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Part 23: Bye Calypso | May 02, 2007 11:34

AYE CALYPSO An exclusive Cricket World Cup blog

The bunting has been furled, the rubbish swept from the terraces, a lone empty Carib lager bottle rolls beneath the seats and tolls the end of the Cup.

The end of the Cup. At issue is whether that end is for four years, or for all time. The World Cup has thrown up everything that is shameless, corrupt and wrong about cricket. There has been poor organisation, over officious umpires, a bathetic final, vast stadiums as empty as Andre Nel's skull. There has been a superfluity of lop-sided matches, one team so dominant that they deserved two victory celebrations, and dodgy pitches where the toss decided the game. There were awful performances from every team except the two finalists. Like a looming Caribbean squall there was also Mammon in the form of polyester-suited broadcasters and a schedule tailored to their needs. And behind the tragedy of Bob Woolmer, and the colonial farce of the Jamaican police investigation is the spectre, perhaps, of match-fixing in slithering malevolent form.

The ICC World Cup was abject. There were moments of greatness, sure – Malinga, Gilchrist, Hayden, Jayawardene all cemented their places in the Pantheon. And there was the comic genius of McGrath who was asked how he was feeling as Australia celebrated in the gloaming. "Bit dark at the moment" he deadpanned, "but loving every minute."

ICC's Malcolm Speed and Percy Sonn were booed on the podium, which says as much for the eyesight of those at the Kensington Oval as it does about their dissatisfaction with cricketer's administrators. The fact that true greats like Everton Weekes and Garry Sobers were cheered at the same event shows how much Bajans and cup tourists love real cricket played with style, verve and honesty. Cricket in the West Indies is normally loud, joyous, colourful, life-affirming. Instead (again) the pallor of Lord's was transplanted in the Caribbean.

Will world cricket be the same after this? Probably. There is a lack of adventure and passion within the people who run our game. We have the 20/20 World Cup later in the year, as if anybody cares except those with the attention span of a guppy. It will be moderately successful, probably well run, and maybe Australia will lose that one, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Me? I'd take the nag out the back and shoot it. Limited overs cricket has always had the fatal flaw of potential being decided within the first quarter of the match. This has happened in most of the matches played. There are formats that could alter this. 20/20 isn't one of them.

Test cricket is the peak of cricket. In the 45 flaccid days it took to decide the winner of this tournament each team could have played up to eight test matches. That may be a stretch, but surely two groups of 5, a semi, then a final. And I venture to suggest that Astle, Warne, Martyn and Langer would not have retired on the eve of that kind of tournament.

Will New Zealand cricket be the same after this? Almost certainly. We are the test nation with the smallest available population to select from. The talent rises and stays put. There are very few people waiting to replace the under-performing Black Craps. Scottie Styris is the only player with any right to be proud of his performance. He was brilliant.

But in the end, even with a daisy cutter like Shane Bond we were not good enough. The moment Ross Taylor raised his bat to the ironic cheers of the crowd when he finally put bat on ball I felt the campaign being folded up like a table cloth. By the time Macca was at the crease I knew the only way New Zealand could have won the cup was if it was made of chocolate.

To end this blog with an anti-climax, just as the World Cup ended, I would like to thank everybody who wrote encouraging words to us. We think we performed pretty well over the tournament. Grant consumed every one of his microwave sausage rolls, and didn't miss a ball bowled by Chris Martin in the entire tournament. Alex now has Jimmy Franklin wallpaper on his computer. And I am still chuckling about saying Paul Nixon has Tourette's in my very first article, but then laughing at my own jokes is one of my main failings.

If only the ICC would laugh at theirs.

Hamish McDouall

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Part 22: Not the Last Post | Apr 26, 2007 09:14

AYE CALYPSO An exclusive Cricket World Cup blog

The positive: the slightly early finish meant I made it to the Brooklyn community ANZAC Day event in Wellington. Diversity arrives in numbers -- wrapped up warm, and early, if you want a seat on plastic chairs dotted around the school playground.

The United Nations of kids from the local schools lead the singing of the anthem, with World War Two Veteran and Brooklyn RSA President Tom Parker belting out the Te Reo version. The local American-born Rabbi gives the address and lauds "the honest bloke within", and the Salvation Army bugler gives every inch of his breath to the Last Post as the kids perched on the playground equipment are hushed up.

On the way home the kids on Pembroke Rd continue their timeless test. There is a bat, one pad, a ball and a very flash looking pair of wicket-keeping gloves. I could have sworn I heard the owner of said gloves saying "c'mon lads, four and five now."

But me, despite the healthy dose of national identity, I am sad and tired. The ANZAC story is one of heroic failure. Was getting to the semis heroic? Meritorious, yes, about as far as we should have got, probably, but losing the way they did, not heroic.

It was a bad omen when the New World had run out of Alison Holst sausage rolls on Tuesday night. A pulled stomach muscle (I mean who knew there was muscle in there?) and an injured finger later and the sporting gods had given their nudge and wink. Not this time, you little battlers. The Black Caps had to be very good to win -- and they were very, very ordinary.

The Sri Lankans were excellent. Take a look at the pitch maps that flashed up for Malinga and Vaas, barely a ball outside the handkerchief of a good length. It would take a double sized tarpaulin to fit in Bond, Oram and Franklin's efforts. Jayawardena played the perfect captain's innings, Flem's last effort was a blur, with all the foot movement of Michael Laws.

The Aussie v Sri Lanka final should be a cracker. But this has been a World Cup of should have beens. The Caribbean should have been the host of cricket's greatest ever party, the Super Eight should have been a down to the wire shoot-out among the world's best teams and the whole event should have been all about the cricket. Bob Woolmer -- lest we forget.

But in the spirit of the Anzacs its time to pay our respects, and to look to a better future.

Respect: To those who won't play another World Cup, and many of whom won't play much more international cricket at all- Brian Lara, Glenn McGrath, Inzamann Ul-Haq, Shaun Pollock, possibly Tendaulkar, Jayasuriya, Kallis. Remarkable talents, awesome feats. Not all on show in this drawn out tourney, but careers of class.

Respect also to Flem at the end of this time at the helm. He brought organisation and invention, elegance and well constructed sentences. We are now a better team than England, the West Indies, and South Africa. We are not in the same league as Australia or Sri Lanka. That's how it turned out.

And looking ahead. I hope there is still a place for Flem, but it is hard work for all involved when the leader is on the backbench. I like the idea of his focus being on the tests - he could go on for years.

For the one day team under Dan Vettori there is much to be done. The leadership group -- Dan, Oram, McCallum, Styris along with Taylor, Fulton, Patel, Franklin -- need to lead the next wave. Braces won't be there I predict -- it will be Wrighty in the first instance, and maybe his form of Kiwi phlegmaticism will work. First job, we need to identify a crop of young bowlers out there and teach them to bowl at the death.

Hamish will provide a final wrap of the tournament after the final, but from the rest of the Aye Calypso team, many thanks for your comments, feedback and interest. Thanks Russell for giving us the forum, and putting up with the late posts and computer illiteracy of some contributors.

We have had a lot of fun tapping into our collective love, our partners say tragic obsession, for the game. If nothing else I hope you have all learned that you are not alone. At 9.36am on Wednesday, with Patel having belted a boundary down the ground, and Franklin showing the technique that will make him a mainstay of the middle order in years to come, my friend Phil texted me, with one word- 'believe'. And you know, just for a minute, I did. See you next time.

Grant Robertson (for Alex Gilks)

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Part 21: You're wondering now | Apr 23, 2007 08:46

AYE CALYPSO An exclusive Cricket World Cup blog

Thank God that's over then. The fans had expected a feast, but the The Super Eights provided an over-cooked fifteen-dollar Sunday roast in a dank empty corner of a sprawling buffet hall with ample parking under the motorway bypass. Later, amidst the gravity of cricket post-mortems and historical anecdote, few of the talking points from this marathon event will involve name players doing special things with bat or ball. We've been daily shaking ourselves out of the scratcher before the sparrows even begin to fart, rubbing our eyes, turning on the box, reading the score, more eye-rubbing, yet another drubbing.

But hold the phone – there was a really good game yesterday. The stars came out to shine, with the bat at least, as two average teams defiantly slugged and strutted their way out of world cup irrelevance. Top job Pietersen, Vaughan, Gayle, Chanderpaul. Paul 'Dick' Nixon showed again his cleverness. Marlon Samuels batted brilliantly after sawing off his captain, which was all kind of appropriate. Sir Brian Lara has oozed artistry for so many years, but when he fails in a one-dayer his team tend to follow, and they've bottled it often in recent times. Wearing maroon, they may be better off without him.

If the enduring themes of this cup are to be greed and corruption within a bloated commerical sphere, and the jolly useful Australian team are indeed to steamroll everybody in their path, then this game was full of meaning for the health of cricket. English and West Indies fans took turns at thundering hoots inside the Kensington Oval as a result finally went down to the final balls of the full fifty. Who cares who won it. This was cricket catharsis.

How to lose

I'm half-English you see, and we can learn a lot from the Poms about losing. We despise losing in New Zealand, though you'd think we'd be getting good at it. We stand like munted farmers suffering a lengthy wedding speech with an empty glass, benumbed, quietly grunting. The English adore losing. Pathos brings them all together, like ale, or Horlicks. Nobody can weep, roar, lash out and rinse out like they can. Their bards (Morrissey, the Gallaghers et al) embody perfectly the spirit of losing, their football world cup anthems are all bittersweet crapness. It's pretty easy to choose the soundtrack to your montage of delirium when you win, but the art is in finding the rallying medication for withered hearts when you lose.

I don't really plan to work or sleep on Wednesday, so if our team sails on ahead and tows our nation's collective longboat into uncharted territories, dark and final, I shall drink and drive naked around the streets of Waverley, tooting the leaves from the poplars. But should our team satisfy the cricket world's expectations and capitulate to the uber-cool Sri Lankans, again, I'll silence the transistor radio, thumb through the albums and reach for a perfectly shaped aural synthesis of wistful Englishness and Jamaican ska, courtesy of The Specials:

You're wondering now, what to do,
now you know this is the end.

Alex Gilks

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Part 20: Number 57, your time is up | Apr 20, 2007 11:41

AYE CALYPSO An exclusive Cricket World Cup blog

This is the first time I have used the word "ooze" in a publication. I loved it. A pair of "o's", then before you get the chance for a rest the "z" comes in. The "e" is like a post-coital cigarette.

Ooze. There it goes again. The first two letters remind me of the start to Jimmy Franklin's test career. The "z" a tribute to the somnolescent nature of most of the World Cup so far. The last letter indicates what the songwriter of the tournament theme
Song "The game of love and unity" must have been on.

Ooze. Works well with words like "confidence", "talent" and "charm". Works badly with "discharge".

Ross Taylor oozes talent. Ross Taylor will win us the World Cup. Maybe not this one, but one day he will have it in his paw like a happy magpie with a shiny thing. Shane Bond also oozes, talent mostly, but sometimes like a Porsche with a wee problem underneath.

Other players ooze - Ponting (confidence), Bracken (class), Sangakkara (charm), Murali (talent). It is hard to see these four not deciding the Cup. But please note Graeme Smith doesn't "ooze". He is "unctuous". That is completely different.

We can all spot talent oozing. We see Sangakkara wafting a ball through covers, or Kallis playing so late it seemed like he didn't know the ball was coming. Or Bondy arcing a ball into off stump, or Murali dropping yet another doosra on a length. Or Michael Clarke fielding like a swallow. That's class. We can see it oozing.

However there are players who do not ooze. They are the rugged individuals. The blokes in the team who had to train that little bit harder, spend the extra half hour in the bashed up nets at Karori Park. Run three more times around the block. The guys who play ugly because that's the only way they can. The guys who play with a whiff of borrowed pads, and meat pies for lunch. Mark Gillespie I'm talking about you. And you Andrew Hall. Step on up Messrs Styris (as a bowler, at least), Nixon, Peterson, McMillan, Hogg, Strauss. Club cricketers who have risen above their station through slightly better timing, slightly faster twitch muscle. I wouldn't be surprised to find any of you playing against my team, the Chargers, at Mangere Central Park any second Saturday.

People will say - what about Macca's ability to scythe a ball over the boundary. Yup, timing's good, bat's heavy. His eye is fabulous. But every club team has a large bully who comes in at 5 or 6, just when you think you have them by the Velcro, and biff bang pow. Every team also has a keeper who spends the whole time saying annoying things until you want to smack him not the ball (Nixon). Every team has a pot-bellied medium pace bowler who spits and bellows, whose action suggests he is faster than he is (Hall, Styris). Every team has a spinner who tries off-spin, gets smacked around the park, then changes to leg-spin (Peterson).

The semi-finals have been written onto the dance card. We are waltzing with the boys in blue. Various melanges of green and yellow shake it in the other semi. And while I will be watching for those moments of talent - a lofted drive from Hayden, or a Gibbs special, or McCullum changing direction to clutch a catch, I will also be watching for the guys who don't ooze. The World Cup is, actually, in their hands, not the elite. It is whether their grit wins the day. It is whether their innocuous ball gets a wicket. It is whether their hoik over square leg angles too high. It is whether these characters ride the averages or are found out, like Inzamam found out the bowling of Watson, Harris and Larsen, Eden Park, March 1992.

Hamish McDouall

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Part 19: Beating Sri Lanka | Apr 17, 2007 11:27

AYE CALYPSO An exclusive Cricket World Cup blog

It would be fair to say that Sri Lankan cricket has come along way in the 25 years since they were granted test status. They rolled up in New Zealand in 1983, full of hope and exotic surnames. There were two sets of brothers- Ratnayekes and Wettimunys. Throw in Goonasakera and De Alwis and it was a challenging summer for Messers Gallaway, Sharp and co.

It was not the most successful of tours. Although Sri Lanka actually led on the first innings in the second test, they lost both tests heavily. New Zealand was at the peak of its beige powers. Glenn Maitland Turner had returned to the team after his feud with Walter Hadlee, and was setting about changing the way opening batsmen played one-day cricket. He also had a very unfortunate moustache. In Auckland he blazed 140 at a time when hundreds, let along big hundreds, were a rarity in the shortened form of the game. New Zealand made 304, and in reply the Sri Lankans made 188/6 off their 50 overs. I guess they were happy playing for the draw. Turner actually bowled a maiden towards the end of the innings- along with those well known net bowlers John Wright and Jeff Crowe.

Obviously Sri Lanka's greatest moment until now was winning the 1996 World Cup, but they have not stopped getting better. We have not seen the best of them in NZ until this summer when they humiliated the Black Caps in Auckland.

They are now a very well balanced side. Despite their capitulation to the Aussies this morning, I think the Cup is theirs for the taking. Bowling is the undoubted strength and with Vaas, Malinga and Murali in the line-up they can take any team. Especially the Black Caps. We just look plain uncomfortable. Not only against the three strike bowlers, but we also seem unable to use our feet to get to Jayasuriya or Dilshan. I am not saying it is easy. I once played against a guy with an action just like Malinga (where are you now John Guytonbeck?) and I never saw the ball, and he probably bowled half the pace.

So, given that we are all but certain to play Sri Lanka in the semis, how do we go about beating them? Well to start with, even on a low slow wicket, you have to put them in. If there is any weakness it is at the top of the order. Other than Jayasuriya they can look vulnerable if placed under pressure. It is getting harder, Jayawardene is coming into some form, but it is the only way.

And in reply we need to do our best to milk Murali for 30-40, and score heavily off the others. Hit Vaas off his line early, and get down the wicket to the spinners. As for Malinga- I recommend closing your eyes and swinging. It worked against Guytonbeck.

Biggest game of the tournament tomorrow. Poms v South Africans. I just have a little feeling the wheels are falling off the Proteas, but I can't stand the thought of Paul Nixon celebrating a win. On balance I have to say it will go to South Africa. As Deaks would say, your thoughts?

Grant Robertson

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