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Wax Eloquent

Engle

State Vice-Captain
Share here a descriptive piece of writing on cricketers that would be short, enjoyable and aptly illustrate their styles, talents and abilities.

More than one piece can be posted on the same cricketer, however would like it to be no more than a paragraph, for ease of reading.
 

Engle

State Vice-Captain
Mike Selvey on Michael Holding

" It began intimidatingly far away. He turned, and began the most elegant long-striding run of them all, feet kissing the turf silently, his head turning gently and ever so slightly from side to side, rhythmically, like that of a cobra hypnotising its prey. Good batsmen tended not to watch him all the way lest they became mesmerised. To the umpires he was malevolent stealth personified so they christened him Whispering Death. "
 

bond21

Banned
1! 2! 3! 4!

Matthew Hayden, Give Us More!!

Yea i totally ripped off the deccan chargers totally lameass chant
 

Engle

State Vice-Captain
R.C. Robertson-Glasgow

" Frank Woolley was easy to watch, difficult to bowl to and impossible to write about. When you bowled to him there weren't enough fielders; when you wrote about him, there weren't enough words. In describing a great innings by Woolley, and few of them were not great in artistry, you had to be careful with your adjectives and stack them in little rows, like pats of butter or razor-blades. In the first over of his innings, perhaps, there had been an exquisite off-drive, followed by a perfect cut, then an effortless leg-glide. In the second over the same sort of thing happened; and your superlatives had already gone. The best thing to do was to presume that your readers knew how Frank Woolley batted and use no adjectives at all. "
 

slugger

State Vice-Captain
Sinclair


He played shots all around the clock
The higher you climb, the steeper the drop.
He scored a double on debut, but so what!!!.

He needed one more run than the last
No harder task was placed on any player in the past.
He had his chance if you ask.

With his mind in a mess
under the stress, he was expected to repeat
the same feats as his first test.

But even Sinclair knew
I cant live off my debut, will couple of big hundreds do.
maybe, but we cant promise your contract will be renewed.

Go back to domestic and scores some runs
you mean do what I have always done
score some thrities, hundreds are so last year
thats what made us notice marshall ya hear.

With Marshall gone
Sinclair is back
The rubbed out Marshalls name and gave Sinclair his contract.

When England arrived
It was his last life line
this was his time to shine.

But when you walked around with the wieght of expectation on ya shoulders
not to forget the nation and selectors to be the first to tell ya.... told ya
it all becomes to much, let alone just playing the next shot
try and make it to the next over.


Poem by me.
 
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SJS

Hall of Fame Member
Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji


It was in 1896 that Ranji performed this 'impossible' feat of scoring two (separate) centuries in one day at Brighton against Yorkshire........ This was Ranji's year: the year of his first test match, in which he made 62 (only one other batsman doing anything at all) and 154 not out, remembered by those who saw it as one of the most dazzling feats ever seen at Old Trafford or anywhere else.

This was the year in which his beloved picture became clear in the public mind: the slim, incredibly supple figure with the dark smiling face; the fluttering silken sleeves, the apparent absence of concentration when concentration must have been terrific; the faint suggestion that the whole thing was fantasy and that this bizarre prestidigitator would suddenly vanish in smoke on a magic matting, floating high over the pavilion dome, from Brighton to Baghdad.

Sober journalists found in him "an Oriental charm with an Occidental quickness, the stillness of the panther and the suddenness of its spring". And C.B. Fry, who knew him better than anyone else, said of him: " He moved as if he had no bones, one would not be surprised to see brown curves burning in the grass where one of his cuts had travelled, or blue flame shimmering around his bat as he made one of his leg strokes"

There was never an eyesight like his. ("Tell me Ranji, what would you do with a googly?" "I should watch the seams of the ball" It was said that no remarkable was his eyesight, he could have gone in against the fastest bowling and scored a century with a rolled umbrella.

In Denis Compton's golden year of 1947 I have seen him more than once bat in this glittering fashion and in the Middlesex v. Surrey match at the Oval in 1953 I saw Compton reduce to incompetence the bowlers who had defeated the Australians and won their county the championship. But Compton's brilliance does not glitter every day. Ranji's did.

.......

In the 1896 Gentlemen versus Players match he was out after ten minutes, a rare experience for him, but his batting during that short period was of a quality even rarer.

Of the first over (five balls) from Tom Richardson, bowling at his fastest, Ranji hit eighteen runs. When, after a single by his partner, he found himself at the other end, he set about the other bowler, who happened to be Johnny Briggs, of all people. But Ranji was no respecter of persons. In nearly the shortest possible times (ten minutes) he had raised his score to 47. Off (just) the thirteenth ball he recieved he was out leg before wicket to a delivery which hit him in his stomach !! Somebody, either Ranji, Jhonny Briggs, or the umpire. must by that time have been growing tired.​
- A A Thomson - writing in Cricket My Happiness
 

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
Colin Blyth



Macartney caught at first slip off Blythe. Dont miss the three slips !
" The very look on his face, the long sensitive fingers, the elastic back sweep of the left arm before delivery, with the right hand thrown up in perfect balance against it, the short dancing approach, the long last stride, and the flick of the arm as it came over, all these spoke of a highly sensitive and nervous instrument, beautifuly co-ordinated, directed by a subtle mind and inspired by a natural love of its art...."​
- Harry S Altham in The History of Cricket Vol 1.​

He had a thoughtful, whimsical face, and those long sensitive fingers which are so often associated with the artist in fiction but less often with the artist in real life. He was a skilled player of the violin, though I should not like to assert he was as accomplished a practical performer as Small of Hambledon, who, meeting a bull on his way to a party, 'began playing upon his bass, to the admiration and perfect satisfaction of the beast'. At any rate, Blythe played upon the hesitations and the weaknesses of opposing batsmen with the almost diabolical skill of a Piagnini.His bowling was one long temptation, a continuous invitation to walk into the parlour. He was a spider to whom it was a positive honour to be a fly.
....

His methods were not unlike those of Hedley Veruty, who entered into a continuous conspiracy with Arthur Mitchell to defraud the batsman of his wicket. There was something of the confidence trick about the thing. Blythe too had his close to the wicket confederates and, however cautious the batsman might be, itwas almost humanly impossible to prevent the ball from popping off the edge of the bat into welcoming hands.​

- AA Thomson - Cricket My Happiness​
 

Engle

State Vice-Captain
Gideon Haigh on Bill O'Reilly

" As with those more florid opponents of legendary heroes, there seemed to be more arms than Nature or the rules allow. During the run-up, a sort of fierce galumph, the right forearm worked like a piston; at delivery the head was ducked low as if to butt the batsman on to his stumps. But it didn't take long to see the greatness; the control of leg-break, top-spinner and googly; the change of pace and trajectory without apparent change in action; the scrupulous length; the vitality; and, informing and rounding all, the brain to diagnose what patient required what treatment. "
 

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
Some fan at the SCG:



"Commit all your crimes when Sachin is batting because even the Lord is watching".


Think it was an ultimate compliment. :)
 

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