I have now officially moved ...

... to http://thoughtsfromthedustbin.com

Please come and visit me there.

Pretty please?

Dustbin Cricket Quickies: 5 things about ... Shane Watson

The new spot to celebrate the new blog – 5 things you didn’t know (and probably never wanted to) about a particular cricketer. I put five questions to a cricketer each week and this is what they tell me.*

To set things going, who else but Shane Watson?

1. What exactly does he do? He shows up, he gets paid. Sometimes he bats and very occasionally he bowls. His job description definitely involves really pissing me off (it’s actually in his contract).

2. What is his favourite song? Shame and Fortune by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (but only because he thinks it’s called “Shane” and fortune) (I couldn’t bring myself to correct him). 

3. If he were a food, what would he be? A McDonald’s burger – on occasion it tastes good, but then you eat it too often and it begins to make you sick.

4. Who is his favourite opponent? Common sense and a guy named Katich.

5. If he wasn’t a cricketer, what would he be? That big dumb blonde guy from Wherethefuck, Queensland who puts salt and vinegar on your chips and can’t pull a pint for shit.

*this is a lie. I make it all up (just in case you were wondering).

Next week … Lord Nathan

***To leave a comment, please go to the new blog at http://thoughtsfromthedustbin.com ***

Please update your blogrolls

It's only a few days now until this page moves completely to http://thoughtsfromthedustbin.com so please can you all update your blog rolls?

Ta.

Kirby

Shane Warne – in you we must not trust

Thanks to the heavily updated site Cricket Blitz I was made aware of a survey done by the Reader’s Digest of 1,000 people in Australia. They were asked to rank famous people and professions out of ten, ten being the most trustworthy.

When all was calculated, Shane Warne had ranked lowest.

Are we surprised? No. We trusted him once, and he gave us Michael Beer.

The man deserveth not our faith.

England win the 2031 Ashes series

Remember when test cricket was the only game around? Well, that was slightly before my time (only slightly, mind) but remember when test cricket was the game we all really cared about?

Remember when we really didn’t give a shit about T20 and the Ashes was the most important thing ever?

Can we go back there, please? This crap and the cutting of Katich (despite racking up the most … yeah, you know it all by now) just feels like Cricket Australia’s line of thinking is “We’ve lost the Ashes, we’re not that good at test cricket anymore: instead of trying to improve and get the Ashes back why don’t we just forget about it and focus on our own little version of the IPL? Hey! We can even pay the players less if they don’t sign up for the Big Bash. That’ll fuck test cricket right up.”

Congratulations England. You have just won the Ashes for the next twenty years.

Cricket Australia really are bastards, aren’t they (or is it just me)?

Tips for staying in good with Cricket Australia (and maybe keep your contract)

• Don’t be a spinner, unless you are Shane Warne reincarnated. They might let you play a bit, they might even give you a contract but if you aren’t turning the ball the width of Mike Gatting they will get sick of you pretty quickly and move on to the next nobody.

• Date as many bimbos as you can, get yourself in the paper for things other than cricket as often as possible, even leave tours to go appease your girlfriend who was stupid enough to let some idiot take a naked photo of her. Have so little commitment to your team that a colleague – who is entirely committed – confronts you about it and is gets so angry he assaults you. That should keep you in well sweet with the NSP. They might even make you captain.

• Be a complete nobody who has been marginally above average for your state side, get picked for no apparent reason to play in the Ashes (over and above the established spinner) and be completely shit throughout the series.

• Be a dumb blonde, have a baby face and occasionally get more than 50 runs. The people will love you (and avoid those blogs that make fun of you) and so will the NSP.

• Don’t amass an amazing amount of runs, after fighting your way back into the test side with sheer hard work and stability after last time you were made to wear the scapegoat cap. Don’t be a great state captain and, for the love of Nate, never be test cricketer of the year and get injured just a few months later.

• Don’t be consistently good. There’s no need. So long as you can show up occasionally and save the game for the team, the people will love you and the selectors will overlook your age and your general average-ness* and you will be safe forever and ever. They might even look kindly upon your brother, just for extra reward.

And finally …

• It’s a good idea to be Ricky Ponting if you can. They might take away from you the only thing you’ve really been good at the last couple of years (the captaincy), but you will not lose your place in the team because you’re way too high profile for that.

*the calling of Mike Hussey “average” for the purposes of humour only. Not intended to be take seriously.

... And life goes on in Australian Cricket

To: michael.clarke@dontstranglemearsehole.com.au
From: shaun.marsh@notsimonkatich.com.au

Mike,

Right, everybody’s had their say about Katto being dropped – none more so than Kat himself – and we’ve all done interviews and said how bad we feel; great player yada yada yada but a few days have passed and now it’s time for some opportunistic grave jumping – can I be the new opener, please?
Come on, I’m so much better at this than Phil. Well, really I’m just a bit better than Phil but he’s a little kid and my dad’s all famous and shit. Plus, I need to get all test matchy before someone discovers that my little bro is actually a better player than me – Please can I open with Shane? Please?
I know being the only guy who uses more hair product that you is a bit intimidating, but I’ll let you have all my towels in the change room. Promise.

Big Kisses,

Shaunie

*****

To: shaun.marsh@notsimonkatich.com.au
From: michael.clarke@dontstranglemearsehole.com.au

Sorry … who are you again?

Mike “Dog” Clarke

Simon Katich - his career in blogs

Actually, the title is a bit misleading. This isn’t about Katich’s career in blogs. And there’s one reason for that – most people didn’t spend time writing blogs about Katich. He wasn’t a pretty player and he wasn’t easy to make fun of, like Ponting or Clarke or that gem of the pisstake,Twatto; he wasn’t fat like Bollinger or Warne and his selection was never a mystery, like Krejza or – dare I say it – North.

He was simply there, doing his job and doing it well.

In fact, I imagine more has been written about Katich in the blog world in the last 48 hours than in his entire career (and there still weren’t that many). So, unllike the Ricky Ponting version of this post, I thought I’d list those pieces written in the last few days about the man who went from Australian Test Cricketer of the Year to unemployed in the space of a few months.

Naturally, the grandaddy of ‘em all CWB had something to say about it – twice: One pre-outburst and one post-outburst. And, incidentally, Jrod’s right – is should have been all three of the oldies or none of them. Dumping the one of the three who has actually be consistently performing makes no sense.

And my bestest buddy in the blog world, Ian at the Baggy Green Blog, had one of those uber-rants he likes to have when he feels strongly about something. Take an hour out to read it through – it’s worth it. Make sure you join us in making a jab at Warne while you’re there.

Far be it for Cricket Action Art to miss an opportunity to say something about Aussie cricket The Krab is scuttled.

The lovely Greyblazer ponders the wisdom of putting so much faith in Phil Hughes over Katich, which is a valid ponderance but one I have barely yet reached due to excessive sulkage.

And, finally, a new blog in my life talks about the joy of other cricketing nations at the supposed “fall” of Australian cricket but expresses his surprise at Katich’s attack on his governing body. He ultimately blames Katich’s dropping on the attack on Clarke a few years back. It’s been a joke on the social networking sites, of course, but it isn’t the reason.

One of my readers, Lou, is certain that Katich’s outburst won’t make a difference. And, who are we kidding? she’s probably right. As if those arseholes will take any notice. But at least Simon can go to sleep at night knowing that he was the one who actually stood up and said something.

Of course, would he have said it if he hadn’t lost his contract …?

The Move

As of June 30th, this blog will move permanently to http://thoughtsfromthedustbin.com. In the meantime, I will post most pieces on both blogs so by all means keep coming here and commenting if you feel like it. Please do support the new page if you can - either now or when I move - because I pay for it. And I need you all to make it worth my money.

Please?

Dustbin Cricket Obituaries: Marcus James North

Here lie the remains of 

Marcus J North

who we seem to care less about that Katto;

who made a century on debut and again at Cardiff;

who helped us to a miraculous draw at Birmingham and

who took six wickets at Lord’s (and is generally considered a pretty handy spinner)

He found himself to be right royally shafted by Cricket Australia

on June 7th, 2011.

The body is to be cremated and the ashes blown in the face of Hilditch and his selection panel at the earliest opportunity

RIP Marcus

I care, if no one else does

Dustbin Cricket Obituaries: Simon Mathew Katich

He appeared in 2001
for the one test we lost;
Our Godlike Waugh was injured
and to the newby the bat was tossed.
He was never one of the favourites
except with an Aussie few;
so when the Ashes were lost in ’05
the selectors knew what to do.
“Let’s lose the less fashionable” they said,
“let’s make him the scapegoat”,
but his state side never lost faith
and he kept Derbyshire afloat.
And then he was back
and became a team staple;
the poor sod was stuck with Twatto
yet he helped him become able (kind of).
But now the young man’s time is done
and for him we must now mourn;
he pissed off the Dog who is now the boss
and from his contract he has been torn.
The selectors have done a stand up job,
as we know they always do;
two thousand, nine hundred and twenty eight runs
have just been flushed down the loo.

RIP Simon Katich

You will be missed

Rick, when we're done here, we need to go mess Pup up - ok?

Tips for making a Video by Cricket Australia

• You might be quite high up in the organisation – the Chief Executive or the Chairman of Selectors, for example – so we don’t expect you to know anything about acting. Hell, we long ago stopped expecting you to know anything about cricket. If you are going to do a video in which you are one of the main speakers, however, it is advisable to get a little coaching from someone who knows about public speaking or acting. And do some rehearsing before you record. This way you won’t sound like a complete droid and people won’t mock you (disclaimer: that’s not entirely true. We will still mock you, just not about this awful video).

• Pretending to talk to each other, or “throw” the conversation to another person in the video, when their part has clearly been recorded at a different time and a different place, just looks ridiculous.

• You might be the captain of the national team and be a bit short on time due to all the hair products you use and the bimbos you date, but if you are going to read from a teleprompter please run through it a few times before recording. It does not look good when we can see your eyes moving along the screen and you clearly have never read the text before because you trip over the big words.

• Also, “influencing” is pronounced with the accent on the “in”. It is not “influWENcing”. OK? Do you speak English at all?

• In short, if you want people to be impressed with your video try and be a little more like Ellyse Perry who clearly cares enough about the program to have taken the time to prepare. It’s a pity she couldn’t captain the men’s team or be the Chief Exec. If she could, they might have let her do the video alone.

Matt Prior and the fine art of English hyperbole

I really don't have an issue with Mattt Prior.

There was the cheating incident, but an argument could be made for his charitable intentions toward Lardy Yardy on that one, plus the guy was stuck with Mitchy's arse in his face and that would probably marr my thinking as well.

Fortunately, the umpires saw so we can move on.

There is the also the fact that he's English, which kind of naturally puts him on the out with me but I don't think he can be held responsible for that. Until we lose the Ashes again, then I can say whatever the hell I want about the English. And I will.

Although, actually he's not - he's one of these South African English players, but that's even worse because he therefore chose England over South Africa.

No, I don't have any real issue with Prior. I think he's a solid batsman and a good keeper. Although why they never gave Phil Mustard a fair shot is beyond me.

Ok, so he's a dodgy South African Englishman; there was the cheating incident and he isn't Phil Mustard - apart from those things, I really don't have an issue with Matt Prior. BUT - if just one more fucker calls him the greatest wicket keeper batsman ever, I swear to god I'm going to sneak into their house while they're sleeping and attach a photo of Adam Gilchrist to their forehead with a staple gun.

Got it?

A quick note to Ryan Harris regarding Sri Lanka

Dear Ryan,

You've done ok lately - you kicked some English arse at Perth in the Ashes and you did pretty good in the IPL. I won't lie, I'm a little bit impressed.

As you probably realise, I am the new bowling coach for Cricket Australia. I know, I know - I'm not Allan Donald but I am Australian and that's all you need. Now, one of my firsts acts as bowling coach is to eliminate the fat fucks on the team. Justin hasn't come around to my way of thinking yet, so Katich might not have to lose weight, but I can tell you: the days of the chubby little bowler are over.

Twatto is carrying that spare tyre and Mitchy's mum just keeps sending him those cookies, so I've really got some work to do. Mike Beer could use a ride on a stairmaster every now and then, but who the hell let him on the team anyway? And you, mate - you might be bowling well but let's be honest, there's a bit of pudge.

You like the beer and crisps, don't you? Hey?

So here's the thing - "be ready" for Sri Lanka looks good on the net, the cricket sites can change it to "be on alert" and make of it what they will. But let's you and I be honest with each other: what I mean when I say "be ready for Sri Lanka" is get to the fucking gym a few times before selection, chubby, because if we need to book more than one aeroplane seat for you, you're not going.

Sort it out.

From Craig McDermott
I'm not a foreigner, I'm a bowling coach

P.S. if you know who this woman is that keeps sending me threatening letters insisting Hauritz gets selected, can you tell her to leave me alone? She's so mean.

Smith's Bullshit ... oh, that's "bullish"

So, flicked over to crapinfo just now to check out what Tremlett's doing to the Sri Lankan batsman. I knew something was going on - and going on in England's favour - because my husband, true Englishman that he is, is suddenly watching the match. And naturally, I went over to the Australia page to see what's going on with a real cricket team (pauses to consider potential snide commentage on that one)

(and continues, not really giving a toss)

I saw the article titled "Smith bullish about playing for Clarke" and, being an Aussie and all, I thought it said "Bullshit". So I read more.

Only to discover that it is, indeed, bullshit:

Steven Smith, the Australia legspinning allrounder, has called Michael Clarke a "very, very good captain of spin".

He's helped me out a lot," Smith told the Daily Telegraph. "He's a big believer in giving a bit of protection when you start off ...

Mike is the best captain ever, ever, ever and I really like it when he shares his hair products with me.

Seriously, Steve, it's not necessary - My Lord is injured and the other two are headed to Zimbabwe. Unless they decide to go for X (oh, please), you will probably get picked. Calm down.

Anyone else think Crapinfo went for that title deliberately? I hope so.

The move is on again!

Possibly.

As some of you may have noticed, I haven't been able to access my blog for several days. This is because Blogger have been complete bastards. I can, I have discovered, access it if I use IE (as I am now) but that is not ideal because I hate IE. I am a Firefox user.

I hope not to be a Blogger user for much longer.

I have set up a wordpress blog, and it will be hosted so no @wordpress.com, but the move is proving more difficult than I originally thought. I have been her for nearly two years now; you have all found me here in that time and I like the Blogger user friendly dashboard etc. Plus you can do so much more with a Blogger blog.

And, of course, the URL that appears in this year's Wisden almanac is this one.

Maybe I'll wait.

Maybe I won't.

Because Blogger are being bastards.

Any thoughts?

And on a side note, a friend of my friend went to Cardiff today to see the cricket. He attempted to get the autographs of KP and Stuart Broad. Both of them snubbed him; KP didn't even pretend not to see him - he looked right at him and said "no, way mate".

Nice, huh? My Lord would never behave that way.

Freddy Flintoff considers a career in TV

We all know Flintoff isn't that smart - the guy tweeted his mobile number for heaven's sake! - but he sure gets around. As well as having a bad-arse website with a swish logo in the corner (I wish I had one), since retiring he's been seen at various fashion shows, the British Grand Prix, some magazine's "man of the Year" award night, to name a few places ...

... and he's been on TV. His television career is, in fact, prolific (well, prolific for a guy with two brain cells to his name). He has his own quiz show that shares a name with a film about a women's baseball team and is characterised by clearly not being They think it's all over, a far superior sports quiz show; he is the face of a supermarket chain and is soon to start making a show called Andrew Flintoff's World of Sport in which, I hear, he will commentate on the national pedalo league's weekly meets.

Later in the year, we can expect to see Freddie even more often on the small screen as his cooking show takes off, he becomes the speaker of the House of Commons and his children's program Freddie hooks up with some small furry animals and does a jig to badly composed music hits CBBC. I, for one, can't wait.

But at least he is not doing Bollywood films. Because that would be just a tad too much, wouldn't it Fred?

Oh god, there's more!

And in a disturbing twist on the last post, I now hear that Shane Warne is getting offers to make a Bollywood film.

I tried to come up with some clever song and dance post, with a doctored picture of Warnie in a dhoti, but the image in my head of the fat bastard dancing around and - Nate help us - singing was just too much for my little brain to bear.

Warne should be banned from anything other than coaching and the occasional charity cricket match - no talk shows, no interviews of any kind and no films, please!

Cricket, the World, Everything - according to Shane Warne

Shane Warne is a legend, we all know it. And we all know that in recent years he has liked to use his legend status to throw his opinion around about everything cricket. It can get a bit annoying at times but quite often, he is right.

Note that I wasn't complaining when he stuck up for My Lord.

And now that he has retired from cricket completely, he is bound to start throwing his weight opinion around even more. Yesterday, he played his last ever match and today I put his name into google news and about a zillion articles came up:

"India should use power responsibly: Shane Warne"

"Sachin was the most awkward opponent: Warne"

"Shah Rukh Kahn is the man in Bollywood: Warne" (Who? What?)

My least favourite: "A clear window for IPL will end sledging: Warne" Oh, please - don't encourage the IPL!

The funniest but most Warne-like: "Shane Warne says he deserves a knighthood for his services to cricket"

And the clear winner: "Just go already, Warney"

Warney, we love you (and you know it), but get on with it!

My Lord Cometh ... maybe ...

Dear Sweet Andy H,

I want to go to Sri Lanka. I know I haven't been fit and my shoulder has been fairly well fucked and that, let's be honest, you don't really like me that much, but I am working really really hard and I want to go. We all know Rick had issues with me standing up for myself having opinions, but that's just because he was an arrogant a grumpy bastard and had no idea what to do with his spinners. Now that you have finally got rid of him he has stood down, he has no say in whether you let me back in and Pup and me are totally BFFs (ever since I promised to rub his feet every day if I get to go to Sri Lanka) so he will want me there.

Come on, it's Sri Lanka man! You want some spin in Sri Lanka ... so take Little Stevie and let me come along for the ride.

Pretty pretty please?

I'm willing to give gifts.

Love and kisses
Nate
x

P.S. Doherty was one bad enough, but if Jason fucking Krejza gets to go instead of me I'm liable to get homicidal.