Paul Ford: Middle and Leg - Beige Brigade newsletter - Moaning, girding & remembering

New Black Caps batsman Henry Nicholls. Photo / Getty

Mervyn Hughes channelling his inner dystopian future in Fast Men (published 2004)

If you're still bitching and moaning (yes, I'm looking at you Nigel Llong) about that

Wagner to Siriwardana

delivery - the full bunger that thundered into the Sri Lankan's back leg and was ultimately given not out - then it is worth having a squizz at Virtual Eye's 200 frames-per-second zoom-in and

explanation

in order to shut you up: "This shows the black circular patch that was visible for a fleeting second before the pad rotates behind the front pad which is what created the impression of the ball impacting at speed and disappearing..."

For all the DRS talk you can stomach, read David Leggat's

rundown

, starring

Ian Taylor's

typically blunt assessment, borne of frustration at the waty the system works at the moment.

Congratulations to

Henry Nicholls

on his call-up to international duty. He doesn't look to have much game on

Twitter

just yet, but he can swing a bat - and a golf club too from all accounts. His nickname is Toe - and his brother is freelance sports reporter in Londonium, Willy Nicholls.

Gird your loins,

The Alternative Commentary Collective

looks like it might be back on Boxing Day for those who like a bit of innuendo and risqué discussion with their ball-by-ball. A mammoth sorry in advance. There is a void in the commentary doyen stakes in NZ. Is it TV's portly wicketkeeping legend Ian Smith? Or is it the long-toothed, short-legged and high-pantsed Bryan Waddle on the wireless? Or is it chisel-jawed, olive-skinned, King of the Obtuse Jeremy Wells from The ACC's cult commentary?

This Friday you'd do well to remember one of the absolute legends - unsung of course as that is the New Zealand way - of sport in this country, as it is the birth date of

Eric William Thomas Tindill

(1910-2010). He pulled off the extraordinary double-double: an All Black, a Black Cap, an international rugby referree and an international Test cricket umpire. As

Matt Cleary

put it, he was "the Sonny Bill Williams of his day". Or as Eric's great-nephew

Elliot Lodge

noted in his tribute in the Herald pages: "Tindill's story is much more than the history books will ever say as he was a man of great loyalty and passion for the things and people he loved." RIP Snowy.

It was impossible to miss the

West Indies shameful capitulation

in Hobart over the weekend. Bloody convenient if you can't get in front of the red leather during the work day though, silver lining... Players who are missing include:

· Dwayne Bravo - retired from Tests after being overlooked for 4 years, playing Big Bash

· Shivnarine Chanderpaul - dropped

· Chris Gayle - injured back for Tests, playing Big Bash

· Kieron Pollard - knee injury

· Andre Russell - injured knee for Tests, playing Big Bash

· Darren

'See you next Tuesday'

Sammy - retired from tests, playing Big Bash

· Lendl Simmons - retired from Tests, playing Big Bash

A massive piece of admirable nerdery from a bloke called

Peter of Charlestown

who has produced a list of all the verbs that ABC commentator Jim Maxwell has used to describe batting over the years: "...belts, blasts, blocks, bludgeons, bunts, caresses, carves, chips, clips, clobbers, clubs, cracks, dabs, deflects, dispatches, drops, eases, edges, fiddles, flays, flicks, forces, glides, guides, hammers, heaves, hoicks, knocks, larraps, lathers, lifts, lofts, nurdles ("a Maxwell original, I think"), nibbles, nicks, nudges, paddles, pats, places, pokes, prods, punches, pushes, quilts, runs, scoops, shovels, skies, slaps, slashes, slices, slides, slogs, smacks, smashes, smears, snicks, stabs, steers, strokes, swings, taps, thrashes, thumps, tickles, tips, tucks, turns, twiddles, wallops, whacks, whips, works..."

Roger Federer

has

ingratiated

himself with the people of India forevermore with this acknowledgement of The Little Master.. Who's the one Indian sportsperson you admire? "Sachin Tendulkar. I met him when he visited Wimbledon. He was a lot of fun to talk to - and he is a legend. Whenever I play cricket video games, I always pick Sachin as my batsman." And if you want to see Sachin playing tennis, you can - there's a montage for that.

From the WTF Files:

Former West Indies (and Canterbury) fast bowler Nixon McLean has two brothers named Kissinger and Reagan, both decent cricketers and pacemen - the latter represented St Vincent. Their sister is Golda Meir, also the name of the iron lady PM of Israel in the 1970s.

LISTEN:

Simon Katich talks to Jim Maxwell

about being barred from the Australian dressing room when Michael Clarke famously wanted to get the team song out of the way and head off to mingle with Lara Bingle. Affronted, Katich apparently grabbed Clarke by the throat and "a disagreement" over the song ensued. Oi oi oi!

READ:

Steve Smith on his greatest strength: "If I have to identify one thing I'd say my humility..." It can't be real. Oh wait, it is. From the Qantas inflight magazine to

you

.

WATCH:

Boomer Collins, baseball player have a

cricket net practice

- he swings hard! Collins is aiming to move from the minor leagues that feed into the Toronto Blue Jays MLB team, to India for a crack at the IPL. ""If I turn this into a career, I turn it into a career. If I don't, I'll go get a job. I'm not going into this as if it's a hobby," he told The Guardian.

LISTEN:

The Marshall Boomer Tea Incident Episode of

The BYC Podcast

touches on the plight of the West Indies, the campaign for New Zealand to play the Boxing Day test in Melbourne, what should be done with Marlon 'Psycho' Samuels.

KUDOS:

To these hardy barefoot beer-chugging, wild-maned Southern Men, operating their Beige Brigade onesies as intended on a bitter, hail-filled Dunedin day.

Middle & Leg is a cricket newsletter for New Zealand cricket fans who like a dose of optimism and a tablespoon of take the piss with their weekly cricket informational. It is tapped out by Paul Ford, co-founder of the Beige Brigade, and one-seventh of the Alternative Commentary Collective. You can email him here beigehq@beigebrigade.co.nz.