Ricky Ponting's Unbelievable Rant

The pressure is clearly getting to Ricky Ponting.  He knows that he will probably be out of a job in the next few weeks and (if the test match keeps on going like this) he knows that he will be remembered as the man who lost the Ashes both at home and abroad.

The pressure seemed to get to him in yesterday's play.  The review of a decision against Kevin Pietersen showed that KP was clearly not out.  'Punter', in that bizarre parallel universe that only tends to exist on the sporting field in the midst of the action didn't quite see things that way.  And he told the umpire about it... at length... before also informing KP of his displeasure.  Check it out here:



Maybe Ricky needs to borrow Tevez's dummy.  He certainly spat it out yesterday.  Ponting was always the cricketer England fans loved to hate and its hard to see how yesterday's antics will be making things any better.

It may not have been quite as bad as Mike Gatting's effort a few years ago, but Ricky should know that he was standing on VERY thin ice.



Ponting has been fined 40% of his match fee.  Quite right too.  Hopefully now England can finish the job in the next few days.

The Ashes and Sleep Avoidance

The Ashes are certainly likely to play havoc with people's sleep patterns over the next few months as we look to keep that little urn from out of the Aussie's clutches.

The BBC kindly put together a piece about how you could watch plenty of the action without becoming a zombie for the following day.

They reckon that, "carefully-timed naps, caffeinated drinks, avoiding certain foods and keeping yourself stimulated" are key to the whole thing."

The whole article is here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11814630

Hopefully England's performance will be worth staying up for.

Cricket's Greatest Sledges

The Ashes, at long last, get underway this evening.  A sparky, lively encounter, which will hopefully lighten up the cold winter for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere.


And the Ashes have certainly contributed to the dubious poetry of cricket that is the art of sledging.  Just to get us in the mood for the start of the series at midnight, here are a few of cricket's greatest sledges:

• Viv Richards was one of the most exciting, swashbuckling batsmen of the past 30 years.  But for a few balls, Greg Thomas had got the better of the great West Indian.  Thomas couldn't resist throwing a jibe at Richards, telling the great man, "it’s red, its round and weighs about 5 ounces.” Needless to say, Viv hit the next ball out of the park, before telling Thomas,“you know what it looks like, go and fetch it.” 
• Arjuna Ranatunga, not necessarily the fittest man in professional sport, asked for a runner when Australia were playing Sri Lanka on a very hot Sydney night.  Aussie wicketkeeper, Iain Healy's response was that “You don’t get a runner for being an overweight and unfit fat ****.” 
• Shane Warne also tried to lure the big Sri Lankan down the pitch in another game. Healy suggested, “put a Mars Bar on a good length. That should do it.”
• Daryll Cullinan, who had been one of Shane Warne's victims many times over the years was heading to the crease.  Warne immediately shouted to Cullinan that he had been waiting two years to have another crack him. Cullinan responded, “looks like you spent it eating.”
• Freddie Trueman was even happy to sledge his own teammates.  After letting the ball go through his legs from an outside edge off Trueman's bowling, the guilty fielder, Raman Subba Row came up to Truman and apologised: “Sorry Fred, I should have kept my legs together.” Truman responded, “So should your mother.”
• Malcolm Marshall was bowling to David Boon who had played and missed a couple of times. Marshall: "Now David, Are you going to get out now or am I going to have to bowl around the wicket and kill you?"
• Merv Hughes was beating Robin Smith with a sequence of great deliveries. After beating the bat for the again, Merv quipped, “Mate, you can’t f****n bat.” Smith then hammered the next ball to the boundary before saying, "hey Merv, we’d make a fine pair. I can’t f****ng bat and you  can’t f****ng bowl.”
• James Ormond met a tirade of abuse from Mark Waugh, who kept saying, “mate, what are you doing here? There is no way you’re good enough to play for England.” Ormond responded, “maybe not, but at least I’m the best player in my family.”
• When the great Iain Botham came to the crease , Aussie ‘keeper Rod Marsh asked him: “So how’s your wife and my kids.”  Botham's response - "the wife's fine but the kids are retarded."
• “All right, which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?” – The way the Aussie vice captain dealt with complaints that somebody had sworn at Douglas Jardine.
• Ian Healy once said to Mike Atherton, "You’re a f*****ng cheat.”  To which Athers responded, "When in Rome, dear boy.”

Hat tip to Aussie Daily Telegraph

Test Match Special and 'Boycott Bingo'

It will come as surprise whatsoever to readers of this blog that I'm a massive fan of Test Match Special.  If ever a radio programme could be described as a national treasure, then TMS is it.

One of the joys of the existing line up of TMS is the musings of that Yorkshire great Geoffrey Boycott (who is, apparently, also a hero of Labour leadership contender, Ed Miliband.)



We all know that Boycs has his fair share of sayings and a keen eared TMS listener has devised Boycott bingo (a relation no doubt to the more profane version of bingo that people who have had to sit through tedious business meetings will be familiar with.)

Check out the TMS version of Boycott Bingo here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/testmatchspecial/4910566798/

It contains such gems as:

"You could book in for a bed and breakfast on this wicket."


"I could have hit that with a stick of celery."


"That's buffet bowling that is."


It seems that a version of 'Blofeld Bingo' is in the works for the Lords test.


Prepare for pigeons, buses and cakes...

The Observer Sets Out The Decline In Test Match Crowds

I have blogged a few times over the past few weeks on declining crowds at this summer's test matches.  This morning's Observer has a report on the matter.  As Paul Weaver's article says:

The redevelopment work at Edgbaston has cut the capacity to 15,000, but just 10,020 pitched up for the first day and the match is expected to be completed tomorrow, the third day of the match... The situation at Nottingham was no better, with a poor attendance on the opening day, while the ground was also mostly empty when England won the match on the Sunday.

The Oval are also, apparently, "struggling for day one."





Weaver put forward a number of very valid reasons for the decline in crowds.  Too much international cricket, the poor form of Pakistan and the baffling decision to hold back to back tests in the Midlands, followed by back to back tests in London are mentioned.  The fact that cricketing authorities have totally ignored the North for this series is, of course, unforgivable.


However, Weaver doesn't mention two very important potential factors on declining crowds.  Firstly, there is a sense that the series is somehow hidden away on Sky.  Secondly, and crucially, the pricing policy for test matches puts test match cricket out of the reach of too many people.  Most tickets for the Oval test match are between £70 and £80.  That isn't really a working man's price - particularly for a series that is (surprisingly) beginning to look like a mismatch and for a match that starts after the football season has started.  


Hopefully, the cricketing authorities will review their pricing policy before next season so that new fans and supporters on a budget are not excluded on the basis of price.

Another Test Match - More Empty Seats. We Should Make Test Matches Affordable For All

Another test match. Some more great cricket for England and yet more empty seats at what should be a big ticket test match.

It has been a fantastic day for England's cricketers, who are looking in really sharp form ahead of the Ashes series.



But, as Jonathan Agnew pointed out on TMS today, there are plenty of empty seats around the ground.  I made the same point about the first test last week.  There is very little reason for that to be the case.  The football season hasn't yet started.  The national team is in great form.  The opponents are a top flight team who beat Australia a few months ago.  Even the English summer weather is, by and large, playing ball.

Sadly, cricketing authorities seem to have been overcome by a bout of rapaciousness following two home Ashes victories.  Test match tickets have shot up in price.  Tickets for Lords are as high as £90 and they go up to £60 for this series.  That means a father to take his kids along to the Test will cost hundreds.

Test match authorities are turning what used to be an affordable day out into something that is out of the reach of many people in economically straitened times.  The more prices go up, the more test matches will be attended by the corporate crowd and not the great social mix that makes test match cricket so special.

The authorities should look beyond the short term bottom line and think about what is going to attract a new generation of fans to the game and to the unique pleasure of a day at a test match.  Cricket has chosen to hit the jackpot in the past few years by selling TV rights to Sky and minimising its audience at TV level.  The very least they could do with this TV rights jackpot would be to make test match cricket affordable for all.