Dazzler returns to the Motherland
England may have rejected its one day record wicket-taker (235 in 159 one-day internationals) but Yorkshire has seen sense and invited one of its favourite sons back to Captain the county side. Hurrah!
The future of cricket (and booze in grounds)
Sports governing bodies are the traditional target of ridicule for fans and the ECB and ICC are no different in this respect than the bonkers FA (and FIFA and UEFA), or incompetant Amateur Swimming Association.
While my particular bugbear with the ICC is their
ridiculous ban on bringing alcohol into grounds (a move surely designed solely to raise even more revenue to ground owners - on top of the spiralling ticket prices) there is actually a list of complaints that a revolutionised governing body would look at.
The list would begin at a point marked "excessive fixtures"; would traverse the ridge of gamesmanship, discipline and poor officials; before reaching the summit of bad management and lack of control over the Test Playing Nations.
But this list can't be addressed until the new President of the ICC is and it appears that this decision is
now stalled. So we, the wider members of the Collective, have an opportunity to get up the few but essential things the ICC should be doing better. So please have a think and put something in the comments.... I'll be coming back to this theme several times before the World Cup begins.
Labels: booze ban, ICC, Useless idiots
Jaffas are seedless oranges...
...Jaffa cakes are biscuits. And England is a cricket team.
So what can make Jaffa cakes the "
perfect fit" with the England team and allows them to be the Official Energy Food of the team during the World Cup?
Are they telling us something about the
masculinity and machismo of this fine group of men? Or maybe its a reference to Harmison's bowling?
Who knows but I'm going to have to have a cup of tea and biscuit to think about this matter more deeply.
(You'll notice how I've avoided any jokes about being bowled a jaffa - I leave that to funier, wiser commenters).
Labels: cricket world cup, fertility, Jaffa Cakes
Vive le difference
Everyone knows that the pace of life in the Caribbean is sedate in comparison to the hurly-burly on our crowded little outpost off the French coast. I had to laugh then when reading that the Windies still haven't finished some of the grounds for a World Cup which starts in less than a month.
And do they care? Do they f*ck. With typical nonchalance former Windies skipper Richie Richardson has declared that everything will be ready on time because in the Caribbean they always "do things at the last minute"
Meanwhile back in Blighty there's been another delay in the completion of Wembley which has been greeted with a typically shrill response by our media.
Labels: cricket, cricket world cup, wembley
Speaking ill of the dead
Like a sickly child who's had hands layed on them by a dodgy, shouty Texan preacher, this blog has come back to good health and is now dancing the flamenco once more.
I know that I should stretch the agenda beyond the Australians, their impending failure in the World Cup and a glorification in their recent failure against two mediocre one day teams. But just for one moment of nostalgia I'm going to look back on some of my favourite subjects:
1) Shane Warne. His brilliance. The fact he should be
English2) John Buchanan.
His idiocy.
His weak state of mind.
His personal association with Chinese philosopher of war Sun Tzu.3) Matthew Hayden. His ability to be a prick. English celebration in his failure to be the brute he imagines himself to be.
Fortunately for the rest of the Collective these happy subjects all roll into one so I won't bore on for much longer.
After today's Australian defeat (which resulted in Hayden scoring a massive 180 and then breaking his toe - a joyful moment) Warne has started to attribute blame. And its no surprise where the blame is going -
our good friend Ned Flanders.
Still getting over the mental torture of being stuck in the Bush on the pre-Ashes Bonkers Boot Camp, Warne said:
"From what I hear, the boys trained really, really hard, probably too hard and it affected them. They got tired for the finals [of the CB Tournament] and didn't perform really well so John Buchanan has to take responsibility for that. If you're playing international cricket, all you want to be is fresh and happy. You don't want to be trained into the ground. But that's the way he wanted to do it but it didn't work out. Hopefully it will hold them in good stead for the World Cup."
What a great attitude to playing the game: train once a while; don't play to often; smoke a few fags; text a lot. That is the way to 700 test wickets.
All Buckers could come back with was bluster:
"I think that's nonsense. The notion of overtraining, I'd like to know what the definition of that is. This is a one-day side and Shane hasn't been around that for a while. There's been plenty of comment from people on the outside and I would say if it's constructive help that would be great, but at the moment I find it pretty unhelpful."
Miaow!
I love watching the Australian's in disarray. Its only a shame that New Zealand have slightly taken the shine off our victory.
Now you know you can write better than me so get in touch with Steve and join the Collective.
Join us
A number of you have expressed an interest below in contributing to this blog. I may regret doing this but if you want to contact me to find out about joining the Collective you can do so at
steven_coventry@hotmail.com
When will Australia win another game?
Despite Matty Hayden making the highest one-day score by an Australian, his team have lost yet another one-day game. This of course begs the question when on earth are Australia going to win another game?
Of course all this is relative and no doubt they will be strong contenders for the World Cup. However, my favourites for the tournament are the West Indies, who at17-2 on Betfair look VERY good value given their home advantage.
Irony
Australia today crashed to their fourth defeat in five games as New Zealand became the first team to beat them by 10 wickets in one-day internationals. Imagine my delight then at receiving an invitation to attend the following event:
Oh and Brett Lee is rated 50-50 for the World cup as well.
We're still here, sort of...
Despite the fact that we haven't been posting we are all still alive.
Personally, I ran out of steam a little because of a combination of work and disillusionment with the performance of the team.
However with the World Cup nearly upon us and the Summer not far round the corner I am sure that this blog will start to get more active.
In the meantime if you want to join the Collective and help to contribute please contact us. You can also check out all the 'hilarious' stuff we have written over the few months in the archive section.
A number of you have expressed an interest below in contributing to this blog. I may regret doing this but if you want to contact me to find out about joining the Collective you can do so at steven_coventry@hotmail.com
