An embuggerance and D'Ball

An embuggerance and D'Ball

1. He has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The news was officially announced on the website of one of his collaborators. In an interview published there, he, in characteristic fashion, quaintly called the fact "an embuggerance", said he was mildly optimistic about his chances, and said that he hoped it would not interfere too much with his next couple of books. He also appealed to his fans to not ask him how they could help, because they couldn't, unless they were some sort of brain specialist :-). Who is this writer?

Ans: Terry Pratchett

2. Last week, Luke Pomersbach became the latest Australian to represent his country in international cricket, playing a T20 match vs NZ. The call up came in strange circumstances: he had been recently suspended by his state side for some alcohol indiscipline; he had come to the stadium with his girlfriend to watch the match, and suddenly found himself the recipient of an invitation to play for the national side. This was because another player had suffered a back injury in the dressing room an hour before the match began.

So Pomersbach was issued the kit of that player and found himself batting in the last overs of the Aussie innings. Now, we know that the Aussies have their nicknames on their shirt-backs in T20 games (Church for Gilchrist, Roy for Symonds etc). Pomersbach had "D'Ball" on his shirt (the name was shortened for lack of space).

So the question: whom did he replace and what was the full nickname of that player?

Ans: Brad Hodge, "Dodgeball"