The Googly

101 Weird Cricket Occurences, No 9: Monks storm Test match

December 2003, and England are on their way to an innings and 215 run defeat to Sri Lanka in Colombo.  While England's batting crumpled inside the Sinhalese Sports Club ground there was chaos outside. Buddhist monks charged into the ground in protest of the match continuing depsite the death of top monk the Venerable Gangodavila Soma Thera (Brian to his friends). 

England were no doubt hoping that the holy men might bring some spiritual guidance to the their slowly perishing souls as Murali inflicted his own version of death by a thousand cuts.

England - Lambs and Lions

England's cricketers may have avoided the wintry winds lashing their homeland, but they haven't avoided the harsh winds of competition.

In Sri Lanka, England's U-19 team bowed out of the Tri-Nations tournament despite a gutsy ton from Googly favourite and Middlesex opener Billy Godleman (right). 252 was never much of a challenge to the flashing blades of Pakistan who got over the line with seven overs to spare, thanks mainly to a fine opening stand of 149 by Umar Akmal and another Googly favourite Ahmed Shehzad. No doubt England's boys will take some positives out of the trip...

Further north on the sub-continent, the preposterously monickered England Lions opened their tour of India in Mumbai posting a handy 311 in their first dig (Carberry 91, Trott 67 and Rashid 54*). Five wickets for Monty (hurrah!) saw England bat again with a lead of 146 only to collapse to 116 all out, five wickets going to the teenage Kulkarni. Set 260 to win, the Mumbai Cricket Association XI fell 30 runs short, the damage done by Shreck, Kirby and Plunkett. Exactly how much one can read into these 15 man games is debatable, but it's nice to report an England win!

[The Tooting Trumpet] [Image: Getty] 

Cricket Snapshot: Ice to see you

A lady bowls at the annual "Cricket on Ice" game at St Moritz.  And the West Indies thought Leeds was cold last March!  [Image: Getty]

So what did Harbhajan Singh actually say?

Harbhajan has been cleared of racial abuse at his appeal.  Apparently, the decision to downgrade his offence from a 3.3 to a 2.8(?!) all hinged on the fact that Symonds could not rule out the fact that his Indian adversary might have said something else.  So what is it that the spinner may have said that was not, in fact, "monkey"?

Super Sixes: Shahid Afridi scores a twelve!

Afridi hits a ball into the roof of the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, a shot that scores 12 in Power Cricket.  I must confess that Power Cricket rather passed me by, in fact I don't even remember this event taking place in the Welsh capital.  Still a fabulous shot though.

Betting Coach - Australia vs India The Fourth Test: the Reckoning

So one week on, how did The Trumpet's tips turn out?

India at 8/1 gave a good run for your money, but neither bowling attack had the venom to take wickets quickly enough on an excellent pitch - a sixth day would have been interesting. Virender Sehwag was tipped as top Indian bat at 6/1, alas for the first innings and not the second dig. RP Singh's injury saw him blow his chances of being top  Indian bowler (1st innings). Close, but no cigar with the fixed odds bookies.

Over on the spreads, The Trumpet advised a sell on Australia at 85-105 for 1st innings supremacy, which settled at 37 for a handy win of £48 to a £1 per run wager. Most of that would have been lost on the advised sell on Punter's runs which was quoted at 103-110 - despite injury, he still managed 140 which loses £37 to a £1 per run wager. Finally, VVS was recommended as a buy on his total match runs (quoted at 73-80) - it wasn't quite the fairytale ending to VVS's glorious Australian career, and his 63 runs lost his supporters £17.

To come out £6 down on the spreads and lose out on the fixed odds markets narrowly isn't such a bad result when looking for value. The Betting Coach will be back for the New Zealand vs England series.

[The Tooting Trumpet] [Image: Getty] 

Shane Bond vs New Zealand Cricket & ICC: the trade union pipes up

Comrades! The New Zealand Cricket Players Association (NZCPA) agree with The Googly about the current situation with a certain SE Bond.  But, they have gone one stage further and accused New Zealand Cricket of sucking up to the BCCI like a nerdy kid fetching a sports jock’s kitbag.  It’s hard to disagree with them when you consider the litany of accommodations Bond made in his ICL contract in order to please both his international employer and the Indian Twenty20 upstart.

Without going into dull details, Bond gained contractual agreement that none of his ICL commitments would prevent him playing for his country; a situation that NZC were quite happy with a month ago.  They have now reneged on this due to the BCCI flexing its enormous muscles and throwing its giant toys out of the behemoth-like pram it resides in.  Who knows what the Indian board threatened their NZ equivalent with; either way it seems to have worked at the expense of Bond and every cricket fan who was looking forward to a decent series in March. [Image: Getty]

Super Sixes: MS Dhoni clobbers Pakistan

India take an unassailable lead in last year's ODI series vs Pakistan, via a massive victory six from their captain.  Outstanding.

It just got a shit-load easier to beat New Zealand

The hysterical reaction to the Indian Cricket League has taken a further turn for the moronic today, with Shane Bond, the only truly world class Kiwi seamer (17 test, 79 wickets @ 22.39), being barred from playing for his country.

Bond had hoped to play in the ICL in-between his international commitments, but due the ICC's draconian and imbecilic rules reagarding the Twenty20 tournament New Zealand Cricket has had to cut off its nose, spite its face and drive a stake through its own competitive heart - all at the same time.

Bond, for his part, has made it clear that he still wants to play for his country, "I will continue to be available to play for New Zealand," he said, "and look forward to doing so once again when NZC deems this appropriate."

This is a truly ridiculous situation in which everybody seems to lose; apart from England's fragile top order, who will be dancing a joyful jig tonight; and the policy-makers at the ICC.  Tossers.

England under-19s fail to impress, again

On the 27th Jan, Pakistan's juniors took on Sri Lanka at the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground in Colombo and won by an impressive nine wickets. A couple of days before that England had failed to capitalize on their previous good form and lost to Sri Lanka.

So what hope today was there for the so highly rated England boys as they played Sri Lanka again? Well bloody nothing really. Sri Lanka won the toss and batted first. James Harris struck early and removed multi-initialled EMGDY Munaweera for just 6, but his companion Chandimal hit 10 fours and one six on his way to an unbeaten 112. Sri Lanka posted a total of 312 - the highest I think in this Tri-Nation's series and England had a lot to do.

They didn't do much. Wakely out for a duck, Ben Brown (to my utter disappointment) only made 12 and Sam Northeast (who does sound like part of the Shipping Forecast) was top scorer with 32. England lost by 158 runs and my only comfort is that Billy Godleman was not playing. So many hopes for the future lie on that young man's shoulders that we can imagine that he would have won the game for us single-battedly.

A pretty miserable preparation for the World Cup - I can only hope that it will all go better for the boys there.

[Image: Getty] [mimitig]