With the July 8 program apparently pre-empted by a combination of the G8 and the bombs in London, "World Cricket" is back on the BBC World Service this week.
There's reaction to the depleted West Indian side currently touring Sri Lanka, a look at Bermuda's qualification for the 2007 World Cup, an interview with Shep on the occasion of his final international, and Neil Manthorp's view on the coming Asia v Africa series.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/meta/tx/nb/world_cricket_au_nb.ram
Leicestershire are batting first against Australia, and finally it's starting to feel like an Ashes tour. It seems utterly mad that we are this far into the English summer, and not only has the England-Australia series not yet begun, but we're only getting the first three-day tour match today.
In preparation for the start of the Ashes, I am doing some tweaking of the website, intended mainly to improve navigation and increase the interactivity with other members of the online cricketing community.
Changes so far:
Last Friday (July 8 ), BBC Radio 4 played a 30-minute program entitled "Cricket Calypso", about Judge Ray Funk of Fairbanks, Alaska.
Funk is an expert on calypso music, including calypso tunes about West Indian cricket. Not that he necessarily knows much about the game.
It's available for listening online till this Friday (July 15) in realaudio format.
Firefox 1.0.5 has been released. For me it was a seamless upgrade. More info and download links at Mozillazine.
On Tuesday June 21 I took part in a segment on BBC Radio Five Live's weekly Pods and Blogs program talking about cricket blogs. It just happened to be days after Australia had lost to Bangladesh in the NatWest Series and was on a losing streak of four.
Download http://noise.rickeyre.com/2005/06/bbc5live.ogg
Another plug from the BBC Five Live Pods and Blogs crew, after my appearance on the show on June 21. Chris Vallance has done an entry on their blog about blog coverage of the Ashes. This site gets a mention, which is nice as there wasn't time to give the URL a mention on radio. Corridor of Uncertainty and Cricket 24x7 also get a mention, as does "The Ashes" by one Darryl, and Jim Maxwell's blog for the ABC.
The 2005 ICC Trophy is almost run and won, but the final still to be played on Wednesday, the five berths for the 2007 World Cup have been filled. Congratulations to Bermuda and Ireland, who have qualified for their first World Cup. Congratulations also to Canada and Holland, who remain in World Cup play, and to Scotland, who return after taking part in 1999.
