The Windies beat England via the D/L Method

First off a few apologies for my tardiness, I haven’t managed to write in a week or so, and as a result, I seem to have missed out on a few developments in the sporting world. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to give my thoughts on a few of them.

Cricket: T20 World Cup

The world’s fascination with cricket’s most explosive format has been underway in England for about a week now and has certainly thrown up some surprises. I was less than amused to be awoken last Saturday morning by a friend of mine (who is really Australian, but likes to be Dutch when it suits) who tried to goad me about the fact that England lost a World Cup game to Holland. Naturally, I assumed he was talking about football, and found myself correcting him, England didn’t play till Saturday night, and we were playing Kazakhstan.

Oh but yeah….the cricket. That embarrassing result aside, I thought England did well to go on and beat Pakistan and qualify for the Super-8′s. A fact that seemed to escape a few of my other Australian colleagues who tried to remind me that England lost to Holland.

Hang on! Did Australia qualify for the Super 8?

Shut up then.

It was a bit of a disappointment that England have since bowed out of the competition at the hands of The Windies, a team we hammered by 10 wickets in a warm up match. But the Duckworth-Lewis method is always a bit of a lottery, and England have certainly had their fair share of luck with that. I firmly believe however, that had the game gone on for the full allocation of overs, England would have been triumphant.

I find myself continuing to grow tired of T20 cricket. I think it has been over used recently, rather like a new favorite phrase. You need a lot of luck to win these competitons, as sometimes, it just takes one bad over to see your teams chances dwindle.

Andy Murray

Tennis: Queen’s

I’m no Tennis expert, so I will just touch on this, but it was great to see Andy Murray become the first Briton in 70 odd years to win at Queen’s. The world No. 3′s victory was nothing short of emphatic, as he powered through to win the tournament without dropping a set. I sincerely hope he can carry this form into Wimbledon, where the pressure on him to deliver the first British Wimbledon title for eons will be immense.

Football: England’s Qualifying Campaign

…gathered more momentum last week, with emphatic victories over Kazakhstan and Andorra. Both teams are hardly considered among the power houses of European football, but as the old saying goes, there are no easy games in international football, particularly when one involves a round trip of several thousand miles. What’s refreshing to see, is the winning mentality that Fabio Capello has installed in the England camp. Players now seem to want to play for England, whereas before, it seemed an inconvenience for most. Played 7, Won 7, and we can start focusing on the Croatia game at the start of next season, where a win should seal our qualification.

James Hook's winning penalty

Rugby: Lions Tour

All the past week the Lions have slowly been building momentum ahead of the 1st test in Durban. First of all, we must acknowledge that the Lions have won all their warm up games so far. Some, however, have been more convincing then others. More importantly though, certain parts of the squad are beginning to gell, and we are starting to get a pretty good idea of what the test team will look like. The only blip so far seems to be the handling of the Ryan Jones incident, where his stay in the Lions squad lasted all of 24 hours before being declared unfit and returning home. Still excitement is building ahead of the first test, and it would be great to see them go on and beat the Saffers, who’s fans and press seem to think they have the series wrapped up already. So, judging by recent form, my prediciton of the first test squad is as follows:

15. Lee Byrne
14. Tommy Bowe
13. Brian O’Driscoll
12. Jamie Roberts
11. Ugo Monye
10. Simon Jones
9. Mike Phillips

1. Gethin Jenkins
2. Lee Myres
3. Phil Vickery
4. Paul O’Connell
5. Alun Wyn-Jones
6. Tom Croft
7. Martyn Williams
8. Jamie Heaslip

16. Andrew Sheridan
17. Matthew Rees
18. Nathan Hines
19. David Wallace
20. Harry Ellis
21. James Hook
22. Shane Williams

Pretty straight forward selection really. I’ve gone for a bench filled with players who I think can make big impacts towards the end of the game. The selection of James Hook over Ronan O’Gara is purely for utility reasons.