Hughes falls down to earth with a 'Harmison'!

Was watching the start of the Aussie 2nd innings yesterday and was quite surprised by how Harmison was really giving it to Phil Hughes with the short stuff.

I hadn't watched him play before but, from what I'd read, he was supposed to be the next Sir Don with his crazy run scoring against SA as well as for Middlesex. I did notice the fact that he was scoring centuries for fun across 2 formats, so I was quite impressed.

However, what I say yesterday was surprising. I mean, here's Harmison, stuffing it to him with the short balls. Why didn't anyone else in the county circuit or SA think about this?

He clearly doesn't have a leg-side game and it's quite shocking! It's like how I can't play table-tennis with my forehand! There's only so far that you can go by being able to play on only one side. I did come a cropper when coming to SL, the table tennis players at the school here being much better than what I'd encountered in 'the foreign land'.

The worst part is that the Ashes is definitely no place to start testing out things. It's like asking a private to try out different styles of shooting the enemy while he's on the battlefield.

However, England should not get over-obsessed with Hughes because Katich seems to be silently accumulating runs. Add to that North, Hussey, Clarke and Johnson, and you have a formidable line-up..

Coming to SL cricket, the Summer of Cricket starts with the first day of the first test against Pakistan at Galle. The next 80 days promises to be really cool with 5 tests, 12 ODIs and 3 T20Is in store, so, BRING IT ON!

The disappointment of expectations once again!

Ok, I didn't really watch the whole of the CWC 2007 final.

Two reasons...

One was that I was feeling really sleepy and dosed off in between..

Secondly, LTTE decided to play some tricks with us and did some aerial bombing..

However, yesterday's final was at a better hour so I was awake for the whole final, but the team selection just made my heart sink once again.

I knew that if at least the three of Dilshan, Sanath, Mahela and Sanga fell early, we would be in a deep hole as the 'rest' of the batting order included 2 guys who are truly good-for-nothing.

Mubarak and Silva are so stupid and lame that they can't contribute with either bat or ball.

I would've preferred Thushara and Maharoof (if not deSaram) in place of these two as, even though these guys aren't the best of batters, they can at least contribute well with the ball.

As things often happen in team selection in SL, Sanga decided to keep his good 'machangs' (friends) in the team and threw our chances of winning a world event into the toilet.

Sanga played a very heroic innings but, truth be told, other than the big-hearted Angelo Mathews, who has won the heart of a nation with absolutely stunning fielding (remember that saved six?), bowling (3 wickets in the first over in the semi) and batting (yesterday), none of the other assigned batters really did much of note.

Isuru, who some people say is a decent batsman, was picked mainly as a bowler and so I shall not condemn him.

However, you had to admit, the turn and the swing that the women got was mainly because their spinners really flighted the ball (which would be smacked out of the ground had it been a men's game) and bowled it at medium pace, at the most.

The pitch was a good batting track, as was seen by the way the Pakistanis played, but all credit has to be given to Afridi, Akmal and Malik for keeping a really cool head throughout the chase.

Frankly, like Ryan said on islandcricket.lk, our selectors are to blame for not giving boys like Udawatte or Malinda a prolonged chance. I just get the feeling that, had these 2 been selected instead of the idiots Silva and Mubarak, we would've put up a better batting performance throughout the tournament.

However, we shouldn't feel alone as the WI selectors are trying to beat the 'muppets headed by a joker' (priceless from Marvan) by dropping Lendl Simmons for the 4-ODI tourney against India. Simmons was clearly the best batsman other than Gayle in the WC, and to drop him really speaks volume about how much they are 'ahead' in the race!

Freddie on course for Cardiff

All England fans will have their fingers crossed that Andrew Flintoff will be fit to face Australia this summer and so far he is on course, but nothing will be taken for granted.

The all-rounder had keyhole knee surgery back in April after picking up a problem during the IPL and has been a doubt for the Ashes ever since.

But Flintoff is now on target to be involved in the opening Test on July 8 having made a welcome return to action for Lancashire – the 31-year-old taking six wickets in his county’s loss to Durham.

That return was earlier than expected and there were fears that he was rushing back too soon, not so claims Lancashire coach Peter Moores.

The former England boss was upbeat with his assessment of Flintoff’s fitness and has indicated that Freddie could make his 76th Test appearance next month, when Cardiff hosts its first Ashes encounter.

Moores admitted: “Physically he's quite tired because when you've not played competitively for a couple of months, never mind his knee, just the whole body, it's getting used to match intensity again.”

If Flintoff is fit then there will be big decisions for England’s selectors, who look likely to throw him straight back into the Test arena…..but should they?

England have just started to rebuild since the appointment of Andrew Strauss as skipper and there look to be the first signs of improvement, granted it was against a lackluster West Indies side in favourable conditions earlier this summer.

But many feel a player of Flintoff’s quality should be a certain inclusion and his impact in 2005’s ‘greatest ever’ Test series is likely to send fear through the Australian squad.

A bowler is likely to miss out if Freddie gets the nod, with Ryan Sidebottom, Graham Onions and Steve Harmison tipped to battle it out for one bowling berth.

My predicted England line-up: Cook, Strauss, Bopara, Pieterson, Collingwood, Prior, Flintoff, Swann, Broad, Anderson, Harmison.

O'Briens and Johnston take Ireland up, up and away!

Before the start of the game, many people were commenting that it would be a big upset if Ireland knocked out Bangladesh. What rubbish! Quite honestly, the Irishmen clearly held the upper hand when it came to this game. For one, there were a number of their players who were playing for English counties (Niall O’Brien for Kent & now Northants, Kevin O’Brien for Notts, Will Porterfield for Derbyshire and Boyd Rankin for Derbys & now Warwicks) and the conditions were clearly similar to the ones back home in Ireland. However, most of the players in the Bangladesh side had never played in England and besides, they don’t win matches very often at home so it was quite befuddling to see everyone commenting how this could be a big upset when Kevin was taking them over the line.

Going to the game, Porterfield won the toss and chose to field. More than the fact that the bowlers did quite well, it was, to a large extent, Bangladesh’s own fault that they crept to such a poor total. The Banglas still don’t seem to get it into their heads that they shouldn’t always look to play the big shots but look for the gaps and try to get the 2s and the 3s, even in T20s. They use the same approach in ODIs, and they though that it would work in T20s, at least, but it was not to be. Clearly, consolidation is important, however ridiculous it may seem considering the length of an inning, but the Bangladeshis don’t seem to understand this as they tried to go at a rollicking pace. Their shot selection was poor all throughout the innings, exacerbated by the skipper Ashraful, who continues to frustrated despite being the captain.
However, nothing should be taken away from Trent Johnston, who picked up 3/20 and the spinner Kyle McCallan, who gave away a miserly 17 runs for a wicket in his quota. There was a spell in the innings where all the swings by the Bangladeshis weren’t going to the boundary for nearly 71 balls, which, yet again, led to a flurry of wickets before 20 runs were picked from the last over by Mortaza, giving the total a bit of respectability.

The Irish innings got off to a bad start, Jeremy Bray getting out on the 4th ball. However, the experienced Niall O’Brien, suffering from a cracked ankle sustained during the Bangladesh innings, gave the innings some momentum, carting 40 runs off 25 balls and picking the gaps perfectly before he got out. The required run rate kept mounting and mounting as Bangladesh’s only top 10 ODI bowler, Abdul Razzak, and the world’s No.1 all-rounder, Shakib Al Hasan, strangled the Irish batsmen. Out came the burly Kevin O’Brien, who punished every bowler in sight and as he smashed 39 runs off 15 balls, inclusive of 4 fours and 2 sixes, to seal the game for Ireland.

One thing notable after the win was the way Ireland celebrated it. Rather than running onto the pitch like the Dutch did after their win against England, they were just high – fives in the dugout and some hugs, clearly showing that they too expected to win!

How stupid can a closing ceremony be?

All these days, I've been watching closing ceremonies which have been fairly underwhelming, but are quite efficient...

However, the IPL closing ceremony is just a great example of the fact that you could just lock up your brains in India and plan the closing ceremony!

How else could you explain the camera shooting, which was horrible, to say the least? The people who were switching camera angles must have been suffering fits! The idiot was changing angles every 2 seconds and it got so annoying to an extent that my cousin had to shout at me to stop mumbling about it!

Another bone of contention was the performance by Akon.

Now don't get me wrong, Akon's songs are great (though I haven't got the opportunity to listen to most of them), and I have no grudge against him, but how do you explain the fact that the song "Smack that" blaring on the speakers but Akon was just strolling on the stage?

Lip-syncing is perfectly OK, but the guy should know that he should be lip-syncing!

The whole "Bollywood-SA", or whatever that nonsense was called, was also a big farce. Frankly, I always looked forward to the strategic break so that I could see some nice-looking girls, but to actually make it out to be like some Miss World contest is just plain stupid!

To cap off this post, I would like to make special mention of Lalit 'Monkey' Modi! (no, no, not in the racial sense, don't haul me before a court as I only have $5 to pay as legal fees!).

The IPL, as far as my understanding is concerned, is a sporting event. Since when it became a personal gratification even for Monkey is unfathomable.

Correct me if I am wrong, but this is an excerpt of what he said that day..

..I'd like to thank my wife and my children, x, y and z for their immense support...

Can you imagine what Mrs. Monkey would've said when he said that he was shifting out of India?

Darling, why don't you shift the IPL to South Africa? I've already been to England, and I think SA would be a great place for shopping...

The children would've said something along these lines...

...Daddy, I like Mr. Nel because he makes monkey faces like you, please move the IPL to SA so that I can meet him...

Poor little chap, unaware that Nel is doing his circus tricks in London...