SouLBW

Notes on The Ashes

Dear Reader,

One-half of SouLBW is awake in the mountains to the sounds of the Ashes.  Good stuff yesterday, not so much today.  And as I write, the Aussies stand at 220 for 1 with the Krab looking even crabbier, and Captain-sahib well on his way to a mandatory Ashes century.  Here are our thoughts (in no particular order):

1. So a solid start by England yesterday, with the whole appearing greater than the sum of its parts.  But the more I see the Krab scuttling across the crease and dead-batting Anderson’s offerings, 500 seems par for the course.
2. The Krab is playing so much straighter.  Wouldn’t it be just lovely to watch him and Chanderpaul bat for hours at end?
3. Philip (he insists on NOT being called Phil) is an alien.  His technique looks jacked (I can’t recall a more fidgety batsman at the crease), he’s even uglier than the Krab when he leaves/deals with short deliveries aimed at his head/neck/chest, but this country+Abercrombie boy can bat for sure.  One glorious cut shot was orgasmic (orgasmic |ôrˈgazmik|adjective: of or relating to orgasm.  • (of a person) able to achieve orgasm.  • informal figurative: very enjoyable or exciting).
4. The more I see him, the more I like Swanny.  Sings?  Check.  Plays the acoustic guitar?  Check.  Does both better than Brett Lee AND is not injured?  Check.  Hit a brilliant cameo (47 n.o.) yesterday.  Bowling better than Monty today.  I’d prefer running into him than Siddle in a bar.
5. Speaking of Siddle: Siddle+Johnson+Hilfy+Hauritz gave away more looseners and loose balls in one day than McGrath did in his entire Ashes career.  I don’t have the stats, but I’m sure of it.
6. Hauritz can’t even be mentioned in the same sentence as Warne.  But to be fair to him, nor can a whole lot of other tweakers.
7. Ten Sports et al should take a leaf out of Sky Sports’ coverage and production values.  Clean, understated, calm; in a word, classy.  Watching the recent India-WI series was a pain in the arse.  The MC dudes were loud, knew zilch about cricket, and the entire production was a tactless affair.  Whatever happened to the aesthetics of sports broadcasting?  Oh, and Anil Kumble is boring.  As fuck.
8. Nass and Athers are the future of commentating.  Frank and forthright, here are two dudes who’ve made the leap from cricketers to commentators (Botham still hasn’t), and more significantly, two dudes who are compatible.
9. There seem to be no customary hot-girls-in-stands watching the cricket in Cardiff.  Only a gay cameramen who kept panning on a David Gower impersonator (who wasn’t half-as-pretty as the real thing).
10. A four-match India vs. WI ODI series is not the shite.  The Ashes is the shite.
11. That’s the way Pietersen will bat.  I don’t agree with this analysis, but it’s more right than wrong (i.e., there is method in the Pietersen madness).
12. The Krab just scored his hundred.  So has Punter.  Goodnight England.