The Perfect Hangover Cure

The Perfect Hangover Cure...

Ingredients;

1 1/2 - 2 ounces of line and length

1 tsp of forward defensive

Cover drives to taste

Pour over new bats and new pads, stir well. Garnish with a cheeky new cherry

WICK WINTER NETS ARE HERE!!

What better way to blow away the cobwebs than batting, bowling & fielding for a hour and a half every Sunday morning at Esher College.

Please see below all the information you require for both Esher College & The Oval winter nets;

Esher College;

Net organiser; David Fudge

m: 07887 600 859

Feb 7th - 10:30 - 12:00

Feb 14th - 10:30 - 12:00

Feb 21st - 10:30 - 12:00

Feb 28th - 10:30 - 12:00

March 7th - 10:30 - 12:00

March 14th - 10:30 - 12:00

March 21st - 10:30 - 12:00

March 28th - 10:30 - 12:00

Esher College, Weston Green Road, Thames Ditton, Surrey, KT7 0JB

http://www.esher.ac.uk/information/Pages/location.aspx

The Brit Oval;

Net organiser; James Cameron m: 07769 169 394

Tuesday March 2nd - 21:00March 9th - 21:00

March 16th - 21:00March 23rd - 21:00March 30th - 21:00April 6th - 21:00

Ken Barrington Cricket CentreThe Brit OvalKenningtonLondon SE11

5SShttp://www.britoval.com/about/getting-brit-oval

Please see http://www.hwrcc.co.uk/ & http://www.hwrcc.blogspot.com/ for more information.

WICK

Who does he mean?

This delicious article sums up what it must be like to be a Jaapie with one test to go in the series.

Here Jacques Kallis wrestles with the fact that twice in the series South Africa have been one ball away from winning games but still find themselves one down with one to play.

This is most upsetting to South Africans. They were lead to believe that this England side was full of lily-livered deserting South Africans who weren't good enough to play for the motherland and a bunch of post Colonialist bully boys with little talent. They would bat for days and their world ranked no. 1 bowler would skittle us rotten.

You can feel the pain in this quote:

"We have discussed it because the feeling could be that we have dominated the series but somehow haven't managed to get a win"

You can imagine the poor fellas in the changing room:

Smuth: **&&*&^*&^%&*%$%&*^*(^*&(*^*&^!!!!??!?!!
Dressing Room: .........

Translating this interview from interviewese into plain speak you get:

"I can't f*cking believe it. I've scored a mountain of sodding runs. I've even had to turn my arm over and snaffle a bunch of catches. But somehow these English bastards have scraped a couple of draws with some really, really ugly cricket. And it hasn't been their bowling. We let ourselves down in Durban. Actually - I failed once in that game and the others let me down. The boys are f*cking furious. Mickey could lose his job. No one's talking to Smithy because we all blame him for declaring too late. Twice."

Which is all good. But the interview really gets out of hand when Jacques starts handing out the insults. Yes Colly is ginge. But he's our ginge.

"He might not be the prettiest batsman but you'd rather take a guy who gets ugly runs and gets the job done than someone who looks good but doesn't perform regularly"

Wickman thinks this is a sly dig at Ashwell Prince and JP Duminy who haven't scored a run between them when the pressure's been on...

One Nil To The Ingerlund

Well shivver me timbers (a bit like Tortty's timbers got shivvered yesterday). Three tests down and we're still one up against the former best team in the world until they forgot to play test cricket for nine months.

Yesterday was a real labour of love for watching English cricket fans. You really had to feel Test Cricket in your bones to stick with it. We scored 163 runs in a day. Dick Ewen will tell you that's a scoring rate of 1.81 recurring runs per over. Boundaries were fewer and further between than Adam Crane forward defensives.

What is happening to Test Cricket? The pitches are becoming so "good" that England have held on for three last wicket draws in 12 months and have been on the other end of one in the West Indies and a couple of other right to the wire results. Pitches are so "good" in India that it is no surprise whatsoever that Tendulkar, Dravid and VVS can't face retiring and Viru has had to start slogging in Tests to stop himself going to sleep and breaking Lara's records.

Back to yesterday. Colly's backlift was so negligable that the ball seemed to melt into the sweet spot before it dribbled down by his feet time and again. Belly played shot after languid shot with a final flourish of his thick ginger wrists. Nothing happened for hours and hours and hours.

And then we were whisked into another of those climactic moments of the last post. Wickets fell like pensioners on icy pavements and it took the steely nerve of Bunny Onions to see England to the close again.

Not before JP Dumminy had done a Broady and trod on the ball at long off before grinningly handing it back to Steyn who had a good look to see if anything unusual might have happened to it. FACT. You look. Don't tell me JP was trying to stop the ball going for four either because he was hoping to expose whoever was up the other end. He only stood on it when it had hit the rope.

Which brings Wickman back to South African whingeing and verbal jousting in this series. Arthur and Smith are turning into the dullest double act since Samuel Beckett wrote the first act of Waiting for Godot. Every Test starts with Smith bleating on about something or other. Strauss' captaincy, Trott's routines, the pressure facing Cooky and Bellend and the cheating accusations of this Test. Chaps. Wickman knows you want to be as tough as the Waugh era Aussies but you just aren't. And in the meantime it's farcical you moaning every week about some new perceived injustice. You're beginning to sound like Ricky Ponting every time he comes to England.

[Smith and Arthur comtemplate their future if England win the series - Ed]