Dafydd Jones remembers the 2005 Ashes

dafyyddafyyd Jones was born in Dyffryn, Glamorgon, on the 1st August, 1989. All his life dafyyd has been very proud Welshman and a huge cricket fan. He passionately supports his national team, England, and used to try and fit in by flying the Union Jack at home games. He did however struggle to locate the Welsh dragon on this representative flag and could only find the cross of St George, the man who slay his mythical dragon, so now he flies the Welsh flag and his favourite players are Simon and Geriant Jones.

The biggest sporting event on dafyyd’s calendar is of course the Ashes between Australia and Wales. and England. dafyyd is stoked that the Ashes are to be played in Cardiff this time, meaning he can go to a home game without having to visit another country for the first time in his life. dafyyd got tickets to all 5 days through his local cricket club, and can’t wait for the series to kick off. He hopes the test will last into the 5th day as he would love for nothing more than to celebrate his 20th birthday with a victory.

It pains dafyyd to reflect on his life as a Welsh cricket supporter, as he realises all to quickly his team have only held the most coveted of trophies for merely 462 days of his lifetime. Upon reaching his 20th birthday, that will be just 6.33% of his entire lifetime, which dafyyd realises all too well that in a two horse race that alternates home ground advantage, is a pretty písspoor effort.

He tries not to over analyse this, however sometimes he gives in to temptation and tries to aggregate it out over his lifetime. He thinks, what if we could have held the Ashes on the first Sunday and Monday of every month for my whole life, apart from December. That would have been sweet.

The happiest moment in dafyyd’s life was of course back in 2005, when England and Wales regained the Ashes for the first time in his life. He promptly joined the facebook fangroup for Aleem Dar, to show his appreciation for the Martyn, Katich and Kasprowicz dismissals at Trent Bridge, and booked himself a train ticket to London to watch the triumphant open topped bus through the city. Oh the happy memories.

Today’s news that The Wisden Cricketer are looking to interview fans just like dafyyd has made him very excited, as like many fans in that part of the world he has ignored the 2006 series and would like to relive past glory when, for 462 very very happy days, they held the trophy. Bravo dafyyd.

KP anoints Warney as English Coach

Captain and Coach

Captain and Coach

KP was so confident that his mutinous plan would succeed that he’d already found a new coaching dream team to replace Peter Moores.

According to reports, the industrious big Kev had been working on third party sponsorship to fund his coup through talks with an unnamed wealthy businessman, and all that remained was for the board to approve the scheme.

KP’s old Hampshire captain Shane Warne was to be head coach, former Victorian captain Darren Berry his assistant, and former England all-rounder Jeremy Snape as team psychologist charged with managing KP’s ego. This of course the same coaching team that won the IPL last year, though Warney would be unlikely to qualify as Captain/Coach for England.

Unfortunately for Kevin, the wheels came off his master plan pretty quickly. It seems the board would like to be involved in the appointment of coaching staff. Perhaps they’d like to even speak to new candidates before their cowboy of a captain seals the deal on their behalf.

Also, there’s the problem that Warney is not interested in becoming the English and Welsh mentor, unless an offer was so “financially outrageous it would be impossible to refuse.”

Financial pressures mount

Vodafone hit by the GFC

Vodafone hit by the GFC

As I feared this morning the Vodafone announcement of throwing the poms out on their árse could be more widespread than initially reported. The ARU have just announced that Australia A will withdraw from the Pacific Nations Cup in 2009, and that the Australian Rugby Shield will be suspended. These has been no word of a Vodafone link, but the co-incidence is not a good sign. I write more on this development over at Green and Gold Rugby.

It gets worse for the combined cricket board of Denmark, White South Africa, Papua New Guinea, Wales and England with the news that Allan Stanford is pulling out of his Stanford tournament. Matt Prior is most upset as he has not yet floated his indecent proposal.