The third coming of Mitchell Johnson: a new beginning or a false dawn?

January 2, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , Leave a comment

I have been one of the many critics of the selection of Mitchell Johnson in the Australian cricket team this summer. The “Toughsticker Turncoat” I have called him on twitter and it would be fair to say I have not had a positive word to say about him.

Johnson’s selection to bat at number 7 in the coming test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground has given me a moment of pause and caused me to reflect on whether the return of Johnson to test match cricket and his installation as a bowling all rounder into the Australian team is really the new beginning for him (and Australian cricket) it seems to be.

Let’s start with the statistics: 49 test matches, nearly 1500 runs at an average of 22.77 and 202 wickets at an average of 30.63 does not make for bad reading although any cricket fan will tell you that the great all rounders have batting averages higher than their bowling averages.

In the two tests he has played this summer he has taken 12 wickets at an average of around 20 and has scored 102 runs at an average of 51 (92 not out at the MCG in the last test obviously assists that average).

Those statistics considered: why do we (or I) malign him so? Are we (or I) punishing him unduly for the very obvious poor performances in his career to date where he has shouldered the burden of leading the Australian attack and failed? I think the the answer to this last question is that fans do remember those poor performances and, for some, they are performances that will never leave the memory because they were so disappointing.

Is it more than that though? Tracing Johnson’s career through statistics and match reports is just not enough to get a whole picture of the player that he is. I watch a lot of live cricket and have watched a lot of Johnson playing the game. Part of what has bothered me since the disaster of the 2009 Ashes and the performances from Johnson that have followed are two things. Firstly, the body language of Johnson when things go bad on the field is often suggests a mix of indifference and of not having any answers. Secondly, one of the few things about the performances of Johnson has been the consistency in his inconsistency. All too often a grand performance (Perth 2010 comes to mind) is followed by a series of mediocre performances.

Now the Australian cricket team faces a year of 10 test matches against a presently cockahoop English team as well as a tough tour of India. Once again off the back of one excellent performance Johnson seems to be in the frame to tour with the Australian team to England and elsewhere and is touted as the cure to the team’s all rounder ills. I, for one, am worried about when the bubble of Johnson’s performances will burst and whether Australian fans will again be subjected to performances like the Ashes in 2009 and the first Ashes test at the Gabba in 2010.

The other concern I have about the selection of Johnson in the long term is the road block it creates not only for Mitchell Starc, the excellent young left arm swing bowler from New South Wales, but also the other bowling all rounders who might be knocking on the door. Ben Cutting, James Faulkner and Nathan Coulter-Nile all are performing in red ball cricket in Australia this summer and all could be seen to comfortably fit into a role batting at number 7 or 8 for Australia whilst bowling 20 overs of pace an innings.

When all is said and done I remain firmly in the camp that questions Johnson’s ongoing selection for the Australian team albeit I am able to concede that on the numbers alone his spot in the team probably makes sense. My feet sit in the “non-selection” camp now more because of the possible impact his selection may have on the next bowling all rounder to come through the ranks or, for that matter, Mitchell Starc coupled with my fear that the bursting of his performance bubble, based on the recent past, is closer than many may expect.

For Australian cricket’s sake I hope one of two things happens: either this genuinely is a second coming for Mitchell Johnson and he serves me up a big piece of humble pie with excellent and sustained performances or Johnson is jettisoned and one of the young future stars I mention above is given a shot to make the position of bowling all rounder there own.

I, like all Australian fans, want the best Australian cricket team to take the field every time it plays and, probably more importantly, to win back the Ashes this year. I am unsure whether the benefits that Johnson brings to the team are outweighed by the prospect that a couple of bad performance by him could be a deciding factor in the urn staying at Lords. I will be watching with interest as events unfold at the Sydney Cricket Ground tomorrow.

And retailers wonder why more people are shopping online everyday?

January 2, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , Leave a comment

I have been ranting a bit this afternoon on my twitter feed (@shumpty77) about some poor customer service I have received today.

For those who missed it: I tried to buy a camera in JB Hi-Fi at Mt Ommaney and was ignored by sales staff despite me standing just 3 metres away from a staff member who felt his time was better spent talking to an older gentleman who said on at least three occasions that he was just waiting for his wife to buy something. I then went to the Nike Outlet store at the DFO in Jindalee and, having tried on shoes that I had found myself and been satisfied that I would buy them could not get any staff member to serve me and tell me about a deal they had running. Ironically, the sign spruiking said deal asked shoppers to “ask our sales staff for more details”.

In both situations I describe I was not in a busy store and I knew what I wanted and was ready to buy (indeed in the case of the camera I have undertaken at least 6 weeks of online research). In the Nike store the same staff member walked past me holding my shoes on four occasions and despite me waving at him twice he ignored me. At JB Hi-Fi there were at least nine staff working but none would deign to help me.

Now at this point some of you will be saying: why didn’t you go up to one of them and ask for help. I immediately concede that that is something I could have done and if the products I was buying were essential rather than discretionary I would have. However, last time I checked I was, in both situations, the customer and the service staff in both establishments were employed to serve me as a customer.

With all of this going on this afternoon I kept thinking to myself: how can retailers in this country continue to run the “woe is us” line they trot out seemingly on a monthly basis that the internet is killing their businesses when they do not employ people who are capable of or inclined to actually serve customers? I was ready to spend $250 on a camera (a cheapie but a supplement to my good camera) and $200 on the Nike deal I had seen advertised and neither store ended up getting the benefit of my trade and nor will they in the future. I wonder how many other sales they lost out on today or lose out in a week because of bad customer service?

I also had reverberating through my mind a question that I have posed in an earlier blog: would I have received the same service if the staff at both establishments were on commission only rather than an hourly rate? I am more than a bit certain that I would have been served virtually immediately as I must have been fairly obviously a motivated buyer (I had the shoes in a the box in my hand for 10 minutes before I put them down and left the store). Maybe that is the answer for Gerry Harvey and his cohorts who bemoan the online trade: make your service staff earn their wage!

I have, in the hour that I have been home, purchased the camera online at an alternate store to JB Hi-Fi for a cheaper price and have reconsidered my purchase of another pair of training shoes. I can’t say that I will never go into a JB Hi-Fi store again (I have a $50 voucher from Christmas to use up) nor that I will not buy another pair of Nike shoes again however I concede that after today I think I will be much more likely to shop online than hit the shops.

Operation100.com

January 1, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , 2 Comments

Just a short note to let you know I have kicked off a new blog to chart my progress on my quest to lose 28.3 kilograms and get my weight down to 100 kilograms.

The website is operation100.com and I would be delighted if you would take a moment to have a look at it over the coming months.

I am also committed to this blog and have decided that starting tomorrow I will be posting on this blog on, as a minimum, a weekly basis with the prospect of more posts during particular periods.

As always, thank you for honouring me with your readership and I would be delighted with any feedback you might have about this blog or operation100.com.

Cheers,
Stephen

The selection of fast bowlers in Australia: time to sack the selectors or should we be looking further afield?

December 24, 2012 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

20121114-140015.jpgHere are some quotes from John Inverarity the Chairman of selectors of the Australian cricket team with respect to Mitchell Starc:

With Mitchell Starc the reality is he will not be able to do Melbourne and Sydney coming off two recent Tests, being 22 years old and bowling as much as he has in the previous two Tests.

Its bowling loads.  The science behind it is they’ve got to build up their bowling loads so the oscillations (variations) are not very significant. If they do become significant, as they have for Mitchell, you enter a danger period, a high-risk period.

So on the basis of the foregoing, Mitchell Starc has been ruled out of playing in the Boxing Day test match some 9 days after bowling his team to victory in Hobart.  He has every right to feel very very harshly done by.

The fact of the matter is the way Cricket Australia is managing the workload of its bowlers is simply not working.  Listen to former players (blowhards or not) and they are all saying “they should be bowling more: in games and in the nets”.  Why then are Pat Howard and John Inverarity not listening? Has the review of cricket undertaken since the 2009/10 Ashes debacle so blinded the powers that be in Australian cricket that they are too scared to return to “the old ways”? Is this slavish devotion to sports science the result of a non-cricket person being at the helm?

Let me be clear here: I have no doubt whatsoever that Messrs Howard and Inverarity have the best interests of the players at heart whilst also wanting to put the best team on the field.  However, by “managing” players on the one hand they are failing to reach the goal of playing the best team on the other.

That said, is the current injury “crisis” among the fast bowlers in this country really the fault of the selectors, the sports boffins and Pat Howard? The answer to this question is where one needs to forget the sports science for a minute and actually consider what players of the past are saying.

The former players are consistent in their criticism of the current way fast bowlers are managed and advocate for more bowling rather than less.  This argument is oft expanded to encompass both bowling in first class games and in the nets.  If it is that simple, why then are Australia’s fast bowlers not bowling as much as they should? The answer is equally as simple: in the chase for more dollars and part of the commercialisation of the game the bulk of Australia’s fast bowling stocks have prepared for this coming summer with an international T20 tournament, followed by the IPL Champions series and then one (at most for most) first class game.  How can they be getting enough overs in preparation for a season when they are spell limited to four overs a game every second day?

This is where the science comes back into play and, in my view, Cricket Australia needs to have a long hard look at itself.  Inverarity’s argument is that they wish to avoid too much variance (oscillation) in the workloads of our fast bowlers.  Of course there is going to be a variance when one week the fast bowlers are asked to bowl a four over spell and the next they are asked to bowl 30 overs in a day.

The very playing schedule approved by Cricket Australia is, in fact, causing there to be variances in work load which are seeing our fast bowlers rested for fear of injury.

I know it is a changed world since the days of the great Fred Trueman but I think Cricket Australia would be well advised to consider his approach to preparing for a season ahead.  Dickie Bird in his book “My Autobiography” describes how Trueman would start his season preparations in the nets by bowling off one step two months before the season started and he then built up his bowling strength so that by the time the season started two months later he was bowling in the nets at full pace and ready to go.  Correct me if I am wrong but Trueman was rarely injured, rarely rested and played significantly more days of cricket in a summer than players are asked to play now.

It is at this juncture that the new age thinkers and slaves to science will posit that I am living the past and that the game is different these days.  To those saying that I pose this question: are the positions of Cricket Australia (the avoidance of variances) and those of past players (bowling more in red ball cricket and in the nets) really that far apart?  I think they are closer than they seem and indeed am of the view that if Mitchell Starc had have played in all of the domestic 4 day games this summer in Australia in advance of the test series instead of bowling a white ball he would be in playing at the MGC.  Why? Because his workload, if he had have done, would have been consistent rather than a hodgepodge of short spells, long flights and limited red ball cricket.

Until the schedule is balanced (and goodness knows that seems to be getting more unlikely every day), the dreams of playing in a Boxing Day test match of young men like Mitchell Starc will continue to be dashed.  That, of itself, is a tragedy.

I am a balding man: I am here, it is falling out … get used it!

December 24, 2012 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , , 1 Comment

Kids always seem to say what others avoid or uncomfortable about in my experience and the kids in my life are no exceptions.  Looking at some photos from the past with my nephews a while ago, it did not take long for one of them to quip “did you have hair uncle Steve?”.

Let me be clear here: yes I once had a full head of luxurious hair (often styled in the glorious combination of flat top / mullet) and yes I am loosing my hair at Usian Boltesque speeds.  But here is the thing: I love being a balding man!

It is a funny thing to say because going bald is an “affliction” that seems to raise more comments than most from people.  I have heard all of the jokes before and indeed love nothing more than being self-depricating about the emerging barren skin on the top of my head.  Additionally I have been asked I reckon, conservatively, close to 500 hundred times by family, friends and colleagues as to whether I had considered heading to Ashley Martin or some such establishment.

Having again fallen into a discussion about getting an “advanced hair hat” yesterday, I had pause to think about why I was so virulently against such a proposition and why, indeed, I was so embracing of my impending baldness.  Setting aside the fact that one could see my baldness approaching like the advance of the Light Brigade in the future when one looks at my uncle “Chipsy” who has been bald or balding since he was 21, the fact is there are significant advantages to male pattern baldness that make embracing its war on my fast fading follicles all the more easy.

Off the top of my head (poor pun intended) here are some of the advantages of being a balding man in today’s society:

1. Saving money

When you are balding / bald there is an immediate impact on one’s hip pocket from all manner of sources.  For example, the formerly monthly visit to the barber or hairdresser for a “style cut” is no longer necessary as is the need for, if you are so inclined, an investment in all manner of hair products.  Why? Because you have no hair in the first place and the only haircut you need you can do your self in the comfort of your own home having purchased a set of clippers.  This concept extends even as far at the most mundane of things: shampoo. If you have no hair, shampoo does nothing extra that running a bar of soap over your head will not achieve so why bother with the extra expense.

2. Time savings

To state the obvious, some men spend an awfully long time getting ready for work in the morning.  My only reference points here are 12 months spent sharing a house with one bathroom with two other guys and the obvious fact that some of my staff, past and present, arrive at work so immaculately coifed that they look fresh from the salon.  Think about how much of your morning ablutions are taken up with washing, combing and styling your hair.  I have none of those problems and, indeed, save time every morning by having nature completely cut out the whole process of getting my hair ready for another arduous day behind my desk.

3. Hats, hats and more hats

The fact is that I love wearing a hat and, indeed, wore the same hat for a whole semester of university partly on a dare and partly just to irritate my mother.  Now, I have a more than valid reason to wear a hat at every opportunity.  Simply if I don’t wear a hat I will get a burnt head which: a. hurts like hell and b. has the obvious risks of cancer than run with exposure to UV rays.  I have seen enough of my father’s and grandfather’s mates who have had melanomas removed to not need any convincing that wearing a hat constantly is not a bad thing.  Here is the thing though: I love wearing hats anyway and have a collection that traverses beanies, trilbies, flat caps, akubras, baseball hats and my old Ipswich Cricket Association baggy bottle green.

Point out a man to me who proclaims that he does not like wearing a hat and I will declare him a liar.

4. Baldness and Beards go hand in hand

Have you ever noticed the high quotient of balding men who also have a beard? I am one and I reckon that if someone ever did a mathematical study on this topic they would find that balding men with beards far outweigh those with a full head of hair with a beard.  The rationale for this is obvious: we can not grow hair on our heads so we will do so on our faces instead!  There may be another rationale to this too that is related to the second advantage I posit above.  If you are, as I am, enamoured with the time savings gained from not having hair on top of my head anymore you might also find yourself leaving the shaving part of your morning routine out.  Again, gentlemen think of the time savings!

All things considered then things are starting to look up for the balding man.  So why then the stigma of baldness that I noted above? Deep down I think those of you with more full heads of hair than the balding man are just jealous of the simpleness of the balding man’s life.  I mean why else would there be a whole sub-group of balding men, the “faux bald”, who go out of their way to style themselves as being without hair?

thebaldyman

 

With that thought, I leave  you with a vote of thanks to my Uncle and indeed the whole male line of my mothers family: genetically I could not have done it without you!

A morning of golf: the good, the bad, the ugly

December 23, 2012 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , Leave a comment

Followers of my twitter feed (@shumpty77) will be aware of my plan to play golf every morning over my holiday break both from the perspective of improving my fitness and to improve my short game.

This morning was my first round on my proposed two week golf odyssey so at 5:30am I stepped onto the first hole of Victoria Park Golf Course. 79 off the stick my score card read by the end of my round but as is always the case there were good parts of my round mixed with bad parts and some down right ugly moments.

First the good: have I mentioned that I love golf? It has all of the elements of an outing that appeals to me and this morning was nothing different: the sun was shinning, the birds were chirping and my swing was smooth.  My best hole of the day was the short par 4 12th hole.  A 3 wood down the middle, chip with my 60 degree wedge and one putt and a birdie was mine.  It is holes like those that keep hacks like me coming back to the game most weekends.

Also good this morning was a renewed appreciation for the set up at Victoria Park.  For readers that do not know it, Victoria Park is 3 kilometres away from the centre of Brisbane and has, obviously, very limited space.  To counter balance this the course designer has used the many hills and valleys around the course to make holes much longer than their yardage.  The 289 metre par 4 13th is a great example of this: it is straight up hill and I needed every bit of my driver to get within 60 metres of the hole for my second which was a blind shot to a smallish green.  If I had to be critical the closing 4 holes are all short par 3s which left me a little bit flat so play the front 9 if you have the option.

Now for the bad: setting aside the foibles of a golf course that finishes with 4 Par 3s and the fact that I had at least four 3 putts (which are always bad) the main bad part of my game today was the lack of courtesy shown by other golfers on the course.  This started on the first hole as I was putting when the second shot of a player behind me whizzed past my left ankle and continued with three near misses from nearby fairways during my round without the usual call of “four”.  I love golf but this lack of courtesy is more than an irritation: it is down right dangerous.  To be clear: I am 6ft 4in, 120kgs and was in clear site of the hitter of the ball: they had to have seen me and simply deign it necessary to warm me of the incoming danger.

Finally the ugly: I concede that point that Victoria Park is a public golf course without members and I concede that I have been spoilt with some of the course I have played on in the past.  That said, seeing a group of six run around the course in their golf carts trying to play “dodgem cars” and generally being unruly at 6am in the morning is not my idea of fun and certainly put more than just me out.  I know I might sound like the Christmas grinch with this but for me to play more regularly (aside from the next two weeks) at Victoria Park they will need to improve on stuff like this.  Having four guys in the pro shop and no one monitoring the course is a farce and it will push golfers away whilst encouraging the hooligan set. I did note when I saw them that they were trying to emulate Ricky Fowler with their flat brimmed hats (assuming they know who Ricky Fowler is) and that should have been enough of an indication of the douchbaggery that was going to follow.

But for all of the bad and the ugly, I still enjoyed my morning and now as I sit here watching one of my favourite TV shows “the Newsroom” and I am already getting ready to hit the course again tomorrow.  That is the fun thing about golf: there is always tomorrow, there is always a golf club open and there is always the prospect of a birdie or two to get the hacks like me back again for another round!