Posted by Things getting a bit fast-medium is pretty much our worst nightmare when it comes to watching England. We might start using the phrase in other contexts.
“How was dinner?”
“It was… fine…”
“Fine? What does ‘fine’ mean?”
“Well, you know. It was just…”
“What? It was just what?”
“It was just a bit… fast-medium…”
“Get out.”
You know the sort of day. The pitch is flat. England’s three or four right-arm swing/seam bowlers start the day bowling at about 85mph and by the evening session, having endured an enormous partnership, they’re bowling exactly the same deliveries that didn’t work in the morning only 5-10mph slower.
The spinner is similarly ineffectual (you should always pick a spinner) but for some reason the captain doesn’t turn to the variety offered by part-timers until there’s already a 300-run partnership and 500 on the board.
Supporters yearn for a leg-spinner. They yearn for a fast bowler. It’s just not happening. England have ended up looking a bit fast-medium.
This was originally published in 2013, but we’ve rewritten it slightly because of how frequently we find ourself linking back to it.
They should rethink bowling terminologies. Describing bowlers simply as “fast-medium” etc. is getting boring. I suggest the scheme “-“. Thus, Broad would be “Right-arm effeminate fast-medium insipid metrosexual” and Mitchell Johnson would be “Left-arm disproportionate fast useless cunt”.
The web-page ate my precious scheme. “Handedness”-“Adjective-1”-“Speed”-“Ability”-“Adjective-2”.
Most baffling comments of the year so far, DC. Well done.
Well they would’ve made more sense together. KC’s site doesn’t let us edit comments after we’ve made them.
But baffling is good, so I win.
This piece makes for…interesting reading
http://www.kingcricket.co.uk/mitchell-johnson-takes-england-back-to-the-nineties/2009/03/08/
And the super-prescient comment by Bert. There’s a psychic in there somewhere
As a Kiwi supporter, fast-medium is all we’ve got! That and “dogged”, “workman-like” “honest” etc etc. Could be worse though; at least i’m not Australian.
TGNW
It was good to see the Rob Key “girth and underpants” incident again this morning, KC.
A subliminal reminder that we get some real county cricket again for a few days, starting today.
Medium fast rocks.
indeed… but it didn’t rock the aussie batsmen too much apparently.
i’m distressingly shallow when it comes to the ashes – couldn’t even bring myself to watch the highlights last night 🙁
Medium-fast (most of the county stuff, especially in the second division e.g. Lancashire) is not the same thing as Fast-medium (e.g. the test stuff or the better bits of Middlesex v Durham starting in a couple of hours time).
It rocks because you are not induced into putting down your book or suspending your conversation too often. Contrast with Friday at Lord’s a couple of weeks ago, when I ended up spending the afternoon feeling my way through our picnic while simultaneously making sure I watched every ball.
We assure you that Lancashire’s second division trundlers can most certainly dissuade people from reading.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cricket-2013/engine/current/match/593567.html
Supports my point entirely, KC. Indeed, my Essex-suffering friend, Charley the Gent, went to Chelmsford that very day (persuaded against his better judgment by his son). Appartently the match was over before they had even started their picnic.
So he enjoyed his picnic and reading uninterrupted for the rest of the day. He certainly didn’t need to resort to the unsighted picnic bag fumble.
Ah, Unsighted Picnic Bag Fumble. Saw them at the Astoria in ’95.
…and there was me thinking that the unsighted picnic bag fumble was a standard defence for a rather sleasy crime.
Declaration!
Cool. Are England coming home?