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alan-tyers
My favourite cricketer
By Rich Abbott last year, mid-November, 8 Comments »
Most of us have one: a player to whom we can largely attribute – to varying degrees of tragicness – a lifelong passion for cricket.
Alan Tyers’ imagination was first truly captured by Ian Botham, as he explains in the latest edition of Cricinfo’s series, My Favourite Cricketer.
These players have a lot to answer for, and without them our lives could be very different.
Mine’s Robin Smith. Lion-hearted in defence and ferocious in attack, as a young child I was enthralled by the way he stood tall in the face of numerous Ambrose and Walsh-shaped barrages. His drives, square-cuts and point-blank refusal to be out-psyched by the bowler were all mimicked in my back garden, throughout my childhood. Very occasionally, they still are – because he was, and always will be, my favourite cricketer.
Who’s yours?
8 Comments »England’s 2009 celebrations in full
By Will last year, at the end of August, 2 Comments »
From the always-witty Alany Tyers:
2 Comments »Those Ashes Celebrations In Full
ANDREW STRAUSS: Busy night for the young dad skipper: doing up shoelaces, wiping noses, checking everyone had been for a wee. Surely it’s now time that other batsmen took some responsibility with their preparations for a night out?
STUART BROAD: Showed terrific temperament and all-round composure in dealing with hard-to-eat meal of crab followed by spaghetti and ordering difficult-to-pronounce wine from snitty waiter. Blotted copybook slightly by showing dissent when bill arrived.
JONATHAN TROTT: Found in street belting out national anthem (and mouthing words uncertainly during those tricky Zulu and Xhosa bits).
ALASTAIR COOK: Keeps making same basic errors at every night out: turning up in trainers when everyone knew it was ‘smart but casual’ and ensuring the group can’t get in anywhere; having to phone girlfriend every half an hour to reassure her he isn’t up to no good; being very boring when talking to a group of attractive women so they all leave…
PAUL COLLINGWOOD: Workmanlike fancy dress outfit (Your Basic Comedy Mexican) could not disguise modest overall contribution to night out.
MONTY PANESAR: Invited along for karaoke skills but “didn’t get a lot of assistance from the microphone”. Surprisingly effective on quiz machine; keeping team in it against the odds on quickfire round of Deal Or No Deal.
GRAHAM ONIONS: Absent; Steve Harmison nicked his ticket.
JIMMY ANDERSON: Started evening strongly but slumped incoherent in corner by closing time.
RAVI BOPARA: Cockiness ensured considerable female interest in nightclub and used pick-up lines successfully on some rather homely girls; panicked and spilt drink down himself when attractive ones turned up.
IAN BELL: Looked great, but struggled to really dominate the conversation and was reduced to going “Ha ha ha… yeah” and repeating what other people had just said.
MATT PRIOR: Stunned team-mates and punters alike by carrying tray of drinks back from bar without dropping and turning out to actually be a good bloke to have around.
GRAEME SWANN: Cheeky chappie, great all-round effort: booked stripper, provided comedy moustaches, got his round in, chatted up a hen-do. Suspicion that he might fall just short of being top-class entertainment manager.
KEVIN PIETERSEN: Absent; at home watching Police Academy VI on ITV4, eating oven chips. Texted to say he was having brilliant time in Bungalow 8 with Lamps, Jude Law and Clive Rice.
ANDREW FLINTOFF: Quiet meal with nearest and dearest (i.e. took Steve Harmison to Pizza Hut).
STEVE HARMISON: Became distressed by proliferation of “fancy foreign food” in Pizza Hut; got cab back up to Ashington.
Hussey’s poem (please read this)
By Will last year, mid-July, 3 Comments »
More brilliance from Tyers, who might write some more here if I can find some money to lure him. Hot tip, readers: donate money, and I’ll give it to him! No seriously…
3 Comments »Right then you blokes. Seeing as the poem I wrote and performed before the Cardiff Test went down so well, Ricky has asked me to once again lead the group in our pre-match ‘Aw Look, What Does The Baggy Green Mean To You, Mate?’ discussion. I’ve done another poetry that I’d like to share with you and it’s about the magnificent bird of my home state.
No, Sidds, I’m not talking about that Melissa George bird that was on Home And Away. I’m talking about The Black Swan, the emblem of Western Australia.
Katich, the house lights. if you please.
Look. Look. A magnificent black swan, floating magnificently.
But underneath the water
They do not see
The incredible commitment and awesome
Anderson, Broad take on the questioners
By Will last year, mid-June, No Comments; be the first!
When we came into this tournament, a lot of people were saying we lacked the basic interviewing skills to answer a few simple questions without becoming bogged down and making the same old errors of saying: “Er, well, obviously we’ve got to be disappointed with that, er, Nas, er, I mean Wardy.” And it’s true that, in the past, some of our lads have frozen under the lights in these short-format interviews. But I think we can all be very proud of the way we’ve dealt with some often highly-skilled questioners over the last couple of weeks.
Every one of those lads in that dressing room has done a great job, but I’d like to single out Jimmy Anderson. A few years ago, Jimmy would have just stared back at the interviewer with his mouth open, looking like he might cry. But these days, he listens to the question, nods a bit and then he’s straight into the right areas by saying: “Look, I just try to get it into the right areas.”
More chuckles from Alan “Alany” Tyers.
No Comments »England men offer their congratulations
By Mark Tilley last year, at the end of March, 1 Comment »
Alan Tyers, who writes side-splittingly good mock diaries of England team members for The Wisden Cricketer, has been at it again, this time writing under the guise of Charlotte Edwards, the World Cup winning England women’s captain.
1 Comment »Andrew Strauss congratulated us on our most recent win, although he did say we should have batted on for another couple of hours to really make things safe. I tried to explain that it was a 50-over game but he just got impatient and said that he was sick of hearing how his team haven’t mastered the one-day format and changed the subject.
He asked me what positives I was taking from our recent performances. I just said “well, we won, so that, I guess…” but he said that was rather a one-dimensional view and that often the positives were more important than the result.
Ian Bell throws it away again
By Will last year, mid-February, 2 Comments »
More excellence from Alan Tyers:
2 Comments »“Owais is really pushing hard for a go on this delicious cold chicken,” says Straussy with his mouth full.
“But unfortunately we’ve eaten it all,” says Collingwood. “It looked like I weren’t going to get a piece but I’ve just snucked in at the last moment and grabbed my chance with both hands. It weren’t pretty, but it were necessary.”
“He’s very much the man in possession,” shouts Cook. “Of the chicken! Straussy! Straussy! I done a bonding!”
Cook runs off to write it down in his Big Book Of Leadership Credentials. As he passes me in the doorway, he tries to poke me in the eye again. He misjudges it.
“Is there anything left?” I say.
“Absolutely,” says Straussy. “You’re very much part of this hamper, Owais old boy. Look, there’s a pickled beetroot left and a packet of Wine Gums.”
“Sorry,” says Flintoff. “I’ve had them.”
Mooresy doing his besty
By Will 2 years ago, mid-December, 1 Comment »
Alany Tyersy has stolen Petery Mooresy’s diaries(y) again, and has uncovered some gems worthy of your attention.
1 Comment »Instead, we’re going to have a couple of days of net sessions. They offered us some local bowlers to practise against but, again, you just can’t be too careful so we’ve got Saj and Plunky coming over from England instead. Our batters’ confidence took a bit of a knock in India – poor Belly still wakes up in the night screaming about powerplays and shouting “there’s fielders everywhere, I cannot escape them”– and we thought it might be better to avoid any potential banana skins against some wily deckchair attendant who can give it a nasty rip or what have you.
Ali Cook has never been the same since the working-over he got at French Cricket from those schoolgirls on the beach in Antigua, and it just goes to show how delicately poised the confidence of the international sportsmen can be. I sometimes think that the best way to prepare is just to forget about cricket altogether.
Our Steve’s diaries, like
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of November, No Comments; be the first!
Alan Tyers’ has spoken to Steve Harmison for his insider-diary series (last week it was Ian Bell):
No Comments »Sure, all of us want to be a millionaire but not at all costs. We make sacrifices, I accept that: for instance, I’m willing to play cricket. And if absolutely necessary, abroad. But seeing your lass used as a plaything for a billionaire?
Belly’s diaries
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of October, No Comments; be the first!
Alan Tyers, who provides hilarious little pieces for The Wisden Cricketer mag, is ghosting the England players’ diaries at their site. And this week, he begins with the whacky world of Ian Bell:
Unfortunately, I don’t think I will have many cool bits of insider information or titbits about the England team as none of them are speaking to me. I am in disgrace even worse than Fred was after Mr Fletcher caught him drinking Malibu with Snapey in the Team Psychiatrist And Motivationator Specialist’s Office when he should of been out on the park sticking it up Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s nose with the second new ball.
It was the root of evil that done it. Not Shane Warne, I mean. Money though. All the boys have been well excited about the Stanford match although obviously we are looking upon it as just a chance to gain experience in this new format of the game and represent our country to the best of our ability. (Note to editur – Hi editur. Is this the sort of thing you wanted right because you said put some jokes in if possible?????)
Superb!
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