Following the fallout from the Sydney test, I’ve reading all the opinions, facts, threats and allegations before wanting to give my own. There is more to unfold from this story you feel and to give a knee-jerk reaction would have been wrong. No one seems to be thinking about the long-term effects “Bollyline” will have.

Then I came across Jonathan Agnew’s article on the BBC website and it is the one closest to the mark. Whilst I do like Aggers’s radio commentary I often find his match reports full of benign platitudes. This was a pleasant surprise.

He quite rightly lays blame at the feet of both sets of players. He is, I think, excessively vindictive towards Australia, and I don’t agree that it solely stems from their side but there is a large dollop of truth thrown in with what he says about Australian cricket. Read the rest of this entry »

The SCG Test 2007 will be remembered for many reasons. Some moments of magic and at the end of five enthralling days, one over of madness which ultimately cost India the draw they deserved.

The innings of Laxman and Tendulkar will live long in the memory. Likewise the centuries of Symonds, Hayden and Hussey. Bowlers fought hard to keep pace on a pitch which remained favourable to batting throughout, but those who stuck to their task got their rewards.

Unfortunately though, and they are becoming ever recurrent themes within cricket debating circles, umpires mistakes and player behaviour are the main topics of conversation following the test.

Steve Bucknor made two painfully poor calls against India, and the Australians are (yet again) being accused of sharp practice, and trying to influence the umpires decisions. The message boards and forums are inevitably awash with aggrieved Indian supporters.

Every cricketer knows that some days the decisions go your way and some days they don’t. Players are quick to point this out when decisions are in their favour, and those that go against live longer in the memory.

It is a truism that over 5 days, if a team has the desire and skill to match the opposition then 2 decisions should not decide an entire test match. I for one am becoming sick of supporters from all nations blaming umpiring decisions. Subsequent effigy burning, suggestions of racism and calls for the boycotting of some ICC elected umpires just takes to the game to levels of mass depravity which soils the name of cricket.

I am personally against excessive use of technology for many reasons. It undermines the men out in the middle, who it has been shown get the large majority of very tough decisions spot on. Also in an era where tests struggle to go to the fifth day very often, having every decision scrutinised would slow it down, but also paradoxically shorten games, as batsman find they get many decisions given against them, where previously they would have been given the benefit of the doubt. The batsman’s union will be up in arms when they see their averages dropping rapidly.

Unfortunately I think the game has reached a stage where idealism and sentimentality have to be laid to one side, and the door opened to technology, but only if everyone is 100% agreed with it’s reliability. If it is the only means that a touch of graciousness in victory and defeat can be restored then so be it.

As for sharp practice and honesty - that left sport when money arrived and winning became all important. India should be more aware of their effects than any other nation.

Australia do push the limits of laws to the limits, despite their holier-than-thou interview spiel, but every professional team in the world does at one point or another. If your the best side in the world, and your steamrolling all before you, people are just more likely to feel a heightened sense of aggrievment.

Evolution is a basic necessity for long term success. In any walk of life, gentle introspection and reinvention are the keys to longevity. One trick ponies fall lame and and those who burn instantly bright are prone to burning out. True pioneers become legends.

Whilst Sachin Tendulkar’s batting is based on the simplest of principles - balance, economy of movement, and a freakishly mathmatical eye - it is his hunger to take his greatness to unparalleled heights in service of his country and his billion disciples which sets him apart. Last year was his on-field nadir. Many others would have allowed the light to fizzle out, but anyone who doubted the little master’s hunger could have only stood humbled and in awe as Tendulkar reached his 39th test hundred, and reached for the Sydney skies above as though it was his first. An appreciative crowd, regardless of allegiance rose in deepest appreciation for this phlegmatic and altruistic cricketer.

The essence of any sporting great cannot be understood unless the journey to greatness is qualified. Sachin was marked for greatness, but talent alone doesn’t fulfill destiny. It is not just the statistics which make Tendulkar the legend.

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So England’s hopes of qualifying for a major international tournament look in as much doubt as it has done since defeats away to Norway and Holland in 1993 left England almost without hope of qualifying for USA ’94.

But is it really any surprise? Well no not really. This was always a tougher grouper than so called experts/rent-a-quotes would have you believe. Not quite on the level Scotland had to deal with but certainly tougher in terms of strength in depth than anything Eriksson had to deal with before. But this is not an anti-Eriksson rant, far from it.

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When Pakistan resume their fourth innings on 108/1 on Thursday morning, they need the small matter of another 349 further runs to claim a record breaking victory against South Africa in Lahore

If anyone can achieve this it’s the mercurial Pakistan cricket team. Unbelievaly fantastic on some days to painfully awful on others, they have the ability to score at the required 3.8 runs per over.

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So New Zealand have been dumped out of the 2007 World Cup and a nation is in mourning. For the people of these rugby crazed islands, whose global identity is built on their prowess in the 15 man game it is nothing short of a national tragedy.

As they desperately grope around in the gloom cast over the national psyche for answers it is understandable that they look for someone to blame. Like losing a loved one to tragic circumstances, sinews stripped bare to the raw emotions bring out a primeval desire for retribution.

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Another afternoon glancing down the county scores, and the eye almost passes over another Mark Ramprakash 100. 196 against Lancashire almost doesn’t register such is its recent familiarity.

England fast bowler Bob Willis has today claimed that players like Ramprakash and Graeme Hick (along with Kolpak and ‘naturalised’ players) are ‘clogging’ up county cricket and the progression of young English talent, as they are never going to play for England again.

Whilst I cannot fail to begrudgingly agree with Willis on the Kolpak issue, the suggestion that servants to the English game, especially of the county circuit is nothing short of an insult to the system itself, especially when every county would chew your arm off to have the services of these two players such is their form with the bat.

And why shouldn’t Ramprakash be considered for England this winter and onto the 2009 attempt to reclaim the Ashes.

He has topped the runs and the averages for the past two seasons, and whilst he may not have have succeeded the first time around in test cricket, who is to say that given a second chance Ramprakash would fail again. As long as his form continues, he is worthy of a place. Even Owais Shah the heir apparent to the England batting line-up would be unable to argue with Ramprakash’s recent record.

If Ramprakash had been offered the same patience and help that many current England players have been afforded, the story could have been very different. Instead he was inducted into a paranoid and selfish England dressing room aged 21, and left to fend for himself. Team spirit was unheard of back then.

An ideal comparison is Ian Bell, not just as a comparison of style but the parallels of their infuriating mix of mental intensity and frailty. In Ramprakash it was identified as his weakness and he was dropped, selected and re-picked relentlessly, which can have only damaged his psyche further. Bell however has been given an extended run and backing from the entire England set-up even when he had a miserable Ashes in 2005. It now looks as though England are beginning to reap the rewards for their faith.

With Strauss so painfully out of form, and Flintoff injured why not give a man deserving of a second chance, a run in the side with a view to the next Ashes. If he has a bad winter we know it was not to be. If he plays a major part in reclaiming the Ashes his talent will have been at least partially fulfilled.

On the face of things British sport appears to be in rude health. Ever since BSkyB and the Labour government decided that sport would be the vehicle to win the hearts and minds of the British public, it’s been boom time in Britain.

Is the bubble about to burst both on and off the pitch? As Northern Rock, bank and major contributor to sport in the North East felt the credit pinch, Gordon Brown’s assertion that the days of ‘boom or bust’ were a thing of the past seemed as realistic as England’s chance of winning the Rugby World Cup. Read the rest of this entry »

Following a summer break we are returning for another winter of opinion and debate. We could claim that we were away bailing water from flooded houses, taking the world by storm as real journalists or on the best holiday ever. All that would of course be lies of a magnitude normally only ever scaled by politicians.

We were in fact playing sport, or in Jonnos case, lying in hospital recovering from sport. This only accounts for the British wing of the team however. If anyone in New Zealand knows where Fergie is, tell him the English Football team are missing their most generous critic.

Hayden criticises the tournament length, Lara admits his team is poor but Flintoff just lets out a hearty belch!

When I think of the in-form teams at this year’s World Cup I glance at the England squad list & can only see a couple of team players in that whole list. NZ’s Jacob Oram was prepared to amputate part of a broken finger to play the tournament & I would hazard I guess that little ol’ Muddy Panesar would forgo his quarter century birthday for his abortive English team to make the semi-finals. Another is Paul Collingwood, probably one of my favourite players outside of The Long White Cloud, who seems to be the only adhesive in a team of over hyped, toffee nosed, public schooled w*****s.

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