The Ties That Bind



The
much coveted
Primary Club tie

 Fantasy Bob used to be a man for a tie.   For as Oscar Wilde remarked,  'A well tied tie is the first serious step in life.' A bit of colour and a Windsor or Albert knot was just the thing.  FB's wardrobe groaned under their weight, he had a tie for every day of the year and more.  Others might call this a collection.  But ties no longer seem so important, and these days, except in the most formal setting when a tone has to be set, he has all but forsaken the desire to don the neckwear.  FB is forced to agree with American journalist Linda Ellerbee who put it sharply 'If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties?  How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?'   So FB's once outstanding collection has been dispersed, mainly to local charity shops, except for a few essential remainders including that denoting membership of the Primary Club.

Nowadays FB's ties are as rare as a tied result in a cricket match.  It looks like everything is going to conspire to prevent India from winning any match this summer as the rain brought a confused end to the match at Lords in a tie.

A wet end to the 4th ODI

That tie was the 25th tied result in ODIs.  By some coincidence the most recent one was also an England v India match - their epic encounter in the World Cup in February.  2 ties in a year is becoming a habit.  Indeed England seem to be the tie specialists since out of the 6 ties in ODIs that there have been since 2003, they have been involved in 5 of them.

While this strike rate is still quite low, there have been nearly 3000 ODIs, it is still a more frequent occurrence than in Test cricket where there have been only 2 ties, both involving Australia and overall 60 in First Class cricket.  In addition, a Zimbabwe v England Test in 1996 was a draw with both sides having exactly the same number of runs.

Just as FB has never played cricket wearing a tie, he has never played in a tied match.  But some of FB's colleagues at Carlton were involved in tie this season when the 2nd XI ended up even with local rivals Watsonians.  Scores were even on the last ball with Watsonians having one wicket in hand - there was a run out of the last ball to tie the match.  Thrilling or what?  FB understands from the go ahead club's management team that they are thinking of designing a tie to commemorate it.