The Googly

Thunder Downunder: Last Hurrah

Obviously the crew at the Shed aren't the only souls upset at the closing of The Googly on the eve of the northern international summer. Sreesanth's pink Punjabi pyjamas has caused his feminine side to shine and upon hearing of the council decision to condemn, demolish and redevelop the dungeon he couldn't hold back the tears when his boyfriend told him the sad but inevitable news.

I propose a last ditch caption contest for this photograph. Give us your best shot and celebrate what has been one of the funniest blogs in the English blogging pavilion.

At the Shed, we will be soldiering on at 99.94 with regular contributions from The Tooting Trumpet and if we win the lottery and hide his drumsticks, perhaps the esteemed editor of this publication too.

It's been a fun ride. I'm sure we'll all cross paths again. And anything that makes Sreesanth sook, in my book, can't be all bad!

[Nesta Quin]

Website of the Week

If you like your stats (and, quite frankly, who doesn't?), you'll love David Barry's blog. It's chock full of analyses such as "What counts as a slump in form for a batsman (Mr Strauss)?"  and "Why are there so many double centuries these days (Mr de Villiers)?"

I'm not sure I understand it all, but I'm sure going to try.

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week - The Spin

  No, the Website of the Week is not Dan Vettori's homepage for that photo is not the Kiwi spinning legend, but star cricket writer at guardian.co.uk and The Wisden Cricketer and non-pareil amongst OBOists, Mr Lawrence Booth. His regular Tuesday gig is to round-up the world of cricket in one whimsical bundle he likes to call The Spin. And damned fine it is.

For those unable to resist his quill, LBWs (Lawrence Booth's Works) extend into longer format on the shelves of good book stores everywhere. His oeuvre comprises Arm-ball to Zooter: A Sideways Look at the Language of Cricket, Cricket: Celebrating the Modern Game around the World (in collaboration with Philip Brown and that literary giant, Sir Ian Botham) and Cricket, Lovely Cricket due June 2008. Hop over the break for a teaser of that tantalising title's topics.

"Cricket, Lovely Cricket" is a sports book with a difference. It is an original and engaging journey around the perennially curious world of cricket, leaving no metaphorical leg-break unturned and peering at the game from every conceivable angle. Written by Lawrence Booth, who had little option but to turn a youthful obsession with cricket into a means of paying the mortgage, it seeks to answer the questions that crop up on a daily basis but rarely receive a satisfactory answer. What are the players really like? What is the secret of sledging? Why get so worked up about the Ashes? Why all the cliches? And when will India take over the world?Fittingly, for a sport that can last up to five days without a result, "Cricket, Lovely Cricket" is rambling but probing, humorous but insightful, sweeping but reflective. It is underpinned by the essential - and slightly frightening - truth that cricket does not actually matter at all, yet continually finds itself relating the game to the wider world.

By examining what cricket tells us about the nations who spend vast chunks of their existence fretting over the fate of a small red ball, it attempts to get to the heart of a sport that seems more capable than any other of bewitching its followers. Full of stories, observations, jokes and whimsy, this book is a captivating look at the way in which the game has become what it is today - and what, given a fair wind, it might be like in the future. (Amazon.co.uk)

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week: Crictrack

Many of us who have played amateur cricket in any way have often wondered how our career stats may stack up against greats like Bishen Bedi or Gordon Greenidge; or if your talent level was similar to mine, Rajesh Maru or Carl Greenidge.

However, in the past, compiling and extrapolating your own stats was a job so dull that only the most committed nerd would undertake such a task. Thanks to the wonder that is Crictrack, that is no longer the case, as anyone can now do this.

Simply create an account to start entering your own figures, then move on to producing  personal stats for your own use for bragging to your mates; or weeping quietly when you realise how shit you are.

Website of the Week: The Cricketing Yak

Excellent site this one.  A Google mashup featuring cricket news and scores, with the added interesting feature of a Google map indicating where all current and upcoming matches are being played.

Get yourself over there, it's well worth a look.

Website of the week - The PCA Rankings

The PCA (Professional Cricketers Association) was once described as the only union whose members were more right-wing than their employers. Well I don't know about that, but I do know that the PCA cranked its profile a notch higher with its awards dinner held earlier this week, with the gongs based on its rankings. Perhaps only a computer could have placed Danish Kaneria ahead of Mark Ramprakash, but the site is to be commended for troubling to provide such a good source of pub conversation starters. For example, here's the Trumpet's County Championship Division One Team of the Year with their PCA Ranking in brackets (Division One only): Key (19); Carberry (40); Ramprakash (5); Adams (27); Goodwin (42); Pothas (43); Martin-Jenkins (22); Gibson (1); Ali (14); Naved-ul-Hasan (7); Mushtaq Ahmed (2).

For the record, the PCA Team of the Year for Division One (picking a balanced XI) would read: Di Venuto; Maddy; Ramps; Law; Benkenstein; Mustard; Rashid; Chapple; Gibson; Naved-ul-Hasan; Mushtaq Ahmed. It would be a good match.

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week - Cricket Memorabilia at Knights

It's probably fair to say that cricket attracts its fair share of eccentrics and obsessives (some people seem obsessed with the length of the England tail for example) and they need nourishment to feed their habits. Whilst many will be sated with F5ing the live updates of ODI strike rates at cricinfo or the joy that is the recent records page at howstat, your true obsessive feels the need for something more tangible.

This growing market has led to huge sums being paid at auction for anything related to The Don or ancient Wisdens (to name just two categories of cricket gold), but it is in the small print and small bid items where one gets to the nub of this affliction. Knights specialise in sporting memorabilia and a trawl through their cricket catalogues is never less than a joy. Here are three examples that caught my eye, but click on the pdf of their June 2007 catalogue and wonder.

One lot I'd like to own:

"'Grand Cricket Match at Haslingden.Yorkshire XI v Lancashire XI'. Original wartime poster for the match played, in aid of Lord Kitchener's Memorial Fund for disabled soldiers and sailors and various hospital funds, on 23rd August 1917. Players listed include Hirst, Rhodes, Haigh, Denton, Holes, Newstead, J.T.Tyldesley, Parkin, Robinson, Lawton, Heap, E.Tyldesley etc. The poster measures 15"x10". (Unsold)

One lot I wouldn't want, but I can understand someone who would:

"Derbyshire 1960. Large page signed by the team. Fourteen signatures in ink. Sold with a two small joined album pages signed by the Derbyshire team of 1963 and a page signed by four inc Jackson, Pope, Dawkes etc. G " (Sold at £18)

One lot I just can't imagine anyone wanting:

"Chris Pickles. Yorkshire 1985-1992.Yorkshire navy blue 2nd XI blazer worn by Pickles during his career. The blazer with embroidered club emblem of the white rose bud to chest. Sold with handwritten note of authentication from Ashley Metcalfe. (Unsold)

The note of authentication is a nice touch - you've got to look out for those counterfeit Yorkshire 2nd XI blazers.

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week - The Laws of Cricket

Lord's is not just one of the great sporting venues of the world, it is also a very useful website - access it here. But the Website of the Week is a subsection thereof - The Laws and Spirit of the Game.

Whilst the Spirit of the Game has provoked much debate, The Trumpet draws the attention of Googlyers to the Laws (not rules, note, Laws). It was twenty odd years ago as a Law student that The Trumpet acquired his taste for the economy of legalistic language and there is much here on which to feast. The Laws also display how Anglo-American Jurisprudence recoils from attempts to present an all-encompassing code, and falls back on interpretation through case-precedent.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that the Laws are shot through with omissions and vagueness, but generally work - just like most of the best things in life.

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week: King Cricket

There are many cricket blogs out there, but only few are deserving of our award, and this week it goes to the spectacularly barmy King Cricket.

It is impossible to read this site without laughing, particularly at the jewel in the King's crown that is the Rob Key page.  Check it out, and tell them we sent you.

Website of the Week

Over the last month, the Website of the Week column has drawn your attention to some of the nooks and crannies lurking beneath the Cricinfo banner. Today's offering is one such cranny. A click later however, the feeling is akin to Dorothy's on opening that door into the Land of Oz. For revealed is a wondrous place full of tales of outrageous talents, crazy decisions, squabbling and reconciliations. Yes, the Grand Opera that is Pakistani cricket is found at http://blogs.cricinfo.com/pakspin/.

Our conductor is the esteemed Kamran Abbasi, who, like all the best cricket writers, brings much more to the party than merely knowledge of the game. Also highly recommended are the comment sections, which ebb and flow like the tide at Karachi and crackle with cricketing wisdom.   

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week - The Spin

  No, the Website of the Week is not Dan Vettori's homepage for that photo is not the Kiwi spinning legend, but star cricket writer at guardian.co.uk and The Wisden Cricketer and non-pareil amongst OBOists, Mr Lawrence Booth. His regular Tuesday gig is to round-up the world of cricket in one whimsical bundle he likes to call The Spin. And damned fine it is.

For those unable to resist his quill, LBWs (Lawrence Booth's Works) extend into longer format on the shelves of good book stores everywhere. His oeuvre comprises Arm-ball to Zooter: A Sideways Look at the Language of Cricket, Cricket: Celebrating the Modern Game around the World (in collaboration with Philip Brown and that literary giant, Sir Ian Botham) and Cricket, Lovely Cricket due June 2008. Hop over the break for a teaser of that tantalising title's topics.

"Cricket, Lovely Cricket" is a sports book with a difference. It is an original and engaging journey around the perennially curious world of cricket, leaving no metaphorical leg-break unturned and peering at the game from every conceivable angle. Written by Lawrence Booth, who had little option but to turn a youthful obsession with cricket into a means of paying the mortgage, it seeks to answer the questions that crop up on a daily basis but rarely receive a satisfactory answer. What are the players really like? What is the secret of sledging? Why get so worked up about the Ashes? Why all the cliches? And when will India take over the world?Fittingly, for a sport that can last up to five days without a result, "Cricket, Lovely Cricket" is rambling but probing, humorous but insightful, sweeping but reflective. It is underpinned by the essential - and slightly frightening - truth that cricket does not actually matter at all, yet continually finds itself relating the game to the wider world.

By examining what cricket tells us about the nations who spend vast chunks of their existence fretting over the fate of a small red ball, it attempts to get to the heart of a sport that seems more capable than any other of bewitching its followers. Full of stories, observations, jokes and whimsy, this book is a captivating look at the way in which the game has become what it is today - and what, given a fair wind, it might be like in the future. (Amazon.co.uk)

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week: Crictrack

Many of us who have played amateur cricket in any way have often wondered how our career stats may stack up against greats like Bishen Bedi or Gordon Greenidge; or if your talent level was similar to mine, Rajesh Maru or Carl Greenidge.

However, in the past, compiling and extrapolating your own stats was a job so dull that only the most committed nerd would undertake such a task. Thanks to the wonder that is Crictrack, that is no longer the case, as anyone can now do this.

Simply create an account to start entering your own figures, then move on to producing  personal stats for your own use for bragging to your mates; or weeping quietly when you realise how shit you are.

Website of the Week: The Cricketing Yak

Excellent site this one.  A Google mashup featuring cricket news and scores, with the added interesting feature of a Google map indicating where all current and upcoming matches are being played.

Get yourself over there, it's well worth a look.

Website of the week - The PCA Rankings

The PCA (Professional Cricketers Association) was once described as the only union whose members were more right-wing than their employers. Well I don't know about that, but I do know that the PCA cranked its profile a notch higher with its awards dinner held earlier this week, with the gongs based on its rankings. Perhaps only a computer could have placed Danish Kaneria ahead of Mark Ramprakash, but the site is to be commended for troubling to provide such a good source of pub conversation starters. For example, here's the Trumpet's County Championship Division One Team of the Year with their PCA Ranking in brackets (Division One only): Key (19); Carberry (40); Ramprakash (5); Adams (27); Goodwin (42); Pothas (43); Martin-Jenkins (22); Gibson (1); Ali (14); Naved-ul-Hasan (7); Mushtaq Ahmed (2).

For the record, the PCA Team of the Year for Division One (picking a balanced XI) would read: Di Venuto; Maddy; Ramps; Law; Benkenstein; Mustard; Rashid; Chapple; Gibson; Naved-ul-Hasan; Mushtaq Ahmed. It would be a good match.

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week - Cricket Memorabilia at Knights

It's probably fair to say that cricket attracts its fair share of eccentrics and obsessives (some people seem obsessed with the length of the England tail for example) and they need nourishment to feed their habits. Whilst many will be sated with F5ing the live updates of ODI strike rates at cricinfo or the joy that is the recent records page at howstat, your true obsessive feels the need for something more tangible.

This growing market has led to huge sums being paid at auction for anything related to The Don or ancient Wisdens (to name just two categories of cricket gold), but it is in the small print and small bid items where one gets to the nub of this affliction. Knights specialise in sporting memorabilia and a trawl through their cricket catalogues is never less than a joy. Here are three examples that caught my eye, but click on the pdf of their June 2007 catalogue and wonder.

One lot I'd like to own:

"'Grand Cricket Match at Haslingden.Yorkshire XI v Lancashire XI'. Original wartime poster for the match played, in aid of Lord Kitchener's Memorial Fund for disabled soldiers and sailors and various hospital funds, on 23rd August 1917. Players listed include Hirst, Rhodes, Haigh, Denton, Holes, Newstead, J.T.Tyldesley, Parkin, Robinson, Lawton, Heap, E.Tyldesley etc. The poster measures 15"x10". (Unsold)

One lot I wouldn't want, but I can understand someone who would:

"Derbyshire 1960. Large page signed by the team. Fourteen signatures in ink. Sold with a two small joined album pages signed by the Derbyshire team of 1963 and a page signed by four inc Jackson, Pope, Dawkes etc. G " (Sold at £18)

One lot I just can't imagine anyone wanting:

"Chris Pickles. Yorkshire 1985-1992.Yorkshire navy blue 2nd XI blazer worn by Pickles during his career. The blazer with embroidered club emblem of the white rose bud to chest. Sold with handwritten note of authentication from Ashley Metcalfe. (Unsold)

The note of authentication is a nice touch - you've got to look out for those counterfeit Yorkshire 2nd XI blazers.

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week - The Laws of Cricket

Lord's is not just one of the great sporting venues of the world, it is also a very useful website - access it here. But the Website of the Week is a subsection thereof - The Laws and Spirit of the Game.

Whilst the Spirit of the Game has provoked much debate, The Trumpet draws the attention of Googlyers to the Laws (not rules, note, Laws). It was twenty odd years ago as a Law student that The Trumpet acquired his taste for the economy of legalistic language and there is much here on which to feast. The Laws also display how Anglo-American Jurisprudence recoils from attempts to present an all-encompassing code, and falls back on interpretation through case-precedent.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that the Laws are shot through with omissions and vagueness, but generally work - just like most of the best things in life.

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week: King Cricket

There are many cricket blogs out there, but only few are deserving of our award, and this week it goes to the spectacularly barmy King Cricket.

It is impossible to read this site without laughing, particularly at the jewel in the King's crown that is the Rob Key page.  Check it out, and tell them we sent you.

Website of the Week

Over the last month, the Website of the Week column has drawn your attention to some of the nooks and crannies lurking beneath the Cricinfo banner. Today's offering is one such cranny. A click later however, the feeling is akin to Dorothy's on opening that door into the Land of Oz. For revealed is a wondrous place full of tales of outrageous talents, crazy decisions, squabbling and reconciliations. Yes, the Grand Opera that is Pakistani cricket is found at http://blogs.cricinfo.com/pakspin/.

Our conductor is the esteemed Kamran Abbasi, who, like all the best cricket writers, brings much more to the party than merely knowledge of the game. Also highly recommended are the comment sections, which ebb and flow like the tide at Karachi and crackle with cricketing wisdom.   

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week: cricketbaat.com

A brand spanking new site launched by our friends over at www.fanbanta.com is our pick this week.

www.cricketbaat.com is a new Indian-focused cricket website that has news, forums, debate, opinion & comment, videos, photos and everything else you need as a cricket fan in this new media age.

Get yourself over there, tell them we sent you.

Website of the Week

The Googly has previously featured Cricinfo's Statsguru as a Website of the Week, but The Trumpet makes no excuses for featuring The Surfer, Cricinfo's Round-Up of the best of cricket writing, as this week's website winner. Just one problem - why isn't The Googly featured? We're quicker than most to the news that matters - take this piece about Joe Denly published on 23 May 2007 compared to the BBC's feature of six days later!

[The Tooting Trumpet]   

Website of the Week

The Googly has already featured Cricinfo's superb Statsguru in a previous "Website of the Week" slot. The alternative destination for cricket's geek population (and there are a few) is the equally magnificent www.howstat.com. The Trumpet particularly enjoys two of its features: the upcoming milestones and recent records pages at http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Articles/Milestones.asp and http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Articles/RecentRecords.asp; and the presentation of player data, such as Gilly's batting at http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Statistics/Players/PlayerBatGraph.asp?PlayerID=2192.

The wonders of the site shouldn't surprise us. "The HowSTAT story began in the early 1990's in Adelaide, South Australia, when a group of friends with a strong interest in both cricket and statistics needed a resource to help them settle some of those arguments and bets that arise when a group like this get together over a meal and a bottle of wine." I don't think it was evenings like that which led to someone saying, "I know - let's invade Iraq!"

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Website of the Week: Cricinfo Statsguru

We all know that Cricinfo is the website for every week if you are a cricket fan.  But, it is so huge and wondrous that to simply have the full site as our selection would be doing it a disservice, and so I am nominating the Cricinfo Statsguru as the selection this week.

Click on the link above, enter a player or team that you want info about, then filter to your hearts content.  You can filter on their performance against certain teams, on certain grounds, in certain seasons, in a particular innings and all permutations thereof!

Warning: once in there it may take you a while to leave.

Website of the week: The Corridor

No props to me for originality, but I would like to draw the attention of the world at large to the newly-revamped Corridor.

Named after that famous Boycottism, and edited by Will Luke, alumnus of this parish and stalwart of Cricinfo's ball-by-ball coverage, it is chock-full of features and funnies as well as links to Ceefax that you just won't get anywhere else.

Obviously, the Googly is the place to come for up-to-the-minute gossip and gentle mockery of the day's cricket news, but if you're looking for more in-depth flights of fancy, go and see Will and the team.  Tell him we sent you. [Carrie Dunn] [Image: Getty]

Website of the Week: videojug

That is not the young Vic Marks, but Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with giving the world its wide web and, in consequence, he's partly to blame for your reading of this post. But we mustn't snipe at his achievement, nor suggest that he try Shane Warne's toaster to deal with the thinning thatch, because the Web is a wondrous thing. To prove that, The Googly will scour every inch of it and each Thursday will profile The Website of the Week.

To get started, the Trumpet brings you the website to visit when you want to get started. Videojug takes the discourse of 1970s British Public Information Films and applies it to cricket (amongst other things). No knowledge is assumed and nothing is so mundane that it doesn't require pointing out. And yet, every time I view a clip, I learn something. Explore for yourself at http://www.videojug.com/tag/cricket or try this one for size.

VideoJug: How To Bowl Leg Spin

More next week. [The Tooting Trumpet]