Something I thought I would never see, well not in this decade anyway, appears to be unfolding at New Road, Worcester, today.
It's lunch on Day Three of the Second Women's Test between England and Australia. The visitors made 131 in their first innings. England, after being 227 for 9 at the close of the second day, advanced to 289 all out. Australia faced sixteen overs before lunch. They are currently 13 for 3.
When Tait begins to bowl the batsman trembles at the knees,
The ball comes humming down the pitch just like a hive of bees,
The other day the bails went flying right out to the gate,
The batsman smiled a sickly smile and whispered "Tait á Tait".
- Jack Lumsdaine, "So This Is Cricket", 1932
(OK, so he was actually talking about Maurice Tate)
Nothing will stop me from cursing the England and Wales Cricket Board for their counterproductive policy of scheduling women's tours simultaneously with the men. There's an important, indeed, sudden-death women's Test match going on at New Road, Worcester which is being totally eclipsed for media attention by the most riveting men's Ashes series in almost a quarter of a century.
New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is on the pork barrel trail in the lead-up to the November 8 city elections.
Bloomberg kicked off a busy meet-the-people Saturday with a photo op at St Alban's Park, Queens, which he announced would receive $1.5 million of city funding for the building of a dedicated cricket ground. It will only be the second specialist cricket venue in contemporary New York.
Thursday's Christian Science Monitor has a rather confused article by Mark Rice-Oxley titled Cricket makes a comeback in Britain.
Rice-Oxley talks about the increased interest in Test cricket as a result of the excitement of the Second and Third Tests between England and Australia, yet the sub-editors appear to be more interested in playing up the Twenty20 elements of the article. Possibly because they've noticed the word "baseball" used in close proximity to Twenty20 quite frequently.
The astounding cricket played by England and Australia has not only rejuvenated the 123 year old Ashes competition, it’s also demonstrated that the five Test series is one of the supreme forms of spectator sport available on earth today.
New column by Mike Marqusee in Wednesday's Guardian, and reproduced on his own blog, praising the current Ashes series.
I'm talking, of course, about Pat Robertson.
Donald Rumsfeld's response to Robertson's suggestion of assassinating Hugo Chavez says it all:
Certainly, it's against the law. Our department doesn't do that type of thing.
Belford Parrott has an outstanding record of achievement as a man of letters. From his days as speechwriter to Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, to his current role as breakfast DJ on Sydney AM radio (that's AM the waveband, not AM the gong after his name), Parrott has regaled the nation's 55-plus demogaphic with his eloquence, his compassion and his Liberalism.
Parrott posts his daily op-eds to the Radio 2GB website every day, and indeed they are even podcast now. But who writes his transcripts? Presumably the text that appears on the website is taken directly from Belford's own notes...
Geraint Jones, Blessing Mahwire and Tapash Baisya are among the shock omissions from the thirteen-man ICC World XI chosen to play Australia in a six-day exhibition game at the Sydney Cricket Ground in October.
The prospect of a new-ball pairing of Shabbir Ahmed and Jermaine Lawson will be denied to the five or six thousand spectators expected to pack the SCG for the match, a fundraiser to support the noble cause of the winning team's wallets.
