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…

Administrator PAK vs NZ, UAE abdul razzaq, Abu Dhabi, Blogs.CMDN.com, Brendon McCullum, Chris Gayle, Craig Cumming, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Geoff Boycott, Neil Broom, New Zealand, Pakistan, Shahid Afridi, Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Sky, Tony Greig, UAE

As fate would have it, on the day Ireland announced they would formally apply to the ICC for full-member status, New Zealand gave them every reason to feel confident. They couldn’t do any worse, could they?

You can almost see the Irish delegation compiling a DVD nasty of New Zealand’s 138-run rout at the hands of Pakistan in the Abu Dhabi desert as evidence for inclusion.

It was Ireland, after all, who sent the Pakistanis packing from the 2007 World Cup.

New Zealand’s loss yesterday has little relevance in the grand scheme of things - just another one-day international in a crowded calendar - but it has rubbed out much of the goodwill accrued from their run to the final of the Champions Trophy in South Africa last month.

Fingers have predictably pointed in the direction of the coach, or lack thereof. New Zealand comfortably accounted for the same opposition one month ago with Andy Moles at the helm, although that argument conveniently ignores the fact that Vettori was effectively running the cutter at that point, Moles having lost the confidence of the dressing room.

In fact, the whole dressing room strife as a hurdle to success argument was kneecapped by Shahid Afridi, the Pakistan allrounder who put the shake into Sheikh Zayed Stadium.

This is the same Afridi who had recently dominated headlines in Pakistan because of his supposed rift with captain Younis Khan over (if you believe the desert telegraph) his desire to be one-day captain.

Yesterday he smote 70 from 50 deliveries, then came within an inch of a hat-trick when befuddling New Zealand’s lower middle order. All that controversy must have really played havoc with his “head space”.

No, the coaching debacle is too convenient a scapegoat. The real reason for the calamitous performance was that when the blowtorch was applied NZ’s batsmen again melted Read more…

Administrator PAK vs NZ Aaron Redmond, Abu Dhabi, Andy Moles, Brendon McCullum, Champions Trophy, ICC, Jesse Ryder, Mohammad Aamer, New Zealand, Pakistan, Saeed Ajmal, Shahid Afridi, Sheikh Zayed Stadium, South Africa, Twenty20, Umar Gul, Younis Khan