Cricket stuff that doesn't deserve its own thread

[Magrat Garlick]

Frankly you lot have put more thought into this than I ever did in the first place. Half tempted to revise the team in light of some of the properly good suggestions here.

If I did it nation by nation Sri Lanka would be far stronger than any other team in all likelihood, South Africa would go alright, and Pakistan and Bangladesh would struggle to get a whole XI

Inzamam, Younus Khan and Mohammad Yousuf is a good start

 

[TheJediBrah]

Isn't every 2nd Pakistan cricketer's real first name actually Mohammad?

 

[GoodAreasShane]

Inzamam, Younus Khan and Mohammad Yousuf is a good start

No, this goes by the way names are recorded in scorecards, Pakistani names are almost always not listed by initials on scorecards

Interesting this isn't usually the case of cricketers who can trace their ancestry back there yet grew up in other countries. For example Usman Khawaja moved to Australia with his family as a child and has been almost always listed in scorecards as UT (Usman Tariq) Khawaja. Meanwhile Fawad Ahmed came to Australia later in life and hasn't ever appeared as a mere initial in scorecards

 

[Magrat Garlick]

i see we have a believer in True and Eternal Scorecards

 

[GoodAreasShane]

i see we have a believer in True and Eternal Scorecards

It's not so much belief as just a general fondness for the tradition of cricketers recorded by their initials. I can think of a fair number of players (mostly Australian admittedly) who do have middle names not listed in that way


Or have I just been wooshed here, am I missing a reference?

 

[Daemon]

Gordon Greenidge
Jonathan Trott
Neil Harvey
Viv Richards
Colin Cowdrey
Doug Walters
Godfrey Evans
Lance Cairns
Brad Hogg
Brian Statham
Patrick Patterson

Spot the common theme?

all retired boomers

 

[Engle]

Frankly you lot have put more thought into this than I ever did in the first place. Half tempted to revise the team in light of some of the properly good suggestions here.

If I did it nation by nation Sri Lanka would be far stronger than any other team in all likelihood, South Africa would go alright, and Pakistan and Bangladesh would struggle to get a whole XI

Once I saw Gordon Greenidge, Colin Cowdrey, Viv Richards and Patrick Patterson - the common theme was known. The suggestions were just toying around humorously. .

 

[Magrat Garlick]

whenever i hear of mark wood i immediately think of under milk wood

my brain is broken i know

 

[Shri]

ADOLF Hitler played cricket. He raised his own cricket team to play some British prisoners of war during the First World War, then declared the sport "unmanly" and tried to rewrite the laws of the game.

The Fuhrer's First XI sounds like a Spike Milligan joke, but this small nugget of history is true. In all the millions of words written about Hitler, his telling brush with cricket seems to have escaped the attention of historians.

The incident is referred to in John Simpson's new book about 20th-century reporting, citing a piece in the Daily Mirror in 1930. I have the article in front of me. Sandwiched between advice on preventing mildew in chrysanthemums and an advert for Barkers' evening cloaks, it is quite extraordinary, and extraordinarily revealing: about Hitler, the nature of cricket, and why the world's worst tyrant and the world's greatest game were never going to get on.

The Mirror piece was written by Oliver Locker-Lampson, an MP, decorated wartime veteran, right-wing zealot and fervent admirer of Hitler. It was published under the headline "Adolf Hitler As I Know Him" on September 30, 1930, as the Nazis' brutal rise to power gathered pace.

In it, Locker-Lampson describes how in 1923, shortly after the Munich putsch, he met some British officers who had been prisoners of war in southern Germany during the First World War. By coincidence Hitler, then a lance corporal in the German Army, was recovering from his wounds in a nearby hospital.

"He had come to them one day and asked whether he might watch an eleven of cricket at play so as to become initiated into the mysteries of our national game," writes Locker- Lampson. "They welcomed him, of course, and wrote out the rules for him in the best British sport-loving spirit."

According to Locker-Lampson, Hitler returned a few days later, having assembled his own team, and challenged the British to a "friendly match". As Simpson points out, Locker-Lampson infuriatingly failed to inform his readers who won, but we can assume that the British POWs thrashed Hitler's XI, because he immediately declared the game insufficiently violent for German Fascists.

Hitler, it seems, had an ulterior motive for wanting to play the game: "He desired to study it as a possible medium for the training of troops off duty and in times of peace." He also wanted the game to be Nazified.

"He had conned over [sic] the laws of cricket, which he considered good enough no doubt for pleasure-loving English people. But he proposed entirely altering them for the serious-minded Teuton." Specifically, he "advocated the withdrawal of the use of pads. These artificial 'bolsters' he dismissed as unmanly and un-German ...in the end he also recommended a bigger and harder ball."

Locker-Lampson was not mocking Hitler. Far from it, he regarded Hitler's "essential improvements" to the English game as a mark of his greatness. The British MP was the founder of the Sentinels of Empire, a blue-shirted group of rightwingers dedicated to fighting Bolshevism. Like many upper-class Englishmen (including Lord Rothermere, then the owner of the Mirror) he was besotted by Nazism, and the rest of the article is a dribbling paean of praise to Hitler: "The temperature of the room rises in his presence...He makes the humblest fellow feel twice the man."

Locker-Lampson reported that Hitler had even devised a new motto for cricket, in German: "Ohne Hast, ohne Rast" - Unhasting, Unresting. To this starry-eyed disciple, Hitler's determination to rewrite the rules of this most hallowed English institution was a mark, not of mad megalomania, but of his ambition and drive: "That is what makes him a legendary hero already."

From a distance of 80 years, this forgotten incident demonstrates exactly the reverse of what Locker-Lampson intended, offering a small and unexpected window into Hitler's brutal mentality.

Sport, in Fascist thinking, was merely a tool with which to forge good Nazis. "German sport has only one task," declared Joseph Goebbels: "To strengthen the character of the German people, imbuing it with the fighting spirit and steadfast camaraderie necessary in the struggle for its existence." That twisted attitude would find full expression in the Nazi Olympic Games of 1936.

Hitler, it seems clear, was simply unable to comprehend a game as subtle and nuanced as cricket. He wanted speed and violence. Not for him the gentle thwack of leather on willow, but rather the crunch of a harder, larger ball against unprotected shins. His rewritten rules for the game attempt to blend cricket and blitzkrieg: blitzkricket.

If cricket has a motto, it is probably "Play up! Play up! And play the game", from Henry Newbolt's poem Vitai Lampada, which also extols cricketing manliness, but of a very different sort to that lauded by Hitler: "And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat, Or the selfish hope of a season's fame..."

Cricket, of course, is the ultimate sporting fusion of mind and body: an intricate set of rules and tactics, involving minute gradations of physics, climate and psychology, requiring the broadest range of athletic ability and good manners. In its classic form, it takes five days, with set intervals for tea, and often produces no result. Try to imagine Hitler enjoying a truly thrilling draw, a totalitarian wrestling with the subtle uncertainties of the lbw law. The word "googly" has no translation.

The laws of cricket have evolved over time, and continue to evolve, the result of thousands of refinements and adjustments, not through the arrogant decree of one man. That, again, Hitler would have found impossible to grasp.

For anyone who loves cricket, there is something deeply satisfying in the knowledge that Hitler did not understand the game, and something disquieting in the thought that, had he won the war, we would all be playing without pads.

Sadly, the scorebook from Hitler's first and only cricket match has not survived. We will never know how much his team lost by, where he batted in the order, and what score he made. But we can certainly speculate. His angry contempt for cricket, his attempt to invade the rules and alter them in his own image, and his inability to comprehend the complexities of the sport all point to one, inescapable conclusion: he was out for a golden duck.

Hitler has only faced one ball.

So the **** played cricket

 

[Magrat Garlick]

auferstanden aus Ruinen

 

[honestbharani]

And had a **** FCA, most likely..

 

[trundler]

Weldone to comment

 

[Daemon]

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/...sign-letter-supporting-lungi-ngidi-blm-stance

Absence of Rabada is interesting

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Ahahahaha the Dippenaar comments

 

[vcs]

The Symcox ones look even worse /facepalm

 

[_Ed_]

Yeah, but I already held Symcox in pretty low regard (things like this and this, and plenty more). For some reason I kinda liked Dippenaar during his career, so that's disappointing from him.

 

[StephenZA]

news24.com/sport/cricket/proteas/makhaya-ntini-recalls-avoiding-riding-on-proteas-team-bus-i-was-running-away-from-loneliness
This is the sort of thing that makes me really sad, even if it does not surprise me.

Also.
news24.com/sport/cricket/proteas/the-lessons-for-sa-cricket-from-2007-clique-crisis

I hope that the idea of the apparent jobs for friends amongst the coaching staff does not become a big issue. I do feel they are more than capable but you do worry about 'my way' is the only way sort of thinking. Particularly when dealing with racial dynamics as well.

 

[Marius]

news24.com/sport/cricket/proteas/makhaya-ntini-recalls-avoiding-riding-on-proteas-team-bus-i-was-running-away-from-loneliness
This is the sort of thing that makes me really sad, even if it does not surprise me.

Also.
news24.com/sport/cricket/proteas/the-lessons-for-sa-cricket-from-2007-clique-crisis

I hope that the idea of the apparent jobs for friends amongst the coaching staff does not become a big issue. I do feel they are more than capable but you do worry about 'my way' is the only way sort of thinking. Particularly when dealing with racial dynamics as well.

I'm not dismissing Ntini's claims of loneliness but he said this when he retired: 'The captains I played under -* the late Hansie Cronje, Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith -- supported me 150 percent. They made me realise it was not about colour, but about what I could do.' And this about the aftermath of his rape trial: 'That was the hardest time of my life, but people like the late Khaya Majola and Dr Ali Bacher supported me and believed in me.'

https://www.timeslive.co.za/sport/cricket/2010-11-02-ntini-retires-from-international-cricket/

Maybe he didn't feel comfortable being more forthright when he retired but this does seem a bit weird.

His claims that CSA also dumped him and didn't give him a chance to get to 400 wickets does seem a bit disingenuous and seems a bit entitled. His record in his last two years wasn't great - taking out Bangladesh he averaged 35 and if you only take Tests against Aus and Eng he averaged nearly 45, not good enough for a strike bowler.

 

[StephenZA]

I'm not dismissing Ntini's claims of loneliness but he said this when he retired: 'The captains I played under -* the late Hansie Cronje, Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith -- supported me 150 percent. They made me realise it was not about colour, but about what I could do.' And this about the aftermath of his rape trial: 'That was the hardest time of my life, but people like the late Khaya Majola and Dr Ali Bacher supported me and believed in me.'

https://www.timeslive.co.za/sport/cricket/2010-11-02-ntini-retires-from-international-cricket/

Maybe he didn't feel comfortable being more forthright when he retired but this does seem a bit weird.

His claims that CSA also dumped him and didn't give him a chance to get to 400 wickets does seem a bit disingenuous and seems a bit entitled. His record in his last two years wasn't great - taking out Bangladesh he averaged 35 and if you only take Tests against Aus and Eng he averaged nearly 45, not good enough for a strike bowler.

It does not seem weird, no to me. If you still rely on that sporting body to continue making a career of some sort. And I agree that he was rightly dropped due to poor form, but how often, poor form or not, sportsman are held onto so that they can achieve a great milestone. So I can understand being aggrieved when he was still wanting to play.

It is simple for me. Do I believe that a black african was readily accepted and assimilated into the player group that was (and probably still is) largely dominated by Afrikaans white culture. No, not very likely, particularly not at that time. Do I believe that behind closed doors comments where made about his position in the SA team, regards that he was only selected because he was a black african, yes most likely. It is consistently discussed about all players of colour, even to this day. Do I think that on the face of it, the various sports administrators and captains did and said the right things to his face and in public. Yes they probably did, but I doubt whether they were very welcoming, more accepting that he 'had to be there'. And that attitude is an extra difficult thing to have to cope with when you are meant to be part of a team. The fact that we did not hear much about it at the time is testament to him wanting to keep going, but also knowing that he would be ridiculed if he complained. It is not like any of this is surprising.

 

[Marius]

It does not seem weird, no to me. If you still rely on that sporting body to continue making a career of some sort. And I agree that he was rightly dropped due to poor form, but how often, poor form or not, sportsman are held onto so that they can achieve a great milestone. So I can understand being aggrieved when he was still wanting to play.

It is simple for me. Do I believe that a black african was readily accepted and assimilated into the player group that was (and probably still is) largely dominated by Afrikaans white culture. No, not very likely, particularly not at that time. Do I believe that behind closed doors comments where made about his position in the SA team, regards that he was only selected because he was a black african, yes most likely. It is consistently discussed about all players of colour, even to this day. Do I think that on the face of it, the various sports administrators and captains did and said the right things to his face and in public. Yes they probably did, but I doubt whether they were very welcoming, more accepting that he 'had to be there'. And that attitude is an extra difficult thing to have to cope with when you are meant to be part of a team. The fact that we did not hear much about it at the time is testament to him wanting to keep going, but also knowing that he would be ridiculed if he complained. It is not like any of this is surprising.

Because I am a pedant I would point out that it was far more likely that it was English-speaking culture dominant in the Proteas at the time, given the role of people like Smith, Boucher, and Kallis, none of whom are Afrikaners.

And with regard to your point about getting a milestone, perhaps, but Ntini needed 30 wickets to overtake Pollock, he'd taken two in his final two Tests - can we really think it's acceptable to keep him in the team to break the record (also given that he already held a number of records, best bowling in a Test match, first SAn to take ten wickets at Lord's).

And Ntini claims he was dropped from the contract liost, that is a lie. He was given a contract for the 2010-11 season, which also makes me raise my eyebrows.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/22652399/sa-board-retains-corrie-van-zyl,-graeme-smith-

Now I'm not saying that Ntini didn't face challenges that would make you or I blanche, but this really does seem like bandwagonning to me. And just as we can speculate that people only accepted Ntini because 'he had to be there' it is also possible that an extra effort was made to make him feel welcome.