Fazzinchi

Reach For The Stars

The Cricket World Cup came alive this week as the Super 8 stages of the tournament came to a close. Up until now it has meandered along with some uninspring and one-sided encounters usually involving Australia dismissing all before them with an unstoppable flourish. However, in a thoroughly irrelevant match because both sides had already been eliminated, between West Indies and England, we got to see 600 runs, 19 wickets and a near-as you can get to a last ball finish. If the whole competition had been just half this good it would (more…)

More Desperate Than Usual

Well, England winning the Commonwealth Bank Cricket tournament after having odds way outside of “100-1 against” just two weeks ago was probably the most surprising thing I’ve seen on TV in ages and it was certainly a highlight of the week for me.  In typical England supporter mode, I now find myself being ridiculously optimistic about the forthcoming World Cup and, if they win that, I may even grant them my prestigious “Show-Of-The-Week” award… but not this time.  I have also (more…)

What’s Going On?

It’s a been a while since a cricket post has turned up here at Fazzinchi.com but in acknowledgement that something a bit special (but only a bit!) happened this morning here’s another one.  England have beaten Australia by 92 runs, it’s not quite on the scale of the successes of the summer before last but a win is a win.  Of course, as the always entertaining Bumble is happy to tell us on SkySports, “You’ve won one game. Well done. Now move along”.  The perspective that we (more…)

The Full Monty - A Rare Celebration

We lost the five test matches, then we lost the Twenty20 and this morning we’ve lost the first match in the Commonwealth Bank, one-day series, I say “lost”, I mean “been thrashed”.  If that wasn’t bad enough, we’ve also lost our best player after Kevin Pietersen broke a rib during his top-scoring 83*.  As Michael Vaughan said in his post-match interview “it never rains but it pours”.  For years now, since the comprehensive defeat in the last World Cup, the ECB have (more…)

Short And Bittersweet

For just 14 months England held the bragging rights but the Ashes have been relinquished. Despite how disappointed I feel right now, I believe that this was Australia winning it rather than England losing it. Despite the inevitable post mortems and finger pointing that will follow, this needs to be said… Well done Australia!! They took a long hard look at themselves after the 2005 defeat and planned, worked hard and and were completely single minded for 14 months. And from the first (more…)

Didn’t It Look Good For a While?

The pain has eased. The emotions are back in check. I feel like I can talk about it at last. Time, they tell me, is a great healer but it will take much more time for the wounds of this debacle to fully heal, it may take years. England fought back against the Aussies in the second test in Adelaide. After the humbling performance at the Gabba, fighting back was all they could do and for four days it wasn’t going too badly at all… 551-6 declared and the hosts reduced to 74-3, Ponting balloons the (more…)