GOOD

Geoff Boycott’s commentary: The man with one of the best nicknames going around - GLY - was on fire during the second one-dayer in Abu Dhabi. Tony Greig reported back to Boycs that he had been doing some research into the one-day career of Son of Rodney, and Redmond’s average and strike rate were commensurate with that of Boycott. A slight pause then an outraged Boycott retorted: “I’m a better blinking player than ‘im.” Greig took that on the chin and replied: “That’s what I wanted you to say.” To which Boycott ended the conversation: “Well you’re dead right too.” Wonderful stuff from the obstinate barnacle known as the Greatest Living Yorkshireman.

The Pakistani fans’ penchant for dressing up: They don’t have many fancy dress shops in Abu Dhabi (unlike Headingley and Wellington, for example) so the fans are like the Macgyvers of dress-up: they just make do with whatever they can find. Cardboard, scissors, coloured pens, sheets, office paper, stuffed toys and they are away.

Half-time entertainment: Both the at-game entertainment, and the Sky coverage were spot on. At the game, punters were treated to a kids’ cricket match. Perfect - all the marketing bollocks in the world can’t hide the fact that people at a cricket game like seeing cricket played. Little kids running each other out, dropping catches, bursting into tears, and smashing the ball to all parts of the oval is a sure-fire recipe for success. Meanwhile, back in the lounge, it was The Crowd Goes Wild or as we call it The Mull Show. Sometimes, Sky does some weird things here and puts on drag racing, plane flying, waterskiing or some other non-sport drivel that doesn’t even have a ball involved. TCGW is a much more appropriate and less sleep-inducing option.

Brendon McCullum: His mighty 131 from 129 balls was a brilliant innings, reminiscent of the Nathan Astle method of compiling a one-day hundred. Ends a sequence of scores of 1, 18, 26, 41, 0, 43, 36, 33, 2, 0, 71, 77, 2, 14, 3, 44, 46, 48, 17, 0 and 21 so far this year. I don’t subscribe to the view of Craig Cumming that eight failures is OK if he wins us one or two games out Read more…

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