Tied matches in cricket are a rare thing and usually provide for a nail biting finale with the match so evenly poised and today's encounter in Bangalore is certainly no exception with India and England both scoring 338. With the benefit of hindsight it is easy to see how each run could prove so valuable but both innings relied on a fantastic century with the bowling side managing to peg back the batting side for a few vital overs towards the end of each innings to provide the game with varied momentum as India and England both had chances to win the match.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/9408115.stm
   After the Indian innings it was tempting to think here we go again but Tim Bresnan's spell at the end where he picked up five wickets ensured that the Indians did not get over 350 which was looking likely whilst Tendulkar was in his pomp on his way to yet another century. The general feeling was that 339 to win was far to much for the English batsmen to achieve so it is to Andrew Strauss' credit that he bettered Tendulkar's innings with 158. Again England were on course for victory until a superb over by Zaheer Khan put them on the backfoot and swung the momentum back in India's favour. This occurred in the first batting powerplay over and not for the first time we see wickets fall as well set batsmen try to smash the ball all over when they have been scoring freely without it. This is compulsory to take and most sides tend to leave it for somewhere in the last 10 overs or so for a last push. However in England's case we have often run out of top order batsmen by then and those that are left feel the need to play differently to account for the field settings and get themselves out like today. I wonder if any thought has been given to taking it earlier when the top order batsmen are in and provide some impetus to the middle overs when the spinners are usually on. Bowling sides do not normally like to use their spinners in powerplay overs or at the end of an innings which can become a slogfest regardless of fielding restrictions. This may give the fielding captain something to think about as he shuffles his bowlers accordingly and as it is still relatively early in the innings if the batting powerplay is taken between, say overs 25 and 35 then the batsmen may not feel the need to be quite so reckless.

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   So the nailed on trophy that Arsenal apparently deserve after no silverware for six years still eludes them after Birmingham beat them in the Carling Cup final. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/league_cup/9405702.stm
A reminder that nothing should be taken for granted in sport although I am reminded of a comment a friend made during the 92/93 season. He (an Arsenal fan) said towards the end of that season that he hoped that Manchester United would win the league so that everyone would shut up about how it was 20 odd years since they had won the title. I am starting to feel like that about the constant references to Arsenal's current barren run which victory today would have put an end to.

A fine second half performance against France keeps England on course for the Grand Slam but a few question marks still remain. A relatively poor first half was mitigated a little by the slippery conditions but that does not explain France looking hungrier and lapses in concentration at the restart that led to two of their three penalties. We looked a little nervous in the last ten or so minutes, almost inexperienced as if stung by previous criticism of not playing flowing rugby that we insisted on trying to run from our own 22 all the time. This led to one of the penalties at the restart straight after our first penalty and worryingly it was not as if we had not cleared our lines with Nick Easter kicking the ball away at the right time, although the ball was not in hand at the time and was from a French breakdown.
   One might think that a lack of experience with a young team full of exuberance, keen on showing off their skills may appear rash at times but by the end of the match, with England two scores ahead, we had the World Cup winners Mike Tindall, Jonny Wilkinson, Steve Thompson and Simon Shaw all on the pitch as well as other senior pros like Easter and Mark Cueto. Thankfully France were unable to capitalise and while I enjoy watching us attempt to counter attack all the time it would be reassuring to see us clear our lines once in a while when the occasion demands it.
   With England performing well internationally in rugby and cricket (although tomorrow is the acid test to determine whether recent one day performances were due to an Ashes hangover or we genuinely underperform in ODIs: Relaxation against the weaker Dutch team may explain only scraping a win against them but that is not an option against India) it may be time for the national football team and start utilising more players from "the colonies". Unfortunately whilst 2nd XI South Africans and New Zealanders may prove useful assets to our rugby and cricket teams I don't believe their footballers are good enough to represent England yet. But then again...

It is reassuring to see the British cycling team continue to perform well after their success in Beijing and since, which is not always the case of British sporting teams and continued success at an international level. We have a habit of resting on our laurels or losing a few key players who choose such a high point in their careers as a good time to retire with resultant deleterious effects. It is a credit to the coaching staff that has not been the case and senior members of the team in Bradley Wiggins and Sir Chris Hoy are still competing at a high level, presumably wishing to take part in the London Olympics next year, but crucially as others develop more they are not as crucial as they may have once been.
   Still one of  the most astonishing sights was in the keirin final where the Malaysian rider Azizulhasni Awang was part of a crash that took out most of the riders and he had his leg pierced by a shard of wood before getting back up to win the bronze behind Hoy who took gold.
http://www.vimeo.com/20169195
   Incredibly the talk of him riding again in a fortnight is testament to the medical staff looking after him and his own strength.

Whereas the England Test team were a perfect example of planning and execution in the winter we see that when it comes to One Day Internationals we still do not seem to have any clear idea of tactics and continue to react to circumstances. Thus it is that for yesterday's warm up match against Canada with the World Cup just round the corner we opted to open with Kevin Pietersen alongside Andrew Strauss with the view to use this partnership in the competition. I like the fact that Prior is dropping down the order where I feel he can be more effective (his 78 yesterday a good early sign of this) but the decision to do this now on the eve of the World Cup after seven ODIs against Australia is a little late and an obvious ploy to counteract the loss of Eoin Morgan. Pietersen himself talks of relishing the opportunity as you would expect but it still feels like we are throwing players into the team and hoping for the best. http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc_cricket_worldcup2011/content/story/501272.html
The one positive in a faltering display was Stuart Broad's return with a five wicket haul alongside Ajmal Shahzad's two wickets. Reservations still remain about the fifth bowling option with Wright and Collingwood sharing the duties yesterday but without Anderson, Bresnan and Swann. The danger is that without Morgan in the middle order and with Collingwood's lack of form with the bat we try to fit an extra batsman into the team and share the fifth bowler duties amongst part time bowlers. This would not be necessary as with Broad and Swann back and with Bresnan in the lower middle order our batting line up should be long enough to cope with Morgan's loss without having to sacrifice one of them.

One sport I have never really got into is horse racing as the horse seemed to do all the hard work and aside from a few big names had the credit taken from them by the jockeys. I believed it to only be of interest to gamblers and if you had no money invested in a race then the sporting spectacle was somewhat diminished. That's not to say that moments of drama or sporting excellence can't occur but again they are more likely to revolve around the jockey as we can get involved with the back story for a tale of triumphing over the odds such as Bob Champion or one off displays like Frankie Dettori and his seven winners in a day. It is rarer for people outside those directly involved to get emotionally involved with the actual horses save for the very few exceptions that seep into the public consciousness like Nijinsky or Red Rum.
   For all that everybody understands and feels for the two horses that died at Newbury yesterday after what is suspected to be an electric shock.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/horse_racing/9395743.stm
We can grasp this tragedy by the very nature of its unusualness and relate it to other incidents of people dying before their time. Any suggestions that this only goes to show that the sport is cruel to its equine competitors is ridiculous as this occurrence has nothing to do with the sport itself. For all that seeing horses being whipped  during races as a teenager left me feeling uneasy and contributed to my antipathy but not enough to stop me having the obligatory flutter on the Grand National.
   Hopefully the issue can be resolved swiftly and the necessary precautions put in place to prevent a repeat of this awful and bizarre incident.

So West Ham have been given the nod that their bid to take over the Olympic Stadium once the 2012 festivities are over is successful. Complaints, particularly from Lord Sugar, that it would prove to be a white elephant and that the athletics track would spoil the atmosphere were dismissed for the petty whinings of someone who has interests with the other bid having been chairman of Tottenham Hotspur.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12424549
Football has become so obsessed with itself that it struggles to countenance the possibility of sharing its stadia with not only another sport but with another club. On the continent the fiercest of rivals are perfectly capable of ground sharing yet such a suggestion is anathema in this country where two teams in the same town would rather have two smaller stadia than pool resources for a larger communal venue for all the community.
   The notion that the addition of an athletics track will move supporters further away from the action and thus somehow lessen the atmosphere is false as a ground's atmosphere is generated by the people inside not their relative position to the pitch otherwise supposedly the fans at the back of the stands would be quieter. If the stadium is full and the match is of enough interest then the fans will generate the atmosphere accordingly. To blame an inanimate object for supporters not cheering loudly enough is one of the worst excuses for a team's performance. It is not as if an athletics track is moving the stands so far away from the action to make visibility a problem as it will be no further away than e.g. watching a cricket match or even a field event at an athletics meet.
   Certainly the West Ham bid has more going for it than the proposal from Spurs who want to take over the new ground, knock it down and build a new, new stadium without a track. Given that the stadium is in Stratford and therefore out of the Tottenham borough the whole bid seems a bit ill conceived especially as they have apparently got planning permission to rebuild at White Hart Lane. The point that giving the stadium to West Ham would leave a white elephant with nothing to remind people of the legacy is perverse as surely leaving the same stadium with the athletics track in tact is more of an Olympic legacy than walking past an even shinier football ground with a slightly improved athletics stadium at Crystal Palace.

A few points:
Cricket: Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir have received their punishment for spot fixing by the ICC with all three banned for at least five years with the former two having another five and two years suspended respectively. Curiously the PCB chairman Ijaz Butt vaguely described the outcome as regrettable without any reported explanation of whether the cheating or the sentences were giving him cause for regret.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/other_international/pakistan/9389867.stm
If their appeals are unsuccessful then it may mean the end of Butt and Asif's international careers as they will be in their 30s once they have served their ban and after being out of the game so long will find it difficult to break back into the Pakistan team. Amir will still only be 23 and his promising career may well be able to continue if he works hard enough which seems to reflect the mood at the time where the consensus seemed to be that he was immature and led astray.
   England's one day series against Australia finally limped to an end with the visitors eventually losing 6-1 and managing to find defeat where victory looked certain. This feels slightly surreal now in the knowledge that this tour will go down as one of England's finest performances for winning the Ashes in Australia for the first time in 24 years despite it seeming rather a long time ago now.

Football: Belatedly I know but I thought I should pay tribute to Gary Neville after he announced his retirement last week. He is one of those divisive figures who is adored by his own supporters but derided by opposition fans, though often with tongue in cheek as Liverpool fans demonstrated when filling his drive with empty milk bottles after Liverpool beat Manchester United in what used to be the Milk Cup.
   One club players are a rarity nowadays so to have several at Manchester United is impressive, especially given that they have been performing at a consistently high level for so long. Such loyalty is always appreciated by the fans and whilst it may have been easy for Neville to stay as he supports the club himself and continued to win trophies there that in itself is not a guarantee that you will stay at the club as his brother and best friend can testify. Disappointingly there is still nobody who comes close to him for England but perhaps now is the time for someone to step from under his shadow.

Motor Racing: Thankfully surgery appears to have been successful so far on Robert Kubica after crashing in a rally. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9389513.stm
From talk of losing his hand to mentioning that he may only miss the first few months of the Formula 1 season is an incredible turnaround and whilst the latter sounds optimistic, as he may even have reservations about racing for a while even if fully fit, it is a remarkable tribute to the medical team looking after him and a reminder of the dangers of the sport.

Quite a satisfactory start by England in the Six Nations to defeat Wales in the Millennium Stadium
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/9386391.stm#top and England at last seem to be developing a new team out of the shadow of the 2003 generation. I heard somebody mention that it takes eight years to rebuild a team from past successes and that is proving about right despite England making the final in 2007 and this year's competition a little too soon for this latest incarnation. The 2007 result always felt like a bonus from a team in transition and going so far in the competition on the back of Jonny Wilkinson's boot hid a number of cracks. We were over reliant on Wilkinson and players such as Dallaglio and Robinson were coming to the end of their careers and as dependable as Martin Corry was as a player and captain, the impression was always that he was not Martin Johnson. This is probably unfair but he was always a substitute until Johnson retired along with Richard Hill and Neil Back and as he was not a young player starting out it meant we were weaker than we had been as well as losing Matt Dawson at scrum half where we have especially struggled to find a replacement.
   Eventually younger players have come into the side so that Ben Youngs looks assured at scrum half with enough distance since Dawson last played to avoid comparisons and we have also settled on Toby Flood at fly half, who started out ass understudy to Wilkinson at Newcastle, but who was young enough to develop and who has matured enormously since the last Six Nations. A man of the match display this evening making all his kicks, picking up where he left off fro the autumn internationals. I must also commend Nick Easter who was another who I thought to be a good solid professional whose best position was on the bench who continues to put in international class performances, but the big difference is that England are also more clinical now and with Chris Ashton we have a player who can finish of moves by scoring those crucial tries.

League managers around Europe will be breathing a sigh of relief now that the transfer window has closed until the summer after what was one of the most hectic deadline days since the introduction of the window. The usual format is for some mid to lower teams to have a little panic buy but the big clubs to do little more than offload a few of their younger players out on loan having been more organized and done their dealing at the start of the window. That all went out of the window as Chelsea made a late bid for Fernando Torres setting off a sequence of scrabbling around as clubs reorganized accordingly, and players being transferred for unprecedented sums where Andy Carroll is now rated as the most valuable Englishman ever after Liverpool paid Newcastle £35million for his services from the £50million they received for Torres. Undoubtedly a lot of this counts as compensation as Newcastle were unable to find a replacement in time themselves, which poses the question why they did not have any targets lined up just in case or try to negotiate a swap or loan deal with Liverpool with e.g. David Ngog.
   The influence of Manchester City and their dealings has been used as a possible reason for the late rush as clubs fear that if they heard of Chelsea's intentions they would try to hijack the bid and offer more. The increased transfer fee can't be a worry as again Chelsea will have had to pay an extra premium for leaving it so late but the fear that he may choose Man City has meant the have kept things close to their chest. This doesn't strictly follow due to the 25 man squad limit and Man City having already bought Dzeko (for £8miilion less than Carroll) but it certainly kept agents and the media outlets reporting on all the deals happy.
   Only time will tell if they live up to such high price tags but there is a danger that they may believe they are truly worth that figure already despite not necessarily being that prominent just yet. Similarly, again at Man City they have spent a lot of money on players but just because you pay £20 odd million pond for a player does not make them a £20+ million player. Lescott, Milner and Barry are all players still on the fringes of or yet to convince for the England team and like Carroll will have to perform for their country as well as their clubs if fans are to believe they justify such prices. Complaints of extortionate prices in a recession do no good as players fetch what a club is willing to pay for them, but when a World Cup finalist like Rafael van der Vaart can have such a good season after costing Spurs £8milliion then questions will be asked of such valuable England players if their international performances don't improve.