Stuart Broad v David Warner

1. Ah science. Mockery is OK, but quantitative mockery is the next level.

   I would say that my favourite is 3rd Test, 2nd innings. This is because of the sheer distance by which he missed the ball. This was a player that wasn’t just out of form, but appeared to have completely forgotten how to play cricket. 10/10

   My next most favourite is the first one, because his refusal to review shows a player who has absolutely no idea where his stumps are. At heart, all batsmen at all levels of cricket know that a) they are the best batsman in the team, and b) that today is their day. Getting out for 6 is therefore a travesty of natural justice. But for that gangling ape running in, this innings would have been talked about for years to come. Wisden would have run an article on it. Hence it is instinctual for a batsman to review unless being out is a cast-iron certainty. In Warner’s mind, the ball was obliterating leg stump, possibly even middle. His sense of where his stumps were was wrong by at least six inches, maybe a foot. 10/10

   After that it’s all just Warner getting out for next to nothing. 10/10

2. Interesting analysis here: https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/27648720/how-good-kohli-smith-williamson-root-occupying-crease.

   Love how Warner doesn’t even feature (there is analysis that includes other batsmen, but the only Aussie batsmen that even show up on it are Shaun Marsh and Usman Khwaja).

3. “One or more men’s Test players may be appointed as a ‘non-playing player’ for The Hundred, seemingly at the ECB’s discretion. They will be used in promotional material, but will not train or play. ”

   Erm, what?

   And “[e]ach men’s team will pick one ‘wildcard’ player around ten days before the tournament starts, expected to be based on performances in the T20 Blast.”

   1. All players coming from overseas will be booked on business-class flights, and players will be given a daily allowance of £35 to cover basic expenses like food and drink. “Luxury coach travel” will be provided for away games.

      If I was a player, those inverted commas around “Luxury coach travel” would be worrying me.

      1. Would it be more worrying if they’d picked one word out of the three?

         “Luxury” coach travel.
         Luxury “coach” travel.
         Luxury coach “travel”.

      2. It would – although the worst possible scenario is “Luxury” “coach” “travel”

      3. The £35 daily allowance would be the most worrying.

      4. You can buy a fair amount of Nando’s for £35.

4. You Bears! You Sibley!

   Time to find a replacement opener. He’s likely to be away a lot next year.

5. Darren Stevens!!!!!

   One for each wicket.

   1. A man who clearly has a portrait in his attic.

      1. Thing is, he actually looks his age. Just doesn’t seem to be acting it.

         Batsmen should count their lucky stars he hadn’t decided to switch from wielding the willow to late mastery of spin-wizardry. There’s a good chance he could have kept plying that til his late forties. His preferred bowling style will wear him out sooner than that. Eventually. Maybe.

      2. Not at all, JB.

         In Darren Stevens attic is an ageing, inadequate cricketer, gnarled and embittered through decades of sporting hopes dashed despite extreme efforts in the face of the kind of adversity that only limited talent can bring.

         This is Ged Ladd, reporting for King Cricket news, in Darren Stevens attic.

      3. …but despite Darren Steven’s undoubted exceptional ability with bat and ball, he was on one occasion utterly undone by a Daisy (metaphorical, verbal) doosra:

         http://ianlouisharris.com/2004/08/09/middlesex-v-leicestershire-list-a-match-lords-9-august-2004/

         My favourite memory of seeing him play.

      4. Incredible punctuation

      5. OMG I committed a grocer’s apostrophe. Apology’s.

         I blame the four hour drive back from Manchester yesterday and the dodgy company I kept at times while I was up there, e.g. journalist’s.

      6. Four hours? Pfft. Try five and a half without stopping.

      7. Clearly Darren Steven’s is wrong, but what is right? Darren Stevens’? Darren Stevens’s? It’s definitely St. James’s Palace in writing and St. James-es Palace in speech, but saying Stevens-es seems wrong. And for words ending –er it seems even more wrong – Bolton Wanderers-es striker? And since St. James’s Palace is often shortened to St. James’s, what about something belonging to them. St James’s’s front door?

         One of you must have a style guide that gives the definitive answer to this.

      8. When I’m not letting down the team and the language but most of all letting down myself through carelessness…I tend to go with the Economist Style Guide as the bible for this sort of thing. It has 10 rules for apostrophes:

         1 With singular words and names that end in s: use the normal possessive ending ’s:
         boss’s St James’s
         caucus’s Jones’s
         Delors’s Shanks’s

         2 After plurals that do not end in s also use ’s: children’s,
         Frenchmen’s, media’s.

         3 Use the ending s’ on plurals that end in s:
         Danes’ bosses’ Joneses’…

         4 …and plural names that take a singular verb:
         Barclays’ Stewarts & Lloyds’
         Reuters’ Salomon Brothers’

         5 Some plural nouns, although singular in other respects,
         such as the United States, the United Nations, the
         Philippines, have a plural possessive apostrophe:
         Who will be the United States’ next president?

         6 Lloyd’s (the insurance market): try to avoid using as a
         possessive; it poses an insoluble problem.

         7 Achilles heel: the vulnerable part of the hero of the Trojan
         war.

         8 Decades: do not put apostrophes into decades: the 1990s.

         9 Phrases like two weeks’ time, four days’ march, six months’
         leave, also need apostrophes.

         10 People:
         people’s = of (the) people
         peoples’ = of peoples

6. My personal favourite, because of the personal context, was the very last one. On Sunday just gone.

   Daisy and I finished playing tennis, chatted with a few of the other regulars for a while, then returned to the car to head home and catch up on the cricket.

   We turned on the radio. I’ll guess it was just before 12:00.

   The commentator made it clear that Broad was about to bowl to Warner.

   “Gosh”, I said, “Warner’s still there.”

   Warner was dismissed that very ball.

   Daisy and I REALLY enjoyed that moment.

   1. Ah…

      …having read the C365 piece I realise that it was just AFTER 12:00 on Sunday, that last one.

      I also realise that the only one I witnessed with my own eyes was the very first one, at Edgbaston. I suppose I should give that a personal 10/10 on an “I was there” basis.

      “Did genteel folk such as Ged, Charley “The Gent” Malloy, Nigel “Father Barry” et. al. join in the pantomime booing on Warner’s dismissal?” I hear you all ask.

      Naturally, but ours was genteel pantomime booing.

7. How many led zeppelin fans here?

   1. Not a fan, but if YOU are a fan, Ameya, you should enjoy my sole Zep anecdote:

      http://ianlouisharris.com/1981/03/11/robert-plants-secret-gig-room-14-university-of-keele-students-union-uksu-11-march-1981/

      It is unquestionably the most popular (i.e. most often hit) page on Ogblog to date. It gets a hit or two most days even though I posted it some years ago now.

   2. We have a whole lotta love for several Led Zep tracks, but ironically not especially the one we’ve just name checked.

      1. Great Robert Plant anecdote, Ged. I met Robert Plant very early one Sunday morning in the middle of Worcester in 1991 or 1992 after I was kicked out of someone’s bed. Student days. I said, “Morning Mr. Plant,” and he replied, “Alright mate.” Anyway I return to their albums occassionally, especially Physical Graffiti.

         Here’s the Led Zepp XI

         Whole Lotta Glove
         Rock and Roll (umpires review)
         Since I’ve been Gloving you
         Babe I’m gonna Heave you
         Over the bails and far away
         All my Glove
         Misty Mountain Long Hop
         Bats Off (to Roy Harper). . Who had his own XI by the way
         The Slog Remains the Same
         Black Slog
         The Bat of Evermore

      2. Fantastic, Ged and Edwardian!

      3. ‘Baby I’m Gonna Heave You’. Chapeau.

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