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ies and pounding the railings with clenched fists the cameras only briefly caught elliott laughing with joy before disappearing into a tangle of hugging new zealanders the next time i saw him he steadily took new zealand to victory against australia at melbourne in the chappell hadlee series and i wondered if he d do it again to give them the series in sydney i didn t see the han solo smile in sydney the sydney innings was pure grit and running lots and lots of running watching big hitting batsmen rack up boundary runs is what people seem to want to see but i couldn t stop watching elliott sweating profusely chest heaving pale eyes intense and staring in his narrow dark face pounding the scg pitch always forcing one more run darting in and out of the crease in a way that most indian batsmen can t even visualize as part of an aspirational yoga excercise tempo never easing until a final tired swing at the death found michael hussey at deep midwicket he sweated and bled for his runs the same way iain o brien did for his wickets because he had to i was riveted he became a stabilizer a composed middle order striker with correct technical strokes and the ability to stay at the crease instead of perishing in a flurry of misguided shots and he kept chipping in with the ball economically bowling wicket to wicket getting swing prising out a wicket here two more there a strong solid extra bowler and every now and then breaking through the earnest intentness the incongruous wide lopsided han solo grin a misplaced swashbuckler s smile the champions trophy would be the pinnacle a ripping bowling spell produced out of nowhere in his home city of johannesburg was more of a joyous fairy tale than you ever usually get in real life a bellow of incredulous jubilation ringing out at each wicket after the high he was out for just 3 at new zealand s turn at bat which went mostly unremarked on in the wake of the brendon mccullum and martin guptill blitzkrieg that carried new zealand through to the semis it emerged later that a spitting delivery from stuart broad had snapped his thumb it was still broken as he fought his way to an unbeaten 75 in the semifinal and as he shook hands with a pakistan team gracious in defeat the thumb was the beginning of what looks to be the end injuries forced him out of the new zealand side at the highest point of his rise and the window closed in 2011 he was 32 still fighting injuries and not selected for the test or odi teams remaining instead captain of the domestic wellington firebirds in that capacity a few days ago he reached 188 not out against the central stags in the plunket shield breaking free of a lean run of form just shy of a maiden first class 200 he then declared the innings remaining on 188 to give his team the best chance of bowling out the opposition for victory in the rapidly worsening weather it didn t work it s difficult for a non player like me to comprehend the frustration of something like that but despite the fact that it s kind of heartbreaking it s reassuring in a way it s always nice when an awesome classy player does something to remind you of that fact about himself grant elliott turned 33 yesterday which is why i m writing this because i was a fan ever since that first odi and that first awesome han solo smile all the way through because i still listen to plunket shield on the radio in the middle of the night to see how the firebirds are going with him at the helm because cricket is great at fêting its rockstars and celebrities but usually ignores the quietly classy and the gritty driven guys who do the hard unglamorous stuff well for reasons i can t begin to understand espncricinfo didn t include grant elliott s birthday on their list of notable happenings in cricket for the 21 st of march i m not sure why they didn t feel they needed to acknowledge him but they didn t and it s not the first thing they ve done that i disagree with but it is something i can combat so i wrote this for grant happy birthday ge rate this awesomeness grant elliott tribute 5 comments say goodnight and go posted by reigna in australia england odis on 21 02 2012 so this is how it ends for ricky i had truly hoped it wouldn t happen this way he was never my favourite player in the world but he is still ricky ponting bona fide legend one of the best there s ever been with a bat and in the field one day even his hairy arms and that constant disconcerting hand spitting will be discussed with respectful awe in the tone used to discuss those chosen near mythical few because he is a legend and there s probably not a cricket fan in their right mind who would seriously attempt to dispute it today though seated behind a table with flashes going off left and right in his face he looked almost painfully human ricky is not a small man he s still in the shape that befits an elite sportsman and he remained entirely composed not visibly distraught not stricken or anguished but he looked even if only infinitesimally diminished because there was no way to escape the fact that he was there not to announce a decision of his own choosing that he was there because the axe had been dropped and everything about ricky that makes him legendary wasn t enough to stop it he was there because he had not seen the writing on the wall had not taken the many chances tacitly offered to him to accede to the inevitable on his own terms dignified as he was he was there to talk about the fact that someone had been forced to finally tell him what they d been hoping he d figure out for himself but didn t and with such a thing comes stinging humiliation no matter how you try to slice it oh ricky i started watching cricket properly late in life in 2005 i still didn t know too much about things but i knew enough to quake slightly for england when steve harmison s bouncer smacked into the side of ricky s head on day 1 at lords and sliced open his face it was as reflexive as when in the split second after you see someone tread on a cat s tail you know with complete certainty that bloody retribution will follow it s the natural law of things in 2005 i didn t have to formulate a conscious thought to know for sure for sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that cutting ricky ponting s face open would result in truly terrible vengeance so much so that i didn t even have to particularly like england to wince at the thought of the ravaging that awaited them that ricky seems a distant dim memory now even though ricky will still play tests even though i have no doubt that he will still continue to prove his immense worth there he s not the same ricky he s never been a favourite i ve never even really liked the man but that still makes me sad rate this ricky ponting sigh steve harmison 1 comment toeless white mongol s fantastic incredible adventure posted by reigna in australia new zealand south africa t20 tests zimbabwe on 17 02 2012 martin guptill is a man who demands nicknames this would be true even if he weren t a sportsman existing in an environment where everyone must be referred to by nickname even if as with england a lot of the time said nickname is pretty much just the player s actual name with a y tacked on the end for one thing there s his unusual last name for another the fact that the man has only 7 toes my old nickname for him therefore was guppy two toes which if not exactly supremely imaginative was at least a hell of a lot more so than cooky belly straussy and the rest of them as if the england team were made up entirely of cutesy singing dwarves that is a nickname of the past from a time when the new zealand team and especially their batting lineup were either plucky underdogs who never quite made it happen for themselves or a straight up punchline their bowlers were mostly immune from the criticism on account of not sucking at their own jobs and regularly picking up the slack after each inevitable batting collapse practically every set of photographs taken of daniel vettori from that time has a couple showing him jaw set and brow furrowed under his helmet padded up and striding out with an air of angry resignation to bail his team out of trouble by batting for a couple of hours in a style apparently learned from a coaching manual printed by monty python s ministry of silly walks but things it seems are different now with new zealand their atlas vettori plays only tests now and their team lineup is suddenly bristling with fresh faced players not old enough to know what audio cassettes are but it s working for them zimbabwe might not have been the most challenging of opponents though they have the capacity to be much tougher than they were during this last series but new zealand demolished them over and over again at every venue and in every format to my obvious delight one of the main architects of new zealand s dominance was none other than chris martin 37 years of age and in the bowling form of his life perhaps invigorated by reducing phil hughes to a bloody smear on the ground in the australia series this may in some part explain why one of the search phrases used to find this blog recently was cricket the back of chris martin s head but that s something i don t really want to think too much about except to assume that someone out there has a thing for graceful bald men who can swing a cricket ball which is fair enough the other standout kiwi was of course guptill he s always been a superb fielder so much so that he manages to stand out in a side that is primarily known for being a uniformly excellent fielding unit he was the third part of the hughes b martin equation in addition to flinging himself all over the place taking catches and stopping runs and when he wasn t doing that he was batting like he s never batted before he s showed flashes of this ability in the past but never so consistently and now he resembles a man who has eye of the tiger playing constantly in his head and has entrenched himself so deeply into the zone that he probably cuts his food and puts on pants with exactly the same intensity and optimal use of technique it showed clearly in today s t20 the one that kicked off the start of the south africa tour a k a the real test of the new and improved now with 40 more badass new zealand side after a spectacular runout of hashim amla that ended with both players and several stumps tangled up in a heap on the pitch and had everyone and their grandmother instantly referencing the legendary jonty rhodes moment he then proceeded to carry his bat through the new zealand innings and score most of the runs except the winning ones which he graciously left to james franklin the man seems unstoppable however he is also possessed of facial hair and bone structure that especially when he s wearing a helmet makes him look uncannily like a less asiatic ghenghis khan it s actually distracting yet it might just be the source of all his powers and so should be accorded due respect thus his new nickname will now be the toeless white mongol it s not short and snappy like good nicknames should ideally be but i think it s the name he s earned go forth twm and conquer rate this chris martin daniel vettori martin guptill ministry of silly walks nicknames phil hughes leave a comment bands of outsiders posted by reigna in australia india t20 on 27 09 2011 it s that time of year time for the champions league aka the t20 tournament that s kind of like the ipl except more involving and slightly less idiotic in execution or tttkliemisle as it is almost certainly never referred to it has ipl teams obviously since otherwise no one in india would watch and none of the usual slew of advertisers would want to make their presence known with their customary deft subtlety i actually quite like this tournament i will almost certainly like it less and less as the final draws nearer between what will very likely be two ipl sides complete with the massive avalanche of idiocy that scenario will entail the reason i like it at the moment is because of the presence of the strong club and county sides filled with talented and motivated players that are for the most part familiar to only their home supporters and to people like me who follow county regional cricket in new zealand and england despite not being from or living in either of those countries but we are a rare and unbalanced breed as glorious as it is to see the elite players and the legends working their magic screwing up royally delete as applicable during the rest of the year there is a special pleasure in watching the as yet undiscovered kids and the small time pros step up to their time in the big arena the new zealand contingent obviously weren t quite good enough i did get to watch chris martin and lou vincent my adoration of whom is well documented which is a silver lining albeit admittedly a pretty slender one maybe more of a silver tracing somerset who are of course playing without their front liner marcus trescothick another of my all time favourites have done far better and this makes me happy because even bangerless they are awesome with a fantastic captain in alfonso thomas i m neither entirely proud of this nor able to fully explain it but the greatest joy by far that the champions trophy affords is the sight of the ipl teams getting beaten by county and regional teams the more comprehensive the defeat the happier i am i don t care if it s an english or an australian or a south african team dealing the damage i should point out that this has little to do with the players with the exception of a small but fuckwitted handful of them and more to do with the simple fact that they re ipl teams they re associated with the shrillness and painful stupidity of that entire ridiculous overblown klaxon show and therefore the more matches they lose the more vindictively happy that makes me because i am an angry person who doesn t like stupid shit maybe it s partly because of the ipl owners watching kkr going down in spectacular fashion at this very moment against the south australia redbacks is a delightful experience not because i dislike ryan ten doeschate or gautam gambhir ok maybe a little or brett lee quite the contrary in fact nor out of any especial love for south australia kkr just needs to lose they have a stupid name dumb outfits and an owner who is one of the most painfully idiotic and narcissistic men in existence so viva le champions league i approve if there was a decent test on right now you can be sure as hell that would be on my tv instead but this will do in its place a little schadenfreude is good for the soul bring it on rate this champions league chris martin ipl lou vincent marcus trescothick leave a comment the farnsworth post posted by reigna in india random on 25 09 2011 after the last post on my feelings regarding the death of the late mansur ali khan pataudi these were the top searches that led newcomers to the blog mansur ali khan pataudi wealth mansoor 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