Separated at birth?

Virender Sehwag and BJ Penn.*

* UFC lightweight champion. He kicks ass, too. 

Know what I mean?

Had been scratching about for a sporting analogy to sum up this Ashes series, and as England blundered around yesterday it came to me: it's Frank Bruno versus Oliver McCall.

The man in one corner past his best but still beloved of his country, a nearly man, a noble giant, superficially in great shape, proficient against lesser opponents, exposed when challenging for the big titles, but a fighter possessed of a sunny determination to make things right even as he drinks in the last-chance saloon.

The other corner a champion, not one of the great champions of the past, but one still possessed of great physical gifts. A flake, though, too, capable of kayoing Lennox Lewis one week and crying in the ring the next. 

They begin to fight, and somehow, against the odds, almost miraculously, Big Frank gets ahead. He boxes steadily, building a lead as he realises that his opponent is on the slide, not what he was, highly strung and all over the place. The crowd's belief grows along with Big Frank's. The middle rounds tick by, only a couple left now - come on Big Man! - Frank so far ahead he can't be caught, only knocked out, running short of gas, legs slowing up, face puffing but still in there.

And then it happens, with the end in sight, McCall, the Atomic Bull, the man with a chin of granite, finds a punch from somewhere, and Big Frank, desperately tired, does what he always does, hits the ropes, straight-backed, legs stiff, chin hanging out. Only a minute to go, but a desperate, endless one as the crowd look through their fingers at this horror film, one they've seen played out plenty of times before, the one with the unhappy ending... Come on Frank, hold on, son. Just stay upright and you've got a chance...

Big Frank did it of course. McCall couldn't quite land the conclusive blow, even though he was eminently capable of it. Frank had big bloody tears in his eyes when they called his name out as the winner, barely had the strength to get his arms above his head... tremendous, it was... moving somehow. 

Not the greatest fight of all time, but a great night. Bit like this series... Come on Frank, lad...

Seduced

Further to the post below, Ceci wondered what drives sales of bats to club players. It's a good question. A while ago I had the chance to speak to Rob Pack, who made bats for Puma [he's a bowler himself, naturally...] and the subject arose. He looked up from his drawknife and said wearily, 'the stickers. You've got to have good stickers these days...'

He wasn't being entirely serious, but they play a role. A new design that catches on works, too*. Classics like the Gray-Nicolls scoop [awesome bats, got my first ever hundred with one] and its offshoot the four-scoop that Gower used [I think] on his Test debut; Stuart Surridge's immortal Jumbo, wielded by Goochie and King Viv; the Slazenger V12 with its cool little hump on the back, and so on. 

The right endorsee plays into it too. Saint Peter got big on the back of Tony Greig wearing the mittens; Duncan Fearnley had Beefy during the 1981 Ashes; Woodworm were briefly huge with Flintoff and KP on board.

Ultimately though, I've only ever bought a bat on feel. Sometimes I've come out of the shop surprised by what I've gone for. I suspect a lot of people are the same. Would love to know, too, about the market in India and Pakistan, where the big makes aren't ones we see too often here. 

* There has to be a market now for retro bats. I'd love another scoop, however counter-intuitive the design. In the meantime, Jrod is debuting the Hawk, which will be worth reading...

There is a Gid

Jrod put up the link to Gideon Haigh's address at Oxford, 'Cricket And The Media: The Pantomime Horse'. 

It's as good as you'd expect, and the opening point about the mediated experience of watching the modern game is superbly made.  The only defence against that experience, I'd say, is to trust the evidence of your own eyes - or at least take note of who's doing the mediating. 

NB: I actually misread the first line. I thought he'd said: 'Cricket and the media... the topic has haunted me since Bopara suggested it'. Now that would have been something...

Cost-benefit analysis

Stephon Marbury isn't famous in Britain, but he's a pretty useful NBA basketball player who did something that made a difference to his sport. Growing up he couldn't afford expensive branded shoes, so when he made it, he launched his own line, Starbury. They retailed at $14.98. Marbury didn't just endorse them, he wore them when he played. 

'If you take my shoe and a $150 shoe and cut it down in half, it does exactly the same thing,' he said.

Cricket bats don't really equate to basketball shoes. The quality and rarity of the wood, the skill of the batmaker, the intrinsic individuality, prevent it. But there's probably a similar emotional investment. And there's a certain similarity to the financial investment, too. Today I made a random, ad hoc chart of bats used and/or endorsed by Ashes players*:

Ricky Ponting Kookaburra Kahuna: £342.99

Gunn & Moore Icon DXM [Ravi Bopara]: £334.99

Adidas Pellara Elite [Kevin Pietersen]: £329.99

Adidas Incurza Elite [Ian Bell]: £329.99

Gray-Nicolls Ignite Pro-Performance [Andrew Strauss]: £324.99

Puma Iridium GTR [Andrew Flintoff]: £320.00

All of those manufacturers offer cheaper versions, made of lesser wood. But there are plenty of smaller batmakers who will make the equivalent for less, it's just that the players don't endorse them.

This isn't a criticism per se. The best are entitled to the best, and to the commercial opportunity. But imagine if someone like Marbury walked out in a Test match with something a little different.

* Stated recommended retail prices. Most shops knock a sizeable chunk off. 

Size matters

My dad was in his loft the other day, and he pulled down a vintage bat of mine from a trunk he'd last opened years ago. We looked at it and laughed. It's a County [now Hunts County] Insignia. It must weigh about 2lbs 4oz. It's wafer thin and so dark it seems to have been smothered in fake tan rather than linseed oil. It's maybe twenty years old, but on the evolutionary scale it's a fish that's crawled up onto the beach: it has more in common with Grace's bat than with Ponting's. 

We took it down to the nets. At first it was psychologically disturbing to face up with: I felt almost unarmed, outgunned. When I looked down, there was none of the testosterone-fuelled outrigging of the modern bat; no power bow or contoured spine, no massive edges or giant sweet spot or chrome-dream stickers. It wasn't named after a greek god and that worried me. If the ball missed the middle it didn't really go anywhere, and the first few that did hit the centre went in the air because the bat was so light I was through the shot before the ball had properly arrived. 

But then I cracked a few, and they went almost as well as any other bat. It was as much a mental as a physical adjustment. I wouldn't use it in a match, I wouldn't want to go back to it, but it taught me one thing: both the bats I'm using at the moment are too heavy. I'd forgotten how freely you can move with a feather in your hands. 

Driving home. I felt like a sucker. Without realising it, and despite telling myself I was far too sussed to be taken in, I'd bought into the myth of modern bats. I'd gone big and thick. Now I want something sleeker, slicker, sexier. Still big, but you know, not that big. 

You'll miss him when he's gone

It was somehow appropriate that Ricky Ponting went past Allan Border's 11,174 Test match runs on a grey day at a foreign field thousands of miles from home; an unflashy push, a smatter of applause, a few hard blinks of his eye, moisture maybe, or a little grit. There was no fuss for or by this most blue-collar of batsmen.

Strange to say, but Ponting deserved better. Circumstances have conspired to drop this mighty accomplishment into the life and times of a fading side in a tight series when other things matter more. The Australian press were preoccupied, the English had different things to write. 

Ponting played it down because that's his nature, a nature that stands in contrast to Lara and Tendulkar, the only men ahead of him now. They are regarded differently to Ponting, differently to everyone, but part of that separation has come from them. Both have embraced that difference, their specialness, far more readily than Ponting has.

Neither were good captains, but their careers will not be considered in that light. Ponting's might. He's not a great captain, he's not always a great man, but he is one of the towering batsmen of the age. This Englishman's cap is doffed.