Vintage Whine: The Opposition

Rob Key:

(Captaincy)
“Key is one of the unsung players of English cricket – an astute captain who can score big runs, high in the batting order. He might not have ‘the right background’ like an Andrew Strauss or the high profile of a Kevin Pietersen, but if England is ever looking for a replacement for Michael Vaughan, they could do a lot worse than Robert Key. In fact, they almost certainly will.“

(Showing the opposition around when Kent are playing at an out ground)
“…Rob was never going to steer us towards anything too high brow – I suspect the last art gallery he saw was when watching Vision On…“

“…he supplied us with all we needed to know for our stay: That The Junahki does the best Vindaloo in town. If you’re not used to scrumpy, it’s best to leave it alone. And most importantly of all; never, ever, visit Lamberhurst after dark. Wise words indeed…“

Shane Warne:

(passing on knowledge to the next generation of leggies)
“Adil told me later that he impressed upon him the three fundamental rules he’d learnt throughout his career:

1. The skill in having a variety of different deliveries is knowing when to use them.
2. You don’t need to spin the ball a long way, just make the batsmen believe it is.
3. If you consolidate all your individual mobile bills into a single unitemised invoice re-directed to your work address, you can avoid a lot of trouble.“

Mark Ramprakash:

(Dancing Ability)
“Of course the arrival of Surrey in this game, brings together crickets two champion dancers. Mark Ramprakash, a man whose toned physique seems ready made for the limber riggers of top flight dancing. And Darren Gough, who used to work on the roads“

Stuart Law:

(Englishness)
“It’s frightening to think that these days Law would probably struggle to get into an Australian third XI. I say Australian, but of course as we now know, Stuart is in fact as English as vegemite on toast and taking pot shots at roos from your back porch.“

Chris Read:

(After scoring 142 against Yorkshire)
“You remember Chris Read don’t you? Small fella. Face like a First World War Tommy. Top class gloveman but he can’t bat. We know he can’t bat because the England selectors keep telling us.

If only they’d been at this match. They’d have seen him not bat for over five hours and more than a hundred and forty runs. With sixteen deliveries nicked off the edge, all the way to the cover point and mid-wicket boundaries. And one more hitting his bat with such ferocity it rebounded all the way for six. Jammy so-and-so.“

Jimmy Ormond

(Fitness regime)
“Speaking of huffing and puffing, if this is Jimmy Ormond after hard pre-season training, then come mid-November his shirt labels must have more X’s than the cover of that Dutch film we confiscated off the academy lads last year. I’m surprised Surrey didn’t need Jerry Springer to lift him out of the dressing room with a crane.“

(Master bowler)
“(he) runs in with the athletic grace of a bulldozer dragging a skip.“

(Master fielder)
“including some (sixes) into the upper tier that required a team of fielders to go search them out. One of whom was an increasingly pissed off looking Jimmy Ormond, who clearly hadn’t planned on doing anything as strenuous as climbing stairs when he rolled into work this morning.“

Ottis Gibson

(Age)
“the guy’s old enough to remember when Graham Gooch didn’t have hair.“

Ryan ten Doeschate

(Missing link or C3PO, you decide)
“how we lost our entire middle order to Ryan ten Doeschate I’ll never know. His bowling action makes him look like a robot operated by a drunken chimpanzee.“

Graham Swann

(Sorry Ladies, just being honest)
“…the argos Adil Rashid…“

Dale Benkenstein

(Cricketers are cruel)
“I wonder if the other Durham players refer to Dale’s wife as “The bride of Benkenstein”? Cricketers can be so cruel.“

Michael Di Venuto and Graham Onions

(You may wish to skip over this one)
“…as sporting spectacles go, this match was a visual treat akin to seeing John McCririck perform a particularly exacting rhythmic gymnastic routine. With Michael Di Venuto and Graham Onions proving to be the two heavyweight buttocks putting intolerable pressure on the sweaty leotard crouch of Yorkshire’s championship ambitions.“
(I did warn you)

Chris Tremlett

(He could crush a grape)
“Tremlett has been given just about all the physical attributes a fast bowler could want, but marries them to the body language of someone who’d rather be nursing a kitten back to health.“

Sussex:

“without Yorkshire’s favourite pantomime villain at the helm, there’s no reason to dislike Sussex anymore. It was all such a waste of energy anyway – as pointless as declaring war on Luxembourg or having a violent hatred of Dundee cake.“

Surrey:

(Surrey are crap)
“Surrey’s second innings showed all the resistance of Imelda Marcos in a branch of Clarks.“

“Surrey are in for a long hard season. Because in this game they were very ‘disappointing’. ‘Disappointing’ in the same way that the millennium dome ‘cost a few bob too much’, and Napoleon’s 1812 Russian campaign ‘didn’t pan out as expected’.“

Domonic Cork:

(Crowd favourite)
“Lancashire’s Peter Pan: Endlessly enthusiastic, eternally young, and secretly you hope he gets eaten by a crocodile“

Sussex till he dies (or a better offer comes along) Chris Adams

(After the ‘Almost a Yorkshireman’ saga)
“…events descended into farce, as Yorkshire pushed staff aside to create a vacancy large enough to accommodate Chris Adams’ ego. Only for him to prove at the last minute that he possessed the kind of indecisiveness and unreliability that should preclude him from the positions of responsibility he mistakenly believes to be within his capabilities.“

(Has probably never read this book)
“I managed to polish off the first part of Crime and Punishment before Joe Sayers got into double figures during the last game. Interesting book that, about a morally ambiguous character with delusions of grandeur.

On a totally different subject, I see Chris Adams is back in town.“

(On Chris Adams capturing the County Championship)
“Possibly the greatest coming together of evil since Sting learnt to play the lute.“

(On his move to Surrey)
“The Death Star has found its Darth Vader.

So God bless you, Chris Adams. It’s coming up to Christmas and you’ve given Yorkshiremen everywhere the gift they were hoping for – another reason to hate Surrey.“