Rob Smyth and James Dart talk about the cricket for guardian.co.uk but spent more time talking about wearing glasses. Here is a funny extract from their commentary about the perils and problems of wearing glasses.
"Full disclosure I'm obsessed. With cleaning my glasses. Seriously, I'm losing it. I can't stop. I keep seeing little spots here and there, or at least I think I do. I'm worse than George Clooney with his teeth in Burn After Reading. It's driving me up the wall. The other day, I was counting down to the drinks break just so I could go and clean my glasses. The fact I was desperate for the boys' room barely registered. This nonsense has to stop. It's out of control. Please tell me I'm not the only one. Please tell me that at least 99.94 per cent of you have equally absurd obsessions. Please". Rob Smyth
The cricket commences with West Indies going in to bat........... but nothing much of interest happens until drinks and the 29th over. Then the glasses action really gets underway!!!
DRINKS And you know what that means: clean glasses for Robbie
29th over: West Indies 127-4 (Chanderpaul 5, Dwayne Bravo 2
"I'm slightly worried about your working environment Rob," says Phil Withall. "I work 12-hour shifts in a kitchen and have to clean my glasses maybe twice a day. They cope with grease, steam, blood and sweat. What is in the air at Guardian Towers?" That's the thing. There's nothing in the air. All the dirt and filth and muck and smudges are in my stupid big head.
30th over: West Indies 129-4 (Chanderpaul 6, Dwayne Bravo 3) "Sometimes when I go to clean my glasses I pathetically grasp at the air in front of my eyes before remembering that I'm wearing contact lenses," says Dave Score. "Please tell me I'm not alone in this."
31st over: West Indies 140-4 (Chanderpaul 8, Dwayne Bravo 11). "I rarely clean my glasses," boasts Suzanne Hall. "While this does mean I have problems seeing, the world appears much nicer in grime-induced soft focus. Plus, I get to look over the top of my glasses when making a point which is the only way I have ever been able to impose any kind of authority. Tell Andy that flat Pepsi with a squeeze of lime juice works a treat. Failing that, I'd have to also endorse the gin."
32nd over: West Indies 143-4 (Chanderpaul 9, Dwayne Bravo 13) "I like to keep my glasses a bit dirty," says Jeremy Bunting. "As they are rimless, if the are too clean I can't see then when I put them down somewhere. Which is a headache."
35th over: West Indies 157-4 (Chanderpaul 12, Dwayne Bravo 24) "I rarely glean any authority from my classes, even when I look over the top of my glasses," says Patrick Doupe. The youth are a tough audience."
36th over: West Indies 167-4 (Chanderpaul 15, Dwayne Bravo 31) "I can assure Dave Score (over 30) that he is not alone," says Andrew Thomas. "I have also been known to attempt to push my glasses back up the bridge of my nose, only noticing I'm not wearing them when I poke myself sharply in my right eye. Always a good look."
40th over: West Indies 190-5 (Chanderpaul 25, Thomas 3) "Not quite as bad as Dave Score but I like to push my non-existent glasses back up my nose when I'm wearing contacts," says Andrew Goldsby. "Not sure what I look like when I do but it's something my fiancée finds worthy of a snigger each time?"
42nd over: West Indies 205-5 (Chanderpaul 27, Thomas 11) "Mr Smyth, I wish to complain," says Robert Marriott. "I am an inveterate dirt ignorer when it comes to my glasses, yet you've got me worrying about them constantly. Normally, I sit here staring blankly at the computer hoping that work will do itself, and never once stopping to question whether I can see it properly; today, thanks to YOU, I'm noticing every tiny speck of dust on the lenses. I shall be lodging a formal complaint with the Guardian, just as soon as I've got rid of that damn blotch in the top right hand corner." You jest, but your life is essentially over now. Take it from me. All you will be able to focus on for the rest of your days is the dirt on your glasses. It's over.
44th over: West Indies 213-7 (Thomas 14, Sammy 0). "When I put my contacts on, I always forget and then put my glasses on again straight after," says Adrian Boey. "Cue instant dizziness. Any other fellow geniuses do this?"
47th over: West Indies 220-9 (Benn 5, Roach 1) "I became obsessed about clean glasses, so I bought a spray of salt solution that I regularly used," says Nigel Smith. "In fact I became so blase I didn't take my glasses off my head until I had had a quick spray and the I would take them off to clean. However on one occasion I had forgotten that I had taken my glasses off and gave my eyeballs a massive blast of salt solution. The heart-rending scream that followed certainly woke up the readers in my local library where I was working."
So, South Africa need 223 to win, and should do it at a canter. I'm off to scrub my glasses non-stop for an hour, so James Dart will be with you for the first 10 overs of the West Indies innings.
INNINGS BREAK
13th over: South Africa 66-2 (target 223; Smith 17, De Villiers 30) To my left, Alan Gardner is cleaning his glasses. I'll bring you all down to my level, if it's the last only thing I do. de Villiers, sans glasses, is still seeing it like a football and cuts Sammy nicely for two. He's a touch underrated, de Villiers
18th over: South Africa 84-2 (target 223; Smith 26, De Villiers 39) "Have you ever thought it's the television screen that's dirty, rather then your specs?" says Jo Beasley. "Just sayin'. Or are you just seeing the grubby world as it really is?" It's not actual dirt, it's all in my head, which means all that scrubbing is for nothing. I'm doomed.
19th over: South Africa 90-2 (target 223; Smith 27, De Villiers 44) "As an OCD sufferer the last thing I'd want to do is make a bad situation worse," says Nick Pettigrew, carefully lining up the inevitable 'but', "but I thought I'd mention – when I used to wear glasses my main obsession was whether the arms were completely straight. The slightest difference in pressure on the top of one ear could result in hours of very carefully bending down one arm, then the other, until they ended up looking like a double-glazed pretzel." Wibble.
28th over: South Africa 138-2 (target 223; Smith 45, De Villiers 74) Is that a smudge on your glasses?" Or am I just pleased to see you, etc and so honk.
30th over: South Africa 147-3 (target 223; De Villiers 80, Duminy 3). "I used to worry about both clean lenses and straight arms on glasses," says Steve Johnson. "I now share a house with a four-year-old and a one-year-old. As such my main concern is that my glasses still at least hang off some part of my head at the end of the day. So, simple solution: have kids....
33rd over: South Africa 173-3 (target 223; De Villiers 84, Duminy 19). "There is a tiny flaw in the plan about OBOers having kids, but it can be solved by the hope that she has really really dirty glasses herself," says Robin Hazlehurst. "And probably a lot of alcohol."
34th over: South Africa 181-3 (target 223; De Villiers 87, Duminy 20) Time for a glasses-scrubbing break. "All this talk of constant glasses-cleaning from you Rob, and I can only think of The Aviator," says Guy Hornsby. "I now have a mental image of you sitting, a la Howard Hughes, in a plush velvet room, lights low, frantically rubbing your glasses with a cloth until the end of time, never managing to remove that imaginary spot, as your beard grows ever longer, and Andy Bull attempts unsuccessfully to gain entry, with your cries of 'is the World Cup over yet?' echoing around the acrid room."
RAIN STOPS PLAY. 38th over: South Africa 199-3 (target 223; De Villiers 97, Duminy 28) "No respectable discussion about dirty spectacles," begins Karthik Krishnaswamy, "is complete unless we talk about the difficulty of removing the grime that accumulates in the region around the nose pads." My thoughts exactly. The subject is trending on Twitter already, apparently.
The covers are coming off. So there.
21th over: West Indies 104-1 (Smith 30, Darren Bravo 68)
"I have finally acquired some glasses – just for occasional reading while at the computer, according to the optician, to rest my eyes – and haven't yet had occasion to use them in anger," says Ravi Nair. "Am pining for the day when, like you, I can become a compulsive spectacles-polisher (doing it with your sunglasses just isn't cool).
All in a good days cricket!
They obviously they all went to Specsavers when they should have gone to iGO www.igolenses.co.uk If they were using overnight vision correction rather than wearing glasses or contact lenses, then what would they have to talk about..... maybe only cricket and who wants to hear about that?
