Back on the Edge

After much popular demand, ok some inquiries, ok ok, one lonely email it has been decided by the powers that be to breath life into this veritable powderkeg of the cricket blog writing world. Much has occurred in the time I've been on hiatus, so I'm going to put together a quick highlights package for the benefit of those living under a rock in recent times (or in Stokes Valley - Raccoon I'm looking at you):

India act like a bunch of spoilt monkeys: The veritable Watergate of the cricketing world. This saga has had it all, sex, money, and power. Ok, maybe not so much sex, but I did read a piece on the bachelorhood of Ishant Sharma in the Australian papers… Monkeygate (as I've ever so wittingly described it) has torn a festering scab off the modern game and revealed for all to see what really runs it. Key points to come out of Monkeygate include.....

Ultra competitiveness has bastardised the modern game: Australia may be the best team and the world, but whatever happened to the gentleman's game? Or has modern technology simply exacerbated the problem.

Hawkeye for the straight guy: Sorry I forgot that Umpires were human, 30 seconds listening to messrs Lawry and Co. and you'd think they were supposed faultless decision making machines. I'm sick of it. If umpiring mistakes mattered we would never have beaten the Windies in 1980, the Australians never would have won a game before neutral umpires, and a tour to the subcontinent wouldn't have lasted 10 overs before teams were on the plane home in protest.

The ICC are about as good as the UN: Sure they look and sound like an international body, but whoever holds the TV rights is where the powers at. Just ask India. Were the lowering of the charges against Harbhajan to do with lack of evidence? Or more the fact that the BCCI had charted a plane to take the whole team (and about $80 million in revenue) home if his charges were upheld?

.........and to continue the Stuck Record - Black Caps and England: With 19 consecutive international fixtures against the same opposition coming up Andrew Strauss could fast become more of an institution on our screens than ol' Johnny Campbell.

The Black Caps finally win....against a teenage swim team: 5 of the most one sided games in recent cricket history....well at least since the last time the Banglas were on a cricket field. A joke of tour to match a joke of a Black Caps top order. Watching Sinclair provide slip catching practice, and work on his crease dancing skills was almost comical. Two words - we're fucked. Why the swim team barb? Well the bloody country's underwater most of the rain season.

The bona fide blaster lays down his weapons: Gilly retires. Bowlers can breath a sigh of relief, Australian spinners can actually contemplate a stumping, and Punter Ponting won't have to worry about any of his team actually having a conscience anymore. Game changingly great batsman who made Parore look like a great glovesman.

The Centre moves dooooowntown: End of an Era in Newtown. All in favour of that hip new sport, 10 pin bowling. Porky gives it 9 months, I give it 5. As for the new centre, a bona fide shooting gallery. But at least the Powerade's cold. Porky gives it 6 months, I give it a few more weeks.

Bondy sells out, and Styris retires to farm pigs: Disgusted. Full stop. "Security" "Raising a young family" words being thrown about. We all know it doesn't take $800,000 to raise a young family, for god sake the man considered a career in the police! Even if the kid is a little gold digger. As for Piggo, fuck, he was ugly as Corky with hair but still, at least he got runs when it mattered. And he had a hot ass missus. The mere thought of Mills and Marty bowling to KP 19 times in row is making me yearn for the foetal position.