MARCUS: Lads, thank you for having me back. It’s my first time hosting today, so I’m a little bit nervous, but I’m hoping that I handle my debut in the hot seat as well as Todd Murphy handled his debut in Nagpur last week. Is that about all we need to say about the first Test Match? It was pretty bleak.
FIRST TEST DEBACLE
JONTY: It was pretty bleak. I lost a lot of interest at the toss as a massive Travis Head fan. If you’re going to beat India in India on one of those pitches, you’re going to do it playing positive cricket, and that’s what Head would have brought. But now that you’ve dropped him, is he going to be able to play in that same swashbuckling manner even if he does come back in? I think that was a big omission for not a lot of gain. Matt Renshaw didn’t do too much and I don’t think he plays next game with Cameron Green coming back in.
But let’s not be too reactionary. We’ve got a very successful Australian side that’s had one loss in 12 months before coming into this match, so let’s not throw everything to the kitchen sink just yet.
DAVE: Boys, I don’t get fired-up about the Australian cricket team too very much anymore, but I got the passion back last week watching that game, because Renshaw coming in was a disgrace. I could not believe that. Unless there’s something going on that we don’t know, like if Murphy and Nathan Lyon were getting Head out every second ball in the nets at training. With Renshaw, we got exactly what I thought would happen; he drops his pad right in front of the stumps first ball, and misses it by six inches. It was so frustrating to watch. For me, if Renshaw plays, he plays as an opener, but you’ve already got two left-handers at the top. Does Warner go? He got beaten by pace by a bloke bowling 135 km/h, that just got through him too quick. I think there were signs during the summer that he was starting to fade as well.
JONTY: He countered that with the 200 against Nortje at the MCG.
DAVE: But players coming to the end of their career do that. David Boon did it as well, he failed for a long time, came out and made a century, but he wasn’t the same Boony. I get the same feeling with Warner.
MARCUS: The Renshaw thing for me puts them in a lose-lose situation. They’re looking at having to drop Renshaw after one Test, and that’s going to end up with egg on the selectors’ face, and you’ve dropped a guy in Head, whose confidence is going to take a massive hit after an awesome summer.
DAVE: I thought Handscomb and Alex Carey were the two that batted how you should bat in India. Remember how Matthew Hayden approached it in India?
JONTY: No.
DAVE: Well allow me to explain young man. Hayden went over to India with a bad record against spinners, and what he did, against the turning ball, he put his foot down and played sweep shots all day and had a great series.
JONTY: Mick Sweeney had a very strong opinion of how the Aussies should be playing. He put on Twitter that he doesn’t think we should play too many sweep shots, so I guess he’ll be wearing-out the face-palm emoji.
BUCKET LIST
MARCUS: It’s just gone 10.30am which means the Superbowl would have kicked off by now in Arizona. I don’t know where it ranks for you boys on the bucket list, but for me it’s probably right up there. Where does it rank for you Dave, as far as bucket list events go?
DAVE: I’m not a huge NFL fan either but for the reputation, glitz and grandeur, it would be right up there. For me, I think I’ve said this a few times on LTS, it’s the US Masters. I’ve actually said to my wife, and she doesn’t really like it when I say this, but I couldn’t really care less if the plane crashed on the way home from the Masters; it would be like my life is complete! So that’s the ultimate for me. The other one, the Phoenix Open, they’ve got this party hole at the par three 16th. It’s surrounded by grandstands. One bloke nearly had a hole-in-one and everyone gets their beers and throw them onto the course, and there’s music blaring and everything, it looks like a great place to be for a few days.
JONTY: My bucket list, India in India, I’d love to go to a cricket series there and experience the atmosphere. Being against Australia wouldn’t be ideal, but even if it was an IPL game, or if you went there for a week and did a few IPL games, I think that would be a really good experience, as well as the culture in India. The Olympics as well, I’d love to go to LA in 2028 and experience that – go to all the sports that you don’t hear too much about. And I’d love to go to England in a year when they’re hosting the Ashes and go to Wimbledon.
MARCUS: I would love to chase an NBA finals series back and forth across the country in the US. My Denver Nuggets are certainly right in the mix this year, although the Kevin Durant trade to Phoenix certainly threw a bit of a spanner in the works there.
JONTY: A bit of a Ryan Hendy…Spanner’s his nickname!
MARCUS: Yeah, whatever. The FIFA World Cup too, they always seem like bonkers events. Last year’s tournament was pretty amazing, especially with the Socceroos having the run that they did.
SUPERBOWL IN PAKENHAM?
MARCUS: Sticking on the Superbowl theme, if it were to come to the outer south east of Melbourne, where do you think it would be hosted, and why? Key criteria being the canteen, grandstands, and general vibes.
DAVE: Up until Christmas I would have said Toomuc Reserve, up on the balcony looking down. I had a beer there on the weekend and it’s a fantastic viewing spot. There’s also Tooradin, they have a TAB there and you can sit there and have a parma, and a beer, and have a punt on the horses. BUT, a new challenger emerged over Christmas. I drove to Bunyip to have some lunch at the Bunyip pub, which is perched at the top of the hill at the top of the town. What I didn’t realise is, when you sit in the bar at Bunyip, there’s only two trees blocking your view to the footy ground, which is down at the bottom of the valley. Cut those trees down, and you can sit at the pub and watch the action unfold. So if we can get it past the ‘greenies’ and chop a couple of trees down, Bunyip is an emerging ground to host ‘our’ Super Bowl.
JONTY: I would say Casey Fields, I was there on the weekend and I think you have to give a plug to the biggest venue in the south east. It’s a modern facility, it’s got shelter, which obviously not all the grounds have got. The other one is Parkfield Reserve. Parkfield are really excited for their new development. They’ve got a double story clubroom coming and that’s going to be built in the coming years by the council. Once that’s complete I think that’s going to be the place to watch cricket. One more: Catani. They’ve got the world’s best chips, according to Dave.
DAVE: If it’s based on canteen, they double cook their chips at Catani. They are most golden, crispy thing you’ve ever seen. They’re not a big steak chip like you might find on some plates, but they’re not a little fry, they’re right in the middle and they’re beautifully cooked. Bruce McFarlane, he is the most proud cooker of a chip. He actually said to me that he’s got a black belt in cooking chips. The two venues I proposed, Tooradin and Bunyip, you can sit down and have a parma and a beer. So if it’s based on food, they’re the ones for me.
FLOWERS
MARCUS: Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, or yesterday, depending on when you read this. Dave, I believe you’re the only one amongst us that it applies to, but correct me if I’m wrong, Jonty?
(Silence from Jonty, Marcus and Dave sense an opening)
DAVE: Have you got something you need to tell us, Jonty?
JONTY: You said correct me if I’m wrong, and I’m not correcting you.
MARCUS: Gee that was exciting for a half-second. Dave, where do flowers rank as far as gifts go for your lovely wife Kellie?
DAVE: If I go home with a bunch of flowers for my wife, she’s going to think, “what have you done wrong?” For Valentine’s Day or our anniversary, I might buy her a bunch of flowers, but never off the cuff. Mothers Day is a good one too.
MARCUS: Well, if you were to give someone in CCCA a bunch of flowers, who would they go to?
DAVE: My bunch of flowers would go to a player who is highly regarded around the league at Cardinia, a nice off-spinner and a classy batter in Travis Weller. If Cardinia are going to win the premiership from fourth this year, Trav’s going to have to have an outstanding finals series, and he’d be getting a dozen red roses from me.
JONTY: We mentioned before that at Beaconsfield you can get absorbed by the Tyler Clark and Mark Cooper opening partnership. But there’s a couple of quicks that are really good for them in Callan Tout, I was glad to see him picked in the DDCA representative game on the weekend, and Jake Cutting. They don’t necessarily always get the wickets up top but they keep it tight. So they would be the two I would say from Turf 2. From Turf 3 I’m going to go with a team. Since Christmas, Berwick Springs have been a much more competitive outfit. Before Christmas it looked for all money that were going to get relegated, or it was between them and Hampton Park. On the weekend they beat Hampton Park to confirm that they’re going to avoid relegation. But even though they haven’t necessarily been winning since Christmas, they have been a lot more competitive, putting better scores on the board, and they haven’t been pushovers in their first season back in division 3.
MARCUS: It’s Ramneet Dhindsa for me, the opening bat for North Dandenong. I’ll run through his scores to give a sense of how he’s gone this year: 5, 48, 42, 65, 24, 20 31, 56, and 5. I think he’s flown under the radar with North Dandenong not being one of the ‘big three’ teams in that competition, but he’s been rock-solid all season.
DAVE: What sort of flowers are you sending him?
MARCUS: It’s a good question. I’m not much of a florist, I have to say.
JONTY: I’m sending daffodils, by the way.
DAVE: Forget the type of flowers, what’s going on the card that comes with the flowers? ‘Ramneet, it’s Marcus…’ Finish it off.
MARCUS: I’d like to remind you all of the fact that I am the host, so I’m not sure how I feel about being put on the spot…. Ramneet, keep it neat.
And with that, I think we’ll call time on the episode this week.
