Book review: Barassi, by Peter Lalor

A re-post from our affiliate book review blog, Books with Balls.

When my grandfather died in 1991, I was eleven and before we left his house in Warrnambool for the last time, my sister and I were invited to take with us anything small we'd like. Being a sports nut, I went straight to the bookshelf and prised away the Courage Book of Brownlow Medallists (the up-to-date 1975 version), Run

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Sixty-Six Sigma: Tasmania

Ben Roberts with Matthew Wood
The Tasmanians were rightfully Champions of the 2010-11's Sheffield Shield. They are a mix of some great home-grown talent along with long being the home away from home for cricketers from other states.
Openers: Ed Cowan and Nick Kruger
Ed Cowan is one of those recruits, the former New South Welshman bringing determination as an opening batsman along with a passion

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Book review: Sacred Hoops, by Phil Jackson

Balanced Sports runs an affiliate book review blog, called Books With Balls, where we review the literature that we're reading.  Typically, it's guy stuff: sports, action, military, biography - that sort of thing.  Occasionally we'll re-post here, if it's relevant - like this.

Phil Jackson is one of the greatest and the most respected coaches in the modern era. Jackson is famous for being the

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England's youth: a tale of two players

Football League representatives yesterday passed a controversial bill to overhaul English youth team systems. They did so convincingly (46 to 22 - six were EPL clubs) in order to ensure Premier League funding of the Football League Youth Development stays at the current rate of about 5 million pounds per season.
What the new changes will do, however, is drastically reduce the price EPL clubs

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My Favourite Cricketer: Kumar Sangakkara by Nishant Joshi

In our continuing series "My Favourite Cricketer" we invite the best cricket writers and bloggers to explain the role one player has had on their love of the game.  This week, Nishant Joshi, the editor of the Alternative Almanack writes on Kumar Sangakkara. 

Sangakkara's achievements on the field are pretty spectacular. At the time of writing, he has scored 36 international centuries, played

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Mario Balotelli to organise Man City's Christmas party

It has come to light that Mario Balotelli is in charge of organizing Manchester City's Christmas party. This could be awesome.
Balotelli's sense of fun, combined with the fact that footballers can party like Charlie Sheen on a bender, To reiterate - this could be awesome. Actually, awesome doesn't cut it - neither do words like epic, disastrous or fantastic.
For noted autocrat Roberto

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Sixty-Six Sigma: Western Australia

Ben Roberts with Matthew Wood
Openers: Shaun Marsh and Wes Robinson
His selection and immediate success in the Australian test team speak for themselves, but Shaun Marsh enjoyed a strong Sheffield Shield season despite being available for only four matches. He averaged 59 with one ton in his 414 runs. Chances are he won't be available for much Shield cricket this summer with higher duties calling

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Spain's Second XI worthy of top 10 ranking

While watching David Silva and Spain dismantle a dogged and compact Scotland on Wednesday, it struck me: this was hardly Spain's best outfit and they were dominating.
Silva cemented his bona fides as one of the top half-dozen players in world football and Spain, with a team featuring second-choice players like Thiago Alcantara, Jordi Alba and Santi Cazorla, passed Scotland into an uneasy

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Sixty-Six Sigma: Queensland

Ben Roberts with Matthew Wood
Openers: Wade Townsend and Ryan Broad
It seems a long time ago that the all-powerful Queensland had the insatiable Matthew Hayden and hardened Trevor Barsby walking out to begin the innings. The pair was feared by all other Australian domestic teams. Now ... not so much.
In a squad boasting a combination of the young, the average and journeymen. The openers Townsend

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My Favourite Cricketer: Darren Lehmann, by Daniel Gray

In our series "My Favourite Cricketer", we ask cricket writers and bloggers from around the globe to select the player that most fueled their love of the game.  In this week's post, Daniel Gray of World Cricket Watch selects Australia's rotund run machine, Darren Lehmann.

Choosing a favourite cricketer is a bit like trying to choose a favourite fingernail – they all serve a purpose, and a lot

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Evolving football philosophies

Noted philosopher Marge Simpson once said "we can't afford to shop at a store which has a philosophy". Philosophy is nice, but, like everything, subject to the dreaded Cost/Benefit analysis.
In fact, "footballing philosophy" is used only rarely to describe the methods of managers like Tony Pulis or Sam Allardyce and is reserved for so-called purists like Owen Coyle or Arsene Wenger. Almost by

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Coming soon at Balanced Sports: Counting down the Top 50 AFL Players of all time

Stay tuned as we count down our Top 50 Australian Rules football players of all time here on Balanced Sports.  We start our ticking clock next Monday with no. 50.

There's a good chance this list will not feature the following players, no matter how much we love them: Austin McCrabb, David Mensch, Ed Considine, Richard Umbers, Chris Naish or Garry Baker. 

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My Favourite Cricketer: Bob Woolmer, by Hendo

Test Match Sofa's Nigel Henderson (aka Hendo) takes a look back at one of cricket's tragedies in our next part of our continuing series My Favourite Cricketer.
I’m not in the habit of looking into other men’s eyes, but his really were exquisite. The cyan blue of a Caribbean sea, intense and deep, like two gorgeous lagoons. The perfect eyes to watch the ball right onto the bat and then dispatch

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Death, taxes and Capello's England

Fabio Capello's England squad comes with several un-surprises: Rio Ferdinand has been omitted, as has Liverpool's Steven Gerrard. Forgive me, but I need a couple of minutes to deal with that overwhelming shock. (Picks self slowly off floor). Injury has rendered Ferndinand a poor imitation of his former commanding self; Gerrard has played two matches off the bench for the season.
Again, Fabio

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Sixty-Six Sigma: South Australia

by Ben Roberts with Matthew Wood
Openers: Michael Klinger and Aiden Blizzard
Klinger went from a popular choice for international selection to watching last year's bottom-feeders. South Australia's captain averaged only 23 with the bat last term despite having scored over 1200 runs the season before at 70. Probably at his age (31), he's not on his last chance but is closing. Having brought so

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