The Reverse Sweep

Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting hundreds just a sideshow for Channel 9

We're pleased we set our Sky+ box to record day two of the Sydney Test between Australia and India.

Well, kind of. Whilst like most people watching we enjoyed seeing Ricky Ponting finally make his 40th Test hundred - a saga even longer than Sachin Tendulkar's quest for that 100th hundred. We also enjoyed a real gem of an innings from Michael Clarke.

Sadly for some of the Channel 9 cheerleaders, Ponting and Clarke's momentous knocks were merely a sideshow as they salivated over Rianna Ponting and Clarke's new girlfriend Kyly Boldy.

As Ponting entered the nervous nineties, the cameras spent as much time on a nervous Rianna as it did on the action in the field. We were worried they were going to miss Ponting reaching his hundred. Luckily they didn't as the desperate dive for that priceless final run as Zaheer just missed the stumps was pure theatre.

Then Channel 9 did an interview with Rianna. I am sure she's a lovely lady but please save interviews with cricketers WAGS for the Australian equivalent of This Morning.

Once Ponting departed the focus turned to the admittedly stunning Kyly. Tony Grieg could barely contain himself, informing us that "she looks like she's enjoying herself" leaving us wondering whether Grieg was merely making an observation or falling victim to over-excited wishful thinking. 

As Clarke passed 200, one would have thought that the discussion would be about his highly impressive first six months or so as captain and how the added responsibility has improved his batting. Not a bit of it. It was all Kyly by now. We didn't get an interview with her, but we're sure we see Slats sneak over to see if there was any chance of a threesome after play.

Australia are starting to look like a good side in the making and India are in danger of a second successive whitewash in a four Test series overseas. But Grieg, Slats and Healy don't care about that when they can drool over Kyly instead. Sad old men.

Where next?

India's batting line-up and Goebbels's big lie

Read our Cricket Review of 2011

Cricket zeroes: Channel 9's Commentary Team and Bill Lawry

Cricket heroes: Tony Greig

Check out all our Reverse Sweep cricket heroes and zeroes 

If you like this, follow us on Twitter @thereversesweep

Zeroes: Channel 9's Gatorade Heart Monitor

We've written before of our disdain for the coverage of cricket on Channel 9. The dreadful one-eyed commentary is one thing, but the blanket advertising is even worse.

We can just about live with the KFC Classic Catch and even the plugs for the Cricket Australia Travel Agency, but the Gatorade Heart Monitor plunges below the depths of acceptability.

You don't need to have had even rudimentary medical training to know that a fast bowler's heart rate will increase during a bowling spell or that a batsman who has just run a quick single will also have more beats per minute. The whole thing is absolutely pointless.

What makes it worse of course is when you combine the Three Amigos of Mark Taylor, Michael Slater and Ian Healy with the aforementioned heart monitor. Forget the glorious cover drive, the fantastic running catch or a rip-snorting bouncer, it is far more interesting to talk about how one of the protagonists heart rates has gone up by five beats per minute as a result of their exertion.

All it does for us is to reach for the remote to press for the mute button and the pins for our Michael Slater doll.

For being the most pointless invention in cricket history and for actually making Bill Lawry sound interesting, the Gatorade Heart Monitor as misused by Channel 9 is an an absolute Reverse Sweep zero.

Where next?

Check out all our other Reverse Sweep heroes and zeroes

Read our shocking expose on the ICC's cunning plan to justify UDRS here

Read our exclusive on the Channel 9 guidelines for its commentary team here

Ashes 100-1: 40 - All-time Australian Ashes XI: Wicketkeeper

 
Australia has produced some of cricket's greatest wicketkeepers and choosing one of them for an all-time Australian Ashes XI is no easy task. The decision rests between selecting the best wicketkeeper or perhaps the most devastating wicketkeeper-batsman in cricket history.

We've narrowed the choice down to four candidates with an honourable mention to Bert Oldfield who stumped 31 of his 90 Ashes victims and earnt a badge of valour during the infamous 'Bodyline' series.

The first of our four candidates is Don Tallon - the wicketkeeper of the 1948 Invincibles side and the man selected by Bradman as the gloveman for his all-time Australian Ashes XI. Tallon was by common consent of his contemporaries, Australia's finest ever keeper. But in 15 Ashes tests he only scored 340 runs and averaged under 20. Given the more multi-facteted qualities of the other three candidates, that rules Tallon out of the equation.

Next up is Rodney Marsh - a familiar face from our childhood, who was a magnificently athletic keeper and a useful battling batsman down the order. Indeed, Marsh scored more Ashes runs than any other Australian gloveman (1409 at 25.61) in his 37 tests, as well as snaring 131 English victims. It will be hard to leave this combative keeper out.

It took Australia a few tries before they finally found a decent replacement for Marsh in the shape of Ian Healy. He became a very good batsman (scoring 1269 Ashes runs at 31) as we at the Reverse Sweep can testify having seen Healy's belligerent 134 at Brisbane in 1998. Like Marsh, it is also hard to leave the wicketkeeper with the most Ashes dismissals (135) out, but they have been pipped to the post by a phenomenon.

Adam Gilchrist may not have been technically the best wicketkeeper ever and he was certainly not as good as the other three candidates here, but he was proficient enough and made few errors. We may be purists at the Reverse Sweep, but Gilchrist's sensational batting tips the scales here. England bowler after England bowler was visibly scared of him and even if Andrew Flintoff got the better of him in 2005, he bounced back to hit that brutal 57 ball century against a shellshocked England at Perth in 2006/07. In all Gilchrist scored 1083 runs at 45 from 20 Ashes tests and hit three hundreds whilst making 96 dismissals.

For his ability to hit his side out of trouble or to embellish an already commanding total, it is Gilchrist that gets the nod here. The thought of him coming in after the top six we have selected is frightening.

Where next?

All-time Australian Ashes XI: The Openers, Number 3, 4 and 5, All-rounder

Our World Test XI of the noughties

Cricket's top 10 masterblasters