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as the male friend making the accusation would he have said the guy was coming on to every woman in the room he s clearly a liar no of course not because to the mallyas of the world it s only ok to judge and condemn women with the label of promiscuity not only that but it s the only condemnation necessary no need to actually address the actual allegations whether pomersbach actually did what he was accused of doing nothing about pomersbach at all actually for the record pomersbach may well be innocent i believe it s entirely possible that the allegations against him were completely fabricated it doesn t matter this isn t about him it wasn t luke pomersbach s actions innocence or guilt that mallya was talking about which would be necessary if he were in fact supporting his player dirk for mallya it was enough to condemn the woman with the oldest ugliest way possible brand her a whore what other evidence could anyone need that s misogyny for you folks ingrained and ugly and of course completely unquestioned rate this asshattery idiocy ipl sidhartha mallaya 12 comments for grant posted by reigna in new zealand odis on 22 03 2012 i first saw grant elliott play in 2008 new zealand were playing england in an odi at old trafford and batting first had lost their top 5 batsmen for less than 50 runs adding insult to injury two of those wickets had been taken by stuart broad his accuracy miraculously unimpeded by his combination emo bangs flock of seagulls hair broad and tremlett enormously tall bowlers both were extracting vicious rearing bounce and movement off the pitch and the kiwi batsmen had looked alternately clueless and frantic in the brief moments they were actually at the crease i was watching for daniel vettori he may have batted like a man still learning how to control all four of his new prosthetic limbs but everyone knew he was the only one who could save new zealand i had never seen nor heard of grant elliott before unsurprisingly as that was only his second odi after leaving his native south africa for new zealand doing time in domestic cricket and playing for weybridge in the surrey leagues to hone his skills he d finally earned a call up to the new zealand side as injury cover for the all rounder they would clearly much rather have had jacob oram jacob oram is tall burly a well known presence with his shambling walk and shaggy hair and broad gleaming grin promising big hitting and salvation in the middle order grant elliott lean and rangy walked out to the middle wearing a new zealand kit at least two sizes too big for him every inch a stoic yet forlorn substitute for the real thing epitomizing the hopelessness of the cause a club cricketer being unceremoniously tossed to the wolves that had decimated the heavyweights his presence barely registered a bored sounding geoffrey boycott mentioned that though this was elliott s second odi it would be his batting debut then promptly resumed talking about how terrible new zealand were he didn t mention that though elliott hadn t batted in his debut odi rain had curtailed new zealand s innings he had bowled well enough to return figures of 3 23 claiming owais shah paul collingwood and luke wright perhaps boycott didn t remember or thought it wasn t relevant surely one of broad tremlett or anderson would take out the newcomer and the england juggernaut would roll on two dot balls a few moments of daniel flynn s wild slashing and elliott was facing up to red hot stuart broad a ricocheting short ball sent him leaping arching back as it whistled past his helmet far too close for comfort broad grinned his best version of a shark s smile and i saw elliott smile also wide and easy considering amused relaxed it wasn t a shaky grin of false bravado or the sweaty anxious involuntary grimace smile of a newbie who knows he is cannon fodder suddenly the overlarge shirt not being jacob oram and the direness of the situation didn t seem to matter he resumed his stance touched his bat to the deck looked up again directly at broad standing at the top of his runup and smiled again even wider this time a lopsided han solo smile bring it on he didn t set the ground alight that day with explosive hitting grant elliott is not that kind of player quite and brendon mccullum had already tried that only to hole out for 17 what he did instead was stay at the crease calmly leaving good deliveries and putting away bad ones remaining as flynn hopkins and even vettori the saviour came and went in quick succession when kyle mills opened up and began to hit long and hard elliott let him concentrating on his self imposed task leave good balls hit anything that s there to be hit only at the end of the penultimate over in a bid for a final quick haul of runs did he go misjudging only slightly but enough for luke wright to hold the catch a step in from the boundary he d made 52 but he d stayed for 102 balls and over 2 hours later in the day he would run in send down a fast fullish delivery to chris tremlett and watch it balloon up off the top edge of the bat directly into his captain s hands his second wicket winning the game for new zealand with 22 runs to spare and he d smile again a huge triumphant grin as his teammates mobbed him he wouldn t be remembered for any of that though five minutes at the oval ensured that grant elliott would be permanently stamped that guy ryan sidebottom smashed into and paul collingwood screwed over even as mark gillespie hit the winning runs in the glorious chaos as kyle mills completed the run and leapt punching the air and the usually mild mannered daniel vettori who had sat glowering with cold barely suppressed rage on the balcony though the final overs sprang to his feet screaming obscenities 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 exce...