Eng V Aus ODI

Well at least England won something today. They wrapped up the One Day International series against Australia 3-0 with two games to go by one wicket to keep alive dreams of a whitewash.

They looked to be cruising after bowling the Aussies out for 212 at Old Trafford, despite the green and gold being 75-0 and 130-2. Shane Watson top scored with 61 and local lad Jimmy Anderson took 3-22.

Me and my dad went to Old Trafford as my belated Birthday present and I have never seen the place so packed, even after the football started, not many fans left. We sat in the temporary stands!


England's run chase was held together by Strauss and Collingwood but in the end it went into the final over and Tim Bresnan scored the winning runs. Never have I heard such a cheer for a Yorkshireman!

England should have wrapped it up earlier and easier but at least they got the job done as I don't think many of the crowd would have been able to take two defeats by our fierciest rivals in two different sports on the same day.

As for what happened in the footy, I don't know what to say.

Yes we were harshly done by for that goal that never was but we didn't deserve to go through. Average against the USA, dreadful against Algeria and decent against Slovenia saw us scrape through the group in second place.

We can dream about what "might" have happened if we had finished first but we didn't so suck it up!

Germany outclassed us and while 4-1 might have been a shade harsh they deserved to meet Argentina in the quarter-finals.

On the Argentina note, their first goal against Mexico was offside (30 seconds in), not seen by the assistant and someone who probably no longer has a job put it on the big screen showing the assistant had made the wrong decision.

Mexico surronded the Uruguayian assistant as I would have done to in their position but the goal stood and on went Argentina to win 3-1.

Two big refereeing decisions crucially effected Mexico and England's World Cup hopes with both games in the balance at the time of these howlers.

Start the inquest now...

Game, Set and (at bloody last!) Match

I watch Wimbledon but am not the biggest fan by I long stretch but the match between John Isner(USA) and Nicolas Mahut (France) certainly had me watching.

It came to its conclusion after 11 hours and five minutes or three days - almost the same length it took all the British women to be knocked out in Round One!

Isner winning 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68. Yep, as I thought when I read on the BBC's red button Wednesday and the score was 59-59 in the final set, this is a typo or some kind of joke but it wasn't.

2:30pm Thursday saw both men reappear infront of a packed Court 18 and here's how it went from there.

I like this from the Telegraph, what else was going on in the world at the time of the fifth set.

There are some crazy stats from that match as Howard Fendrich posts:

The fifth set alone...(lasted) more than 1 1/2 hours longer than any previous entire match on record.
They played 980 points, 711 in the fifth set. Isner hit 112 aces, and Mahut 103, both easily surpassing the previous single-match mark of 78

Just leave you with the thoughts of Charlotte James, who rightly says spare a thought for the people involved off the field.

Bumble the Romanticist

Not sure if you have been watching England V Bangladesh much, especially the Old Trafford Test, but there was one thing off the field that caught my attention.

Andrew Flintoff.

He is targeting a return in July/August for Lancashire's seconds and then firsts but due to obvious reasons hasn't set out an "x" date.

"Freddie" is 32 now and you would imagine hasn't got that much time, if any, left at international level and probably not that much even at Lancashire due to constant injuries, injections and operations.

He has not ruled out an international return with a chance being on the 2011 World Cup and he has talked about life after Cricket.

While the pundits were chatting they had this piece on Flintoff focussing on his academy but also his cricketing future and after the report his future was debated.

And David "Bumble" Lloyd suggested his return for Ashes cricket - "just patch him up for a couple of tests" - I think was his line.

Not everyone agrees that Flintoff will now even make it back into the England side and I can see why, we have just won the World Twenty20 and are doing pretty damn well at the moment.

And, technically, Fred has retired from Test Cricket but I remember the "old" Freddie who you could throw the ball to when all the rest where doing nothing and somehow, from somewhere he would do the job.

Currently, England have James Anderson as their main strike bowler - no qualms with that, Stuart Broad, a little inexperienced and unreliable but he's decent and then it's Tim Bresnan who did well in Bangladesh and Twenty20 but Australia's a different animal.

Ryan Sidebottom who seems to be fading injury wise but a useful option with his left arm seam, Steven Finn, a promising youngster but unproven at International level (except against Bangladesh), Shazhad only played 1 game so can't comment on and Harmison is still an option for experience and the bounce he gets.

It's a bit thin on the ground isn't it for proven wicket-takers?

If, just if, Flintoff can stay fit for a few games for Lancashire and do fairly well I would ask the question to the big man, if he wants to play Test Cricket in Aus one final time. It would lift the team, the county and strike fear into Aussie hearts.

I may be dreaming as a lot of signs point against this happening but I hope Freddie has one last crack, if his body can sustain it, at the Aussies at Test Match Level and improves our chances of hanging onto that urn.

Powderfinger and Bob Evans

I posted a little while back about me going too see an Aussie band at Manchester Academy 2 after they were delayed due to thee ash cloud. UPDATED Well, Thursday night was the night and below are some pics. First is the warm-up act Bob Evans from Perth and second are Powderfinger. Top night it was too and very glad I saw them before they split up. They play dates in the UK until June 8 then your only other chance to catch them is in Australia I believe, where they are doing a farewell tour with Jet. In other Australia music news, Dirt River Radio are set to fully release their first full length album entitled Beer Bottle Poetry which has been warmly recieved by some. I am very happy to hear it has the same tracks as the EP, which I have had playing a hell of a lot since I came back from Aus and having first seen these guys live. Hopefully my (sort of) Cousin can get me a copy as I can't wait!