Alan Davidson Puns

Just thought I'd drop some Jackson Bird appreciation here because his Shield stats are even crazier than I thought. 312 wickets at 21.35. The legendary Alan Davidson has a marginally better average but took 66 fewer wickets (obviously the better player but just illustrating how incredible Bird has been).

In all first class cricket Bird has 414 wickets at 24.31.

Surely incredibly unlucky to have played so few Tests, yet no one talks about it. For me Bird is in the Law, Love, Hodge etc category of phenomenal Shield players who were unlucky to play in an era where the Test team was stacked for their particular skill.

All-time top 50 Shield wicket-takers

Actually tbh I’d name them JC Penny, RC Willy and TJ Maxx

Speaking on FNR last week, Alan Davidson (79-time Socceroo and father of Jason) tells the story of how trialed at Bayern Munich in the 80s and was eventually offered a contract.

https://soundcloud.com/fnr_footballnationradio/fnr_football-football-extra-30-november-2017-alan-davidson

Due to the foreign player quotas, he would've had to take German citizenship and give up his Australian passport. This upset his patriotic WW2-veteran father, and Alan decided to turn it down.

It's an really emotional interview, well worth a listen. In the last 15 minutes of the full interview, he also tells some terrific Brian Clough stories from his time at Nottingham Forest - you can find that here.

I saw it the other night, it ends with Davo who congratulates a youngster on hitting the stumps while practicing bowling.

Can anyone tell me what the ad is promoting? Can't for the life of me remember.

###Watch this post in video form.

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#Covid violations

Republican extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) was fined again last week for refusing to wear a mask on the House floor, marking the 22nd penalty the congresswoman has amassed since last summer. Each violation is now costing her $2,500, taken directly from her congressional pay. The total cost of Greene’s refusal to mask-up has exceeded $50,000, nearly a third of her official salary.

>"You have been observed not wearing a mask on July 29, August 2, September 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, and October 1, 12, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, and 27, and have been asked by a member of my staff to wear a mask while in the Hall of the House of Representatives on each occasion unless recognized to speak by the chair," [House Sergeant-at-Arms William] Walker wrote in the letter.

Greene declared her defiance on Newsmax on Monday, claiming she has been fined over $60,000 (clip):

>She's fined me over $60,500 in mask fines. I refuse to wear a mask! And, Chris, I have to tell you something else: I am not vaccinated and I will be standing strong, standing up for the people across this country that refuse to get vaccinated.

Fellow Georgia Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde was also fined last week, bringing his total to more than $30,000 for Covid violations.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Republican from Texas, joined the pair in the fined-for-safety-violations club last month when the House Sergeant-at-Arms cited (pdf) him

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

Obviously Chris Evans as Freddie Freeman...

EDIT: the cast so far (in order of comments, if I missed yours send me a PM) this is so good lmao:

Freddie Freeman: Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, Devin Ratray (Buzz from Home Alone), Nicholas Hoult, Thomas F Wilson (Biff from Back to the Future), William Poulter (Kid from We Are the Millers), Alan Ritchson

everyone: Tom Hanks, actual Braves, Chris Pratt

Brian Snitker: Tom Hanks, John Malkovich, Leon Russom (General from Prison Break), Woody Harrelson, Bill Dauterive (from King of the Hill), Michael Keaton, The Rock, Ben Kingsley, the Thumbs (from Thumb Wars/Thumbtanic)

Ron Washington: Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle, Rick James, Fargo Chris Rock, Michael K Williams, Denzel Washington, Keith David

Joc Pederson: Chris Pratt, Justin Prentice (Bully from 13 Reasons Why), Joc Pederson, Pete Davidson

Dansby Swanson: Ian Anderson, Charlie Culberson, Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, Stephen Amell, Jake Gyllenhaal, Kit Harrington, Scott Avett

Ian Anderson: Charlie Culberson

Charlie Culberson: Thomas Rhett, Charlie Culberson

Austin Riley: Alden Ehrenreich, Bradley Cooper (in a fat suit)

Jorge Soler: Michael B Jordan, Will Smith, Kevin Hart (??), Nic Cage (???), Dennis Haysbert (Cerrano from Major League)

Eddie Rosario: Donald Glover, Handsome Squidward

Ozzie Albies: Donald Glover, Kevin Hart

Will Smith (Braves): Will Smith

Will Smith (Dodgers): Will Smith

Alex Anthopoulos: Brad Pitt (sarcastic), Seth Rogen, Kal Penn

Max Fried: Nicholas Hoult, Alexander Ludwig, Jon Heder, Grant Gustin (from The Flash), Timothée Chalamet, Robert Pattinson, Miles Teller, Ben Feldman (Jonah from Superstore)

Charlie Morton: Danny McBride, Timothy Olyphant

Mike Soroka: Jack Gleeson, Elijah Wood

Dave Roberts, Bill Plaschke: Cheech Marin & Tommy Chong, Michael Rapaport as BP

Adam Duvall: Chris Pratt

Marcell Ozuna: Rick Ross

Ronald Acuña Jr: the late Chadwick Boseman

Terry McGuirk: Clint Eastwood

Eric Young: Forest Whitaker

Joe Buck: a bag of horse shit

narrator: Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones

Freddie Freeman's love interest: u/Time-Ad-3625

Luke Jackson: Steve Little (Stevie from Eastbound & Down)

Blooper: Daniel Day-Lewis

Tyler Matzek: Danny McBride, Liam Neeson

Don Mattingly: some f*cking 🤡

AJ Minter: Jesse Plemons, Chris Pine

Travis d'Arnaud: Michael Peña

**playoff opponent pit

There have been 103 members inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame, of which 30 are from England. Australia have 29, WI have 20, followed by a smattering of legends from India, Pakistan, SA, NZ, SL. You'd think based on this that England have consistently created world-class cricketers, apparently far more so than Australia or WI.

You'd think that to be true based on the fact that pre-WW2, England was one of only 2 good teams in world cricket. But you look closer and realize that 20 of those 30 England inductees are from the post-WW2 era. Some are indisputable - Trueman, Hutton, Barrington, Laker, Boycott, Botham, and the likes. But you look a little closer and you see players who don't have remarkable records, or haven't been massively influential on the game, or at the very least, there are others from world cricket who are far more deserving:

1. Tom Graveney: 79 tests, 4882 runs, average of 44.38. That's a solid average, but nothing exceptional. He was openly inducted more for his county cricket accomplishments (scored 100 first-class centuries). But many have done that - Glenn Turner, Phil Mead, among others who haven't been inducted.
2. Alan Knott: 95 tests, 4389 runs, average of 32.75. OK, Knott was a great wicket-keeper batsman, one of the first, but many have followed in his footsteps: Boucher, Dujon, Dhoni, none of whom have been inducted.
3. Derek Underwood: 86 tests, 297 wickets, average of 25.83. Underwood fully deserves to be in the HOF, but why not other guys from world cricket with similar stats? Ntini (390 @ 28.83), Pollock (421 @ 23.11), Morkel (309 @ 27.66) - Morkel has only recently retired, but it's not likely he'll be inducted. Of all the 18 inductees of the last 18 years, 15 have been batsmen; the other three have been Kumble, Warne, Murali.
4. David Gower: 117 tests, 8231 runs, average of 44.25. If Gower deserves to be here, so do Inzamam (49.80), Laxman (46.20), Clarke(49.10), Boon (43.65), Kirsten (45.27), Vengsarkar (42.13) who all played similar number of tests.
5. Graham Gooch: 118 tests, 8900 runs, average of 42.58. If Gooch deserves to be here, so do Hayden (50.73), Smith (48.25), Langer (45.27), Sehwag (49.34).

For context - none of the other inductees from other countries are even debatable. They are: Headley, Morris, Miller, Weekes, Mankad, Lindwall, Walcott, Davidson, Harvey, Worrell, Benaud, Hall, Hanif, Barry Richards, Kanhai, Sobers, Gibbs, Simpson, Bedi, I Chappell, G Chappell, Lillee, Lloyd, Marsh, Abbas, Garner

Do your worst!

They were cooked in Greece.