Giving it a red hot go

by Balanced Sports columnist Ben Roberts

ESPN.com recently ran a story about Boston Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youklis, who they described as the definition of the 'blue collar athlete'. Youklis is a hitter not taken to niceties, he has a job to do every game and will give his all every time he steps up to the plate.¹ Working hard to make the pitcher work even harder and get himself on base, Youklis may not put up the performances that win awards, but he can be relied upon to get himself on base a high proportion of the time. Getting players on base is something my own San Francisco Giants appear destined to continue to fail at while they remain dedicated to sticking with the highly paid and under-motivated.

Despite being an Australian and therefore morally (and spiritually) bound to never allow Americanisms to enter my vernacular, I have to defer to Uncle Sam in this instance as I reckon their word for the type of player Youklis is just about perfect. Youklis is a 'Gamer'. A gamer relishes competition and the heat of the moment when they need to be relied upon. They 'have a crack' or give it a 'red hot go' always and this is their strength.

On one of the few televised games of Major League Baseball that enter the Australian airwaves I was able to watch Youklis and his Red Sox play against the New York Yankees that included another player who works hard at bat and maybe (at least to my untrained eye) meets the definition of a gamer, Nick Swisher.² Swisher like Youklis makes the pitchers work to his strengths and does not tire of doing the un-dramatic such as drawing walks.

I remember watching the NBA during the Michael Jordan era and being surprised that among the flashy skills of players like Jordan, Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, or Tim Hardaway here was this white guy³ making all-star teams and holding his own. This white guy was Chris Mullin, and he was a gamer too. Mullin's gamer effort was as much about his work on the practice court as it was in game play. In honouring his elevation to the Hall of Fame Grantland.com called Mullin a dying breed, a rarity not blessed with natural athleticism who made the grade. Mullins drive to succeed and develop his skills took him to the top of his sport.

Jumping across to the most notable of the world games leagues the EPL and we find gamers there too. Unlucky not to secure all the major individual awards for last years Premier League, Scott Parker proved to be a larger than life character for West Ham as they fought to retain their place in the top flight. Parker routinely was the only reason why the Hammers managed to secure points throughout the season because he was always up for the fight and was willing to grab his team mates by the scruff of the neck to do likewise. Unfortunately it was all in vain⁴.

Newcastle's⁵ Joey Barton is another player always up for the fight, though he is an example of erring on the side of going over the top, and probably the aging Phil Neville. Both players were potential targets of both North London clubs who need hardening up this year if they stand any chance of finishing above 5^th and 6^th in the league.

You may begin to get the feeling that the definition of a gamer is restricted short on natural talent or natural athleticism but gets the most out of what they do have. This is not true. Moving to our third continent we find a phenomenal gamer who has both the huge amount of natural talent, and athletic capability.

Chris Judd in 2011 continues to prove that he is the best player Australian football has currently, and will finish up at the very least in the top ten of all time. All followers know how amazing his skills are and his athleticism and strength are amazing, but his insatiable desire for the contest is what drags him to be a cut above the rest. West Coast won a premiership because of him, and Carlton stand a chance of winning one in the near future for the same reason. Take him out of either team and they may still be a chance, but I reckon he almost doubles the chance of any team he plays in.

Looking back into history you find Michael Jordan, the greatest on the hardwood of all time and a serious gamer. Take the opportunity and watch his 'flu game' in the 1997 championship series against Utah. The only reason the Chicago Bulls won that game was Michael Jordan. Illness stripped him of his usually immense physical capacity, yet his drive to win dragged his team over the line. Even the greatest of skills and athleticism can get taken to the next level.

I love watching these players in any sport. They are the reason why we as spectators enjoy the contest. I wrote recently about my favourite cricketer of all time Allan Border, without him I would not have witnessed the great success of the Australian cricket team.

We owe these gamers the most respect in the games they play.

1 First time in my life I have ever used this phrase literally rather than figuratively.

2 Previously only notable to me for appearing in an episode of 'How I Met Your Mother'.

3 With a buzz-cut tribute to Dolph Lundgren.

4 Trouble is that no matter how great Parker was, Avram Grant was more than equally bad.

5 Just.

My Favourite Cricketer: Adam Gilchrist by Will Atkins

Balanced Sports and World Cricket Watch are proud to present the best cricket writers and bloggers today as part of a series remembering "My Favourite Cricketer".  Today's favourite is the greatest 'keeper-batsman of all time, Adam Gilchrist, by Will Atkins of The Short Midwicket.

Not many cricketers are remembered for completely redefining the sport in which they play. Tiger Woods. Michael Jordan. Lance Armstrong. And it would be no exaggeration toclaim that Adam Gilchrist redefined the role of the wicket-keeperbatsman. A batsman who could hit the ball an awful long way while retaining the utmost finesse whether in tests or ODIs, Gilchrist elevated the role of the wicket-keeper from one who simply needed to be able to catch the ball to a player who needed to be able to consistently perform match-winning heroics with the bat. Gilly was more than just a wicket-keeper; he was a game-turner, someone who could take a hopeless situation and salvage it, or compound the opposition’s misery as he finished them off with his lusty blows.

courtesy: theage.com.au

My love for Adam Gilchrist isn’t the most conventional story, as whilst he was making his state debuts for New South Wales in 1992, I was in England having only just been born, so unable to appreciate fully his unbeaten 20 to see NSW home in the Sheffield Shield final. However, as I began to understand and appreciate cricket, there was one player who stood out for me. It was the 2003 World Cup, and with England having set off home fairly meekly, I was able to watch as this Australian started smacking the ball everywhere, which appealed to me greatly. Making four fifties as the Aussies serenely marched to the defence of their trophy, Gilchrist was my hero, and the man who made me take up wicket-keeping. After many swings and misses, and even more dropped catches, I promptly gave up the gloves, but the seed was sown. Adam Gilchrist was the man for me.

Some of his innings were just breath-taking. He just naturally scored quickly without it appearing reckless, finding gaps in fields where there were none, always with expert timing and balance. Batting at number seven in tests, Gilchrist’s quick scoring was instrumental in Australia’s dominance over the cricketing world, as he was able to counter-attack to force pressure onto the other team just as well as he could put the foot to the throat and finish off any slim hopes from the opposition. Some of his best performances speak for themselves. An 84-ball hundred to kill off India at Mumbai in 2001. A double hundredat Johannesburg in 2002 from only 214 deliveries. The extraordinary 57-ball hundred (only one ball slower than the all-time test record) against a demoralised England at Perth in 2006. But it wasn’t just about his fast scoring – a nerveless 149 not out in only his second test to chase down 369 against Pakistan in 1999 is testament to the fact that he was an excellent batsman, not a slogger.

Gilchrist redefined the role of the ODI opener as well, with a strike rate of 97 runs per hundred balls almost guaranteeing that Australia would get off to a flyer. With 16 hundreds, but more tellingly his 55 fifties (to go alongside his 472 dismissals), Gilchrist is arguably the most successful ODI opener of all-time. Indeed, his innings on the biggest stage of them all, in the 2007 World Cup final, will go down as one of the great all-time ODI innings, with 149 off 104 balls single-handedly winning Australia their third consecutive World Cup. All of which he’d been instrumental in.

I admired Adam Gilchrist though, not just for his ability with the bat or gloves, but due to his behaviour on and off the pitch. How many other cricketers would walk when givennot out in a World Cup semi-final? Gilchrist walked then (after the umpire failed to see him inside edge a ball which was subsequently caught) just as he walked every time he nicked. Given the attitudes of some of his teammates in the harsh and ruthless Australian team he played in, Gilchrist’s attitude was so refreshing, and he was an outstanding role model for any aspiring cricketer.

They say people should never meet their heroes, but this advice was fully ignored by me last summer when I did work experience with Middlesex CCC. Gilchrist, by now retired from international cricket and freelancing for T20 teams around the world, had been recruited to play for the Panthers during the fateful T20 season of 2010, and part of my role was to help out with Gilchrist’s media day. He genuinely had time for everyone he spoke to, and was absolutely delighted to be playing for Middlesex. Way back in 1989, a very young Adam Gilchrist (here’s an ominously accurate interview with him from 1989) flew over from Australia to play for Richmond in the Middlesex League, and he said just how important that time was in the development of his career. Playing for Middlesex 21 years later as a fully formed legend of the game was his way of giving back. As is the fact that he sponsors a promising cricketer each year to go and play for Richmond for a summer in the hope that they too can have as successful a career as him. While Gilchrist was initially only signed up to play at Lord’s, he decided to play in one of the T20 outground games at Richmond, just to help give back even more to the small club. You’ve got to admit, that’s pretty cool.

courtesy: cricketnews.com.au

The fact an Australian could ever be considered my favourite player just sums up how great a player, and a man, Adam Gilchrist is. A leader in everything he did on and off the pitch, Gilchrist sets the standard for pretty much everything possible – how a batsman should bat, how a wicket-keeper should keep and how a cricketer should behave. Adam Gilchrist simplified excellence, which is summed up in his thoughts on how to bat successfully; “Just hit the ball”. There won’t be another cricketer like Adam Gilchrist for an awfully long time – not many can have the respect of the cricketing world not just for their abilities, but for their sportsmanship and kind heart as well. That’s why my favourite cricketer is Adam Gilchrist, someone who led the way in every regard.

Back to My Favourite Cricketer homepage.

McGinnity and Petterd ask how far is too far

After young Eagle Patrick McGinnity's suspension and fine for allegedly threatening to "rape" Ricky Petterd's mother, it's perhaps time to examine how much we value winning and the extent to which we're prepared to go for victory.

To threaten sexual relations - especially rape - to someone's relatives is off limits and the AFL has made a statement by penalising the player alleged to have made the offending remark. That McGinnity's manager David Sierakowski effectively accused Petterd of having a "thin skin" is akin to a guilty plea. It also reflects poorly on Sierakowski as it legitimises McGinnity's choice of words. Agent or no, to attack the Melbourne player for not obeying the "code of silence" is undignified and of Sierakowski we can say, to paraphrase his own words "if he had his time over again, I think he'd do it differently."

The AFL has led the sporting world in racial vilification laws and now respect for women. Unfortunately it will take incidents where players are rightly made an example of to raise public awareness about those lines not to be crossed. 

courtesy: foxsports.com.au

In Australian sport, we have a proud history of letting what happens on the field stay on the field. The same phrase could be used to hang Ricky Petterd, saying these things happen in the name of healthy competition. But surely competition which some people believe so important that they threaten to rape an opposing player's Mum cannot be healthy? By saying such things as McGinnity has been suspended for - and Adam Selwood was accused of in 2007 - competition has ceased to be healthy and become pathological.

(Even though Selwood was proven not guilty, is it coincidence that both these incidents have come from the West Coast Eagles? He certainly said something to which Des Headland could take offence. Am I theorising too much on this? Perhaps.)

As the late Terry Jenner described "Cricket in the '70s", when he began playing sledging was something as simple as an finely-placed comment about a player's technique. Even defenders of the art suggest sport has always been full of sledging, they do so in ways highlighting the differences between eras: while W.G. Grace was renowned for gamesmanship and sledging, his most famous such utterance "They're here to watch me bat, not you bowl" still refers to on-field, rather than off-field habits. Over time, cricket sledging degenerated into the celebrated insults such as possibly-apocryphal-but-probably-not "What does Brian Lara's c**k taste like?" and it's inflammatory response "Ask your wife".

Feel free to blame Patrick McGinnity. But also look for reasons behind why he chose to use such a slur: it was to gain a competitive advantage. Rather than being a player willing to do "whatever it takes" to win, this player was prepared to - accidentally or deliberately - compromise his integrity to gain a small victory over an opponent.

So what leads such a player to this position?

Since being a second-rate sporting nation during the 1970s - a funk which came to a head with a haul of one bronze medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics - Australia has funded successful sportsmen through social, business and government means. This has produced a number of world-class athletes and some dominant sporting teams. Moreover, it's created the expectation for results. It's a simple matter of cause and effect: you stop performing, you don't get funded/sponsored.

That expectation of results is reflected in the basest terms in professional leagues across the country. Professionalism and athleticism are perhaps the most sought-after qualities in all the major football codes. It takes incredible discipline from a young age to "make it" in any sport and successful athletes generally put more pressure on themselves than any other outside force. They do so to get the best out of themselves and to help a team win.

This is not to say that Patrick McGinnity personally felt pressure to perform or to win (though it may be the case). It simply reflects that as the dollars and time invested in sport increase, those doing the spending expect some Return On Investment. The fans and coach expect their players to do their absolute best to win - and often, if that includes "mentally disintegrating" their opponents, that's OK. McGinnity undoubtedly understands that fans and a multitude of support staff have given of themselves to a cause he values (himself or his team), so wants to do his bit to repay that favour. He just miscalculated how to effect this repayment.

courtesy: in.com

It can, however, be a slippery road. As Stephanie Rice discovered last year, sport is a business: certain brands refuse to be associated with other corporate or social identities seen as damaged goods, no matter how much short term gain there may be. In time, a "just win, baby" philosophy can backfire. Perhaps the greatest Australian example of this occurred when the TAC pulled sponsorship from AFL clubs Richmond and Collingwood as a result of several traffic offences levied against players.

The league could take a lesson from the NBA, who suffered a partly self-inflicted black eye as a result of a late-80s "Bad Boys" publicity campaign built around then-champs the Detroit Pistons and their unsociable basketball. The AFL wants none of this. To ensure their brand integrity, prevent any recourse and hopefully, in the name of good common sense, they have censured Patrick McGinnity.

Competition has created great leagues for all of Australia's football codes. But as a sporting community, let's ban hackneyed journalistic phrases like "win at all costs" until we work out if that's actually what we want. Winning is great, but it isn't everything.

EPL: Where the goals come from

"Attacking midfielders" - eg. Samir Nasri or Adel Taarabt - categorized as forwards.

Click image to enlarge.

The table above describes where each team relied upon for scoring in last season's English Premier League.  For example, league Champions Manchester United scored 73.08% of their goals through their forwards - a corps including league-high scorer Dimitar Berbatov, Javier Hernandez and Wayne Rooney.  That they were in the bottom three for goals from midfielders stands testament to the age of last season's key players Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs.

It is interesting to note that clubs noted for a passing game - such as Wigan or at times West Brom - were balanced out for goals from midfield by clubs such as Birmingham, who simply didn't have anyone outside central midfielder Craig Gardner on whom they could rely to hit the net with regularity.  It is of course no surprise to see that clubs who required set pieces to score (I'm looking at you Stoke City) had higher rates of goals scored by defenders.  

Given defenders' propensity scoring from corner and free kick situations, we can infer that with the exception of Birmingham, the relegated teams last season had extreme difficulty scoring from set pieces as West Ham managed only 7% of their goals from defenders, while Blackpool bottomed out of the division at just under 5.5%.

A large difference can be seen in the promoted teams.  While Cities Norwich and Swansea both prefer to attack with the ball on the ground, QPR can't ever be mistaken for a team of Xavis.  Manager Neil Warnock's M.O. is to get the ball to Adel Taarabt at all costs, who then attempts to create havoc.  This is displayed in him creating or scoring 47% of all QPR's goals last term.  A simple reason for them being my pick to go down - they, like Charlie Adam and Blackpool last year just don't have enough diversified offensive firepower.

Balanced Sports on ManUtd Talk: A United Season Preview

Balanced Sports' Matthew Wood has the cover story on manutdtalk, one of the largest and most-trafficked Manchester United fan sites in the world.

A preview of the reigning titleholders' 2011-12 season, you can also view the article here.

Book review: Blood, Sweat and Treason by Henry Olonga

by Balanced Sports columnist Ben Roberts.  This is a re-post from our affiliate book review blog Books with Balls, where we review books that guys tend to read.  Yup, no Danielle Steel.

If you were looking to pick up a book that is not the 'bog' standard ghosted autobiography of a sports person, then this is the read for you. That former Zimbabwean cricketer Henry Olonga has been allowed to tell his story in his own words was incredibly refreshing for this addict of cricketing literature. Most sports persons biographical works use clichéd wording and structure to try and breath life into their uninteresting lives. This story has not been manipulated to make good reading; recognition that Olonga's story itself is good reading. 

 

Although maybe more widely known as a cricketer who took a political stand against a tyrannical regime, Olonga speaks of himself throughout the book always as just a man. Cricket is a part of a life where it intertwines with music, art, faith, family and politics. Predominately told in chronological order, events move seamlessly between these topics as life was lived for him.

Take Olonga's Christian faith for an example. Often an individuals faith will either be minimally mentioned in an introduction or 'covered off' in a specific chapter under advisement from publishing house editors worried about sales. But here we find Olonga regularly referring back to his faith and prayer life, it ebbing and flowing as his life ebbs and flows. 

 

He is a deep thinking and sensitive soul, keen to explore in retrospect the events of his life and make apology where he believes he wronged others. His stand along with Andy Flower during the 2003 Cricket World Cup is not told in a heroic manner. Presented with an opportunity to stand up against Robert Mugabe and the wrongs perpetrated, Olonga made the decision that he could not stand passively by any more while his country suffered. 

 

Olonga does not dwell on describing the terrible atrocities committed in Zimbabwe in recent history. Selected examples of events affecting his life up until the point he went into exile serve the purpose enough of educating the reader on his motives. Despite the terrible events, and the struggle that life in Zimbabwe is for most of her citizens there is no bitterness in Olonga and a substantial amount of love for his country still. In an amazing passage of the book Olonga describes his shock at the poverty in Bangladesh. This is not the shock of an upper middle class westerner on their first visit overseas, but of a man well versed in what injustices exist in the world.

Olonga's life needed and received much blessing post his 2003 stand, but it has not been easy nor necessarily freeing for him. Nevertheless he chose to tell his story that reaches far beyond the 'faux' battle that is the professional sports field. Basketballs.

Cover image courtesy: henryolonga.net

Survival of the fittest (wealthiest?)

Poetic - sometimes, if we're feeling really good. Evocative? Occasionally. Artistic - hardly. But as we mentioned on Wednesday, the graphic below is about as artistic as Balanced Sports get.

click graphic to enlarge

It plots the survival rates of teams promoted to the Premiership across the past decade and tells a stark tale. While Blackburn, Bolton and Fulham have survived - some would even say thrived - at the top level, the tales of greatest success are to be found in the early part of the past decade when they were joined by Manchester City, Portsmouth, West Ham and Wigan in establishing themselves as Premier League entities.

Of 30 teams promoted, thirteen have gone straight back down.

Elimated after	1 Year	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
Teams	13	6**	1*	2*	1*	1	2*	0	0	1*	3***

* Denotes number of teams still in Premier League.

A "Survival Analysis" on such a small sample size would be ineffective given the group loses nearly 50% of it's members after a first year relegation. But were we to examine how many clubs had a five-year survival rate, exactly one promoted club in three stays in the division for five years or more. That means of the 21 teams who could have been in the Premier League for five years by this season (ie. all those teams promoted 2007 or before), seven have survived that length of time.

However, should we withdraw those clubs arriving B.R. (before Roman (Abramovich), who for better or worse changed football forever with his petro-roubles) - that number drops slightly to 26.67%. However, this also includes the recently relegated clubs West Ham United and Portsmouth, who nearly bankrupted themselves with exorbitant wages, the global financial crisis, multiple court appearances and other sundry expenses.

This proves once again that Stoke manager Tony Pulis is correct in his thinking: that three seasons of consolidation should be enough to establish oneself.  With prudent investment - leading to crucial squad refreshment - Premier League status can be retained.  It's all so simple, isn't it?

Not really.  A team must make the choice to thrive and perhaps risk financial crisis (cf. Portsmouth - one FA Cup for debt so large it makes Greece smirk) or simply enjoy an EPL existence, like current relegation favourites Wigan Athletic.  The chasm between first and second divisions hasn't been this great in some time, if ever.  

Even the glory days of Promotion at the turn of the millennium weren't as straightforward as it would seem.  While Bolton Wanderers operated on a shoestring and Sam Allardyce's Route-1 football, Fulham and Manchester City have both benefited from the largesse of a financial benefactor.  As Everton's Bill Kenwright would attest, it's no longer enough to just get to the league and try your chances. 

The two promotion successes of recent years - Sunderland and Stoke City - followed the same model; backed by owners Ellis Short and Peter Coates' combination of fiscal prudency and healthy hip pockets. Along with Wolves, whose finances are also healthy, this trio look likely to maintain this one-in-three average of promoted sides remaining in the division at the expense of smaller clubs and hamstrung owners.

My Favourite Cricketer: Ed Giddins by Nick Harrison

In Balanced Sports & World Cricket Watch's series "My Favourite Cricketer", Nick Harrison of Harris Sportsthoughts puts pen to paper to tell us about an unlikely addition to our Hall of Fame: England seamer Ed Giddins.

Ed Giddins first traipsed into my consciousness as he ambled back his station at fine leg at the County Ground in Northampton. Giddins was visiting with his Sussex team for a Benson & Hedges quarter-final tie. I was visiting with my dad and what was probably my best friend at the time, my scorebook. Whilst I busied myself logging the latest incident in the game in my pristine pad, I became aware of some playful chanting rising up from our section of the ground. Giddins was the subject of this warm abuse. It was his own supporters. They serenaded him with "Ed the Duck", a reference to his incomparably awful batting. Giddins soaked it up with a warm grin, a man comfortable his own inadequacy. I was smitten.




Edward Simon Hunter Giddins was born July 20 1971 in Eastbourne. I didn't need to that look up that information. I first memorised it from my 1993 county player's annual. I would recite it regularly to unsuspecting family members, imparting it with gravity like it was some aspirational life-affirming mantra. Back then cricket had gripped me by my tiny burgeoning balls. That annual was my Bible, and the statistics it contained were my Scriptures. The rows of figures bolstered Giddins' reputation as a bona fide bunny. He couldn't bat. But he could bowl a bit.

In many respects Giddins was a typical English bowler, plying his most effective trade on soggy mornings and on verdant pitches, moving the ball this way and that to the befuddlement of county batsman. From that Northampton afternoon onwards I began to scour the sports pages to divest myself of his latest performance. Other teenage boys preoccupied themselves with studying pictures of boobs, I was more concerned with bowling analyses.

In 1996 Giddins' name leapt up from the block of scorecards onto a article explaining that he had tested positive for cocaine and banned for 19 months. Three years earlier this revelation may have broken my innocent geeky heart, but by this stage I was listening to Oasis and watching Tarantino films and had begun to form the misapprehension that taking drugs was big and cool and clever. The story just added lacquer to the legend. And he wasn't a cheat. That would have been unforgivable. Cocaine did not improve his performance, although potentially it may have compelled him to dash out onto the field and urgently proclaim to his team-mates that he was going to take all the wickets.

Sussex saw things differently. Instead of offering a concerned arm around the shoulder of their wayward scion, they sacked him. And so Giddins set forth on the road to redemption via a now famous shift selling Christmas trees outside a South London pub to fill the coffers. The salvage operation on his career was picked up by Warwickshire, who perversely had just dispensed with their own serial snorter, the mercurial all-rounder Paul Smith. Perhaps it was the like-minded fun-loving proclivities of the captain, Dermot Reeve, but it appeared that the naughty scamp from the South Coast had found a home.

Giddins found some form at Edgbaston during the 1999 season and won an unlikely champion in the new England skipper Nasser Hussain, whose mode of hard terse cricket hardly seemed to complement Giddins' twinkly individualistic persona. By the the final test of a turgid series against New Zealand, England had sunk to the bottom of the test rankings and their bowling squad were crumbling away through injury. The Hussain hunch prevailed and Edward Simon Hunter Giddins was sent for.

I was so moved by my hero's selection I had to call my dad immediately. It was as if my own brother had been selected. I even managed to glean parallels between my own experience of representative sport. I had made my only appearance for the village under-10s football team during a flu epidemic.

Giddins' debut will be remembered perhaps less for his bowling, but for making up the weakest part of one of the least competent batting triumvirates to play the game as he followed Alan Mullally and Phil Tufnell out to the crease. England lost, and it was agreed that a tail so transparently unable to wag should never be assembled again.

Giddins lost out on the winter tour to South Africa, but was received another invite next summer into the fold on a swinging at Lords against the Zimbabwean tourists. The coach, the irrepressibly dour Duncan Fletcher was more reticent about Giddins' claims than Hussain, rejecting him as a wet-wicket bowler, rendered useless in anything but the most helpful conditions. As often, Fletcher was right and Giddins' international career was over after four test matches. But not before a man-of-the match Champagne bottle was presented to him in St Johns Wood.

And so he joined the rostrum of lost English seamers, the likes of Simon Brown, Mike Smith and the first Ryan Sidebottom, who came and went apologetically, a vast stable of 'horses for courses'. Except for a brief revival in the shape of Darren Pattinson, this particular policy has not been pursued since. Another example of Giddins' lasting and inadvertent influence on English selection. I look at England now, with their crack unit of experienced and confident bowlers and their frighteningly effective lower batting order and I think of Ed Giddins and give thanks to him and his crapness as an England cricketer that precipitated such a sea-change.

As for his own career, that was sort of the end of it. He drifted off to Surrey and then Hampshire and then quit through injury in 2003. After which he picked up the second pair of his bans, for an illegal bet placed on his Surrey team to lose a game againstNorthamptonshire. Giddins was not playing in the fixture and maintains that his misdemeanour was the result of nothing more sinister than his own idiocy. But the judge at the hearing meted out a five-year ban. Giddins petulantly threw a nearby table at the official as the punishment was read out. Which is amazing. I didn't know people actually did that.

"Giddins petulantly threw a nearby table at the official as the punishment was read out.  Which is amazing.  I didn't know people actually did that".

The fact that I only recently learnt of this second ban hints that my interest in Giddins' career diminished substantially after his England honours. Many sage commentators remark that it's a shame that he will be remembered for his antics off the field rather than those on it. But nothing will erase the black lettering of his name etched onto to the Lords honours board. As I said, he could bowl a bit.

Back to My Favourite Cricketer Home Page.

Nick Harrison writes at Harris Sportsthoughts.  You can also follow him on Twitter @harrisharrison

lead image: courtesy of the sun.co.uk

Socceroos balanced in defeating Wales

The Socceroos' upcoming World Cup campaign looks on firm ground. This morning's friendly against Wales showed the evident class of both sides' top players, but a workmanlike Australia were the superior team against a side whose Premier League pedigree belies it's FIFA ranking of 119.

courtesy: soccerwallpaper.mackafe.com

Up front, Tim Cahill and Scott McDonald (remember him?) pulled the strings for the Socceroos, while for extended periods the Aussies were able to nullify Wales' influential wide men Craig Bellamy and Gareth Bale.

McDonald, who still hasn't scored after 26 Socceroo caps, has never been faulted for effort in Australian gold and this was again the case today. He was busy up front and with Tim Cahill had a role to play in both goals. Given his 5'9 frame, leading the line in what amounted to a 4-4-1-1 hardly accentuated his gifts, but he regularly puts in Tevez-like endeavour, if without the pursuant goals.

More encouragement took the form of the central midfield matchup, where Neil Kilkenny of local Bristol City and Serie B's best bargain, Carl Valeri, more than matched the talent and experience of Aaron Ramsey and David Vaughn respectively.

It was hardly an exquisite spectacle - more an unkempt tussle in which the Australians collected themselves more quickly than their opposition. They pulled away when perpetually underrated right-back Luke Wilkshire first thundered a long-range shot against Wayne Hennessey's upright and minutes later delivered a pinpoint cross that Cahill powered into the bottom right corner.

He also curtailed Welsh WMD Bale, while the less experienced combination of Matt McKay and Michael Zullo were able to somewhat negate Bellamy's influence on the left. When Wilkshire was pulled at half time, the opposition flankers were far more able to shape the game.

As The Age's Michael Lynch has pointed out on Twitter, the blend of youth and experience should hearten the Green and Gold army.

The team is defensively sound, with Michael Zullo, Matthew Spiranovic and Rhys Williams all impressing. Williams' presence was impressive, while Spiranovic made a habit of being in the right place at the right time. McKay, though unlikely to have damaged his prospects of moving to Rangers, showed again some David Carney-esque tendencies at left back: good going forward, but was often beaten for pace and lateral movement by (very good 'uns) Craig Bellamy and Bale.

It was after Zullo, Wilkshire and Neill had all been withdrawn that a miscommunication at a set piece left Wales right-back Darcy Blake alone to score.

All appears positive for the Socceroos behind the ball. The midfield, though for the meantime shorn of the class of Bresciano and Kewell, is bustling, harrying and athletic. It is only going forward that the Socceroos don't have a good mix of experience and exuberance. When Robbie Kruse put home the rebound from a McDonald's shot, it served to contrast his fortunes with those of McDonald: when the Middlesbrough man scores his first Socceroo goal, it must be written that the earth will open and swallow him whole.

There is hope in Kruse's ability to find the net and McDonald's endeavour can begin to capitalise on delivery which has improved markedly since Osieck took over from Pim Verbeek. The team is still disconcertingly reliant on attacking midfielders Cahill and Holman to score. But this, after the Germany matches and a valiant Asian Cup, is encouragement enough for now.

Promoted teams' survival rates

(click photo to enlarge)

Key: Blue = Uninterrupted Premier League tenure; Red = In lower division; Grey = season yet to be played; Green = team in Premier League after relegation (and probable lineup changes).

The above chart maps the fortunes of all the teams promoted tot he English Premier League since 2001.  It shows the startling decrease over the past four years of promoted teams strengthening over time.

Full analysis coming Friday.  As this is as artistic as I get, thought it was worth sharing early.