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The Dud’s Career – walk a mile in their shoes

GuyFromLancs

State Vice-Captain
Chris wants to be a commentator, but is neither: a good enough ex-player; or (more crucially) an ironically bad enough ex-player.
 

GuyFromLancs

State Vice-Captain
The players Chris admires are Jacques Kallis and Robert Croft.

Both of whom he feels are slightly superior versions of himself.
 

NUFAN

Y no Afghanistan flag
Chris's brother in law Frank works at the DVA - The TV station which won Cricket broadcasting rights.
 

Agent Nationaux

International Coach
I get your point, but ****s like Fart who deserve to get dropped, keep getting picked again and again and then have the arrogance to claim it's because of talent or hard work. Really pisses me off.
 
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HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Chris Snr has an addiction to PVA glue and coffee whitener which he keeps from his wife. He disappears every weekend claiming he's going fishing with a non-existent friend, but instead he heads into Soho and performs as a drag queen. Chris Snr feels as if he should be depressed, but he doesn't have the energy to work himself up to it. This is because his wife laces his breakfasts with a small amount of weed-killer every day. She has sociopathic tendencies, but is largely kept in check by a rogue family of plovers that live on their back lot. Every time his wife goes out to hang up the washing, she is ruthlessly set upon by the plovers who either fly-peck at her scalp, or deposit an aerial payload on her head. She spends her afternoons rifling through Acme catalogues trying to find the perfect Heath Robinson-esque contraption in order to take the plovers out. However, her neighbour - Nigel Grearley - a small saturnine chap who works for Inland Revenue, keeps a close eye on the plovers. He does this, not because he likes birds - he actually hates them after an unfortunate incident in his youth where a hawk attacked him at a Birds of Prey show - he does this because he likes frustrating other people. He likes to see the look on the face of Chris Snr's wife when he peeps his head above the fence-parapet when she is stalking the birds.

Fortunately for her, Mr. Grearley will meet an unfortunate end when his pet rat - Roland - chews through the cord to his television set and sparks off a gas explosion. The explosion makes page 15 of the local news, but they spell Mr. Grearley's name wrong and his colleagues at the local Inland Revenue department don't even notice he's missing for 6 working days.
 

morgieb

Request Your Custom Title Now!
I don't get why every post he makes in CC now though has to be a Breaking Bad reference.
 

Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
Inspired by the worst test cricketers thread, I’ve tried to get into the mind of the kind of player that could see he name up there in that unflattering light.

Right, imagine – you’re 19 years old, always been a good athlete. Good hand-eye co-ordination, and stamina too. Sports in general have always seemed quite easy to you. You can play football and rugby very well also, but cricket gives you those moments to shine as an individual you enjoy. You’re just better than your young peers – the try-hard bowlers and steadfast batsman. It’s natural to you. You just see the ball and hit it. Or just mow down the stumps with relative ease when you bowl.

So you move up, you’re playing within a good county league, among a few players like you, some ex-professionals, and a few former internationals. The standards have gone up, and you feel this, yet some of the players are getting on a bit. They like a fag, a pie and a beer and have been in better shape, whereas you, now in your early 20s, are in good shape, in your prime. And are this able to shine. Only last week you took 4-47 with your trusty medium-fast, or off-spin; and you also blasted an ageing former ODI bowler for 40 runs with the bat.
These are tougher times, but like at school and amateur level, you’re still just surviving on your wits without too much thought or effort required.

A year or two down the line – you’re playing first class cricket, there are lots of guys like you. Good all-round sportsman and athletes, so for the first season or two you don’t shine as much. But you put in some hard yards, learn and acclimatise, and you retain your spot in the team as a kind of all-rounder type. Or a batsman who bowls. It’s hard to tell anymore. But basically, without the need for a huge amount of self-examination, you’re a professional cricketer.

But now there’s an injury crisis in the test team, you get the call out of the blue. You can’t believe it. Your Dad nearly faints when he reads that you’ll be in the team v South Africa next Thursday. At first, you damn near sh!t your pants – but then remember that you DESERVE this. You’re as good, or not much worse, than many of the players around you on the circuit, so this is your place right?

But problems arise. Out there, in a test match, in front of the crowd and the cameras and the cynical ex-pros, you feel the pressure. South Africa are batting first and are 100-1 and looking good. You get thrown the ball. Something that’s’ happened all your cricketing life, but now it’s different. At grade cricket you used to just hit the stumps, and even in the first class game you can hit the relatively right spots and let nature take its course and give you a few wickets. But these guys are different – their careers, their lives, have been built and formulated on keeping trundling chancers like you from taking their wicket.

You’re fully 10mph slower, or significant degrees of spin less, than they are used to brushing aside. You can’t move the ball away from them or fool them in flight, and the minute you ball a fraction off length, too wide, or too close to the pads, you are routinely dispatched for 4. You get fearful sweat, because you realise you have nothing in your arsenal to offer. The batsmen are starting to cart you around a bit, and nothing you can try can stop them. You bowl full, they drive – you try to ball one short, but your 73mph long hop is atomised by the batsman whilst your captain and slips look at you in amazed disgust. After 2 or 3 unsuccessful spells you are withdrawn with bowling figures of 0-80 off 18 overs. Physically and emotionally drained already, the opposition are visibly targeting you, and your captain looks pissed. You’re dispatched to the outfield where you hope the ball will come nowhere near you.

Worse is to come, you are batting at 6, 7 or 8. This is f*cked up. 3rd ball in and you’re struck HARD on the shoulder to jeers from the fielders. You can’t remember the last time you were hit. This guy bowls a lot faster and nastier than you remember anyone before. And he moves it both ways too. You don’t know what’s moving in and what’s moving out. The last 3 balls were a blur whilst you were trying to get your bearings. The batsman at the other end is barking instructions and advice, but you can’t hear it because all the slips are heckling and abusing you. This is practically a different sport. You’ve never been tested like this. You can no more succeed at this than you could in a particle physics exam following no revision. Mercifully, after another painful blow (this time to the elbow), you’re stumps are shattered and you walk for an 18 ball 3 to sarcastic wolf-whistles from the fielders.

Your coach doesn’t even mention you’re dropped after the game. He just quietly ignores you and you drift off never to be seen again.
In 20 years, a number of publications and websites vote you the worst player to have ever played test cricket.

F*cking hell, that was harsh!
Great post mate.. very apt reflection of just how difficult and harsh sports is at this level.
I have been thinking about this during the Olympics last year.. At least a professional cricketer who plays just 1 test match his entire career might end up with a decent record at first class level..but Olympic athletes..some of whom have dedicated their entire lives to compete at this level..and they get only one shot at it, and if they fail, that's it..its over.. You're finished. No one will ever remember you and you might find yourself flipping burgers at KFC.
 
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watson

Banned
Read it
Eat it
Beat it
Re-write it
Go on some kind of spiritual journey on the basis of it


This is the downside to freedom. We sometimes have to make our own choices.
Convoluted, not to the point, strange to the unitiated, and uses language like it is a random walk in the park rather than a shopping list.

Obviously a good person to drink beer with, so happy to meet you GFL.

(BTW 'Freewill' is an illusion that doesn't exist anywhere in reality. Consequently there is no such thing as 'make our own choices' as consciousness merely becomes aware of the decisions that our brain has already made before-hand on our behalf. Just thought I'd throw that in there.)
 

wiff

First Class Debutant
This guy needed to be slapped around a bit, I mean he was given an opportunity and fluffed it, but he needed to go back to work an put the hard yards in. The problem with gifted and talented people is they can be a bit lazy. There are many people in the ranks that just don't get the chance from non-selection, even though they are better than some of the people being selected. I hope I've insulted you or your "friend". I'll be a mile away and you don't have any shoes.
 

Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
(BTW 'Freewill' is an illusion that doesn't exist anywhere in reality. Consequently there is no such thing as 'make our own choices' as consciousness merely becomes aware of the decisions that our brain has already made before-hand on our behalf. Just thought I'd throw that in there.)
Funny how you refer to the brain as a separate entity to our selves.
 

GuyFromLancs

State Vice-Captain
Convoluted, not to the point, strange to the unitiated, and uses language like it is a random walk in the park rather than a shopping list.

Obviously a good person to drink beer with, so happy to meet you GFL.

(BTW 'Freewill' is an illusion that doesn't exist anywhere in reality. Consequently there is no such thing as 'make our own choices' as consciousness merely becomes aware of the decisions that our brain has already made before-hand on our behalf. Just thought I'd throw that in there.)
You're getting to know my MO.

Excellent!
 

GuyFromLancs

State Vice-Captain
Great post mate.. very apt reflection of just how difficult and harsh sports is at this level.
I have been thinking about this during the Olympics last year.. At least a professional cricketer who plays just 1 test match his entire career might end up with a decent record at first class level..but Olympic athletes..some of whom have dedicated their entire lives to compete at this level..and they get only one shot at it, and if they fail, that's it..its over.. You're finished. No one will ever remember you and you might find yourself flipping burgers at KFC.
Cheers!.

Like I mentioned earlier, I am of the opinion that cricket is especially uniquely cruel to people who should just not be there. And this fact is highlighted very well by Heath's thread on people who, for the most part, should never have found themselves in a test match.
 
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GuyFromLancs

State Vice-Captain
I don't get why every post he makes in CC now though has to be a Breaking Bad reference.
Well, now that you ask

About 2008, when Chris’s career was decidedly over, he found himself on the brink of destitution, and having being diagnosed with “early onset Parkinson’s” (thanks, Nufan), decides to betroth a legacy for his family doing the only thing he knows how … making illegal, non ICC endorsed cricket bats.

It is when he has made this decision that Pattinberg (as he is now known), teams up with an ex-student of his from the “cricketing all-rounders academy” (although at the time Jesse wasn’t much of a player had had not yet learned how to hold a bat or bowl overarm).

They manage to integrate their operation into a distribution network. An enthusiast and long-time distributer of underground cricket equipment, Gus, runs his covert operation using fried chicken restaurants scattered through the home-counties as a cover. And is able to supply Pattinberg and Jesse with a “Bat lab” so they can undertake their unlawful enterprise.
The operation is further complicated when Chris’s brother-in –Law, Frank, gets a job for the ICC launching crackdowns on non-endorsed cricketing paraphernalia.
 

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