Cross Nets

Holy Cross!!!

Those of you with a lower level of sophistication might see a simple picture of fishnet stockings, but if you look closer I believe time-served Crossers will immediately recognise the 'Cross Nets' connotations in this photo.

And with that subtle prompt, I would like to remind everyone that tomorrow is the final pre-season indoor net session.

Usual time, usual place.

At such an esteemed club as ourselves, every opportunity must be grabbed to attend nets as you never know when the next one might be. And although numbers have been almost acceptable so far, let's forego the temptations of Chelsea v Spurs (Sky Plus it) or shopping with the wife (tell where to stick it) and engage in some of the rusty hacking and blended frogging that passes for our practice.

Oh aye, one last thing, if anyone see's a Smith, let them know about nets too...

The Perils of Orthodox Thought

Inventor of Jogging - Deid

This lunch time Sky Sports News report that;

"now to England's opening tour match in Sri Lanka, Stuart Broad sprained his ankle during the warm-up and he didn't take part".

Knock me down with a medicine ball. I feel like a 'Galileo of fitness' swimming hopelessly against the orthodox view here.

Is it really worth risking these pre-match injury attempts or so-called warm-ups??? Excuse me for asking, but if warming-up is logical shouldn't there be a warm-up before you warm-up? And a warm-up before that? I could go on.

When would we have time to sit down folks, when would we actually sit down?????

If these fitness know-all's with their physiotherapy degrees and swathes of data still cannot be swayed, I urge all the non-evidence based opinion formers to heed the harsh lesson (almost) learned by Mr Jim Fixx, the infamous 'inventor' of jogging and writer of 1977's best selling 'Complete Book of Running'. This book is credited with 'helping start America's fitness revolution' (72 million obese in a recent head count). Try not to choke on your deep fried Twinkie's!!!

In what is also a dagger to the heart of Mensa, of whom Mr Fixx was a member, the poor man died of a heart attack at the age of 52 ... after his daily jog!!!!!

As the untouchable Bill Hicks once opined on the demise of Mr Fixx, "Keith Richards is still alive".

Now of course, I'm not one of these types wot just criticises whilst offering no alternative. I was pure delighted with the revelation in a recent Horizon on the BBC (still available on iPlayer via this link) called 'The Truth About Exercise' which suggested that 12 minutes of exercise a month is perfectly adequate. Alack, too late for poor Jimmy Fixx!!!

Here are a couple of great quotes from stupidgymshit.com

"Over the years I've witnessed two people rupture their Achilles tendon by doing something as simple as running in place with a high knee action"

"You'd be surprised how many people suffer injuries during their warm-up" (er, no I wouldn't).

KF on the Ashes (Part 2).

Part 2 of KF's Ashes commentary.

One single match after the worst performance in the history of sport against the greatest side ever to walk the planet, England find themselves 1-0 up in the series. OK, I’m exaggerating a bit, but as usual, it’s the commentary by supposed experts that gets me going. I’d love to watch a game (and this applies to football as well), where a fair and unbiased assessment of the game is commented upon where necessary, with some tactical and technical insights by an eloquent commentator. Too often we are fed total nonsense. There are exceptions. I think ‘our’ own Michael Atherton is excellent and feel it’s hard to beat a Jeremy Coney assessment of a match situation. Where Coney is also extremely good is that when talking about New Zealand, there is no bias or jingoism, he tells it exactly like it is. And that is how it should be. We need more like him and they must be out there (certainly in cricket, maybe not in football).

The danger of paying someone to sit and talk when there is nothing to say is all too apparent. And the logic seemingly followed by Sky, that you need to have been an England captain to be able to commentate, is questionable. Yes, they’d have a crack senior 6-a-side team, but are they the greatest commentary team? When Hughes opens for Australia and clobbers a four over point, you hear English voices say things like ‘ooh, he got away with that one’ or ‘a bit uppish there’. In my head I can only hear Bill Lawry screaming ‘BANG, there’s another one crashing into the boards’. Why are England’s commentator’s so negative? When, as happens, the umpire’s made a meal of things, I could hardly believe my ears. The game was brought into disrepute with the assertion that these umpires were rubbish and that in world cricket, only Dar and Taufel are up to the job. Amazing stuff coming from former England players. If this is the case, and you think you can do better then stop being so defamatory and show us how it’s done. Otherwise, shut the hell up.

How nice is it to hear Warne in amongst them. He is Australian and he wants them to win. No problems there. But he is also a genuine world cricketer having captained in England and India in different versions of the game to go alongside his Australian record/s. His cricket opinion is clear of petty jealousies and suchlike, he just espouses sensible opinion again and again. He can’t be rivalled when it comes to ospinion (do you like that?) and I think his point that there should only be referrals if there is a referral system that is 100% accurate is well considered. Simply put, when he opens his mouth you listen. When Botham starts contradicting what he said 15 minutes ago, you switch off. When Hussein goes in a huff because England are being beaten, you despair.

Onto the actual cricket. What a difference Graham Onions made. Without him, England limped to a draw at Cardiff. With him Australia were steamrollered at Lords. Obviously I jest. But regarding England’s team selection, who do you rate most/who is best/who would you least like to face? Onions & Broad or Harmison & Panesar? All four would skittle me, but I suspect the vast majority would prefer the latter pair in their side and they’d be a fantastically entertaining last wicket partnership as well.

Now for Sir Freddie. That his injuries have cut short his career is no surprise at all. As he is ‘big-built’ and a quickie, he was always going to incur more wear and tear. But as I’ve said on record before (see Jon’s quote in the comments about my 1^st Test report), injecting him with pain killers and making him play while injured is stupid, counter-productive and borderline criminal. The pain is there for a reason. Masking it allows you to dumbly exacerbate the problem. I’m astonished such short-termism pervades. Anyone familiar with the story of Allan McGraw will dread what the future holds for Flintoff’s legs. At least in the 1960’s they could plead ignorance. That he can thunder in and consistently bowl over 90mph owes as much to the ‘wonders’ of medicine than natural ability. Sorry to labour this but I reckon I could smash a few lids if I was on the same drugs as Flintoff.

Now without their show pony (allowing countless laboured Achilles heel jokes), will England pick a work horse or a donkey? Is there an Australian available with 3 games under his belt for a minor county who qualifies through a criminal grandparent deported here 50 years ago? I refer of course to the somewhat leftfield selection of that bowler whose name escapes me and I can’t be bothered to look up. While losing KP is a blow they have an obvious replacement in Bell, but you never know with England selectors do you!!! And all that losing KP from the batting line-up will do is allow the commentators to start attacking Bopara or Cook or whoever instead of their goofy Saffer.

The performances in the first two Test’s don’t matter now. An argument could be made that England have the momentum, but didn’t Australia have that after Cardiff? Momentum or over-confidence, six and half a dozen!!! The score is 1-0 to England, an outstanding position. But with doubts over Flintoff’s ability to play another 3 Tests, Broad’s cold statistics and Onions yet to prove he is Test class, there are still 60 Australian wickets between England and the Ashes. The cricket has been excellent so far and I can’t wait for the next instalment, although I might just watch it with the sound turned off. Actually, I can’t do that or I’d have nothing to whinge about in my next dispatch.

KF on the Ashes (Part 1)

[Some brief, er, reflections from the 1st team VC on the 1st Test].

Previously this may have been called an article, but now its probably a twitblog!!! I splatted out a twitarticleblog after the 2005 nailbiter. You may recall England retained their Ashes by beating Australia 365-0 and made Shane Warne retire and Ricky Ponting cry. To appease my literary fans, I’ve decided to review the 1st Test, and who knows, maybe more in the weeks to come.

England (& Wales) 687-19
Australia 674-6
Match Drawn!!!!!

Nathan who (6-158)? Marcus who (125no)? Congratulations to all the experts in the media who once again talked and wrote more tripe about proceedings in Cardiff than I would ever have thought possible (even Cricinfo bills it as “Australia tour of England and Scotland, 1st Test: England v Australia at Cardiff,”). The Sky boys were in great form, Sir Beefy in particular (“Australia have to score a lot of runs just to avoid the follow on” he slavered, rubbing his hands early in Australia’s first innings. I didn’t see him smile again until proceedings concluded), whilst our meatheaded papers couldn’t help smearing themselves in idiotic ink as well. The Sundays had a fine old time denouncing the tawdry, inept embarrassments turning out for England (& Wales) with a day of the match still to go. ‘Only Welsh Rain Can Save English Shower’ and more disrespectful tedium like that.

End result, a draw with no Welsh raindrops in sight. But how can that be? Well, against obviously superior opposition (“this Australian team isn’t as bad as we thought” – Smiler Hussein, morning of Day 4, hopefully speaking on behalf of the expert commentary team and not on behalf of average cricket fans who watched Australia in South Africa recently on the really obscure Sky Sports channels), two or three players showed international class application, specifically Anderson, Collingwood and an impeccable knock of 7 from 35 balls by Monty. Massive credit to them. But if Anderson outscores 5 of the top 6 in any more innings, heads have to roll. It seems harder to be dropped from England 1st XI than it is for Holy Cross 1st XI and I should know.

A wee point here about KP. Why is the English media hounding him into inevitable early retirement. Sure, he’s a total prat, but this isn’t a personality contest. He top scored in the 1st innings and was singled out and slaughtered for it. There are very few people in the world who can tell him how to play and none of them are English (or Welsh). You can have him playing his way (1st innings) or the ‘proper’ way (2nd innings). Absolutely no contest. He is far and away the teams most talented run scorer and this put them on a pedestal to knock them off thing is unfathomable. Everyone has flaws. Not everyone has talent like that. Cherish every run he scores before he says ‘enough is enough, see how you do without me’. He was treated shabbily as captain and despite establishing himself as the nations best batsman, still has to dodge flak from batsmen of the calibre of Bob Willis and the like.

Once the match was underway, the likelihood of a draw was a done deal. It is the practice in these times to prepare a flat dead batting track which won’t break up even if the whole series is played on it (unless you are Antiguan of course). As we see at club level, this seems to have the knock on effect of making league cricketers expect bone dry A-class roads for games, rather than just getting on with it and accepting indifferent bounce is the same for both teams. The talk of picking 1 or 2 spinners (if 2, why not 4 or 5?) seems redundant to me. I’m sure in the days of Underwood and uncovered pitches, these tactics were genuine (as was the nightwatchman thing with which England persist at any opportunity), but on the face of it at Cardiff, I don’t see how either Hauritz or Swann & Panesar were or could have been match winners here ahead of any other type of bowler. If the pitch is flat, dead and true and will be for 25 days apart from the odd bowlers follow through, picking specialist players for different Tests seems largely obsolete.

To ensure no possibility of a result, the ECB took the incredible decision of not only starting this series outside England, but also picking the wettest ground available. Peerages must be inevitable for these bright chaps. That the visitors almost prevailed bodes ill for England’s chances in this series. Depending how much attention you pay to history, I believe England haven’t won the first Ashes test for decades, and haven’t beaten Australia at Lords since the 1930’s. So, why on earth choose Lords for the 2nd Test??? Apparently the Venue Selection meeting began with the statement; ‘Gentlemen, under no circumstances do we want to be ahead after 2 Tests’. Where is the 3rd Test, the Gabba? Or maybe Wales has some other wetter Test standard grounds and the whole series could be played there.

Referring back to Nasser Hussein’s earlier quote, this is an Australian team arriving after beating the supremely talented South Africans away from home and who beat England (& Wales) 5-0 the last time they met. They are stuffed full with class, potential and experience. When 4 of the team are outscoring Mrs Cricket by 100+ runs (and the tail didn’t even get a bat), you can only fear for the pretty England bowlers who try so elegantly for so little return, for the rest of this series. I’ve said since the 5-0 drubbing in Australia that Harmison has to be picked at home, and left there when the team tour. With the depreciating Flintoff, he’s the only bowler available who can, albeit on his day, ruffle Aussie feathers. But I can’t remember England (& Wales) ever picking their best XI, so why begin now?

However close or otherwise this match played out, England have done very well to get a draw. Does it matter if both teams were 1000-5 after 5 days, or that one team nearly won/lost? I don’t think so. England (&Wales) only have to win the series 1-0. That is the only bottom line. Offer that to any Englander now and you’re hand, arm and shoulder would disappear with it. It’s currently 0-0, as good a start as they’ve had in recent memory. Not that you would sniff this from the press. Maybe some ‘Welsh’ rain can help them at Lords? Then by the 3rd Test when England (& etc) are picking something like their best side, and the Aussies have a niggle or two in a tiring squad, we might see the home side edge ahead. Or it may end up 4-0 to the Aussies. If I had to put £1 on a series result, it might be 50p each way on 3-0 or 4-0. I hope it’s a lot closer, if only to hear the blinkered brigade get excited and xenophobic for a while. As its bad form to criticise without offering alternatives, here is my England ((& Wales) & Scotland XI): K Fraser (c), WG Grace, C Ellis, K Pietersen, J Bates, M Bevan, J Russell (wk), I Botham, R Illingworth (always an idea to have an umpire in your side), H Larwood, G Small.

Will blether again after the next debacle…