Robots or Ghostbusters? DRS vs. Umpire Billy Bowden

In the aftermath of the test match between England and India at Lords, the issue of technology in sport has flared up again. People on punditry sofas are tickling their gullets for reflex utterances such as: ‘if it’s there, why not make use of it?’ and sentences starting with: ‘in this day and age.’ The entire Sky commentary team can indulge their obsession with ‘eliminating the howler’. The galloping science of Snicko, Hotspot, Hawkeye and now Roughpatch* (the 5-day pitch wear analyser) has reduced an umpire’s role to that of a fabled druid astrologer divining secrets from entrails, whilst the rest of us idly tap away at our iPhones.

*so state-of-the-art that people are patenting the name; this is my application.

Andy Flower, the only coach who could compete with Shaun Edwards in an ‘Owner Who Most Looks Like Their Bulldog’ competition, has fanned the flames by branding the situation ‘unsatisfactory’, and caused a downright stir when insisting we don’t ‘quibble over millimetres’. But this is all pedantry/pedantics – what’s the difference? Would you rather a human or a machine gets it all wrong and ruins your day? With the former, at least there is a barroom talking-point or a chance to whinge and blame your failings on others. If we are trying to remove human error from cricket altogether, why not fire a bowling machine against a wall (not Rahul Dravid, just bricks and mortar)?

Despite England and India agreeing in advance not to use the Decision Review System for LBWs, Stuart Broad looked as if he was unable to cope without it. His wide-eyed incredulity at a poor decision gave him the impression of a sulky, flush-faced child reeling from the cold reality of mummy not buying ice-creams, but rather going to the post office instead.

Now that umpires have returned to the fray they are no longer merely glorified stock-exchange signallers dressed as butchers. Umpire Bowden doesn’t have to rely on his gimmicky range of flouncing signals, but can actually turn down a plum LBW simply because he doesn’t like the over-confident appeal (when will bowlers learn that umpires don’t equate a man running past the batsman with his arms in an aeroplane shape as a valid enquiry of ‘Howzat?’).

Bowden’s stoic expression at the wicket is sober and a little dewy-eyed, making him look like a forlorn Bill Murray in Groundhog Day coming to terms with an eternal and monotonous suffering. However, when he bursts into sudden movements, he is more like Dr Venkman in Ghostbusters trying to maintain control of his proton pack. A four is greeted by a great arc of the arm sweeping across his body as the back leg slides out, like his alter-ego’s character in Kingpin, with his fingers stuck in the ball, trying to shake it loose. Then there is the crooked finger of doom when giving a batsman out, supposedly down to arthritic joint-ache, though Bowden has left himself open to DRS, declaring this ‘50/50 reality/show’. Martin Crowe’s ruthless one-phrase film review likens him to Bozo the Clown.

But have pity on the lonely life of the umpire. For this weird and wonderful band of brothers are now paraded under the Star Wars moniker of ‘The Panel of Elite Umpires’. They may be sponsored by Emirates, but they are little more than travelling circus acts gaining free air miles. In times gone by, there have been a variety of acts up in lights: the painted ladies of sunblock - Umpire Buknor and Umpire Taufel; the bearded midget - Umpire Willey; Umpire Billy Doctrove, who could be mistaken for a New Orleans boogie woogie pianist; the longest ever name abbreviation to ‘Venkat’; the interval confectionary, Umpire Tiffin; the man whose name equates exactly to his appearance: Umpire Shepherd; the fire-eating blazing effigy of Umpire Hair. And the circus is never even in their home town, the poor things.

Cigar Swirls and Manly Curls: Miguel Angel Jimenez

Darren Clarke strolls serenely into the stuffy, sepia sunset of golfing history, contentedly puffing on a panatela. It is another ambler and cloud-creator who is more watchable, quite unique and un poco loco: Miguel Angel Jimenez. Even his name has a wonderful, lilting cadence; his motions are part of a greater circadian rhythm that pulses away to gentle ripples of applause, soft whooshes of club heads and the cream liqueur tones of Peter Alliss.

Visually, he looks like some Spaghetti-Western extra patrolling a craggy border region on horseback; perhaps an honourable Andalucian mounty or cheeky Mexican mercenary. He parades proudly around the green, plump as a pigeon, white-glove in hand, ready to slap the face of some wag failing to observe golf etiquette. His wavy hair, when unleashed, lends the appearance of Marco Pierre White in pimp’s clothing.

Darren Clarke’s reported annual spend on cigars is £25,000, making Jimenez’s estimated outlay the equivalent of smoking rolled Damien Hirst sketches. You cannot imagine Clarke and Jimenez being forced out of a non-smoking clubhouse into the teeth a wild coastal squall to huddle amongst a wispy bonfire of struck matches. No, instead these middle-aged Machiavellian men are serial drawing room recliners, arms outstretched on high-backed, studded leather, with chino-trousered legs akimbo, regaling tales of eagles, as if Aesop, or of albatrosses, as if Ancient Mariners.

However, in their company, after the fifth scotch and fifteenth Havana, one might find one’s eye a-glazing, the watercolour depictions of 18^th century golf (top-hatted caricatures of men with moustaches, sticks and dogs) blurring, clubhouse fire crackling, heartbeat slowing and, suddenly, the reprise of a familiar hypnotic mantra: Peter Alliss stating: 'You are feeling very sleepy'.

Cuddles and tempers: Cadel Evans

So, who to root for now that Bradley Wiggins has sadly crashed out of the Tour de France? Why, Cadel Evans of course. A psychologist might describe the Australian as a ‘fascinating blend of personalities’, whilst calmly chalking something down on a clipboard and pressing a buzzer to summon colleagues in white coats.

Evans’ face looks like a Jedi combination of Luke Skywalker and Yoda, with bulging, amphibious eyes and an enormous dimpled chin. You could imagine him to be a sketched character in some Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone futuristic-fantasy book; perhaps a crowned frog prince sitting on a toadstool offering you a magic potion. Possibly benign, but quite probably of wicked intent; if you offend him, he will somersault from his zen, cross-legged position and suddenly challenge you with published attributes of: Skill; 6, Stamina; 18, Luck; 2.

Before he opens his mouth, you’d be forgiven for expecting Evans to talk gruffly like Matthew Hayden, starting each sentence with a confrontational, chest-puffing ‘Look, mate…’ But Evans is curiously vulnerable with an effete and gentle voice that is cultured and continental, enriching his sentences with French-isms like pavé and flamme rouge whilst name-dropping mysterious ski-stations such as Super-Besse and Hautacam.

Evans declared himself physically unsuitable for all other Australian sports as a youngster, being a mere whipper-snapper, but this little mongrel can certainly bare his teeth. Particularly when his lapdog, Molly, is threatened.  Evans’ tiny pooch was inexplicably touring around France with him during the 2008 race, and the pair were safely on their way for cuddles and Steak Tartare in a tour caravan. Then a clod-hopping journalist got too close and Evans issued the immortal statement : ‘Step on my dog and I’lI cut your head off.’

His fellow countrymen may explain this away with the line that he is ‘not shy in coming forward’, as if he was a Cronulla scrum half, but Evans’ tantrums are more endearing and more dimensional. He may be capable of throwing water-bottles, cycling helmets and punches, but there is a slapped-glove nobility about his actions, a Marquis of Queensbury coda to his violence and a Barbara Cartland canine-under-arm flounciness to his hissy-fits.

If you are still not buying into the Evans mystique, there are two more facts that may sway you:

1. Evans lives in Switzerland, married to an Italian concert pianist, evoking the Alpine scenes of The Spy Who Loved Me. You could also picture him patrolling his villa, sipping a glass of Sangiovese to the searing strains of Vivaldi.

2. His great-grandfather is Welsh.

Sold.

Love is a Rollercoaster: The Warne-Hurley Gag Reflex

Think of two celebrities at random, one male, one female - preferably of different nationalities. Say, Gwen Stefani and Tom from The Apprentice. Now imagine them dating. Do the same with 2 work colleagues: Facilities Manager, Karl and Sandra from Accounts. Automatically intone in a Sex in the City voice, ‘Eeeoouuuuwww’. Finally, picture two completely different species of wild animal and imagine a secret savannah liaison: let’s choose a giraffe and a gibbon. Rather than generating some kind of disgust or loathing, the images simply fail to penetrate the mind, instead bouncing harmlessly off the cranium. The same effect is achieved when talking about the Shane Warne and Elizabeth Hurley relationship, or even when being Tweeted by the couple in person.

For Shane and Liz are serial Twits: they even Tweet about cereal. Followers are privy to type-script conversations between the two over a virtual breakfast table: ‘Fruit and cereal?’ Shane asks, from the other side of the world. ‘Just fruit’, Liz replies, effortlessly managing what no professional cricket coach could, in getting Warne to circumvent a bacon rasher. Belatedly, he talks of ‘target weights’, going from paunch to gaunt after his career has ended, sort of like a reverse-Ricky Hatton. Gone is the sightscreen-sized face of MacDonalds chomping on a 7-foot long chicken burger. In its place is a lean, youthful and suspiciously cling-filmed appearance. 

A Hurley-enforced diet explains why Shane is now constantly referring to food whilst in the Sky commentary box. At times he seems to be reeling off a fantasy grocery list in his Aussie twang: ‘Gaarlic naan’, ‘keeebabs’ and mysterious Mexican food called ‘nah-chose’ and ‘far-heed-ahs’, provoked merely by the sight of spectators wearing sombreros. Let us pray that Shane doesn’t join the Test Match Special team of pundits receiving their regular mailshot of homemade Black Forest Gateaux from Radio Four home economics.

Warne has put his ‘Fountain of Youth’ appearance down to Estee Lauder moisturiser and healthy vegetable-substitutes. However, if this was the case the Lauder family would be the equivalent of the Rockefellers and the increased export of yams would see Nigeria’s GDP competing with China’s. His eyebrows have been plucked lending him a quizzical look; the same arch-browed disapproval deployed by David Lloyd. Warne resembles an age-fatigued 40 year-old Beverly Hills 90210 actor being heavily made-up to play a character supposed to be half his age. But, ultimately, the audience aren't fooled: they know the Warne of the future will look exactly like a crow-footless Paul Hogan.

The gushing nature of Warne’s flirty tweets is highly alarming, given his track record of ‘textual harassment’. However, he’s toned it down to the extent that he sounds like a hormonal teenager frustratedly trying to write a power ballad in the family garage, resorting to Keating imagery and words like ‘angel’ and ‘sugar’. All this is a far cry from traditional Warne tabloid sample texts, such as: ‘I want to see you riding me’. Such whispered statements are altogether more sinister, like Aussie sledges designed purely to produce mental disintegration in the recipient.

One cannot fail to read each new Warne tweet extra-tentatively, in the manner of a distrustful Englishman evaluating a brash and vicious leg-break. The context of Warne’s womanising past looms large as does his mystery-ball penchant for Home Counties working girls (in the purely literal sense of the phrase; as in, secretary or trainee nurse). Warne’s Anglo-Australian attraction has been reciprocated by fans who have longed for an English-born spinner of such stature. This wish may yet come true, with the unnerving possibility that scores of blonde, swaggering toddlers are already showing cricketing promise in the gardens of Hampshire.

So, once again, Shane turns his wily hand to Keating Tweeting:

‘The journey of life is about riding the ups/downs.’

Liz is visionary in her response:

‘Love is like a rollercoaster ride - sometimes it's exhilarating but sometimes u feel sick and want to get off.'