Krejza gets tonked (part 2)

The successor to Shane Warne (and to be fair to Jason Krejza, he has never made the claim) continues to baffle everyone as to why he was selected for Australia's tour to India. After his first innings return of nought for 123, Krejza was given a second bowl and was hit for 76 in 11 wicketless overs.

I wonder whether Krejza could become the Australian answer to John Warr. Warr, a Middlesex fast-medium bowler, was selected for England's Ashes tour party in 1950 on the back of taking 84 wickets that summer. In those days when they played far more often than today, 84 wickets only placed him 32nd on the leading wicket-takers list - and he was 86th on the bowling averages - but nonetheless Warr got the selectors' nod. Wonder who he knew?

When he arrived Down Under, his reputation had preceded him. He was greeted by a docker in Sydney with the charming message: "You have as much chance of taking a Test wicket on this tour as I have of pushing a pound of butter up a parrot's arse with a hot needle." Warr did take one wicket, but conceded 281 runs in doing so. The parrot never recovered.

To be fair to Warr, and to give hope to Krejza, the rest of his tour wasn't quite as bad, although his first two state matches resulted in two wickets for 196 runs. In total, he took 23 wickets at an average of 38, which was almost good enough to be called mediocre. There's your target Jason.

Comments

[Peter McGuinness]

Too much is being made of poor Jason, Patrick.

Although I understand why everyone with a run-up shorter than Michael Holding will be viewed by Poms as 'Australia's next attempt at Warne', I can promise you that Figjam and Co will not be feasting on Krezja's bland buffet or pies next year. Sorry about that.

Jase is the last in a long line of purely speculative tweeker selections (a generous description) with which Boonie, Merv et al are hoping to win lotto with the purchase of a single ticket. Such cavalier disregard for the dignity attached to playing for Australia is most unlikely to be presented by our selectors to you blokes during the Ashes.

Still, I acknowledge that this is fun stuff for you. God knows the reverse has been the case often enough, so good on you. From an Aussie perspective, now would be a terrific time to practice finger-spin for any 3rd Grade Sub-District medium pacer who can't afford a holiday.

[Terry W]

Hi Patrick. Krejza's selection is similar to Peter Taylor the off-spinner who was selected out of nowhere in the 80's as you will recall. His bowling average was pretty mediocre too if I remember. Although he didn't set the Ashes on fire he did take a 5 wicket haul.
Was in Dar es Salam on Sunday for a short weekend break and went down to see the Hong Kong v Tanzania game, or some of it until the missus got bored. Mr Habib has a good team under his wing there.
Cheers
Terry

[Vidhya]

Warr was lucky. His only wicket was that of Ian Johnson who edged the ball to Godfrey Evans. The umpire said no but Johnson walked, according to himself, out of sympathy towards Warr.