Wrap - Queues and Passengers

1. The Kygrios train keeps moving. Thankfully passengers have pulled their collective heads in a bit. However, outside of Federer and Nadal, do we really care too much for tennis players? Is there any great affection?

2. Big Bash League. The Sydney Sixers are a powerful franchise. They win when the odds are stacked against them...and regularly. Josh Lalor's effort to go for 23 off the last over was possibly the worst performance by a fast bowler in Australian short form cricket - EVER!

3. The Asian Cup. Great of the Cahilleroos to beat China. We might be up to 90 in the world now! The thought of scheduling a semi final at Newcastle defies all logic. Maybe part of the Tinkler settlement.

4. Auckland Nines. Are we getting to a point where you just don't play trials at all - especially with your top players? Talk of Sydney wanting it. No, keep it away. 

5. Had to laugh about the plan to have Great Britain join the NRL. How stupid! Travel there midweek and prepare? Surely not. We can't even get them to travel from Perth - or Penrith! Imagine the shennanigans on the plane.

6. NRL. Just an idea, but could a team from Long Bay Gaol join the NRL? Guaranteed crowds, high security, no queues and plenty of players. Home games only.

7. FA Cup. What a great competition. Always upsets and it keeps the sport alive in the country. Captivating and embarrassing for Chelsea and Man City.

8. Noticed a QLD Reds player belted Quayde Cooper at training and injured him. Could have been money on that - and a queue.

 

Wrap - Thunder Chunder

1. Another BBL season and another disastrous one for the Sydney Thunder. They can shoot themselves in the foot like no other franchise. Excuses tend to dominate - lost Khawaja and Patterson to injury before the start of the season, Hussey as well...Sandhu, Cummins to international duty. If you saw McDonald's pathetic dismissal v Stars you will definitely agree he needs the axe and quickly.

However a special vote of criticism needs to go to the management who continue to produce pathetic pitches. The pitch in Spotless Stadium was woeful - and diabolical at best. How they can present this as good enough is beyond me. The Thunder management should sack the ground crew with McDonald. They are costing them victory - and costing them crowd numbers...

If you look at the Scorchers and the Heat, the crowds know there will be a good deck and plenty of runs. Drop in pitches are pathetic - as evidenced by the MCG pitch this year. Get back to basics.

2. Nick Kyrgios. Are you Seyrgious? For all his promise, this bloke is quickly heading down Tomic Avenue. He needs to walk in a bit closer and hear this. You are becoming a caricature of all that is wrong with tennis. The haircuts, the suits, the injuries...the scandals (soon). We are over tennis brats, big time. Pull your head in and play tennis and don't become a self centred brat who loves himself to death...mystery viruses and pulling out of tournaments. Open your eyes and get your hangers on to get their noses out of the trough too. Wake up.

3. Asian Cup. Why is it that Ange Postocoglou has that dopey look of loser about him so often? Two bright wins (4-0 each) and then back to the usual blame and mumbling, eyes averted from the camera. I can hear knives sharpening. Some of those crowd numbers have been spectacular.

4. Interesting to see Shane Watson hit another 40. Starc has stepped up - thanks to Warnie - and is bowling fast. I must say that Maxwell is a worry. He folds under pressure too often. Meek and lame dismissals from brain snaps better be eliminated sooner rather than later or he will have a degree from the University of Cottee's by the end of the World Cup.

5. Chelsea v Man City is hotting up in the race for the best team...hard work at this time of year, but entertaining! How good are Southampton going? No relegation, but maybe even Champions League! The back end of the season will be a test for them.

6. Some awesome power hitting in the ODI series in South Africa. AB De Villiers a ton off 31 balls. Incredible. The bowling from the Windies however was simply awful! The ground is a joke too. But, it is a good wicket. Chris Gayle has been awesome too.

7. The biggest choke in world golf happened last night too, when Martin Kaymer blew a ten stroke lead in Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. When France’s world No. 357 Gary Stal can win an event like this, you marvel at the talent of these blokes at the top end. None are members at Parramatta Golf Course..

8. Robert Allenby. Talk about a big night out. Chucked out of the boot of a car? Kidnapped? Found by a homeless woman? Terrible if true, but I suspect there is more to the story. Sounds like he was mouthing off and got pinned. Dave Warner better watch out.

Wrap - One Handed Off Spidercam

1. In the absence of the Twelfth Man, Billy Birmingham who must be plaiting his hair this summer - or counting his cash - I present some key Indian cricketers of the summer:

The Indian Grandmother - Kumar
The Travel Agent - Sick of Darwin
The Car Cleaner - Mohammed Shami
Two Snake Sharmas - Ishant and Rohit
The Weatherman - Raina (quack)
The Ford - VJ
The V-Rat - Kohli.
and of course, Poo Jar whose sudden omission for the fourth test in Sydney had a bad smell about it.

2. Spidercam fiasco was a joke. At the time, Steve Smith, for all the good he has done this summer (and plenty of it), was struggling to get there and simply made up an excuse. He dropped another sitter at the other end off Kohli soon after, maybe the shadow was in his eyes there too.

3. Can someone tell me why Australia is always seemingly solely responsible for setting up each Test match for a result? This Indian team showed their traditional lack of interest in winning all through the test. At times this rated as one of the most boring tests on record. Tom Parker needs to visit the hall of mirrors. The media need to start serving it up to India and put them to the test. We again are genuflecting at the altar of their arrogance.

4. Apart from Johnson's little holiday camp from this test, Ishant Sharma also was reported to have had a neck injury - from the weight of his long hair.

5. Helmets. Am I the only one who cannot believe the inaction from Cricket Australia and the manufacturers around a new design for a helmet that will not have more players killed? We can send men to the moon but helmets still cannot be fixed. Hard to believe. Make the new design, call it mandatory and move on. Baseball helmets work a treat. Get it right and soon. Basic.

6. The highlight of the test in Sydney was the picture of Bob Hawke on the big screen sinking a beer at the cricket - at about 10.30am. My son asked me who that was and I said that is one of Australia's great Prime Ministers. He laughed and thought I was joking. Check out Hawkey's (less than a minute)magnificent previous SCG cricket form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5mBShX9fdU

7. SCG Greencoat Stupidity I. I have stumbled across two magnificent pieces of modern day SCG stupidity. Bureaucracy gone bad. There are no cubicle dunnies in the new stand on the whole of level one and two! Can you believe this? No crappers. Must be a modern thing.

8. SCG Greencoat Stupidity II. There I was thinking that knocking out five hundred seats was a Stadium Australia thing to fudge the crowd numbers...I am officially wrong. What we have now is an extension on the farce of sightscreens. Typically we get the advertisement stuck at each major ground...or the thing won't move...common light relief. Now we get sight screen zones where spectators spanning many many rows are not allowed to move - EVEN when the batsman is facing the other way. JOKE! There are actually officials who police this through the day. Talk about absurd. Dopey bastards.

Wrap - Freddie Truman's Test of Patience

1. Loving the Big Bash T20 Cricket. Especially loving the investment in the training for the commentary team with the holograph fielding circle. A complete dud. Noticed Channel 9 broke out the Freddy Truman's test match with better impact. Still have a copy of that game tucked away at home. Getting and keeping a decent quality ball was always its nemesis as a game. That and a properly ironed field to negate the bowler.

2. How good is Jacques Kallis? Hands like magnets, belts the ball to all parts of the ground then bowls at 140kph with minimal effort...aged 40 or near enough! If he was Australian he would have won a  million tests too.

The better news for the Thunder is that Andrew McDonald is out injured. His slow, lack lustre and self indulgent approach to this form of the game makes him the DUD signing of the year. No doubt. Another Victorian success story.

3. Dhoni's Retirement. Why is it that the arrogance of India's cricketers and administration seems to surpass all that is arrogant in Australian cricket? From the refusal to use the DRS, to their perceived "ownership" of the game, refusal to have their players play in Big Bash leagues internationally, their dictatorial nature and their treatment of overseas (non-Indian) coaches.

So no surprise when their Test captain (no less) - whose ability as a skipper is downright terrible - pulls stumps, does it by Twitter (the self absorbed, selfishman's playground) and refuses to speak to anyone about it...staggering. All the while his complicit Board of Control (love that term 'control') know the reasons and refuse to divulge it all.

Perhaps India would be better out of the annoying and irritating world stage of cricket all together and the rich businesses and their billions of players could play each other for a trophy in the shape of "I"? Would they be missed? Their talent yes, but their arrogance...never. A bit like the IPL...no one knows or cares who plays or wins in that thing...irrelevant. Who will be the brave administrator to suggest this occur?

4. Smith's Declaration in Melbourne. Am I the only one who does not care that Channel 9, ABC, SMH, Daily Telegraph, 2UE et al did not have a fun day calling a Test victory/ loss to the death? The fascination by the media about the sort of last day they wanted was staggering.

For me, India deserved nothing better. They were down in the series and remarkably....staggeringly....unbelievably...could have taken three wickets themselves on the last morning and accelerated the game themselves!

For all their selfishness, their responsibility for their own actions was again wanting. It is everyone else's problem - not their own. Hopefully Virat ('The Rat') Kohli will bring a new dawn to Indian cricket. The thing about him is that he actually plays cricket like an Australian and us Aussies struggle with that...we struggled with Javed Miandad, the tubby Sri Lankan skipper, Arjuna Ranatunga...Harbijhan Singh....any competitive sub continental player has irritated and enraged Australia...and really they have simply refused to take our crap.

I am tipping Dave Warner will be the first Australian player smacked in the chops in an International by an opponent.

5. Darren Sammy for the Hobart Hurricanes seemed to be reluctant to leave the franchise and play with the West Indies. He has more interest in playing for them than the national team. Interesting that Chris Gayle has vanished too. Bailey is a champion make no mistake. He should captain the World Cup team - not Clarke.

Clarke's retirement and "may never play again" comment didn't seem to last long.

6. How far can a boundary rope come in before it is farcical? Sixes yes, but park cricketesque. Best Road No. 3 at Seven Hills will soon become an international venue on that count.

7. Ashton Agar. Did he wash Lehmann's car or something at the academy? He certainly sees more in him that most of us. I see a straight breaking Tom Hogan clone. Give us a leggie any day. In fact, ironically, Brad Hogg would be a better option. Fawad Ahmed can bowl too and would go alright. Surely if your kid plays cricket, they need to be a spin bowler. This is the pathway to future prosperity. Medium pacers retire one and all!