one year on, what the others make of the balls - part two

D Charlton

Cricket with balls has opened my eyes to Australia. This makes me feel sick
but I can't help coming back for more. I suppose it is because my life is
richer now I know about Dirty Dirk and Bryce McGain. Without CWB, this would
never have happened.

Mark from the Reverse Swing Manifesto

Happy birthday 'Cricket with balls'

Where a cricket loving, opinionated, Aussie holds forth about all things relating to the thwack of willow on leather.

Lots of short sharp sentences.

Lots of double spacing.

Which makes it look as though there's more there than there really is.

Occasional irrational non-sequiteurs.

Sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but always certain!

The Atheist from left arm chinaman.

Sportsfreak

Only a year old? What a precocious blog this Cricket With Balls is.

How could something become so big so quickly? Just like one of those steroid fed, genetically modified, featherless chickens that Jamie Oliver gets so enraged about, CWB is now the unofficial Cricinfo without the stats and the earnest press releases.

The strength of Cricket in Balls lies in the quality of humour, the frequency of blogs and, most importantly, the international nature of the topics.

Most blogs and websites have a national or parochial feel to them. There is nothing wrong with this, but that is how they are.

Cricket With Balls has always been far more international than that. The writing here has either been truly balanced or evenly imbalanced in dealing with whatever issue or drama has been dominating talk.

When the world was going demented with differing strains of warped piousness during the Indian tour of Australia earlier this year, CWB steadfastly pointed out they were as bad as each other. Sometimes just taking the piss is the most dignified approach.

It has also had its favourite players from all round the world. Apart from South Africa; another strength.

And then there is the distinctive writing style.

You know the one.

The style that refuses to differentiate between a sentence and a paragraph.

The Australian haiku

Where you scroll down to read the next point.

Literally.

He has also been a leader in self-promotion. It takes more than good writing to get snapped up by Wisden On-Line. It’s hardly as if people from there actively go looking for what gets put up on the web.

And in sending out an e-mail to 192 people asking what his “contemporaries” think of the site he has shown he’s one step ahead when it comes to being in the forefront of consciousness.

But it works. You can tell that by the sycophantic reviews that are likely to sit next to this one.

Of course, Cricket With Balls is not without its faults. The fascination with flat-chested actresses, the occasional but not forgotten Bonnie Tyler references, the inability to understand the sexiness of Helen Mirren, and the recent (hopefully short-lived) obsession with English County cricket are curious anomalies.

But life would be boring if everything was done in good taste. It is best to thinks of these errors in judgment as the on-line version of how the Smiths used to reference Coronation Street on their sleeve covers.

Albert Tatlock wrapped around the 45 of This Charming Man.

The musical epitaph for CWB.

We look forward to the Difficult Second Year.www.cricketwithballs.com... fighting the war on tony greig