When laziness was a bad word

Another West Indies podcast is up: click here.

This week, I'm on the case of former greats of the game to discuss the great Caribbean tradition of churning out brilliant fielders. Now, you wouldn't have thought that fielding is a West Indies trademark by looking at the current West Indies lot, but there have been some fine fielders in the past. Panther, stealth and electric have been just some of the words to describe the likes of Lloyd, Richards, Logie and Harper.

And in the 1930s, Lord Constantine, perhaps the pioneer of Caribbean fielding, even made crowds turn up before the game had even started after they heard of his ability to knock stumps down from 30 yards and catch balls behind his back.

Cricket the catalyst for break-up

More hot cricket-loving gossip from Mumbai... It looks like the international touring calendar has been responsible for another break-up in the world of cricket as Indian Yuvraj Singh and Bollywood actress Kim Sharma have split.

Best excerpt from Sharma interview:

Did you become friends with any cricketers during your relationship with Yuvraj?

I am sick of cricketers and I don’t want to talk about them. I am over with that stage of my life.

A tighter affair back then

Just a few years after the great tied Test between Australia and West Indies in 1960, many of the Windies side played in an equally thrilling match against England at Lord's in 1963.

Watch the video here with some commentary from Sobers and wait for the bit about Wes Hall "... sending down the atomic stuff".

Summer of 88

One of my favourite cricket books is the one on the right called West Indian Summer - The Test Series of 1988. It's full of fantastic writing and shots from Patrick Eagar: a smiling Viv Richards; crazy-eyed Curtly Ambrose appealing; the Windies celebrating in floppy hats; Robin Smith fending off sharpish deliveries.

Of course, there hasn't really been a good book involving the West Indies since. This series finished 4-0 and may well have finished a whitewash had it not been for a rainy Trent Bridge in the first Test.

This was when cricket hit me (as a ten-year-old) as hard as Marshall, Ambrose, Walsh and Patterson throwing down 100mph deliveries at the same time. Spellbound as to who these players were with the tenacity to bat with floppy hats against the might of DeFreitas, Jarvis, Dilley and Pringle; too young to realise what England skipper Mike Gatting was reportedly doing with the barmaid when it was splashed all over the tabloids.

It was a pretty hot summer that year, too. Becker and Edberg were gracing a Wimbledon final, Gabriella Sabatini's legs were also out in force and it was an era when London's West Indians treated the traditional fifth Test at the Oval as a home ground for the tourists.

Recall the series here.

Brawls and bans

Video footage of Mark Vermeulen's on-pitch shenanigan's last year was more a case of a troubled man than an outburst of head-on passion for the game. The Zimbabwean was ultimately given a 10-year ban, but later reduced to three years.

News of another cricket pitch fight - this time involving two league players from south Yorkshire - has shown that league officials are unrelenting when it comes to light.

Just take a look at their punishment: Dearne CC player Darren Edmundson has been banned until December 31 2009, while Rotherham Phoenix's Mo Raza has been suspended until May 31 2009. Now, that's a lengthy ban so it would be interesting to see exactly what propelled them to their actions.

Any ideas? Edmundson finished the last cream cake? Raza told Edmundson to "mind the windows"?

Silly bowling tricks

Nice anecdote from Charles Randall's cricket site:

John Barclay mentioned to a taxi driver in India during the England Schools tour of 1970 that the umpires never gave anything out. “Ah, that’s easy,” said the driver. “What you must shout loudly, instead of ‘howzat’, is ‘where’s Allah?’ and then the umpire will instantly point his finger to the sky and say ‘up there’.” Didn’t work, but Barclay tried it again for Sussex at Ilford in the 1981 season. “Not out,” said umpire Shakoor Rana. “Not that silly trick again,” he whispered later.

Podcasting summer

Nutley's podcasting summer got under way today. Listen to the first airing at history website sportasylum by clicking here.

There's Sir Garfield Sobers talking about Headingley and Gatt, Nasser and Gooch on the great Caribbean fast bowlers of old. Listen out for more audio over the coming weeks as I explore the great West Indian fielders from the past: Learie Constantine, the panther Roger Harper and Clive Lloyd.

How it used to be

I pressed my red button to flick through the weekend cricket scores on BBCi last night - for the first time this season. Easy though it may be to scroll and enter, I am still left with ceefax memories of 340... then a good 15 minutes trawling through 341 to 350 for the county scores.

Nude cricketers

The Nutley has kept a close eye in the Lincolnshire press on the fate of a group of nude cricketers who were reported to the authorities after a late-night game last week.

The six university students woke up local residents when they laid bare for an impromptu game at around 4am. Now, this blog is all for this kind of revelry and if students are getting involved in the game then that's only a good thing - whatever kind of cricket they're playing,

The only sour point, however, came in previous reports that one of the students showed his b*m in the face of one of those complaining residents. Considering they were already nude, I doubt they have anything further to worry about. Hand-delivered warning notes have been sent to those involved.

Lest we forget

Picture: James Whittaker @ Bermuda Sun

on and on and on...

The below from Brian Viner in The Independent. The frustrations are summed up perfectly. I have got over Graeme Hick's continual domination in county cricket, but they still remain with the ever-bludgeoning Mark Ramprakash: he is indeed a batting genius. With my sponsorship post below, would Duracell not be doing a wise thing to sign these two fellows up?

...Mark Ramprakash and Graeme Hick, who made their Test debuts in the same match against the West Indies in 1991, and who this week frustrated England fans with further reminders of the batting prowess they never consistently demonstrated at international level. At Old Trafford, Hick scored his 133rd first-class century; at Hove, Ramprakash hit his 13th first-class double-century, putting him in the august company of W G Grace, Graham Gooch and Brian Lara. The man's a batting genius, damn him, and I would applaud an England recall, though there's more chance of Jose Mourinho's pooch scoring the winner for Chelsea this afternoon.

Now that's a deal

As Matt Prior was racking up the runs at Lord's, his bat sponsor must have been rubbing its hands with glee.

Prior to the Lord's Test, Slazenger had signed a kit deal with the Sussex wicket-keeper as well as getting Yorkshire spinner Adil Rashid on board.

Prior had scored five at tea yesterday. To score well over 100 runs in the evening session is remarkable in itself. All that remains is for Rashid to be called up for debut home Test over the bank holiday, bag five wickets and leave Slazenger reaching for the aspirin on the Tuesday.

Faintly amusing

It seems that the sports desk on Australia's Daily Telegraph has secretly been having fun with English cricket for some time now. No doubt it has been some cheeky work experience lad who has been entering cricket stories to media monitoring service NewsNow termed as English "cricket".

NewsNow Previous Top Stories
English "cricket": Flintoff comes crashing down
The Daily Telegraph, Australia 16:22 14-May-07
Sehwag told to cool it Sky Sports 14:28 14-May-07
'Woolmer was not strangled' The Times 17:00 14-May-07
Racist slur follows PM on Zimbabwe The Herald Sun 16:03 14-May-07

Travel & Tour Nowhere

Has cricket tourism reached its saturation point? The news that Travel & Tours Anywhere, the Barmy Army's licensed operator, has ceased trading with its membership revoked last month by ABTA will surely change the way travel groups do business in the future.

Poor World Cup sales forced TTA to close, but the Ashes Down Under also proved to be a loser. This also applied to the many travel groups who sold packages to Australia. The prices were simply too extreme to follow all five Tests. The initial mass demand for tickets never materialised and individual travellers from the UK cottoned on to this after touts were left holding batches of tickets for the 2003 Rugby World Cup Final. For those wise independent fans, it was the same for the first four Tests in Australia where it was more than easy to obtain face value tickets for every day of the Tests.

Tourism industry insiders have revealed to this blogger that saturation point has already hit tour companies and the news that cricket's biggest army has just lost its tour arm only proves that.

*It remains to be seen if the ICC see sense, too, in making the group stages of the 2011 World Cup free entry. Only then will fans afford the 40-day jamboree proclaimed by Malcolm Speed for the Asia tournament.

Hotspot warms up UK

Sky Sports will be showing another new addition to its cricket production when Hotspot is unveiled on TV screens during this week's first Test of the summer.

It's a great tool. Channel Nine first unveiled the technology during the Ashes whitewash and it is complemented by a decent chill out track, too.

In fact, the technology couldn't be more contrasted as to its uses elsewhere on the globe. From the serene quarters of a cricket pitch, Hotspot is mainly used to tracker fighter jets and tanks. Channel Nine spent months secretly looking into the technology before they purchased the rights from a French company.

Read the Ashes Hotspot post here.

What's in a name

"My name is Younus Khan. I tell people that everywhere, but they don’t listen."

So said Pakistani batsman Younus, or to most people Younis, before he confirmed to Yorkshire by text message that this was how he would like to be written. Presumably this was ammended before the Tykes printed their squad shirts for the season, so ending a minor 'King of Spain' saga.

And the club may yet have to print more shirts for the club shop. A few who were present at the Rose Bowl last week for the Hampshire v Yorkshire game believe Younus's knock was the best they had seen.

Life after cricket

Your home is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on a mortgage or other loans secured on it. Or how about: Your wicket is at risk if you do not keep up with the pace or bounce or other deliveries bowled on it.

Word reaches Nutley that former Australian one-day legend Michael Bevan is following in the footsteps of other players and going into the mortgage business.

There seems to be a trans-Tasman thing going here with mortgages as Bevan's new career path mirrors that of Kiwi Adam Parore who has already established himself in the market. Michael Bevan Mortgages aims to launch a minimum of 130 franchises in Australia within five years.

Perhaps Parore and Bevan will outshine another former Kiwi cricketer who had a successful venture until closing business in January. Chris Cairns had a fudge packing business which he set up in 1998 but the former all-rounder is now concentrating on interests abroad.

Sexiest cricketers

What better way than to reward users with a recent Barbados Daily Nation poll of "The Sexiest men in cricket". Click to enlarge each one (and Chris Gayle's muscles) as well as a close-up of Lasitha Malinga's hair. The Sri Lanka paceman has also courted debated back home with his looks and locks, with many fans unimpressed. One fan even suggested that he is "not a decent-looking gentleman". Read more here. And surprising there's no mention of either Shahid Afridi or Sachin Tendulkar for all those millions of female cricket fans out there.

That's it for now

The Nutley is resting its weary typing hands until next week and is going back to my wife. In the meantime, why not scroll down and relive some memories of the 2007 World Cup or peruse the Caribbean photo library (as above). Or you could even boost my future career as the podcast man for the Daily Mail by clicking and listening to the collection here.

I highly recommend St Lucia as a holiday destination but I would aslo combine it with Barbados. Hire a car, get lost and experience island life in one of the most relaxed environments in the world. And if you experience an old Bajan laugh, remember to tell me about it sometime.

Top 10 of a different sort

Here is a random Top 10 over the last six weeks in the Caribbean:
1. Why do you see non-finished houses from the outside every so often? Cunning Bajans dodging property tax that's why.
2. The only living National Hero is Garry Sobers. His time playing for Barbados police still warrants a salute whenever a copper is in the presence of the great all-rounder.
3. Seeing Umpire Bucknor get off the cheap run-around mini-buses in Bridgetown, pay the driver and walk into the Kensington Oval to survey the ground. One cool Jamaican.
4. Ian Chappell's comments on the ICC: "As I've said before, they've got a hotel under the sea there and a ski resort in the desert. It's too far away from reality."
5. The ironic moment when the ICC advertising boarding nearly engulfed CEO Malcolm Speed was quite funny.
6. When you walk into a rum shack, be prepared for a "good night". I felt like getting out quick when this was said, but in fact it's just the Bajan "good evening".
7. Pakistan v Ireland and we're in a taxi. Our driver gets an instant cricket update text message and relays "very surprisin' developments takin' place in Jamaica..." We knew we were in the Caribbean then.
8. Interviewing music legend Eddy Grant.
9. Witnessing the Bajan Guiness Book of Records and how the main attraction couldn't make it. The 12'' pizza eating holder had trouble firing up his ovens (he owns 12 outlets on the island!) that morning and so had to cancel.
10. Glenn McGrath gets a wicket with his penultimate ball of his spell. When he fails with his last ever international delivery he kicks the ground in customary fashion and curses to himself. And there sums up the brilliance...