The top 20 crickety things you need to get straight for the upcoming season

The top 20 crickety things you need to get straight for the upcoming season.

  1. Forming an on-field huddle has no effect whatsoever on the bowling and fielding performance following said huddle.
  2. There is no such thing as reverse swing.
  3. A grown man should never stand up in public and hold a piece of paper with’4′ or ‘6’ printed on it. The boozed up boundary arm sweep and bladdered Dickie Bird six signal are, however, to be encouraged at all times.
  4. There was never just one team out there playing cricket.
  5. A batsman knowing how many balls are left in the over does not aid surviving the next ball.
  6. Nowt wrong with an aluminium bat.
  7. Richie is not a god. He is god.
  8. Ian Bell does not deserve to be sledged. Ian Bell deserves to be punched in the face. Repeatedly.
  9. Glenn McGrath is not and never has been the suppository of all sledging knowledge.
  10. Cricket’s just not cricket.
  11. Knowing that a leggie was bowled at 2,237 RPM does nothing to improve the viewing pleasure of a cricket match.
  12. Wickets do not come in twos.
  13. We probably didn’t need Greigy telling us how huge every six was.
  14. The box is not an ‘abdomen protector’. That’s just political correctness gone mad.
  15. Back in ’04? Down at Fawkner Park? When I was given run out? No way. In by a mile.
  16. The underarm wasn’t that bad.
  17. Aussie Rules wasn’t invented to keep cricketers fit in the off-season. Cricketers aren’t even fit in the on-season.
  18. No shame in losing to Holland
  19. The late cut is not a skill. It’s a work of art.
  20. ‘The pause’ makes no difference to a pint of Guinness. At all. Guinness, on the other hand, makes a great deal of difference to compiling stupid lists.

Comments

  1. Thank you Patrick. As the weather improves and the whites are bought out again, this stuff is very very helpful

    Agree completely on No. 11, love 17 and my sympathies on 15

    Sean

  2. Malcolm Ashwood says

    Loved it Patrick very entertaining

  3. Luke Reynolds says

    Can’t argue with anything here. Especially number 20. Great stuff Patrick.

  4. G’day Patrick,
    I like the way you’re thinking.
    2, 7, 11 & 13 could be addressed to Channel 9.

    The blokey old boy’s commentary box filled with good old boys, the morphing of analysis into advertising over the past few years, the failure to “add value(!!)” to vision over decades now, has me wondering:
    What are the top developments you’d like to see on free to air TV coverage of cricket?
    Adios, djwilson, Dreaming.

  5. Patrick O'Brien says

    Hi there DJ

    Yep, the television commentary box has left a lot to be desired for a good number of years now, as many people have observed, especially when contrasted with vastly superior radio coverage. Perhaps Ned’s Atomic Dustbin had it right all along: Kill your television!

    I’m not sure of any developments I’d like to see, apart from more wit and intelligence and less chuckleheaded, brand obsessed, faux excited, nicknamed, single-digit-IQ celebrating, boorish, backslapping buffoonery that outdoes itself on a daily basis in its determination to lower the bar of what is considered acceptable broadcasting in this country. Does ‘stop going backwards’ count as a development? Perhaps I could widen the net to another sport and say: Less Newman, more Benaud.

    It might simply be a case of looking back to what worked and keep that going. As Rob Brydon said in the first Trip movie: you can’t do anything new, you just need to do things better.

    There’s probably a PhD to be written on how the relentless commercialisation of Channel Nine’s cricket coverage reflects the wider debasing of Australian mainstream culture that’s been obvious since the mid-80s, reaching an ugly nadir with the current Federal Government’s depressingly inevitable continuation of the barbaric culture wars. (Yes, Turnbull, we’re looking at you.)

    Or I might be talking out of my hat.

Leave a Comment

*