Submitted by rickeyre on
That annual ritual of playing twelve games to eliminate one team from a three-team competition is over for another year. Graeme "The Mouth" Smith takes the South Africans home after Sri Lanka took the bonus points that mattered. Australia hasn't lost a BH/CUB/VB finals series since 1993. Fingers crossed for the Moody one.
Submitted by rickeyre on
Peace and joy at the crease after a life dented by war and tragedy - Cricket
(Peter Roebuck/Sydney Morning Herald, 3.2.06)
Submitted by rickeyre on
Submitted by rickeyre on
Australia 318 for 5. Sri Lanka 202 for 7. Murali 10-0-67-0. Brett Lee didn't kill anyone. The Telstra Dome looked great with the roof open. Game II at the Gabba on Sunday. Can South Africa come within 95 runs of the Aussies in a Fifty50 game?
Submitted by rickeyre on
And at the end of the fourth over, South Africa are nine for two. Yes folks, Twenty20 cricket explodes onto the Gabba!
To take the words of Bill Woodfull seriously out of context, there were two teams out on the field on Monday night, and only one of them was playing Twenty20 cricket. Australia, having lost their last Twenty20 international by a margin of 100 runs (in England last June), beat South Africa by 95 runs in front of the largest crowd to pack into the Brisbane Cricket Ground in modern times. And here's one big advantage 20-20 has over ODIs - you don't have to hang around for ages waiting for a badly-trailing side batting second to lose the game.
Submitted by rickeyre on
Have we just witnessed Ricky Ponting's finest hour (to date)?
That was a bold declaration by Graeme Smith this morning, but full credit to him for doing it and keeping the match alive. South African captains and sporting declarations usually come in the same breath as leather jackets and personal cash bonuses, so infrequently have they occurred.
Submitted by rickeyre on
Never let the facts get in the way of a good statistic. It's Ricky Ponting's 99th Test against teams not called the "ICC World XI", but that doesn't devalue a great century that looks as if it will save Australia from a tricky situation against South Africa.
Currently 4/206 needing another 46 to avoid the follow-on, with the real Dickie Knee lookalike Andrew Symonds at the other end.
Submitted by rickeyre on
It all makes sense, you know...
Shane, you may be, as you told the world in 1998, "naive and stupid", but we're not. Even if that is all there is to the remark, how utterly dopey was it to use the word "Blackman" to a black South African opponent in any context?
Warne should have been disciplined for disrepute for the sheer insensivity of the remark, and it reflects poorly on all those in the Australian camp who condoned it.
Anyway, take a look at this article in the Sunday Herald Sun for a startling revelation about the real Dickie Knee.
Submitted by rickeyre on
Time to catch up on a few items over the past couple of weeks that I haven't mentioned previously over the next three posts:
Firstly, the annual Australia versus the Bombers six-a-side cricket match at Windy Hill on December 22. For two years running we have seen the Australian cricket team play the Essendon Football Club (that's Australian Rules to all you association football pedants) at cricket, and guess what, the Australian team is yet to win!
Submitted by rickeyre on
It was great to see Ashwell Prince bring up that century at the SCG yesterday, if only to see a South African with personality do so well...
The partnership of 219 for the fourth wicket between Prince and Kallis, though a little slow by contemporary Test standards, has put South Africa in the box seat for this game, and let's face it, it's healthy for the sport any time Australia is made to struggle these days.
Watching Shane Warne bowl to Prince yesterday gave me this perverse image of the same bowler with a slightly plumper girth and longer blond hair being smashed around by Ravi Shastri on this same ground fourteen years ago, almost to the day.
On the morning of Day Three, the start of play (at the absurdly early TV-driven hour of 10am) has been delayed. It's gloomy and overcast in Sydney and barely drizzling. Goodness, if this were Old Trafford or Headingley they'd be saying conditions are ideal for cricket!
