The Cricket Writing Thread

[PhatBoy]

Snippet of that Indian writer’s interview with Patterson

 

[Cold Sober]

Everyone should check out Big Footy's Vic Johnson, great reading.

 

[Gough]

Gideon Haigh's piece in the Oz today on the folly of flat wickets is well worth your time.

 

[Kram]

Start of Haigh article.

"Returning to Melbourne from Sydney on Tuesday afternoon, my first port of call was naturally the nets at the cricket club where I’ve played these last 25 years: after all, mediocrity needs constant reinforcement. The good news was that all the talk was of a Test match; the bad news was that the Test match concerned was not here.

No, the chat was of South Africa versus India at Newlands, which started with Bhuvaneshwar Kumar swinging it round corners, and ended with Vernon Philander doing the same. Eighteen wickets in a day. No centuries, but some brilliant counter-attacking batsmanship on a roller rink of an outfield. Brave captaincy from Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli.

“Just as an advert for Test cricket, that’s as good as it gets,” said du Plessis. “There was no boring Test cricket, it was a lot of action. And that’s why we absolutely loved this Test match.”

Meanwhile in Australia, two cheers for the Ashes was about what they deserved. There were fine individual performances and incidental pleasures, and splendid collective purpose among the winners. Yet would anyone have called it an “advert for Test cricket”? Could you work up a “love” for the lowest Ashes scoring rates since 1994-95 and two dead Tests, the former afflicted with rigor mortis.

The big difference, of course, were conditions underfoot. In Capetown, both captains called the pitch “outstanding”. Yet the biggest men’s and women’s games of the Australian summer were protracted draws on drop-in pitches not so much dull as lobotomised. The Melbourne Cricket Ground produced a pitch that did not change in a week; North Sydney Oval offered a surface that might as well have been synthetic."

 

[matty p]

Read these two articles written in the past week and a half and tell me that Kimber doesn't have a weird, possibly sexual, infatuation with James Vince.

http://www.espn.com/cricket/story/_/id/21956805/story-vince-career

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/22076999/james-vince-t20-star-underrated-cricketer

 

[Doodlesweaver]

Read these two articles written in the past week and a half and tell me that Kimber doesn't have a weird, possibly sexual, infatuation with James Vince.

http://www.espn.com/cricket/story/_/id/21956805/story-vince-career

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/22076999/james-vince-t20-star-underrated-cricketer

He used to be obsessed with Sehwag.

 

[matty p]

He used to be obsessed with Sehwag.

Did he include as much sexual innuendo in his pieces about Sehwag as he has in these Vince articles? I can't believe ESPN even published these.

 

[Doodlesweaver]

Did he include as much sexual innuendo in his pieces about Sehwag as he has in these Vince articles? I can't believe ESPN even published these.

I used to read his blog as he can be very funny and yes, he was jizzing over players pretty much all the time.

Except when he was damning them for all eternity! He was not a fan of Shaun Marsh early on as I recall.

 

[Hellgood]

Absolutely agree with this terrific article by Tim Wigmore, far too much whining and bitching from a very vocal and negative minority.

http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/1131706/has-cricket-ever-had-it-so-good

 

[The Speaker]

Absolutely agree with this terrific article by Tim Wigmore, far too much whining and bitching from a very vocal and negative minority.

http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/1131706/has-cricket-ever-had-it-so-good

I don't share his positive outlook on the future of women's cricket or the worthwhileness of D/N Tests, but isn't it an amazing change from two years ago, when we were wondering how much damage the Big Three would do to the sport?

 

[Gough]

http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/1132748/i-love-hansie-cronje-but-i-don-t-know-why
Good piece on Hansie Cronje.

 

[AngryRanga]

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/22188880/new-vocabulary-t20

A piece about Faulkner being a useless t20 bat

 

[Hellgood]

Nice story on the rise of Rabada and his junior career.

http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/1133303/the-rise-of-rabada

 

[Gethelred]

http://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-new...irat-kohli-steven-smith-joe-root-cricket-news
Interesting conversation on the importance of conversion, and where the modern players stack up.

 

[t_94]

https://www.newstatesman.com/politi...et-game-decline?amp&__twitter_impression=true