Public Address - Speaker (Home)

Part 12: Match state = drinks | Mar 27, 2007 10:51

AYE CALYPSO An exclusive Cricket World Cup blog

Time to take stock. After a loopy opening session, a coach is dead, and there's a media whodunnit playing out (Roy and HG are suggesting CSI Jamaica). Most of the world's fans are in mourning, since unbelievably, India and Pakistan are gone. Ireland and Bangladesh are not. They are basking by the hotel pool of dreams. But take a photo, it'll last longer: they are soon to be stampeded. And the world champions are back in some nick, bigtime.

Enough, you know all of that. Thankfully, from our distant shores, Rupert Murdoch and the curvature of the earth will ensure we don't burn out or overdose actually watching games. But history tells New Zealand fans not to save themselves for the finals. Put in the hard yards early. Secretly anticipating the worst is not only part of our national character, it's good for your mental health: samurai philosopher and cricket stalwart Yamamoto Tsunetomo recommends meditation on inevitable death be performed every day. We'd best visualise repeat flayings from the bat of Kallis, annihilation from searing Malinga bullets, hopes erased by rubbery infield contortions of Pup Clarke. And perhaps we should ponder Bondy dislodging limbs from our own boys in the nets.

Soldier on

On that note, Stephen Fleming isn't concerned about recent injuries and the shuffled lineup. Speaking from his hospital bed last night, he's confident that sending over more of the Northern Districts squad as cover should mitigate the teething problems with the new training method of wearing blindfolds in the nets. Seriously though, nobody seemed woebegone when Tuffey's arm came unstuck, but we thought Gillespie would recover more quickly from his, er, paralysis. We are plain anxious about the hammie of Ross the Boss. We're ravaged by grief at the loss of Mad Dog Vincent. However, Chopper Reid says it best: 'Harden the f**k up'. We are kiwis, by god. Number eight sodding wire. Chris Harris came out to bat at the SCG with his shoulder rotator cuff torn off. Jake Oram was willing to have a finger off for the cup. So Vincent can be fixed, his broken wrist married up, made good to go. Just a couple of titanium bolts and some magic water. Surely Hamish Marshall could donate a forearm.

Alex Gilks

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Part 11: Death and Weirdness in the Surfing Zone | Mar 23, 2007 11:09

AYE CALYPSO An exclusive Cricket World Cup blog

Test cricketers die. All the time. Some die at and advanced age (though none have yet cracked a century). Some die very young. Manjural Islam who died the other day was just 22. Ben Hollioake, Fred Grace, Archie Jackson, Trevor Madondo, Ken Wadsworth all died while young, still striving to play international cricket.

Charlie Absolom had a load of sugar dropped on his head while working on the docks. Johnny Douglas died trying to save his father during a shipwreck. Aubrey Faulkner stuck his head in an oven believing he was bankrupt. He had heaps of money. William Whysall tripped while dancing in a nightclub and died of the resulting infection. Raman Lamba was hit in the head while fielding at short leg. Andy Ducat had a heart attack while batting at Lord's. Cota Ramaswami walked out of his family home believing he was a burden to his family, and was never seen again. Arthur Shrewsbury shot himself in the chest then when that didn't work as intended aimed a little higher. Jimmy Blanckenberg joined the wrong side in World War II and disappeared into the murkiness of the Third Reich never to be seen again. Leslie Hylton killed his wife, and was hung by the neck until he was dead.

I think I am right in saying a test cricketer has never been a victim of murder, though there have been suspicions that Protea Tertius Bosch may well have been poisoned.

Bob Woolmer, in his late fifties, overweight, a diabetic, in a job where the stress is multiplied by a factor of 169 million odd, having just experienced the worst day of his cricket career, died in a hotel room.

It, rightly, subdued the World Cup like a spray of mace in the face. A bit like poor Andres Escobar who was shot to death during the 1994 Football World Cup, because of the own goal that ended Colombia's campaign.

Everybody took a couple of days. They paid their tributes to a great coach and in a few weeks Woolmer's passing would have become an answer at pub quizzes. That was until the Jamaican police called the death suspicious.

Suddenly with several hundred sports journalists of all creeds and hues in the Caribbean, with at least two days off between every match, the column inches and the conspiracy theories have been cranked up until Sabina Park's grassy knolls become suspicious in themselves. The Australian paper came out all CSI, looking at the height of vomit in the hotel room. Associated Press meanwhile ran rumours that combined the Sopranos, with Came a Hot Friday, suggesting murderous bookies did for the coach. An Indian publication went way over board invoking the worst of John Grisham – Pakistan's president no less had Woolmer topped. I won't even mention the theory about the "crazy Moslem (sic) Taleban" that I saw.

There have been reports of blood, faeces and contusions on Woolmer's neck. There have been reports of suicide. The simple tributes have been lost amid the squealing hacks thumbing their dictionary to find out how to spell 'salacious'. On Wednesday even John "TLC" Campbell managed to dredge for prurience, breathlessly talking of the 'underbelly' of cricket in a lamentable interview with Richard Boock. It wasn't the worst piece of cricket commentary I've seen, (Martin Crowe, step on up. Crowe's comment after the death of David Hookes - "He faced a few bouncers in his career but couldn't duck this one") but was as pointless as Daryl Tuffey. Richard Boock looked uncomfortable for most of the interview in which he spluttered a few conspiratorial words before conceding he didn't think it was murder, or suicide for that matter. I was reminded why Boock favours print.

I say let's give Bob Woolmer some dignity. He was by all accounts a nice man, an innovative coach. His last 24 hours on Earth were perhaps the most disappointing he experienced. He died alone in a hotel room thousands of miles from his family. Let's leave the Jamaican police to do their job, and not waste any more printer's ink.

Hamish McDouall

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Part 10: Like Comedy, Timing is Everything | Mar 22, 2007 10:44

AYE CALYPSO An exclusive Cricket World Cup blog

I woke with a start yesterday morning. I think I had been dreaming that after a spate of injuries it had been necessary to draft in Bryan Waddle to the Black Caps, and he was commentating from second slip. I don't often dream about Wadds I'll have you know.

Anyway I got up, checked the clock (2.25am) and bleary eyed staggered to the TV to check the score. After watching two maidens and un-Flem like hoick for six I went back to bed. I did get up early enough to watch the mad-cap sprint to the 20 over mark including an excruciating eight ball over from Dan Vettori as the rain pelted down.

But it got me thinking that timing means a lot to how we treat our cricketers. Obviously when they are in your own time zone it is an easy ride. The whole country got in behind in 1992. The Young Guns theme actually worked. I was in my third year at varsity in the 1992 World Cup. Rupert Murdoch was yet to control access to international sport, and Martin Crowe was playing, not screaming into a microphone. In my flat we got roaringly drunk during the first game against Australia and constructed something called the 'sound bazooka', a large cylindrical cardboard object which we used to celebrate dismissals. Our upstairs flatmates were thrilled. Somehow I was in Christchurch staying with a friend for the ill-fated semi. A flat full of people sat in mournful silence at the end of the game.

In 1999 I found myself in New York. The time difference meant major clashes with work and accessing the games was tough. The sole internet capable computer at work had all the speed of Dwayne Leverock on a Sunday stroll. The latter stages of the tournament were available on pay-per-view to service the large population of Indian and Pakistani workers in the Big Apple, but it was an expensive undertaking. My brother in Illinois could go to an Indian restaurant and for the price of dhall and roti watch the games. Its hard to make roti last all day, mind.

The timing of this World Cup is about as bad as it can get. Sadly, getting up to watch cricket in middle of night not in the national psyche like rugby. One packet of Alison Holst sausage rolls will get you through a rugby game. You need a full buffet to make it through the cricket. But if we keep winning, my bet is there will be lights twinkling, and ovens baking all over NZ in the wee hours.

Speaking of winning it was efficiency plus again against Kenya, and it appears the draw might just work in our favour. Mason, the Central workhorse looked like he might put Tuffey on permanent drinks duties, and Macca looked ominious. You know what, I might just take the sausage rolls out of the freezer for tonight's game. Call it getting some "match fitness" for the nights to come.

Grant Robertson

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Part 9: Fred Ain't Dead | Mar 21, 2007 09:50

AYE CALYPSO An exclusive Cricket World Cup blog

Andrew Flintoff. Cor. How good is this guy as a role model? The expression 'charges in' was created for him. His open-chested action is all burly gunslinger, he sweats like a hog, he doesn't shave too often. Cricket's leaders shuffle in and out of slips and press conferences, dull as dishwater. Michael Vaughan looks grim, like he's just remembered something embarrassing he said at dinner last night. Nasser Hussain perfected a very English sort of canny tedium.

Flintoff struts. Even when he lopes, he's this pasty peacock, not shy of the lash, fit for a crusade, the talisman of the barmy. He bats and bowls, quite well, really. He can win you a match, and a series. But there's much more. Impaled on the spires of professional sport, there's too little imagination to cultivate a bloke grinning, or shrugging his shoulders, or falling into a boat, or 'avvin a good larf. Or licking a ball what flew into a pint. Or turning up totally soused at the PM's morning tea.

Vice-captaincy is OK, but anything more than another flirt with captaincy (maybe a messy tour of the subcontinent) would diminish him to another flailing pastor of another rubbish flock. So sod that, and go the smiling Lancashire boy. Let Rumours swirl around, you just play your game, lad. Results are good, stories are better, characters are best. Warney's gone, and cricket needs you, Fred.

Headline competition
We're running a wee competition here in the studio for the Son of Satan the Subeditor Award, for excruciating puns in world cup headlines. Send in your best effort – prizes include a picture of Scott Styris, an iced bun, and the full transcripts of Kyle Mills' columns from the Sunday Star Times. So far in the local press we've enjoyed the affable 'Flintoff falls into drink', and, following the Ireland-Zim tied game, the baffling 'Irish ties are smiling'.

In the nets
The gentlemen's game is everywhere. On the web you can witness a grassed gamut – grace and craftsmanship through to awkwardness and catastrophe. Players are taking up the challenge, some are playing straight, others getting a little bit funky behind the wicket. Lou Vincent got out early, then got a start but has yet to establish himself. The Chris Cairns site states: 'Chris Cairns has retired from Test cricket, however, he is continuing to play one-day cricket for New Zealand and has said he would like to stay on for the 2007 World Cup.' Good news. You already know about Macca's official tour diary. Have you caught up with Chris Martin's skyrocketing profile? Last we heard he was still en route to the Caribbean as volunteer backup, but his bags had gone missing in Buenos Aires, so he's been doing some daytime TV over there.

If you don't happen to spend time on MySpace, we understand. You are old. There is also the issue of the design being pants, and the pages are slow to load. But you'll be missing the Jacob Oram page, where Dan Vettori offers to cut off Jake's finger, and you'll be impressed at the big man's 225 friends, including Gilly and Warney. And Millsy. Flem's page, ominously, contains various dead links, and many hit counters. Important to have a mandate if you're captain. Speaking of Luca, his appreciation club (23 members: men, women and children) reveals that when it comes to breeding, Daniel doesn't want kids. And don't miss Dan the ambassador. 'DANIEL VETTORI's professorial demeanour isn't simply down to the fact that he wears spectacles on the sportsfield.' Goodness no. It's the way he conducts himself, and his dynamic intonation at the microphone. The question remains, who has the dullest monotone in world cricket: Flem or Luca?

Alex Gilks

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Part 8: Minnows | Mar 20, 2007 09:35

AYE CALYPSO An exclusive Cricket World Cup blog

Ahhh, the minnow. A small fish usually used by anglers for bait. In this year's World Cup there is a whole school of minnows swimming around all over the Caribbean. There is Bermuda with their bowler Dwayne Leverock, so large he appears on relief maps. And the Netherlands, Canada, and Scotland who with their cool saltire uniforms win on sartorial eloquence, if not on grass.

On Friday, about ten o'clock, I was prepared to damn the expansion of the World Cup from 14 teams to 16. More minnows, more lop-sided defeats. Sri Lanka beat Bermuda by the second largest victory ever that morning (Bermuda scored only 78 – only five more than the Black Caps managed against Sri Lanka at Auckland late last year). That result replaced Thursday's mauling of Scotland by the Australians on the record lists. The ICC should leave plans for global expansionism to the Bush Administration and get back to a lean tournament, like 1992, just the test-playing nations and one other. And expel Zimbabwe while we are at, it considering Herr Mugabe's criminal behaviour. Two groups, everybody plays everybody and then a straight knock-out, with every result mattering. Not a minnow in sight – just a few sharks, the old trout of England and the Black Caps – a big bottom-feeding hapuku.

That was what I was going to write at 10 a.m. on Friday. Then Ireland, dear old Ireland, the minnow's minnow, managed to force a tie from Zimbabwe's odds and sods. It was remarkable, not only coming down to the last ball, last wicket and last run, but also because of inimitable celebrations of everybody wearing green, including several people dressed as leprechauns. Including a guy who was fielding at mid off, (that may have been his real hair, jury's out).

Then I thought that Zimbabwe is now a callow insipid team, shorn of the talent of Henry Olonga, Heath Streak, Andy Flower and Tatenda Taibu thanks to political interference of the viral Zanu PF in the country's cricket administration. And it wasn't champagne cricket - more cricket straight from a cardboard box with Fairhall River Claret written on the side. Zimbabwe should have won, and their wickets – treading on the stumps, run out at the non-striker's end, caught off a full toss, two atrocious run outs – were so embarrassing that they would have earned the players involved a fine had it been my club side.

But now my words seem hollow, churlish. Ireland went and beat, hollow, one of the favourites in Pakistan. Ireland in the last eight. It would be surprising if we wrote it about football. But in a cricket tournament it shifts everything over to surreal as if the World Cup was dedicated to Salvador Dali.

This was a boilover greater than Zimbabwe beating Australia in 1983 or Kenya beating the West Indies in 1996. It was the biggest upset in World Cup history. Maybe it will inspire a budding Ed Joyce to take up the willow (or more likely inspire a few middling Australian cricketers with an Irish grandmother to emigrate). Maybe cricket will expand into schools throughout the Emerald Isle. Maybe the stigma of being an English game will be lessened. I will not only eat my words, but shall casserole them with gravy beef, carrots and potatoes.

Bob Woolmer's tragic demise has cast a pall over this great day in Irish cricket, and so it should. Cricket seems irrelevant in such circumstances. But maybe it isn't. Bangladesh learnt on Friday that their team-mate Manjural Islam, just 22 years old, had been killed in a road accident back in Bangladesh. Their victory over India was the team's tribute to his memory.

The real and imagined tragedies of the last few days have lit a fire under a tournament that I assumed would be full of chaff, of skirmishes, of phoney wars until April. I couldn't have been more wrong. The minnows have given this tournament drama and intensity. After all the minnow is used for bait.

Hamish McDouall

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Part 7: This Little Piggy Came All the Way Home | Mar 19, 2007 07:45

AYE CALYPSO An exclusive Cricket World Cup blog

Alex texted to say there was horizontal hail in Dunedin, I think a pig flew past the window (though it may just have been an excited Scott Styris), the Irish beat Pakistan and are set for the Super Eight, (barring Zimbabwe finding unlikely form), and Bangladesh made us feel better about that result last week.

The sporting gods seemed to get confused with granting Irish wishes for St Patrick's Day- failing to get Eddie O'Sullivan's crew over the line in the Six Nations but granting the highly improbable to the cheery mix of the Irish diaspora that is their cricket team. I am reliably informed that the Irish had cricket taken from them by Oliver Cromwell, and are now reclaiming it- mind you that came from someone who appeared to have been drinking all day in response to the great win.

Meanwhile drinking was the order of the day for the English team, and Freddy Flintoff in particular. Those who remember Freddy's starring role in the post Ashes celebration in 2005, will perhaps not be surprised, but an eight hour bender with a game two days away. Now that is commitment. I am sure Braces had the boys in bed with a milo before it was dark. Apart that is from Macca's midnight feast of course.

The Black Caps were solid on Friday, and it was the kind of win to give cautious hearts some hope. The best of it for me was to see them chase down a modest target on an awkward pitch, without real panic. Scotty and Oram brought the bacon home.

I was in a two parallel universes on Friday night with a trip to see the granddaddies of Dunedin music, The Clean, play followed by the game from St Lucia. The two performances followed a pattern; a strong start (three English wickets in the first fifteen over, Fish and Billy Two as the first two songs) a period of consolidation (restricting England's run rate, a couple of songs of Vehicle) a moment of brilliance (two wickets in two balls from Bondy, a searing version of Point That Thing), a bit of a stumble (3 for 2, an ugly version of Anything Could Happen) and then a feeling of quiet satisfaction at a job well done (Soctty and Oram bring it home easily, the fact David, Hamish and Bob can pull off a great gig and not feel the need to play Tally Ho).

It was not great cricket- but hey it was a win at the World Cup against a ranked team. Barring injuries I am sure this is the combination Flem and Braces want to play in the Super Eight. Me, I still worry about chasing a big target with that batting line-up, but let's enjoy a great weekend for the game.

Grant Robertson

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