I was interviewed by BBC Radio Five Live earlier today as part of their weekly Pods and Blogs program during their overnight shift. It's a program where they discuss current events through the eyes of bloggers and podcasters, and this morning they devoted a segment to cricket, with particular focus on Australia's woes in the NatWest Series.

You've got to hand it to John Winston Howard - when he's not blatantly lying about events he's doing his darndest to shift the blame onto others. I don't think I've seen anything for quite a while that encapsulates the John Howard mindset better than this exchange from last night's 7.30 Report on the ABC. It comes during an interview by Kerry O'Brien about the Government's announced changes to mandatory detention for asylum seekers:

The greatest cricketer the United States ever produced, and thus the greatest sportsperson in American history, King was snubbed by Discovery Channel viewers whose choices for the top 100 included Hugh Hefner, Martha Stewart, Mel Gibson, Michael Jackson and FOUR members of the Bush family.

Shane's Shame: Married Aussie cricket ace begged me for sex, but it was OWZAT! in seconds
(Mike Duffy/Sunday Mirror, 19.6.05)

Caught Behind
(Soumya Bhattacharya/The Guardian, 18.6.05)
Book review of "Worth the Wait: An autobiography" by Darren Lehmann.

Launching my Cricket Oggcast, a podcast of downloadble audio files encoded in the Ogg Vorbis format.

I'm starting with a short piece taken from a press conference held in New Delhi on 15 March 2005, when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised to Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh that she would learn to understand cricket. We're going to hold her to that promise.

Coverage from the British Sunday papers of Australia's humiliation by Bangladesh at Sophia Gardens on Saturday:

Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times:

Bangladesh yesterday pulled off one of the greatest upsets in cricket, and possibly all sport

Vic Marks in the Observer:

It's one thing to lose a 20 over-a-side game to England by 100 runs. Losing a 50 over-a-side game to Bangladesh by five wickets takes Australia's incompetence to new levels. Can they be trusted in 5-day Test matches?

And are we witnessing Australia's worst team to England since 1912?

http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2005/s1385275.htm

ABC television's weekly rural affairs show Landline did a feature in last Sunday's program on the cricket bat-making industry in Australia. It seems that English willow is the preferred wood for cricket bats, Australian willow not being up to the same quality. But the Australian growers are working on it.

Here's the transcript.

BBC London's coverage of the absurdly high-scoring Middlesex-Glamorgan game at Southgate is available today in real audio.

And I discovered the other day that BBC World Service has a 15 minute program updated every Friday with the descriptive title "World Cricket". Audio link (again, real audio only). This week's program was, primarily, on the tsunami benefit match held at Lord's on Tuesday.