Burnie Awaits Arrival Of Boonie And Buddies

Sun Herald

Sunday December 26, 2004

David Sygall on the hits, misses, drives and doosras of Australian and international cricket.

CAN you change the name of a town just for a day? When David Boon arrives in the Tasmanian town of Burnie during his 20-day charity walk, which departs from the MCG on Tuesday, he might find the town renamed Boonie. The walk leaves Melbourne and finishes in Hobart, but Boonie and co won't be walking on water. "We're getting a boat across and I'm sure we'll have a few beers," serial charity walker Dean Jones said. "Then we're driving to Burnie, which they're trying to get renamed to Boonie for the day, and walking from there." The troupe, including Merv Hughes, hopes to raise $500,000 for the Bone Marrow Donor Institute. Jones says he's considering a walk from Melbourne to Adelaide in honour of David Hookes. "I'm looking for some South Australian friends to join me," he said. "It's only 900 kilometres."

Lenny's lament

FORMER Test tearaway Len Pascoe has rolled his arm over a few times since he retired 23 years ago. Most recently was the highly successful Twenty20 trial at Hurstville Oval on Wednesday. As a guest for St George in the curtain-raiser against UTS-Balmain, Pascoe copped it. "This one snotty-nosed Balmain kid hit what must have been the biggest six ever off me," Lenny lamented.

Thorpe drops red ball for square ball

SWIMMER Ian Thorpe will miss the Boxing Day and Sydney Test matches, as he will be in New York to drop the New Year's Eve ball in Times Square, with other sporting luminaries. But Thorpie is not all that disappointed. "He enjoys cricket but struggles a bit through the five-dayers," his manager David Flaskas said. "His dad, Ken, was an outstanding player for Bankstown and was a mentor to Steve and Mark Waugh. But he stopped playing because he was quite traumatised by his father's desire for him to wear the baggy green." Ken returned at 26, successfully opening for the club's first XI. "But, have a look in Thorpie's biography and you'll see why Ian didn't pursue cricket," Flaskas said. "A terrible batting stance."

Poms' young lion has Clarke's measure

ALL the talk about England being able to match Australia in the Ashes next year is, of course, going way too far, but here's an interesting statistic. Our hottest young star, Michael Clarke, in seven Tests, has scored 576 runs at 52.3, including centuries on debut at home and away. But England batsman Andrew Strauss scored a century last week against South Africa in his first away Test. He did the same on debut against New Zealand. He has 810 runs from eight Tests, at 57.8. (We're still backing Clarke.)

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I'll ask you a question. Can a plane take off without a run-up? No, so I've got to take the run. It's how I generate my pace and everything flows into the right action. I'm not going to cut down."

Shoaib "Air" Akhtar deploys his landing gear in response to calls for him to shorten his run-up.

STATS ENTERTAINMENT

THE fifth match between India and Australia at Pithwala Stadium in Surat last Wednesday was the 500th women's one-day international since the abbreviated game was introduced in 1973. And captain Belinda Clark became the first Australian woman to play 100 ODIs.

dsygall@sunherald.com.au

© 2004 Sun Herald

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