The best thing to come out of yesterday’s play was Geoff Boycott’s gesture of putting his hands to his face after Brook’s farcical baseball shot to be dismissed. It summed up England’s batting woes. Brook would be better off going to New York and signing on for The Mets baseball team- or maybe The Met in London! England’s approach to batting typifies the continuous decline of professionalism in sport in favour of the gladiatorial type of entertainment. No need to bring on the clowns. They’re already there!
Brainless cricket from England in both tests which looks likely to lead to 2 losses from 2. Ashes done and dusted. Duckett’s comments after getting out for 98 were beyond stupid. The chance of an Ashes century at Lords and he gives it up so easily. Brook got out like a frightened tailender. The most staggering to me though is Root. Our best player by a mile. He accumulates test runs at a better strike rate than all the other current top test batters - Smith, Kohli, Labuschagne, Williamson. Whatever Bazball options the the team adopt somebody should have told Root just to play his natural game. Scores plenty fast enough. Bonkers. Aussies must be pissing themselves at our stupidity.
The 2023 Tour de France starts today in Bilbao - I was down there last week in Getxo, a beautiful part of the world with awesome food and wine. The bookmakers are struggling to split Vingegaard and Pogacar for the GC but Vingegaard has had a much smoother run up to the race and put in a couple of devastating stages in Switzerland and he is favourite in my eyes. In a sport of very fine margins there will be much focus on safety this year after the tragic death of Gino Mäder in Switzerland - here's hoping the riders remain responsible and there are no serious accidents. The tour planners clearly want the GC to go the distance as the penultimate stage 20 takes in 2 category 1 climbs in Alsace - this could be the stage that crowns the champion. Colombier and Mont Blanc are the highlights of the alps and overall there is a good level of climbing in this tour - the first 2 stages in the Basque country will be challenging and then just 3 days later into the Pyrennees. This should be action pretty much from day 1.
The other take i have on this style of cricket is that scoring at such a high and fast rate is leaving our bowlers without proper rest in between innings, and our top two bowlers are not exactly spring chickens anymore are they...?!?! The Aussie bowlers are getting rest in to their legs as their batters make hay all day long keeping us in the field for a lot longer than they are... Saying that they will probably chase down 500 to win it in very specacular fashion...
A fair point Red though I cant see us knocking off 250 in 4th innings even without Lyon available to the Aussies. To follow up your point it also means the likes of Khawaja, Smith and Labuschagne, who just love batting, can breeze along at 3 an over with very little concern for the clock
Have you watched the netflix series on the Tour Oddy? I havent yet but have heard only positives views on it.
Really looking forward to this year Tour which could be one for the ages if Vinnie and Podge get going. If you have Netflix Oddy i would check out the 8 part mini series of last years Tour, very interesting and shows the back room staff, ceo's and management on how they manage a team of cyclists and the daily issues they have to put up with. Plus some of the riders talk about some of the bad falls and crashes that they have and still get back on the bike the next day to carry on regardless...!! Super strong guys both mentally and physically...
All about the Manx Missile surely? Forget the GC and concentrate on the stories. I just hope we see some explosive riding between WVA and MVDP and then hopefully we will see some return to sprint trains and classic sprint finishes. I hope we also see some brilliant race on the descents, the sad loss of Gino will be felt and will ring around the peloton, but the downhill can and should be as important as the climbs. Pidcock last year showed this with his remarkable ride. Finally, will we see a French winner on Bastille day? Obviously not but it’ll be nice seeing them try! For me Pogacar is the favourite, even after his injury. He is the more explosive of the two and has an awesome team. I just hope we don’t see many DNF in the first week.
Unless he is asked to ride for Martinez/Bernal. I just hope Ineos go aggressive and look to win stages.
Much like horse racing I am not really interested in the sprinters. Those flat stages bore the pants off me and then after 4 hours in the saddle it turns into a 100m sprint. Who is the main GC contender for Ineos this year?
You would be! Bernal would be the GC hope but he’s still recovering from a horrific accident. Dani Martinez was a hope but he seems well off top table.
Ineos yet again will be there at the fore getting tv coverage without actually doing anything constructive. Bernal is the hope and he has the class but as Nass rightly says he is coming back from a horror collision in which the bus came out on top.
Carlos Rodriguez is going to be a fantastic rider, he and Juan Ayuso are the great promises (already realities) of Spanish cycling for the next decade. Rodriguez has already signed with Movistar for next season.
I most certainly admire the toughness and bravery of the superb athletes who compete in the Tour de France, and other celebrated road races. However, havng said that, cycling in general leaves me cold. Many years ago I was invited by friends to the Munich Velodrome in the Olympiapark complex, and have to say I found it very boring. Cyclists whizzing round and round, ridiculous commentary, and a right tedious evening for my missus and me. No thanks, never again. (Beer and snacks were pretty good though, as far as I can remember)
