Game 36, and the last group game for South Africa, sees the associate nation try to get on the board…
Comments below.
Apologies for not being online too much in the past few days. It’s been a really difficult time, as things threaten to overwhelm me, and the blog takes a back seat. There’s a huge amount of transition going on in my life, and although I’ve checked the data, I’ve taken the positives and the buck stops with me, I blame you lot.
Being Outside Cricket 
“There’s a huge amount of transition going on in my life, and although I’ve checked the data, I’ve taken the positives and the buck stops with me, I blame you lot.”
You are the ideal replacement for Paul Downton. 🙂
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No-one is more disappointed than me, so I need to work hard, get more of me into the system, make life choices a priority, and put this right. I wasn’t aware that job satisfaction had an impact on performance, but I need to prioritise this earlier on.”
Have I got the gig?
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You are hired. 🙂
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Couple of snippets from newman’s latest:
“The indications are that Moores will keep his job, at least for the Test series in the Caribbean, whatever happens at the Sydney Cricket Ground tomorrow”.
That time frame has suddenly contracted. Significant? Colin Graves takes over formally on May 12th.
“England turned up early yesterday for what used to be known as naughty-boy nets and had a full training session”.
Wasn’t Moores 2.0 supposed to have learnt that when the team is down, the need is to take the pressure off? It’s not quite the training in the middle 30 mins after defeat of 2008 but it seems cut from a similar cloth.
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Newman’s surreptitious change of tack is fooling no-one. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. But more joy about a sinner repenting and all that,….
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Selvey has just deposited a continental-sized piece of dung on the Guardian website.
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I’ve just waded through some Brenkley bunkum….
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Very bizarre article…
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Oh my giddy aunt. It’s a few inches of carry and one more ball all over again….
And some wag got their first. Who is this Holdingahighline character?
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LCL, smiley face thingie! (I must learn how to do those)
clivejw has just made the same point on Page 2.
Andyinbrum has asked directly if there is any truth in the Charles Sale story – interesting to see what if any response that draws.
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I haven’t been able to read the comments until now. Looking forward to this. I may be some time…
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… That was fun. A proper, justified clouting, even from moderates. Plus softlysoftly and wctt fighting it out for best Comical Ali impression. What more can you ask for on a Thursday?
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Just a point on Andyinbrum asking Selvey about the ‘lay off Moores’ story –
To lay off he’d have to be one who laid it on first. Selvey is the wrong journo to ask – his default position is ‘lay off’. Brenkley however had been decidedly acerbic until that piece LCL has fisked. Indeed Brenkley wrote recently (albeit in a self-important and self-pitying way) how an ECB press officer (not Downton personally) had a go at him after an interview where he was crictical of England’s WC chances.
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How does anyone (other than the usual arselickers) still take him seriously? It’s not just dung, it’s offensively deluded. The “real challenge”? “First-class preparation”? We just limboed comfortably under a very low bar, with a lot of the problems self-inflicted, and this is the best “analysis” he can bloody muster?
No bloody wonder so many people follow blogs and Twitter.
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Reasons why Mike Selvey articles are read:
– What you have read is so stupendously stupid, that you have to feel smarter after reading it?
– you’re legally blind and have not seen a thing that has happened in two years.
– you believe cricket is a sport for the imagination – i.e. what we want to happen – rather than what actually transpires on the field. Duly aided by Sky’s paywall.
– To find out what did not happen.
– BTL people laying into him for abovementioned reasons.
– BTL people laying into him in the hopes that they supply links to sanity, a.k.a. blogs such as LCL, or TheFullToss.
– The five stages of ECB-grief: denial, denial, denial, denial, denial. And the reader perversely wonders if the ECB and its apologists ever move on.
I may have missed a few, but I think I must have covered most people by now.
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“The real challenge” sounds so much like Brent and Finchy’s “real quiz” I’m surprised Dave Tickner hasn’t pointed it out. It’s equally contemptible and pitiful.
Anyway, Mike Selvey has played three Tests for England and thrown a kettle over a pub. What have any of us done?
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Simon!
The smiley face thingies are at the link below. But only the first three are normally used.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/15-popular-codes-for-smiley-faces-their-meanings/
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