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Just the facts, Ma’am
By Scott 2 years ago, mid-December, Comments
There’s an old saying where you only believe half what you read. Sadly, that applies to cricket journalism, too. For example, in the Times, Simon Wilde is writing about Ricky Ponting, and how to thwart him. Wilde thinks Ponting’s temper is his weak spot, and he writes:
And only three months ago, in a meaningless one-day tournament in Malaysia, he lost his rag so completely when umpire Asad Rauf made a call of “wide†that he was fined his entire match fee. Revealingly, the Sydney Daily Telegraph reported the story under the headline “Ponting’s bullying tactics: here we go again.â€
In fact, Ponting didn’t lose his temper at all. I was watching it on television. What actually happened was that Ponting reacted to umpire Asad’s call with a mixture of disbelief and scorn. It was the sort of scorn that doesn’t look good and it was that disrespect that he was fined for. Not ‘losing his temper’.
Why did Wilde make this blunder? I rather doubt it was from malice. I think he just read about the incident in the Australian papers, and took them as gospel. It is remarkable how gullible cricket writers are towards other writers, just as great salesmen can not resist other salesmen.
But who are you going to believe? Me, or your own lying eyes?
CommentsThis week last year
By Will 2 years ago, mid-May, Comments
Now that I’ve been mumbling here for some time, I thought it’d be interesting to see what I said a year ago. On the right left, if you scroll down, you’ll see a “This week last year” heading with a list of what I scribbled, well…you get the idea. Quite interesting (for me), and shows how far my self-subbing has come on. I like to think I wasn’t too shoddy back then, before joining Cricinfo - and I’m by nowhere near where I ought to be yet! - but it’s fascinating reading things and thinking “ARGHH no. No no no. That’s poor English, Will”.
Hmm…I wonder if people who read Cricinfo are aware how seriously we take our writing. Are you aware? Well you should be! We are fallible, of course, but we take it very seriously and it was the outstanding aspect of my first week there, last July, just how very important an erroneous comma is; the Cricinfo House Style (more on that another time) and so on. It’s all thoroughly exciting for us, and for those who enjoy words, wreading and riting and things. Lukily, my sppeling haz immprooved to.
Anyway, I’d forgotten what I used to call Glenn McGrath. Remember the kerfuffle about Lord’s tickets on eBay? And what about Kevin Pietersen missing out to Ian Bell?! It was all getting very Ashesy too.
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