"Back away from the Bag!"
Enjoy Your day
Golf snobs love complaining about courses which are too difficult, ones which don’t yield easy birdies and force professionals to fight for par. Humbug. Now, T20 cricket ‘snobs’ have boarded the same bandwagon. Get over it.
Sri Lanka’s captain, Wanindu Hasaranga, had no complaints about the pitch on which his team were bowled out for 77. It was livelier than most, far from ideal on a regular basis, but he was happy to admit that his team had “thrown our wickets away” and that more “proper cricket shots” might have yielded a total around 125 which “could have made things a bit different.”
Anrich Nortje was exceptional both on and off the field. His 4-7 officially became the most economical 4-over analysis in T20 WC history surpassing Ajantha Mendis’ 6-8 against Zimbabwe in Hambantota in 2012. He was just as good afterwards:
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t need 20 sixes in a game for it to be a good game,” Nortje said. “Us bowlers are also allowed to have a little bit of assistance. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. When it’s flat – which is most of the time – people like to see sixes, but when it’s quick and bouncy then they get to see wickets.”
A shout-out, too, for the super-modest Ottniel Baartman whose 4-1-9-1 made Franchise owners around the world raise eyebrows. He already has a contract in England’s ‘Blast’ but further riches may await. Is he enjoying flying under the radar at the moment?
“I wouldn’t say ‘under the radar’, but we have world class players in the team and you have to stand out, and I feel I have been doing that in the last year or so. I’m trying to keep doing the things that got me here in the first place,” said the 31-year-old from Oudtshoorn. Asked whether the journey had been challenging, he paused, smiled, and said three words when 3000 would not have done justice to his perseverance: “Yes, it has.”
There will be many reports around the world about the security operations for this game, so I’m loathe to add. But anyway…in 16 ICC events over the last 30-something years, today was comfortably the most stressful and traumatic I’ve experienced. Blah Blah…
If the brutally heavy-handed tactics of New York’s law-enforcement teams save us all from a terrorist attack, I’m all for it, and thank you. The lack of communication between the NYPD, Long Island Police, SWAT teams and Combat Alert Task Force was bizarre. I’ve seen chaos in India and other countries but, patience eventually led to an entry into the ground. This time, nobody seemed to have any idea what the other teams were doing.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” said one local officer in the midst of the shemozzle, “but this whole thing is an Irish stew, nobody knows what’s going on.” I appreciated the sentiment but not the analogy. I love Irish stew – and the randomness of its ingredients was nothing compared to those being used to secure Eisenhower Park.
Having been misdirected twice and refused entry twice, drenched in sweat having walked 3.5 kilometres to and around the stadium, I eventually made it to the ‘correct’ entrance. My wheelie laptop bag was searched twice and I passed through a scanner and a ‘pat-down’.
Finally ‘in’, I heard a fierce, growling yell: “YOU! Stand back from the bag! YOU! NOW! Step away from the bag and keep your hands clear!” Evidently this could not be me, having cleared two checks already. But it was. So, I backed away, with my hands in the air, while a K9 unit Alsation (more wolf I’d say) sniffed and salivated over my bag. “You’re clear – go!” barked the screamy officer. Thank you for keeping us safe, Sir. Maybe, scaring the crap out of us while you do it is a necessary part of the process. If it is, thank you again. Expertly done.
Final word today to Heinrich Klaasen. “As humble as you are, and from a modest background, I just wondered how superstardom was sitting with you, Franchise teams preparing to pay millions for you. How are you with that?” I’ve been wanting to ask him that for months.
“Tough, actually, I don’t really like it. If I could play the game like I’m playing it at the moment without the fame that would be fantastic. But it’s part of the job and scoring runs…that’s all that I can control, the rest will take care of itself, stay humble. Runs and humble. That’s all that I can control.”
**** Confession: It’s been well over a month since I suggested to subscribers that you could upgrade from ‘free’ to ‘paid’ for just £4 per month. Or just click on the ‘Buy Me A coffee’ option. If you enjoy my updates, it would make a difference to me. Ta!
This game struck me as far, far more interesting than 99% of T20s, for exactly the reasons that Nortje pointed out. What worries me is the slew of articles suggesting that it will put fans off "converting" to cricket because of the lack of sixes. If it even might, cricket is dead in the water anyway, because it will have (been) morphed into a game with every ounce of subtlety or nuance removed. And it will also become a game that gets very boring and very predictable, very quickly. (As an aside, it's interesting that more fast-moving sports like football don't seem to think the same way: people are still quite happy to watch a goalless draw, without demanding that the pitch conditions and goal sizes be changed so that every other match is a 9-7 victory).
And as for your other point Neil: the kind of unchecked thuggery you're describing is not only uncivilised and--surprise!!--alienating to spectators (I wouldn't go anywhere near any international game in person, quite substantially because of the aggressive security and insane "security" rules). It won't do anything to catch terrorists either, unless you've just definitively revealed yourself to be one by, say, setting off a bomb in plain sight of everyone--in which case it's a bit late for prevention! What catches terrorists is intelligence (in every sense!) and vigilance, not behaving like a bunch of tooled-up hooligans whose aim is to intimidate everyone indiscriminately and undiscerningly. That's about bullying, not about catching criminals nor protecting people...which it probably does less effectively than more intelligent law enforcement.
Welcome to the USA Neil! I lived there for a decade and experienced precisely the sort of brutal bullying from police that you did. The so-called land of the free valorizes the police and military, who see themselves as sheep dogs protecting sheep. They're beyond control, and whenever someone tries to hold them to account, they're accused of being soft on crime. You do what you're told by a cop, or you get killed, with no consequences.