England and Australia are meeting today in what could well be the last one-day international played between teams of eleven players each. Lawrence Booth is doing the blog you have when you're not having a blog at The Guardian. Follow the live scorecard at The Cricket Site (who, hopefully, will fix their home page which currently states that Bangladesh are playing in today's final).
Sadly, I think it's time for the ICC to suspend Zimbabwe from all international cricket competition. Mugabe's conduct in running the country has finally, in my opinion, made it untenable for any side to play cricket there. The ICC, of course, is going to do no such thing.
In the past I've supported Zimbabwean cricket's right to remain on the world stage, acknowledging the complexity of political and commercial interests that have bound the ICC and its members. But how, really, can we continue to justify sending teams to play in a country whose fabric is being torn to shreds by a reckless and deluded president, who just happens to also be Patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union? The "Drive Out Rubbish" program is, for me, the last straw.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4724238
We've heard much over the years of Ted Hayes and his work in organising street kids into cricket teams in Los Angeles. NPR's (National Public Radio) News and Notes program on Thursday did a feature on Hayes' latest project - the Dome Village of Compton, California - and its cricket team, the Compton Homies.
Plenty of Ehsan Mani on this week's program. On Zimbabwe, where he doesn't let the buck stop with him. On the 20-over game, where he is very hesitant about its growth at international level. Guess which country is dead set against it, and why? Also Jack Russell on The Ashes. Updated online 1045 GMT every Friday, and available from this link in Real Audio.
Is there a message in this somewhere? Something along the lines of "try sacking me now you bastards"...
This has to be the most bizarre act of convergence I've ever come across. Bob Dylan and Norah Jones are performing in a concert in Seattle on July 16 to mark the tenth birthday of Amazon.com, which will stream the event live on its homepage. Billboard has a report, while the Pantheon of New Consumerism will have progress reports. (What, no black artists, you say? And how can you have a Show of Thanks in Seattle without any Seattle musicians?
The question has to be asked: If Andrew Symonds stayed off the turps last Friday night, would Australia be undefeated in the NatWest Series today?
To quote John Howard's favourite answer in parliamentary question time:
In my BBC interview on Tuesday, Rhod Sharp described me as "following the NatWest Series avidly". I have no idea how he arrived at that conclusion. I went to bed on Saturday when Bangladesh were crawling along at 3.0 runs per over against Australia. I was asleep when Kevin Pietersen went berko on Sunday and I'll probably be snoring through his three-ball duck later tonight. And I don't have Fox Sports these days so I can't see the England-Bangladesh games.
Rupert Murdoch's flagship random word generator doctoring photographs and dredging up sexist, homophobic stereotypes yet again. Yes, it's all good clean honest sledging, isn't it?
