Does the Time Difference Have an Effect?
I’m six hours ahead of the UK here and seven of Europe. So if I watch the cricket on Cricinfo or talk to friends at home, this tends to move my day backwards. I think it makes me tired and a bit stressed.
I suppose it’s a bit like jet-lag.
Ian Bell Bats Without a Helmet
Just watching the Bangladesh – England Test Match and Ian Bell is batting without a helmet.
What would Ian Botham, Don Bradman and Brian Close have said?
Seriously though, facing spinners on an easy pitch must be less dangerous than someone seriously quick! And especially in a very hot country, where a cap would be much more comfortable than a helmet.
Indian Premier League on ITV4
I like the Indian Premier League. It’s good fun and when I’m trying to relax, as I am today, it fills the day.
Unusually, the female presenter, Mandira Bedi, is in a sari. That is very appropriate, welcomed and adds to the enjoyment of the whole programme.
Bangladesh England at Cricket
Just been watching the cricket, where England are playing against Bangladesh in Dhaka.
It’s good that Bangladesh are now holding their own and that they now have some of the best players. The opening bat, Tamim Iqbal looked more than handy. I can remember when Sri Lanka were admitted to the family of Test playing nations and some said that they’d never win anything. But they have, so I expect Bangladesh will be force in cricket in the next ten years.
That’s the way it seems to happen in cricket.
It is interesting that Bangladesh are sponsored by Grameen Phone, which is an offshoot of the Grameen Bank, which revolutionised finance and earned its founder, Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Prize.
Good News from Afghanistan
Afghanistan have just qualified for cricket’s Twenty20 World Cup.
Not bad for a country that haven’t played the game for very long and only a few years ago were in the fifth tier of the game.
Stuart Hall
There have been some wonderful masters of the English language, who have not trod the boards or written great books, but have entertained us doing sports reports on the radio.
I remember virtually a whole lifetime listening to those great broadcasters, John Arlott, EW Swanton, Brian Johnston, Henry Blofeld and others on the BBC’s Test Match Special. Sadly, for whatever reason the use of the more eccentric commentators seems to be on the wane.
I listen to and watch a lot of football on both radio and television and none of the live commentators have either the irreverence or command of the language of say an Arlott or a Johnston. But when it comes to match summaries, there are one or two, who uphold the tradition.
Years ago, Geoffrey Green would enchant everybody with his reports on Sports Report on the BBC every Saturday. He would always do an absolutely wonderful two minutes on the match he had watched. This is the conclusion in this entry in Wikipedia.
It is safe to say that like the FA Cup, Geoffrey Green set the bonfire of football writing alight with his rhapsodic flow of words that were never used before to describe the simple yet beautiful game of football. His career paralleled the rise of football from a restricted and disjointed following in most countries until the arrival of the World Cup and European Cup, to being firmly entrenched as the king of games with such a popularity to rival even the Olympics. English football and its unique history will always remain secure in the knowledge that Geoffrey Green has cached the folklore of its incipient era.
He probably had more effect on my newspaper reading habits, as I still buy The Times, which I first bought to read his football reports, such was their prose. I can remember reading his report of the League Cup Final where Swindon beat Arsenal in the League Cup Final. It’s one of his many classics.
Today we have no Geoffrey Greens on the radio, but we do have Stuart Hall reporting from the School of Science (Everton) and the Theatre of Base Comedy (Manchester City) amongst others. His use of language is to say the least different!
What prompted this entry, is that on Christmas Day, the much-loved Hall is eighty. He was interviewed on BBC Radio 5 this week and gave us all this memorable quote.
Life is a long joke. You don’t get the punchline until you’re six feet under.
We need more Halls, Greens, Arlotts, Johnstons and Blofelds, but I doubt we’ll see their ilk in the future.
Thank Heaven for Duckworth-Lewis
England beat South Africa by the smallest of margins; one run. And that was by Duckworth-Lewis. Phew!
There is a serious point here though. Not about cricket but about statistics.
We should all know more about how to interpret statistics. It should be the fourth R taught at school; after reading, riting and rithmetic.
Geoffrey Boycott
I like Geoffrey Boycott and his pithy comment.
And now he has a web site, where we can read him even more.
What is technically interesting about his web site, is that it is almost-pure WordPress, with just a little tweaking and customisation. In other words it uses the same techniques as this blog does.
Who in their right mind would pay a fortune for a proper web site, when you can have an easy-to-update one based on something like WordPress or Blogger?
Farewell – David Shepherd
British umpires tend to be characters and there was none greater than David Shepherd.
He was also a very good umpire, beloved by fans and players alike.
Who’d Have Believed it?
England beat Sri Lanka last night in a nervy match. But I suppose it was easy in that it was by six wickets!
I’m just looking at yesterday’s Racing Post. It had headlines like “Sri Banka” and “Punters abandon wounded England”, with England quoted at 85-40 to win.
So did I have a small wager?
No!
The Anonymous Widower 