"Playing Hard" and the Confederations Cup

His hair is still rubbish

So the football season is finally over (unless you count the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the Women's European Championship), all of you non-football fans can finally stop saying, "What's this match about? I thought the season was over?!?" I have nothing to fear though because this summer's main event for me is The Ashes. For those of you who are unfamiliar, The Ashes is a series of 5 day cricket matches between England and Australia, where many people in this country all of a sudden become partisan English cricket fans and we're expected to turn a blind eye to any sporting injustices that those brash, beer swilling, cork hat wearing, convict descendant Australians suffer. Obviously I don't conform to this. For a start, being of West Indian heritage my leanings aren't towards either side and I therefore can offer my unbiased opinions on the whole thing.

Last Wednesday I eagerly awaited the the start of the series and I wasn't disappointed. Well I wasn't in terms of entertainment. What did disappoint me was some of the ridiculously biased commentary (and media coverage). I'm not sure why I was surprised by it all, it happens every time the national football team takes part in a major tournament. It started with Chris Roger's dismissal on the first day (apologies non-cricket fans, there is some football at the end of this), the ball seemed to be sliding down the leg side but the umpire gave it out. Upon review it was found to be just clipping the outside of the stump so the umpires original decision correctly stood. Now this decision, although correct as per the rules of the game, was pretty harsh and heaped more pressure on the already struggling Australians. Fast forward 24 hours and Jonathan Trott was given out LBW, now as with the Rogers Decision it was really close and as with the Rogers decision the batsmen was given out when he probably wasn't. Now I say this but all of the evidence, Hotspot (from the angle that was available) and "Snicko" both suggested that Trott hadn't touched the ball with his bat, and therefore was out. Where both incidents differed was the response that they got in the media. If there are any cricket followers reading this (please say there are, the football fans have probably either skipped on to the Confederations Cup bit or gone back to Twitter to take the mick out of Wayne Rooney) you'll remember the stories of Trott fuming and Anderson's press conference, but I don't remember seeing anything in the press regarding the Rogers dismissal.

Broad's "Snicko" reading is still oscillating

Worse was to come the following day. While batting Stuart Broad edged, I say "edged" however he almost got the full face of the bat on it, a ball to first slip and then stood there whilst the umpire failed (somehow) to give him out. People say it was the Australian's fault for wasting all of their reviews, personally I don't think it would have mattered if they'd have had a review left, both Hotspot and "Snicko" would have been useless. With Hotspot you wouldn't have got a little white mark where the ball made contact; the whole bat would have been white from the heat that the ball created when it CLEARLY DEFLECTED OFF THE BAT INTO THE SLIP'S HANDS. As for "Snicko" there wouldn't have been a clean spike in the oscilating sound waves! It would have looked like somebody's sound cloud mix!! The was so much sound because it CLEARLY DEFLECTED OFF THE BAT INTO THE SLIP'S HANDS!! And then to add to it all Naser Hussein then had the cheek to say that Stuart Broad was "COURAGEOUS" for staying out there and dealing with the flack he will have got from the fielders?!? What the hell?!? That's like me turning up at a courtroom for a trial of a burglar who'd been caught on CCTV in the act, smiling in the camera, with no mask (or even hood) on, and saying, "Ooooh! He's courageous for pleading not guilty! Standing up to the prosecution lawyer!" When did we start not only turning a blind eye to cheating but praising it?!? Has the world gone mad?!? All I keep hearing is that it's because England are "Playing Hard". Yeah that's hard indeed, it's pretty hard to get someone out if they hit the ball, you catch it, and they're still not out! I hope we don't see any more displays of such courage or "Playing Hard" during the rest of the series. Shane Warne now joins the commentary team, hopefully he can restore some balance to their views...

Arshavin clearly hasn't a clue what to do with this bat!

Here's one for all of the football and cricket fans. No wonder the Aussies are struggling with their batting, they've got Andrei Arshavin coming it at number 5. He's not been any good since that 4-4 at Anfield.

PS For you non-cricket fans, it's Steve Smith

How's your Russian Warnie??

Now to the Football!!
Order has been restored! Spain choked in the Confederations Cup Final and the flair of the mighty Brazilians won the day. Bring back Alfonso (with the white boots) and Morientes! To be fair the result (however entertaining) was a bit of a freak one, Spain were knackered after a late finish in their semi with Italy. I struggled with all those late nights, the players must have felt even worse. I'm really not sure how I'm gonna cope next year? Can't FIFA just schedule the games for 6pm and 8pm BST? PLEASE! I'm pretty much going to die at work next year with those 11pm kick offs. And remember I don't want any, "Are you staying up to watch that? England aren't even playing!"

Neymar?? Nah!!

Finally I just wanted to say how wrong I was about Neymar. I'm not saying he's as good as Messi or Ronaldo. I'm not saying he's achieved anything major in his career or that he'll definitely be successful in Spain. What I am saying is that I did not give the guy any credit whatsoever when I heard he was coming to Europe. I had him down as the new Andrea Silenzi. Based on what I saw he was at least a Finidi George!