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Mullally, the Jack of all rabbits
By Will last year, at the end of July, No Comments; be the first!
Simon Lister wrote a thumpingly enjoyable piece on tailenders in the current (August 2007) issue of The Wisden Cricketer. Tail-end charlies are a particular fascination of mine, due in part to their absence nowadays but more poignantly because England produced them like battery-farmed chickens in the 1990s. Or rather, rabbits. Peter Such, Devon Malcolm, Ed Giddins, Phil Tufnell - and the champion of all; the Jack of all rabbits, Alan Mullally.
Cracking piece. Give it a read.
That was about as bad as it got, because when Duncan Fletcher arrived, the No. 11 became less of an object of derision. They learned the forward press and knew it had nothing to do with ironing their whites. The diehard No. 11 died out elsewhere too. The once hopeless Australian tailender Jason Gillespie did something that Mike Atherton never did; he scored a Test double-hundred.
Yet when Monty Panesar was first picked for the tour of India in 2005-06 it seemed a fine English tradition had been revived. He was, said one cricket reporter, “a tail-end rabbit in the Watership Down class”. Fletcher admitted: “I have slight reservations about his batting.” But that has changed. Panesar is a shoo-in for England, even for the one-day side. Rumours of his uselessness with the bat were exaggerated. So, if he still nearly failed to make the side because of his batting, what chance a Phil Tufnell playing for England today?
The era of the really awful No. 11 seems over and TWC decided it was a good time to look back at the 1980s and ’90s - a golden age of English tail-end incompetence. Among those who could boast that the size of their boots was twice their batting average, who was worst of all?
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The Geoffrey Oi!cotts (disGrace on bass; Alan Knott on drums)
By Will last year, at the end of March, 4 Comments »
Further to Scott’s post, and Andrew’s piece, comes this example of YouTube at its brilliant, bizarre best. Among the historical gems, a lot of the other videos there are fairly drab’n'dull recollections of fans playing village cricket. Boring. But searching for “cricket” throws up the odd seemingly inexplicable video, such as this: a band called the Geoffrey Oi!cotts. Their MySpace entry reveals the following:
Band Members
Freddy Skintoft (vocals) W.C. disGrace (bass) A.P.E. sKnott (drums) Devon Malcolm McClaren (guitar) The Dickie Birds (backing troupe and groupies)
Influences
Yorkshire pride.
Sounds Like
The thwack of willow on leather on a sunny yorkshire afternoon..
Record Label
hahahahahaha
What a brilliant image that is. Alan Knott on drums (still equipped with wicketkeeping gloves, and a toothy grin); Devon Malcolm, massive 1980s bottle-top glasses, attached to a Fender and - best of all? - several Dickie Birds, rolling up their sleeves and tottering in the background. The Geoffrey Oi!cotts, based in Leeds, also do a passable cover of the Cockney Rejects’
All of this musicery begs the question: which five cricketers, past or present, would be in your band? The stupider, most unlikely the better. Tony Lewis would have to be lead vocalist for a start, closely followed by Mike Smith on drums…
4 Comments »Fogies at the WACA
By Will 2 years ago, mid-December, 3 Comments »
Where did that word, fogies, go? It’s hardly ever in use these days. Anyway. A bunch of them are playing in a Legends Twenty20 match at Perth today, including Angus Fraser, Devon Malcolm, Dennis Lillee and a frightening looking Merv Hughes.
Those links are to the photos at Cricinfo.
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