What did you do in the war, mummy?

If “the” election were held on Coruscant

my latest meme:

Poor Vinoo revisited

I (i.e. kinkminos, not Iron Chappel) do believe that the next time Jos Buttler plays for England against Sri Lanka he will warn Kumar Sangakkara at least twice for bounding down the pitch to a spinner who beats him in flight, and will only stump him on the third such occasion.

I also believe that if, in the unlikely event that Buttler gets carried away and whips off the bails and appeals for Sanga’s wicket on the 1st or 2nd instance, Alastair Cook will rescind the appeal and admonish Buttler for his unsportsmanlike behaviour in no uncertain terms, before begging said batsman’s pardon with a bow worthy of a courtier in Akbar-e-Azam’s darbar.

In fact I am certain that all England wicketkeepers playing under Captain Cook in any form of international cricket will adopt such a practice against any batsman of any opposition team!

Having said that, if Cook is to remain true to his pouty stance on Sena’s run out of Buttler then he will NEVER EVER EVER allow any of his ’keepers to stump a batsman. EVER! (Even if Australia beat England in every single test match for the next 97 years.)


The article reproduced below appeared a day after the 1947 “Mankad” incident in the Sydney Morning Herald. It was written by one John “Ginty” Lush, a one-time captain of the NSW cricket team. 

(btw, NSW is the province where Donald Bradman was born, and the first 6 years of the Don’s first class career were spent playing for the NSW team.)

Excerpts from Lush's piece:

Although a run out in this fashion is permissible, it is not regarded as a sportsmanlike thing under ordinary circumstances.

Mankad can scarcely be called a bad sport for trapping Brown.

The first time he had Brown at his mercy he beckoned the batsman back  with a crooked finger... This was hailed as one of the most sporting acts ever seen at the SCG.

In conclusion (*yawn*), if you, like many cricket fans, think that Ian Chappel and random Lushes may not be the best people to comment on matters relating to sportsmanship, then you might want to hear what Bradman (whose sportsmanship, I believe, has never been in question, and who was captain of that 1947 Australian team) had to say on the matter. In his autobiography Farewell to Cricket he writes that following the running out of Brown:
 

...in some quarters Mankad’s sportsmanship was questioned.

For the life of me I cannot understand why. The laws of cricket make it quite clear that the non-striker must keep within his ground until the ball has been delivered. If not, why is the provision there which enables the bowler to run him out?

By backing up too far or too early the non-striker is very obviously gaining an unfair advantage. On numerous occasions he may avoid being run out at the opposite end by gaining this false start.... [Mankad] was scrupulously fair that he first of all warned Brown before taking any action. There was absolutely no feeling in the matter as far as we were concerned, for we considered it quite a legitimate part of the game.

I always make it a practice when occupying the position of a non-striker to keep my bat behind the crease until I see the ball in the air. In that way one cannot possibly be run out, and I commend this practice to other players.”

Bechara Mulvantrai Himmatlal (urf Vinoo) - badnaam-tareen kirkitar

The great Vinoo Mankad played 44 tests for India in the ’40s and ’50s, scoring over 2,000 runs @ 31.5 and taking 162 wickets @ 32.3 He also scored over 11,000 first class runs and took almost 800 first-class wickets.

He is one of only 3 players to have his name up on the Lord’s batting and bowling honours boards for performances in the same match. (The other two are Garry Sobers for the Rest of The World against England in 1970, and Botham against a lacklustre Pakistan in 1978.)

The Lord’s website has this to say about him:

Vinoo Mankad is one of the very few names that appear on both the batting and bowling Honours Boards at Lord’s, and remarkably, he achieved this feat with a century and a five-wicket haul in the same game. 

Playing for India against England in 1952, Mankad produced an all-round performance that wrote his name into Lord’s history forever, making 184 opening the batting in India’s second innings, which followed his 5/196 earlier in the match. 

In the words of Len Hutton, he “played England on his own.” 

Sadly, he is most often remembered of late for his running out, during the 1947 Sydney Test, of the Australian opener Bill Brown while backing up at the non-striker’s end. That incident led to the term “being mankaded” entering the cricketing lexicon.

______________________________

Excerpts from 

It's idiotic to not mankad a straying non-striker 
You don't warn a batsman before stumping him, so why warn him before he steals a run? 

Ian Chappell
Cricinfo - June 15, 2014 
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/752417.html 

Ian Bell should have been asked to go read the laws of cricket instead of being
allowed to bat again after being dismissed by India at Trent Bridge in 2011

Sri Lanka’s captain, Angelo Mathews, was not repentant in the lead-up to the Test at Lord’s when discussing the mankad of Jos Buttler in an ODI. And nor should he be. 

How come when the administrators blunder in changing the law, and the batsmen take advantage by cheating, it’s the fielding side that is vilified? 

Under the old law it was straightforward. If the non-striker backed up correctly, he couldn’t be mankaded. Anybody who was mankaded under that law deserved his punishment for 1) being stupid, and 2) not putting a high enough value on his wicket. I’m surprised more non-strikers haven’t been mankaded and that fielding sides bother with the so-called “courtesy” of warning the batsman first. 

Do you warn a batsman before you stump him? No. Then why warn him before you mankad him? If you play by the laws you’ll be contesting the game in the right spirit. And by the way, how is cheating at the non-striker’s end upholding the spirit? 

In 2011 at Trent Bridge, when Ian Bell was guilty of gross negligence in walking off the field at tea time - thinking the ball was dead - and MS Dhoni ran him out, it was the Indian captain who was expected to grovel. Dhoni should have told Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower: “Bugger off back to your dressing room and tell [Bell] to take greater care of his wicket next time.” 

Don't be a heel

Created by: XRayTechnicianSchools.net

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The prerestroika-troika rejects glasnost

by Minos
8 Feb 2014


So it seems that the ICC’s perestroika-troika have managed to garner the ¾ majority required to ram its “more-inclusive” structure down the collective throat of the rest of the cricketing world. (One has to say though that the spirit of glasnost is conspicuous by its absence.)

This leaves whiny Sri Lanka and Pakistan the only remaining voices of dissent on the ICC’s Round Table of Full Members. Not much has been said so far about Cricket South Africa’s unexpected volte-face, but things have turned out more or less as I had predicted a few days ago.

On the 1st of July 2014 His Imperial Majesty, Emperor N Srinivasan the First, Sovereign of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, and Sovereign of the Imperial Order of the Financial Crown Jewel of Indian Sport (to name but two of his many imperial titles) shall be elevated to the exalted status of ICC Chairperson. This is an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-encompassing position, and we would all do well to respectfully acknowledge this indisputable fact: Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant.

His loyal satraps, too, receive high honours. Lord Great Chamberlain Wally Edwards is appointed Chairperson of the newly formed Executive Committee, and Lord High Elocutioner Giles Clarke retains his post as Chairperson of the ICC’s Finance & Commercial Affairs Committee.

And the bellyaching rhetoric will swell to even greater crescendos. Not least in the lands of the two dissenting voices. But honestly, I have had enough of these sanctimonious windbags. Most especially one Mr Zaka Ashraf.

I really had expected the insitutional (i.e. representatives of the respective boards) objectors to express a high degree of concern for the game in general. Instead Mr Ashraf (whose sole qualification for running Pakistan’s cricket affairs seems to be his not very impressive moustache) (i.e. not much qualified) seemed only really to be concerned with “what is in the interests of our country or cricket.”

That is, no doubt, something the head of any national board for a given sport should focus on. But damn! If the only thing any board is concerned about is its own status and financial well-being (remember, Bangladesh’s only concern was its Test status)... well hell! That’s what India and its expensively-leashed puppy dogs, Australia and England, are doing. So why the self-righteous posturing?

Enough, I say! We must accept that this 21st Century world of ours has given itself over completely to the inexorable forces of greed, consumerism and commercial exploitation. WE have given oursleves over!

So just let ’em get on with it!

Cricket is dead I say. Long live cricket...
Long live cricket, I need it every night
Long live cricket, come on and join the line
Long live cricket, be it dead or alive

I will say, however, that there have been some heartening expressions of dissent from beyond the cricketing establishment. Many former cricketers and administrators have weighed in with plausible and eloquent statements. Many, of course, have not, and the one I am most disappointed with is Shri Sachin Tendulkar ji. Sachin is a member of India’s upper house of parliament, the Rajya Sabha. He was recently awarded the Bharat Ratna – the first sportsperson ever to be thus honoured. (Interestingly, despite his demigod status in India, the influential, fundamentalist BJP have objected to this latter award being conferred on Tendulkar.)

Now Sachin is not a political animal, and I have always respected him for it. But having accepted a role in his country’s highest legislative body as well as receiving it’s highest civilian honour, I would humbly opine that he needs to display some statesmanlike qualities, at least in expressing an opinion on issues that have far-reaching consequences for the sport he has devoted most of his life to.

In India’s official “Order of Precedence” protocol list a Bharat Ratna awardee ranks just below the Chief Justice of India and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, and at par with Union Cabinet Ministers and State Chief Ministers. Thus it would seem our Sachin (for he really is “our” Sachin, at least for die-hard cricket fans the world over) is a pretty big kahuna in the socio-political sphere.

Sachin, I look forward to hearing you express yourself on the topic I have been ranting about.

Whether it’s for or against.

Vamping it Up

by Minos
Feb 2, 2014
 
As of 1st February 2014 India is officially the Number Two team in all the world, across all three formats* according to the dubious system of ICC Rankings. This factoid provides me with the typically tenuous excuse I need to weigh in with my own two-and-a-bit bits worth. This time around on the Great Revamp Debate.

Many voices, articulate and otherwise, have campaigned for and inveighed against the proposed changes.

Those in favour cite the inherent right of India to retain a larger portion of the massive earnings that it generates, though even these supporters are unable to come up with convincing arguments for why India’s two fawning sidekicks should be allowed to dig their fingers deeper into the pie.

Those against are fired with righteous indignation. They decry the hijacking of the noble game by rapacious pirates, and the dangers inherent in reverting to the “dark days” of the Imperial Cricket Conference and the reviled veto of the time. “An evil money-grubbing plutocracy in the making!” is the most commonly heard slogan in the protest camp.

Phew! All that rhetoric...

The truth is that cricket – at least as we know it – has one foot in the grave. Let’s be honest. Much as it pains me to say this about the game I love, the sport I grew up playing, following and obsessing about, cricket is an anachronism in this 21st Century world of ours in the way that the phonograph is a relic of the past.

Like cricket, the phonograph gained acceptance in the 19th Century. It flourished in the 20th, when there were few alternative forms of entertainment. While it is now considered by purists and audiophiles to provide the most authentic sound reproduction of any form of recorded music – analogue or digital – its use is now restricted to said purists and audiophiles. The rest of us make do with CD, MP3 and Youtube streaming, our ears having adjusted to the compressed, lifeless sound these digital formats produce.

Entertainment options available to today’s youth are multiplying rapidly. Smartphones do everything but trim your sideburns. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat seem to occupy a young person’s every waking moment (and the odd sleeping one too!). 21st Century attention spans have been compressed by the ubiquitous microchip from hours and minutes to mere seconds.

What will be the attention span of a generation of children who have been thrust into cyberspace, literally at birth, by parents who Snapchat and Instagram a wee newborn’s images from the moment it pops its li’l head out of mommy’s glabrous pudendum? Certainly not long enough to sit through a 5-day test match. In fact, I predict that within 20 years a T20 match, at merely 3½ hours from start to finish, will be considered too long and tedious to follow all the way through. What then? Why then the biggest (or at least the longest) format in the world of cricket will be that most entertaining spectacle: The Hong Kong Sixes. Or, more likely, The Mumbai Maximums! The most popular will be the “Super Over” format, except it won’t be preceded by 40 overs of frenetic (read tedious) cricket.

These formats will not be able to elicit the kind of fanatical devotion that current international formats do. Instead “Sixes” and “Super Over” tournaments will be watched (and betted on) by rabid punters in sweaty parlours, crumpled notes in hand, their eyes glued to the super HD flatscreens wedged in the corner up against plaster-flaked ceilings. Think of the stick-fighting scene at the beginning of Rambo 3, or Chris Walken’s Russian roulette sequence in the final act of The Deer Hunter.

All that the unfairly pilloried luminaries of the BCCI and their cronies have done is recognise this fact and cannily manoeuvre the situation to their own financial advantage. While the going is good. While there’s still life in the old dog (cricket that is – I would never refer to any one of Messrs Clarke, Srinivasan or Edwards in that way). For let’s face it, what is international and top level domestic cricket about these days? In a word, “money”.

Kumar Sangakkara, one of my favourite batsmen (and cricketer for that matter) recently opted out of the 2014 IPL auction stating, in so many words, that in this way he stood a better chance of getting a more lucrative contract in 2015. This is not international gun-for-hire Chris Gayle, nor the very fair and lovely Virat Kohli. This is the former captain of the last remaining gentlemen of cricket (their sorry antics in Sharjah recently notwithstanding). The man who delivered perhaps the most eloquent of all the Cowdrey Lectures delivered to date.

On the other hand, Firdoose Moonda, in a recent Cricinfo article, quotes Dr Ali Bacher as saying that each member of the 1967 South African cricket team which defeated Australia 3-1 in a test series received a bonus of 75 Rand. Now I don’t know how much that is in real money, but according to Bacher it was exactly one month’s rent for the flat he and his newly-wed wife were renting at the time. Just imagine, a bonus of a whole month’s rent! Those boys had it so good.


___________________________________________  

(What the powers-that-would-be are hoping will happen in short order) ___________________________________________


Now I don’t mean to gratuitously glorify those “pure” days when top cricketers played for love of the game alone. But my point stands. Without, if you’ll pardon the expression, shitloads of money being thrown at today’s cricketers, they won’t even put on their boxes. All that money comes from cunning manipulation of the commercial potential that cricket offers. Most of that potential resident in India.

Cricket is dying a natural death (I am genuinely heartbroken at the prospect). It is only natural, given the unashamedly rapacious, consumerist, commercial world we live in, that those in positions of power would want to extract every last penny from cricket’s fatted piggy bank.

And they will succeed. It’s a shrewd, canny lot which comprises this troika. They’ll bring everyone around, by crook or flat-batted hook. Just you see.

 ____________

*2nd to SA in Tests, Australia in ODIs, and Sri Lanka in T20Is

What does BCCI stand for (morally and/or acronymically)?

i have heard that all 26 of the BCCI's official committees have voted unanimously in favour of renaming themselves

Badmaash Council for Cricket (International) 

so as not to have to change their logo, and at the same time reflect their presently unassailable status as the cricketing world's sole money makers... thus the inevitable vociferous requests from the restless crowd of "shake your money maker!" which will result no doubt in *shudder* shri narayanaswami srinivasan ji sliding up and down a stripper pole and twerking *shudder* in the not too distant future for his collective benefit *shudder shudder shudder*

if you want to know what srini-ji will be wearing (or not wearing) on stage while he performs, please contact the bcci's tour, programme and fixture committee (chairman, shri rajeev shukla ji)


one for the road...

and, finally, one for the elevator ride up...

Merely Good

what a test match. what an amazing fight back by sa. what single-minded application. what a disappointingly tame and ultimately anti-climactic end.

with three overs left and just 16 runs to get i really thot they would go for it. to have come this far, against all odds and expectations and then to just let it go. well... i was, and still remain, dumbfounded.

team india too let it play out that way, sending all the fielders to the boundary at one point. but then they have always played it safe, with at least one eye on what their media will make of things.

i really did not expect this level of khassi-ness from the proteas. oh how i wish that some of the baggy green moxie would permeate the lacklustre spirit of other teams. surely nothing would have revitalised test cricket more than a south african win yesterday.

scribes have been calling this a “great” test. i would beg to differ. this was an exciting, thrilling, wonderful test match which could have been great but ended up being merely good.




on a related note, great to see the paki team's batting and bowling both clicking in the same match.
kya ghol ke pilaya hai bachon ko misbah bhai aur dav chacha ne?

Redemption Thong

This bus goes to China Chowk
That one terminates at home
The other one stops before it starts
While our bus keeps a-rollin’ on
’Til the driver drops us off
A mile or two beyond our destination
Quaintly-named Redemption Town
Renowned for its many-spired mosques
And multi-coloured zebra crossings
Along a disconnected network
Of narrow bendy dead-end streets
Designed to make pedestrians walk
In constant fear of finding hope

minos – nov 2013
 

Platonic Wisdom

Banksy on the rampage in New York:

Sheeda's patented hangover remedy

part of the problem was
that, once consciousness was regained
and a modicum of sanity could be aspired to,
an unpleasant memory insinuated itself,
quite innocuously at first,
into the raw-silky fabric of his
alternative reality and proceeded,
without so much as a by-your-leave,
to render meaningless any spiritual gains
accrued in the course of the ritual sleep-off.

past the sacramental staircase,
beyond the reach of time travellers,
under cover of darkness,
in full view of long-distance infra-red scopes
trained in the general direction of
truth, justice and a moral victory,
he raised both arms in supplication,
letting out one long, immensely satisfying burp,
followed by a pitch-perfect rendition in pashtu
of dylan's original i shall be free.


minos - sep 2013