10 Things #23

GH on Marnus the captain, Joe the genius, Amelia the irresistible, and Saudi Arabia the awful - apologies, an incomplete version of this went out earlier …

1/ Teenage NSW wunderkind is man-of-the-match on debut, jumps queue for Aussie selection with eye-catching bracket of first-class hundreds, and proceeds to make authoritative Test century… only to never play again and even lose his state spot.  Is Sam Konstas the next Steve Smith or the next Kurtis Patterson?

2/ What a funny old fellow is Marnus, he gets in all manner of strife.  Here it’s of his own making, as he bowls, captains, and manually adjusts the field for Queensland against West Australia at WACA.  I’ve always fancied Labuschagne’s leg-spin - on which, one recalls, his original selection was partly based. So it’s almost a bit of a shame to see him purvey this shower of shit to Josh Inglis and Sam Whiteman - surely too experienced to fall for it, although maybe that’s the point.  Then there’s the obtrusive positioning of Tom Straker in the old-fashioned position of short straight hit - emerging as a rather obvious double bluff when the next ball is another ropey bouncer.  Is this performative funky-field marshalling part of a campaign for higher office - a proposition Crash floated yesterday?  Or is it just Marnus being Marnus?  Either way, it hardly demonstrates a feeling for the first principles of captaincy, closer to participative or servant leadership than a succession of egocentric brainstorms.

3/ As it happens, I quite fancy Marnus as a prospective skipper.  He’s intuitive. He’s maturing. I was surprised when he did not even get an interview for the vice-captaincy last time there was a spill of positions, was pleased by his appointment for Queensland. But he might be better advised getting out of his own way for a while, avoiding the shithousery and sticking to the basics, like setting an example on the field and making good choices at the toss….

4/ Joe Root must have an ego - no athlete can do without one - but among his charms is keeping it so well-hidden.  He minimised his overtopping of Alastair Cook’s run pile on Wednesday - ‘I'm sure I'll look back on it at some point when I'm finished and be very proud of it’ - and was really taxed only by the sapping heat.  Imagine David Warner or Kevin Pietersen surfing their waves of adrenalin and testosterone in similar circumstances.

5/ And has any batter in Test history scored so many runs behind square, and made better use of pace on the ball?  It is one of those reassuring feelings, in this era of convulsive change, that wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, it’s almost certain that, somewhere in the world, Joe Root is running the ball down to third man.  Even on this very slow pitch in Multan, a quarter of his runs came from singles behind point and square leg.  Aussies can be a bit sniffy about this.  I remember a few years ago, Chappelli dismissing a young batter because ‘he scores too many runs behind the wicket’.  But that’s the way Root keeps it ticking.  Sometimes that open blade gets him into trouble, but the intent to score maintains the pressure on bowlers, fielding captains and opposition coaches, all with that laconic cry of: ‘Yeah!’

6/ There’s hardly a more delightful cricketer at the moment than Amelia Kerr, who in Sharjah repeated a dose she administered Australia in Mackay.  What a package: her traditional mix of leg-breaks and googlies, her dynamicfielding, her inventive batting, and her ancestry - both her dad, who introduced her to wrist spin, and her mum, daughter of Bruce Murray, played for Wellington.  Plus she is another outstanding cricketer blessed with an oldersibling who also played, and became a stick to measure against and even surpass. She thereby joins a roll call that includes Greg Chappell, Neil Harvey, Graeme Pollock, Morne Morkel, Gary Kirsten, Martin Crowe, Brett Lee, and Tamim Iqbal.  Scyld Berry, who noted this in his 2015 book The Game Of Life, summarised: ‘How many of us watching a talented boy play cricket have been told: “Ah, but you should see his younger brother’?  While the sample size may not yet be great enough to judge, perhaps the same will be seen as applying to sisters.

7/ Every now and again, there’s a news item that causes you a double take because the first hearing eludes you for seeming so outre. The BCCI is holding the IPL auction in Saudi Arabia.  Wait, what was that?  The BCCI…holding….IPL auction….Saudi Arabia?  The Saudi Arabia that represses women, jails and kills critics, shoots citizens and refugees in cold blood?  The Saudi Arabia unable to get on the UN Human Rights Council that makes welcome Qatar and the UAE, has previously bent over for China and the Congo, and off which Russia only got kicked when it invaded Ukraine?  Hell, if the Cato Institute thinks you’re bad, you must really suck.  This is before we even get to Saudi Arabia’s chronic, epic and irreversible abuse of the world’s climate.....

8/ But, of course, this is the same Saudi Arabia that is also compulsively sportswashing and greenwashing its shitty reputation, as part of which it is eyeing cricket despite having only one ground with a turf outfield and club house in the whole joint.  Are people up in arms about the newly coercive auction being staged in the always coercive country?  Are they buggery: the only impediment appears, bizarrely, to be hotel costs.  Maybe they’re not high enough.  Anyway, here’s one I prepared earlier on yet another prospect that will shame cricket.  Over to you, Pat….

9/ Kudos to Pete this week, who broke the internet with his Cameron Green exclusive and has been on Konstas watch since. All the more reason to board the Cricket Et Al bandwagon, which next month will start charging for most of our content.  Sorry about that, but charity begins at home, we’ve been giving it away since last December, and I’m sure you won’t want to be without our coverage of this season’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Peter’s red hot headlines, Sam’s shrewd takes and maybe even my esoteric ramblings.  If you’ve already coughed, by the way, you’re golden. But if Cricket Et Al’s cut-price cricket odyssey this season is to work, we’ll be needing your help.

10/ Flood came out thirty-four years ago, but, last night at The Forum, They Might Be Giants made it sound as fresh, vital, wonky and off-centre as the day it was released.

Read the movie. See the book. They Might Be Giants are better than ever.