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young Harry Solomons
Category Archives: taking the mickey
Fist-Touch not Namasthe between Captains at the P Sara Oval Today
Captains Joe Root (England) and Lahiru Tirimanne (SL President’s XI) faced up the creeping threat of coronavirus cheerfully in novel style — foregoing the alternative path of a namasthe as a replacement for the normal handshake that was deployed prior to matches in the era before the CV has all of us concerned …..
Monkey-Come, Monkey-Scratch! Fraser-McGurk Go!
ESPNcricinfoo News Item = “Jake Fraser-McGurk to return home after being scratched by a monkey,”…. https://www.espncricinfo F.com/story/_/id/28589265/jake-fraser-mcgurk-return-home-being-scratched-monkey
Jake Fraser-McGurk will not take any further part at the Under-19 World Cup in South Africa and will return home instead as a precautionary measure after being scratched on the face by a monkey at a nature reserve while on a team outing in Kimberley.
Chandimal the Enigma in Topsy-Turvy Year
Andrew Fidel Fernando, in ESPNcricinfo, 20 December 2019, where the title runs thus: “Dinesh Chandimal condenses rollercoaster career into one innings”
Dinesh Chandimal plays a shot during the second day of the second Test cricket match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka –Photo by Asif HASSAN /AFP via Getty Images)
There is almost a novel here. A talented wicketkeeper from the southwest gets spotted by a big Colombo school in his teens. Goes on to lead that school to their best season ever. He quickly gets picked up by the national squad, and at first glimpse of this guy, the public is enchanted. He’s organised, but there’s also that manic fun of a schoolboy. He swings so hard at the ball his limbs could go flying off. By 23, he is Sri Lanka’s T20I captain – their youngest ever.
Pissu Percy becomes a Book
Dhammika Ratnaweera, in Sunday Observer, 15 December 2019, with this title “Pioneer cheer leader Percy launches book”
The story of one-man cheer squad Percy Abeysekera titled ‘I‘am Percy Cricket Crazy’ was launched yesterday at the newly opened Chance Sports Grand Showroom at Baseline Road Borella. The veteran cheer leader’s biography written by Darrshini Parthepan notes Percy’s unforgettable stories out of the boundary line in this book and the first copy was handed over to 1996 World Cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga from the man himself at the simple ceremony organized by Sportsinfo and Trimo Media.
Gabba Day One: Errol glued to TV by the Topsy-Turvy
Errol Fernando in his Regular ‘Bout’ with Gavin by Letter
Day one kept me glued to my television for 6 hours and it was good Test match cricket. When Pakistan chose to bat I was prepared to give a knighthood to the entire team and the management for the brave decision. Had they inserted I would have switched off my TV for the entire summer. England too made a good decision to bat against New Zealand and they are well on top. That game is all over.
Pakistan 240 (Shafiq 76, Azhar 39, Rizwan 37, Starc 4-52, Cummins 3-60, Hazlewood 2-46) v Australia
Filed under Australian cricket, performance, taking the mickey, unusual people
Sri Lanka’s “pop-gun” attack derided
Will Swanton in The Australian, October 29th 2019,
There’s never been a batsman like Glenn Maxwell. The stumps are scared to watch. Off puts its hands over its face and shrieks. Middle grimaces and braces for impact. Leg, rarely so exposed, is ducking for cover.His latest experimentation is a direct lift from the baseball playbook and acknowledgment of the fact that when the primary objective in T20 is to dispatch the leather out of the park, you cannot hit what you cannot properly see. Maxwell has sounded at his kooky best when he’s smashed 62 runs off 28 balls against Sri Lanka’s pop-gun attack and then credited it with getting “my right eye involved in the game a bit more”.
In the Manner Michael: Appreciative Thoughts about Michael De Zoysa
ONE = Callistus Davy in Sunday Observer, 6 October 2019: “Michael de Zoysa: If only he could write his own lines!”
In today’s set-up where corruption, dishonestly, cheating and rouge ways hold sway in sections of Sri Lankan society and some people who boast of culture can only put on a face for the cameras, Michael de Zoysa was a cut above the rest and went to his grave on Wednesday evening like the true professional he was. Perhaps Michael de Zoyza will be able to give a better account of himself to his Creator than many others who hobnobbed with him and were no match to his integrity.
A Perennial Cricketing Traveller penetrates India’s Present SAF Series
Dannie Byrne
ONE: Arriving in Visakhapatnam and getting a ticket for the match
When my international flight landed in Delhi it was inevitably raining and I had to splash my way through a series of puddles and potholes to reach Terminal 2 and check-in for the next fight to Visakhapatnam. Once the flight was called from Gate 29 a bus was required to ferry us across another series of deep potholes before we were able to climb aboard the relatively small Indigo aircraft. I’d read in the Times of India an article by Aasish Nehra claiming Bumrah’s stress fracture to his lower back had nothing to do with his unorthodox bowling action. There won’t be too many pundits who agree with that but perhaps he’d had one too many Indigo flights leaving from Gate 29. I had to admire the staff working for the airline for their determination to get more rupees out of me. I had the foresight to purchase an additional 5 Kg baggage allowance when buying the ticket. When I checked the bag in at the Etihad desk in London it weighed 17.4 Kg. By the time it reached the scales at Indigo it had put on another 2.4 Kg and now registered 19.8 Kg. Normally I’d be worried about shampoo and other things that can spill being stolen from the unlocked part of my bag to potentially make it lighter. I couldn’t see the staff in Abu Dhabi adding a few extra bricks for a laugh and could only conclude that the scales were deliberately set in a very creative manner at the Indigo counter in Delhi’s Domestic Airport.