I haven’t been enthused to write on this blog for a while. One day cricket just doesn’t do it for me.

However, I thought I’d pop my head up to relay my sadness at the death of David Shepherd. I was there for his last international appearance in England on 12 July 2005 at The Oval for the one-dayer against Australia (the day before my mum’s funeral) and his retirement was a loss to the game. Now he’s lost his life to that bastard of all diseases.

David Foot’s tribute on cricinfo is appropriate to append here. A man who garnered much affection around the world.

http://www.cricinfo.com/wisdencricketer/content/current/story/223098.html

Simon Taufel’s is also excellent

http://www.cricinfo.com/england/content/current/story/431848.html

Cricket has lost one of its enduring characters.

David Shepherd's Last Day As An International Umpire

I injured my right arm on Tuesday (well shoulder actually) playing cricket and torn muscles in my right shoulder so typing with left arm only. Blogging is going to be light as a consequence. I am sure you will all survive.

Not got to see a lot of the action today, but it seems as though despite the three wicket burst this morning, the same old pattern is emerging. Australia find themselves at the end of the day 44 runs in front with five wickets remaining. The weather forecast tomorrow appears to be improving so that rain is not supposed to hit until half way through the day, and if Australia can hit their runs quickly, they’ll be in a position to give England a very uncomfortable final day.

Anderson showed that when conditions improve and the ball swings, and it is new, he is a handful. That is not much use on a flat deck when it is doing nothing, and where the likes of McGrath excelled, but when we get conditions that help, England can look good. Having got rid of Katich for a doughty Langer-esque 122, he removed the Incredible Shrinking Average very soon after as it dips below 55… Ponting got to 150 and chopped a very ordinary Panesar delivery onto his stumps. At lunch England harboured some hopes of keeping the Aussies around their first innings total.

Michael Clarke and Marcus North put together the sort of stand Australia ahve specialised in over the years, extinguishing hope and putting out England’s fire. Clarke is a different animal to the shot-a-ball tyro last time around and I’ve seen this sort of knock before. In Australia in 2006 he accumulated two centuries while I was there, and looked very assured in so doing. It appears he has done the same here. I’ve not seen North bat, so I’ll have to watch the highlights or some of his innings tomorrow. Regretfully I was at my cousin’s funeral this afternoon so the action obviously took second place.

The game now hinges on how much play takes place tomorrow. If we get anywhere near a full day and Australia can push on with Haddin, North and Johnson (and Hauritz) and get up to anywhere near 600, and we are in trouble – big trouble.

I’ve been snowed under with tons of stuff, and probably still will be, so posting has been sporadic, although blood pressure continues to rise at England failing to learn any lessons whatsoever…

I have the latest part of the Adelaide story in draft – hopefully to be published this week….

Some international cricket to report on. I watched a couple of hours of the final one dayer between New Zealand and West Indies in Napier. Chris Gayle looked in magnificent form, and when I woke up this morning I found out how he hit 135 I was not surprised. He is a class player and note that not one England player has scored more than that against top class opposition since… well I don’t know (just looked it up, it is 2001 when Trescothick scored 137 in a losing cause against Pakistan – I don’t count Strauss’s 152 against Bangladesh in this instance). Chanderpaul added 94 as West Indies made 292. England failed to defend well over 300 in Napier last season so that looked par at best, given the ball wobbled around a bit at the start.

As has been the way in New Zealand, though, the rain was going to intervene. It did and gave New Zealand the victory when rain stopped player after 35 overs of their reply with the score at 211/5. New Zealand were 96/2 when McCullum fell in the 10th over but fell behind the Duckworth Lewis calculations. A couple of good overs before the delay and New Zealand turned it around and won by 9 runs. Guptill scored 43 and Ross Taylor injected the pace to reach 48 not out. The weather was the winner in this series.

Australia have completed a 2-0 win in the 20/20 series. In a game remarkable for the depths Channel 9’s commentary plumbed, South Africa posted a total that would take getting but looked a little short. Key incidents went the way of the Aussies, and a hitting spree by Cameron White at the end of the game took Australia to a comfortable win. Mike Hussey scored a fluent 53 to guide them home, but the White 40 was the clincher, especially when he blapped debutant Parnell’s last over for 19, reducing a challenging rate to a piece of cake. Again the man of the match authorities took the tick box approach to adjudications anf gave it to the highest scorer in the winning team (Duminy’s knock of 69 not out and a brilliant over the shoulder the catch counting for nothing). I love the Aussies!

The Ranji Trophy final solidly went Mumbai’s way as they moved their score along to 402. Agarkar made 47, Sharma moved his score up to 141 and Zaheer Khan made 33. Uttar Pradesh lost three wickets before the close, including a bad decision (according to cricinfo) to dismiss key man Mohammed Kaif. Mumbai’s juggernaut rolls along.

Channel 9’s coverage – what on earth is there to say. I really expect the home team to be foremost in their thoughts but some of these cretins transcended bias, and walked into the realms of banality. Tony Grieg has always been a muppet – a man who voluntarily puts his head on the block when mere reason would do. After a slowish start by South Africa he exclaimed with great certainty that Gibbs “would go over the top next ball, that’s for sure” and he promptly hit the ball along the carpet straight to cover. On its own, a simple example, harmless, but he does it all the time. It is a joke. But that’s just crass mouthing off, and after all, this Tony Grieg. The game hasn’t so much passed him by, its another world entirely. Still, Grieg can mouth it off in perpetuity. Packer’s man.

No, it is the sheer doltish commentary of Messrs Healy and Warne that grated beyond words. Mark Nicholas, or as he is known on this and other vehicles for my rants, Lord Haw Haw, is something else. Healy came out with total idiocy in a moment that should have had him fired on the spot. Botha may have been the bowler to Hussey (M) who went down the track and missed the ball. The ball bounced and Boucher missed the stumping opportunity. Healy then said, plain as day “I wonder if Boucher deliberately missed him, to keep him in. After all he’s only scored 1 run in 5 balls.”

The next ball Hussey clumped it through the covers for four and made the match winning innings. The other two commentators went silent, as if to look at him and say “you idiot”. Healy then tried to explain it away as some sort of theory that could work. Sure, you drop one of the world’s best batsman. Would you drop Gordon Greenidge because he was in a bad trot to keep him in, knowing as soon as he fired, he fired. Would you deliberately miss a stumping off Kallis because he’s had a bad year? Leave it out.

He then went on to claim someone had got to a catch when we could all see the ball squirm out on our screen. Why do these commentators act like ADD children when a 20/20 game is in place? It might be the rock and roll of cricket, as they keep tediously exclaiming, but Jesus, do you have to shout and holler cobblers. Shane Warne, or as he is known on my blogs Drug Cheat (memo, glossary needs to be set up), explained a lot when an LBW decision early on could have been given not out, but was out. Warne, I presume only 10% joking giving his appealing said “the batsman has a bat in his hand, if he misses the ball, it should be out” – given the way Rudi Koertzen often played scant regard to the necessity of the ball pitching in a certain permitted area, and going on to hit the stumps, maybe he’s right. It was just the same old loud mouthed twaddle.

But Lord Haw Haw said the word “ripper”, called a ball over the boundary a “sixer”, did all but shout “C’mon Aussie” and produced such a toe-curling display of arse-licking of Matthew Hayden that you just want to say to the bloke, “Go. Be with your people. You aren’t wanted here in England. Go.” Cricket isn’t war, but the bloke’s smarmy ambition is on display; he wants to be the new Ritchie Benaud, and apart from being 63 test short of his test career, and 2 billion words in excess of the master commentator, he just isn’t any good. He tops my ratings of awful commentators by such a distance that truly dreadful muppets like Paul Allott and Sir Ian Knowitall don’t get a look in.

Oh, and in something that surprised only those with green and gold shades on, David Warner, who hasn’t played first class cricket for a reason, had a poor second game, scoring 7 in 12 balls with no boundaries. The way the Channel 9 cheerleaders were going on, you think we were watching the new Viv Richards. It’s hit and giggle cricket – ask Mark Waugh!

Oh I could go on, but I’ve forgotten the rest. More reports on tomorrow’s cricket when Bangladesh take on Sri Lanka and the Ranji Trophy continues…