Tim Blair

Mark Waugh owes Warnie fifty bucks!

To put this in context for US readers, this is about as probable as Chirac apologising to the US or something...

I never seen the big fella so happy.

What if he matches Harold Larwood and makes 98!?

Watched this eagerly until Channel Nein pulled the plug - at least they didn't dump it for "The Price Is Right" this time. You could see the blood drain from the Kiwis' faces during this partnership.

Hoo Hah!

Wooza

I think Junior owes Warney 5 large. As I understand it, it was for a grand AT 5 to 1.

I hope the Pidgeon gets a cut.

It was the best last hour I've seen however ch9 want fucking for cutting it short, they should have shortened the news particularly as they wasted a couple of minutes on the village idiot Mulhearn.

I couldn't give a flying fuck that shes off to Iraq and its got me fucked how it is newsworthy. I wanted to see the great man carving up the hapless Kiwis.

Blair you bastard. I've just woken up after watching the first hour of the Test before I went to bed and am now waiting until 2 pm to watch the very good three-hour highlights package on Sky Sports, and have been assiduously avoiding the sports news (and sporty blogs like After Grog Blogs) so I don't hear any mention of the current score.

(But perhaps this is all just wind-up. McGrath getting a 50? Tell him he's dreamin').

I do believe that Glenn McGrath has about 90 big white teeth in his head.

I'd need Hawkeye to confirm that though.

Great effort, and it wasn't a "slog and hope" innings either, there were some exceptionally well played shots.

ref: "Tell him he's dreamin'"

"This is going straight to the pool room"

So he really did it. And he's in the batting history books for the record tenth wicket partnership against NZ! The Pigeon can die happy now.

I'm sorry, forgive me for having to ask this, but... why is this big news? Is Glenn McGrath the Best Player Never To Have Gone For 50? A long-lasting player, about to retire, and this just puts a topper on the career? A important match against a long-hated rival?

Us Northies need to know!

Laugh it up while you can Aussies! Lets see if McGrath can repeat this in his second innings because he will need to.

The way he's going Kerry we wont need a second innings

You know, I'd probably really excited if I had even the slightest clue What-The-Hell you were talking about. Next time, try using English.

;->=

JorgXMcKie - I know, it's like some sort of elaborate code. Didn't they used to do that in WWII - broadcast seemingly random sentences which actually had some military/spy-related meaning? Maybe "52 not out off 63 balls, five fours, one six" actually means "52 of 63 terrorist corpses in local mosque are trip-wired, do not approach, fire at will."

Wonderduck, here's the explanation: in cricket, unlike baseball, you can't have one team of pitchers and another team of batters. You have 11 men on your team, and that's all you have, no substitutions allowed (except to field, but that's another story). So you include some players who are very good at batting and not much good at bowling (~= pitching), and some who are very good at bowling but not much good at batting, as well as some who are good at both (but usually not spectacular at either). You send out your good batsmen to score the runs you need, and when they're all gone you start send out the bowlers, in decreasing order of batting skill. The guy who bats at #11, meaning that you don't send him out to bat until there's literally nobody else available, is the guy who you hope will at least survive for a little while, and if he actually scores a few runs then you're happy for him. These players are known as 'tail enders', or 'bunnies'.

McGrath bats at #11; for him to make 64 runs is practically unheard of, which is why it's such a big deal.

Aha! Kinda like a "good glove, no bat" shortstop hitting three home runs and stealing a couple of bases to boot. Miracles do occur!

Very cool indeed, then. Thanks, Zev Sero, much appreciated!

Wonderduck,

Weird, ain't it?

Years ago I dated a wonderful woman from Adelaide.

She hated cricket, but her brother and father were fanatics.

I tried, I really tried, to understand cricket by listening to the BBC reports, reading about it on-line, and even read some cricket fan-mags.

What I learned is that even if you get to understand the lingo and how cricket is played, there is no way to appreciate the game unless you grow up with it, watch it, live it.

Cricket is a cult. Cricket is History. Cricket it Life. Cricket is a total Mystery.

Sigh.

"Earlier, their mouths had dropped open with disbelief when McGrath leaned down on one knee and cleanly whacked the best left-arm spinner in the world, Daniel Vettori, for six over mid-wicket."

To those of us in Dumbfuckistan, this kind of activity is best left behind closed doors among consenting adults.

If you're hitting three home runs, when are you going to be on base to steal, much less twice?

Vexorg - maybe it's one of those games where one team blows it wide open and everyone ends up with six at-bats for the day.

I understand Rollerball better than I understand cricket.

Attn Wonderduck et al...

To put Glen Mcgrath's innings into contect you need to look at what he has done so far.

In 115 innings (completed at-bats if you like) he had scored 477 runs, so to score a 61 means that he has added more than 12% to his run totals in one dig. That by any measurement is very impressive.

By comparing that to a recognised batsman, I guess it seems pretty lame, but he most definitely not one of those. Having said that, he has spent a long time in the practice nets, so this achievements surely rates up there for someone playing out of their skin.