A season or two back we lost another genuine star turn - the reinventor of the wicketkeeper-batsman position in world cricket, the great and noble Adam Gilchrist (and no we wouldn't be pissing in his pocket anywhere near as much had he not originated from a busted-arse hick town about an hour up the road from the busted-arse hick town where we went to school.) The pissing in pocket and/or blowing of smoke up arse aside, Gilly was a fucking legend, revolutionizing one-day cricket, test cricket, Twenty20 cricket, and is probably a decent chance of revolutionising the XXXX Gold Beach Cricket series sometime around season 2012-13. This may even coincide with the Australian side declining to suck. Though probably not.
So who follows Gilchrist? Who can possibly match his whirling dervish-like fury at the crease, his heinously quick batspeed, his astonishing timing in front of the sticks, and his almost not entirely shit glovework behind them? Who also has the advantage of coming from a busted-arse hick town full of bogans and yeehaas? Step forward D-town's own, Brendon Barrie McCullum. McCullum will be familiar to most observers of the recent cricketing past as a wiry tattooed little bastard with street smarts honed amidst the swamp-like badlands of South D, and busted out upon poor unsuspecting bowlers worldwide. Particularly in the past 12 months. Opening for Otago versus Auckland, State Shield (domestic one-day) final, March 2008: 170 off 108. Opening game of the IPL for Kolkata vs Bangalore, April 2008: 158 off 73. And so on.
Except Baz had a problem. Should Otago knock over the hated Cantabs this Sunday in the domestic Twenty20 final - which would require the fucking rain to stop fucking raining for at least three fucking hours (you'd think they'd need some sun for pitch prep, but Otago groundstaff have been on this particular bus before and know ways and means around these things) - and, less probably, should the showboating pack of preening nancies that constitute his IPL team actually turn up and win the tournament, Baz might find himself triple-booked for the Champions League T20 tournament nominally scheduled for October this year, having scored a mercurial ten off eleven for New South Wales in his only game for them, their victory in the Australian T20 final.
Pitch: a tent
Of course this would require a bunch of other variables to fall into place, each even less likely than the Knight Riders (who the fuck comes up with this shit?) winning the IPL:
(1) The organisers successfully figuring out a time to play the tournament
(2) The organisers successfully figuring out a place to play the tournament
(3) The organisers successfully figuring out whether they'll let the winner of the NZ T20 comp into the tournament
(4) The organisers successfully figuring out how not to get their arse sued off by UEFA for using the name 'Champions League' to describe the tournament
(5) The organisers successfully figuring out how to tell their arse from their elbow without reference to an anatomy textbook
All that being taken as read, Baz would then have to ditch both of his Australasian provinces, including the one he was born in, and play for the gold-plated arsetards of Kolkata. Which looks mercenary as all fuck until you figure out every other bastard is in much the same position. Even Andrew 'Anyone who's not as fucken Austrayan as me is fucken un-Austrayan' Symonds, who made a very passionate and equally very drunk radio argument against McCullum's signing for NSW as it would disadvantage local players - the same way him playing for an English county or an IPL side would prevent a local player there from getting a run, but fuck 'em, they're un-Austrayan - would have had to ditch his beloved Quoinslaaaand in favour of his IPL outfit the Dickhead Chargers (a name which in itself reminds one of former Quoinslaaaand capt'n Jimmy Maher's infamous on-air reference to other models of Valiant) as IPL sides get first dibs on players as part of their fuck-off-ridiculous contracts.
A dickhead's Charger
Anyway it's a problem we hope he has to deal with, as it'll mean the big O has given the hated Cantabs the big Arse in Sunday's game.
Then again, presumably if it's rained out we win as hosts...
Send 'er down, Hughie!
The Doctor is OUT to work on his raindance.
Working pretty fucking decent so far.
7 comments:
Gillie is my mate, my legend and based his style on MY STYLE. well, some of that may well be a lie, perhaps, possibly not as well. Now that FUCKTARD, well, he's possibly no different to all the rest. Simply grabbing a slice of the pie from them, OH WE NEVAR CHEAT MOTHER FUCKERS on the LOW LAND section of planet, sub somfin they call it. Raise the ocean levels I say, then we might get out boys back and cricket can be once again, re instated to its place, at the pinnacle of sporting glory.
AND, you cannot have rain, we need that fucking shit more than you lot, send her over Huey.
6 - No bombs in close propinquity to the playing ground!
Gilly is still the man. Brendan has a few more Test match centuries to earn and about three world cups to win (did I mention scoring a match winning 149 in the final of the aforementioned world cup) before he ranks even close to the wing-nut.
Yeah - it is pretty dodgy how one can qualify for three different teams. I think you should have to run with the first 1st grade team one qualified for etc.
Hope you get a dry patch and a cracker of a game
Gilly was always just a derivative of Rod Marsh.
Don't worry about the IPL. Someone will realise this year that to be able to pay huge wages you actually have to have huge amounts of money. I think some of the team owners think they are in some kind of fantasy football cricket league.
It's a sick irony that it's been pissing down for weeks here - every game of the recent NZ-Windies series was rain interrupted at some stage (two tests, two T20s and five one dayers) and it's almost definitely going to piss down for the rest of the week. We don't fucking need it and you guys do, badly. If this is climate change then it can just fucking change back thanks very much.
No question Gilly is still echelons above McCullum (who I'm currently watching inflicting grievous bodily harm on Pissant Sharma and the rest of the Indian bowling attack in a NZ-India T20 from Christchurch). And the three teams deal is dodgy as - though it's entirely possible someone could qualify for three teams even without a situation like McCullum's overnight signup with NSW, for instance if Symmo still played county cricket as well as IPL and Aussie domestic T20, and his county made the champs league.
There's a lot to dislike about the McCullum deal but there was one thing I did kind of like about it - it harked back to the days of the Sheffield Shield when the overseas players who were invited to join did so and took it as a massive honour to do so. Imran Khan, for instance, played in the mid-80s for NSW and was so honoured to do so that he spent the first session of his next test for Pakistan wearing the baggy blue cap, much the same as the Aussies wear the baggy green for their first session in the field of a test match today. Of course some overseas pros weren't as respectful - Beefy Botham's season with Qld is best remembered for him and Fat Cat Ritchie getting boozed on a domestic flight and sexually harassing the hosties - but in days past it was a big deal to play Shield cricket, because unlike county cricket in England not everyone got asked to play.
It'll be interesting to see if the Big Fuck Off Crunch affects India as dramatically as the US et al - I suspect it won't, which will probably ring-fence the fortunes of the IPL billionaires. McCullum's lot are owned by a couple of Bollywood wankers who still appear to be coining it in. They're even starting a crap reality TV show to pick the cheerleaders for this coming season of IPL - with sour-face Sourav Ganguly picking the 'talent'. Sounds nigh un-fucken-watchable.
I'd be happy to help pick cheerleaders - possibly even happy to watch Sourface pick them!
And I'm actually looking fwd to the IPL - don't ask me why. But, it was good to have a game on every night
I'd be happy to help pick cheerleaders - possibly even happy to watch Sourface pick them!
And I'm actually looking fwd to the IPL - don't ask me why. But, it was good to have a game on every night
Last time I think they just got a bunch of NFL cheerleaders to moonlight for them. They were the ones with the tartan microskirts and the whole overendowed dirty schoolgirl thing going on, that various religious elements in India demanded be censored or they'd throw a big tanty and chuck their toys out of the pram.
Yeah I'm with you Lerm, I know it's tawdry and cheap (the IPL in general, not the cheerleaders - though I don't doubt they could and would be all of the above if requested) and everyone's doing it for the cash but if you treat it like a month and a half of hit 'n' giggle exhibition matches - I mean who really gives a shit whether Bangalore beat Mumbai outside the subcontinent? - then it's great entertainment. And big sporting events create their own impetus and impetus as the story builds day on day - World Cups, Olympics, the Tour de France - in fact the only reason I started watching the Tour was big-sports-event withdrawal symptoms after the end of World Cup France 98. This year might be an off year for the big World Cups (football, cricket, rugby) but there's still the IPL, followed by the T20 World Cup, then the Ashes... Might get a professional photo portrait done so my family remember what I look like, seeing as though they'll probably see little of me in daylight hours.
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