The Orange

Here I was, earlier in the week,  proposing that I should take the number one Google ranking for “aussie cry babies” when I get such brilliant material out of the Second Ashes test.

Ponting was admittedly given out in a dodgy decision by “Slow Death” Rudi Koertzen.

By the way it was reported in the Sydney Moaning Herald (gotta love my own work some time), you would have thought Koertzen was an Islamic militant who had let off a bomb in the Aussie changing room.

The headline was: Unlucky Punter’s Rudi surprise. Yep, no other cricketers have been unlucky before.

Mind you, with their home umpires, I can understand why the Aussies might find this a bit of a surprise and newsworthy.

The article opens with:

AUSTRALIA collapsed in a heap when the real Jimmy Anderson revealed himself with a destructive display of swing bowling at Lord’s, where the touring team failed to recover from the controversial dismissal of Ricky Ponting.

The fact that seven other wickers were lost seems to have overlooked the writer.

Later on:

Koertzen’s decision could have been overturned if the umpire referral system had been in place for the Ashes, but the ICC decided not to introduce the system until October.

Yep, and so it would be for all the others as well.  But the ICC have delayed it until after the Ashes to intentionally piss the Aussies off.

Wait for, it Chloe the Cry Baby has only just warmed up:

The South African umpire did call on the third umpire to determine whether the ball had carried to Andrew Strauss, but the confusion was heightened by the fact that Ponting hit his boot with his bat and Anderson appeared to be making a worthy appeal for lbw while the men behind the stumps shouted for the edge.

None of this consoled Ponting, who was denied a chance to improve on his mediocre record at Lord’s and had to watch from the balcony as wickets tumbled during the afternoon.

The 2005 series will be remembered for, among many other dramas, several dreadful umpiring calls, and the Ponting decision could yet change the course of the Ashes.

Funny, because if you Google “Aussie Cry Babies” you get this priceless gem:

HYPOCRITICAL Australian players had behaved like “cry-babies” by whingeing about racism when they had been cricket’s worst sledgers, according to Pakistan great Wasim Akram.

As you could imagine, picking a team to support from the Aussies and the Poms is a lot like trying to work out how you give the IRD more tax!

Anyway, it looks like we’re with the Poms from here on in.

Now, I’m used to accusing the Aussies of many things.

Indeed, one of the objectives of this site is to rank #1 in Google when searching for “cheating Aussies”.  (Sadly, we have dropped down the list to 5th … but still on that very important first page of Google).

But if the Aussies continue this carry on overnight, I’m going to have to try and be #1 in Google for Crybaby Aussies.

We all know it is a genetic trait of Australians to cheat – there’s a fair degree of natural selection going on; hell, cheating was a pre-requisite for “migrating” to Aussie in the 19th century.

Now, the Aussies are accusing the Poms of cheating:

RICKY Ponting has accused England of not playing within the spirit of cricket with their cynical time wasting tactics to cling on for a first Test draw.

A furious Ponting blasted the Poms for sending physiotherapist Steve McCaig onto the field to run gloves to tailender Jimmy Anderson as he and fellow tailender Monty Panesar batted out a tense draw.

With time ticking down and only seven minutes left, it was a clear delaying tactic that Ponting claimed was “pretty ordinary” and not in the spirit of the game.

Frankly, you’d think Ricky would have a much better idea of what cheating entails given that:

1.  He’s an Australian

2.  He’s a cricketer

Let’s think – how about underarm?

Greg Dyer “catching”.

Brad Haddin “bowling” – how dare we suggest he’d cheated.

For that matter, think of most Australian umpires.

And Ricky thinks the Poms were “cheating” by wasting time!

If Ricky’s under pressure now, imagine what it would be like if he manages to lose the Ashes to a bunch of cheating Poms.

The Yellow Fever have done much for NZ sports fans.

I particularly love the chant whenever one of the visiting teams fouls a Phoenix player: “Same old Aussies, always cheating!”.  Love it!

And I’ve got to love the way I can digress before I even get started.

The real issue here is the Aussies and cricket.  It’s Hadlee-Chappell time and we know that means allegations of cheating and underarm Aussies.  Brad Haddin springs to mind!

The game itself had two controversial moments (at least from this side of the pond) – the McCullum LBW decision (appropriate grounds for a Tui ad) and the Broom “bowled” decision.

There was of course a third – McCullum’s doubtful catch of Hussey the Younger.

There was undoubtedly doubt (if you excuse the double up) around the Hussey decision.  Reasonably, regardless of the decision, someone could have disputed it.

However, by comparison, with the two controversial NZ decisions, there should have been no doubt.  These were decisions the umpires simply got wrong.

I’m not going to call Haddin a cheat for what was an umpiring mistake.  Haddin is definitely an idiot (based on his own comments and if he ever did murder someone, I’d happily suggest to him to leave his defence to a lawyer).

What’s really interesting about this is that there is a clear trend when you look at umpiring decisions in Australia.

Let’s consider the context – over the last 10 years or so, the technology has improved out of site both in terms of the technology available to analyse the decisions and sites like Cricinfo that allow dispassionate analysis of the stats.

So let’s see what the stats have to say:

Ricky Ponting

• Ricky Ponting has been dismissed 25 times LBW in one day games
• Only 8 of those have happened in Australia
• Admitedly, he’s played more games away than at home (the World Cup would contribute to this) – 129 out of 302 games.

Adam Gilchrist

• Out of 285 ODI’s, Gilchrist was LBW only 21 times, with only 6 of those being at home.

Brendon McCullum

• In his ODI career, McCullum has been dismissed a total of 16 times out of 119 innings
• Taking the Oz stats out, he’s been out 11 out of 101 innings – 11%
• In Australia, McCullum has been LBW 5 times out of 18 bats – 28%

Shaun “Of The Dead” Tait

Seeing McCullum’s stats might be because of Tait’s express pace, let’s see how Tait’s figures as a bowler stack up.  Admittedly, he’s only played 22 games but:

• in 8 games at home, he’s taken 13 wickets, 2 LBW’s – 15%
• in away games, 6 our of 25 – 24%

Perhaps the bouncy pitches don’t help at home but it should also be remembered, it’s a relatively small number of games.

Shane Warne

Conversely, Mr Textit has played a vast number of games and it is interesting to see how the stats come out:

• in home games, Warne took 134 wickets, of which 21 were LBW (16%)
• in away games, he took 159 wickets, 27 Leg Before (17%)

To be fair, as the Mad Butcher would say, the bowling figures don’t tend to support a decent conspiracy theory.

Having said that, if I was a batsman tho, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to leave it up to the umpires if I was batting in Oz, while the reverse would apply if I was an Australian cricketer.

Just when you thought you’d heard the last of rotation, along comes Punter saying that he doesn’t believe the Aussie cricket team can put their best team on the park every time over the next couple of years.

Sounds like rotation to me!

“I think the players, Cricket Australia and the players’ association need to start prioritising which of the tournaments that we want to have the team as fit and raring to go as best we possibly can,” Ponting said.

Definitely sounds like rotation.

Brad Haddin, who was rested during last week’s two Twenty20 matches against South Africa, said the break has helped after nine Tests in 13 weeks.

“That’s something players are going to have to get used to with the amount of cricket these days, being rotated a little bit,” Haddin said.

“At the time I thought I was right to play, but after having a few days off and coming back for the one-day game in Melbourne, I did feel refreshed.”

Hell, they even using the “R” word themselves and in public!

Those that bag rotation are living in another world.

The criticisms of the All Blacks use of rotation in particular is inanely naive – in the good old days, the AB’s played a handful of tests.  Every test mattered.

Now, the All Blacks will play upwards of 15 tests a year, some of which matter, with the big focus being on the World Cup every four years.

That’s not to mention the greater level of expectation on professional players – Super 14 – plus the impact of collisions of bigger, faster and fitter athletes compared to even 20 years ago.

Add to that the lack of mid-week games for the dirt trackers and the increased likelihood that top players will leave because a nice black jersey doesn’t buy a bach in Taupo, there’s a compelling case for at the least a modicum of rotation.

At least now thanks to Ricky and the Aussie cricketers we can now use the R word in public again.

I missed most of the Aussies batting last night but did manage to hear a few comments from the commentators about Ricky Ponting.

Now, when one of those one-eyed bigots says one of their players has been “lucky”, you know they’ve been lucky.

Again, I’m going on what I heard, not what I saw.

However, it was an interesting excercise to see how often Ricky has been out LBW in one day games.

Cricinfo has all the information of course so it is relatively easy to find out:

• Ricky Ponting has been dismissed 25 times LBW in one day games
• Only 8 of those have happened in Australia

Admitedly, he’s played more games away than at home (the world cup would contribute to this) – 129 out of 302 games.

Still, the figures speak for themselves – Australis is still the lucky country for Ricky Ponting.

EDIT

I just checked the stats for Adam Gilchrist.  Surprise surprise, lucky Adam!  Out of 285 ODI’s, Gilchrist was LBW only 21 times, with only 6 of those being at home.