Warney bowls a slider on Twitter!

OK, this is the scene. This twitterer, GSMTitan, basically comes up with the following tweets to King Warne.

I know you try to fuck anything on two legs, but Lily Allen?! She’s a sacred British institution! Like the Queen. Only uglier.

Before sodomizing Lily, pay your dues & educate your innocent Indians who jizz in their pants whenever they see Shilpa Shetty.

At this point, I told GSMTitan that I didn’t really expect Warney to reply to that. However, I should’ve known better.

excuse you.. totally out of order.. what a muppett you are…

Should I really be surprised or what?

😛

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Leggies & Commentary – A marriage made in heaven!

It does seem a bit coincidential, but of the leg spinners I’ve seen who’ve migrated to the commentary box, all of them seem to be the type who are extremely insightful and don’t get excited at the fall of a wicket like a child on seeing Lego-man.

Let’s consider the first example. I’m sure all of you have listened to Richie Benaud sometime or the other. He is a really good commentator and a person who believes in the mantra ‘Speak only when required’. Yes, his voice is quite drab, but that what adds to the flavour. He generally has some great anecdotes to share with the listeners as well.It really is hard to describe, I’m sure you will be able to find plenty of clips on YouTube with him commentating, so go check him out.

Next one on the list is Anil Kumble. Yes, in case you didn’t know, he did commentate during the T20 World Cup held 2 months ago. His commentating is, like his on-field performances, unassuming but of the highest quality. He too, like Richie, has a very drab and monotonous voice. However, due to his extensive international experience, he always has something insightful to say and, rather than blabbing on about some nonsense unrelated to the game, he talks about the game itself, such as possible tactics that the captains could use. He truly is a delight to listen to.

Last, but not least, is the King of Spin, Shane Warne. Readers of the Off Cutter will have realized that the blog has a certain bias towards Warney and this is due to an unabashed idolizing of Warney by yours truly. He was great on the field and is great off it as well. I’ve started listening to Warney during the ongoing Ashes series and he, along with another fav of mine, Bumble, are extremely entertaining. Just like in his playing days, Warney isn’t afraid to let one rip in the commentary box and has, on a fair number of occasions, had to be controlled by Bumble.

The best part of Warne’s commentary is that he isn’t afraid to speak his mind. He doesn’t just rant on, but really gives a very unbiased view of what’s going on and, like the previous two, is very insightful. He is also very honest and doesn’t like to cover up anything. A good example took place yesterday. I’m not sure whether it was Bell or Matt Prior, but someone had nicked a ball onto their pads and the appeal went up, only to be denied by Billy Bowden.

We all know that Warne isn’t a big fan of Bowden, evidenced from his recent coaxing of Bowden while on-air, saying “Come on, Billy, it isn’t that hard to count to 6, is it?” in response to Bowden having first ended an over after just 5 legitimate deliveries and another after 7 legitimate deliveries.

So, coming back to yesterday, he said “Good one from Billy, he’s finally come to the party! Good on ya’, Billy”. More than the quote itself, it was the tone in which he said it that really made it sound brutally honest.

So there it is, 3 leggies and commentary! Do you know any other leggies who have succeeded in the avatar of commentator?

Pictures courtesy of Cricinfo

Naved-ul-Hasan taking tips from King of Spin?

No, no, silly!

Naved-ul-Hasan isn’t asking Warnie how to bowl legspinners!

However, something I noticed for the first time in the second ODI between Pakistan and Sri Lanka (couldn’t watch the first one on TV) was the fact that Naved-ul-Hasan has a shocking amount of hair!

I barely watched much of the ICL and, so, was shocked to see him with such a mane!

So I decided to go back to the cricinfo archives to see whether my eyes were playing tricks on me and here’s what I found.

The pic was taken on December 16, 2007.

Ha!

You can’t fool me, Mr. Naved-ul-Hasan! Doing a Fidel Edwards doesn’t hide the fact that you were a baldie! 😛

So, could you be a nice boy and pass on some tips to Viru Sehwag so that he can get his hair back as well? And, while on the subject, be a darling and pass on some to Sanath as well!

🙂

Pictures courtesy of Cricinfo

‘I think I had about 8 names for the one that went straight’

This is what the best spinner ever, Shane Warne, said recently. I picked it off Cricinfo.

It just goes on to show that mind games really do work if they are done in the correct way.

To be quite frank, I don’t have a lot of memories of watching Warney bowl as I only got cable in 2007, but I do get to watch a lot of his archives on Star Cricket as well as his IPL performances, but I do love him because of what I have seen of him, he must be the greatest fucking bowler (if not player) out there in the world.

I mean, can you believe it that he had 8 (maybe more, maybe less) names for the straighter ball? You must be a clever bastard to actually get away with that.

I still can’t forget the mind games that he used to play on the opposition…the most memorable one being the nickname ‘Shermanator’ given to Ian Bell during the test in Adelaide in 2006. He says that he and Michael Clarke were watching American Pie the day before and, when they saw the actual ‘Shermanator’, they were apparently reminded of Ian Bell! 😀

Staying on the topic of mind games, can’t forget what McGrath used to do to opposition batting. Just before every test series, he always named a batsman that he planned to target during the series. The batsman generally tended to be the best or, at least, the second best batsman in the side.

The whole logic behind this is amazing. I’m sure that the targeted batsman might get into a frenzy when he’s named as the target and would engage in a lot of batting practice and watch a lot of videos to get a hang of McGrath.

However, all this is generally in vain as he always manages to get the target out at least 3 times during the series. This has a profound effect on the rest of the batting as, if McGrath is able to get a batsman out after having announced him as a target a long time ago, just imagine what he would be able to do with the others?

However, mind games only work if you target them to the right person. I’m sure plenty of viewers have noticed that the likes of Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar were rarely sledged at. This is because they know that these guys don’t give a rat’s ass about what they say and, if they did sledge them, it would just ensure that both of them would concentrate harder on their game, making it even difficult to dislodge them.

However, there were people like Sourav Ganguly who would easily get riled up with the taunts. Apparently, during a test match in India, there was a big crowd @ the stadium. Ganguly seemed intent on blocking every ball while Tendulkar was at the other end.

Warne decided to weave his ‘magic’ on Ganguly by telling him ‘Hey mate, the crowd’s come to watch the other bloke bat, not to watch you defend’. This got Ganguly all wound up and he launched at the next delivery from Warne and got stumped! 🙂

However, once in a while, even the Aussies got it wrong. A memorable conversation between the former Zimbabwean bulky fast bowler Eddo Brandes (while he was batting) and McGrath went like this:

McGrath – How come you’re so fat?

Brandes – It’s because your wife gave me a cookie every time I fucked her!

Classic, ‘innit?

Swann is gooooood…..

Was watching the fall of wickets in the third innings of the match and was quite stunned by what Graeme Swann was bowling…

It’s hard to describe, but I’ll try my best..

He turned the ball in the air…

That’s the best way to describe it..

The last person I saw doing that was King Warney.

Swann is a really cool bowler…