All well worth a visit if you're near the Goring-upon-Thames area!
Note advertising of the OMTCC v Woodcote match bottom left.
I scrambled onto the roof on the left to retrieve the ball at one point with the help of a leg-up from the landlord!
Never get tired of the view from the King William...
The key match from OMTCC's Thames Tour was of course Aldworth who were lead by former OMT 3rd XI skipper Julian Sankey. The game ended in an honourable draw, with some observers questioning whether Sankey had "shut up shop" too early, a few booing occassionally from the boundary edge! Aldworth ended 8 wickets down and 45 short with Cricket Burbler Mark Davis taking 6 for 56. View the Aldworth v OMTCC Thames XI scorecard here.
John Walter shows off his unique bowling action.
Charlie "Chuckie" Williams considers what might have been for OMTs.
John Walter and Aldworth skipper Julian Sankey.
Mark Davis gets through the batsman's defences.
Richard Boxall (on the ground) celebrates a catch....OMTs had a few go down!
What the crowd came to see....Davis bowling to Sankey.
Sankey hits out.
Honours even as the players leave the pitch.
OMT skipper for the day, Raf Shergold, seems happy enough with a draw.
Jawwad Rasheed is content with his 75 earlier in the day.
Micheal Yardy may have rightly regained his place on the England side recently, but he's clearly gained a few inches as well, according to his Cricinfo profile http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/content/player/23523.html
He's listed here as "6Ft 0in" The 0 might be correct, but the 6 is clearly 1 too high. Those of us who have faced the pint sized Sussex captain will know that his darts are fired in from barely above the advertising boards. Any other players with obviously inflated personal stats out there I wonder?
Between them Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting and Brian Lara, the three greatest run scorers in test history, have scored 37 354 test runs. I was therefore very surprised to read that none of them have managed to get themselves on the Lords honour board. Amazingly, the highest score between them is Brian Lara's 54.
It will be interesting to see how Ravi Bopara goes today, assuming that he comes into the England side and bats at 6 given Bell's injury. I appreciate that I'm in a minority, but I see him as Collingwood's ultimate replacement whenever the ginger ninja decides to retire - a completely different approach but a batsman who can bowl a bit and is also a good fielder - he should start his career batting at 6 and then move his way up the order to 4 as he gains confidence and is successful just like Collingwood has done. And let's not forget, he was one of the successes of the 2007 World Cup for England, only to fade away again.
He's been in good form for the England Lions, winning one match in which he got 150+ and 4 wickets almost single-handedly, although as always he's been a bit hit and miss. But he should be confident given that he scored a hundred for Essex yesterday in the Twenty20 with the next highest score from his colleagues being 21.
Amazing....he might not be mentioned by name in this piece about the growth of cricket in France (as opposed to French Cricket!), but it seems to have coincided exactly with Cricket Burbler Dave McCabe's move to France....
Sussex sadly didn't compete today versus Surrey at Arundel Castle but the ground was great (check out the view from one side of the ground above), and the organisers toned down all the non-cricket stuff....lower volume on the music and no dancing girls. Sussex had lost within the first few overs as Symonds and Tremlett took early wickets, which is always the risk with Twenty20 because there's rarely time to wrestle back the advantage once it's been grabbed.
I hadn't realised quite how good Wally Hammond's stats were until I read this piece about how he was postumously inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame yesterday. Not only an average of 58 but also a wicket and more than one catch per Test.
Compares pretty well with the best batting all-rounder around at the moment Jacques Kallis, who has an average of 55 but takes nearly 2 wickets per Test.
Posts on Cricket Burble may come without images over the next week as several of us will be on Thames Tour based in Goring-upon-Thames (so I'll be posting via the phone rather than laptop). Tuesday sees us take on Aldworth who play right next to one of the best pubs in the country - The Bell. That being the case, several of us took it upon ourselves to do some careful preparation for the Aldworth match during the winter....ensuring that we're comfortable with our surroundings on the big day....
Diddy Kennett's butt crack....and two ex-Steyning CC 1st XI skippers getting over Rob Green's howler....
I admit it...I read far too many autobiographies. There's something interesting about understanding the thinking of successful people, even if Cricket Burble's Mark Davis was distinctly unimpressed with Justin Langer's!
So I found it interesting to read this excerpt from Brendan McCullum's book in which he suggests he gave considerable thought to "going freelance" rather than sign his latest NZ contract....
'A fascinating analysis of what makes a player tick' says The Times. Not really. I've been a fan of Justin Langer ever since he set aside the awful start to his career that must have been the coaching session from a fellow burbler and through his International career - briefly 'the best batsman in the world' and spells showing Middlesex and Somerset how to be professional.
So I thought 'Seeing the sunrise' would be ideal preparation for the stresses of tour - it isn't. It's a very disappointing series of long-winded platitudes and facile truisms. Fortunately it only took about an hour to read and then to bulk it up there are 18 blank pages for 'notes'! (is paper cheap / not made from trees anymore in Australia?).
Shame - but I'm still a fan.
If Michael Clarke is responsible for Australia's Twenty20 batting order then that surely has to be grounds for him to go, far more than his apparent lack of form or ability to score quickly in the format. Why would anyone want to bat Paine and Hopes above the Hussey's and Cameron White as happened yesterday when Australia lost to Pakistan again?
The name Dwayne Leverock probably doesn't mean alot to most cricket fans, but I'm sure this article will jog your memory.
Watching the Pak v Aus T20 today a couple of the boundary ropes look a long way from the advertising boards. Is there a minimum "official" size for a boundary? It must be a temptation for organisers to make them shorter and shorter to satisfy the perceived desire for more 4's and 6's.
Yorkshire were doing pretty well in the Twenty20 until they had a nightmare at Northants, who needed 13 to win off the final ball of the game but - aided by a no ball from Richard Pyrah - managed to tie the match. Then in their next match, they were never in the running chasing a par total at best of 155 against Warwickshire. They now stand fourth in the North Twenty20 table and need to bounce back quickly.
They're going well in the Championship against Warwickshire though on 325-4 after day 1.
A short video taking you inside the media centre...pretty interesting actually....
Shoaib Akhtar's first over for Pakistan v Australia in their Twenty20 match has just gone for 20 (16 off the bat). I couldn't help noticing that he looked a bit top heavy...perhaps in need of a bra!?!
Having now seen Michael Yardy's leave against Australia on Saturday, I'm wondering if there has ever been a worse leave in international cricket?!? It was hitting the outside of leg stump so the assumption can only be that he was mistakenly leaving on height. But aren't balls clipping leg stump meant to be pretty much free hits to pros so why wouldn't he have tucked in?
I appreciate that Pietersen was injured on this occasion, but I'd like to see them go back to the order they had at the start of the series with Yardy at 8 and Bresnan batting above him as Bresnan has surprised many, including me, with his batting (averaging 30+ despite often having to slog in the later overs) since he came into the side.
I made it down to Hove today to watch most of the New Zealand v England Twenty20 decider and sadly England were never really in with a shout after a stodgy start to their innings. Sarah Taylor's wicket - bowled from a short ball that looked like it should have got higher than it did - really set England back as she'd taken 20 balls to make 7, and Claire Taylor looked out of form. Charlotte Edwards played a couple of nice on drives but she fell for 19 (which turned out to be top score) and England just couldn't get any momentum into their chase.
I can't claim to know each player's game inside out, but they seemed to be crying out for someone to come in and look to strike boundaries as the required scoring rate increased and on the evidence of today Katherine Brunt was wasted down at number 9. Only when she came in did they look capable of scoring at more than one a ball - the likes of Lydia Greenaway and Danielle Wyatt helped to bring some urgency into the faltering innings, but they didn't appear capable of hitting their way out of trouble and were a bit reverse-sweep obsessed.
Brunt also performed well with the ball on her 25th birthday, taking 1 for 11 from her 4 overs, and Danielle Hazell got 3 for 16 from her four, but New Zealand got away when Nicola Browne came in at 6 and scored 22 off 14 balls when she came in at the end of the 14th over. And although 124 should have been within reach, it proved to be too much for England to chase down and they ended up losing by 9 runs.
England will be determined to prove that their batting isn't as brittle as it appeared today in the 5 match ODI series that starts a week on Saturday at Taunton.
With New Zealand winning yesterday at The Rosebowl to leave the England v New Zealand Women's Twenty20 series at 1-1, the final match at Hove today is perfectly set up. I'll try and get down there to see if England can partially make amends for their early Twenty20 World Cup exit....
Interesting to see that after criticism of Fifa for not bringing in goal line technology, Hawk-Eye have done two things. They've stuck their open letter to Sepp Blatter from September 2009 on their homepage, and they've also issued a press release ensuring that common objections to the use of goal line technology are countered.
Will the governing body listen? If they take action, it will be a case of better late than never. Time will tell....
Two Cricket Burblers were present at The Oval yesterday as Australia brought the score back to 3-1 and a superb day it was too. But there was also a strange lack of intensity given that the series is no longer live, and I don't think many in the crowd were worried about the result either way - not ideal in international sport.
You know what I'm going to say about the Collingwood "dismissal" don't you - I won't even bother! Grrr.
You can see a review of the ECB iPhone app here for those that have an iPhone and haven't got the app yet. It works nicely for me and I'd recommend it....
Sounds like a scoreboard operator's worst nightmare....wrongly attributing 3 runs to Ramprakash, seeing him celebrate his hundred only to realise that he was actually short still, and then watching him get out for 99.
Ramps is meant to be a little calmer these days, but I still wouldn't have liked to have gone anywhere near him if I'd been the scoreboard operator!
If you're struggling to get over Sunday's defeat, this "don't mention the four" T-shirt might help you out...
Whether it's professional or club cricket, there is a long-standing and persistent problem which annoys the bowler and as it's been me several times lately, I'd like to propose a solution. Just like the adoption of technology, I think it would be wise to sort the issue before it changes a crucial match rather than wait until it becomes a big talking point. What issue am I talking about?
How often have you seen a slow bowler bowling with a long on and the non-striking batsman standing their ground to block the bowler from diving across and stopping the single? It happens all the time and the batsman is entirely right to hold their ground - they are doing exactly the right thing to ensure their team gets a run and they are under no obligation to move.
I have a very simple suggestion - off slow bowlers the non-striking batsman should have to stand a few metres wide to avoid this situation. If something isn't done to change the laws in this area then it's going to become a full contact sport - I don't think the bowler is left with any option but to barge the batsman out of the way. And sadly (because I don't like being confrontational on the cricket pitch), I've had to let the two batsman that have blocked me in the last two weeks know that I will knock them out of the way next time. Fortunately there has been no next time in the matches I've been playing in, but it will happen eventually sadly....unless a law change is considered.
The Bangladesh selectors have once again made life difficult for their team by inconsistent decision making. Shakib needed to stay as skipper rather than another change to Mortaza and they need to think in the same way South Africa did when Graeme Smith was appointed captain young and then stuck with.
Once again the English media do a 360 degree turn. 10 months ago Strauss was a valiant (if losing) hero and there were calls for him to be in the Twenty20 side. Then a couple of weeks ago his place was apparently under threat. Now having lead his side to a 3-0 win and scoring 87, The Sun reports his innings "crushed all debate about the Middlesex star's right to open in one-day cricket after England won the World Twenty20 without him."
For me what's encouraging is that his captaincy seems to be improving on top of his quality batting. Michael Clarke's dismissal at the Rose Bowl caught short-leg was a gem for a skipper, and the way he was flexible enough to turn to Collingwood yesterday was another good shout.
Should be about time for him to be dropped/sacked as captain again later this summer....
Whatever your views on technology, there's some excellent links in this article at The Cricket Watcher's Journal referencing technology's use in cricket and tennis.
