I don't like cricket
...and this is why:
A J Strauss lbw b J E C Franklin 19
M B Loye c S P Fleming b J E C Franklin 8
I R Bell c S P Fleming b J E C Franklin 2
E C Joyce c M R Gillespie b D L Vettori 47
P D Collingwood lbw b D L Vettori 10
A Flintoff c B B McCullum b D L Vettori 9
P A Nixon c B B McCullum b J D P Oram 6
J W M Dalrymple c S P Fleming b D L Vettori 0
J Lewis c S P Fleming b S E Bond 5
M S Panesar c N J Astle b S E Bond 6
J M Anderson not out 0
Extras 2nb 1w 5lb
8
Total
all out 120
(37.5 ovs)
Brett Lee: Popstar
In case you haven't seen this, Brett Lee has (genuinely) recorded a song with legendary Indian singer Asha Bhosle which is Number 4 in the Indian pop charts....
My international career - some confusion
Recent events have confused me.
When Shane Warne continued to take wickets and score fifties right up until his retirement I remained convinced that at the age of 28 I still had a future in international cricket. "After all," I pondered to myself while working away at my desk, "I can bowl a googly and a leg break... and I've got an awesome flipper - the one that goes straight on". If I could play as long as Shane and then drag out the dregs of my career for a couple of extra seasons while I decline I would get 12 years at Test level - not bad for anyone.
But then Steve Harmison retired from all ODIs at the age of 28. Oh my god. I'm buggered. That's it. It's all over. I've got nothing left.
However, with news of Paul Nixon's first England cap today at the age of 37, I realised that I'm back in the game.
Therefore, I have today decided to rescind my recent retirement from international cricket and make myself available to Duncan Fletcher and the selectors for selection in the World Cup and this summer's Test series.
You, too, can join the campaign for a decent Test team
HERE.
In other news, Australia have scored 221/5 - the highest ever score in international 20/20 cricket. Same old, same old.
Before the bloodletting begins...
... let us just be entirely positive for a moment, and pay tribute to the Aussies. This team may not have quite had the stamp of greatness of previous teams under Messrs Taylor and Waugh, but it actually tried harder. And that, combined with the fact that it was still very, very good, added up to a consistently brilliant performance. Clark, Hussey, and Ponting were magnificent, and Symonds increasingly performed like he was from another planet.
And as for McGrath and Warne... Without overdoing it, I think more England fans should wake up to just how all-time great they were, and how rare it is to be able to see such greats, in any sport, in one's watching lifetime. Especially Warne. We are
all going to miss him. After all, we all even love Maradona now.
Oh, yeah, and Langer retired, too. Can't think of anything nice to say about him.
Shane Warne = Legend
Paul Collingwood is a nuggety cricketer who scored a decent double century on a dead pitch in the 2nd test but is patently not Test class. What possessed him therefore to sledge the greatest bowler of all time and inspire him to hit a match winning 70 odd is beyond me. Shane Warne's verbal reposte to Collingwood was brilliant and basically a pointer to why England lost this series pretty much from the moment we regained the Ashes at the Oval in 2005. If you listen to the Sky footage, you can clearly hear Warne asking Collingwood to tell him about the "MBE he got for making seven runs" (or words to that effect). Quality.
Hanged, drawn and quartered
Below is an account of the ancient and cheery old British form of execution - for people who had been really, really bad - known as hanging, drawing and quartering:
The full sentence passed upon those convicted of High Treason up to 1870
was as follows : “That you be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution where
you shall be hanged by the neck and being alive cut down, your privy members
shall be cut off and your bowels taken out and burned before you, your head
severed from your body and your body divided into four quarters to be disposed
of at the King’s pleasure.”
The hurdle was similar to a piece of fencing made from thin branches interwoven to form a panel to which the prisoner was tied to be dragged behind a horse to the place of execution. Once there, the prisoner(s) were hanged in the normal way (i.e. without a drop to ensure that the neck was not broken) but cut down whilst still conscious. The penis and testicles were cut off and the stomach was slit open. The intestines
and heart were removed and burned before them. The other organs were torn out
and finally the head was cut off and the body divided into four quarters. The
head and quarters were parboiled to prevent them rotting too quickly and then
displayed upon the city gates as a grim warning to all. At some point in this
agonising process, the prisoner inevitably died of strangulation and/or
haemorrhage and/or shock and damage to vital organs.
And this, it seems, in cricketing terms is pretty much what Australia have done to England this series. Brisbane was like getting dragged behind a horse, then that stopped and for four days in Adelaide we thought the worst was over. Until we got hanged on the fifth. We expired up there in Perth. But that wasn't the end of things. They chopped our manhood off in Melbourne, and decapitated us for good measure. Tomorrow they finally get around to burning our entrails and dividing us into four.
Struth!
You mucky lot
I've been checking out some of the stats for the blog this morning and these have confirmed what i have suspected for a long time: the majority of people who come across this site for the first time (perhaps an unfortunate turn of phrase given the context) do so because they have entered the terms "cricket" and "wag" into a search engine. In short, most of our first time hits come from people who are looking for naked pictures of Jessica from Liberty X or Rachel Flintoff.
We're back
Over Christmas the
Collective dispersed to various parts of the country and this, coupled with general laziness, has led to a severe lack of activity on this site. (Although I notice that people have still been having a pop at Mad Dog in the comments section)
Anyway we (or at least I) have returned and normal service will be resumed - if only for for the last few days of the Test series and possibly the one-dayers.
Quite a lot has happened since our last posts, but one thing, reassuringly, has stayed the same: England's depressing ineptness. Imagine my joy then at trawling through over 400 junk e-mails this morning and finding the following from Cricket Australia:
Dear Cov
On Monday in Perth the Australian Cricket team achieved a milestone it had been working towards for the last 14 months - reclaiming the Ashes. We've received some incredible support during that period, particularly from the record crowds that have been at the first three Tests of this series. On behalf of the entire team, I'd like to thank you for that support. Everywhere we turned in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth we saw our green and gold army behind us - you have been magnificent. As we head to Melbourne and Sydney, we're counting on the same green and gold support and are looking forward to playing some great cricket. So, thanks again Australia, you have been a big part of our Ashes mission so far. We'll see you soon.
Yours sincerely
Ricky Ponting
Happy New Year everyone!
