As sportsmen increasingly find Twitter an excellent way to land themselves in hot water, England’s Graeme Swann and Jimmy Anderson stayed clear of controversy during a Tweet-Off in London’s Covent Garden at the weekend. The pair invited their followers to assemble in central London with the winner being the one with the biggest following.
Swann, with 22,855 followers against Anderson’s 22,950, lost by a short head.
For those interested in what these stars are up to ahead of the South Africa tour, Swann seems to be watching X Factor (“did anyone else notice Whitney 'crack pipe' Houston was high as a kite on x factor?”) while Anderson ... seems to be doing the same ("Didn't like Michael Buble cover of Cry Me A River on X Factor. Not as good as Justin Timberlake's version"). What thrilling lives they lead.
While the ICC works hard to spread the game to all regions of the world, one aspiring cricket body is having a bit of trouble recruiting players from within its natural auspices. Samoan cricket authorities are keen to recruit kirikiti - an indigenous Pacific Island form of cricket - players for their club infrastructure but have found it tough to coax them, because islanders are worried their traditional sport is endangered.
Seb Kohlhase, the Samoa Cricket president, is reportedly in talks with leading kirikiti players who fear the game, which was introduced by missionaries in the 19th century, will be forced into extinction. "They are so used to kirikiti, so they treated us with apprehension as if we would stop them," he told Radio Australia. "I don't want it to stop.
“But we are sending people tomorrow to Savai'i to hold clinics. They will hold development squads for women and Under-19 players, so that finally their cricket and their talent will be recognised, not just for Upolu (the most populated island) but for the whole country."
Kirikiti, unique to Samoa, includes more players and has different rules than cricket, but the two share distinct similarities: they consist of batting and fielding teams who play on a pitch, the bowling is done from either end by different bowlers, and batsmen look to score off deliveries all around the playing space.
Just when the cricket world was debating the ODI’s waning popularity and wondering just who’d watch another seven-match series, the suits at Foster’s, the Australian brewers, have come up with an ace: Foster’s girls. Four of them, clad in fetching blue-and-yellow skirts and with strawberry blonde hair under matching hats, accompanied the drinks on to the field during the India v Australia game at Vadodara on Sunday, doubtless sending temperatures around the stadium soaring even higher. While cheerleaders aren’t new to limited-overs cricket – the recent Champions League had the omnipresent White Mischief team – this is perhaps the first time in an official international bilateral series that the drinks break has been so enlivened. The girls will at the other six games too, which should help ease doubts over thinning attendance and the future of the ODI.
Two victories in different continents on the same night is quite an effort. A few hours before Simon Katich’s New South Wales outplayed Victoria in Delhi, an episode of Celebrity MasterChef featuring Katich aired on Australian TV. And what’s more, Katich was triumphant over his competitors, comedian Wendy Harmer and fashion designer Alex Perry.
Katich first prepared his signature dish, crispy salmon with wilted spinach and mashed potato, and then wowed the judges when he was asked to prepare a restaurant-quality ten-layer crepe cake. His crepes got him over the line and the victory was all the more impressive given that Katich has the disadvantage of having no sense of smell.
"Everyone thinks that not having a sense of smell must hold me back when I'm cooking, and especially when I'm tasting food, but I feel like my palette is no different,” he said. “When I describe a dish it's no different to anyone else. The only problem I have is I don't know when something is burning.”
Katich was taught to cook by his mother and whenever he’s at home he does most of the cooking for himself and his wife Georgie. He now finds himself in the semi-finals of the cooking show, along with Olympic swimmer Eamon Sullivan and INXS band member Kirk Pengilly.
In other television news, Shane Warne has reportedly accepted the role as the new presenter of Top Gear Australia, taking on the Jeremy Clarkson position in the Channel Nine version of the show. Perhaps his baked beans on toast weren't quite up to MasterChef standards.
Though not quite in the league of the legendary Tendulkar-Kambli school partnership, two junior cricketers from Delhi made sure they grabbed headlines when they added 349 for the second wicket in an Under-16 match. The LB Shastri club batsmen Nitish Rana and Siddharth Sehwag hit 185 and 134 respectively in the Delhi & District Cricket Association tournament on Monday.
Rana’s innings consumed 226 balls and included 24 fours, while Sehwag faced 215 balls and hit 23 fours to beat Malik Sports on the basis of a first-innings lead. Rana, 15, was joined at the crease by Sehwag, 14, on the second ball of their side’s innings and forged a mammoth partnership.
"We eat from the same plate … we understand each other enough," Sehwag, the Delhi Under-16 captain, told the Hindustan Times. “We like to bat together.”
Their stand was broken by an act of sportsmanship, something rarely seen by international players. Rana looked set for a double century but walked on 195, even after the umpire ruled him not out. "I knew I was out and I did not want to score a double-century with the feeling that I was out," he said.
Move over ice baths, deep-heat massages and resistance training - the new form of treatment could be "baggy-green therapy". Ask Australia’s opener Phil Jaques, who has turned to his Test cap to help him recover from a third operation to fix a bulging disc in his lower back. Jaques said he would would look at his baggy green in the lead-up to the operation to draw strength from it; post-op, he would look at the bottle-green fabric and national crest before heading off to the gym or pool for more conventional recuperative measures. ''I was really hungry to get back,'' Jaques told The Sydney Morning Herald. ''I'm still desperate to play for Australia again; there was no way I could have gone through everything I did if I didn't have that desire.''
West Indies cricket’s loss has clearly been athletics’ gain. Usain Bolt was said to be a handy cricketer before he concentrated on sprinting and during a charity match on Sunday he proved just how capable he was. Bolt not only struck Chris Gayle for a straight six but, as this Youtube video shows, he went on to bowl Gayle after welcoming him to the crease with a rising bouncer.
Reuters reported that Bolt brought the crowd to their feet when, “taking a long run up and bowling at a respectable pace, [he] had given Gayle a traditional West Indian welcome with his first ball". "I told Chris to watch out I was going to give him one but he didn't really believe it," Bolt said after the game.
Bolt batted with his brother Sadeeki and made 13 but reportedly looked more rusty with the bat than with the ball. His technique even impressed Curtly Ambrose, who was taking part in the match and said he was pleased to see Bolt’s “short and very surprising” opening ball to Gayle.
"I was pretty good as a kid and my cricket coach said I should concentrate on bowling because I was pretty quick running in," Bolt said. "I also used to open the batting for the school team but I haven't batted for a long time. The six was a brilliant feeling though. I shouldn't have got out so early but that six was a brilliant shot."
It’s a run-out waiting to happen. Usain Bolt has agreed to strap on the pads this Sunday and take part in a mini-tournament in Jamaica featuring Chris Gayle and a host of past and present West Indies players. Bolt’s love of cricket is well-known and it’ll be a brave batsman who takes him on in the field for a sneaky single.
"In terms of sport, cricket is my first love," Bolt said. "I grew up watching cricketers like Courtney Walsh take the West Indies to new heights - and I am a big admirer of Chris Gayle for his power batting and calm attitude; he is my favourite player right now. So, to have the chance to play with these guys is a dream come true for me."
The Pro 15/15 cricket tournament will feature current stars including Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Jerome Taylor, as well as legends of the past such as Walsh, Curtly Ambrose and Richie Richardson. You have to pity whoever has to run between the wickets with Bolt. He can cover 100 metres in 9.58 seconds so, ignoring for a moment his carrying pads and bat, a 22-yard pitch should take him approximately two seconds.
There are many uses for a cricket bat, as Daniel Brookes found out when he attempted to rob a house in the village of Alderley Edge in the English county of Cheshire. Thea Taylor, a mother of two, was woken from her sleep in the early hours of the morning by the sound of intruders and grabbed the nearest thing - a bat used in the Ashes and signed by members of the England squad. Wielding the bat like a lightsabre, Taylor chased the intruder out of her house. An alert passerby noted down the getaway vehicles license plates and the perpetrator was duly apprehended by the local authorities.
The bat belonged to Taylor's husband after he bid for it in a charity auction. "I can't remember how much we paid for it but it is definitely now my lucky bat and worth its weight in gold," said Taylor, whose batsmanship so impressed a recorder judge that she issued her a Crown Court Commendation for chasing Brookes out of the house.
Brookes' lawyer was left with little more to say than the choice made by the defendant, when confronted by a lady with a cricket bat, was to run, and not retaliate.
Burglars be forewarned - anyone entering Taylor's house without permission stands to become the subject of a hook shot to the head.
Few could match Sir Donald Bradman’s batting but it looks like his signature - as valuable, in monetary terms, on the auction floor - is far easier to copy. Some signatures of The Don sold by former England cricketer Dermott Reeve, who once owned a memorabilia shop, are under scrutiny by the Bradman Foundation because they are deemed too messy to be genuine. Bradman “was a very careful writer; he had beautiful handwriting”, the Bradman Museum’s marketing manager Joanne Crowley told AFP , so the "messy" signatures are being checked by a leading expert. "This is not about trying to discredit Mr Reeve, it's about trying to protect Sir Donald Bradman's name and intellectual property." Unreliable Bradman memorabilia was becoming prolific, even in shops near the museum in Bowral, Bradman's hometown near Sydney. "It's like a Louis Vuitton handbag or a Gucci wallet - there are knock-offs everywhere," she said.
Buddhism, monasteries and trekking are what you’d associate with Bhutan. And now cricket - Bhutan Post, to commemorate a century of the monarchy, has released four stamps based on cricket. While three feature local players and coaches, one of the stamps has a picture of Roger Binny, the former India cricketer, in situ at his place of work. Binny spent four years in Bhutan from 2004-2008 as the Development Officer of the Asian Cricket Council and was flabbergasted to see his work being committed to perpetuity. “I never knew about something like that,” Binny - now Bengal coach - told Hindustan Times. “It’s a great honour. I cherished the four years I had been there.” The country’s famous Gross National Happiness has just gone up a bit more.
While the Chinese have embraced cricket and espouse aspirations of beating India in a Test, their geopolitical rivals to the north are yet to come to grips with the strange sport. However, members of the Indian diaspora in Russia, like in most other countries where cricket is searching for a fan base, are again proving to be the game’s most passionate exporters. Ashvani Chopra, a businessman of Indian origin, who presides over Russia’s United Cricket League (RUCL), says the game is taking off in the country. In fact, the RUCL is conducting an annual championship with seven clubs, one of which consists of players with Russian citizenship.
"We started playing here in 1995 just for fun. In 2001 we conducted a small tournament, in which three teams - Australia, India and the selection of the rest of the world - were playing,” Chopra told AFP. "The tournament was a success and it became the reference point of our league."
And the commitment to grooming local talent is high on the agenda. "We dream of creating a Russian national team," Chopra said. "We decided that every club should have at least one local player in their line-up. From now on it's an indispensable condition for every one of the league's clubs."
But there are problems aplenty, the most immediate of which is the lack of equipment. "It's impossible to find cricket bats or the correct balls here in Moscow," Chopra said. "We have to bring all this stuff from home to play here. But we're ready to overcome any difficulties in the name of the game. Nothing can stop us. For all of us cricket is the biggest passion."
When Jock Campbell, physical trainer of the Australian team led by Steve Waugh, was asked who the most intense player in that team was, his answer was simple - Justin Langer. And one of the reasons behind that intensity could just be the Bushido Cross. This honour is awarded to Black Belt holders from the Zen Do Kai (ZDK) School founded by Bob Jones in Melbourne. Zen Do Kai is a martial art form that draws influences from other fighting forms such as Brazilian jiu-jitsu, boxing, karate, eskrima, judo, and muay thai.
Introduced to ZDK at the age of 16, dealing with a broken nose as a result of sparring with his mentor John Andrew, soon became commonplace for Langer. “ZDK taught me discipline, to respect elders and when carried over to cricket, helped me concentrate,” Langer told the Hindu. Small wonder then that the fiercest bouncers on the cricket field were dealt with aplomb.
As cricket strives to increasingly become a global sport, so do the opening ceremonies of its marquee events. The launch of the Champions League Twenty20 at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore on October 8 will showcase the martial-art skills of China’s shaolin monks and Kerela’s kalaripayattu artists in what promises to be a glitzy and high-budget affair. The 30-minute ceremony will also feature Grammy winners Chaka Khan and Shaggy, along with well-known pop artist Jamelia. Also in the mix are Japanese drummers and dancers wearing yards of silks that will unfurl into the team flags. The CEO of the Champions League Twenty20 Sundar Raman said it would be at par with some of the best ceremonies seen on TV.
An umpire’s life is tough: they stand for hours watching ball after ball, are subjected to withering stares by players when appeals are turned down or upheld, criticised for bad decisions but not praised for any good ones and now face the indignity of technology. But what seems to be the unkindest cut of all is the miserly duration of the tea break, a grouse first-class umpires in England plan to raise before the ECB. Umpires, they will point out, are the last to leave the ground at a session break and first to return at resumption of play so they don’t get enough time to put their feet up, sip that Earl Grey and munch on soggy cucumber sandwiches.
Jack Simmons, the chairman of ECB’s cricket committee, said extending the break by ten minutes would not be a problem. “The umpires have never asked for anything in the past to my knowledge and I am aware that they have less time off the field than the players,” Simmons told The Times. “Extending the intervals by five or ten minutes would not go amiss and it would also suit the county chief executives, as spectators would have more time to eat at their bars and restaurants and be less inclined to bring sandwiches.”
Another international cricketer has got in trouble over Twitter. Tim Bresnan, the England allrounder, launched into an angry response towards a follower who created an unflattering image of the cricketer and was forced to apologise to team management.
Bresnan, who joins Graeme Swann and James Anderson as England players ‘twittering’, had bantered with his team-mates, but took serious offence to the image posted by someone he didn’t know.
“Don’t mind my mates dishing it out,” he wrote, “but who the *** are you. Crawl out of your basement. U ****.”
Swann, the joker in England’s team, clearly found the whole thing very amusing and was seen pulling at Bresnan’s pants during training. However, England coach Andy Flower said players had a responsibility to behave. "It is pretty simple if you are on a public site like that - you have to behave yourself," he said.
Bresnan isn't the first sportsman – or even cricketer – to get into hot water for using Twitter. During the Ashes, Phil Hughes announced his axing from the third Test over Twitter and although his manager later took the blame, Hughes was reminded about team discipline.
The Buzz brings slices of cricket life ranging from the curious to the obscure; from off-beat to bizarre. Edited by Will Luke, Brydon Coverdale and Jamie Alter
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