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Desmond Tutu’s Cowdrey Lecture (MP3)
By Will 2 months ago, 7 Comments »
Desmond Tutu gave this year’s MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture at Lord’s on Tuesday, in which he called for the boycott of Zimbabwe. Andrew Strauss also hinted at a possible boycotting of Zimbabwe’s tour here next year unless the government take prior action.
You can download the entire lecture (1h 12m) here. Tutu’s 26min speech is here, while Strauss and Barry Richards’ discussion can also be listened to.
I think Tutu was at my christening, or my brother’s. Or was it my parents’ wedding? Well whatever. He’s a family friend of a friend, and apparently a bit of a leg end to boot.
Do you agree with Tutu regarding the boycott, or should sport be kept well away from politics?
7 Comments »Zimbabwe begin to dream
By Will 4 months ago, 2 Comments »
Well well. Are we about to witness the fall of Robert Mugabe’s ZImbabwe dictatorship? The BBC are running a story which suggests he might be willing (for want of a more accurate word) to step aside and could make an announcement on state television in the next few hours. This seems highly unlikely; at no stage during his tenure has Mugabe ever backed down to threats, politically or metaphorically, so it’s no surprise that the streets of Harare aren’t yet teaming with parades (or efigies).
2 Comments »A new dawn for Zimbabwe?
By Jonathan Liew last year, at the start of December, No Comments; be the first!
It’s probably far, far too early to say this, but Zimbabwe look like a team very much on the up. Australia saw what they could do at the World Twenty20, and now the West Indies – who made England look very foolish just six months ago – are feeling the heat. Putting aside the Windies’ deepening mire for a sec, it’s heartening news for a team most of us had given up on.
There was a time in the mid to late 1990s when Zimbabwe looked as though they might crack the big time. They had a generation of gifted cricketers – the Flowers, the Strangs, Whittall, Goodwin, Johnson, Streak, Olonga and more – who propelled them to victories over India and Pakistan and the second stage in two consecutive World Cups.
Of course, things started going a little pear-shaped after that. Yet while the political situation is still quite unsustainable in the long term, the green shoots of recovery are very much in evidence. For the first time in a while, they’ve got a settled team and a modicum of experience. The batting unit looks strong, and from what I’ve seen and heard of him, Prosper Utseya is blossoming into a genuinely world class player.
Cricket needs Zimbabwe to make a full recovery. In an era when the game is trying to stretch its frontiers, its demise in an existing stronghold would be a serious blow. More than that, though, Zimbabwe needs cricket, profoundly and urgently. Which is why we should all be quietly rooting for them in this series.
No Comments »Zimbabwe beat Australia- again!
By Scott last year, mid-September, 11 Comments »
Zimbabwe beat Australia the first time that they met in a World Cup match, back in 1983. In 2007, they’ve repeated the dose by beating Australia in their first Twenty-20 World Cup match. I know that the players aren’t taking it too seriously, but I didn’t know they were taking it THAT unseriously. Mind you, Zimbabwe probably played very well too. (I didn’t see the game)
11 Comments »Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh; Zimbabwe vs Pakistan
By Scott last year, mid-March, 11 Comments »
Interesting games today- the winner of Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka will secure qualification. Even if Bangladesh lose today they are still well placed to go through. Meanwhile Zimbabwe will be their usual selves, but it is anyone’s guess as to what version of Pakistan will turn up today.
11 Comments »India vs Bermuda, West Indies vs Zimbabwe
By Scott last year, mid-March, 7 Comments »
India are batting, and have already lost a wicket to what will be one of the great images of the 2007 World Cup, as Bermuda’s heavyweight Dwayne Leverock took a slips catch worthy of Mark Waugh. The earth shook as the big fella hit the turf!
Zimbabwe can still make the Super 8’s, but beating West Indies will be hard.
7 Comments »Ireland win a tie
By Will last year, mid-March, 7 Comments »
Now that is a one-dayer, with a finish and conclusion that only cricket can produce. What other sport would produce a tie and witness one of the teams doing a victory lap?
Zimbabwe had the match by the throat and somehow lost it. Well, they didn’t officially lose it - but Ireland most certainly took more from the match than they did. Here is what I mumbled on about during comms in the final three overs.
49.6 White to Matsikenyeri, OUT, drives, misses and it’s a tie! What a match; what an incredible last 10 overs. Only the third tie in World Cup history - all three have involved an African nation - and Ireland jump in delight
EC Rainsford run out 1 (10m 1b 0×4 0×6) SR: 100.00
Last ball
49.5 White to Matsikenyeri, 2 runs, well what a mad ball. Short, wide, cut just behind backward point who made a brilliant attempt to catch it. They go for a single, in comes the throw - but the batsman appears to run in front of his stumps…and he’s home safe! My word this is madness
49.4 White to Rainsford, 1 run, driven past cover - and he gets the single! This gets Matsikenyeri back on strike - not a good ball from White. Not a good over.
This is epic. 4 from 3
But Matsikenyeri is now off strike
49.3 White to Matsikenyeri, 1 run, full toss, spooned to midwicket - but no! Dropped? The man came in and appeared to just stop in his tracks, the ball dropping short!
49.2 White to Matsikenyeri, 2 runs, too short, square cut powerfully into the deep
49.1 White to Matsikenyeri, 2 runs, full toss, hammered through cover and long off has a chase to his left…and does well, saving four
Rainsford the No.11 for Zimbabwe, at the non-striker’s end. White’s back into the attackIt’s all down to Matsikenyeri. By not taking the run, he’s back on strike - and only he can win this for Zimbabwe.
48.6 KJ O’Brien to Mpofu, OUT, GONE! Smacked to mid-on, they run a single - but Matsikenyeri stays at the non-striker’s end and mid-on’s throw hits the stumps
CB Mpofu run out 0 (3m 5b 0×4 0×6) SR: 0.00
Ireland are buzzing now. 9 from 7
48.5 KJ O’Brien to Mpofu, no run, hammered down the ground - no! Brilliant stop from the bowler’s right foot
9 from 8
48.4 KJ O’Brien to Mpofu, no run, inside edge! My word that was close
48.3 KJ O’Brien to Mpofu, no run, driven back to the bowler - the batsman wants a run! How? Scampers back into his crease
Ooh this is close now. 9 from 10
48.2 KJ O’Brien to Mpofu, no run, well bowled! Slower, and Mpofu just dabbed it gently to mid-on
9 from 11
48.1 KJ O’Brien to Utseya, OUT, GONE! A full toss, slapped straight to cover! A dreadful shot; Ireland are absolutely ecstatic, never mind the fans in the stands
P Utseya c Morgan b KJ O’Brien 1 (3m 3b 0×4 0×6) SR: 33.33
Here’s Kevin O’Brien for the penultimate over of the match47.6 Botha to Matsikenyeri, no run, another slower ball but not on target this time; defended.
47.5 Botha to Utseya, 1 run, inside edge, a desperate scrambling single
10 from 14 and the Ireland fans are singing in the stands. All 10 of them
47.4 Botha to Utseya, no run, full, straight, hit back to Botha
That was absolutely dead. Is there a twist in this game? Zimbabwe are doing their utmost to make a pig’s ear of it. 10 from 15. Two quick fours will do it for Zimbabwe, but they seem to be frozen in time
47.3 Botha to Brent, OUT, gone! Excellent slower ball, bang on middle stump, completely foxing the batsman
GB Brent lbw b Botha 3 (15m 12b 0×4 0×6) SR: 25.00
47.2 Botha to Brent, no run, slower ball worked into the packed off side
47.1 Botha to Brent, no run, good line, good length and it’s blocked out to cover
10 from 18. Can Zimbabwe mess it up?
And with a great sense of inevitability, they did mess it up - due in no small part to Stuart Matsikenyeri receiving very little of the strike after playing a gem of a knock. That was unfortunate, but these things happen and his team-mates couldn’t rise to the occasion.
Well batted Jeremy Bray, too. The most laid back of characters off the pitch, he’s a bulldog with a bat in his hand. The World Cup is alive.
7 Comments »Sri Lanka vs Bermuda; Ireland vs Zimbabwe
By Scott last year, mid-March, 51 Comments »
Today’s game between Ireland vs Zimbabwe has some potential for an upset; Sri Lanka vs Bermuda looks like it could be one-sided.
Ireland vs Zimbabwe is in Jamaica, so it starts an hour later. Chat on, game on!
51 Comments »World Cup, third warm-ups: live discussion
By Will last year, mid-March, 5 Comments »
The penultimate day of warm-ups. Bangladesh and Scotland ought to be a good game. Bermuda v Zimbabwe…less so.
Bangladesh v Scotland
Three Ws Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados
Bermuda v Zimbabwe
Arnos Vale Ground, Kingstown, St Vincent
Canada v Ireland
Sir Frank Worrell Memorial Ground, St Augustine, Trinidad
Kenya v Netherlands
Trelawny Stadium, Jamaica
World Cup, second warm-ups: live discussion
By Will last year, at the start of March, 15 Comments »
More warm-ups today.
Australia v Zimbabwe
Arnos Vale Ground, Kingstown, St Vincent
Bangladesh v New Zealand
Three Ws Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados
Canada v Pakistan
Sir Frank Worrell Memorial Ground, St Augustine, Trinidad
India v Netherlands
Trelawny Stadium, Jamaica
For those in Britain, India’s match is being televised on Sky.
15 Comments »Video of the Mark Vermeulan incident
By Will 2 years ago, mid-September, 4 Comments »
See here. And see here and here if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
4 Comments »The future of Zimbabwe
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of August, 4 Comments »
Percy Sonn (new Best Name In Cricket award nominee) and Malcolm Speed have returned from their chin-scratching mission in Zimbabwe and will release their findings on the future of the country’s participation in international cricket soon. Don’t know how soon, but soon. And this after a really quite remarkable victory (albeit against the mighty Banglas).
What’s the consensus out there? Should they be allowed back into Test cricket or banished for good? In case you didn’t hear, Terry Duffin - 24-years-old going on 50 - was sacked the other day…
4 Comments »Zimbabwe vs Bangladesh last over.
By Scott 2 years ago, at the start of August, No Comments; be the first!
Oh, there was one ODI played today, the 10th place play off… the nice thing is that it went down to the wire. Zimbabwe needed 17 off the last over and…. they did it!
Good effort from Taylor and Mupariwa to get Zimbabwe over the line.
The rising of the Sonn
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of July, No Comments; be the first!
It may have passed you by that Percy Sonn, the former president of the United Board Board (UCB), has succeeded Ehsan Mani as president of the ICC, the game’s ruling body. So what? Well, quite a lot actually, for Sonn is no ordinary president. By all accounts, he’s a rather colourful character - although that particular adjective was a poor choice…
It was he, during his tenure with the South African board, who dropped Jacques Rudolph (a white player) for Justin Ontong (a black player) on racial grounds. Telford Vice, an excellent South African writer, has written a superb article at Cricinfo on the incoming president and his various benefits and attributes.
“Then he’ll walk out of the room and, often without having had a drink, start swearing and go mad. He offers so many excellent qualities, but there is the risk that he could blow at any time. He could make some comment or do something stupid, and then you have fires to put out.”
Infamously, Sonn “fell out of his trousers” at a 2003 World Cup match; he has used, publicly, language that would make footballers, their wives and their hooligans blush; he said Hansie Cronje “wouldn’t be allowed to play beach cricket”.
Another South African administrator remembers the Sonn years differently. “If I did one tenth of what he did I would have been hung, drawn and quartered. But he has an impish look and demeanour, and he can get away with a lot. He’s a classic curate’s egg.”
Scrambled, fried and hard-boiled, clearly.
Brilliant. Read the rest of it here. Interestingly, his first port of call will be Zimbabwe…
No Comments »West Indies’ performance against Zimbabwe
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of April, 1 Comment »
Did the bulletin for this game today which, let’s be brutally honest, wouldn’t register too high on most cricket fan’s “must watch” list. It was, however, a fascinating game but for all the wrong reasons, for it highlighted the West Indies failings even more starkly than ever before. In my eyes, anyway.
Zimbabwe are frankly no more than a county team. I would expect every county in England to beat them at least six times out of ten, convincingly. And that’s not doing them a disservice; they aren’t very good, they’re extremely young and have scant experience to call on. Yet somehow, they managed to make West Indies look like a bunch of amateurs. All in all, in terms of standards, it was a quite dreadful game of cricket.
To make matters worse, the pitch was diabolical to bat on. Variable bounce (skidding low then taking the splice of the bat) was the main problem to affect the batsmen. That Zimbabwe even managed to reach 150 was a fine effort - they could have been bundled out for about 60 had the West Indies wanted to. Fact is, they were bored, disinterested and lacklustre. They didn’t seem to care enough to take 10 wickets; it wasn’t so much complacency, or understimation of Zimbabwe, they just didn’t look alert and refused to boss the game. They should have done this and they didn’t, and I cannot explain or reason why this is.
Instead, they sat back and waited. Zimbabwe, who have a few obviously talented batsmen, are so inexperienced that they weren’t sure how to increase the run-rate. After losing their opener Piet Rinke, they closed up and batted for time (and that’s fair enough. playing to your strengths and all that). But you’d have expected the West Indies to come at them hard; to show them who was boss; to nail throws from the boundary right above the bails; to intimidate the weaklings and say to them “Yeah. It’s tough, international cricket. You might only be 18/20/23 years old but we’re not here to have a tea party, we want to win.” But no. Nothing. Nada. Only when their captain, Terry Duffin, and Justice Chambawamba (sorry, forgotten his surname) were dismissed did the Windies wake up and realise they really ought to take the remaining wickets.
To compound the farce, they then lost five wickets during their chase. Five? What odds would you have given on them losing two, let alone five? They’re only chasing 152 for fuck’s sake! Prosper Utseya bowled very well indeed - at good pace for an off-spinner, too. Young spinners often bowl too slowly - partly due to their bodies not yet maturing fully and their tendons in their wrists not being strong enough - but this chap Utseya was excellent, really impressive and showed a lot of guts.
Utter complacency and arrogance though from the batsmen; Morton’s lazy swish in the first over was bad enough, but Ramnaresh Sarwan’s jogged-single, causing him to be run-out, was absolutely incredible. If schoolkids made such an error, they’d be dropped from the team or given 1000 lines or 100 press-ups. It said to those watching “can I really be bothered”? Tony Cozier, commentating on TV, said of the incident: “[it] epitomises the state of West Indies cricket”. It’s hard to disagree.
All in all, a rather sad state of affairs. I’m fond of West Indies cricket, very much so - and I’ve made mention of my frustration before. But today, I don’t know…somehow I feel even less enchanted with them. I know they have problems with the WICB and I know there are constant, ongoing disputes and money problems and all that crap. But they have a group of players, good players, none of whom seem able to perform consistently - even against what is effectively an amateur team comprising teenagers and early 20-year-olds.
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