Dogged Pup

Third Test Match England v Australia: draw.




Duh well not a lot to say about Ashes Test numero trois cos like everyone knew it was going to rain and it did. And most people predicted a draw and that's what we got. There was like a flicker of hope at one point that England might push it through to a win but the Strayans are a bit too good to be knocked over like that lol even though they are not as good as the old team as everybody keeps saying.

So my take on it is this that I really like Graham Onions who has a lovely smile and is a useful bowler to boot. I'm not sure what the charming Stuart Broad is doing as he seems to be trying to bowl in a too clever by half kind of way but fortunately he can still bat a bit.


And I don't understand why they boo Ponting now when nobody ever has before but I do join in sometimes at home and Karl gives me looks.

Michael Clarke Future Strayan Captain and known as Pup put in a fine display of doggedness to ensure the draw but I find his face really, really annoying...

Headingley on Friday! Brett Lee might be better! Fred might have had so many injections that he starts growing another knee.

Sigh....

1-0! 1-0! 1-0!

Second Test Match England v Australia: England win










Well like the old song says every picture tells a story don't it?

Told you so

First Test Match England v Australia: drawn


And yet again the wonderful Paul Collingwood proves his right to eternal membership of the clan of Ginger Guys In Cricket Who Will Never Let You Down. In fact he is like the only top-ranked member right now as Ryan Sidebottom has lost a number of points by being stroppy with team-mates and not bowling very successfully. And Ian Bell was never allowed into the clan cos like we have to keep up our standards and the title means what it says.

But Colly will be a ginger hero even when he is old and grey.

As for the rest of the England side well time will tell yeah because they didn't start off in any way that you could call exciting in fact the washing-up was like more inviting than watching the England batsmen not get enough runs again *sigh* *snarl*.

And we have to say that if you were in a burning building with any of Team England you wouldn't have much confidence in them getting you out unscorched. EXCEPT COLLY. And maybe Jimmy too (the fact that he can fly could be useful) and Monty who might not even notice that there was a fire going on but would be really nice about it.

But it's a five-match series and anything can happen. Except a whitewash lol.

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Yeah well like better late than never but you know how it is

So apologies to all my one and a half regular readers for being silent* since before Christmas but you know yeah life intervenes. That old prime minister with the moustache used to say "Events dear boy events" we did it in History.

So like basically when we were out Christmas shopping Karl the anorak said would I like to get married and I said yes. Not realising that this would like unleash a maelstrom (good word eh?) of relatives and wedding planners and times when Karl was supposed to get drunk which he doesn't enjoy doing all taking over our lives for months and months until in the end a few weeks ago we called it off and decided to live in what used to be called sin lol.

So now our dads are pleased owing to the credit crunch and saving the money and our mums are well pissed off lol but we are fine. Sporting-wise tho I have been in a bit of a cleft dilemma yeah because Karl is not fond of cricket so I tried hard to learn about football but I have realised it is better not actually. As we know many men still prefer women to be illiterate but Karl is not as bad as that by any means but all the same I have to as Clint Eastwood said know his limitations. Otherwise I get the little sigh and the patient explaining voice telling me what I already know duh. So now I content myself with noting that the former TH14 is doing the business for Barcelona in a quiet way but I don't ask like questions. And meanwhile I try to follow my cricket but there is like a blanket of non-enthusiasm at the other end of the sofa sigh.

So I will not attempt to catch up on the cricket events over the winter because you know it all already. In June I went to the Oval to watch the T20 England v Pakistan where the capacity crowd included the internationally known blogger Mouth of the Mersey, the famous Zephirine and mystery financier Lord Ebren. A good time was had by all especially the very loud mad Pakistani fans around us who were happily mocking the sad England supporters you know the ones yeah no girlfriends getting very drunk silly clothes. Till in the end England won and the Pakistanis were seriously disappointed and trailed away but by then the sad English guys were too pissed to say much. Believe me if the Pakistan side get to come to England and play their matches it will be worth going because they really know how to support their team and they are really funny and completely out of hand.


And now it is the Ashes or the h'Ashes as Michael Holding says and the blogs are full of Strayans being rude about Stuart Broad which as we know is contrary to English law and punishable by torture but of course they are abroad and hiding behind a cloak of pseudonymity don't we all lol.

I shall attempt to post some thoughts about the Ashes in the coming weeks and days though Karl says what is the point as England are going to lose. I said the important thing is the taking part and he was like oh please. You see what I have to deal with.



*uncharacteristic you may think lol.

The Chanelle World XI- Twelfth Man

Just to finish off my World XI:




No this is not a flamenco dancer but MOHAMMAD AAMER of Pakistan who is a mere chick of 17 but a very very promising left-arm pace bowler. And at the risk of cradle-snatching I would say he is very very cute too.



PS He's an Aries.



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Yummy

a new twist on an old classic as the saying goes...

The Chanelleworld Calendar: November

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STEVE DAVIES

Now to be honest Steve Davies of Worcestershire comes under the heading of Nice Boy rather than in the Hot Date section but none of this matters at all right for Steve is a WICKETKEEPER BATSMAN and a proper one too who can do both things well! Hooray and hoorah! And this alone is enough to make the fat middle-aged geezers of the ECB line up with joyful tears in their eyes and sing a chorus of that song about At Last My Love Has Come Along the Lonely Days Are Over and Life is But a Song.

At 22 (a Cancerian) Steve is still a wee bit young to be sent out into the heat of international cricket battle but it is only a matter of time before he solves the oh so longstanding wickie worries of Team England. He has already solved mine as the Chanelleworld XI was short of a wicketkeeper too lol.

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Go on.... I dare ya...

...have you got the nerve to wear these Puccis?

The Chanelleworld Calendar: October

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BILLY GODLEMAN



Young Billy is another mere baby of 19 and at the moment you would not like automatically include him on a hot list as he looks like your friend's kid brother but time passes swiftly lol and in just a few years young girls will be tearing pictures of boring old Stuart Broad down off their walls and replacing with the lovely Billy.

Cricketwise Billy is no novice though as he has been playing for Middlesex since he was 17. He is a left-handed batsman of real style who knows when to be patient and when to go for it yeah and great things are predicted for him. Already he has represented England at Under 19 level and last year scored the highest ever individual innings for an England under-19er (149). His birthday is in February making him an Aquarius.

Here is Billy being quite happy a few weeks ago after making a century against Gloucestershire at Lord's.



(picture from the very cool Cricinfo)

The only problem is...

...what to wear with these to make sure everybody definitely knows you are not on your way to tap dancing class:))

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The Calendar Fantasy XI

The Chanelleworld Calendar as you will remember presents a regular cricketing pinup every month who has to be under 25 and cute.

Strangely I have also been picking some rather good players which shows that I may be cleverer than I thought lol.

So far the Chanelleworld XI looks like this:

Alastair Cook
Luke Wright
Mohammad Ashraful
Ravi Bopara
Irfan Pathan
Stuart Broad
Tim Southee
Steve Finn
Ajantha Mendis

Not bad eh?

I need some more batsmen but I have a good one lined up for next month. Irfan is out of form so is probably 12th man for the moment unless I swop him for his brother who is handy with the bat but that wouldn't be fair really :(

But guess what? Yeah that's it no wicketkeeper so I am looking for a cute under 25 wicketkeeper who is also a handy middle order bat *sigh* all sounds a bit familiar for England supporters eh?

The Chanelleworld Calendar: September

STEVE FINN

Steve Finn is very tall as you can see from this pic where he is receiving a man-of-the-match award from the normally sized Mr Malcolm Speed. He is 6'8" in fact and as he's a mere infant of 19 lol he may not have stopped growing yet.

So you won't be surprised to learn that Steve plays a bit of basketball too but cricket is his destiny. He plays for Middlesex but has his eyes fixed on an England career and has already represented his country at Under 19 level. As a tall bowler who can offer both pace and bounce he may well be one for the future when Fred and Harmy eventually have to step aside *sigh*.

Steve has an early April birthday making him an Aries and therefore ambitious impulsive and energetic:)) I reckon he is quite cute and at least his girlfriends will never have to worry about wearing high heels lol.

A girl with her priorities right

OK first you have to get some Olympic gold medals... but then you get the Jimmy Choos:))


That's Rebecca Adlington for anybody who's been on Mars recently.

OK Kev I take it back

23rd August 2008

Well after all our doubts and fears it looks like the Kipper has started off well as England Captain. So far he has won a Test Match and a one-day match against South Africa and he has managed to put a smile on the face of the often very miserable Steve Harmison.

Fred Flintoff has remembered how to bat so he's happy too. In fact most of the boys are smiling a lot out there on the field and I suspect it may be because Kev has been locking coach Peter Moores in the cupboard under the stairs and telling the team to just do their thing.

However you can relax in the knowledge that Kevin has not taken up ballet lol. This picture shows him when he was having a bit of a bowl and taking a couple of wickets.

Time for another pink bag

Gotta be a clutch this year girls!

This little beauty is by Prada and it's probably already too late to buy one because they're so exclusive and limited and all that stuff but it's what I am learning to call an inspirational piece:)

So here we are

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Kevin Pietersen is the new England cricket captain.

Look at this photo and draw your own conclusions lol.

Well gorblimey eh?

3rd August 2008



So right Michael Vaughan captain of England cricket (Test matches only) has resigned. And the lovely Paul Collingwood captain of England cricket (one-day matches) has resigned too.

Now as far as Michael Vaughan is concerned this has been coming for a while like a very slow train yeah because Michael has been getting ratty with journalists and has generally not been at his best for some time. Most important he has been getting himself out for very very few runs which is not what is expected of the England captain and like supposedly premier batsman. He is famous for his clever field placings but in this last series against S Africa he has just been moving the fielders about as if he was a hyperactive kid trying to play chess yeah to the point that he has broken records for it and questions have been asked about his state of mind lol.

So all in all the writing has like been on the wall for our Michael although his great insurance policy has been that there hasn’t been anyone else about who could like obviously do the job.

We should not forget though that back in the day when Michael still had a full head of hair he was a popular and admired captain and led his side to heroic and historic victory in The Ashes over the Australians hooray and hoorah helped by a luckily placed ball which demon Aussie bowler Glenn McGrath tripped over in a training session lol conveniently putting himself out of the series.

While Michael has been getting large amounts of like blogger abuse and journalistic snidieness for taking up space in the Test side and then not actually playing cricket lol sad to say his bestie mate the rather ginger Paul C has been playing even worse.


The lovely Colly who is famous for his salmon-like leaps to take amazing catches and his gritty northerner style of batting has also like appeared to lose the plot. We have to say Paul well and truly fucked up earlier this year while captaining a one-day match against New Zealand in a whole situation which would take too long to explain but he basically made a really really bad decision and everybody at home and abroad was like “Colly! No!” and he had to apologise.

So cries of “Sack them!” have been like resounding through cyberspace and journalists have been writing stuff like “questions will be hanging over his future” about them both.

Anyway in the last Test against S Africa old Colly suddenly remembered how to do it yeah and hit 135 cracking runs and everyone jumped up and down and all the Saffers shook his hand. It was great and truly historic and like that poem Mr Fielding made us do about even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forbear to cheer. But it seems it was too late yeah for the lovely Paul had already decided that his previous poor form was the result of him being the captain of the one-day side and he would rather stop doing it thanks all the same.

And hey what a coincidence today Michael Vaughan said the same sort of thing and he got a bit tearful in a David Beckham kind of way about what a strain it has all been lately and how he hasn’t been himself right so my guess is he has been really nasty to his wife and divorce is threatened.

So yeah did they jump or were they pushed? Well anyone who wants to discuss this will find many blogs all buzzing away not least because the likely successor is Kevin Pietersen who is a brilliant batsman but also a prat. Think Paul Gascoigne but without the alcohol and with a South African accent right it’s scarey no?

But be reassured these two heroes have not given up the game and are still hoping to be selected for England in the future though we have to say in Michael’s case it may take a while. Colly should still be all right for the one-day side but his Test place is as they say by no means assured.

My personal view if anybody asks is that they will give the captaincy to pratty Kev and it will all go extremely pear-shaped and total chaos will occur. The very famous blogger MouthoftheMersey disagrees though and thinks the Kevster will come good.

We shall see.

More tomorrow when the new captain or captains will be announced by some bloke in a suit.

The Chanelleworld Calendar: August

AJANTHA MENDIS

The Calendar is supposed to be a parade of hotly dishy young cricketers under 25 but I have to include Ajantha Mendis even though he may not be the best-looking guy in Sri Lanka:)

Ajantha is 23 and a Pisces and he is a completely amazing spin bowler who is baffling batsmen with his range of flippers and doosras -he even has his own special thing called a flicker.

Here he is looking a bit more cute lol.

He's back

1st August 2008




Hooray!! Paul Collingwood has got back his place among our favourite Ginger Guys Who Will Never Let You Down.

After a terrible year where you really had to wonder if he'd trodden on God's dog's paw or something well finally at last it seems like his luck has turned and today he scored a gutsy 101 not out against South Africa.