All incidental, like prime ministers’
question times each side of antipodean hustings
in election year, except volley and retort
are hard ball delivered at ninety miles an hour.
Anything else wouldn’t be cricket.
This is my father’s day pressie from Kay and Laurel on the recently revarnished kitchen table of a wicket which I used to hide under as a lad since the days when born in Coventry. This is why I’m a bear – Warwickshire through and through, even though not a drop of English blood courses through my veins
Courage Of Convictions
Some good, some bad, and some ordinary
people the wrong side of the law to hold
their breath against the creak of deck, rope and
canvas; fixed blank stars slowly alter course
to form a rough southern cross. Realign antipodes
Of lives, destiny and political aspirations.
Now history. Not then. No recompense,
No going back to a dense world of [...]
The Adelaide Oval – 1st December 2006 – end of play England 1st innings 266/3Paul Collingwood
98 not out overnight Adelaide, Second Test Day One.
ct Gilchrist b Clark 206
I shan’t get out to this man,
It’s not just I’m English and he’s Australian,
I shan’t get out to this man.
It’s not just he’s done me too often before,
(last [...]
Perth Players
The Demon Panesar
You become yourself as you reach the crease
Gently poised paces, all limbs leaned to slight
Opponents’ fraught intent. Deft, accurate,
no whimsical flight; quick arm at its height
injects lethal charm to bewitch them out.
You need show no mercy until they leave.
5 for 94 Australia’s first innings of 244
Desert Island
Left, deserted, undefeated
how might you have [...]
The G, The MCG aka Melbourne Cricket GroundWarne, Shane Keith
born 13 September 1969 test match debut January 1992
Upon passing his seventh hundred test match wicket
(To the jig, The Sailor’s Hornpipe)
Warnie’s balls turn square, KP hit ’em in the air.
A six or out, there is no doubt.
You get a funny feeling one side’ll be reeling
Ev’ry time [...]
Harbour Bridge – 00 00 Monday 1st January 2007
Sydney
a city and land defined by sea, a far greater bridge:
Flinders’ circumnavigation barely left its moorings
from Donnington dominion. Seventy-five years
is nothing more than a life-time bearings.
Over and under, each passage changes yours
a fraction of a second or degrees more abruptly.
Switch clocks to a different time on the [...]
