Nick Hockley has just been on the radio over here saying that he’s totally confident about the Ashes going ahead, although he is a bit worried about the 5th Test taking place in Perth. On going discussions are taking place but he’s 100% confident that she’ll be right mate ( OK that last sentence was mine )
Apparently the ECB are ‘digging their heels in’ over certain conditions and no one wants to tell us what they are.
The whole thing has the potential to be a total farce if they’re not careful.

I always remember Maureen’s comment when she heard that 50 year old Frank Sinatra was planning on marrying her 21 year old daughter ” If Frank’s going to marry anyone, he’ll marry me!”
I’d had loved to see her face a few months later as Frank walked Mia down the aisle!

I would imagine the first time they voted against their states interests would be the last time they were allowed to vote!

and anywhere close on the leg side.

I’ve never heard of anyone being allowed to be sconed so much.

This is desperately sad but not surprising. 10 known concussions at 23 years of age? When is enough enough? Surely CA has a duty of care to at least take this young man out of the firing line. He’s still only young and can afford to take a couple of years out of the game.
The statement says they’re looking forward to having him back at training when he’s recovered. It’s totally outrageous. If he was a rugby league,union or AFL player would he be allowed to play on? I wrote a comment piece about this last year and was hammered by some, saying I don’t know what I’m talking about. There entitled to their opinions as am I to mine. I’m obviously not a doctor but surely any remotely sane or sensible person would say that this young man should really be doing something else for a living.

Apparently so….my dog seemed to enjoy it and can’t wait for next summer.

The Ashes isn’t 100% set in stone yet. Apparently there are still some issues to be sorted out from this end. I get the distinct feeling that the ECB wouldn’t mind at all if the whole thing was cancelled. The cricket media here are still sulking as apparently only 12 or so of them will be given exemptions in Australia. Everyone else will have to take their chances with regards lockdowns etc. BT Sport which has the TV rights aren’t sending a team and will be taking the Channel 7 feed and I’m not sure whats happening with the BBC radio coverage. Agnew says he’s going but I’m not sure how many others will be going with him.
So I think you make a good point re the ECB. I just wish everyone would just shut up and try to concentrate on the cricket.

It’s not a difficult concept to comprehend, is it? But you can relax in Australia. Whatever ridiculous idea your board comes up with, I’ll guarantee that the ECB will have it covered in the stupidity stakes. Remember, we’ve got The 100 here, which has cost a fortune, dominates high summer and has decimated all other domestic cricket. Yet if you were to ask your average cricket lover here, they’d be hard pressed to name any of the teams playing in it let alone who actually won it.

Whether Bradman saw WSC coming, I don’t know but from what I’ve read about him, if he did see it coming he would have totally dismissed it. Apparently, he was the worst kind of administrator who thought his opinion was the only one that mattered and any money Australia had in the bank was to be spent the way he thought it should be.

Quite right. I’ve said before, it’s like saying great players make great coaches or commentators. History tell’s us what nonsense that is.

That’s what I thought. It looks from afar that Mr Langer has seen his future, ie to lighten up and to shut up and has decided that getting the sack would be best the way to go out. He can then go and do plenty of emotional self pitying interviews about how ‘ his boy’s’ turned on him when all he wanted them to do was say ‘how high?’ when he ordered them to jump.

Well said Paul D….Isn’t it sad that so few can, and do, spoil it for everyone. I’ve loved cricket with a passion for over 50 years. I like watching it, listening to it, reading about it and most of all, talking about it. I found that after 4 seasons of umpiring in Queensland Grade Cricket, I started hating the game. In the lower grades, the standard of behaviour was beyond feral. I found it totally bizarre that the worst players were the ones with the biggest mouths. As you say, we received zero help from the people allegedly running the game. I vividly remember telling one old, overweight, former supposed champion of the game ( this was in 3rd Grade ) to stop using a racist phrase to a young Sri Lanka player.I was ignored, but when old mate come out to bat, the young Lankan called him a fat waste of space ( or words to that effect! ) our man, literally with tears in his eyes demanded I put him on report! You honestly couldn’t make it up.
I pulled the pin shortly afterwards and still enjoy the game…but my love for it has been sadly diminished with the player standards of behaviour ever since.

Leave Jacques Kallis alone !

Can you only imagine what state the Barmy Army would be if they’d spent the whole day drinking full strength beer, a few rum and cokes and half a dozen vodka mixers to wash it all down?
The only upside would be that they would be the only ones left in the ground as everyone else would have left shortly after lunch.

The problem is that if Langer can’t keep his mouth shut now, what’s he going to be like if ‘his boy’s’ have a bit of success over the next few months. He’ll be here, there and everywhere telling us how he turned it all around,what idiots his critics are and how he sorted ‘his boy’s’ out. It’ll be unbearable.

I’ve always been amazed Dave with this obsession with all rounders. In England we’ve been obsessed with finding the new Botham since I started watching the game. Usually, these all-rounders average less than a decent batsmen with the bat and less than a decent bowler with the ball. I know it’s a novel concept, but how about just picking your 4 best bowlers and 6 best batsmen. Here in England, we’re totally obsessed with bit’s and pieces players who can do a bit of this, a bit of that but don’t do anything well enough to make a difference to most games.

When I started umpiring with the QCA I started off in 4th Grade and thoroughly enjoyed it, despite most of my colleagues being elderly, seen it all, heard it all, drunk it all know alls. The first game of my second season, my partner was a young Indian fellow, who admitted, after persistent questions from me that he had umpired first class cricket back in India. In that game he was absolutely outstanding. Both captains gave him top marks at the end of game review ( they didn’t give me them! ) and I emailed the head of umpires at the QCA saying how good he’d been and he was really one to watch. He really was outstanding.
At the end of that season, I was umpiring 2nd Grade ( way above my abilities ) and my Indian friend had umpired 11 4th Grade games in a row. He was also never given Sunday games, I got one nearly every week.
The next season, I noticed he wasn’t there anymore and that he’d given it away. A year later I bumped into him in the street and we had a cup of coffee together. He told me that after his first season, they ( the old QCA umpiring mafia ) told him he wasn’t up to standard and he’d never progress past 4th Grade. So he gave it away. This young man should and could have been umpiring First Class cricket, he was that good but instead he was lost to the game.
To my eternal discredit and shame, instead of me resigning in disgust, I shook his hand, wished him well and umpired for another season.
One of my favourite sayings ( and I’m paraphrasing slightly ) is…All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing……I did nothing.

Robinson should have a decent tour.He’s not express but neither was McGrath. I just hope he isn’t bowled into the ground. I have a hunch that the surprise packet from the England camp could be Chris Woakes. Apparently he’s added a yard of pace to his bowling ( we don’t know because the England lack of Brains Trust hardly ever pick him ) and is champing at the bit to get out there and play. Which is more than can be said for some of those selected. We keep hearing rumours that certain players are still waiting for guarantees before they’ll totally commit to touring. Enough is enough now. Anyone who doesn’t want to tour…Don’t!!! Pick players who want to make a name for themselves and let’s get on with it. There’s been far too much discussion, let’s just see some action.

It’s been strange following the narrative here this morning. Barely anyone has focused on his mental health issues and just seem delighted that he can grip a bat for the first time in 6 months. It will be interesting to see which way this situation plays out.

Back in England in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s they still had the amateurs and the professionals. The amateurs supposedly played for the love of the game and were usual named as the captain. The strange thing was the amateurs were able to claim living expenses which were usual significantly higher than what the professional were earning. A usual example was that at an away game the professionals had to spend their night 3/4 to a room in a cold damp boarding house, while the amateurs were up the road sleeping off a 5 course dinner in the local 5 star hotel.
The late war hero Bill Edrich, who turned professional after the war, actually worked out that if he turned amateur before one tour, he be significantly better off financially than if he toured as a professional. He wasn’t selected to teach him a lesson.

The Allen Stanford affair was an absolute disgrace. The ECB were totally pathetic ( even by their incredibly high standards of patheticness) in their handling of the entire fiasco. Even a cursory check on his background would have told them that this was a man to be avoided but they ploughed blindly on until the inevitably diabolical conclusion.
Every professional sport is at the mercy of those entrusted with running their game and, in England at least, we have been badly served by them for far too many years now. This past summer in England we had 5 different levels or competitions of cricket going on. Test Cricket, County Cricket, The 50 Over Comp, The 20 over Big Blast and the ridiculous 100. Yet if you asked the average sports lover who won what, I doubt most of them have a clue what went on. Until we get administrators who have a genuine love and feel of the game, things are only going to get worse.

If only the umpires would take back control of the game, most of the problems would be solved. The average time a batsman (sorry Batter!) spends in the middle would be less than 30 minutes. Why do they need drinks breaks at all?

Why not have a golf buggy drive the Batsman ( sorry Batters ) to the wicket.That’d save some time. They could call it the Batter Mobile…The kids would love it!

It’s very easily sorted. The next time the mention of Central Contracts comes up, put a clause in that says if you don’t want to play or tour you won’t get paid. I think you’ll find that most of the players will make themselves available to tour just about anywhere then.