The inner Ronnie

Anyone watching the IPL on TV outside of England cannot fully appreciate the nature of the nightmare that we are enduring. Ronnie Irani is in the Setanta Sports studio.

It's not that Irani is merely inarticulate. That would be survivable. Inarticulacy does not quite do it. What's required is one of those tremendous compound words that the Germans specialise in: a word that means 'someone whose shallow vocabulary perfectly expresses his simpleton's worldview'. Truly, the inner life of Ronnie Irani is a terrifying, if tiny, place.

But here is the real terror: Irani is not just a part-time pundit for Setanta's once-a-year T20  bonanza. He has a lucrative media career as a radio presenter at Talksport, where he appears daily as a foil to a rent-a-gob ex-footballer called Alan Brazil [The awfulness of Brazil's radio show can only be comprehended by looking at this picture and imagining that you are trapped next to him in a pub for three hours. Every day.]

12th Man pointed me towards Gideon Haigh's Cricinfo piece on the nature and repercussions of the IPL TV coverage. I'd extend the point. If the language used to describe the game is limited to trite conventional wisdom, then that will become the prevailing culture. Just look at football.

The joy of six

The 150th DLF Maximum* took to the air yesterday. Not so long ago, that would have been a statistic of note, now it's merely a signpost on the way to the new age. 

There is an IPL omerta on Sky Sports in England [it's transmitted by the rival Setanta here], but when nebulous commentary box discussion touches on six-hitting, someone, generally Athers or Nasser Hussain, will make a comment about 'the massive bats they use these days'.

It's not an observation that their colleague Ian Botham bothers offering, perhaps because he was an intuitive hitter of the ball. It's the change in attitude rather than the change in bats that's key.

Atherton hit four sixes during his 115 Test career. He was outdone even by Boycott, who struck eight in 108 Tests. Kevin Pietersen hit four sixes in his first Test. [Athers struck one in his 54-match ODI career, a stat that sees him comprehensively hammered by Chris Tavare, who managed two in his 29 matches]. A bigger bat would have made no difference at all to him.

What has happened, along with a new fluidity of technique, is an adjustment of what batsmen consider possible. An England player at the IPL asked Virender Sehwag what he thought about technically as the bowler ran in. 'Oh just watch the ball and hit it,' Sehwag replied.

That, to me, seemed to be the real transition that English cricket is trying to cope with right now - a transition of the mind, an acceptance of the possible, a belief in the new age.

* See what you've done Lalit? See...?

Weapon of choice

Forget about Michael Vaughan's useless 'artballing', here's a genuine investment opportunity in the artistry of cricket: the good doctor WG Grace's bat.

Hard as nails, the colour of a conker and approximately as light and flexible as its owner, it's the bat with which Grace scored his 1,000th Test run, in 1896 at Lord's, the season he was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year.

You could follow the history of cricket just by charting the development of the bat, its form and its language, from WG's 'fully corded grip' to this and its ilk. 

Grace's bat has some powerful vibes in its grain. He gave it to Syd Gregory, who played against him at Lord's. Gregory gave it to his brother-in-law Harry Donnan. Harry was one of Bradman's early mentors at the St George cricket club, and he passed the bat to the club president. The bat is back in England for the first time in 113 years.

Yours for £25-30,ooo. Sold. Now let's see Chris Gayle open the batting with that...

Living the high life in Lalit Land

In the IPL, as in most utopian fantasies, nothing is ever wrong. In a bizarre little television interview this morning, Paul Collingwood, cheeks flushed and grinning like a Moonie, told the world what a fantastic time he was having as a Delhi Daredevil. Neither he nor the interviewer felt bold enough to mention that Colly can't actually get in the team. He's coming home on Friday. 

That's the very day that the Telegraph and Times report that Colly will be named as England's T20 captain - albeit an England captain who can't quite cut it for the Delhi Daredevils. 

The ECB don't usually bother leaking stories unless they're contentious - Michael Vaughan is their regular subject - so perhaps this one has just escaped organically. Yet Collingwood's credentials hardly bear scrutiny. He gave up the limited over captaincy because the pressure of it was affecting him and up until a week ago was no more than lukewarm at the prospect of doing it again. He is, as ever, the expedient choice. 

Will Colly's grin be as fixed on Friday, once he's home from North Korea - er, make that South Africa - and finds himself 'unveiled'? And will he answer the question 'So Paul, how did you enjoy the IPL?' in quite the same way?

NB: The bookies have England at 10-1. You might as well make it 100-1 boys: it's essentially free money... 

Fake IPL player goes home*

Yes, Andrew Flintoff is on his way back. And line of the day goes to David Hopps in the Guardian: 'Getting him on the field has long been like assembling an IKEA wardrobe with half of the bolts missing'.

Hoppsy has begun the season in waspish form, unlike poor Fred. Flintoff has been exposed by the tournament: purveyor of two of the three most expensive spells in what we already love to call 'franchise history', larrupped by AB and Abishek Nayar [not a sentence you get to write too often], and maker of two of the least convincing 20-odds, most of them via edges through and over third man accompanied by sheepish, shaggy grins.  

He's been comfortably outbowled by the tournament's other most expensive acquisition, KP, who, finding himself back in South Africa, has reverted to his original incarnation as an off-spinning all-rounder. How the crowds are enjoying that. Collingwood is yet to get a game. 

On the radio yesterday, Jonathan Agnew rather sniffily asked listeners to text in if they were watching the IPL. Well Aggers, plenty did, and what they're watching is the game run away from England and English players. There have been displays of bowling skill and sustained hitting that have blazed across England's dark skies like comets. Look to the heavens boys - that's the future up there.

It's safe to say that if the England T20 side was playing in the IPL it would finish bottom, which is where it's headed this summer too. Damage limitation is the best we can hope for. The best chance for that is to give the captaincy to Dimitri Mascarenhas, who is witness to a masterclass from Shane Warne, and make sure that Bopara and Napier are given their head. 

And KP? KP should open in T20. There he could think clearly about his game.

* Not that one, obviously.

Far from the madding crowd

In Durban, AB de Villiers makes 105 from 54 balls, Matty Hayden [still barebat, mind you] responds with 57 from 27. Fireworks and dancing girls.

In Bristol, Essex are beating Gloucester in two and a half days. Needing 101, they reach 96-3, five runs required. They went to lunch. 

It's the same game, somewhere under the skin. 

Cool Ruler, orange cap

Davis Miller once wrote a tremendous magazine story called My Dinner With Ali, in which he called on the champ at his mother's house in Louisville. Ali was retired, slowing down physically but not yet ill. Miller was an Ali obsessive who'd become a champion kickboxer in homage to his hero.

Ali let Miller spar with him on the front lawn, and Miller was embarrassed by how easily he could tag the Greatest. Then later, after they'd eaten dinner and handfuls of biscuits and sat up watching fight films, Miller went to use the bathroom. Ali had fallen asleep. When Miller returned, he found Ali not just awake again but shadowboxing in the light of his old fights playing on the television screen. For a few seconds, he seemed to float and glow as his fists flashed out.

'Don't tell anyone,' he said to Miller, 'but I'm making a comeback. Four times champion of the world... Imagine that...' 

And for a moment, Miller believed him, so convincing had the shadowboxing been. Then he remembered that the heavyweight champion at the time was Mike Tyson.

'Ha, tricked you...' Ali said, and sat slowly back down on the sofa, looking like an old man again.

I thought of My Dinner With Ali yesterday after Rahul Dravid batted with Kevin Pietersen. While KP flapped, Dravid unleashed. They were proper shots too, stiletto thrusts through and over cover and cover point. 

The cool Ruler is playing in a world of Mike Tysons out there but the orange cap sits atop his head. Old school beats no school, anyday.

NB: Thanks to Brit for this.