Well actually, not so much. But the rumours that were rife that Australian legend and current Hampshire Captain Shane Warne was about to relinquish his Australian citizenship in favour of bratwurst and lederhosen have been scotched. The intended trick was to get around next season’s “only 1 International player per side”* regulations, since as a German national he would have qualified as a local and Hampshire could legitimately employ a(nother) bona fide overseas player.
But no, Warney is fair dinkum Aussie through-and-through and will take a plate of shrimps and a couple of cold ones before any phallic-shaped pork substances.
And why …read more

Day 2, 3rd Test, India vs England, The Oval
England got pounded in to the ground by a rampaging Indian batting attack, that kept going all the way down to number 11. The highlight of the day was the maiden test century, after 118 matches, for Anil Kumble, scoring a delightful 110* to give India a massive 664. Any hopes that England might have had of levelling the series with a win here have been totally dashed and sadly it’s now a case of doing their best to avoid 2-0. That means England must bat for 3 days, a feat that …read more

This is typical of the way the British mentality – and specifically the British media mentality – works. On the 1st day of the final test between England and India, India geared themselves up to give England a proper trouncing and in so-doing hand them their first series loss on home soil in some record-breaking amount of time. But read the news and watch the coverage of the day and you can’t go anywhere without hearing someone sticking it directly in Matt Prior’s neck.
Matt Prior dropped Sachin Tendulkar on 20, missing a catch away to his right. Tendulkar is …read more

Mike Atherton has a piece today about how Sreesanth should be issued a ban for bowling a beamer at KP in the 2nd Test. His feeling is that the beamer was intentional.
Watch the video, and decide for yourself:

What do you think? I still believe, as I concluded at the time, that it genuinely slipped out. Unless Sree is a phenomenal actor, his apology seems real. KP is stunned, rightly, but it’s also clear that Vaughan wasn’t so sure it was an accident.
Compare the reactions of the commentators, though: Nasser Hussein (above), versus Mark Nicholas and Geoffrey Boycott (below), both …read more

Tempers flared and players from both sides lost control in the 2nd test between India and England at Trent Bridge. Sree Santh has already been fined half his match fee for shoulder barging Michael Vaughan and has also accused of deliberately bowling beamers and no-balls during his spell.
Elsewhere, some serious argy-bargy occurred between Kevien Pietersen and Zaheer Khan, after Khan noticed jelly beans appearing on the pitch whilst he was batting. Having cleared one off the pitch, more turned up, convincing him it wasn’t an accident. He then gestured toward KP, raising his bat in protest. KP didn’t back down …read more

Brian Lara has announced that he is to come out of retirement to join the Indian Cricket League, the league that has “broken away” from International cricket, and is not recognised by the ICC. Lara, who announced his retirement from all forms of the game after the dismal World Cup, will certainly be one of the ICL’s biggest scalps, but questions must be raised over his motivation. Is it that he misses the game – or is he in it for the money?
Either way, it feels like the final nail in the coffin for a man whose career sadly slipped …read more

The Twenty20 season hasn’t got off to the best start this year, but I have to say I am enjoying it. It has recently been marred from some peculiar and football-hooligan-esque behaviour at the game between Middlesex and Hampshire, where Middlesex has their dressing room broken in to by thieves who stole wallets and other items and Hampshire had their tour bus pelted with stones. In addition, no single Twenty20 match (so-called because each side bats for, yep, 20 overs) has actually managed 20 overs a side due to horrendous weather conditions in an unusually wet June. Global warming and …read more

Sir Ian Botham. What is the world coming to?
Actually, it’s very well deserved.

The farce that is the investigation in to the death of Bob Woolmer looks set to get even worse today with a press conference that is expected to say that Woolmer actually wasn’t murdered after all and he instead died of natural causes. The news follows an investigation by Scotland Yard in to the findings of the West Indian pathologist who conducted the analysis of the post mortem and pathology tests.
Now, I’m no expert, but it seems fairly obvious to me that saying a death is murder is a pretty serious thing and that you only say it if you’re …read more

The storm in this week’s tea cup (or is that this week’s storm in the tea cup, I’m not sure, although I don’t think it especially matters) is dredging up of Fredalogate which happened, as far as I can tell, for exactly no reason whatsoever. Whether or not some cricket journo was having a really slow day and decided to cause some mischief, I’m not sure, but the short version of events is that Vaughan apparently blamed Fred for England’s failure in the World Cup, Jim Cumbes (Chief Exec at Lancashire) wagged his finger at Vaughan saying he was out …read more