Wednesday 4 April 2012

On & Off

04/04/12

Cricket…

It’s been a while since I’ve found time to put anything down on paper….

Since the disastrous series against Pakistan, England managed to lose the first test against Sri Lanka. Once again our bowlers managed to put us in a strong position only to see a woeful first innings batting display. For most of the match England matched Sri Lanka but one session of batting madness ultimately cost England the match, similar to last summer’s test match at Cardiff??

Jayawardene scored a fantastic 160+ and Herath took 12 wickets in the match. With performances like that Sri Lanka should expect to win. For England Jimmy bowled his heart out once again and Trott scored a century.

Now were two days into the second test and England are on top. SL restricted to 275 by Jimmy (3 wickets) & Swann (4 wickets). England are currently 150+ for 1 and should really push on and build a winning position. I’m told that victory here would maintain England’s position as No.1 in the world but even so, we hardly seem to deserve it. Great to see Strauss get a 50 and go some way to answering the short sighted people who have criticised him recently. I’ve been a big fan of KP over the years but even I am losing patience now. ODI form means nothing to me, he needs to step up in the test matches. Recently it seems he scores 200+ or next to nothing. C’mon KP, you’re better than that!

One thing that has bugged me is the selection. Monty Panesar must be gutted to have been left out having been our best spinner this winter. I’m really pleased that England have played five bowlers but Bresnan (and the injured Broad) are capable of batting at no.7 so why pick Samit Patel who is not test standard at batting, bowling or fielding??? Go on Samit, prove me wrong…

& Stuff…

As usual I’ve been reading plenty and my latest cricket book was “Aggers Ashes” which as the title suggests is a review of last winter’s Ashes tour down under by national treasure Jonathan Agnew. A really nice read which brought back loads of great memories, except the bit about Perth… I met Aggers at Trent Bridge last year and he is a really nice bloke.

So there’s an on/off fuel strike causing panic buying and madness at the petrol stations. Now if this was a repeat of the strike of a decade ago, a protest at the high price of fuel or more accurately, fuel (stealth) tax, then I would have some sympathy. However it turns out it’s disgruntled tanker drivers so my sympathy disappears I’m afraid. But the whole tax thing gets up my snout. We get taxed out of existence and yet we say nothing, do nothing, get on with it. The whole bank “crisis” has left us up to our necks in shit yet the tossers (bankers…rhymes with……..) who caused it still get paid massive salaries and bonuses!!!! And we take it….

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