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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Where did it all go wrong? 2005 was supposed to herald a new dawn in English cricket, an end to all those painful years when to be an English fan one required a fetish for self harm. They weren’t nicknamed the Barmy Army without good reason.

Yet if you believe some quarters of the media we are presently having dinner at the Restaurant at the end of the cricketing universe. Knee jerk reactions are inevitable just as they were after the end of the football world cup. Surely there can’t be many who haven’t uttered the words ’sack the coach, sack the captain’.

Matthew Hoggard is one of those who believes there isn’t much wrong with the hierarchy and went as far as to suggest that Duncan Fletcher was the best coach in the world. Quite frankly what does that say about the players then, if the best coach in the world can only drag them on their bellies to victories over associate nations and Bangladesh. Read the rest of this entry »

It is the eve of the opening weekend of the English domestic cricket season, and everyone is tingling at the prospect of scoring their first run or taking their first wicket. Many clubs are only involved in warm up games at this stage, and according to the Kent skipper, Rob Key, we should all hence forth be aware that standard cricket rules do not apply for such games.

Key was snapped by a freelance photographer in Kent’s warm up game against Notts this week, liberally applying a piece of sandpaper to the ball in an attempt to get the ball to reverse swing. Key said:

“My conscience is clear. I won’t be going out and scratching the ball the way I have in this game in a first-class match but these games are used for practice and are a good opportunity to see where people are… Maybe I’ve been a bit naive but it didn’t really occur to me that this might develop into a match-fixing scandal.”

No Bob it just didn’t occur to you that you might get caught at a low key, pre-season friendly, where there would be little media coverage, and now your chubby rosy cheeks have been left redder than normal. Read the rest of this entry »

The English language is very often a thing to marvel at. It is a huge melting pot of other languages with a literary tradition to rival many of the modern languages. It has a great fluidity and playful spirit at it’s core which lends itself to poetry and creative writing. All the rules are there to be broken and to use the same adjective twice is to sully the essence of the language with all the clumsiness of a striker putting a tap in over the bar.

Sports journalism has been a great beneficiary of the language. Cricket especially has embraced the language and it has at times existed in perfect syncronisation; an idiosyncratic language married to an eccentric sport. You need look no further than the work of Neville Cardus.

Neville Cardus
One of the great
sports writers

But like a new cricket bat of the finest English Willow, it’s effectiveness and worth can only become a valuable attribute in the correct hands. In the wrong hands it’s detrimental effect can blight sport and have a direct effect on it. Read the rest of this entry »