My complaint about the hidden highlights package for the Ashes seems more justified given that having retained the urn, last nights events have led many news bulletins during the day with David Cameron even managing to get his twopennorth in on some reports. To be fair he was probably responding to a direct question but it did sound like bandwagon jumping. This merely underlines the ridiculousness of such a major sporting event not being freely available on terrestrial TV. Well done England though. It would be nice, obviously, to win the last test in Sydney and take the series 3-1 which would be a fair reflection on the way the series has gone so far.

                                              ******************************

   After the initial jockeying for position the Premiership should start to take form in the New Year and as yet there has been no outstanding team threatening to run away with the title. It has not exactly been a golden season so far with all the title contenders dropping more points than they would have expected often after a couple of good results with the prospect of taking the initiative looming the pressure seems to have got to all teams and points lost. It certainly makes things interesting and with the transfer window due to open the following month may see the main contenders pull away from the pack as some may strengthen (Man City for sure) and others knuckle down and do what they are used to (Man Utd and Chelsea). The latter is no guarantee despite historical evidence if the first half of the season is anything to go by and any new signings are not always the answer: some may take time to gel and the bigger names will most likely be unavailable until the summer.

For an England fan the fourth test in Melbourne has been an extra Christmas present so far:- to bowl Australia out for 98 and lead by nearly 350 runs after two days of play is about as one sided a game of cricket as you can get. The last two nights have seen me fall asleep on the couch with the TMS commentary my lullaby as the festive weekend with added flu takes it toll. Since giving up the sports channels to help fund our baby I've been fighting for scraps to see how well we've been playing and was surprised to hear that highlights did exist when a work colleague informed me of ITV4's programme at 10pm about half way through the first test. Surprised because I had not seen a single trail or advertisement for what is surely one of the showpiece sporting events in the British calender. When I remember how the nation celebrated when we won the Ashes in 2005, the last time England played Australia on terrestial TV, uniting everybody in what was an epic series and how that level of celebration has dissipated in recent years. Other factors other than ease of viewing, such as the quality of the players on view or the lack of novelty at beating Australia may also be taken into account but after Channel 4 lost the rights to broadcast the viewing figures have dropped.
http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/158129/channel-4-cricket-a-hit
http://www.ecb.co.uk/news/england/npower-tests/five-enjoys-record-viewing-figures,306520,EN.html

   The highlights package that Channel 5 provided whilst not ideal did fill a void and were on a main channel at a reasonable time. The current ITV4 highlights end one hour before the next days play starts by which time I have managed to trawl through various sports reports to find footage of some wickets and / or notable shots and milestones. From a personal point of view when the highlights are on during the week I am preventing from watching them no matter what shift I am on:- Earlies require me to go to bed to get up but I may stretch that one if I believe it worth staying up for and haven't seen any other coverage; lates means I get back home in time to see the last quarter of an hour and nights I'm at work. It is almost as if ITV won the right to broadcast highlights by accident and did not really want them - how else to explain the scheduling when they are not exactly blessed with quality programmes. Tonight on ITV2 at tea time the wife was watching a REPEAT from the other day of All Star Family Fortunes.
   For these various reasons I have not managed to view too many of these programmes so it may be unfair to comment on their quality but those I have seen have ended abruptly at the end of play with no post play interviews. Most comments have already been made elsewhere but that does not mean they are not allowed a fresh perspective on things. Tonight will be interesting as they will have to comment on Ricky Ponting's behaviour but it would be interesting to hear a player's point of view no matter how bland.

Not a bad set of predictions in the end as Tony McCoy picked up the Sports Personality of the Year with Tom Daly collecting the young award, team of the year went to Europe's golfers and their winning captain, Colin Montgomerie picking up Coach of the Year. My one downfall was Overseas Player which went to a Spaniard still but to Rafael Nadal. I suppose they did not really wish to dwell on football any longer than necessary and as David Beckham was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award that was enough of a fix for the evening.
   With a bit more time for reflection many still seem upbeat about England's chances in the Ashes after the initial disgust at the performance. This tends to be the case as the team are generally depicted as World beaters when we win and when we lose heavily calls for mass changes are made. Only a week ago Australia were tarred as one of the worst teams but were still capable of inflicting a heavy defeat on England. Now our impregnable batsmen are looking a little frayed and their vulnerability on fast, bouncy pitches is being highlighted. If that is really the case then we can expect to play on more as groundsmen around the world try to prepare their pitches accordingly to provide as big an advantage as possible. Sportsmen usually talk up their chances whether through confidence or bravado but if England wish to back up the talk of being number 1 then they can not afford to have any weak spots as limitations will soon be exposed.

It's that time of year again when all the singing and dancing shows have finished and I get my one night of sport slapping itself on the back with the BBC Sport Personality of the Year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tv_and_radio/sports_personality_of_the_year/default.stm

I always go into these events thinking of who I would like to win (without actually voting, like I said all those shows are OVER) and who I think will actually win so here is my quick rundown. Each major sport has a feature on what has happened throughout the season and few of the traditional big guns have any nominated sports people which in a World Cup year reflects particularly badly on football and the performance of England. The fact that other sports are featuring in this years list is certainly no reflection on the year gone and British sporting achievement. A number of British golfers proudly won the Ryder Cup as part of the European team and as such two members have been nominated in Graeme McDowell and Lee Westwood. As such they may well take votes off each other and I for one could not pick between their merits: Westwood this year became world No. 1 but has yet to win a major whilst McDowell won the US Open but is obviously ranked lower than the Englishman. A composite of both players would be a shoe in for the prize.
   Personally, if the option is available, I would like the winner of Sport's Personality of the Year to be the best in their sport however well they may have performed as if there is another nationality that is World or Olympic champion in that field it slightly takes the gloss of and so for that reason I'm eliminating Mark Cavendish for not winning the green jersey.
    The question of whether darts is a sport or not has been drowned out by the louder question of why Phil Taylor has been ignored for so long to the effect that the BBC have felt compelled to include him this year and while he will no doubt have some vociferous supporters that may organize themselves well in the vote I believe that the old question will still put off enough of the general public to deny him the prize.
   All the sportspeople on the list are undoubtedly excellent in their sport but I wonder if enough people even know what sport skeleton bob is to nominate Amy Williams as their champion. This is not to undermine her achievements as she brings exactly the right qualifications to the vote: an Olympic Gold medal.
   No matter how good a year you may have had you are always going to be judged on your last performance and in David Haye's case this may hamper his chances, ironic given that he won convincingly, because he was obviously fighting below his class making it less of an achievement.
   To a lesser extent England's poor showing in the 3rd Ashes test may harm Graeme Swann's chances although Australia are a slightly higher calibre of opposition than Audley Harrison. Swann has had a fantastic year and is the No2 bowler in the ICC rankings behind Dale Steyn. My previous comment about being No1 therefore rules him out as my choice even if I am being a little harsh as he is the top spin bowler.
   Tom Daley has won golds this year but there is a feeling that "it was only the Commonwealth Games" so he wasn't up against Europeans and Americans. At 16 he has plenty of time to build on his success so far and will not leave Birmingham empty handed as he is nominated in the young Sport's... and it would be somewhat perverse if he were to be considered good enough for the main top 10 but not as good as his fellow nominees in the younger category.
   That leaves Jessica Ennis and the favourite, Tony McCoy. Both are arguably the best in their field with Ennis adding European gold to her World Heptathlon gold and beating the reigning Olympic champion to do it whilst McCoy's glorious career was finally capped off when he won the Grand National this year on Don't Push It. That is the moment everybody has been waiting for to give him this prize and I suspect they won't let him down. Ennis came third last year and I think that she would make a very worthy winner this year and one that I would like to see but I feel that despite her achievements she may need to wait until 2012 when she can add the Olympic gold to her collection for more people to vote for her. McCoy completed his collection this year and my gut feeling told me to put a couple of quid on him to win the National as it felt like his turn and he did not disappoint and I think that it may be his turn again tomorrow night.
   Incidentally team of the year will probably go to Europe's golfers in lieu of having two players nominated but no winner and despite achieving something that they seem to manage every two years. Either that or coach of the year for Montgomerie but that may be contested by Carlo Ancelotti for winning the double in his first season at Chelsea and will probably be sacked soon after. Overseas player of the year is likely to be a toss up between Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta with the latter getting the nod for scoring the actual winning goal in the World Cup final.

Pre test match nerves abound as England prepare to take on Australia in the third test at Perth despite recent performances. The pessimist in me awaits the wounded tiger to roar again whilst the disruption to our bowling attack is the dark lining to our silver cloud which raises the doubts. One injury enforced change is nothing compared to the form induced replacements that Australia have had to make, so why do I worry over the relative inexperience of the likely replacement for Stuart Broad, Chris Tremlett when Australia seriously consider selecting Michael Beer who has only played a handful of first class games. Perhaps fear of the unknown comes into it as we Tremlett is a good bowler but is unproven at this level and questions over his accuracy give cause for concern whereas I had not heard of Beer before this tour (neither had many Aussies either) but because of that you worry that he must be good to be called up so soon and recommended by Shane Warne. The feeling that we have used our run quotient up now and we're due a few failures doesn't help my nerves either but hopefully these are all unfounded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FgchHlaSQE

Many have already pointed this out but this strange interview is the end result of pressurising sportspeople to say a few words after a match or event and then complaining when you don't like what they mention. A few weeks previously Brendon Venter was fined 25,000 euros for criticising officials and this is his response to the ERC by giving anodyne answers in the post match interview. Being partial to a bit of sarcasm myself I must admit to rather enjoying his performance but it must highlight to administrators that unless they say anything libellous it is unfair to punish interviewees in such circumstances especially as emotions will be running high just after a game has finished. It is either necessary to wait for a couple of hours for feelings to calm down or accept that if you castigate those who may appear controversial then more and more post match interviews and conferences will become even more cliche ridden bore fests that tell us nothing: "Yes we're glad we won", "The lads are gutted - we deserved something out of this game." Allowing time for people to gather themselves and give a potentially balanced and thoughtful summary won't happen as broadcasters want their soundbite straight away so authorities need to relax when they hear things they do not approve of.

   After a few days to dwell on Alan Pardew's appointment no doubt many Geordie fans themselves have relaxed a little after beating Liverpool. Their anger is aimed at Mike Ashley and while Pardew blamelessly did himself no favours by being friends with Newcastle's managing director Derek Llambias that won't matter if the team continues to perform on the pitch. It would be highly surprising if he can improve on Newcastle's present position and therefore on what Chris Hughton achieved as his CV does not strike one as a significant improvement. The reluctance to offer Hughton a full contract as his was due to expire at the end of the season may seem overcautious as he may have felt he was untried in the Premiership but that just looks ridiculous when Pardew signed for five and a half years. I am reminded of my dad's fondness of a former Newcastle (and more so of Sunderland) player Len Shackleton. He often tells me of his autobiography and the chapter entitled "The Average Director's Knowledge of Football " which consisted of a blank page. Some things don't change.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/dec/08/sepp-blatter-world-cup-2018

Whilst we may not have acted as gracious losers it is rather hypocritical of Sepp Blatter to bandy such accusations when FIFA spat their dummy out when British journalists questioned their honesty and started changing votes or so we are led to believe.
   One telling phrase from the above article:

He added: "Football has become a political matter. Heads of state court me. Football has become a monster, but it's a positive monster."

Agreeing that football is a monster we will leave aside whether it is positive or not and focus on the "Heads of state court me". He has the cheek to accuse us of arrogance and then revel in the fact that princes, presidents and prime ministers are willing to play the sycophant to a sport administrator. Yes it's a positive monster for him as it makes him feel like King of the World: Bow down Oh humble Russia and Qatar before the one God who unites us all while I shower you with the riches you deserve to host a football tournament.

And relax. So England won quite comfortably in Adelaide in the end and perfectly timed before the rain came down. From a selfish point of view I would have liked it to have lasted a few more hours just so that I could hear the winning moment on the journey to work in my car instead of going to bed before any play started full of nervous excitement and running downstairs to put the radio on whilst I had my breakfast at about 4:45am. Seeing the score displayed as I listened on freeview TV I gave a little punch of delight followed by a slightly hollow, anticlimactic feeling that I had missed all the action.
   Typically after an earlier post where I stated how our bowling attack looked stronger than the batting line up which lacks strength in depth and individuals took it turns to get a big score... well lets just say I hope we haven't used our quota up for the next year. The natural pessimist in me now looks at the bowling attack with some trepidation with Stuart Broad now ruled out for the rest of the tour. We may have plenty of bowlers with some experience but they are all injured and the next test will see Anderson being supported by two rookies in Finn and whoever. For all Anderson's recent form the doubt still persists that if the ball is not swinging then he can be ineffective making us over reliant on Swann. This is hard earned pessimism from watching England for the past 25 years but is softened by the performances in the last test and a half where we look more focused and professional than I have seen before. The confidence gained from this win is a good time to introduce a new player as opposed to Australia making changes based on form and introducing new players to a losing team. This lack of consistency can only dent their confidence further but the other lesson I've learned is to never underestimate Australia and to be wary of them when they look down.

   Why is everybody so surprised by the treatment meted out to football managers / coaches following the uproar when Ray Wilkins was sacked by Chelsea we now have general condemnation for Mike Ashley's sacking of Chris Hughton at Newcastle United. Yes the way they were treated was poor and disrespectful but these are businessmen making the decisions and they are only concerned with making money, not about "doing the right thing". It would be nice if my bosses turned round and thanked all the workers for the effort they put in to ensure we got a certain contract rather than lay some people off and threaten that if we did not step it further the whole place would be shut down and we would be all out of a job. Or each Christmas claim that the company had not made any profits in the currrent environment so there was no bonus but turn up in the New Year in their brand new Aston Martins and Mercs. Some chairmen or owners may put on a friendly face but that is only a tactic to earn more money by pretending to be one of the fans as Ashley tried but does not fool the supporters.
   Incidentally, Newcastle supporters at work just gave the usual sang froid shrug that the wouldn't expect any less from their club: to do something stupid when things are going relatively well is becoming an unfortunate habit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/english/9250944.stm

The decision by the RFU not to select players to represent England if they play abroad is rather short sighted and whilst I understand their desire to have more control over the players as well as scouting issues they risk either driving some talents into retirement or prevent some players from gaining valuable experience participating in a different environment. One of the reasons I believe the national football team continue to under perform on the world stage is the lack of England footballers in foreign leagues. The more they get to play alongside or up against the real star names that play in Spain and Italy the smaller the fear factor of facing them becomes and you only have to compete against the player and not his reputation as well.
   The talk of scouting the players being an issue is an excuse as the three players mentioned (Wilkinson, Palmer and Haskell) are only in France. With Danny Cipriani it is more of an issue if he continues to ply his trade in Australia, but for the time being his game must surely be developing and if word comes back that he is playing well, presumably the selectors have TVs and could watch recordings, then it would be churlish to ignore him. Whether a ruling contravenes EU restriction of trade rules for those players in France or not is for lawyers to mull over but you can not expect professional players to turn down lucrative contracts abroad especially as English clubs only now have to competitive in salary with other English clubs. How effective this is will depend if any big names decide to emigrate - New Zealand tried something similar only to bend the rules when Dan Carter took a "sabbatical" to play for Perpignan. Such twisting would surely create more tired and injured players if they feel the need to play in the opposite hemisphere during their off season which certainly does not benefit the national side.

Another Poor World Cup Showing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9250585.stm

Am I the only person not to be heartbroken that we didn't win the right to host the 2018 World Cup. Granted it would have been nice but we already seem to have performed over and above the odds, kowtowing to FIFA delegates: criticising our own press who had the audacity to ask questions into corruption left rather an unpleasant taste. We have sent royalty and our prime minister over to massage the egos of some sports administrators and now that it has seen us pick up only two votes and be eliminated at the first hurdle it is all a little embarrassing. All I heard was that we had the best bid and so dark arts had been at play for this outcome, which may or may not have taken place but dismisses the merits of the other bids. The snobbery in maintaining we have the best stadia, league, fans and infrastructure ignores those of Spain and Portugal (the Bernabau, Nou Camp and Estadio da Luz aren't too shabby) as well as the added kudos of Spain being the World Cup (and Euro) champions. Personally I would have preferred our bid over theirs purely on a Bugggins Turn format as they held the tournament in 1982 to our 1966. For that reason I don't overly mind Russia winning the bid as they have never staged the tournament before and for all his daffy ideas Sepp Blatter does like to spread the football word as wide as he can. The trouble with that is he appears to just blindly award the tournament to football virgins in the hope of opening up new markets as best seen with Qatar winning 2022. Russia at least have some footballing pedigree if allowing for the USSR team which won the original European Championship in 1960 and has produced players such as Lev Yashin and Oleg Blochin. Cold War politics ensured no east European country has been a previous host and as the largest country in that area with the best league and bigger clubs it is not too much of a surprise. The surprise element came from Qatar which has no footballing pedigree that I am aware of and whilst that should not be a prerequisite as otherwise it becomes elitist it would be nice to think that they were investing in the sport and slowly trying to raise their profile as Japan, South Korea and South Africa all did rather than just throwing a load of money in FIFA's direction. Whilst it is nice to reward developing footballing nations (curiously in a report after the announcement this included the hosts for 2014: Brazil!) FIFA should not forget the traditional countries although the nature of the bid meant that of the countries applying for 2022 three have held it recently: USA in 1994 and Japan and South Korea jointly in 2002. This left Qatar and Australia and I personally would have gone for the latter on the basis that they have been slowly developing as a footballing nation appearing in the last two World Cups, ranked 20th in the world and have recent experience of hosting a major sporting event. The desire to actually stage it in Asia and in an oil rich country no doubt won over the delegates but while they will surely put on a fine spectacle it flies in the face of recent campaigns for gay footballers to come out when rewarding a country that bans homosexuality.
   When looking at our weak points hooliganism and the press were mentioned but the former is no longer a major issue and by no means exclusive to us and other countries have had their problems as well with e.g. Spain's fans not always being fully restrained when throwing pig's heads and chanting racist abuse. What it shows is that for all the talk in public, politics and money are the biggest deal breakers.

Aside from the almighty relief that I didn't curse England I appear to have had the opposite effect when complaining about taking turns to share centuries in recent years. Flippancy aside it was a truly remarkable comeback and one that can only instill further belief in this team. Whilst we may have improved as a team the idea that we had yet to be really tested was a valid one and the reason why many followers would not have been surprised to see us capitulate. The resolve shown hopefully extends off the pitch and allows us to put this performance in perspective and concentrate on the rest of the series. The effort of getting over the line and the consequent resting on laurels has been an issue not just in cricket but the Rugby World Cup in 2003 also demonstrated how an ageing team achieved it's the last hurrah before breaking up. Both teams are now showing promise after being rebuilt, more so in the case of the rugby union side which had more retirements and has therefore taken longer to rebuild - also the cricket team had more people out through injury which caused as much disruption particularly as we always had the shadow of Flintoff hanging over team selections until his eventual retirement. Refreshingly a number of young players have now established themselves in both teams, hopefully allowing them to be around for a few years as they and the team continue to improve.

A pleasant surprise to see an England team not capitulate and show a bit of fight. I write this one hour before the final day's play so anything could yet happen but it is reassuring nonetheless to see the resilience shown so far in only losing one wicket on the fourth day after being 220 runs behind on 1st innings. There is still a nagging doubt that it could all end in tears after a couple of good starts in the summer saw us lose our way in the middle order whilst Pietersen was struggling for form. Flaky opposition and an incredible knock from Stuart Broad papered over the cracks then but do not hide the fact that Collingwood needs runs as well as KP and Bell looks to be in form but is still re-establishing his place. The trouble seems to be a lack of serious competition amongst the batsmen and the only other player to feature recently is Eion Morgan, a fantastic one day player who has yet to be properly tested in the five day format after replacing the injured Bell against Pakistan. Prior has plenty of competition in Davies and Kieswetter to keep him sharp and there are a number of bowlers who are waiting in the wings who have all played recently but not featured either through form or injury such as Onions, Plunkett, Panesar and Mahmood. After a bad performance it is often the bowlers who are dropped or occasionally we may decide to select an extra seamer / spinner and they also acquire a greater share of injuries. Batsmen on the other hand are a closed shop and any poor run of form is underlined with the proviso that we must persevere with them and "a big score is just around the corner". The trouble with England batsmen recently is that they appear to take it in turns to score the century that cements their place for the forthcoming series. Out of six batsmen, if one scores a century and a second gets a half century while the others scrabble around for scraps that usually gives us enough runs to be competitive and the centurion can all but relax and score ducks in the other tests and let someone else take up the mantel. This perceived anomaly gives rise to the situation that we don't really know who to drop and let someone else have a go. At the moment Collingwood is most vulnerable because he's not scoring heavily and he's also perceived as expendable in that he's not recognized as a flair player but a dependable anchor (an often underrated attribute) and a fantastic fielder. He's also one of the older members of the team and as such someone who will having possible replacements discussed. The rest of the batsmen have their reasons why the management can't drop them: Strauss - captain; Cook - vice-captain and being lined up to replace Strauss; Trott - the newest member who has made a good start and been in the team long enough not to be the automatic drop; Pietersen -star man whose recent bad run has shown that he's bulletproof; Bell - the one everyone likes and is frustrated by who needs to convert his "natural talent" into runs but is in good form.
   Other than that the possible contenders would not frighten the opposition as they are not (or barely) tried and tested. Barring injury Morgan will be carrying drinks for the duration of the tour and the only other batsmen with recent experience are Carberry and at a push Rob Key, Owais Shah or even Luke Wright. No doubt the A team will look to provide replacements and I relish the thought of some younger players getting a chance - only I find it hard to envisage them being able to get that chance and if they do that they will be afforded the luxury of a decent run to establish themselves and not summarily dropped after a couple of low scores on debut - Usman Afzaal anyone?

So the Ashes is underway...I think.

I think I preferred listening to the cricket when I couldn't hear it. It promised so much and working a night shift with a radio seemed a reasonable compromise but that was before I attempted to tune it in to long wave near industrial machinery and control panels. The rest of the evening was spent straining to catch the odd phrase and guessing the state of the match and I felt like Caldicott and Charters from "The Lady Vanishes" who were more concerned about finding out the cricket score than the events unfolding around them. This wasn't entirely successful and I initially thought Australia were batting when I heard mention of Shane Watson near the start of play so assumed the Aussie opener must be batting. Strangely some commentators came through clearer than others with Christopher Martin-Jenkins winning the audible cup, with Jim Maxwell a distant second, and it was during his spells of commentary that I managed to just about keep up along with a couple of updates from my managers phone. When he came down about an hour before the shift end with the full scorecard (we were four down at that point) it felt like a cheat but I lapped it up nonetheless. Anticipating uninterrupted coverage in my car as I drove home I assumed the state of play was pretty much the same as no loud cheers had broken through the white noise to announce a wicket but had not counted on Peter Siddle taking a hat-trick by the time I handed over, got changed and walked to my car making the drive back more sombre than I was hoping.
   No doubt tonight will be spent in a similar vein but the hope that our bowlers can put pressure on Australia will leave me wishing the commute home will be happier. The overall sense of anti climax after Strauss was out third ball on reflection is not as bad as Harmison's first ball on the last tour which set the tone for the whole series - epitomised by Justin Langer when he more or less pitied him. You know you're in for a tough time when Australia are disappointed in you knowing that you no longer offer a challenge. At least this time it was disappointing for England to lose an early wicket but not disastrous and we did recover fairly well before the hat-trick.

Much has been made recently on how poor a job Fabio Capello is doing and his inevitable villification and while he certainly has faults the criticism is overdone. He has not become a bad manager overnight and his CV speaks volumes but all the negative press against him overlooks one important fact: England are not a very good football team. Whilst the manager is excessively criticised for poor results so the players are lauded as "The Golden Generation" or "one of the top three players in the world" on the back of a couple of decent performances. This is not a new phenomenon but it seems that if we repeat the mantra often enough we start to believe it. The Premiership is often cited as the greatest league in the world and since the English players mainly play in that league it leads people to conclude that they are the greatest players ignoring the foreign contingent which actually raise the standard. Currently the transfer market has been skewed by Manchester City and to a lesser extent by Chelsea before them and just because they pay £20 million plus for an English player does not mean he is a £20 million + player.
   The recent friendly against France showed how we need to develop our youth but if and when we do it would be reassuring that any young players are not thrust into the spotlight straight away on massive wages with the threat of losing any hunger and repeating the cycle that the next Golden Generation does not become like the current one.