Well, what a sucky few days for late-night sports-watching.
Not only does Andrew Flintoff bowl the Poms to victory at Lord’s, but Cadel Evans had an absolute shocker on yesterday’s stage of the Tour, pretty much ensuring that he won’t finish on the podium this year.
Putting aside the disappointment that we won’t have an Aussie on the podium in Paris this year, it’s been a fascinating couple of nights of bike racing. Sunday’s stage saw what may be the fastest climbing performance ever in the Tour. And while Evans’ inability to follow the other overall contenders over the summit of the Col du Petit Saint-Bernard last night was entirely down to him, what really nailed his chances for good were the efforts of an American, possibly at the behest of an Aussie, all on behalf of a Pom!
Alberto Contador finally took the yellow jersey on Sunday night, by flying up the access road to the ski resort at Verbier, Switzerland. In the process, he made his rivals, including the Schleck brothers, Lance Armstrong, Carlos Sastre, and Cadel Evans, look very ordinary. But that’s mainly because Contador’s climb was extraordinary. A couple of posts by two sports scientists analyze Contador’s performance in detail, comparing it to the best climbs of the past couple of decades, and have concluded that Contador’s may have been the strongest climb in Tour history. At the very least, it was up there with the very fastest, most of which occurred in the late 1990s and were almost certainly assisted by EPO.
What happened to Evans going up the mountain last night, only he (and possibly his sporting director) really know. But he lost more time going downhill than he did up. And that is at least partly due to some clever team tactics by the Garmin-Slipstream team.
The biggest surprise of this Tour so far (aside from Evans’ below-expectations performance) is the high placing of Bradley Wiggins. Wiggins is known as a track cyclist, having won a total of four gold medals in endurance track events in the last two Olympics. But he’s never been an overall contender on the road in Grand Tours, because he was too heavy to climb really well. But he’s managed to lose 9 kilograms of mass without losing too much power, and he’s now in third place at the business end of the Tour. Obviously, the Garmin-Slipstream team want to keep him there; they almost completely eliminated one barrier to doing that – Evans – on the way down the Petit Saint-Bernard.
Wiggins’ teammate Dave Zabriskie is a very strong time triallist and a decent climber, if not quite of the caliber to win the race. But he and Wiggins found themselves in a group with most of the leaders – except Evans – at the top of the last climb, with a long descent to the finish. As a champion time triallist, Zabriskie is naturally suited to descending mountains very quickly. And so, presumably at the direction of Garmin-Slipsream’s (Australian) sporting director Matt White, Zabriskie went to the front of his group and pedalled as fast as he possibly could, towing the rest of the group down to the line a fair bit faster than they would have gone otherwise. And so (from memory) Evans went from a deficit of one and a bit minutes on that group at the top, to nearly three minutes at the bottom.
I don’t think that’s the whole story – Evans is a pretty good descender himself, and if he’d been capable (or inclined) to put in something close to his maximum effort, he shouldn’t have lost nearly that much time coming down a hill. But it was a great example of the power of having the right teammate, in the right place, at the right time.
Oh, the cricket? Irresponsible batting, a strike bowler who’s struggling to hit the pitch, bad umpiring, and an Andrew Flintoff who’s clearly decided that, knee or not, he wants to go out on a high. Where do you start?
I’m not sure why losing to the English “sucks”, and cricket is my one guilty pleasure amongst elite sports. It certainly did “suck” that the match wasn’t a serious contest, but beyond that — it’s just entertainment, right?
Yes one can say that one should use the technology to get rid of the most egregious umpiring errors — some of which played a part in determining the lost 05 series, but the hard reality is that even before the errors, the English had outplayed the Aussies, largely for the reasons you acknowledge.
I hope Australia plays well enough to square up, not for patriotic reasons, but for entertainment reasons, but beyond that, I’m easy on how it goes. May the entertainment and drama continue until the last test, and if it does, who should care?
PS: Ounter is a crap captain
oops Punter is a crap captain
I’m always quietly thrilled when the Australian cricket team loses. I’ve never been able to like them.
I feel sorry for Cadel. It seems there’s odd politics going on within his team. He seems like an intense, sensitive sort of guy who is having a shocker.
Yeah, it sucks a bit to lose to the Poms, Robert, but consider two things: it had to happen eventually, and at least it wasn’t New Zealand.
I was always apprehensive about our bowling line-up for this series, but I thought the batsmen would at least perform. They managed pretty well at Cardiff, but some really have to step up (Hughes, Hussey) for us to be competitive again.
sucks?
Great to see the Aussie’s lose – couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys. Or is the correct teminology ‘boys’ these days?
BTW could someone have a word with Stuart McGill about his apparent belief that the cricket commentary is a vehicle for his comedy skills. The man’s a goose. Strangely enough Greg Mathews is the most credible commentater, although my wife who knows far more about cricket than I do has a soft spot for young Damien. I think that’s more to do with his eyes than the value of his commentary, though.
Yes, it’s just entertainment, but part of the charm of sport is that we identify with the participants and care about the results, for no particularly logical reason.
In my case, it’s just that I’ve read one too many articles in The Guardian lately sniffing about those nasty uncultured Aussies (and I mean Australians in general, not just the cricket team).
I suspect that England may still have won without the umpires’ assistance, but it would have been nice to see it.
Now there Robert@8 …
It;s hard to imagine tha winning a cricket match could prove “Aussies” were cultured, assuming that’s a good thing in an abstract sense.
I heard Mitchell Johnson claim that he wasn’t a “dinosaur”, but “prehistoric”. I hope this was an attempt at self-deprecating humour.
As to Greg Matthews Adrian@7, during the Cardiff frolic he was describing the way English fielders’ coats of arms were obscured by their sunnies as the way one could understand their match position and how as NSW captain he wouldn’t have stood for it. Hmmm
I was looking out for it at Lords, but this time the same practice presumably indicated the opposite, or not, because they struggled on and won anyhow.
And Flintoff managed a laugh with his fellow bowlers in both tests. Mo was silent on this second time round, presumably because again, this meant something different.
Of course it can’t. But if the English team had lost, presumably those Guardian writers who happen to follow cricket would be miserable about their team’s loss.
Yes, I am fully aware that this is completely childish and petulant on my part. But, frankly, isn’t caring about which team can hit a leather ball around an oval patch of grass the height of immaturity anyway?
I think Cadel mmust be crook. He said he felt horrible the day before and then last night he couldn’t lift when he needed to. I think the fact that they are letting riders go in the break means the team is resigned to trying for stage wins rather than supporting Cadel and I can understand that.
I think Carlos Sastre is still foxing. I know he is behind but after his effort on Alpe de Huez last year I just think he is possibly holding back for tonight or Saturday.
Zabriske’s descent was awesome – the TV just doesn’t communicate the difficulty of both ascending and descending.
I saw Jens Voight (honorary Aussie) go down like a sack of spuds at 80 km/h. Got a smack from the wife for saying “Oh F&*(!” when it happened. Fortunately it sounds like he’ll be ok.
Armstrong continues to impress with his ability to perform and his character – his team discipline has been a study. Contador and Astana will be worthy winners if nothing changes.
Great post Robert.
Robert @11
Childish and petulant? I’d not be so judgemental, though it does verge on Schadenfreude. Caring about which team could do a better job of hitting a leather ball around an oval patch of grass would be silly unless one were a member of one of the teams or had a financial or personal interest in it MJ’s mother, girlfriend?], yes. Claiming that the result said anything of value about the groups to which the teams referred (Australians, English, Yorkshiremen etc) sillier still. Of course, if the Olympics is a yardstick it might suggest we have the public spending priorities out the relevant team’s referral group were irrational.
My own view, which I accept will put me in an eccentric minority is that as long as the sport is paid for, we should enjoy it for the narrative it tells and the perverse conjunction of skill and chance. Not becvoming too attched to the result may make that easier to accomplish.
Fran
I agree – but I reckon there might be more going on. I think he, more than any other rider, would benefit from a good team environment and a DS who can help him manage his emotions.
You’re also quite right on the descents. On a steep twisty descent, I can sometimes keep pace with car traffic. These guys are in another league again, and I dunno how in the hell they do it.
Cadel sees to have had a big split with his team as well.His manager was bagging him this morn I not sure why a good climber such as he is has been stuck in that team of wombats who were keystone like in the team time trial effort. They even managed to crash into each other. I think sadly this year may be Cadel’s last unless he can find a good team. I sense he isn’t popular and not a member of the swinging dicks led by Armstrong and Contador. Peloton politics can destroy you especially if your team is weak. Cricket?????
Who knows what goes on in the head of the OZ team? They seem to feed off Ponting and he was revved up by dodgy umpiring and no doubt some good sledging by the Poms and he did his rag. Steve Waugh wulda just stared them down. Ponting needs to be far cooler or his team of emotional lemmings will follow him over the cliff again. Not expecting the Austs to improve I see a 4-0 result.
Sunday had the finals of the Women’s Hockey Championship Trophy at Homebush in Sydney. The Hockeyroos held the reigning champions, Argentina, to 0-0 after extra time, eventually losing by one goal in extra time. The only team they lost to were the Argintineans 1-0 in the round games. The final was one of the best games of hockey I have ever witnessed.
England was soundly thrashed by China (7-0) in the play off for 5th place. Despite this outstanding performance by Australia and a rather weak one by England, Australia is relegated out of the Champions Trophy for the first time in the existence of the CT, 17 years. This is because the winners (Argentina) qualify, and the hosts for next year (England) qualify and then the rankings are based on last years Olympics placings, where Australia was 5th behind China (5th at the CT), Germany (4th at CT) and Netherlands (3rd at CT).
Now this sucks, to beat England, and come very close to winning the Championship, and still lose!
When I was descending in the Alps my hands ended up like claws and my forearms screamed in agony and I wasn’t even close to the speed those guys were doing. That was still better than going up. I am considering liposuction before my next effort at mountains.
On the way down Alpe de Huez in the coach (to go and climb Col de Galibier) a guy went around us on a very nice Cervelo and then hit the barrier and rolled over the top. Don’t know how the coach driver missed the bike on the road. Apparently the guy only just went over the edge and didn’t fall – unbelievably lucky.
durutticolumn@15
I doubt it will be 4-0 but 2-1 England with the series decided at the end of the fourth test sounds about right.
PS: As a lefty, I love the nym …
durutticolumn,
Heh. 100% accurate on the character assassinations
Agree that Ponting is a rubbish captain. No falir, too conservative, no ideas, no caacpity to shake things up when needed – a drifter.
Great batsman, yes. But should be vice to someone with tactical flair.
LeftyE@19
Yes, and that was clear in 05 when he wone the toss and bowled at Edgbaston minutes after losing McGrath and having Dizzy and Kasper to work with — and then having no 3rd man despite where Lee liked to bowl … sheesh … and no fly slip (double sheesh!)
Which brings us to the best replacement — probably the Kat ATM … certainly not Pup
As to Punter’s batting, I’d drop him to 5 and have Hussey depart for Hodge (to keep up the H-name quota) who’d bat at 3. Maybe Callum Ferguson could be an option if North doesn’t pan out.
Robert
They did not lose they were trashed and as us ex poms know to our cost one needs to lose now and then so one can be gracious in victory when the wheel turns.
As I explained to my pommie bashing next-door neighbour of 30 plus years, Ponting blew the first test by not declaring sooner, all he guaranteed was AUS would not lose and as a result failed to win. Risk taking unlike Turnbull is not part of his job description.
That plus his hatred of labor another of his foibles (being ex navy and a rusted on Lib). He is in his eighties and his other half’s maiden name was Britain or very close to it, which might be the why, he hates the poms. We have many colourful chats over the years
The anti labor view is a puzzle, as he comes from a similar background to myself I guess it takes all sorts.
My wife worked in a private school and had to defend our pommie heritage against 1000 pupils at times and she hated cricket prior to that, a baptism of ashes so to speak.
I detest cricket.
The most joy I have ever (vicariously) gotten from the game is when the arrogant and vicious aussie team (“sledging” is perhaps the most notable aspect of their behaviour,IMO) gets taken down – doesn’t matter too much to me who does it, I just like to see such unsporting thugs and bullies earn their just reward.
Bilko@21
Despite my low opinion of Ponting, the declaration gave Australia ample time to win at Cardiff. Their bowling let them down — Johnson was rubbish and Horrie bowled to keep it tight rather than take wickets — a cardinal sin. How long di Panesar keep them out?
77 overs of largely innocuous bowling … and they nearly got there anyway.
If he doesn’t pick it up in the tour match starting on Friday I’d seriously consider dropping Mitchell Johnson. He’s been terrible in these first two Tests and there’s a whiff of “Gillespie in ‘05″ about it all. Not that Mitch is done by any stretch but Ponting sticking with him too long, hoping and praying that eventually he will come good. It’s starting to look like he might not.
Stuart Clark has to come back in. When fit and firing he’s our best bowler and does an able impression of McGrath. Callum Ferguson should’ve been in this squad from the start as the back-up batsman too.
Largely agree Jacques, though perhaps johnson could bat at 6 for Hussey and North moves up to 5, if they wanted one last try. I’d say he was as likely to get 50 as Hussey ATM.
Michael Hussey, shouldn’t be dropped…he should be captain!
I enjoyed the defeat, it was over and done with at a civilised hour too, which I’m glad about, because I needed some sleep.
Ponting’s captaincy bores me too. It’s a pity Warne was always embroiled in controversy, I have a feeling he would have been a great capatain….perhaps I should have watched the 20/20s from India to see, but I can’t get excited about the short form[s] of the game.
Hussey as captain? You jest, surely. Unless he gets a score in the next match he’s certain to be dropped before the end of the tour never to return due to his age.
Warne could have been a great onfield captain, but someone would have had to pay for a couple of media savvy “bodyguards” who could have imposed a strict no contact with the public rule during a series and who could have deprived him of direct access to a mobile phone, perhaps putting his hands in gloves as a back up.
Between matches they could have kept him in “an undisclosed location” with the facilities of Gilligans Island. Yep that might have worked.
Fran you must be only other person in the world who understands the name
Us Anarcho syndicalists are a dying breed
And who did I character assassinate?
Bilko: “a baptism of ashes so to speak.”
nicely done!
durutticolumn@28
Longtime Trot who was always very interested in the POUM, Casa-CNT, FAI, the story of Lerida during the Spanish Civil War. These days would see myself as anarcho-Marxist …
I think it was Roger who was claiming character assassination …
Well the cricket’s not over yet. Strauss’s best move, apart from claiming a catch that clearly hit the ground in front of him was to win the toss – twice. In the second test for the first four days when the Poms batted the sun shone and when the Aussies batted there were clouds and the ball swung.
In the Aussies second innings they lost 3 of their top 6 to bad umpiring and still scored over 400. How many teams have scored over 400 in the last innings of a test match? Not many at all I’d reckon.
Overall so far we’ve taken 35 wickets and the Poms 26.
Johnson’s bowling is remarkable. Spraying the ball everywhere, but he’s still taken 8 wickets, same as Hilfenhaus and one more than Siddle. But he ought to be dropped until he sorts himself out.
Ponting in the Poms second innings within a couple of minutes put down a routine catch and missed a runout. If he’d done both the result might have been different.
I haven’t checked to see if it’s true yet but I read on another forum that Kevin Pietersen is out for the rest of the series and has had surgery on his achilles.
Pointing Ponting at the Pommies
J de M @ 33, yep, I’ve heard it multiple times on the ABC. Apparently he couldn’t walk without a limp and they decided to operate immediately.
Ian Bell is said to be the replacement.
Fran, a Trot eh? That way ends only with an ice pick It is Durutti’s demise that I find so poignant; a metaphor for the left.
I note Cadel is in total disarray now in a team that hates him. He such a wonderful athlete who deserves better but coming from Australia he can’t bring the big sponsorship bucks so will always be struggling to get a good team. Bit like Formula One where Mark Webber has just lucked into the Red Bull team which is suddenly competitive and his amazing skills can be seen. Anyone who saw him win a Formula Ford race in the wet at Phillip Island yoinks ago would have no doubts about his abilities.
And speaking of athletes Lance Armstrong’s ride in the Alps the other day was amazing.
Finally. we have got to the bottom to Mitchell Johnson’s poor form it seems his mother is to blame.
At least she didn’t give him a weight loss pill, Durutticolumn.
Luke: True. U ever notice Shane Warne and his Mum were almost identical even down to their hair styles ? Odd.
Cadel will get dumped by his team, I think they hate him.
But Ponting? We would never be that lucky. OK he bats brilliantly, once he gets going. But he’s a conservative little rat who wouldn’t know inspiration if it bit him on the arse. The poms, the luck of the toss and some piss poor umpiring combined beautifully with Punter’s genius for doing the predictable. The team sacked Symonds because he wasn’t part of the team mentality, how they missed him at Lords. A personality like Symonds would have been a perfect foil to the pommy bovver Flintoff.
2-1 to the poms because they wont always be that lucky and really they aren’t that much better anyway. They just have a few more bowlers who can bowl straight.
DurrutiColumn@36
Actually it’s Stalinism that produces the ice pick … but let’s move on. I assume you’re alluding to the accidental death scenario for Durrutti. AIUI the precise circumstances attending Durruti’s demise are the matter of some controversy, as is often the case with history’s heroic figures.
David H
Agree on the scoreline, but I can’t go with you on Symonds. If you could rip him out of context, ensure he was in a fit state to play, physically and mentally, and do it without disrupting team discipline by making him a special case … sure. He is the archetypal loose cannon though and his talents notwithstanding, you just can’t have him
A conservative Australian cricket captain? You don’t say. I think Ponting has received more criticism than he’s due. If he had taken a catch that appeared to hit the ground before him, and appealed for caught behind off a ball hitting a helmet, the cricketing world’s press would be in uproar. Meanwhile, he’s carried himself and his team very well, and refused to make any negative comment about the woeful umpiring which has cost the Aussies dearly. We all would have liked Warne as captain, but only in retrospect – he’s a ratbag of the highest order, and there were few dissenting voices when he got dropped from the vice captaincy.
My view is that all it will take to turn this series around is Johnson hitting some form. Our batsmen are doing well enough – as Brian noted, scoring over 400 in the second innings of Lords with three batsmen incorrectly dismissed, and four centuries in one innings of the Cardiff Test.
I’m picking Australia 2-1
Fran, I know Stalinists wielded the pick. But the point was that Leon was asking for it. Trots can be very annoying especially if you are trying to conclude an enterprise agreement without setting the place on fire.
I know there is conjecture about the death of the great man but I am attracted to the metaphor of the long march to near victory which ends when a supporter accidentally blows the leader away. The other accounts of his demise sound far too after the event. Far too heroic. The messy end sounds more plausible.
Agree re Symonds. He still trying to repair the Storm damage whereby most of his fortune was peed up against the wall by the Townsville mob. No wonder he drinks….
PS I love this discussion. Sport and anarchy
PPS Fran can you be an anarcho-marxist
Ian Chappell turned in a delightfully cantankerous performance during the post-match interviews on BBC radio (carried by the glorious ABC) in which he
- Succintly skewered the Australian selectors for not bringing a third opener and banking all on Hughes, a three-test beginner to perform, and providing as ‘cover’ the never-fit, non-specialist Watson
- Eloquently summarized the intractable drop-Johnson-for-Lee dilemma
- Brutally dismissed Bopara as a Test #3, not saying he should be dropped, but simply not batted at 3.
His overall demenour was classic Chappelli – Hungover Grizzly Bear With Multiple Molar Abscesses and No Porridge. He deflated the overall BBC joyous victory afterglow as effectively as a Nuclear Attack.
Ponting I thought was very good in his speech, praising England, acknowledging their superior play, and deigning, even offered the chance, to blame the umpiring.
Ponting is not our greatest captain, but he is scrupulously fair and has tried to lead the other test playing nations into playing more according to the spirit of the game (sledging a notoable contradiction to this). He has tried to get opposing captains to accept fielders verdicts on catches, has advocated for this in ICC meetings, and does not bludge and time-waste with armadas of physio when struck by quick bowlers, nor does he needlessly and continually leave the ground.
Sooks and manipulators like Anil Kumble and the Indian team in general and inveterate cheats like Duncan Fletcher are not in thw same ethical class as Ponting, which is why Fletcher annoys Ponting so much, as Fletcher spent most of his time as England coach inventing ways to systematicaly undermine the laws of cricket.
So the Aussies outplayed England in Cardiff and England outplayed Australia at Lords but got the win. They have the momentum and Flintoff in super form.They will be hard to deny the Ashes from here.
Englands batting is pretty good – only KP and Bopara look vulnerable. Everyone else down to no.11 looks like making runs. Their quicks are performing marginally better than ours and Swann will match Hauritz from here on. Prior is ‘Keeping better than Haddin.
I would have a bowl off between Lee and Johnson for the next Test. Johnsoon’s bowling was pretty much the difference between the teams at Lords. If he bowls liek that again we could go two down and the Ashes are all but gone.
To be fair DurrutiColumn, to Stalin everyone was damn annoying and/or a a potential rival claimant to power. You only have to do a roll call of the CC that made the Bolshevik Revolution and the CC in 1940. It turns out, nearly everyone was a not just a nuisance but counterrevolutionary, except of course Stalin, who within 3 years dissolved the Comintern because it too was a nuisance to the fight fur unity with Britain, France and the US. Apparently members of the Moscow-loyal Communist Party of Japan who had fled Japan because Stalin smiled as they too were interned, and smiled on the Smith Act the first use of which in 1941 was against Trotskyists. And what was the Stalinist record for sorting out nuisances in Spain anyway? But I digress …
As to Roy, I find it particularly disappointing, because I was an unabashed fan of his play and determined that one day, we’d see him at his best in tests. he managed a couple of impressive outings, but that was it. really, he should have been in in 2005, along with Huss, Damien Wright etc but that’s another story.
durruti
Leon was only “asking for it” if one accepts the gangster/Mafia logic of seizing power and hanging onto it by all means including secret police, arbitary arrest & execution, etc.
I accept that Leon himself was no stranger to that political paradigm, probably a master of it. So, is it “live by the sword, die by the sword” as far as you’re concerned? That at least does have the simple logic of soldiering about it.*
Fran however lives here in Australia, in an inner city electorate I think she told us.
+++++++++++++
* and some comical footnotes: Stalin asks, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” No doubt his courtiers chuckled merrily at the quip. Many decades later a Polish Pope (still with no military forces) inspires a people’s movement which with non-violent insurrectionary brilliance forces the first crack in the facade of the huge unrenovated house owned by Stalin’s heirs. Mr Gorbachev has many divisions but chooses not to send them marching and shooting.
Stalin didn’t help himself I admit. He was excessive at times I am sure he regretted at least some of the 30 million or so he killed. As Sissy Spacek said to Martin Sheen in Badlands after he had blown away a few too many innocent bystanders I really do think he has gone too far this time.
Re Roy. Do you think he has a good innings left in him? When was the last time he fired? Was dissapointing for QLD this year. And is he still a threat as a bowler?
What’s with all this Stalin guff? I mean, we’re trying to dicuss real issues here.
Could you just…
It’s just not cricket!
Sorry kymbos, it’s the old Spanish anarchists and Trots and POUM, and the Bolsheviks. They get into cricket debates all the time. Punter is more your United Front/centre deviationist I imagine. Wasn’t that West Indian cricket writer a Marxist too?
[OT: Fran, as you've read plenty of Spanish Civil War histories, would be interested in your views on Mr Orwell vis a vis POUM. Was George Orwell as resolutely anti-Stalinist in Spain, as he was afterwards?]
Kymbos If the Russians had played cricket Stalin would have failed after it was revealed he was a hopeless batsman, couldn’t bowl and had to be hidden at cow corner in the field. No man can hope to lead when he shows shortcomings while wearing the creams. John Howard’s demise can be traced back to that hopeless display of bowling while visiting troops in Iraq. Straight away people knew he was a cricket phoney.
We have all been diminished as men by the loss at Lord’s If we had a cricket administrator with the instincts of Old Uncle Joe a lot of those players would have gone by now their names erased from the record books their pictures removed from club houses around the country. As it is it seems this hapless bunch of wombats will be allowed to walk out unscathed at Edgbaston to humiliate us further.
The revolution, unlike the cricket, will not be televised.
Ambiguous is kidding himself if he thinks the west brought down the Soviet monolith. It collapsed under its own weight.It was trying to run an unsustainable economic model. Just as China is doing today.
And re Leon asking for it; irony only works if the reader understands that it is irony. Failure to communicate irony lies with the author and for that I apologise.
Oh come on, don’t tell me anyone really gives a shit about teh cricket?
If this is getting you down, you need to become a bit more resilient.
‘Resilient’ is not a word that your hear very much these days unfortunately. Thanks for reminding me.
Not a problem Durrutti … after about 35 years of taking these matters very seriously, irony can be missed.
Alright, that does it!
(takes bat and ball, goes home).
No need to apologise durruti, wouldn’t be the first time i missed irony
Now it’s my turn to apologise for being unclear. I didn’t say the west brought down the Soviet system, i implied the Polish people (Eastern folk) started the first cracks. Even then, around 1980, most Westerners thought the Soviet system wasn’t close to collapse. Perhaps those who lived under the system were more aware of its deficiencies and weaknesses?
I agree entirely with your assessment of Josef Stalin’s poor cricket skills. He was hopeless. Also agree that the cringeworthy video of John Howard trying to “bowl” in Iraq was a shocker. Thousands of backyrad amateurs must have been amazed to see such a spectacle.
And on the other side, Hawkie played against the journalists, actually batted, and got his glasses smashed while batting. Top bloke. I suspect Mr Keating abhorred cricket. Lenin? He would’ve been a wiley coach. Bukharin? More your team physio and masseur. Jenny Macklin? Good wicket keeper.
C. L. R. James
Ambigulous@50
Sadly, Orwell’s experiences in Spain drove him to the right, so although he was “anti-Stalinist”, he had effectively, by the 1950s become paert of the liberal side of the Cold War. He wasn’t the only one of course. Plenty of Trotsky-sympathetic circle went that way — Kristol, Eastman, Burnham, Schactman, perhaps most famously Hayek etc … Some people assert that the ‘neocons’ were really unreformed Trots. Bizarre but the personnel overlap is interesting.
Orwell went to Spain by his own admission seeking “decency” rather than socialism and was seemingly pretty naive about the machinations coming from the Stalinists. It’s worth noting that Trotsky saw the POUM as centrists rather than his own party. For a Trotskyist, this doesn’t mean what the word would mean in mainstream Australia. It indicates a vacillating party torn between a desire to embed itself in a left or reformist capitalist polity (ie to accommodate the workwers to capitalism, to seek a progressive faction of capitalists with which to ally/subordinate the workers to) and the desire to lead the workers of the planet to overthrow the capitalist classes on a global scale.
There’s a pretty good book which you could read on the Spanish Civil War from a Trotskyist perspective called Revolution & Counterrevolution in Spain, (Felix Morrow)
Sadly Durrutti, I think Symonds is finished as an elite player. One suspects the demons in his head won’t relent until he is too old for their surrender to make a difference
Kerry O’Keefe did a bio-mechanical analysis of Howard’s off-spiners bowling action and found it was technically perfect. Just the actual result was pathetic.
The on-air dissection of Howard’s bowling action caused the ALP to insist (Abetz-like) on equal time on ABC Cricket Radio.
To continue the discussion of the place of The Ashes in 20th century communism
Fran – Or to put it another way, did Orwell become convinced that Stalin and his lads were not only NOT leading the workers towards socialism, but were working to suppress some nascent groups which seemed more likely to favour and work towards both ecomomic emancipation of workers and personal liberty??
It seems you’re saying the Cold War had many “sides”, Fran, not just two. If so, I agree. Lack of nuance and the use of crude binary oppositions are worse than bowling a sequence of no balls on the 3rd day of a tight Test.
A sad footnote on Mr Felix Morrow who wrote about Spain. Here’s a section of his (very brief) Wikipedia entry:
Morrow and Goldman projected the likelihood of a prolonged period of bourgeois democracy in western Europe and emphasised the need for democratic and transitional demands against the maximalism advocated by the majority. Although he was expelled from the SWP in 1946 for “unauthorised collaboration” with Shachtman’s Workers Party, he did not join Shachtman, and drifted from left-wing politics to the right.
Orwell? Morrow? So George Orwell wasn’t the only observer of Spain to change his political views.
Ambi@62-3
Of course there were many sides to the Cold War. There was the McCarthyite side and a more liberal side and on the left there were Stalinists, Anarchists, Trotskyists etc …
Yes, as 1984 showed, Orwell had fallen seriously out of love with official communism but lacking no real perspective with which to replace it had, along with many others gone with the flow and drifted to the right. Schachtman of course drifted to the right as well.
The US SWP of the 1940s was democratic centralist which means in practice that the party has a monopoly on your public politics, which is why Morrow was punted.
If the Poms have won, does that mean we won’t be subjected to more of the dreary rubbish whose name is cricket?
jane, jane, jane… sorry to tell you this but the thing goes on for an eternity.
The ashes have barely been poked. Three more tests to go until they get it right.
Jane please leave this thread!!! Such sacrilege Fran I agree with orwell. But I see nothing wrong with seeking decency It should be the centerpiece of any political ideology
DurruttiColumn@67
There isn’t of course, anything wrong with “seeking decency”, and if we could all agree what decency entailed and it happened to entail robust attachment to concepts like “inclusive governance” and “appropriate separation between the state and civil society on the basis of a well-conceived notions of harm to legitiamte individual interests” and “empowerment of the producer class across national jurisdictional boundaries” and “approximately equal life chances for all” then by all means sign me up for “decency”. If it doesn’t, it’s a bit wolly at best and likely to be of most use to misanthropic interest, regardless of who first utters it.
It was my point that this term underlined Orwell’s naivety and thus the experiential arc from his arrival in Spain to his later recruitment by anti-communists.
Fran
Fran,
George’s naivety allowed him to be used by all and sundry but I not sure he ever discarded his deep humanity and the abhorrence of totalitarianism whatever its colour. I think he never sold out in his own mind. I am sure he would be horrified by modern political life with its accepted wisdom being spun out across society in pure newspeak and the dreadful anti-terror laws and the level of surveillance we seemed prepared to put up with.
Does Test cricket have a future though? So many players using the test season to get injuries repaired so they can play in the IPL. Was interesting that Gerard Whately speculated on the ABC that Australia’s best 20/20 team would include Gilchrist, Symonds, Warne and Hayden. I can’t see the long game surviving the pressures of Indian cricket. Wld be sad but when I was at school I used to have an ink well and write with a nib pen. Now I communicate with you and others on a plastic key board. Tests will go without us noticing and as Joni says we won’t know what we miss ’til its gone.
If it was George Orwell’s “naivety” that helped him write Animal Farm then I say, “Hoorah for naivety!”
One of the most perceptive (and softly powerful) books of the 20th century, and really only a children’s animal story after all. That’s books for you!!
As to sledging, it sucks. If the Aussies reckon sledging (sexual references, adult themes, verbal violence) is clever, they deserve the disapproval of cricket followers: Pommie or from wherever. Decency takes many forms. So does indecency.
I wouldn’t disagree at all with your characterisation of Orwell, and indeed, in relation to newspeak his oft-quoted 1946 essay Politics and The English Language lends some context to “1984″
As to Test Cricket, I can’t see it surviving much longer. The importance of the pitch and the cross-usage of grounds by other sports and of course the demands of other formats will kill it. The format that may really be under pressure though is L50 since it is caught between two stoools. It’s not test cricket and it’s too formulaic and boring and subject to the vagaries of D/L to be marketable to those who like seeing something happen in a hurry.
Test Matches has already become the Opera of Cricket, producing the highest quality output of the genre with fewest afficionados and surviving only through massive subsidy.
Broadly, Pakistani fans do not care about the results of Test Matches, only ODIs; Indian fans have largely moved this way already and the sea-change has begun in England with perhaps only The Ashes still exciting the tastes of the general public there.
Test Cricket will largely revert to Australia-England-South Africa-New Zealand.
The rest are largely not interested in it.
Fran One dayers 50 overs are the most boring form of the game I love Test cricket by the way no 20/20 game is going to produce the drama of say the last day in Cardiff The draws are often the best.
And Newspeak has many forms most of them obscene collateral damage is probably the worst.
Reform is another
durutticolumn@73
Agree on the ODIs and I do like Test Cricket, but I do like the 20-20s for other reasons.
Just as there is space to listen both to Stan Getz playing the sax and AC/DC banging out their oeuvre, or both the book and the movie there’s room to like test and 2020 cricket. You just have to remember that the similarities are mere allusion and these are different kinds of thing, rather than judging one by the criteria of the other.
I suspect that 20-20 as a format is going to compete a lot better with other kids sports on Staurday mornings than the variuous formats of junior cricket we have now.
I don’t take my 16-year-old to cricket — he does baseball because the format ensures he gets a fair go and the whole thing is basically over in 2 hours.
Ditto re saturday morning cricket geez what a waste of time when they switched to basketball I overjoyed Yes I like head banging music and Getz Vivaldi Mozart chopin as well. one dayers I have never liked they die in the bum in the middle overs 20/20 in India in the first year of IPl was a wonderfully chaotic madhouse of color and movement not same in Sth Africa
I think Buonaventura would have liked the long game the heroic draws would have been appealing
Ambi@70
I suspect the naivety had been replaced by tutored bitterness and disgust by the time he wrote Animal Farm