July 26, 2013 · 2:15 am

Ashes to Ashton, a new hero rises

David Penberthy in the Sunday Mail, 13 July 2013

ASHTON AGAR--APA FEW years ago some mad television executive came up with a hare-brained idea for an edgy new addition to cricket coverage, a boundary rider who would conduct a quick interview with batsmen on the fence after they were dismissed.  The idea did not last long and the interviews were very quick indeed. When David Hookes was given out LBW and was storming back to the pavilion he was asked: “You can’t be happy with that Hookesy”, to which he gave a pithy two-word reply: “Piss off.”

Getting out is rarely pleasant and, over the years, there have been plenty of cricket bats which have ended up being used against lockers, bags and panes of glass by batsmen who were angry at the umpire or themselves. If anyone could give a lesson in how to keep your cool when you have thrown your wicket away, it is Ashton Agar, the 19-year-old who went from complete unknown to national hero in the short space of his quick-fire 98 runs on debut for Australia – the highest score in the history of the sport by a number 11 batsman. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Australian cricket, backyard cricket, cricket and life, cricketing icons, cricketing records, fair play, performance, player selections

July 22, 2013 · 7:39 am

Dilhara Fernando — a Tale of Two Extremes

Prakash Govindasreenivasan,

DILHARA FERNANDO _ Getty imagesTo say Dilhara Fernando was destiny’s child, would be a gross understatement. Tall and adequately-built, Fernando took to basketball — a sport that probably suited him better. And then came his first tryst with cricket in 1995. He was 16 when he was roped in to play for his school, De Mahenod. The team was short of a player and needed someone to fill in and they picked Fernando due to lack of options. “One day, on the morning of a match, my school team had only 10 players. They wanted an extra guy. So I was in,” he recalled in an interview with the Hindu in 2001.

But, as fate would have it, he proved to be more than just filler. When his school’s main bowlers were getting plastered all over the park, his captain threw the ball to him in a bid to try something different. Fernando, whose only experience at cricket was with tennis ball on the beaches of Kandana, dismissed half the opposition team. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under bowling average, cricket and life, performance, player selections, seamer, Sri Lanka Cricket

July 22, 2013 · 4:08 am

Angelo: now married

ANGELO Wedding 22 Angelo Mathews under pressure

ANGELO Wedding 55 Angelo and wife in raptures –all boundaries cleared Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under cricket and life, cricket tamashas, cricketing icons, Sri Lanka Cricket

July 22, 2013 · 3:59 am

Angelow: Streaking NUDE at Lords

Martin Williamson, in ESPNcricinfo,

FREAKER 2- PA PHOTOS from PA Photos

The current Test, being played under cloudless skies and with temperatures nudging 90°F, is the hottest Ashes match at Lord’s in almost four decades. While 1976 set 20th century temperature and drought records, the previous summer had been almost as warm. Although snow fell days before the start of the World Cup in early June 1975, thereafter the country basked in weeks of sun. The nation shed its clothes and basked. Some shed a few too many. The World Cup replaced a planned tour by South Africa and left the second half of the summer empty, so it was filled with a four-Test Ashes series. England had been thrashed the previous winter but the public wanted to see the Australians and the next series was not scheduled until 1977, so the move made commercial sense. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under backyard cricket, bowling average, confrontations on field, cricket and life, cricket tamashas, cricketing icons, cricketing records, DRS, foul tactics, performance, sportsmanship, taking the mickey

July 21, 2013 · 2:56 pm

A Classical Appreciation for a Classical Cricketing Man

Andrew Fernando, in ESPNcricinfo ……… see “Dominant Sangakkara gets better with age” in http://www.espncricinfo.com/sri-lanka-v-south-africa-2013/content/story/653631.html

Kumar Sangakkara

ALSO SEE Rex Clementine:  “Sanga’s Best ever ODI knock,” in Island, 22 July 2013,   http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=84111

Leave a comment

Filed under Andrew Fidel Fernando, cricket and life, cricketing icons, FOG, performance, sanath jayasuriya, Sangakkara, sportsmanship, Sri Lanka Cricket, unusual people, work ethic

July 21, 2013 · 3:58 am

Aleem Dar—Three Howlers and OUT he should be

Aleem Dar—Three Howlers and OUT he should be

Michael Roberts

Aleem-Dar 22There is a striking moment in Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger when the criminal mastermind tells James Bond that once is coincidence, twice is happenchance and thrice is war ending in the dungeon. Well! On this comparison umpire Aleem Dar should be consigned to the umpiring dungeons or refuse bin. He has the distinction of committing the same type of horrendous umpiring error not once, not twice, but THRICE!

When a batsman nicks or plays a ball to one of the slips most human beings can perceive the splice of the process so to speak. But not Dar… Not once, not twice, but THRICE. I have a vivid mental image of all three moments. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Ashes Tests, Australian cricket, confrontations on field, cricket and life, DRS, fair play, foul tactics, Mahela Jayawardene, performance, politics and cricket, sportsmanship, television commentary

July 18, 2013 · 4:43 pm

Even the Yanks are in a Blather about Broad’s Brass Balls

Sarah Lyall, in the New York Times, where the title is “Debate Erupts After English Player Fails to Call Himself Out“

chris broad - It seemed like a small thing, a mere moment among thousands in the first  week of the Ashes contest that will go on (and on) well into the lazy  days of August. But to cricket traditionalists, the incident — in which  an English cricket player failed to confess that he was out, even though the umpire had ruled him in — was a disgraceful reflection of how low the game had fallen. Why can’t we have it played straight, where cricketers act like gentlemen and do what we know is right?” lamented the radio host Peter Allen, speaking on Day 3 of the all-important 131-year-old England-Australia tournament known as the Ashes. “I always thought cricket was something different.”        Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Australian cricket, child of empire, confrontations on field, cricket and life, performance, sportsmanship, unusual people

July 15, 2013 · 11:37 pm

Reflections on the DRS and the game of cricket

Gideon Haigh, in The Australian, 16 July 2013

gideon HAIGH 11TUCKED away in a corner of the program for the Trent Bridge Test is a series of potted interviews with the match officials in which they are asked among other things whether they remember games for “decisions or players’ feats”. It’s great performances that count, avers Marais Erasmus. “If I’m not noticed,” he says, “it means I have got things right!” It’s good advice, and worth citing not only because of Erasmus’s inability to keep to it on the Friday of this Test. This was a wonderful game of cricket that deserves to be remembered for the excellence of its skills and the drama of its moments. But there’s also a danger that those recollections will be overshadowed by the umpiring – not because of its quality, although that was assuredly an issue, but because of its involuted complexity. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Australian cricket, cricket and life, cricket governance, DRS, Gideon Haigh, IPL, sportsmanship

July 12, 2013 · 10:48 am

Lehmann makes an AGAR difference

Comments from Asanga and Dinouk, 12 June 2013

On 12 July 2013 08:09, Dinouk Colombage <dinoukc@gmail.com> wrote:

Boof certainly has the “Australia” grit of yesteryear that they are lacking. In some ways he would fit in more with the Merv Hughes era than that which he played in. For Australia, they need to look back to the mid-80s where under Border they learnt to win. I think yesterday was a glimpse of a team who is ready to win, even if it isn’t pretty.
On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 12:32 PM, Asanga Welikala <awelikala@gmail.com> wrote: Sacking that tinpot Napoleon, Arthur, and putting Clarke in his place, was the most inspired decision of Cricket Australia in ages. The whole turn around with “Boof” is amazing – anyway, I prefer eating-drinking buggers…   Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under Australia Cricket, Australian cricket, backyard cricket, performance, player selections, taking the mickey, unusual people

July 8, 2013 · 7:33 am

Chandika Hathurasingha ventures forth and ventures back on an Aussie initiative

Rex Clementine, in the Island, 8 July 2013 A bankrupt board, corruption, plumb positions for kith and kin and politicization of the sport aren’t the only legacies of D.S. de Silva and Nishantha Ranatunga as cricket administrators. They also oversaw the exodus of the best talented. Former Assistant Coach of the national cricket team Chandika Hathurusingha is a case in point. Hathurusingha as coach of Sri Lanka ‘A’ was responsible for helping several players like Thilan Samaraweera and Thilina Kandamby to reinvent their games and in 2009 was promoted to the national team to be understudy to Trevor Bayliss. Despite making steady progress, he was unceremoniously dumped in 2010. Even a written plea by then captain Kumar Sangakkara to reinstate Hathurusingha was not accepted by the two wise men of Sri Lankan cricket and that forced him to migrate to Australia. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Australian cricket, cricket and life, cricket governance, politics and cricket, Sangakkara