Dammit. I look for some livestock to bid for on eBay and the first thing I strike is some tickets for a sold-out Taylor Swift concert...
Round Three at Goa. The most productive round in terms of the number of players acquired, though no big names claimed now... available slots and available money drying up.
Some news from Thursday's Wodonga cattle sales. "Stock and Land" newspaper reports that the heat wave kept prices down.
Offering a smaller than advertised yarding of 1,430 head, a distinct lack of northern orders was a feature of the sale. This resulted in a soft steer market of 150- 175c/kg lwt. Heifers fetched 140- 160c/kg lwt.
It's meat market day today at the Great Southern Regional Cattle Saleyards in Western Australia. We'll have reports when available, but meanwhile the cattle sales have begun at the Great Northern Saleyard in Goa.
There is no sport and no sporting competition in the world where a team can suddenly and unaccountably include a world record holder in their lineup for a Grand Final, when that player has not been part of the squad for any part of the tournament leading up to that final. No sport, that is, apart from the under-regulated, money-hungry sub-sport of Twenty20(TM) Cricket.
New South Wales beat Victoria in a last-ball thriller at the Sydney Olympic Stadium.
Here, belatedly, are my BoG votes for the final three days of that magnificent Third Test between Australia and South Africa at the SCG (for which I was present for the first five hours of Day Three):
Day Three:
3 pts - Mark Boucher;
2 pts - Peter Siddle;
1 pt - Morne Morkel.
Day Four:
3 pts - Ricky Ponting;
2 pts - Simon Katich;
1 pt - Mike Hussey.
Day Five:
3 pts - Peter Siddle;
2 pts - Hashim Amla;
1 pt - Graeme Smith.
Not content with perpetuating his phony image as a "cricket tragic" at the Test against South Africa this week, John Winston Howard was revealed as a recipient of one of not-soon-enough-ex President Bush's final batch of "Presidential Medals of Freedom". (Along with Tony Blair and Alvaro Uribe, no less.)
It hasn't been easy coming up with a full set of 3-2-1 BoG points for the first two days of the Sydney Test, but here we go:
Day One:
3 pts - Dale Steyn;
2 pts - Michael Clarke;
1 pt - Mark Boucher.
Day Two:
3 pts - Michael Clarke;
2 pts - Mitchell Johnson;
1 pt - Paul Harris.
Two Tests down, four to go in the 2008-09 The Kepler-Wessels, the rickeyre.com BoG (best on ground) award for the reciprocal Australia v South Africa twin Test series which began in Perth last week and continued with the Feast of St Stephen (Waugh) Test in Melbourne over the past few days. Not surprisingly, South Africans dominate, with only Mark Boucher and Morne Morkel yet to register a BoG vote.
Congratulations to South Africa. Australia profoundly outplayed in this series. If SA can do a clean-sweep in Sydney they'll take number one spot on the ICC Test Rankings. Ricky Ponting is surely one Test, at most, away from retiring, or being retired, from the captaincy. Matty Hayden and Roy should start loading that fishing boat tonight.
With the early finish to the day, Graeme Smith gets two points in today's The Kepler-Wessels count, with Neil McKenzie grabbing one.
