is that lad down in the scullery? How nifty is the head butler behind the stumps? Questions none of which were answered by this ludicrous series
Cheers for this guys;
Quite right on the ‘about cricket, but not really’ front – it’s mainly about me getting lost, getting drunk, sleeping rough in my car in Greenwich, being assailed by creepy Italian spiritualists, attempting bribery at Lord’s, Jedi Mind Tricks at Northampton and drinking lukewarm beer in a giant rubber chicken suit at The Oval.
Standard fare, really.
Adam
Oh and STRING, I’ve got Peter Martin’s number. Lovely chap. Would be more than willing to go charity shopping with you.
Adam
I’ve bowled at Sachin. He managed to keep my tame leg spin out. Think he got lucky though
Am I allowed to stalk some of the England Women, or does it have to just be Rob Key? I can stalk him too as a compromise?
Which cricketer should Rob Key stalk?
He can stalk Isa Guha, then I can stalk them both at the same time.
Get in line.
I had a stalker once but that’s all over now. I wasn’t sure about it at the time. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone…
Bert, on the other hand, is still in the full bloom of stalkee-hood. Enjoy it while it lasts, Bert. It’s over faster than you can possibly imagine.
Ged! What are you saying? I hope you aren’t suggesting that Sarah is in any way fickle with her internet-based stalking of a pseudonymous member of a loosely-related set of commenters on a cricket website! Because if you are…
And besides, if you read the comments properly you will have noticed that our relationship has gone beyond the initial stalking phase, and according to Ceci has moved on to Mutual Grooming. I didn’t know what this was, so I Googled it. Just to be on the safe side, I turned Safe Search off first and went straight to the images. You would not believe what I saw. I was shocked, shocked I tell you. Hundreds and hundreds of photos of horses. Just horses, nothing else. Extremely disappointing.
(All this is assuming, of course, that my room / broom confusion hasn’t caused a catastrophic breakdown in our relationship. I don’t know much about these things, but if there’s one thing I do know it is that I don’t know how much a room / broom confusion can affect a mutual grooming relationship.)
Anyway, here is one half of some more mutual grooming.
http://sarahcanterbury.com/2011/11/14/september-2011-st-lawrence-ground-view/
I hope you don’t mind me posting the occasional link, Sarah, but this photo makes me want to go and watch cricket right now, and I think the good people here should see it.
No Bert, I did not mean Sarah and her unfeasibly big wide-angled lens.
Mine was in real life and was more akin to the sole fan/groupie who follows The Flight of the Conchords around.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2sa6iHWF8I
Except mine didn’t follow me around quite as much. I think she actually lived just around the corner, so our several encounters really were accidental.
But now she’s gone.
Daisy was reasonably unfazed about it all, although she does still occasionally ask me if I have seen my groupie recently.
You might find Sarah more difficult to explain to yer gal, Bert, given all the mutual on-line grooming you two seem to be doing…
“Mutual ON-LINE grooming”
I’ll try that one in Google later. The extra words might get rid of the horses. Thanks.
“Downton abbey – Does lord downton bowl or bat?”
Surely neither – didn’t he keep wicket for England in the 80s?
Bert, I am more than happy for you to post the occasional link. You are too kind. Thank you.
Moreover, please be reassured that as far as I am concerned, the confusion created by your superfluous b has not caused the path of our mutual on-line grooming to veer off course. That would be shallow of me indeed. I am, however, slightly perturbed with regard to your burgeoning fixation with horses. I fear that brooms + horses = a subconscious abandonment of the Greatest Sport in favour of Polo? This is a slippery slope, indeed. Bert to Hubert? Where will it end?
This horse stuff bothers me too, Sarah. For Bert it probably ends like the play Equus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equus_(play)
For you, it might end with a change in photgraphic tack, to become the George Stubbs of photography. Please don’t go there.