Give it to me big boy

Sure it would be easy to discount the wickets of Phil Hughes and Simon Katich from Freddie’s performance, however Flintoff’s brilliance transcends Rudi’s howlers. I’d like to think it was Fred’s aura that blurred Rudi’s view of the front foot line, and his presence that persuaded Rudi to forsake consistancy and just adjudicate the Strauss “catch” out. Well, either his precense or his presents, either way Hansie would be proud of his countrymen.

In remembering this outstanding bowling performance it should not be forgetten that he legitimately dismissed a wicket keeper and two bowlers, a phenomonal effort for a bowler passed fit by England’s medical staff just 4 mornings earlier.

Then there was the spirit in which he bowled his fiery 10 over spell, surely this is the stuff of which legends are made. That he celebrated his wickets like an ‘outraged camp duck’ shouldn’t take the gloss away from this memorable performance.

Freddie deserves to be eulogised and immortalised, though probably not as much as the 62 English bowlers who have superior innings figures at Lords (even after including Rudi’s freebies).

Here’s some thumbnails of Freddie accepting the well deserved praise that came with his 6 wickets…

Unauthorised Warney

Leg Break articulates nicely Warne’s frustration at this

An unauthorised film would be OK, even an unauthorised play.

But a fúcking musical??

That’s just gay.

Which got me thinking, Which products and services would benefit from the unauthorised use of Warney’s name?

• Shane Warne the Brothel
• Given Warne’s love for playboy undies (not only pictured in News of the World, Gilly also claims he took them along to Buchanan’s boot camp) playboy could release some undies with Warney’s head on them. A caption on the back could say “Bowled Shane”
• Shane Warne the Gigolo
• The Wiley Warney line of sèx toys
• Melbourne to improve it’s image reborn as Warnetown
• Winny Reds to be re-branded as Warney Reds
• The Warne academy for bowling and throwing, run by Scott Muller
• Merlin, the leg spinning machine the Poms built to overcome Warney (yep that worked) can now be called Shane
• Warney’s Dirty SexMS

First the positives

• Michael Clarke didn’t get out in the last over of the day. For this we can thank Brad Haddin who farmed the strike for the last 12 balls, denying Clarke the opportunity to embarrass himself again.
• Beer Bullet Points. I made a small pint act as the bullet point marker on BeerandSport.net. This is the only other positive thing to come out of day 4. Isn’t it grand..

And a few negatives

• Ponting’s public spat with Lee. Rick(y) wanted to make a very public point that he’d lost faith in his strike bowler. Surely these conversations can take place behind closed doors? Where’s the seige mentality? It’s us vs them, once we display for all to see that our unity is threatened, there’s not much left in the tank.
• Ponting bowling Hussey for 8 overs. It was clear that we were waiting for an Indian declaration. The Indians had wisely maintained a Left/Right batting partnership to ensure the Aussie fielders had to move after each ball, and were going out of their way to fatigue us. So what the bloody hell possessed Rick to bowl Hussey for 8 full overs? Here’s a fúcking brainwave Einstein, lets fatigue the worlds number 1 ranked batsman by having him bowl 50 odd balls under the hot Indian sun. Sure he’s the bloke we’re expecting to farm a lions share of the responsibility for saving the match, surely he’d be better placed to do that with stiffness in his back and shoulders. What did you gain from bowling Hussey? Sure he was kind of tidy, though the Indians kept up the 4.75 rpo so really, on the balance, sweet fúck all. Maybe it was a futile attempt to restore some sense to the over rates.. though if you’re serious about those then don’t change the damn field after ever ball.
• Troy Cooley. Specialist Bowling Coach. Uh Huh. Seems Troy is a specialist with the Duke and not too bad with the Kookaburra, but when it comes to the SG Ball he’s as clueless as Greg Chappell. The Indians appear to deliver the new SG with a crossed seam, but then only scuff up one side. Are they landing it on the same side each time, or are they doing a damn fine job of polishing the shiny side? Or do they have special mints? Sounds like a job for a bowling coach.
• Aussie batting collapse. To lose one wicket in a short period is unlucky. Two is foolish. 3 is grossly negligent. 4 either side of a tea break, fúcking atrocious. And to let top knot make the breakthroughs, the pain of it all.
• Matthew Hayden getting out I can understand, he was entertaining the idea of getting the runs and for a second there even I believed it was possible. So did the Indians, as they moved their field back, released pressure and scrambled to contain the onslaught. Still, if you look at the practice matches and two tests this is a run drought of note for the strong tall left handed fisherman cook from Queensland who occasionally plays a bit of cricket. Time to send an SOS to the Son Of Swampy.
• Simon Fúcking Katich. His role in this batting line up is the immovable object. 22 off 187 balls, that’s the sort of mettle I wanna see from the Krab, not some completely and utterly shíthouse shot on the stroke of Lunch. What’s this? A ball passing gently by outside my off stump, perhaps I’ll spoon it to point, that’ll show em. Katich gets a two handed HULK SMASH for that písspoor match losing effort.
• Ricky Ponting
  I had held out hope for hope for match saving Ricky of Manchester 2005, instead we got Ishant’s bítch Rick of Perth 2007. Well he scored some runs in the first test so he’s still in the clear.. but talking of EPIC FAILS:

  

• Michael Hussey To be fair I’d stopped watching or caring at this point. I’ll give the Huss some benefit though cause some moron had him bowl 8 overs in the sun which would have done wonders for his legendary concentration.
• Shane Watson did a pretty decent job and together with Michael Clarke stopped the rot. Shane’s proving to be a pretty useful batsman and has done more than enough to retain his place in the squad.
• Brad Haddin has also done well, though I wouldn’t stick the house on our holding out past tea. Had we been 2 down at stumps then as Balls of Gold suggested, a sizeable wager on the draw could have been a good bet.

To be dominated so completely with both the bat and ball, I’m starting to understand how it must feel to be English, bad personal hygiene and dentistry aside. Repeat this feeling for 17 years and the open top bus celebrations start to have some context… though I still reckon they overdid it.

It comes as no surprise to most people that the Poms (and Welsh) are nations of cheats, and I thougth I’d share a few of their other dirty secrets.

1945 – World War 2 – British RADAR stations detected Luftwaffe raids before they’d even arrived, allowing Spitfires to be deployed and meet the threat.

1966 – Soccer World Cup – George Best was running on performance enhancing kidney’s

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been a long while between drinks here

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1990s – Rowing – Steve Redgrave affixed a small electric propulsion system to his Cox

2003 – Rugby World Cup – Johnny Wilkonson wore specially designed shoes that inject the ball with Helium at the point of impact thus reducing it’s ‘weight’ and increasing it’s flight distance by up to 28%.

2005 – Ashes – Trescothick as the team polisher used mints to sweeten his saliva and ensure extra shine on the ball. This resulted in reverse swing for the English and Welsh bowlers as early as the 16th over.

2007 – Rugby World Cup – Andy Sherridan carried a can of mace that he kept squirting into Matt Dunning’s eyes during scrums which made it almost impossible for The Dunning to hold up his side of the scrum.

2008 – Olympics – Convinced three of their neighbours to compete in their team, and then take all the glory themselves. You don’t see the West Indies combining in order to try and ‘beat’ their former colonies, but the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are apparently happy to compete under the Great Britain flag. Time to play Braveheart on ITV again..

Well. Just when you thought that the viscous, pulsating flow of faeces that constitutes life couldn’t get any thicker, the England cricket team thicken the mix by collapsing to 21 all out.

Yes, a stirling performance by the great unwashed to welcome in the rebuilt Galle ground. After watching Jayawardene accumulate 213 not out, the Lankans declared on 499 leaving 8 overs before lunch to find that the benine pitch they’d been milking for 7 sessions is in fact possessed.

Vaughan played a captains knock and led his men from the front with a hard earned run before shouldering arms to one that trapped him in front. With just 5 overs to go till the lunch break one could have been forgiven for showing caution, however Vaughan had asked for a collapse and his loyal followers were eager to provide just that. Cook was inspirational and orchestrated the run out of Ding Dong Bell before surrendering his own wicket in the 6th over. Not even saffa pom could stop the rout, falling to Malinga the next over. Lunch was kind enough to find them 4/22 needing just 277 to avoid the follow on.

Collingwood held up an end in defiance of Vaughan’s orders however wickets steadily fell at the other end before the collapse was complete at the 81 marker. Had the not been kind enough to provide 12 extras a total of 69 was on the cards.

So.. they’ve got two days to find some backbone and learn to bat, otherwise we’ll be seeing a change in the world rankings with Sri Lanka climbing to 2 and the Poms dropping to 5. Nice.

There is some fantastic news about labor being returned to power that I found on this Times blog

Aussies may be reassured by this statistic: under Labour governments they have won 2.2 times more Tests against England than they have lost, while under the Liberals or their forerunners the win ratio is only 1.3. The reverse is true for England where our national team have won the Ashes only four times under Labour (losing 13 series) compared with a 16-18 series record under the Conservatives. If Brown goes for an election in May 2009, people may feel that voting for David Cameron is the best chance of winning back the Ashes.

So, statistically at least we’ll continue our dominance over the united nations of Pomlandia well into Krudd’s term.. though I’m not sure if he can take any credit for their lack of decent bowlers.

Anyway, the real issue for mine is the depth of Krudd’s Aussie tracksuit collection, and I’d like to know that he can at least land the ball on the pitch..

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s cricket, rugby union or rugby league, we all hate England”.

Personally I don’t think he’s gone far enough by neglecting to mention Lawn Bowls, Sailing, Netball, Soccer (especially at Upton Park), Darts, Snooker, Surfing, and how they shafted us in the war. To be fair though, they did take Rolf Harris. I can only assume that he’s attempting to galvanise public support for the Wallabies by encouraging a bit of old fashioned pammy bashing, lets hope it doesn’t have the opposite effect and stir the Poms to an upset in the quarters.

Do it for the Kingdom
Tonga are tapping into the worldwide hatred of the Poms and urging supporters from all rugby denominations to get behind the kingdom in their knockout match against the unwashed on Friday night (AEST). Here’s a few inspirational words from their captain Niki Latu.

“It’s the biggest game in our history. We have a great chance of getting into
the quarter-finals. We don’t want to be going home next week. England is a
one-off match and the losers won’t get another chance to put it right.”
“We’ve got the best team we’ve ever had and have done really well. We
haven’t got the greatest facilities or equipment in Tonga, but we’ve shown here
that you don’t always need that. This is going to be our biggest moment, for all
Tongan sporting history.”
“I know that everyone will be cheering for us, Scotland, Wales, every country … even Iraq. It’s just a massive game, we’ve got nothing to lose so we’re going to give it our best shot.”

Who’s got the biggest balls of them all?
Daniel Carter and Johnny Wilkinson are not happy with their balls, feeling that they are heavier on match day than at practice.

Both were very heavy, they shifted quite a way, right to left, which is quite unusual for me, with no wind.” whinged Wilkinson.

Perhaps the team policy of no WAG’s on tour should be relaxed to improve the respective kickers’ swagger.

What’s all that aboot?
Following up on my blog last week where I suggested that Spreadbury was a tool, this interview between John Taylor and South African Referee Craig Joubert confirms my suspicions.

Video referee, Craig Joubert, claimed his hands were tied by referee, Tony
Spreadbury.

“When he consulted me he indicated he was going to disallow the try
but just wanted to check on the double movement. There was definitely a stop and
then a second attempt to get the ball over so I confirmed it.

“But what about the fact that he was never held and therefore he was not tackled (which means he is perfectly entitled to go again)?” queried John Taylor

“Ah, that’s the problem. We spent hours discussing the protocol relating to the
television match official and it was decided that he should be very specific in
answering the referee’s question. I did not have the right to raise the matter
of whether or not the tackle had been completed because he had already made that
decision.”

Had the try been given Canada might well have won the match and
that could well have given them third place in the group and automatic
qualification for the next World Cup under the new rules for this tournament.

They started off 1-0 down, then 2-0 down. Beckham came on after half time and gave a great cross to set up some soap-dodger right in front ; 2-1. Another piece of arse and they were at 2-2. Fortunately the planets aligned and the Croats scored again, knocking the Poms out of Euro 2008.

As a result they’ve sacked their coach and vice coach. This is a big deal for the great unwashed, watch tomorrows headlines for rioting like when they went down to Portugal in Euro 2004 (oh the memorories). Just the thing to cheer me up for the weekend.

In conclusion, here’s Holly Valance – an English celebrity on their most popular soap “Home and Away”, who like the great unwashed also can’t play soccer.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s cricket, rugby union or rugby league, we all hate England”.

Personally I don’t think he’s gone far enough by neglecting to mention Lawn Bowls, Sailing, Netball, Soccer (especially at Upton Park), Darts, Snooker, Surfing, and how they shafted us in the war. To be fair though, they did take Rolf Harris. I can only assume that he’s attempting to galvanise public support for the Wallabies by encouraging a bit of old fashioned pammy bashing, lets hope it doesn’t have the opposite effect and stir the Poms to an upset in the quarters.

Do it for the Kingdom
Tonga are tapping into the worldwide hatred of the Poms and urging supporters from all rugby denominations to get behind the kingdom in their knockout match against the unwashed on Friday night (AEST). Here’s a few inspirational words from their captain Niki Latu.

“It’s the biggest game in our history. We have a great chance of getting into
the quarter-finals. We don’t want to be going home next week. England is a
one-off match and the losers won’t get another chance to put it right.”
“We’ve got the best team we’ve ever had and have done really well. We
haven’t got the greatest facilities or equipment in Tonga, but we’ve shown here
that you don’t always need that. This is going to be our biggest moment, for all
Tongan sporting history.”
“I know that everyone will be cheering for us, Scotland, Wales, every country … even Iraq. It’s just a massive game, we’ve got nothing to lose so we’re going to give it our best shot.”

Who’s got the biggest balls of them all?
Daniel Carter and Johnny Wilkinson are not happy with their balls, feeling that they are heavier on match day than at practice.

Both were very heavy, they shifted quite a way, right to left, which is quite unusual for me, with no wind.” whinged Wilkinson.

Perhaps the team policy of no WAG’s on tour should be relaxed to improve the respective kickers’ swagger.

What’s all that aboot?
Following up on my blog last week where I suggested that Spreadbury was a tool, this interview between John Taylor and South African Referee Craig Joubert confirms my suspicions.

Video referee, Craig Joubert, claimed his hands were tied by referee, Tony
Spreadbury.

“When he consulted me he indicated he was going to disallow the try
but just wanted to check on the double movement. There was definitely a stop and
then a second attempt to get the ball over so I confirmed it.

“But what about the fact that he was never held and therefore he was not tackled (which means he is perfectly entitled to go again)?” queried John Taylor

“Ah, that’s the problem. We spent hours discussing the protocol relating to the
television match official and it was decided that he should be very specific in
answering the referee’s question. I did not have the right to raise the matter
of whether or not the tackle had been completed because he had already made that
decision.”

Had the try been given Canada might well have won the match and
that could well have given them third place in the group and automatic
qualification for the next World Cup under the new rules for this tournament.