Category: Cricket

Oz v S.A – Brisbane

I love waking up to 179/2 🙂

The Proteas won the toss and despite all the hype preceding the game of the wicket being a ‘greentop’ and what appeared like a fair amount of cloudcover Graeme Smith elected to bat.

As is customary I awoke for the toss and first ball, (play starts at midnight GMT that’s 2am our time.)

I saw Smith go out early (LBW to Pattinson after an Oz DRS review) and then crashed! (Not my car…. to my bed ;))

Petersen (that’s Alvero not KP) our other opener was out for a fine 64 leaving Amla and Kallis to carry the innings. They’re both still in @ tea 🙂

Game on!

Picture ESPN cricinfo

Hours of play 00.00 – 07.00 gmt

Windies win

England’s defeat by 15 runs looks respectable by comparison with the bashing Australia have taken today. 74 runs deficit is alot! And Chris Gale makes it all look so easy

Give England back KP (joke) and there’ll be no stopping ’em next time.

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ICC T20

They’ve started, (handy link to the official schedule here) there can only be one winner, so, what are you going to say if your team isn’t victorious?

Don’t worry, Alex Bowden over on ESPN’s Crickinfo has a list of ready made excuses for us.

Here they are…

Australia
They just weren’t tough enough. It’s not like the old days. This team just isn’t hard-nosed, aggressive or Australian enough. They don’t need to be any more talented. They just need to be angrier. Bring back Lillee and Thommo.

England
It was almost certainly the IPL. Not enough players are appearing in it and too many players want to appear in it. Secondly, Continue reading “ICC T20”

Any more for the roundabout?

Totally non contentious post. No other mention of Norway, Roma or cricket.

I did watch some of the Republican National Convention last night, I thought for a moment I had stumbled on “America’s got talent” by mistake. The last man to think that the Presidential election is NOT a popularity contest was Richard Nixon and look what happened to him.

We have four entries for the poetry comp. (from three regular contributors) nothing yet from the Dream Team, but there are a full twelve hours left to enter (even allowing a full thirty minutes for uploading and formatting).

All aboard!

Eng vs S.A. (ODI’s)

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The current ODI series between England and The Proteas will as you can see decide who tops the ICC rankings come Sept 5th.

Match 2 (of the 5 match series) a day / nighter starts at 12.00 GMT Tuesday 28th August, would you believe that the 1st game on Friday was washed out? With a 4 day break between matches why not have a reserve day? (or 2?) It’s time that the ‘men in suits’ who run the sport get with the programme!

But there’s more at stake then simply topping the ODI rankings for The Proteas.

Continue reading “Eng vs S.A. (ODI’s)”

What price plastic Brits?

I only mention Greig, Lamb and Pietersen because they represent the latest example of sporting plasticity – in cricket, as it happens. But shouldn’t I include Strauss? At what age or after how long ‘on probation’ should an immigrant become eligible for national honours? This is a general question about all nationalities – although I don’t suppose many countries want former Brits to represent them (corrections please on high-value negotiable instruments).

Backside reckons under the age of ten would be about right. More than six years in a British school should remove any stubborn veneer of foreignness – you know, unsporting behaviour, a tendency to rat on mates, re-emigrating to the Antipodes – that kind of thing.

Such a rule would mean we could keep Mo Farah too – but have you noticed? We soon forget their roots when they really please us?