I’ve just taken a 5 hour nap in preparation to stay up the whole night - the match starts at 9.30 pm for me. ARGH. with Jimmy Anderson and Vaughan all dodgy, Flintoff still not the man he used to be, Strauss probably not playing, it’s all just very worrying. England may have edged the “Blick Kips” (I love that!) out of the CB series, but NZ seriously, genuinely, absolutely outplayed Australia in the CH trophy. gaah.

No tv coverage available here in this baseball country Japan and the 5Live radio commentary online is always blocked to overseas listeners because of rights issues so does anybody reading this have an internet feed, video or just audio? Any Stickam streamers out there?

Thanks

Griff, I have posted this in another comment but anyway
The Kiwis are putting up a Radio broadcast for their games: http://www.radiosport.co.nz
It’s free and it has decent commentary. Unfortunately you have to live with ads…

England dodge another runout bullet.. 2 for 34 after 12.

Vaughan’s had a bit of luck but also played some classy shots.

I want another tie. I don’t want to see either side doing well and I want Kenya to knock off one of them as well.

Sigh. Another England collapse. Where did this blogline go to then, Will? Matt and I missed you for a couple of hours.

FLintoff’s performance was just as depressing as it sounded Will, all one ball of it. Once again he has failed to make any contribution at all with the bat but seems to be immune to English criticism. The commentators are still going on about what a bully he is with the bat. Since when? I think Plunkett has probably scored more runs than Flintoff this year.

Nixon and Plunkett are hanging in there, as I speak. Plunkett can hit the ball. Nixon can reverse sweep. Sometimes.

I got up at 2.30am for this and was just as nervous as the England batsmen looked.

Feckless is a fine word, Coalster.

You’re right, Will. I tested myself and I DO say: “Blick Cips.” And “fush’n'chups”. For all you foreigners who can’t tell a Kiwi accent from an Aussie one, ask them to say fish’n'chips. The Aussie, of course, will say: “feesh’n'cheeps”.

Oooh, a reverse sweep to the boundary! Go Badger!

200 up. I’m feeling strangely more confident now! I’m sure that will disappear within 10 overs of NZ’s reply…

Hey - how’s that for fortune telling - we made 200!!!!! YAY!!

No, no innuendo intended, though as soon as I posted it, I realised it sounded a bit wink-wink! I just meant: are you the only one up in your household.

Nixon and Plunkett were fantastic. England will have to field and bowl as tight as tight to defend this.

England looked very nervous, didn’t they, particularly up the order. Vaughan looked very angry at himself for getting out. He needs to stop playing daft shots because he looked liked he was playing well. He needs to redeem himself by squeezing the best out of the team in the field.

Stop whining, you Poms. At least your not getting tonked by the South Africans like the Netherlands are.

That was a great partnership between Plunkett and Nixon though. England looked like going out for less then 160 at one point.

Scott, its only a matter of time before we do (assuming we scrape past Kenya and Canada).

To be fair, we should only judge the England total once New Zealand have knocked off the runs. I think its about 30 runs light of par, but that didn’t stop the Windies beating Pakistan…

Kathy, remeber all the talk before the Champions Trophy about how he might open the batting?

I’m not sure he knows how to play or what he’s trying to do at the moment. Lately he seems to get out to tentative shots outside the off stump (instead of the more usual lame pulls to midwicket/deep midwicket/long on).

Its as if he’s trying to rein himself in and not get out, rather than just batting and going with his instinct.

Having said that, its just one innings, albeit an important one..

Gibbs has just tonked dan Bunge for six 6’s in an over.

Dare I suggest the bowler was (van) Bunge-ing the balls down to him?

The one thing Kathy and I get along with is the whole Flintoff situation. It’s so shambolic that when Pietersen was out the Commentators wrongfully announced Flintoff was out to a shocker first ball.

They then realized their mistake and Flintoff gave them a reprieve an over later. Out to a shocker first ball.

Thanks to the Gibbs annihilation Kallis should be able to milk himself to a century here.

I should think that catch should make you feel better towards Freddie…

You guys better get Fleming early. Forgot to add him to my list of soft-spot players yesterday. He has the ability to win this thing himself. South Africa and all those fans in Jo’burg will remember well…

Kallis just registered his 15th ton with a beauty! Six over long off.

Thanks for that Michael.

One lazy shot later, and Fleming is out.

Can we (Poms) dare to dream?

Hi all

my money is with England.

Just a quick aside, although I should be supporting the Associates, and although SA have never been one of my favourites, I am enjoying the tonking they are getting from pure venial “Schadenfreude”. The Netherlands took part in my Girls tournament last month - the first ever held in Germany. They told us they were not very good … we had 10 years olds who had only been playing for 6 months in this tournament.

So the NL sent their National team and tonked everyone out of the hall. So, “Hello, big boys in orange! Now you know how my little girls felt!” Ha!

phew !! it took 3 to 4 ppl to fix something to let me post here

Looks like england loosing plot here. They need to introduce Monty now.

You know Solanki; Monty went for 4.23 an over at 37.90 with only 10 wickets in the Ashes and 4.60 an over at 37.88 with only 9 wickets in the ODI series right?

He’s a character no doubt; but as with Flintoff, is getting undue attention and praise.

Ah well. I’m still wishing Strauss played, I swear he’d have done good, but that might just be me. Joyce caught one to reprieve himself of his duck, but I’m still sure Strauss would have got at least 2 runs.
I doubt England can win, anyway.

on the subject of Monty, he’s a bit like Leverock, isn’t he - a pretty decent spinner, but gets more attention for other things.

Well game is boring looks like NZ will win

at least this game looks far less one-sided than SA vs Holland.

Monty’s got a wicket!
hurrah! Monty leaps.

Vaughny needs to bring back strike bowler now !

For the guy who wanted to know about other cricket blogs - there’s a really good blog run by a close mate of Will’s … a chap called Andrew Nixon. Will, what are the details for that as he speaks really highly of you.

Then Strauss and I have another thing in common; we’re both not out there batting and doing what we really love

Hi Pamela, nice to meet you. Are you English?

hehe.
No, I’m not actually, though I was born there - I’m in Singapore now. Mad supporter of England, though, and embarassingly India as well.

Strauss is fielding - his first World Cup experience. Pity, really, I think England are either too quick to jump to new players, or too slow to move off old ones.

“18.3 Langeveldt to van Bunge, FOUR, slides it down the leg side and flicked away. Ashoka de Silva, the umpire, who is watching the game from the sidelines makes the stop!”

So when he’s not giving poor LBW decisions he’s out there trying to prevent runs from the minnows ay?

That was brilliant, and wasn’t ol’ Crooked Finger angry when it happened? Banged the ground in disgust is what it looked like to me!

Sounds like fun - I don’t mind the heat, came from northern Queensland myself. Why don’t you jump in and have a bat yourself?

Avagoyermug is the slang.

he might drop another 5 more catches, that’ll even things up, maybe it’ll be good enough for a squeezed WC win - just like the Ashes.

I think it’s hilarious how some of the English journalists hyped up England after they won the CB series, declaring that they could win the WC and all that. 3 games does not a world-class ODI team make! They can smash Bermuda all they want, when the time comes, England ARE still ranked right at the bottom.

I’m confused - who should I be supporting…England or New Zealand!!?

Well, NZ did that easy in the end!

Just saw the final score - how very pleasant! as a Scottish friend of mine would say.

Michael, I can’t help but agree on both Monty and Freddie, both hyped to the hilt, and can do no wrong, regardless of actual performance. While Monty should have been selected earlier in the Ashes, the hype about it from the cricket writers was so ludicrous that we were supposed to believe he would have made the difference between winning and losing. Which is utter nonsense.

But then, I can’t believe what I heard Nasser and Atherton saying during commentary today. They said that England’s problem was that they didn’t have any bowlers who took wickets, and that you couldn’t expect Monty or Freddie to take more than one wicket per match. I’m SORRY??!! What the hell are they there for then? And why on earth is FLintoff no 4 in the world in the ODI bowlers’ list if he’s not expected to take wickets? Well, he’s certainly living down to expectations, as there seemed to be no criticism implied in the commentators’ remarks. So one of the world’s top ODI allrounders is not expected to get runs or take wickets, and he’s not being criticised for it either? I don’t get it. Well, at least he’s economical. And takes the odd catch. Maybe they could swap him for Gilo and no-one would notice. And I mean no offence to Ashley Giles since I admire him very much and respect him hugely for the dignified way he handled the shit heaped on him in Australia.

ANyway, that was a very depressing loss, made more depressing by sleep deprivation which I don’t seem to handle very well these days — sign of creeping decrepitude. I think the two sides are pretty evenly matched but the Blick Cips played better on the day. On the England side, great grit showed by Nixon and Plunkett. If Nixon keeps this up, who knows what might happen to his career?….. tests (cough, cough)…

I can see a lot of English supporters here. First of all, congratulations on winning the tri series down under. That was SOMETHING. Way to go!

Now, coming onto the world cup, I see the media all the time talk about Collingwood, Flintoff and Pietersen. Oh,ofcourse…how can i forget to mention..Vaughn’s knee! What happened to the rest of the guys? Too much hype given to your star players. Guys, your top order better fire. Thats the only way Kev and Flintoff are going to be one bit effective. Im sure, I dont see those two steadying the ship, say, after the score is 21/3. They are instinctive players. And they perform best that way. You have gone down to the Kiwis. The good thing is , this is only the starting of the world cup. And the world cup always has this weird history of teams peeking at right time. Losing NOW is better than losing later. Im saying this, not because Im being optimistic. But I truly do believe England have the potential to make it to the semi finals. After that, its anyones game. Now, when I say the top order has to fire, Im not talking about 130/3 mates. Im talking about a century from any one of ur top 3 batsmen…and at least somewhere in the range of 200 within 35-40 overs for Freddie to come in and play his little cameo. You guys have a good bowling attack to defend something in the range of 260-270.. not 210.

One German newspaper, “The World” (Die Welt), is reviewing the Cricket World Cup, with that perverse Hun mixture of misunderstanding and confusion. According to them, the WC is the 5th largest sporting event in the world - apparently the USA basketball championship pips us.

I just loved this quote, “the men in their tight, long trousers …”

Well, really? I guess as a scorer I was concentrating too much on the fat, old umpires and missed out on all that.

Wraye, I just read the article mentioned above. I must say I have read worse things in Germany about Cricket. (Of course with your quotation you have a point ;-)) The Financial Times Germany had a couple of weeks ago a feature about Cricket that seemed even less well investigated.
But is it true that they offered TV rights to Germany as well??? Heck, why didn’t anyone buy that??? At least an hour of highlights on Eurosport. Is that too much to ask for???

Go the Black Caps!!! I don’t even feel sad for England. As they say, class will float to the top!

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