Well done to the England U20 side...... Changing sports there's a cracking finish building in the Champions Trophy cricket between India and Sri Lanka. India set SL 322 to win and they are 232/3 with 12 overs to go.......this could be the biggest surprise in the tournament so far.....
Cruised it. I have only just realised that he West Indies have dropped out of the eight top ODI teams. Barely believable that the team that destroyed everything in its path for years and years has fallen so low, with little prospect of coming back given the fall in popularity of cricket aamongst the young in the Caribbean. Really sad. As a cocky 18 year old I faced Wayne Daniels in the nets once. I couldn't see the ****ing ball, never took cricket seriously after that. A mate of mine, very decent player, faced Andy Roberts in a charity game in the early 80s - said even off a three yard run up he was the quickest he'd ever seen.
What was it they called Michael Holding? Whispering Death or something like that, he had the most graceful run up I've ever seen, just seemed to glide in and then unleash the ball at a frightening pace and that was in the days before batsmen wore helmets and padding for protection, just pads, gloves and a box...... What players they had, Sir Viv, Sir Garfield, Clive Lloyd, Roberts, Holding, Marshall, Garner, Daniels, Gibbs the spinner, why he played Gods knows as he was rarely required. It is sad to see the decline, went to the Oval in late 70's to watch them tear England limb from limb, the crowd was 70 to 80% West Indian as Brixton was just down the road, and the atmosphere was unreal, the Carlsberg Special Brews were being sunk by the galleon. Think they destroyed England in 3 days or so......
Couldn't not notice Andorra beating Hungary tonight, some win given their record...buggered up my accumulator though
I grew up in Brixton and when the Windies were in town the last test was always at the Oval. I was 12 when I first went to see them on the Thursday in the school hols with two schoolmates, one from Jamaica and one from Guyana, we were all cricket nuts. The Windies had slaughtered England and were 3-0 up in the series, England had made Brian Close the captain for the last test and big changes to the team. Despite that all we were interested in was seeing Garry Sobers, he was the superstar of that era, the excitement when he eventually walked out was amazing, some players just have that effect on the crowd. He didn't disappoint scoring around 70-odd in a partnership with Rohan Kanhai, another great batsman who made a century. However, England won the match by an innings so I had the last laugh on my mates. But what a player Sobers was, the best all-rounder I've seen. Great swashbuckling batsman, opened the bowling and also bowled left-arm spin, the complete cricketer...
Have to agree with that, Sobers was the best all-rounder. I was at Lord's in 1966 for what he has described as his best innings, though, as a 12-year old, I didn't really appreciate it. I just wanted to see him get out.
I was just too young for Sobers in his pomp, but remember the wobbly TV film of his six sixes in an over against Glamorgan I think, which must have been late sixties. 666!
From the Lord's website...... In his final Test at Lord's he made what turned out to be the last of his 26 Test centuries, in a knock of 150* which has gone down in cricketing folklore. Sobers was 31 not out at the close of the first day, and arrived at the Ground on the second morning having not slept after a night out in London with Clive Lloyd. Despite missing his first five balls, Sobers steadily played himself in, going on to play a memorable innings - which was only briefly disturbed when he retired on 132 with stomach cramps. After knocking back a couple of brandy and port's in the dressing room, Sobers returned to reach his 150, whereupon his captain declared, with the tourists going on to win the match by an innings.
Apparently he did like a drink or two. When he played for Notts in the County Championship he was more often than not found in the bookies shop, a proper man of the people...
This is turning out to be a great game, both sides playing to win and plenty of skill on show. Onomah unlucky with a great strike onto the bar...
