Third Test Thread

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:30 pm

GaryKelly wrote:OMG what a draw....

I was driving home from Woolacombe to Bude this evening when the match was reaching its enthralling conclusion and I couldn't get Five-Live properly on my car radio due to interference from some flippin' pop channel (Help me here somebody. Why do car radios not have long wave? What is this bloody "AM?" I don't understand the numbers. Where's "208 medium wave" and "247 medium wave" of my youth gone??? All I wanted was Radio 4 on 198 long wave for Pete's sake

). In anticipation of this I'd taken me ancient tranny with me that DOES have long wave, but it would only work with the car engine turned off. I stopped in every bloody lay-by between Ilfracombe and Bude, I can tell you. I've eaten two packs of gum today. My mum kept texting me the latest score and my wife was in North Devon District Hospital having her bunion removed.

I was completely doolally-tap by the end of the match.

What a day though. Y'know, if my mum had made me wear my NHS specs when I was a lad I'd have played cricket for England. I moved my feet a damn sight better than Marcus does - it's just that I could never see the bugger coming at me properly and I picked up many a bruise to prove it. Facing my very first over of the season in May 1968 in a school match I glanced the ball off the shoulder of my bat and it gave me a better uppercut than even Henry Cooper could have achieved. I still have the chipped incisor as evidence! Strauss's ear is nothing! Oh, yes, today has been an emotional one but it's probably put ten years on my life.

Steve

OnTheMoor · Post by **OnTheMoor** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:34 pm

Yer all nuts.

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 4:54 pm

Oh, Steve, you're starting to sound like Marlon Brando!

If you were a cricket champion then you wouldn't have gotten good on the harmonica. So it's all part of the invisible path you are on. And if you hadn't gotten good on the harmonica you wouldn't have met us. And where would you have been then? You see, there's a reason for everything!

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 5:04 pm

Cynth wrote: Oh, Steve, you're starting to sound like Marlon Brando! If you were a cricket champion then you wouldn't have gotten good on the harmonica. So it's all part of the invisible path you are on. And if you hadn't gotten good on the harmonica you wouldn't have met us. And where would you have been then? You see, there's a reason for everything!

Ah, but Cynth, in a five-day match you're going to spend up to half the time in the pavilion just waiting to bat or watching your team-mates bat once you're out. That's up to two days' harmonica-practising time. Might not be too good for team morale though, I have to concede!

Marlon Brando...? Didn't he keep wicket for Glamorgan in the late 70s....?

Steve

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 5:07 pm

OnTheMoor wrote:Yer all nuts.

'Tis true. Though it was well-written of Lawrence Hills, the great pioneering organic gardener whose views were often regarded as eccentric, that he displayed "the nuttiness of the truly sane."

Steve

perrins57 · Post by **perrins57** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 5:44 pm

SteveShaw wrote:
OnTheMoor wrote:Yer all nuts.
'Tis true. Though it was well-written of Lawrence Hills, the great pioneering organic gardener whose views were often regarded as eccentric, that he displayed "the nuttiness of the truly sane."

Steve

I'm not sure I'd use the words "great pioneering" and "organic gardner" in the same sentence. Wasn't organic gardening what we did before Santa discovered the chemistry set?

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 6:24 pm

perrins57 wrote:
SteveShaw wrote:
OnTheMoor wrote:Yer all nuts.
'Tis true. Though it was well-written of Lawrence Hills, the great pioneering organic gardener whose views were often regarded as eccentric, that he displayed "the nuttiness of the truly sane."

Steve
I'm not sure I'd use the words "great pioneering" and "organic gardner" in the same sentence. Wasn't organic gardening what we did before Santa discovered the chemistry set?

He founded the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) which is the world's largest association of organic gardeners. His life's work was to develop and spread the principles of organic gardening skills which were being buried under the onslaught from chemical gardening that came hand-in-hand with intensive agriculture after the Second World War. He was an exceptionally fine man and he wrote some wonderful, life-affirming, quirky at times but always inspirational books. Check out "Organic Gardening" and "Fighting Like The Flowers" (his autobiography). You won't be disappointed I promise.

Steve

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 9:06 pm

OnTheMoor wrote:Yer all nuts.

If so there are a billion more like us in India alone.

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 9:52 pm

What is the name of that great movie? It is about a cricket match between the British and the Indians and there is singing and dancing. It takes place in a small village in India.

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Mon Aug 15, 2005 10:16 pm

Cynth wrote:What is the name of that great movie? It is about a cricket match between the British and the Indians and there is singing and dancing. It takes place in a small village in India.

Bollywood being what it is, there's probably about 200 films like this with subtle variations.

GaryKelly · Post by **GaryKelly** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 1:32 am

Amar would know, he probably starred in a few of 'em!

Steve, bummer on the car radio. Fortunately, though rather strangely, my French car with its German radio has longwave, so I didn't miss a ball on the drive home from work yesterday.

This does not help you though. I fear in your situation, your longwave portable tranny will suffer muchly from interference in the car unless you can contrive to hook it up to an external antenna.

Roberts do a nifty 'sports radio' called the R984, with longwave. You can see it here: http://www.ogormans.co.uk/Pocket.htm but I got mine a tad cheaper in a shop in Swindon. The only hassle I have with it is trying to listen to the Test Match here at work... with all the fluorescent lights and computers around, the poor thing was swamped with interference.

But at least it gets longwave and TMS. It was the only portable radio I could find a couple of years ago that actually had longwave on it. These days, they all seem to be AM/FM, or FM only (which is chud).

Definitely handy if you're out and about though, trying to look interested in 'something else' while sneakily earwigging the ball-by-ball from Aggers and Blowers and co.

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:39 am

Another Cricket question. Is the bowler required to bounce the ball before it gets to the striker or is the bounce optional?

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:44 am

It's required. I think. I'm still learning.

GaryKelly · Post by **GaryKelly** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:46 am

It's not required by the laws of the game. A ball that doesn't bounce before it gets to the batsman is a 'full toss', and is generally regarded as a poor ball because the batsman can clobber it.

Generally speaking, a full toss or a short ball (one that pitches a long way from the batsman and rises) is considered a 'free gift' to the batsman, since it doesn't challenge him. Only when the ball pitches (bounces) can things like spin and seam take effect to confuse or confound the batsman.

Martin Milner · Post by **Martin Milner** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:49 am

GaryKelly wrote:Amar would know, he probably starred in a few of 'em!

Steve, bummer on the car radio. Fortunately, though rather strangely, my French car with its German radio has longwave, so I didn't miss a ball on the drive home from work yesterday.

This does not help you though. I fear in your situation, your longwave portable tranny will suffer muchly from interference in the car unless you can contrive to hook it up to an external antenna.

Roberts do a nifty 'sports radio' called the R984, with longwave. You can see it here: http://www.ogormans.co.uk/Pocket.htm but I got mine a tad cheaper in a shop in Swindon. The only hassle I have with it is trying to listen to the Test Match here at work... with all the fluorescent lights and computers around, the poor thing was swamped with interference.

But at least it gets longwave and TMS. It was the only portable radio I could find a couple of years ago that actually had longwave on it. These days, they all seem to be AM/FM, or FM only (which is chud).

Definitely handy if you're out and about though, trying to look interested in 'something else' while sneakily earwigging the ball-by-ball from Aggers and Blowers and co.

Another reason to believe there's a secret plot to drive cricket off the airwaves. You can get the the LW broadcast on 720 AM in London (AM = MW, Steve), but I think that signal vanishes not far outside the M25. As Gary says, portable radios with LW are rare as hens teeth these days, which leaves one to go the digital route. I have a pocket-sized digital radio which is great when I can get a signal, but no good on the underground, or in large swathes of the countryside not yet covered by digital, such as Dorset and probably Cornwall.

I was able to listen to most of the match online, then switch to the digital radio for my journey home, and catch the last fifteen or so overs on the telly. Riveting stuff, and I don't much mind that Australia forced the draw - they deserved it really. If England continue to play as they have done, it could go to the wire.