(Cross-posted on Stack).
He doesn’t strike me as an intelligent man - he strikes me as a f—wit, actually - and you see his bowling is absolutely cerebral: every ball is different. It’s almost as if there’s witchcraft in the ball.
This is Dorothy Porter on Shane Warne. This is also my way of justifying a post on cricket. Last night I watched my first 20/20 cricket match and something ‘absolutely cerebral’ was definitely missing from the first 20/20 International held in Australia.
Ok, first impressions: it’s a bit like backyard cricket. I’m not sure of the rules so I don’t know if they have electric wickie, one bounce, one hand, or over-the-fence-your’re out. The way in which the batsmen acquit themselves is not unlike the sloggers of the backyard. Plenty of stepping back, giving one lots of room and exposing the stumps. An abundance of wrenching of balls bowled on the off-stump way onto the onside. Lots of pressure on fielders. Lots of laughing at dropped catches. (I expected the excuses to come from the wired up Graeme Smith: Awww, I had to put down me beer first.)
But as the commentators reminded us until the final ball was bowled, this game is about ENTERTAINMENT. And my, weren’t the crowd, the largest ever at the GABBA apparently, being entertained. So much so that the Mexican Wave was brought into play before South Africa had got halfway through their innings.
South Africa seemed to have forgotten the script and after 10 overs Tony Grieg was reminding us that the South Africans would go all out to get the runs, even though it was obvious to all that the game had gone to pot. Don’t turn off now, there’s still excitement to be had. Of course, there was ENTERTAINMENT. There were breakdancers, there was music. Oh yeah, and there was a cricket match.
The 20/20 slogfest is attractive. But it’s like eating the sponsor’s ‘cuisine’ after a few beers at the RSL. Tastes great at the time but you just know it’s lacking in substance. (And that can’t really be chicken can it?).
Living with people who have NO IDEA about cricket I found myself justifying the reason batsmen don’t play like ‘Marto’ in Test Matches. Because the game is much more complex than a bloke bowling a ball at another bloke trying to hit it over the fence. 20/20 is cricket for the lowest common denominator and even then it fails to live up to expectations. The ‘innovations’ - wired-up captains, shortened boundaries, blaring music, nicknames on shirts (lucky Tubsy Taylor’s not playing eh?) - actually sap the game of any substance such a shortened version may have already had.
Why not make it really interesting and make the bunnies open the batting and bar any recognised bowler from actually bowling? It would make as much sense as the cannabilised version of cricket we saw last night. So I’m a traditionalist, a purist, a wet sock, a spoilsport. I don’t really care. I just hope 20/20 dies a quick and painful death.
Just one question: why was Australia wearing blue/grey?
I found the game compelling, yet feintly disgusting. Like a BBQ without salad, I felt gorged …. satiated rather than satisfied afterwards. Like I had too much.
In sum, I dont care for it.
I agree. It gave that bloated, over-stuffed feeling but with the sense that there was no nutritional value at all.
Ban them!
Get the LP crew and ban the lot of them.
Cricket! not blooming likely!
By the way who is Dorothy Porter?
She’s a poet. Australian poet.
Which i misread as Dorothy Parker - communcaitions from the very departed.
Oh it was awful - how the hell are you meant to get through a case of VB? perhaps with some SMS breaks. & the grey? cricket mourning dress for Kessa.
No the whole thing is a travesty best assigned to winter solstice celebrations at Mawson (but me mobile dont work….)
No excuses needed for cricket posting. And wasn’t that Dorothy Porter article a cracker?
I didn’t watch the 20/20. I try to avoid junk food.
I read Dorothy Parker as well first off (though unlike Homer I know who Dorothy Porter is) and was wondering what an encounter between her and Warney would have been like!
Dorothy Parker and Warney. Yes, what a thought.
The article was great. I want to print it out and keep it so I can give it to everyone who questions my devotion to the Shane Warne of the field, as opposed to the Shane Warne of the mobile phone…
Yes, I also found Dorothy right on the money. There is nothing in sport I find more absorbing more than watching Warney bowl (except perhaps watching Bernie Larkham dance on the rugby field). Contra to most everyone else, I also happen to dig the way his genius with the cricket ball has shut-up the Tut-Tut brigade that patrols his private life. Go Warney!
“I also happen to dig the way his genius with the cricket ball has shut-up the Tut-Tut brigade that patrols his private life. Go Warney!” Really? still finishing off that second case of VB then CS?
Its a strange ability possessed by most Australians to support a BLOKE, “yeah sure he’s a bit of a boffhead, but jeez can he bowl……..”
Repeat after me - he is a foolish , sexually maraudering, manipulative, egocentric dickhead. & i do like the kiddies to admire people with something like a moral compass spinning in their head. Or one who knows a decent martini when they’ve had 7 or 8
Sorry Bernice, I couldn’t care less who Warney is bonking, and in any event, and unlike the Tut-Tut British-tabloid brigade, don’t presume to know the real story of his sex life (or anyone else’s, for that matter). As I couldn’t care less, I must also admit that I don’t tend to read those kinds of stories, so I can hardly debate the detail. The Tut-Tutters are, however, always there, whether they be tut-tutting away about Paul Keating’s colourful language or Warney’s sex life or whatever Gerard Henderson decides to tut-tut about every other week. Yes, I tend to like irreverent larrikins, and I especially dig seeing them confound the presumptuous private morality police with sheer merit.
Its not the whom he bonks (within certain limits) but the HOW that bothers me.
Sending women unsolicited text messages requesting uninvited sex is still sexual harassment.
I’ve never sent a text message in my life, but would agree that I thought the Great Man very foolish to do so. Beyond foolishness, which I would suspect everyone to be guilty of from time to time, I wouldn’t condone anyone sexually harrassing anyone (and I wouldn’t know if he has - is this actually proved, as distinct from being alleged, esp by prurient headline-seeking tabloids?).
Well I hate to get on my usual hobbyhorse of the creeping Americanisation of our language (but try to stop me!), but the single thing about the whole ’spectacle’ that really irked me was a reference by Tony Grieg (I think) to the batting team in the ‘dugout’. God help us…
Btw - nice post, Georg!
I was mentally composing something on the 20/20 game for LP but your post Georg is better than what I was thinking.
The 20/20 game suffered from the same problem as one-dayers. When the result is clearly know (ie the chasing team collapses and the run rate is impossible) the game is boring. Test matches can end up a boring draws but today, and think the Aussies deserve credit here, thrilling test matches (and series) are becoming quite common. Even though we lost the Ashes it was thrilling and the South African tests closer than the final result.
And New Zealand not only did ‘authorities last month introduced strict crowd security measures including switching to light beer and a ban on drink containers’ but women kissing as well.
“He doesn’t strike me as an intelligent man - he strikes me as a f—wit, actually - and you see his bowling is absolutely cerebral: every ball is different. It’s almost as if there’s witchcraft in the ball.”
“Warnie would be perfect as a Shakespearean fool. I’d put my meagre bank balance on Warnie never having read a line of Shakespeare in his life but he would be perfect: Shakespeare would love him to bits.” -Dorothy Porter
Looks like Dorothy’s been caught wanking.
Dorothy’s a lesbian last time I looked.
Talking about Shakespeare is wanking?
Oh well, I guess wanking is in the eye of the beholder. Sorry, I would have liked to have put that another way.
Thanks Mark and Shaun. I was mentally composing it too when I was watching it. I was so appalled by the whole thing I just had to write something about it.
Warney like Clinton had form and thought he was bullet proof.
no-one has ever told apparently there are standards and he is below them.
Mum and Dad must take some responsibility I suspect.
He is the best spinner of all time but he is still a little boy!
Could play amateur pyschoanalyst for days about the Aust penchant for benevolent & amused tolerance of stupid behaviour such as Warne’s. See also Jenine Casey as today’s Heckler in the SMH. But imagine what may have been, had Warne walked onto playing fields fully fit, fully rested, and fully focused.
& I’d disagree with DP the non-departed. Shakespeare’s fools have always an unwelcome self-knowledge of their own foolery, this is where the pathos lies, & where the humanity of his characters displays itself. Warne has never demonstrated any self-awareness at all as far as i can see, even to the hysterics of his appealing. & nor does his control of his bowling need to be cerebral - an individual with a set of highly refined physical skills can rely on a state of cognitive unconscious to achieve a far more successful outcome than when done consciously - see The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems by Jef Raskin.
alas poor Warney,
I knew him punter a spinner of infinite jest and most excellent zooter!