Oh To Be In Abu Dhabi...

... now that summer (and county cricket) is here.

MCC and Durham show they have the power, despite being more than a stones throw from home for their first game.

Ricky Ponting Goes...

...BJ Watling goes off.

Golden Day/Golden Boy

Thank God Ross Taylor had one of those days where everything goes for you. Now the Black Caps need a bowler to "get hot" and the test may get interesting on Day 5.

Boys 2 Men

Great efort by Dan The Man to reach 100 tests. It is a big call to perform at international level, carry your team's bowling attack and grow up, all on the public stage.

Look out Kapil Dev, it won't belong before you are joined on 400/4000.

Bully Boy

You know KP is coming back into form when he is starting to scare the wicketkeeper.

More Pain, New Gain

Talk about auspicious. Not only is the 1st of April the day the first issue of Cricket Sadists Monthly is released on the cricket world but it is also the day I move into my new house. Let us hope that both launchings are a spectacular success.

To heighten your anticipation I offer another image of cricketing pain. Here (Dinesh) Danish Karthik illustrates the point that a pain shared is not always a pain halved.

A New Favourite

Teams like Bangladesh need to have a good sprinkling of characters to make up for a bit of a class deficit (a major issue for NZ at present). Tamim Iqbal is one of those characters, and he has a bit of class as well.

The way he plays, he is not going to come off every time, but he does give the bowlers something to think, and growl, about.

Anyway, I likes watching him.

Sit On It!

It is only fitting that in the land that gave the world bungy jumping we should witness the first Xtreme cricket test.

A whole new cricketing genre can be developed around playing in extreme conditions. Yesterday it was 130 km/hr winds but think how interesting it could be in a snow storm or perhaps a thunderstorm while playing with aluminium bats?

The spectator numbers will be low but the TV ratings could be huge.

Close observers will not that the hardy Kiwi groundstaff, seen here preventing the covers from crossing Cook Strait, remain stoically in their shorts - more a reflection of their pay rates than their toughness?

Dougie, Dougie, Dougie

Nana's Boy

He may not do what he is told but this young Basin Reserve streaker could really move. So fast and elusive in fact that he was not able to be caught.

He will remain a mystery to most of us but for the girls in the photo he seemed to have made an indelible impression.

The Last Time ...

... the Black Caps beat Australia in a test was 1993.

That was soooo long ago Glen McGrath was playing in his first test series, Boony was raising his bat as well as a can, Big Merv was bowling not leading tours and Jeff Wilson was toying with taking up cricket seriously as a distraction from all that rugby.

Simpler times eh?

Be that as it may I can find no reason to suggest that such a long dry spell of losing is about to be broken at the Basin - but the weather might give us something to talk about.

Stylist/Pragmatist

From 1990 to 2010 the Little Master keeps doing it all. To be able to score 200 in a 50 over match and 63 of 32 balls in a T20 hit out shows there is very little fall off in his effectiveness or ability. He just keeps finding ways to get the job done without having to reinvent the game.

Pup and Bingas

Not quite Posh and Becks but then at least the little dog is still available for a World Cup.

He seems to have cheered up under the influence of some Kiwi sunshine, and lets face it Clarkey, it was never going to work.

She is not smart enough to wear a thigh pad.

She didn't have a bat sponsor.

She would have cost you a small fortune in chest protectors.

Caption Needed

Use your imagination folks. What might this not really be about?

Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics and Graphics

I have only just started playing with  Cricinfo's hawkeye facility and what a time consumer it is for us registered cricketing trainspotters.

What does it all mean? A lot if you are a commentator looking for a sound bite but perhaps less for those who want to know what will happen next. It pays to remember the "Gamblers Fallacy" principle - the past can be a poor predictor of the very next event - or ten heads do not make a tail!

For the record the image is of all the dot balls Alistair Cook faced against Bangladesh.

Get Smart

Good to see KP is back to his unpredictable old self.

Nice of him to go easy on the Bangla Boys.

Great Minds Think Alike

And then of course there are the average minds that are all over the place like a mad woman's washing.

I do think they have a plan, it is just that they lack the mental strength to execute it.

Not Fade Away!

They have dropped "my boy" Pingers! The bastards!

Now I know it is not a surprise; he has yet to completely tear an attack apart, and we have lost a couple of games, and someone has to pay. What rips my lunch pass is who does/doesn't get the breaks. Guptil becomes the answer, even though he is struggling. OK, he has a future and I can wear that, but how in the name of all things cricket can anyone seriously suggest that James Franklin is the solution to any problem we might have.

Peter Ingram is a man of character, he will not just fade away. James Franklin wouldn't recognise a positive character trait if it bit him during one of his brief visits to the wicket.

Cook Goes Retro

Alistair Cook invokes the spirits of Albert Trott and SF Barnes in an attempt to make some in roads into the batting in Bangladesh.

The old style action is fine it is just that, as opposed to the old greats, it didn't work very well.

There is no truth to the rumour that Cook is soon to pose for a series of cigarette cards.

Where The Bloody Hell Are You?

Keep your shirt on Lara he is on the way home.

Chain Of Events

Jacob Oram goes down (in what looked like a self tackle), Michael Mason is called in to cover him and Adam Milne finds himself playing the second day of the Plunket Shield game CD v Canterbury. His first game at first class level. Next thing you know he is batting and being bounced by Chris Martin.

For the record he remained not out and then went on to take four Canterbury wickets. A promising start to another cricket career.

The Agony Of Anticipation

You don't really need the photoshop highlighting to understand where it hurts for Neil Broom.

The real surprise is that his greatest discomfort is not from ball on ball contact, nor the desperate need to go 'tinkles". What Neil really can't wait for is the release of the first edition of the Cricket Sadist's Monthly to see if he can in some way feature.

While he waits he will just have to give it a rub and see if he can't score some runs against the Aussies.

Easy Fellas

Good to see a bit of toe to toe in last night's game.

I started thinking about these two teams as big/little brothers but in reality they are more like cousins. They see each other about once a year (unless there is a special occasion like a wedding, funeral or World Cup) and every time there is a bit of a sort out to establish who has got bigger or meaner since the last time they met.

The analogy falls apart, of course,  because there is no room for the pretty cousin who has "developed" since the last time they caught up.

Local Boys

Time to get back to a little grassroots cricket before the season and the sun is gone.

Here we see the mighty Whoppa Watkins demonstrating the "crossover technique" while bowling for the NPHSOB prems.

Part player, part coach, part administrator, Whoppa manages not to confuse things in his delivery stride.

I guess it is all about focus.

Head And Heart

Long may they stay related on the field.

Beam Me Up

It is cricket Brendan, but not as we know it. A very unusual innings in a very unusual game.

There will be many Kiwis celebrating the victory and the shear audacity of McCullum but this one is much more concerned about how you can get to over 200 and then not defend it properly.

The Aussies continue to play like a unit, we will continue to look for the unbelievable.