typicalfan
Coach
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Yes that is what I mean.
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Yes that is what I mean.
The only two guys in the box that would be considered AFL fans are Lawry and Brayshaw and they spew it out daily. Richie, Slats, Healy and Taylor don't promote it, they might talk about it a little if it is advertised or if a player is in the crowd but barely.
He is called the close talker because whenever he is discussing the commentary in the box pre game or halftime or whatever he leans right over to his co commentator like he is going to kiss him or something. Imagine being Lozza or Brandy watching that bobbing head leaning over, Id want to smack him in the left forehead.
I'd knife them.
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/clarke-ponting-dazzle-with-double-double-20120125-1qhu9.html
Clarke, Ponting dazzle with double double..
Greg Baum
January 26, 2012
Double vision Michael Clarke celebrates his double century yesterday; Ricky Ponting saluted shortly after. Photo: AP
Even when you have seen every run with the naked eye, the idea of double centuries for two batsmen in one Test innings, and a partnership of nearly 400 between them is, like a light year, or infinity, difficult to grasp. Knowing that there has been no bigger stand for Australia for nearly 80 years doesn't really help. Perhaps the magnitude of the achievement of Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting is best understood in the context of what happened before and after they joined forces so historically.
Before, Australia lost three wickets in a moderate hurry. After, Australia lost another three in short order, before at length declaring at 7-604. Then India lost two prize wickets in barely half an hour.
Partly, this can be explained by the state of the match. Weight of opponents' runs tyrannises all teams, even those from the subcontinent, where feats of run-scoring are not uncommon, and cricketers learn to be stoics. By the end of Australia's innings, the scoreboard hill was in full and sunburnt chorus, and the Indians must have felt as if the hot breath of an entire country was on their necks. They would have been glad to have limited the damage to two wickets by stumps.
Even on a fearsomely hot day, on a featherbed of a pitch, against a team out of form and down on their luck, it only takes one ball to get out.
It could be a rogue ball: one from Umesh Yadav nearly decapitated Clarke when he was in full flight. It could be through enthusiastic overreaching. This nearly befell Clarke in the morning, for then he was seeing the ball so well he must have expected a security guard to confiscate it, and his bat was fairly leaping out of his hands, and he twice shaped to hit fast bowlers into the Torrens, but missed. It did happen to Mike Hussey, who was so avid in his pursuit of off-spinner Ravi Ashwin that he was run out by silly point.
It could to a miscue, like the one Virender Sehwag played to Peter Siddle's first ball, a full toss that he toe-ended back to the bowler. It could because you are fated, as Rahul Dravid, once thought impregnable, must have felt when Ben Hilfenhaus burrowed through his defence and the ball rattled against glove and elbow and crashed into his stumps.
It could simply be by missing a straightish ball, as Clarke eventually did third ball after lunch yesterday. It could be that your time has come, as Ponting's eventually did, after more than 8½ hours (and two missed chances), when Sachin Tendulkar caught him on the square leg fence.
For more than a day, Clarke and Ponting obviated all of cricket's freak, misadventure and happenstance. It cannot have been fluke; they did much the same in Sydney a fortnight ago. The Clarke-Ponting stand was studded with strokeplay both dazzling and sustained; that is what made it exceptional. For 6½ hours, they scored at better than a run a minute, better than four an over.
The first hour yesterday outshone all others; then, the ball sped from each of their bats like arrows from a bow. The mindset was bloody, but the execution was dreamy. The Indians have been poor in this series, but are not mugs. They came with plans, and made others on the run. Yadav tried ruffling, Ishant Sharma worried away at off-stump (and had three catches dropped), and Ashwin cranked out ball after ball, each a subtle variation on the last. The Australian pair had answers for them all.
Clarke's innings grew like a king tide, ever rising, and Ponting was ol' man river: he just kept rolling on. The travail of the Ashes, more acute for this pair, at last was purged. Their partnership could be reckoned up in celebratory handshakes, at least two dozen, plus two hugs.
By lunch, they had added 134. But the third ball after the break had Clarke's name on it. It looked more like a failure of bat than batsman; for once, it did not go automatically to the line of the ball. A pull for four completed Ponting's 200, but his celebration was subdued, as if the accomplishments of this summer at last were sinking in. Clarke's declaration was, for India, only a temporary mercy.
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/holiday-but-no-party-unless-tendulkar-gets-elusive-ton-20120125-1qhua.html
Holiday but no party unless Tendulkar gets elusive ton..
Chris Barrett
January 26, 2012
Pressure ... Sachin Tendulkar. Photo: AP
RARELY has the timing of the concurrent Australian and Indian celebrations of nationhood - Australia Day and Republic Day - been more appropriate.
Not only do the two meet today on their national days in a match of Test cricket, an obsession in both countries, but they do so with so much at stake, even if this Test is a dead rubber.
The Border-Gavaskar Trophy was run and won before the final instalment in Adelaide this week but for the hundreds of millions who will watch from the subcontinent during their public holiday today there is still something to play for amid the wreckage of this tour.
This one-sided series has featured a succession of historic innings - Michael Clarke's 329 not out in Sydney, David Warner's amazing 180 in Perth and, yesterday, the twin double centuries of Clarke and Ricky Ponting. But the ton all of India is desperate to see has not yet arrived.
Sachin Tendulkar's long wait for a 100th international hundred - an arbitrary milestone but one treated hysterically in his homeland - continues and the chase resumes at Adelaide Oval this morning, with the 38-year-old on 12 and India holding on by a whisker at 2-61.
Not only does Tendulkar need to draw a close to a period of more than 10 months in pursuit of that almost all-encompassing figure - it would hardly be as special to reach it in a one-day international next month - but he must do it to save India's skin here in Adelaide.
The Indian Prime Minister's office will today award the highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, to a sportsperson for the first time. It won't go to Tendulkar despite the rules being changed to include athletes largely because of his achievements in the past 20 years. Instead, the names reportedly forwarded by the Sports Minister for consideration are hockey great Dhyan Chand, Olympic gold-winning shooter Abhinav Bindra and Mount Everest conqueror Tenzing Norgay.
The day will, however, be all about Tendulkar if he reaches three figures.
Not that Clarke's side are inclined to let him have it easily after themselves declaring yesterday with a monster 7-604.
''I certainly won't be showing him any sympathy,'' Clarke said. ''We're there to win the game, to try and take 20 wickets. He's a wonderful player and he's going to be really tough to get out on that wicket.
''Somehow we're going to have to find a way to do it twice.''
If today looms tantalisingly for Tendulkar, yesterday was owned by Clarke (210) and Ponting (221).
Should the Mumbai champion require a blueprint for how to construct a marathon innings here he need look no further than Australia's captains past and present.
Already having brought up centuries on the first day, Clarke and Ponting yesterday doubled the fun, combining for 386 runs, the fourth-highest partnership by Australians in Test history.
Clarke was almost casual afterwards but it will soon sink in that he has become only the third cricketer ever to score triple and double centuries in the same Test series. The others were Don Bradman, twice, and Wally Hammond. Fair company.
''It's very special, there's no doubt about it,'' Clarke said. ''One thing I've never really been too bothered about is statistics and records. It's about playing the game and about trying to do whatever you can to help your team win. If records come along like that it's very special.''
As for batting at length with Ponting, the pair have made a habit of it this summer and yesterday was the pinnacle. For Ponting, 37, a sixth double century of his career and a second in Adelaide only drove home further his remarkable return to form.
''We've known each other for a long time and played a lot of cricket together and it's nice to spend some time in the middle,'' Clarke said. ''I guess both of us were disappointed with our series last summer and we've worked hard on our games to improve and it's nice to be scoring some this summer.''
But he would be able to score a test 50 against the NZ attack.
A very sensitive bunch aren't they, too proud or delusional to admit they had been outplayed, even though they had been outplayed almost all series.
