World Cup - Tragedy in the making

Over the years, I've made some bold predictions about a number of Australian players and teams that have gone to battle in Cricket, and for most part I've been pretty much on the money, but one that I got wrong was Andrew Symonds, whose selection so angered me that I contemplated boycotting watching the games. Now, although the Australian team may not have felt my wrath had I carried out my threat, I was still pissed that Symonds got the call, and even when he single-handedly saved Australia from an embarrassing exit, I wasn't particularly contrite.

However, this world cup squad that has been assembled really fills me with dread, and I'm hoping that my doomsday blog entry will be enough to enrage the sporting gods and reverse our fortunes, which recently has been mired between 'downright putrid' and 'fucking awful'. So without further ado, onto my thoughts about the farcical squad that's been named to defend our title over there in the Carribean.

Ricky Ponting (Captain)
Arguably the finest batsman in the world, an improving Captain and a brilliant fielder.

Nathan Bracken
Averages around 22 with the ball in ODI's, but needs to stop being belted for six with rank full-tosses when the game's to be one. Selects himself with his average, but a little overated.

Stuart Clark
I'm still not sure why this guy didn't go New Zealand, perhaps he's seen as being too predictable?! At least he can land the ball within 4 feet of where he's aiming, the same can't exactly be said for the other Australians who were masquerading as bowlers in the 'Hadlee-Chappell' series, or whatever the hell it was.

Michael Clarke
It would be nice if Clarke could stand up for a change and show some consistency. With Martin out of the way, he's an automatic selection, but might actually need to get his act together and take the next step.

Adam Gilchrist
I would have personally induced his wife to make sure he was on the plane and available for the whole tournament.

Brad Haddin
I met this guy at the 'Embankment Walkabout' and he was a tool. He pulled the 'I play for Australia' card when I opined aloud that I thought Brett Lee was a wanker. When I informed him that I didn't really care who he was, he proceeded to show me his drivers license! Tool! Australian selectors, hang your head, wasted selection.

Matthew Hayden
Pretty safe selection, the type of guy that can win a game for you. 181* wasn't a bad knock, showed that there's 'still stuff left in the basement'.

Brad Hodge
I'll be honest here, Hodge gives me the absolute shits! He's batted 13 times; 2 x ducks, 4 scores under 10, 12, 13, 22, 49, 59, 97* & 99*. He'll either fail big time, or go close to winning a match. Seems like a poor man's Andrew Symonds to me, what's the point?

Brad Hogg
Even though he looks like 'MacGuyver' who I went to university with, I can't handle this selection. Yeah, he's not a bad fielder, he can swing the bad, he's not awful with the ball, but at 36 and with no real match-winning dynamic in his bones, he seems like another wasted selection.

Mike Hussey
All hail the great man! Pity he had to lead the rabble in New Zealand, but I guess someone had to. He didn't deserve that 'honour', it should have gone to Chris Matthews or someone.....

Mitchell Johnson
Everyone's in love with left armers and although he bowled alright in the Champions Trophy, I don't think 4-226 in his last four matches (incl. 3-81 off 10 in his last match) indicate that he's at the peak of his powers. If it does, then we're really screwed. Again, 8.1 runs an over in his last game, 1-145 the previous 3 games.

Glen McGrath
I'll be honest, I didn't agree with his selection initially, but given the efforts shown by the rest of our bowling stocks, I think he's got to be in there.

Andrew Symonds
I've written him off before in the world cup, and I'll think I'll do it again, hopefully with similar results! He's been pretty ordinary with the bat for over 12 months needs to deliver, but he is probably Australia's best fieldsman and is a handy bowler, so a no-brainer selection.

Shaun Tait
I met him at the 'Walkabout' with Haddin, and he wasn't nearly as bad a bloke as Haddin! I think he's a little bit too raw, but one of the few who might cause some problems on West Indian pitches. When I saw his selection, I almost threw up, but not it's a little more palatable (his selection, not my vomit).

Shane Watson
I'll be surprised if he doesn't get injured between now and the world cup, I'm sure that his bones are made of chalk! He's been touted as the saviour of Australian cricket for the last two years.... perhaps the world cup is his opportunity. Then again, with returns of 2-88 off of ten overs in his last hit out, probably not!

Diabolical selections...
Brad Haddin
Brad Hogg
Mitchell Johnson

Borderline at best...
Brad Hodge
Shaun Tait

Gutted to be injured...
Brett Lee

A third of the squad questionable, with three players seemingly completely out of their depth!

What's 'tall poppy' syndrome anyway??

Running, but not quite on empty!

It’s been a pretty crappy week or so for me in the sporting realm, with not only Liverpool getting their arses handed to them by Newcastle, Australia inexplicably losing to the rancid Poms, the Lakers losing to Isaiah Thomas’ horrendous Knicks and still no sign of Tom Hawkins on the horizon for the Cats. Now in an effort to purge my sporting frustration, I’ve decided that I’m seriously going to continue my running in a dual-edged attempt to get fit and to use as an outlet to channel my sporting frustrations. The concept of me and a ‘running club’ is almost comical, but I tell you, two weeks in, it’s looking good.

The typical plan is to do a circuit or two around Regents Park and then when we’re at the point of exhaustion, we chip in and cook up a feast. The first two weeks have been green curry laksa and roast vegetables. Running, with the motivation of good food at the end of it, I should have tried this years ago.

 We tend to meander along at a nice consistent pace, and although we aren’t likely to break any speed records, our first two runs (5km and 6.4km) are a far better return than my typical Wednesday night exercise – walking from the tube station! Next week, the distance is expected to be 7.5kms, ramping it up to 10kms by the end of March. If you told me 12 months ago that I’d be doing 10km runs around Regents Park on a weekly basis, I’d have called the men in the white coats.

What’s more, for the first time in living memory, I’m actually genuinely motivated to exercise. Seriously!

It’s interesting what you can use to help motivate you, and how it’s easy to lose sight of what’s important. I’m thankful that I didn’t, and I’m hopeful that others don’t as well, but above all else, I’m thankful of the friends I have. Outstanding!

Anyway, a slightly philosophical end to what’s really a grievance against the recent form of my sporting teams, but hey, what can you do?! You’d think that being Valentines day, I’d have a slightly more interesting story to tell. Not this time, and not in the near future either, but at least I’ve got my running for now.  :-)

Another day in ye olde London town.

I arrived in sunny London just under two years ago (Feb 23, 2005) and not too long after I arrived, I came down with mumps, which – if you’ve happened to read my thoughts on the subject – you’ll note was not my finest hour. One thing that I missed during this particular time (aside from normal sized testicles) was my National Insurance Number interview. In the UK, you’re required to get a NI number, and it’s a key requirement for both health services and taxation reasons, but given the physical state that I was in at the time, I was unable to attend my interview, and rather than organise an alternate time date, I let things slip by the wayside, as I so often do with anything remotely linked to tax.

For the next few months after, I was in a constant state of travel and I think there was a three month stretch where I wasn’t in the country for a full fortnight without jaunts overseas. Consequently, the whole National Insurance chestnut slipped my mind until just recently when some random casual payroll woman demanded to know where my NI number was. First up, I was going to tell her to smeg off, when I realised that I actually didn’t have one yet, and I’d been in the UK for the better part of two years. Normally this wouldn’t worry me, but given that if I didn’t get my act together my company was soon to be fined – and I’d probably be given the arse, I decided that the best course of action was to finally get off my ever-increasing backside and try and sort something out with regards to an NI number.

I got in touch with NINO (not sure if related to El Nino at all) in order to schedule another interview to try and get myself sorted out with an NI number, thinking that it would probably take a few days to organise something and he comes back with, “Ok, we have an appointment on February 29th and then the next one on March 13th”. Typically, I’m not necessarily the sharpest guy around, but unless I’ve unknowingly been in a coma for a year (like the Geelong football club have been for the last 40 or so) this isn’t a leap year. I asked him – half seriously – if I really had to wait until next year for an appointment, because I thought that was bang out of order. He indicated that, “No, it’s roughly two weeks away….” Yesterday was the 5th! Rather than getting into debate with this Mensa leader, I asked if there were any alternate locations where I could possibly have an interview, that wouldn’t require me to wait “roughly two weeks” nor that would take place in a leap year.

After a few minutes of consulting something (I’m guessing he was reading tea leaves at this point) I was informed that there were several vacancies at the Camden office, which happens to only be about 45 minutes away from work. This sounded good! Not as good as Hugh Heffner throwing me the keys to the estate for a month-long free-for-all, but good news nonetheless.
So I organise to leave work early today, and I end up heading towards Camden town and arrive in the office at 3:59PM for my 4:00PM appointment and as I walk in the door a woman asks if “there’s anyone for a 4:00PM interview”, to which I indicate I’m such inclined, so she; asks me my name, finds a form with my name on it, then sighs and carries on for 2 minutes without breath complaining how she can’t find my name on the register, and it’s not good enough and……and at this point I tuned out, stared at her blankly and said in a tone Dolph Lundgren would have been proud of “where do I need to go now?” That seemed to snap her out of her near hysterics, and she told me to report to the reception desk on level one. Easy peasy, I can handle this.

I wander upstairs to the first floor and I encounter an absolute shambles!
There must have been people from every country in the world in the room, except Slovenia – but purely because that’s a fairytale make believe country that doesn’t really exist! I shit you not, there was representation from everywhere, and that was just the staff working there!! There was even an Albino! Fortunately, he was there for an NI number and wasn’t chasing the Holy Grail, so there was less for me to be concerned about.
I grabbed a seat and settled in, expecting a bit of a wait.

At 5:15 I get the call, after listening to some Eastern European guy struggle for 30 minutes trying to understand the questions that were being thrown at him. I was getting more frustrated than the interviewer having to endure listening to it, and what’s more I was dead last to be interviewed. Usually, in other situations this is either really good or really bad, but at this point I couldn’t give a shit, I just wanted to get things over and done with so that I could think about heading home! My ‘interview’ took 7 minutes. Record time! And for the first time since I’ve been here, I really thought that the UK should not be a part of the EU, it just makes life so much slower and harder for us Southern Hemispherians, and let’s face it, it’s all about us!