Thursday 26 February 2015

Only a month left

A couple of weeks later…  The world cup is still trundling along in the periphery of my life.  England have managed to lose disgustingly to a rampant New Zealand.  Southee & Macullum slaughtered us, the less said the better.  Since then we managed to beat Scotland fairly comfortably but definitely don’t look like a team that will progress far in this tournament.  In fact, at this moment they look clueless.  Elsewhere India thrashed South Africa which was a surprise and all the other matches have gone as expected.  Somewhere along the way Chris Gayle woke up and smashed 215 against Zimbabwe and Scotland managed to lose to Afghanistan.  There's still another month of this to go.

Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have finally signed to fight in what will be the richest boxing match ever made.  In my heart I’d love to see Manny knock ‘money’ out cold but my head says Mayweather will win on points.

I’m not sure what this bird is, I think it might be an immature Buzzard but it’s not the first time I’ve seen a big bird of prey with this colouration in Norfolk.

Monday 16 February 2015

Pyjama cricket

The ODI world cup started a few days ago with a very poor England performance punished by the co-hosts Australia.  England have to get everything right in order to challenge the top ODI teams but in this match they were nowhere near.  The umpires made a colossal howler at the end giving Anderson run out when the ball was dead and leaving James Taylor on 98*, but the game was decided long before that.  Taylor was probably the one positive from this match but it was nice to see Finn get a strange hat trick and a five wicket haul.  Finn is not yet back to his best but he is progressing.

Next up for England is the other co-host New Zealand who looked a very good side when thumping Sri Lanka and will go into the match as favourites.  England have to improve or we’re looking at an early exit.  Elsewhere South Africa started strongly in beating Zimbabwe and India comfortably defeated Pakistan.  So far first innings scores of over 300 are the norm but West Indies couldn’t defend 304 and managed to lose to Ireland for the first ‘shock’ of the tournament.  Ireland are getting used to scalping test playing teams and West Indies have been terrible in recent times so maybe not so much of a shock.


The World cup is a marathon that finishes on 29th March but will at least be mildly interesting until England go to the Caribbean to play some proper cricket.


Michael Connelly’s “The Reversal” he teams up two much loved characters; Detective Harry Bosch and lawyer Micky Haller in another story of crime, corruption and chaos in Los Angeles.  This time Haller is acting as a prosecutor tasked at re-convicting a murderer who has had his conviction over turned.  He enlists Bosch to help as investigator for the prosecution and we have all the ingredients needed for another Connelly classic.  The book doesn’t disappoint and as usual is hard to put down but if I have one criticism the ending is maybe a little predictable, for a Connelly fan at least.  That doesn’t spoil it though, ‘The Reversal’ is a bloody good book.


This tune has nothing to do with the above but I like it.