The History of English Cricket ads - Part 1

Earlier this year, I took a stroll down memory lane and had a look at the visual history of Australian cricket advertising. To be more specific, I rifled through my Australian cricket magazine collection and just about wore out my scanner in the process.

People seemed to enjoy it (you can see those here and here and here). Well, they didn't complain so I may be filling in the gaps myself there. With all that in mind and this Ultra-Ashes year in progress, I thought I'd give the English game the same treatment. It was a good excuse to pull boxes and boxes of 'Cricketer' and 'Wisden Cricket Monthly' magazines out of  the garage and indulge in some whimsy. I found that once I'd started I couldn't stop (my girlfriend will attest to the pitiful sight she often confronted when she walked into our office, which has slowly been taken over by cricket stuff). And yes, this covers print advertising only.

To be honest, the bulk of the collection covers the 80s, 90s and 2000s (I only really have a handful of mags from before that period, hence the brevity of this post), but this first collection has a couple of goodies.

1954 - Jim Laker, Trevor Bailey and Tony Lock for Brylcream

This ad seriously  brings into question the old cliche about Brylcream ads being the domain of heartthrobs. I mean no offence to the late Trevor Bailey here, but that grin on his face is the grin of a man who cannot believe his dumb luck.

UPDATE: I realise now it is two ads in one. I apologize for the blunder and to the good people at Lucozade (I would also appreciate any merchandise they can send my way as I drink their product like it's going out of date). Just squint and pretend it's one ad for Brylcream, go with me here and don't be a bell-end.

1954 - Len Hutton Grand Slam Socks

Before David Warner wowed us with his "All Day Socks" (a brilliant invention; until they appeared I was just another mug changing his socks at lunch time), the aspiring cricketer merely had to make do with Len Hutton's 'Grand Slam' cushion-foot socks. 

1954 - Len Hutton for Slazenger

Speaking of Davey, I can't help but think of his ridiculously-named 'Gray Nicholls Kaboom' bat when I look at this dour vision of simpler times.

1954 - English Cricketers for Slazenger

This one just makes me want to don my smoking jacket and throw down a few cocktails. I do find it hard not to mentally superimpose Godfrey Evans' later-life mutton chops onto his face though. He looks nude without them.

1959 - Bill Edrich Boots

If I could make a Bill & Ted style time-travel film starring Ryan Harris and Pat Cummins in the title roles (that sounds unlikely, sure), there is a sick part of me that would want them sent back to  bowl an over in these boots. I mean, is there even a 10% chance that they both wouldn't actually be pronounced dead within minutes?

I'm also almost certain that Bill Edrich would have had a test average of 50 if he wasn't hobbling around in these torture devices.

1959 - Brian Statham for Dextrosol

'Supplements' have become something of a byword for a certain type of vague dodginess in professional sport, but that wasn't the case in 1959. "Dextrosol" does sound like the kind of thing your Mum forced might have forced you to take on a sick day though, doesn't it?

1959 - Colin Cowdrey for Gradidge

There's something about ads from the 50s and 60s that seems almost innocent and appealing. I guess it's just that, generally speaking, the advertising industry hadn't quite spiraled into a pit of slime quite yet. Just a word of warning, what follows in the 80s and 90s is decidedly less wholesome than this.

1959 - Godrey Evans for Gradidge

This one is pretty brilliant, particularly the logo. It looks like the kind of thing Saul Bass might have designed if he was a massive cricket fan. 

1959 - English Cricketers for P&O Cruises

I guess this would have been right on the tail-end of the period in which Ashes tourists made their journey by boat. At the risk of sounding like I'm obsessed with David Warner, if the 2013 squad had have traveled by sea, old Davey 100% definitely would've been taking random tourists on in extremely heated games of deck quoits.

1965 - Guinness

Cricket and alcohol have always been a magnificent partnership.

1975 - Duncan Fearnley See-through bat

"What are you looking at Bob?"

"Hate to break it to you Den, but all I can see is a very bad business decision."

1978 - St Peter Cricket Bats

It was nice of Barry Richards to fix up his hair for this one. Looking at this, it remains insane to me that the St Peter brand hasn't made a comeback. I don't even play anymore and I'd buy one of their bats.

1979 - Chubb

I've previously outlined the unfortunate proliferation of bad puns in cricket advertising. It's an epidemic that is now beyond containment. Here's a tip advertising people, if you use any of the following, every cricket fan in the world resents you:

1. 'Bowl a maiden over with (insert awful product here)' (sub-tip: cricket can NEVER be sexy, don't even try).

2. "Howzat for a (insert type of deal here)?' - actually, some just go for a completely minimal and inexplicable 'Howzat?', no matter what the product is. 

3. 'Let us bowl you over with our (insert desperately sad product/brand here).

1979 - David Gower for The Daily Star

Another stroll down Pun Lane. This is also the first point at which we see David Gower, a man rivaled only by Dennis Lillee for complete over-exposure in the field of advertising and product spruiking. I doubt there is a single category of consumer products that David Gower didn't promote. At times on my search through these magazines, I felt like I was a crazed stalker rummaging through my meticulously-compiled David Gower scrapbook.

I don't actually have a meticulously-compiled David Gower scrapbook, I swear.

1979 - John Player League

In 1979, I can't imagine why cricket fans would have been excited by World Series Cricket in the slightest. I mean, why would you want to go and watch that technicolour abomination when you could head down to the village green and see a John Player League game played on...well...it does look like outfield, doesn't it?

1979 - Geoffrey Boycott for Slazenger

I can only imagine that the Slazenger marketing department was overruled by the inventory manager on this one.

"Look, I don't care that we're paying Boycott to use our bats, there's 50,000 cricket balls sitting in that warehouse and we need to start shifting some units. Make it at least three times the size of Boycott."

1979 - St Peter Cricket Bats

I really just put this one up for Asif Iqbal fans.

1979 - Test Match featuring Fred Trueman

If I have one cricketing hobby-horse, I have a thousand. One of these was established when  I was about 10 years old and into my fifth straight summer of giving my Test Match felt cricket game a work-out. Well, as long as the ball-bearing hadn't been blasted off the kitchen table and down one of the heating vents. My theory is this: Test Match is THE ONLY cricket board game. It's the beginning and the end of the conversation. Am I wrong on this?

I also feel like the approval of Freddie Trueman only further vindicates my theory.

Some cause for Australian cheer

Work is keeping me too busy to blog at the moment but in the meantime, here's something on some Australian positives that I put together over at the Guardian.

I have spent a ridiculous amount of time on a  monumental blog post that will be on the way sooner rather than later, if my absence is of any concern to you.

In the meantime, what do we all think of Watto turning the DRS sledging tables on KP last night? Is this this an all-rounder shaped pot calling the kettle black if ever you've seen it?

I guess he and Warner are all too aware of the chasm in talent between themselves and KP; he's a handy man to get out cheaply.

Ashes Diary - 2nd Test - Day 3

The Big Sleep

There is one inevitability for the Australian cricket lover following a winter Ashes and that is that at some point you are going to fall asleep for a significant chunk of play. Day 3 was my turn. Having seen out the first two overs with a straight bat and watchful eye, I made the fatal error of assuming the sleeping position length-ways across the couch. Resistance was futile. A week with virtually no sleep caught up with me in one fuzzy, soundless moment and I was gone. For hours.

It is an Ashes tradition I suppose and once I woke up again it got me thinking about other rituals I've observed over the years and the way that the 'away' Ashes series is an orientation point for so much of my life. The thrilling, joyful act of post-bedtime parental defiance in '89 and '93 gave way to deep, considered obsession in '97 and '01 before '05 and '09 co-existed variously with the nocturnal unpredictability of young adulthood and the incursion of serious relationships. This time around I feel prepared for a consistent, level-headed campaign. If only I can stay awake.

In an ephemeral sense, I guess the ABC Cricket Guide is the most obvious Ashes tradition I observe. It made more sense in 1993 when I was huddled under my doona with the radio turned down low to avoid the attention of my parents. After all, I wasn't allowed a TV in my bedroom (my girlfriend and I now have more screens in our house than people by a multiple exceeding two), there was no twitter and (for me) no internet. It was a portal into the world of cricket, full of statistics and profiles; pictures and words that seemed to matter a lot.

There is no justifiable reason to buy the ABC Cricket Guide these days. It's an anachronism and about the least essential cricket document I can think of. But without fail I still buy every single one of the things. The stats are out of date before it even hits the newsagent's shelves and everything written in it seems (even if it is only a month old) feels like it may as well have been uncovered from a stone tablet. But if it were ever to disappear I'd probably feel an immediate and crushing tightness in my chest and start silently weeping. I guess its like the English's own feelings towards publishing institutions like the Beano; they just want to know that it's still there, that there's some continuity in their life and that certain things will never change. The difference being that I still feel the need to buy the ABC Cricket Guide.

The Ashes makes me think about life on a profound level, you see.

Brief interviews with hideous men

In the time I was still awake before play, I at least got to have a decent chuckle at Brendan Julian's assertion in the Fox Sports studio preview that Joe Root "sometimes looks like a number eight of something" and that he didn't get the fuss about the English youngster. In combination with Greg Blewett, BJ is to cricket analysis what Richard Wilkins is to film criticism. Unlike Dickie Wilks, BJ doesn't have Rotten Tomatoes or the back cover blurb of DVD's to fall back on though, so he ends up making such cack-handed statements on a regular basis.

The baby-faced Assassin 

In actual fact Root's success in blunting Australia's tiring attack to the tune of 178 undefeated runs and counting on day three should not have come as a surprise to anyone. It might be an oversimplification of Australia's batting malaise to say that the country lacks young players who can make big hundreds (or hundreds of any kind, if we're honest) but it is also true. By comparison, this season alone, Root has made scores of 182, 236, 179, 104 and now 178 not out. Here's something even simpler to digest: he makes runs off the back foot. Not lap sweeps or switch hits or big show six-hitting from a firmly planted front foot, though he is probably capable of them as well, but from a bedrock of nudges and nurdles and drives and cuts off the back foot.  

It's an important distinction to note. Root's backwards movement is more of a shuffle than a stride, but boy is it effective. You could have feasibly lost count of the amount of times it resulted in a boundary being whipped away through cover or mid-wicket. Even the slightest shortening length from Australia's pace brigade was punished.

Did Usman Khawaja notice that? Are Australian batsman preparing themselves for the specific requirements of Test cricket with such obvious diligence as the young Englishman? As Andrew Strauss noted after Root had passed his half-century, he didn't do anything "outrageously risky" during this innings. It wasn't a quick kill and it wasn't flash but by the end of the day, Australia had absorbed so many of Root's seemingly polite jabs that they were dizzied and bleeding, not from the lip but at their core.


At the other end

All the while that Root was piecing his opus together he had able support from both Tim Bresnan and The Terminator, Ian Bell. 

If Ashton Agar showed up the Australian top order at Trent Bridge with his youthful batting exuberance and free-flowing simplicity, today Bresnan taught them a lesson of a different kind; that it's a wholly beneficial aim to just be the best possible version of yourself. Bresnan didn't biff or bash, as would be expected of a nightwatchman returning the next day. He batted exactly as he always tends to, with purpose and in sync with his partner. I noted before the match that Australia would have much preferred to be up against the spindly Steven Finn than a resilient competitor such as Bresnan and his innings today only reinforced that view.

Bell merely picked up where he left off in the first innings. His ascendancy is emblematic of the true gulf between the two teams, that of self-esteem and self-belief; quiet arrogance even. Secure in his place in the English pecking order, Bell's innings construction is accordingly clear-headed. Mis-hits register like slightly amusing blips rather than a telling sign of imminent doom. In the end, his demise to a Steven Smith half-tracker seemed apt; he just never looked particularly troubled by the better bowling that the Australians mustered.

The pain just continued from there with Jonny Bairstow joining a rapidly accelerating Root and giving a further shove to the back of Australia's downhill momentum. With a deficit of 566 looking set to grow further on the fourth day, it is no longer a question of Australia locating the breaks, their exhausted bowling attack might be in need of a full service.

Yes, Bell was out

I mean, when David Gower is saying that an England batsman is out, he's stone cold. It was another howler though no more of a howler than the last one and the one before that. It is becoming a lot less excusable when those howlers are made with the assistance of fairly conclusive evidence though.

Speaking of commentary, has Andrew Strauss said "grind them into the dirt" more times than any other human being in living memory? It's a verbal tic to rival Ian Chappell's stories about Les Favell. The thing is though, Cook's men barely need to engage in the cliche that Strauss suggests as Australia are most definitely digging themselves into a subterranean position all of their own accord. They're not far off hitting water, in fact.

An Australian spinner is taking wickets

He's not actually in England, but it's a start. A couple of days back I joked about Fawad Ahmed being sent home to his couch but he's currently ripping through a Zimbabwean batting line-up for Australia A. Eight wickets and counting. Should Ashton Agar succumb to the injury that appears to be troubling him, Ahmed will enter the frame again along with Nathan Lyon. Some might even make a case for Glenn Maxwell though I won't be one of them.

My Yankee Ashes

WARNING: THIS IS A SELF-INDULGENT TRAVEL DIARY - if you are here for topless photos of Shane Watson, I will resume normal services like that next week.

Also, let the title of this post not be too misleading, for I'm returning to Australian shores in the next few days; this is just the first time I've been abroad for any part of an Ashes series so I thought I'd chronicle it, even if it's only the first Test . It's been...odd.

I've previously mentioned that earlier this year, I made one of the worst time-planning mistakes of my life by having a four week US holiday overlap with the first Test of The Ashes. I mean, the holiday was never going to mean four weeks completely away from cricket, but the thought of 'missing' an Ashes Test of the English variety had filled me with overwhelming dread for months. Sad but true.

In the end, it's worked out fine thanks to the wonders of...ahem...'the internet' (those are 'I did something illegal and don't really feel bad about it' inverted commas) and my own willingness to rise at 5.45am for five days of my holidays. Add in the explosion of cricket-based twitter banter at this point of the cricket calendar and it's virtually like I'm in my lounge room. Except I'm not, I'm in someone else's lounge room on the lower east side of New York with a merry band of pot-smoking troubadours across the hall. I may actually be passively stoned; it smells as though they buy it by the kilo.

Anyway, because I'm a complete loser and have lost all perspective on the importance of this game, my thoughts on the long flight over to the States turned at some point to the expectation of there being 'cricket moments' on this trip. I'd pre-explained the Ashes scheduling issue to my girlfriend and she was fine with me rising early (without her) and leaving our sight-seeing till later in the day during the first Test. But what other part would cricket play on this trip? 

To start with, not a hell of a lot. In our first stop, New Orleans, there was no cricket talk and no cricket watching. Actually that's a lie; it was in New Orleans that I discovered Cricinfo have a live stream of certain one-day games that I don't get in Australia. I breathlessly relayed this information to my girlfriend as I was laying on our hotel bed with the laptop sitting on my chest and some kind of disgusting food in my hand. The look on her face suggested that the sight before her had just shot straight to the Top 5 of my least sexy moments with a bullet. You can't win them all.

In Chicago I was too busy having fun and shoving my face into deep-dish pizza to think about cricket a whole lot, but I did go to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs. This ball park was later described to me by a Bostonian as "a bit of a dump", but a Bostonian would say that, wouldn't they? This particular Red Sox fan had an Irish family crest tattoo covering half his leg, so I shouldn't have expected anything less. But the day out at Wrigley was a great reminder of the way a sport can be modernised, professionalised and covered from every available angle yet still retain a lot of its old-world charm. Australian stadiums are becoming increasingly homogenized and drab in the last 15 years, so it was a nice reminder of the rich patina that comes from holding onto what you love about your sport.  

Actually, cricket did get a mention in Chicago. We were staying in a hotel so thoroughly buffeted by noise from the neighboring nightclub and fire station (yeah, thanks Cruisabout Travel Agency, you're real pro's) that we could not sleep. This frustrated my girlfriend immensely and it became so hard to get sleep that she eventually rolled over one night at about 3am and said, "Can you tell me a really boring cricket story that will send me to sleep?" My first thought was: 'I might not speak to you for the rest of the trip' but even in my sleep-deprived state, my inner smart-arse shone through; "Sorry, there's no such thing as a boring cricket story, you'll have to count sheep."

In Washington DC I actually learned a thing or two about Twenty20 cricket and the Big Bash in particular. How did I learn this in DC? I went to a Washington Nationals baseball game, that's how. The next time Cricket Australia start with the lip service about wanting to get women and children to attend cricket games, I would point them in the direction of Ted Lerner's office

A World War II veteran and real estate mogul, Lerner took control of this new franchise in 2006 and he had a decent enough job in front of him. In the absence of a Washington-based team for so long, baseball-loving locals mostly followed the Orioles of nearby Baltimore. I guess Lerner was also battling against the fact that DC being DC, its population is transient and fragmented. 

Yet despite all this, the shiny new Nationals Stadium seems to be doing exactly what a stadium should do in a town like that; be completely and utterly appealing to every type of potential fan. It is a considerable achievement. There was a startling array of different and interesting food stands, bars of many shapes and sizes, a brilliant and slickly-run team merchandise store, and overlooking the beautifully-manicured field, a kind of sprawling beer garden that seemed to be the centre of the festivities. We de-camped there from our seats and never returned, it was so much fun. 

To put it bluntly, it was also the gayest crowd I have ever seen, quite an achievement for a sport that occupies similarly dowdy real estate in the American sporting calendar as cricket seems to do these days in Australia. This may have been due to the historic DOMA/Prop 8 verdicts coming down the following day, but you know when journalists resort to cliche and describe an event as possessing a "carnival atmosphere"? This was a carnival where people were also watching sport and spending lots of money on booze. James Sutherland and Mike McKenna should go and stand in that ball park for an entire week. They'll note a few things, like for instance:

- You can't sell merchandise to punters when you're encouraging them to wear fancy dress to the game. That is a gimmick that actually loses you credibility AND money, which is a remarkable failure really and the total opposite of what you should be achieving  Also, make the merch interesting, unique and play upon the colourful heritage of short-form cricket. I lost count of the amount of fans walking around in retro-inspired baseball jerseys and t-shirts.

- Rather than pissing money against the wall creating a "lifestyle magazine" with wine reviews or badger-baiting tips or whatever is actually in that wanky publication of yours (yes people, Cricket Australia have tried their arm at a 'Gourmet Traveler vibe), how about you bring that desirable 'foodie' lifestyle to your actual event? "Oh, but the grounds have catering contracts in..." I don't care, get it right. You can't expect to win over women, kids, hipsters, yuppies and whoever else it is you want if you're offering them a bain marie full of extortionately priced Four 'n' Twenty pies. Get food trucks, get local breweries in, just do something because you currently offer the fickle "Do I really want to go to the cricket?" punter the following: a hard plastic seat and food from the high school tuck shop, circa 1987.

So what I'm saying is, if you're trying to win non-cricket fans over, take a look at people who have done a similar thing and learn from it. It's not easy, but at least try.

Moving on to Boston, we took in Fenway Park and I've got to say, the experience was very similar to Wrigley Field (ie. brilliant and olde-worldy) with the added bonus of un-hinged fans and above-average buffalo wings (I haven't really mentioned what we ate at the Ball Parks because it is shameful and embarrassing to everyone concerned). This also sounds like I just dragged my girlfriend to baseball games; in actual fact we went to four games in 28 days, so I'm not a total monster. I don't even particularly like baseball, but the new Yankees Stadium aside, it is a fun day out. I'll give them that.

Inspired by recently reading Don Watson's 'American Journey's' I decided we should pack a few books and get the train from Boston to New York rather than fly, as we had everywhere else. It was one of the better decisions we made on this trip. I mean, we didn't make friends with an old, wise local or chase a Hurricane like Don Watson would, but I was able to re-read Gideon Haigh's Sphere of Influence in the four hour trip past beautiful lakes and forest,  thus probably making me the only person on that particular carriage reading about the power structure of 21st century cricket. I must have annoyed Cynthia by reading a few too many passages out to her because later in the trip, she woke up having had a dream in which she was playing cricket against myself and Gideon Haigh. I'm not making this up. She probably needs therapy, the poor woman. I'm even invading her subconscious with cricket.

We're now nearing the end of two weeks in mad, maddening and also pretty brilliant New York. Appropriately enough in the midst of an Ashes series, it has actually made me feel a bit English for the first time since...well, since the last time I came to New York. And not just because everyone in America assumes you're from England if you're an Australian. I've never been one for big crowds or loud, bad-mannered people, so obviously New York has presented itself as something of a challenge. It's a brash and bracing place, obviously. Aside from an Indian bloke in a deli who wanted to talk about Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey, they are also fairly indifferent to cricket.

By the time we were in New York, I was missing cricket. A lot. I missed cricket so much I wanted to get drunk and send it a topless selfie.

I sound pathetic but the contrast of the bustling, grimy streets of Manhattan against my mornings rising to watch The Ashes against the lush, green back-drop of an English summer has done nothing but reinforce my love of cricket. Of its aesthetic beauty and of its monastically calming presence in my life. 

These are feelings I am having from watching a game that's been riddled with umpiring errors and heart-in-mouth moments, so I realise that labeling this game 'calming' sounds completely insane. But watch it I did and what a game it was to watch. From Lord's onwards I'll be keeping a diary on each day of the Tests, but below are a few random observations from another continent with the aid of a jittery computer stream:

Observations on: The First Test - Trent Bridge

Remember this guy?
Poor Fawad, you really have to feel for the guy. He had every section of the press clawing at him for a solid month or so and was probably relatively certain he'd be playing a bigger part in this Ashes campaign than what's occurred. A couple of average spells in warm-up games and he's back at home on the couch in Melbourne. Is he okay? I hope he's not having a Nathan Hauritz-style garage sale this weekend.

I'm not sure how I feel about the Man of the Match Blazer
Are we straying too far into 'Encouragement Award' mentality here? I mean, it's an embarrassing colour at least which is in keeping with cricket tour hijinks, but this just looks like an omen to me. Is it harmless fun or are the official tweets from CA legitimising it as an actual award? It is after all being awarded to Agar for a Test that Australia lost and one in which he was not actually the official Man of the Match. Happy to be proven wrong and I would love to see Agar have his name stitched into it five times though. Channel Nine are actually already preparing a limited edition "Agar the Honourable" limited edition print.

But the jacket thing; am I taking this too personally? I may be taking this too personally.

Keep Calm and Carry On with the Cliches
Apparently this poster was iconic once. I say 'apparently' knowing that is was but having had it shoved down my throat by every meme-lover on the internet and every shitty souvenir shop in the entire universe. You're on your final warning CA social media types, the madness needs to stop. Final warning!

Chris Rogers is my favourite bespectacled Ashes player since David Steele
Ok, I will admit there is not much competition but I love Chris Rogers and his decayed, brown, suspicious-looking armguard. That thing should have its own Cricket Australia contract. I want to smell it. I want to lick it. If Chris Rogers makes a double century at Lord's he can mail it back to Melbourne and I will eat the entire thing live on the 6 o'clock news.

He played alright too, didn't he? Funny thing that, picking a guy who churns out runs in every single place he plays and he goes out and makes some runs. He got a pretty dodgy call and a few more runs still would be nice but it was a more than acceptable amuse bouche. 

Joe Root joke armistice
Hand them all in people, we're safely destroying them. We've moved on. Do you really want to live in a society that allows people to walk around toting stale Joe Root jokes? Be honest, you don't.

Keep on with the Dave Warner jokes IF they are funny though. That one is still fair game.

Pie in the Sky
We all know the Channel Nine's coverage of Test cricket becomes staler and a little bit more cringe-inducing by the year, but it is always a nice novelty to have a fresh set of commentators to provide those awful moments. Sky have delivered in spades. Consider the following statement by David Lloyd during the Trent Bridge Test:

"He seems a very relaxed character, Shane Watson."

Now I know Bumble isn't famed for his preparation work but describing Shane Watson as "a very relaxed character" is kind of like calling Alex Jones a "totally chill bro". Interestingly enough (or not, I guess), when I visited New York's famed 'Strand' bookstore the other day, they had two cricket titles on their shelves, 'English Cricket' by Neville Cardus and some complete bollocks by Bumble. So he does have some pull, I guess.

At least when Athers wasn't blatantly barracking for England (sample from Australia's first innings: "Is 'inside edge' wishful thinking?" I dunno Athers, are you a fan or a journalist?) and Andrew Strauss wasn't completely ignoring the fact that one Stuart Broad lunge to save a four featured his leg straddling the boundary rope, there were some lighter moments. 

My favourite Athers hobby-horse is when no-name sub-fieldsman come on wearing the England Test cap. Those guys are the Road Runner and Athers is Wile E Coyote. It appears he is destined to never have anything done about it, but whinge he will. I remember a time that English-born Frankston boy Steve Stubbings came onto the field during a Test wearing the aforementioned cap and Athers sounded like he was going to run onto the ground and crash-tackle him. It was all very endearing.

Ashton Agar
I won't waste undue time on this as it's been covered to death, but consider this: Australia have unearthed a talented young cricketer who is......drum roll.......ACTUALLY LIKEABLE!
Sorry for the egregious use of capitalisation but I think it deserves some attention. The family, the brothers, the boyish grin, the sporting reaction to being caught two short of one of the more remarkable potential centuries in Test cricket history; what is not to like about this kid? If my girlfriend leaves me for Ashton Agar, I will be shattered but completely understand.

P.S. Re-watch the footage of the Australian balcony when he gets out; Shane Watson does the least convincing impersonation of someone caring that his debutante teammate has just got out for 98 that is humanly possible. Worse acting than the Brut ads. Watto himself put in a classic Watto performance; hit some nice boundaries in the second innings, got himself to 40 odd and then got out, plus bowled some handy overs that had everyone falling over themselves to pay him tributes. In between he generally moves like someone who had spent the entire previous day weeding a garden for the very first time. His pain was painful to watch.

Suggested Ashes Twitter Follows, Vol. 1 - Len Pascoe
Finally, if you are not following Lenny Pascoe on twitter then I don't know what you are doing with your life and am frankly pretty disappointed in you. He is a madman in the most brilliant, consistently entertaining way and I want to hang out with him. Does he drink? From his tweets it sounds like he's drinking constantly. I mean all of this as a compliment Lenny, you are amazing.

Some samples:

Lenny Pascoe needs to be employed by Cricket Australia as the team psychologist. Even when you lose, you win. Everybody gets a sticker. We are reborn! Go ahead my son, into the light!

I dunno Lenny, I have never thought about that but if that is the kind of thing you think about, I want to have a beer with you. Or 20, so this all makes sense.

Lenny loves Dickie Bird? I wouldn't know this without twitter but it's hardly a revelation, is it? Does he own all of Dickie's 742 books? I find them quite useful as door stoppers. In developing countries, they are currently being used as bricks to construct entire high rise buildings, there's that many of the things.

Okay Lenny, I love you bud, but "complete Test player"? No-one show Lenny vision of Amla batting; he will literally dive at his TV and injure himself.

Lenny in his pomp, here. The best thing about his twitter account is his Warner-like spelling and sentence-construction. His tweets are like engravings from an ancient time in which dictionaries and basic syntax did not yet exist.

Someone please explain this to me. Seriously. 

C'mon Lenny, you're better than that. You're heading into Brick Tamlyn territory there buddy. You can't just look at the newspaper on your lap and then just write the first combination of thoughts that come into your head. There is a 'draft' button, use it judiciously.

The Forgotten Story of Geoff Foley

I know, I have been away and neglecting you and I have no right to be foisting things on you, but here is something I wrote for the Guardian about Geoff Foley, the last Australian cricketer called for throwing in a first class game.

Like Meckiff before him, he really is a square peg in that round hole of chuckers, neither bitter about the treatment he received nor particularly emotive about the issue as a whole. I'm talking it down though, it's an interesting story. I swear.

Aside from that, I'm in dying days of a gloriously long holiday but will be back on board post haste.

Get into shape for the Ashes with Dennis Lillee

So the Ashes is nearly upon us and it's time to dust off those cobwebs and get ourselves into full fitness for the 10 Tests ahead. What better way to do it than taking in the visual splendour and handy fitness tips of Dennis Lillee's Book of Family Fitness, one of 1980's best literary offerings.

There was something about the cover of this book that told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to own it. I think you'll agree I made the right choice.

Dennis always starts the day with some wholesome muesli and a glass of coffee. Maybe not as healthy as a fresh juice, but certainly more nutritious than a six pack of Tooheys and twenty Marlboro Reds, which was probably how Doug Walters started his day.

With that out of the way, it's time to get the kids up and active. Unless they are watching a replay of DK's over to Viv in the 1976 Gilette Cup semi final, off goes the TV.

Always nice to take the kids on your morning run, just make sure you completely ignore golf course etiquette and run through someone's round. 

If you get a bit thirsty, just stop off in someone's front yard and drink from their garden hose. The sight of Dennis Lillee doing that would be exactly what the neighbours were expecting when they looked out the window.

I kid you not, Dennis lists actual instructions in the book for laying out an obstacle course to make your run more interesting. Pretty simple really, you just need a chainsaw, some chaps and a few mature natives.

Of course once you have your stumps, it's always great to get the kiddies involved in a bit of log-stepping, which they tend to go crazy for.

I admit it is slightly elaborate to construct your own hurdles, but well worth the effort.

Again I am not making this up. Dennis suggests that should it be a bit chilly when you head out for a run, it might pay to pop some socks over your hands to keep them toasty warm.

In related news, DENNIS LILLEE IS UNAWARE OF THE EXISTENCE OF GLOVES!

It's always good to break the tedium of a run up by hanging from a precariously placed log for as long as you can.

Having ditched the kids, Dennis is now on a reconnaissance mission looking for more trees to turn into obstacle courses. He seems to be onto a winner here.

If there's a shirtless old bloke out on a run, it always pays to sidle up next to him and have a chat.

The kids are probably pretty pooped by now, but there is nothing that will kill their enthusiasm for the outdoors like a spot of orienteering, or as DK calls it, "cunning running." Is that even a thing? I'm 95% he's just made that up.

With the kids back home it's time to hit the beach and do a bit of body surfing to impress the babes. Just make sure you're wearing your gold chain with cricket bat pendant.

"Yo Dennis, I'm really happy for you. Imma let you finish, but Bo Derek had one of the best rising up out of the water scenes ever! Ever!"

Back home to jump on the scales and indulge in a bit of self-loathing. In this section Dennis actually suggests that this task can be done in the nude to spice things up a little bit. I'm thankful he kept things civil for the sake of the book.

Of course, it always pays to be careful when it comes to your health. The ACB had just had these devices installed at team practice facilities. The were used to measure your blood alcohol reading; if you blew anything under 0.05 you weren't allowed to train.

This could be a skin-fold test, but it also might just be a photo from Dennis's private collection that was never meant to see the light of day.

If you head to the gym, always make sure you jump on the exercise bike next to the woman who is wearing her bathers. Ignore your trainer and talk to her. What does he know, anyway?

When you're down at the gym sometimes it's also just cool to hang out.

If your new gym friend is ignoring your subtle advances, maybe just amp things up a little with some intense, prolonged staring. Woman dig guys who are a little unbalanced, it's a fact.

Once this approach has worked wonders, always make sure you include your new-found friend in any planking you do.

It's not all about chatting up the ladies though, you need to get your sweat on. Just pretend your fists are flying towards Kim Hughes.

"Here at the Dennis Lille Institute of Fitness, we have a clear uniform policy; either you go bareback or you wear a lab coat."

Admit it, you hadn't previously seen a photo of Dennis Lille shoveling soil into a wheel barrow and now you have. I'm not asking for thanks because I know you appreciate it.

After a day of fitness work with Dennis, you too will be forced to mimic a pistol to your own head.

Should you ever find yourself wide awake in the middle of the night at a hotel, Dennis has a workout plan for you. Chair lunges are always a good start. Again, gold chain mandatory.

I have no real explanation for this photo but it is genuinely tough to know where to look. This is heading into Shane Watson territory now.

Ahh, looking under Kerry Packer's sofa for loose change; oldest trick in the book. Nice one Fot.

Just doing some morning lunges by the bed, what of it?

I'm beginning to think this entire section of the book is actually just documentation of a serious sleep-walking problem.

But now you're all fit, firing and ready to go. With your new-found fitness you can take on the world, or even just form a solid barrier against any potential home invasions.

Mark Cosgrove and the stigma of obesity

I promise I will get something nice and colourful up here sooner or later folks, but until then feel free to take a look at this little thing I wrote for the good people at ESPN Cricinfo.