Pimp grill

First the hair. Now the teeth*. What next for Warnie?

* The new grill is mesmerising. Surely there's an ad coming soon...

Special agent

Much mirth ensued when, as their client's contract at Newcastle United expired, Michael Owen's agents produced a 32-page glossy brochure selling their man to potential employers.

'Michael Owen Summer 2009' was a delight; Michael ['the athlete, the ambassador, the icon'] was 'charismatic, clean, fit and healthy' and a 'hugely popular and experienced endorsee' with 'global appeal'.

How we laughed [until he signed on for Man U of course], because this was football and footballers are ludicrous. 

And then Vic Marks wrote an excellent piece highlighting the following email that had dropped into his inbox:

'Stephen Moore is bracing himself for the speculation that will surround his possible call-up to the Ashes squad. Never has Stephen been more ready for full England Test honors [sic]. With injuries rife, Bell severely lacking in form and Ravi Bopara proving vulnerable, there is surely no-one else who has stated there [sic] claim for a spot with such distinction and, more importantly, form'.

The sender? Moore's agent, of course. You can probably stop bracing yourself for a while now, Steve... 

Gentleman's relish

'I'd love to'.

Those were the words of the 41-year-old Colin Cowdrey when Mike Denness phoned him from Australia to enquire as to whether he'd like to jump on a plane and bat up the order against Lillee and Thomson in 1974-5. 'We've had a few injuries, you see,' Denness explained. 

'He turned up at the airport in a pinstripe suit,' Tony Greig recalled. 'And when he opened his case, it was the first time I'd really seen padding'.

'When he got out to the middle,' Jeff Thomson said, 'he walked up to me with his hand out and he said, 'pleased to meet you, I'm Colin Cowdrey...' I said, 'I don't think that's gonna help you, fatso...'

As Cricinfo notes, Cowdrey 'did as well as anyone else' against the terrible two, which wasn't that well, but then he was 41 and as Thommo delicately observed, fat.

One thing Cowdrey had underneath the avuncular cuddliness and public school manners was a relish for battle. He wasn't faking. Sky showed their excellent film about the series again tonight while the rain washed out the T20 quarter-final at Old Trafford. Just before they did, they dragged Justin Langer and Marcus Trescothick from the visiting Somerset side into the studio for a chat, too.

Langer talked about why he missed Test cricket, recalling a spell that Flintoff bowled at him and Tresco in a county match last year. 'We were pumped, mate,' he said. 'The ball's up under your throat, it's horrible to face him. It was like being back in a Test match,' and while he said it, his gimlet eyes gleamed. He wasn't faking either, and neither was Tresco, who always found the onfield stuff the easiest.

All of this brought to mind Ian Bell, who once again talked about his 'presence' ahead of his return to England's middle order. It made me think that Bell's still getting it wrong. Somewhere along the line, he has become convinced [or has been convinced] that the way he can improve in Test cricket is to to generate some kind of image or aura that accompanies him out there to the crease. 

He's putting the cart before the horse. Bell is physically unimposing, but then so were Allan Border, Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar. So are Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Mohammed Yousuf, Ronnie Sarwan, Shiv Chanderpaul and plenty of others. They're not bothered by nebulous notions of 'aura' or 'presence' either. Their presence comes from the weight of runs they've scored, from the job that they've done.

As Langer explained quite beautifully, everyone gets nervous, everyone feels intimidated: 'Fast bowling's always worse in bed the night before,' he said. 'It's about controlling the emotions. That what separates international players'.

Maybe Bell believes that 'presence' is his defence against this insecurity. Maybe his coaches believe that too. They're almost certainly wrong. When Andrew Strauss was choosing a role model, he picked Justin Langer. Bell could do worse than pick Sarwan or Jayawardene, those gently-blessed batsman who never worry about what they're not, and unobtrusively score their runs, day after day. Their relish for the game is perfectly expressed, and there's not a side in the world that doesn't respect them. 

Not with a kiss

Rolling into the lead of an increasingly hot, ripe and purple Phil Space Ashes contest comes the Times' Matthew Syed, a man not often associated with cricket, but on this blistering form impossible to ignore.

'Romantic relationships, I am told, are all about chemistry, and watching the Ashes you get the same feeling about sporting relationships. English and Australian cricket have what is known as a long-term relationship: it started not with a kiss, but with the first Ashes test in 1882'.

Effortlessly sustaining his theme for a mere 990 words, can he be possibly be beaten?

Doppleganging

What do you do if you play club cricket and you bear an eery resemblance to a noted cricketer? 

I've been turning out for a few twenty over games of an evening [it's been fun, and heavily nostalgic having grown up playing these matches; the dipping sun, the sweetness of the breeze, rushing to get the overs in under giant shadows, the way everything feels different and possible on a cricket ground as the night comes down - it brings a tear to the old glass eye...] and out walked an opener who looked like Robert Key.

In fact, he looked so much like Rob Key I thought for a second that it was, however unlikely it would have been for Keysey to be knocking it around in a village cup miles from home. 

Faced with an evident likeness, the guy had obviously decided to embrace it. He had the helmet on the same way with the hair hanging out just so, he had the ruddy cheeks and the whole vibe down. He stood like Key at the crease, and played the same kind of hearty biffs as well.

I thought about his choices while I was fielding. He could have kicked against it, cut his hair, worn different gear, not opened. But then maybe it was kind of fun, and useful, to look like a pro. I realised that as soon as he'd walked in I'd presumed he could bat. He played well, too.

He wasn't the ersatz pro archetype. He was different. I must have come across a few over the years, guys who'd played up a similarity by buying the same kit, hitting the same kind of shots. It's a rare phenomenon, but an oddly interesting one...

One word answer

Philosophy Football, they of the CB Fry T-shirt, have seen the future and produced more, including one from the unmatchable Arlott.

Arlott, who grew up watching cricket under the trees at May's Bounty and had friendships with Dylan Thomas and IT Botham [which tells you plenty about him], was the provider of one of history's great retorts [although to call it a retort is to diminish it], when he travelled to South Africa back in 1948. Required to fill in a landing card, he came to the box marked 'race'. In it he wrote simply 'human'.

That was John Arlott, the most human of men.

Great men die twice

One of the commentators at the Open on sunday said that if Tom Watson won at 59 years of age, it would be the greatest achievement in the history of sport. This was met not with incredulity, but general agreement from the other broadcasters. 

'I can't think of a better one,' intoned Sam Torrance, who nevertheless still sounded only semi-conscious with excitement while he said it.

The one benefit of Watson being edged out by a man in white slacks and a lime green shirt [who didn't seem to be in the first bloom of youth himself], was that it spared us further debate on the subject, which after all is unquantifiable. Even narrowing it down to sporting achievements involving advanced age would throw it up against, say, George Foreman winning the world heavyweight championship at 46, or Geoff Boycott taking a hundred off Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft in Antigua aged 41. 

Really, the more interesting, sadder point Watson made was about what it means to watch your gift ebb away, to yearn for it again, however fleetingly. 

A few years ago in Australia, I went to the Gabba to watch a charity game. It was a lot of fun; Merv Hughes was sporting a huge gut and bowling off about five paces, Goochie went in and started stroking it back down the ground with that familiar dip of his head. But the big draw was Viv Richards, who still rippled like a middleweight boxer under his shirt and who moved like velvet. 

King Viv and I had history. The first time I saw him play - my first ever day's Test cricket - he made 291 at the Oval. The second time I saw him play, he made 138 not out in the World Cup Final at Lord's. The third time I saw him, he made 118 for Somerset in a one-day final at Lord's. When I watched Viv play, Viv played. 

At the Gabba he played too, but not like he used to. He looked the same, but he could barely hit the ball off the square. His strength was there, but the timing had gone. He laughed a lot, and great and deserving deference was shown, but he walked off slowly when he was out, and I knew what I'd seen.

As Norman Mailer wrote, great men die twice, once as great and once as men. The fact that greatness is transient just makes it sweeter while it's there and so piquant when it's gone.