Obituary: Remembering Tony Greig

Few players have impacted the
worldwide direction of cricket.  Or, to
put it another way, while many cricketers turn a game by dint of skill or
attitude, precious few shape cricket's big picture. 



For all his talent, memories of
the great Sachin Tendulkar will highlight his nonpareil ability with the
willow.  However, the One Day revolution occurred during his peak and he did
not compel it,

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Bowler's preview: MCG

While the first day of the Second Test between Sri
Lanka and Australia at the MCG provided us with thirteen wickets for
approximately 300 runs, this is no real surprise considering the way the pitch
has played over the course of the past half-decade, and indeed this season.



The average first innings in Tests at the ‘G over the
past five years has been slightly over 324 runs per innings, with

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Man United v Real Madrid steeped in history

The “storied” clubs in European
football history spring to mind with the merest effort. There are
only a few clubs whose dominance has spanned the decades of memory: a
few clubs each from England, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy and
Germany.




So when two of these clubs with rich
histories face each other, it's only natural that these encounters
become keenly anticipated. Column inches and

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Bowler's Preview: the case for/against Nathan Lyon

Over the past five years, Test scores at Bellerive have steadily declined.  The last time scores of real significance were made at Hobart was during the Sri Lankans' last visit (2007/08), where Kumar Sanggakara made a chanceless 192; this followed on from forgotten man Phil Jaques' Test-best 150.  In fact, while each dismissal in 2007-08 cost 52.4 runs, this average has declined over the

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Yet more miscellany

Apologies for the lack of recent posts - it's finals week for a hideous quarter of neurophysiology, limbs anatomy and functional skills.  Hence ... a dearth of time for writing.  Hopefully I'm back up and running in a week.


In the meantime, this may provide some more explanation.

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UEFA to force-feed the Golden Goose

The President of UEFA,
Michel Platini, has hinted that the confederation is considering
dropping the Europa League competition altogether in favour of an
expanded Champions League. The move, mooted for some time between
2015 and 2018, would see the unpopular continental second-tier system
removed as and football's big money spinner double in size to 64
teams.



Platini has proved
somewhat of

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Fernando Torres is not a time-traveller

I don't read much baseball - the odd seminal work like Moneyball, usually - but I make a habit of reading Lookout Landing, the SB Nation coverage for my local major league team, the Seattle Mariners.  Check it out - it's intelligent and funny stuff.

Hot on the topic of now ex-Mariner Chone Figgins trending on Twitter last week (after rumours of his long-impending demise proved true), the

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Abramovich, Benitez and Guardiola: bizarre love triangle

In 2007, Michael
Voss, a former Brownlow medallist, inspirational club captain and widely-touted
Premiership coach in waiting, had announced he wanted a head-coaching gig for
the following season.  In quick response,
three AFL clubs fired incumbent coaches to obtain the hottest leadership property
available in years.  





When fallen league
heavyweights Carlton effectively vacated their

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International break? Give me a break!

It’s international week again and, for the fourth time in as many months since the Euros, the football world lets out a collective “meh”.



Today’s friendlies
mean nothing to anyone.  Except apparently
FIFA, who decided to schedule a round of non-competition internationals to fuel
their dual fantasy that International friendlies are as important to crowds as
the local stuff.



It’s not
that

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Graphic: European football conversion rates

The following chart displays the efficiency of European football forwards my mapping their conversion rate (goals per shot) against the number of shots per game.

The higher on the Y-axis the forward, the more efficient the player in front of goal; the farther to the right on the X-axis, the more shots they generate.  Only players with four goals or more this season were considered (ie. forwards

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Huntelaar a great fit at Liverpool

Reds fans must be salivating.  Liverpool have today been linked with Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, the 29-year old Dutch goalpoacher extraordinaire of Schalke
04.  Should the transfer come to fruition
– which is eminently possible, but a long way off – it would remedy perhaps
Liverpool’s greatest failing so far this term, converting on-ball dominance into
goals.



So far this year, Liverpool rank sixth

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Juan Mata leads (another) Chelsea revolution

It's hard to be mad at anything that
scampers. Likewise disdainful, jealous or irritated. As a word, scamper
is used generally when something flits about in a light-footed
manner, implying that the observer receives some kind of pleasing
entertainment just from the sight.




No-one scampers with malice – it
can't be done. Any attempts veer quickly towards scurrying, or it's
less desirable

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Pim Verbeek finally shows he has balls by criticising mess he left

Former Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek has
been quoted in Qatari media as saying Australian
football faces a bleak period as the brightest stars in
Australian football history are slowly extinguished.



Well, you'd know, Pim.



His Aussie tenure was marked
by Viking-style honesty. Did you ever meet someone so honest
that every conversation you had with them ended up revolving around
your faults?

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Shelvey, Suso and Sterling: Liverpool's future

Liverpool's three years of struggle has
been not only documented but celebrated. In fact, their primacy over
much of English football's history means that the rebuilding efforts
of 2012-13 are providing not only column inches, but also the
can't-look-away-car-wreck Hard
Knocks clone, Being: Liverpool.



The stilted attempt at a fly's-view
series has attempted several times to conjur interest

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Time for UEFA to act strongly on Serbia

After a hard-fought win against Collingwood in 1993, Australian footballer Nicky Winmar turned to the crowd at Victoria park, raised
his jersey and pointed at his chest.




Winmar is an indigenous Australian. He
had spent the entire 120 minutes of the match being racially abused
by the pro-Collingwood crowd. The moment was captured on film by a
photographer from the Age newspaper and went

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Minnows deserve their puncher's chance

Proboxing-fans.com's lexicon
of pugilistic nomenclature defines a “Puncher's Chance” as
“[a fighter] who doesn't have a very good chance of beating the
other fighter, who is probably more skilled, but could still pull off
the win by landing a great punch and knocking his man out”.




Basically, a puncher's chance is what
it says on the tin. It was the concept that defined all six Rocky
movies

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New code of conduct has to help, right?

Last week the English FA handed down
the report of its investigation
into the racial abuse case levelled at former national team
captain John Terry. The 53-page report loosely implies – but stops
far short of accusing – Terry, teammate Ashley Cole and Chelsea FC
executive David Barnard of contriving evidence to benefit the
player's defence.




Cole responded as any normal person
would: with
a

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Three things: Rooney reinvented

Maybe Sir Alex has found his
central midfielder



Experts suggested Sir Alex Ferguson
fling his summer spending money at a central midfielder with tenacity
and passing range. Instead, he thrust an enormous great wodge of
cash at former rival Arsene Wenger and made
away with Robin van Persie.



This left the centre of Old Trafford
manned by the solid but ultimately-misunderstood Michael

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Michael Ballack retires

Earlier this week, former Germany captain Michael
Ballack retired from all professional football. The most stylish
and (sometimes brutally) effective German player of his generation
leaves the game permanently at age 36.



Ballack had both the fortune and misfortune of being born five years too
late. To look at it another way, he was born five years too early.
He could have been a precocious

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Three things: Where have all the good teams gone?

Are there any great teams in this
league?




Table-toppers
Chelsea, while capable of sparkling, appear to lack real depth in
their midfield. Nonetheless, they remain the team to beat.
Manchester City have flattered to deceive so far this season;
cross-town nemeses United have struggled mightly, losing at home to
Tottenham Hotspur for the first time in Tom Cleverley's lifetime.
Arsenal,

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Three things: Chelsea may regret Lukaku absence

Three things we noticed from the EPL this week:



Chelsea might regret loaning out
Romelu Lukaku



Romelu Lukaku arrived at Stamford
Bridge before last season at a significant cost: a reported 18
million pounds from Belgian club Anderlecht. Barely eighteen when he
arrived, the boy-mountain spent
most of last season on the bench and hated it. Despite
impressing on the Blues' pre-season US

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Short pitch: World T20 offers more than entertainment

I make it a practice never to feel that sorry for professional athletes: they earn spectacular coin for doing what they love.  There are attendant sacrifices, but that's inherent in any achievement.  Perhaps the most obvious of these is a limited career length: even the best only sustain elite standards for ten, fifteen years at best.

Twenty/20 cricket is one of those sports which doesn't seem

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Vale, Matthew Scarlett

Matthew Scarlett has retired from AFL football.  By doing so, we must farewell a brilliant - if genuinely odd - champion of the sport.  He is joined in retirement by Premiership teammates Joel Corey and David Wojcinski.  The trio - Scarlett especially - leave behind many fond memories of the wonderful Cats era of 2007-2012.

And as Scarlett ambles into the Torquay half-light, the accompanying

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Sixteen Is in one post make you seem rather egotistical...

Hi.

For much of the past two-plus years, I've been unemployed.  Hardly revelatory news, I know, but there it is.  This time next week, that status officially changes as I begin graduate school and re-training as a Physical Therapist (or Physiotherapist).  It'll be nearly three years at a world-class school in a completely new education system, a challenge I'm very much looking forward to and

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Three things: Handshakes are still important

Three things we noticed from the Premier League this weekend:



Handshakes are still important



Queens
Park Rangers fronted up against Chelsea – and John Terry – in the
West London derby. In the pre-match handshake line, Anton Ferdinand,
who accused Terry of racially abusing him on the pitch last season,
refused
the proffered hands of the former England captain and left-back
Ashley Cole.

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Financial Fair Play: why it had to happen

No-one said that Financial
Fair Play (FFP) was perfect. Even Michel Platini, the UEFA
President behind the long-touted new standards, accepts his
brainchild has some serious flaws. But in these days of the
paradoxical austerity boom, European football clubs are going to have
to take responsibility for
their collective bottom lines.  FFP had to happen.



A slight shift towards prudence by some

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Change the Father-Son rule

There great red sandy plains are rumbling.  It appears Melbourne Football Club will have to use the 3rd overall selection in this year's AFL draft to select Jack Viney, the son of former captain Todd.



Viney, courtesy: The Age

Before 2007, the promising sons of former club greats were available pre-draft to their father's club at the cost of that club's third-round selection.  That system

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Follow the money - and talent - back to MLS

In the August 27th issue of
Sports Illustrated, senior
writer Grant Wahl compiled a
team of American soccer players playing abroad. Such a
mainstream publication – find any dentist in the States who doesn't
subscribe – publishing a full-page “lightweight” feature on US
soccer is relatively rare and Wahl takes the opportunity to pull the
usual names from the regular hats. It's the basic,

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Andre Villas-Boas' Tottenham challenge

André Villas-Boas has a problem. His freshly remodelled Tottenham Hotspur squad isn't performing as they should, and Spurs enter this weekend's international break with two points from three matches.



 The team he now helms is very different from the last iteration of the White Hart Lane empire that Harry Redknapp and his SUV presided over. Gone are Modric, Corluka, Kranjcar and van der Vaart,

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Three things: Andy Carroll, Liverpool saviour?

Three talking points from the English Premier League this weekend:



Maybe
Andy Carroll wasn't that bad after all




It's not
Andy Carroll's fault that Liverpool paid ₤35
million for his services. Really, it's not. The kid made
a great start to life in the Premier League at Newcastle, yet has
been unable to convince on Merseyside, yet has to wear his massive
sticker tag ever since. Amidst a

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Manchester City's identity crisis

Manchester City's two Premier League
games this season have been ... workmanlike.

The new signings ... underwhelming.

The manager ... apparently unsettled.




In spite of this, Manchester City
remain the smart choice for this year's Premiership title. Even
after managing a victory and a draw after falling behind against
promoted Southampton and an inspired Liverpool, City have yet to

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Three Things: Is Wayne Rooney overrated?

Three talking points from the English
Premier League this weekend:


Wayne Rooney may be overrated




Rooney's injury is an early litmus testcourtesy: bbc.co.uk


For much of his United tenure, Rooney
has been the club's focal point. Even during the Cristiano years
(2006-2009), the club looked to Scouse leadership rather than
Portuguese when needing a lift. In the only sport to use the

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Liverpool, not Arsenal, right for Sahin

Nuri Sahin appears close to signing
on loan for Brendan Rodgers' new Liverpool. The temporary (?)
transfer promises to add to a midfield that didn't convincingly
implement a new pass 'n' press gameplan in an opening day loss to
West Bromwich Albion.


Turkish playmaker Sahin conducted
the exquisite Borussia Dortmund midfield for several seasons before
moving to current club Real Madrid before

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Book review: Tip Off, by Filip Bondy

Tip Off isn't a bad book, but it's hard to get excited about.
 In fact, a one-word review would simply be "meh".  Filip Bondy presents
us with the equivalent of watching a player take a 17' jump shot when
he could have dunked on three guys - it's just as effective and may even
be the right play, but leaves the audience slightly underwhelmed.

This is a shame, because Bondy chose a fascinating

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Graphic: The Football League heat map

This is a concept I've been playing around with for the past week.  It's basically a year-by-year standings of the English Football League tree made to look pretty by colour-coding specific finishes.  That is, red represents a league finish in the top 15 of the 92 Football League teams, a year highlighted in orange denotes a club finishing in position 16-30 and so on.

Clubs are arranged

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Short pitch: Fixing the Pro Bowl

With the popularity of the Pro Bowl waning dramatically, it's time for the NFL to either put the game out to pasture or to expand the weekend's festivities to include more than American Football's least important annual encounter.

The NFL could take a lesson from their younger antipodean brother, the Australian AFL.

The AFL Grand Final pre-game and half-time entertainment probably peaked in

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What Robin van Persie could mean to Manchester United

With Arsenal captain Robin van Persie
certain to sign for Manchester United, the balance of power in the
English Premier League shifts again towards the country's northwest.
Despite Arsenal's best efforts to provide him with support in the
form of the
deepest squad of his tenure at the Emirates, van Persie's quest
for self-actualisation through silverware now continues at Old
Trafford.

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Expanded EPL survival rates now available

On Monday we published the survival rates of every team promoted to the English Premier League from the League Championship since the start of the year.

Because I like to be thorough and because we're about to enter the Premiership's 21st season, I expanded the diagram (and hopefully made it somewhat clearer) to take in every promoted team since the inception of the league in 1992-93.

As usual,

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Graphic: Premier League survival rates

The graphic below shows the survival rates since the start of the millennium of teams promoted from The Championship.  It's a direct extension of a similar post authored at about this time last year.


Years continuously in the top division are indicated in azure, while seasons spent outside the Premiership are indicated by burnt red; green indicates years spent in the Premier League after being

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Some regeneration advice for Chelsea from Doctor Who

Courtesy: bandbent.wordpress.com


“Life depends on change, renewal”.



These were some of the first words
spoken by the second Doctor Who, all the way back in 1966. They were
needed because the original actor who played the Doctor, William
Hartnell, had left the series and moved on to a retirement home for
the terminally crotchety; he was replaced by a younger, fitter,
happier – at least

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Graphic: US arena naming rights

The following graphic shows the startling range of companies that have the naming rights for North American major league sports arenas, broken down by company market.  That is, each company is categorised according to its primary industry.



The category "other" includes all companies which sponsored only one arena, eg. Petco Park in San Diego is the only stadium sponsored by a pet service

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Arsenal finally swimming in the deep end

courtesy: guardian.co.uk/football

With
their acquisition
of Málaga's
Santi Cazorla,
Arsenal have for the third time this summer acquired a
potential Premier League star.
At worst, the twenty-seven year old will consign the
somewhat-resurgent Tomas Rosicky and a turgid Andrei Arshavin to the
North London scrapheap. At an unlikely best, his signature may even
convince Robin van Persie to stay

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Book review: Sixty years on the back foot, by Clyde Walcott

The Caribbean has produced several of
the greatest batsmen of all time. However, many of these players
seem to rail against faceless figures of authority. Currently,
talisman Chris Gayle swats boundaries at whim – more often for
lucrative T20 sides than for the West Indies. The chain which leads
back through the likes of Brian
Lara and Sir Vivian Richards – who was rather partisanly
profiled

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Scottish Premier League philosophy

On today's Guardian website, their
football page is headed by the redoubtable Ewan Murray's preview
of the Scottish Premier League. In it, the Guardian's main
football guy north of Hadrian's Wall suggests that Celtic are a
shoo-in for their 8th SPL title in 15 years. With Rangers out of
sight – and lucky to be alive – the SPL looks like being the most
boring league in Europe.




Barring an

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AC Milan: Ch-ch-ch-changes

Silvio Berlusconi doesn't do anything by half measures.



Two seasons ago, his club was perhaps the oldest elite team in Europe.  Although football's Peter Pan, Paolo Maldini, had retired, the Rossoneri claimed the Serie A title featuring almost an entire XI of thirtysomethings (Alessandro Nesta,  Mark van Bommel, Massimo Ambrosini, Clarence Seedorf, Gianluca Zambrotta, Pippo Inzaghi, Massimo

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Book review: In the Hornets' Nest by Joe Drape

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

The sheer sweaty bodyweight of beat writers attached to American sports teams makes books which chronicle one team's journey over an entire season relatively commonplace. It's not an original concept, and basketball teams lend themselves to these diaries more than most. The Jordan Rules, A Season on the Brink (by John Feinstein)

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Brazil's next Golden Generation

The London Olympics get underway in mere hours.



The football, however, has already begun - with storylines aplenty.  North Korea's women have walked from the pitch in Scotland, heavily-fancied Spain were upset in their first match and finally, the football world is blessed to behold "Team GB".  True to British style, flattered to disappoint in their first match, a draw against Senegal.



And

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Tim Cahill joins New York Red Bulls

Courtesy: montrealgazette.com


The New
York Red Bulls have (all-but) signed Australian Tim Cahill from
English Premier League side Everton. He joins MLS after eight
successful years on Merseyside as a attacking-minded midfielder.
He's the kind of player who can – and will – succeed enormously
in MLS.



The time was right for him to move on.
As one of the youngest members of the the

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FIFA's five rules for ruling

Mohammed Bin Hamman's lifetime ban from
all FIFA activities has been lifted by the Court of Arbitration for
Sport. He was last
year found guilty by a FIFA panel of inquiry for attempting to
bribe CONCACAF officials into supporting his bid for FIFA presidency.




Once more the world's most popular
sport plunges into bureaucratic anarchy, unable to focus on anything
other than defending

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Zlatan Ibrahimovic, PSG, AC Milan and the carousel

Life is cyclical. Well, at least until
it isn't.



However, in football, this is more
strangely true than in many other realms.




Take for example Joe Kinnear, who
reared his head
at Newcastle United in 2008 after nearly a decade submerged by
heart trouble, poor results and relegation. The man who signed his
pay cheques? Mike Ashley, who was known as a shrewd businessman when
he arrived

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Short Pitch: Zakuani hugs the man who broke his leg

In front of a typically vocal northwest
crowd on Saturday, Steve
Zakuani made a touching return to MLS. He appeared as an
eighty-sixth minute substitution and impressed: the first pick in the
2009 draft looked his usual energetic self. Zakuani had missed the
past fourteen months after sustaining multiple fractures to his right
leg, courtesy
a reckless tackle by the Colorado Rapids' Brian

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AFL: Martin's suspension a symptom of wider problems

When Daniel
Connors was sacked by the Richmond Football Club yesterday, the
Australian Football League again displayed it's most brutal form of
professionalism. Connors is twenty-three and will likely nominate
for this season's National Draft. His chequered record makes it
unlikely he will be given another chance and after 28 games he will
be ejected to one of the AFL's myriad, bespoke

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Book review: Over Time, by Frank Deford

Frank Deford talks of his work Over
Time not as a memoir but a we-moir, a collation of transient
connections with figures more famous than himself. When asked to
write a piece for alma mater Sports Illustrated about his
early days at the United States' foremost sports magazine, he
initially resisted; but as it became obvious there was a desire for a
Mad Men style homage to the golden age of US

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Euro 2012 Final preview

As we regard the Euro 2012 final, it's
apparent that we will watch the tournament's two most irresistible
sides. Spain have for four years been the international game's
standard, a gestalt of tiki-taka, creation and industry. Italy, too,
have been utterly compelling; where Spain have over a dozen
world-class talents to call upon, arguably the Azzurri boast only a
handful – their achievement

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Cometh the hour, cometh Prandelli

While Mario Balotelli once again proved
he has enough talent to justify any of his off-field misdemeanours
and Gigi Buffon has intimated that all he's still the silent member of the
World's Best Goalkeeper club, the man most crucial to Italy's
semi-final triumph wasn't a player but their manager, Cesare
Prandelli.




Prandelli has achieved an Italian
harmony through measures
both regulation and

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On Tony Greig's Cowdrey lecture

Tony
Greig makes a lot of sense. Re-read that sentence because I probably won't type it again for a while – at least not while he
consistently forces rubbish memorabilia down our gestalt craw on the
telly. But, in his recent Cowdrey
Lecture on the Spirit of Cricket, the man in the panama hat spoke
passionately and – for the most part – incisively as to the state
of the sport and issues facing

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Euro 2012: On Spain and Popular Culture

When the immortal celluloid “Robin
Hood: Prince of Thieves” flickered onto my television screen last
year, I got quite excited. Carefree days of sixth grade came
flooding into my mind, so I decided a re-viewing was in order.




It was rubbish.






It was typical, arch Costner replete
with florid dialogue, a full-scale Swiss Family Robinson tree house
in twelfth century Britain and Brian

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When Cristiano Ronaldo isn't Portugal's main man

The European Football Championships
enter their final week. Fittingly, the confederation's four best
teams will contest the final matches of the tournament.




A joyfulness has been incorporated into
the Teutonic predisposition for precision, while Spain have eschewed
the previously successful “death by a thousand cuts” for “death
by a thousand paper cuts”. Italy's on-paper mismatch of

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What if Cristiano Ronaldo played for Australia?

http://dayhairstyles.blogspot.com



A relatively obscure fact about Cristiano Ronaldo is that he was once – a long time ago – eligible to represent Australia. His grandparents live in Perth, Australia's westernmost outpost, the most remote city in the world. It's not known if the Football Federation of Australia explored “recruiting” him, but it's highly unlikely given how passionately he

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Breaking down Forbes' Top 100 highest earning athletes

Forbes is perhaps the highest profile business magazine in the world. It certainly boasts as much clout as any, and an effective part of this has simply been their willingness to create reams of lists: the Best Paid Actors, the most overperforming stocks for 1955.  The internet loves this stuff.  These aggregations are easy on the eye - and almost as easy on the brain.  But because it's easily

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MLS: a taste of the Euros

Last
night I saw the Seattle
Sounders play Sporting Kansas City in a thoroughly enjoyable
MLS encounter. It started uneasily,  however, as on a very
pleasant Seattle evening we traipsed down to SoDo.

The
trip involved me fielding several obvious-but-unhelpful statements
from my companions, mutterings like “It's not like the Premier
League” or “I'd rather watch the European Championships”.



 

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My Favourite Cricketer: Victor Trumper by S.A. Rennie

My Favourite Cricketer sees the teams at Balanced Sports and World Cricket Watch invite the best cricket writers and bloggers to tell us who their favourite cricketers are - and, more importantly, tell us why they stand out.  Today's submission is by S.A. Rennie of Legside Filth.  You can find Legside Filth on the web at www.legsidefilth.com, or on Twitter at @legsidefilth



I
never saw my

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What happened to Holland?

Courtesy: thearmchairpundits.com



The Netherlands whimpered one final
time, threw up their hands and now stumble away from Northern Europe.
Three losses in a tough group has left the Dutch with fractured
egos, a burnished reputation and questions as to the continued
viability of employing manager Bert van Marwijk. Eviction from the
tournament was always a possibility, especially in a group

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Alternative XI: Euro 2012 Overachievers

As is usual for a major tournament,
Euro 2012 has allowed us to witness the full spectrum of players from
World's Best to those who walk a matter of metres to the ground
that's always been their home. This tournament, we've had the
opportunity to see players previously anonymous make a stamp on the
football world – in fact, many of the best performed players aren't
paid by Real Madrid,

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Simon Katich retired because Australia wanted him to

Simon
Katich announced his retirement from First Class cricket earlier
this week, ending a career that began when Mark Taylor and Paul
Keating occupied the most coveted offices in the country. He leaves
with a reputation as a hardworking player who moved up the order as
his career progressed, starting at six and finishing facing the new
pill.



Katich also leaves with a reputation
for spirit;

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Ukraine heat a portent of 2022 World Cup

While England
and France slugged out a draw in Donetsk, much
the same occurred two days prior some distance from the Ukraine. The
likes of James Milner appeared totally spent with temperatures
reaching 33o celsius in oppressive conditions.



On Saturday, the Australian Socceroos
played Oman in their first 2014 World Cup Qualifier. The match
was played in Oman, a hope, skip and Ashley Young

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Torres' role reduced again for Spain

The man they miss with the man whose form they miss
courtesy: worldcupblog.org


Spain manager Vicente del Bosque opted to start yesterday's match against Italy with four defenders and six midfielders. Ostensibly, Cesc Fabregas started up front – and indeed found himself forward more often than his midfield counterparts and scored his country's goal.



 It's unlikely Fabregas will start as

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Lookalike: Giorgos Karagounis

This is the kind of lookalike that could only come from a football-loving powernerd who boasts a vast familiarity with the works of deceased Gallic graphic novelists.

Greece captain Giorgos Karagounis scored the opening goal of Euro 2004, has captained his nation many times and is only four caps from becoming Greece's all-time leader in games played.  Despite advancing years, he's still the most

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Euro 2012: Easier to win than the World Cup?

Conventional wisdom suggests the
European Football Championships are harder to win than the World Cup.
There's reason behind this: despite increased familiarity with staff
and styles, all teams come from a strong FIFA confederation and this
means fewer easy wins and more Groups of Potential Fatality.



We can take a look at the final set of
FIFA World Rankings before a tournament to suggest

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Obituary: Remembering Charlie Sutton

Image: Wikimedia commons

Charlie Sutton, the only man to coach
the Western Bulldogs – née
Footscray – to an AFL
Premiership, has
died at the age of 88. A man whose life exemplified pride in
club and origin, he was born during the last of Footscray's
successful VFA years before entering the VFL. Recruited to the Dogs
from Spotswood Citizens, he embodied local and club spirit for seven
decades

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Liveblog: Rocky IV

Also known as Rocky IV: Jumping the
Shark.





Opening rehash: Eye
of the Tiger! In the first montage! The shiny
hammer/sickle and stars/stripes gloves are a really 1980s
idea, cold-war fuelled. Given that Rocky IV is notorious for it's
overt propagandist direction, there's symbolism in the hammer and
sickle glove exploding before the American one. I must admit to
missing the brassy opening,

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Graphic: The most efficient teams in Europe

Following on from our half-season efficiency studies, the following chart demonstrates the each team's offensive/defensive efficiency in a single measure and compares it across all four European leagues.

Each team's defensive stolidity is calculated by finding out how many shots they faced per goal, while offensive precision is calculated by the same means (how many shots per goal).  There's

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Updated Goalkeeper stats available

After some happy-fun-time data entry, we can now present you with a fully updated list of European goalkeeper stats, including all players who started a game in the four major European leagues this season.  You can get there by clicking the link below.

European Goalkeeper stats, 2011-12 season

Balanced Sports also offers other collections of stats, like Key Man analysis and Invidivual/Team

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Overachievers/underachievers: 2011-2012 EPL

 After compiling a cumulative Premiership table over the past twenty years, one comment suggested an alternative method of comparing lasting football league performance.  It suggested comparing club-by-club seasonal performance against their average league position (ALP).  As history only provides a certain precedent, the we can also use multiple time periods: say, five, ten or twenty years.

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Chelsea find themselves; win Champions League

Chelsea's win over Bayern Munich during Saturday's Champions League final is a triumph that only three months ago was utterly inconceivable.  The club was desperately short of form, many/most/all players had decided unilaterally that Andre Villas-Boas had no business coaching them and the team played with purposelessness rivalling beheaded chickens.

This is certainly due in part to Villas-Boas'

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The Twenty-year Premier League table

The following is the cumulative Premier League table dating back to the inception of the Premier League in 1992-93.  Although I'm among the first to admit that English football hardly began with that league's debut season, the twenty year mark create an anniversary feeling, allowing reminiscences and us to compile this table.

Movers this year include Manchester City, who climbed from eleventh

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Australia - lacking an identity

Despite two consecutive series wins in
vastly different circumstances, the Australian cricket team still
tricks the eye. In one Test, Ed Cowan resembles a doughty old-school
opener, capable of withstanding the best attacks in world cricket;
the following, he disappears into the sheds at 1/11. During one
match, Shane Watson fights indomitably for a hard-earned 80; the
next, he plays over and

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Where to now for Bolton Wanderers?

The Premier League season concluded
with one of the more exciting final days in recent memory. While it
was certain that either they or QPR would drop to the Championship,
the manner of Bolton's ultimate demise was unexpected but eventually
deserved. Since a promising start to 2010-11, the Trotters slid
rapidly from an FA Cup semi-final appearance to a horrible 2011-12
season.



There was bad

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Kobe vs. Jordan - a tale of two flu games

Kobe Bryant has played a careerlong
game of one-upmanship with the NBA's greatest. This is most
pronounced with Michael Jordan, the player with whom he is most often
compared. It's no secret that Kobe wants to be the greatest ever and
that he's almost painfully aware that to be so considered, he has to
surmount Jordan in achievement and legacy.



There is no end of comparison. Their
careers

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Cardiff City - football's "Indecent Proposal"

How much money would it take for you to
compromise your principles?





Courtesy: itv.com

Cardiff City Football Club, who lost in
the first round of the English Championship playoffs this week, were
the recipient of just such an indecent proposal: 100 million pounds
to permanently re-brand the club, changing the club jersey from blue
to red and dispensing with their Bluebird nickname. City

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My Favourite Cricketer: Justin Langer by Glenn Mitchell

As part of our continuing series, World Cricket Watch and Balanced Sports invited Glenn Mitchell, sports broadcaster and mental health advocate, to write about his favourite cricketer, Justin  Langer.  Glenn's website is glennmitchell.com.au and he tweets @mitchellglenn



I
clearly remember standing in the middle of a rain-soaked Sinhalese
Sports Club in September 1999 as the third
and final

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Where to now for Blackburn Rovers?

When a club is relegated
from their country's top division, any attempts to remedy that
situation are based upon a number of key principles.




Firstly, one can most
often safely assume that the club's owners want the club to succeed.
Pursuant to this, those same owners must also be capable of
understanding the ramifications of relegation both on their balance
sheets and fan emotions. An

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Book Review: Sheilas, Wogs & Poofters - Johnny Warren

by Ben Roberts


This
is my second foray into Australian football literature, the first having been spectacularly less than impressive. The good news is that the now decade-old 'Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters', a seminal work by the late and revered Johnny Warren is
far better.   The bad news is that Warren fell into the standard traps
of all passionate Australian soccer figures.







Cover image

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Football's most operatic week

It may be cliché, but what a week we've seen in football. There have
been more twists, subplots and stories than your average season of The Wire,
passing everywhere from England, through France and Italy to the
Iberian peninsula. To wit, we catalogue (briefly) the past ten days in
football:

1. Chelsea defeated Barcelona (away from home, with the
winning goal from a most unlikely source) in

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Pep Guardiola: football's J.K. Rowling

Pep Guardiola reels into
the Catlunya spring sunset punch-drunk, deserving a rest, his job
well done. Most agree that he's likely to take a significant break
from management – perhaps an eternal one – before moving back to
the scrutiny of club control.



To witness the change inhis appearance from appointment to last week's press conference is to
see what daily hour-long media sessions will do

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Graphic: Pep Guardiola over time

The things four years of crazy media exposure and inhuman stress levels will do to a guy.  The following photo shows Pep Guardiola at his introduction as Barca coach in 2008 and compares it to an image taken at the presser last week in which he announced he was leaving the club for a sabbatical.



Click to enlarge


Photo credits: fourfourtwo.com and thesun.co.uk 

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Book review: Game for Anything - Gideon Haigh

If Bill
Simmons is the everyman sportswriter full of pop culture,
in-jokes and homer-isms, then Gideon Haigh is his antithesis. You
read Simmons as he thinks aloud, a man down at the bar with his
mates. However, he's just
self-aware enough to know that because he monopolises the
conversation he should fling jokes about to keep his audience
engaged. There's obvious research, but done on the

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The death of Barcelona?

Consecutive defeats to Real Madrid and
Chelsea decry this season's Barcelona bandwagon is coming to a
faltering and much-needed rest. That hiatus could be temporary or
permanent, depending on new coach Tito Villanova's methods; manager
in excelsis Josep
“Pep” Guardiola confirmed today that he would not return to
helm Barca in 2012-13.



There are reasons aplenty behind
Barca's slip from the

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My Favourite Cricketer: Hansie Cronje by Purna Hassan

In our series "My Favourite Cricketer" we've invited the best cricket writers and bloggers to divulge why certain cricketers emerge as their favourites.  This week, Purna Hassan of Cricket Minded and @cricketminded takes the stand



I
fell in love with cricket because of Hansie Cronje and the team he
captained. My Dad introduced me to cricket and as he was an avid
fan of India, I followed his

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Alternative XI: Footballing Autofills

The fantastically funny Dave Gorman
podcast features a segment called “Autofill
your boots”. In it, a listener is invited to answer quiz
questions which have been autofilled by Google's search engine
algorithms.




It works like this: if you type the
querulous words “Can you” into Google's query box, it suggest the
next most likely conclusions to your request. These autofill answers
are

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Book review: And God created Cricket - Simon Hughes

by columnist Ben Roberts, re-posted from our affiliate site Books with Balls.

Former
veteran county cricketer now cricket journalist Simon Hughes posits this work as
being something of an antithesis to the efforts provided by most
cricketing historians. Hughes even goes as far to mention that those
works developed by ex-Prime
Ministers are too serious. 'And God Created Cricket' is a light

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Alternative XI: 2012 Bosman Transfers

Even deeply embroiled in a recession,
football fans expect their respective clubs to restructure their
playing squads during the offseason. This summer is likely to be
remarkable because it features a major tournament; this befuddles the
break's early weeks as players inflate their purchase prices with
tantalising glimpses of form or potential.



A nearly pathological desire for value
for

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Where to now for Wolves?

Like bookies who pay out early, and despite the fact
mathematical possibility that Wolverhampton’s three-year stint in the Premier
League can still be extended, it’s time look at the men in orange and work out
what steps they should take as they prepare for a non-Premiership existence.





Distance
yourselves quickly from panic-hiring Terry Connor


“TC” has been the subject of almost

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Mythbusting the Australian First Class season

Bowlers win matches
It's been often said that batsmen put you into a position to win
matches, but bowlers do the actual winning. After combing through
the stats from this year's Australian First Class season, we can
confirm (for 2011-12 at least) that this is, in fact, true.
It's also easily proven.

A quick glance at the following three charts best displays how
crucial both the major aspects

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Short pitch: Sheffield Shield Efficiency

(c) Balanced Sports, click to enlarge

The chart above maps the combined batting/bowling prowess of each of last year's Sheffield Shield teams.  It forms a very rough guide to each state's efficiency by mapping the cumulative batting and bowling averages of each state's specialists against each other.  Please note the curious wording (batsmen/bowlers) - only recognised  batsmen and allrounders

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The Dempsey Dilemma

courtesy: mlssoccer.com


Clint Dempsey is having another
fantastic – and well-documented – season for Fulham. In fact,
his conspicuous excellence for three successive managers in concert
with a slowly expiring contact (June 2013) mean England's
most scurrilous have started to chirrup about a potential move to
a “bigger” club.



Is he good enough? Can he deliver in
the Champions League?

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My Favourite Cricketer: VVS Laxman by Minal of Granger Gab

We've invited some of the very best cricket writers and bloggers to tell us why certain players stand out for them above all others.  This week, Minal of Granger Gab and The Sight Screen writes of the most stylish Indian of them all, a man whose nickname was the ultimate compliment: VVS Laxman.  Minal tweets @granger_gab, and we really suggest you follow her.

 As
much as we love to deny it, we

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The Balotelli Curve

Click to enlarge




 When he thrust his spikes into Alex
Song's knee, popular opinion finally and perhaps definitively swung
against Mario Balotelli. The Italy forward leapt into numerous
dangerous challenges during Manchester City's weekend
loss to Arsenal and finished the match copping a pointless red
card in the tie's waning minutes. He arrived in the sheds to a power
of criticism flung

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Short Pitch: Occupy Cricinfo

Cricinfo, the arbiter of finality for all oval-based pub discussion, is a necessary evil.  It exists almost entirely to disseminate information about a game played where a cork ball enveloped in leather is flung at at someone wielding a ruddy great lump of willow.

The interweb - and through the magic of Google, its affiliation with ESPN and Search Engine Optimisation - is where an awful lot of

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Teams of the Year - by league position

As the Premier League season draws to a
close, it becomes typical to start vetting candidates for awards.
Why wouldn't you? I mean, it's like writing
about All-Star selections in the NBA – it's easy column inches
relying on relative opinions rather than absolute logic and saves you
from using undeveloped ideas before they're fully mapped out.



So with seven matches per club left in
the

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Why Kenny Dalglish was (sort of) right

Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish was
roundly
chastised last week for suggesting that Liverpool's season, by
every other measure than Premiership points, had
been a success. The Reds sit in eighth position on the Premier
League table after a forgettable 2012 that has seen them take only
eight points from their twelve fixtures since the turn of the year.



Although a peculiar statement, the fact

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The EPL run home "analyzed"

As the Premier League season rampages towards the Manchester
derby which will (probably) decide the ultimate route and destination
of this season's victory parade, we've got enough data from the
season in progress to suggest how results for the rest of the season
plays out.  The season is now thirty games old for each club,
with the last eight enough to determine who raises the cup this
season,

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My Favourite Cricketer: Graham Dilley, by James Morgan of The Full Toss

Last year, the cricket world mourned the loss of Graham Dilley, who passed away after a short battle with cancer. James Morgan, co-editor of The Full Toss, penned the following piece which he has been kind enough to submit for our series "My Favourite Cricketer".



As a lifelong
Worcestershire fan, Graham Dilley is a cricketer who has always been
close to my heart. He joined Worcs in 1987, at

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Don't judge a league by its elite

As football has become more and more
corporate, the existence of elite cliques of teams in almost all the
major four Europeans leagues have become an accepted part of the
European football culture. While from time to time over the last
fifteen years these subsections have been occasionally disrupted,
it's not worth arguing against the balance of European football power
being held by a maximum

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Graphic: England's most efficient goalscorers

The chart below displays the efficiency of forwards and midfielders playing in the English Premier League.  It plots each player's shooting accuracy, in goals per shot, against their scoring rate in goals per game.  The further to the top right corner of the graph the player is, the more efficient they are.  All players in the EPL who have scored five or more goals are considered.
It is obviously

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Be very proud, Spurs fans

Football fans get a bad rap. It’s often deserved.



I first understood the full scary nature of a football mob mentality when at my first La Liga match.  At the Barcelona derby in December 2003, I was amused to find Parakeet ultras lighting fires, fighting police in running battles and frisbee-ing seats dangerously close to players on the pitch – until they came into my section of Montjuïc

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Short Pitch - The Revenge of "Peter Who?"

Revenge of the “Peter Who?”
It must've been a great week for Peter Nevill. Only a few days ago, he was selected as the wicket-keeper for this season's Australian Cricketers' Association All-Star team. Today, he was called up to cover the dauphin, Matthew Wade, in the West Indies, after Brad Haddin returned to Australia to attend some personal matters.
Nevill, a Victorian who had a fantastic

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What do Chelsea and Dwight Howard have in common?

Wednesday provided the sporting consciousness with an almost – but not quite – final irresolution. Both the world's most public roundball sports suffered from the implacable inevitablity of more uncertainty.
In the NBA, the Orlando Magic's Dwight Howard opted into the final eighteen months of his contract, depriving the free-agent market of it's best big man since Shaquille O'Neal in 1996.
And

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My Favourite Cricketer: Michael Vaughan, by Max Benson of Test Match Sofa

Max Benson, of Test Match Sofa, explains why Michael Vaughan is his favourite cricketer.  Max tweetst at @sofa_maxb.

Northern batsmen aren’t stylish. Northern batsmen are Geoffrey Boycott, Michael Atherton and Paul Collingwood. They are grafters and men of toil, hell-bent on building an innings by any grim means necessary.
All stereotypes are rooted in truth, but my favourite cricketer goes

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Redknapp's logical successor

Let's just assume, despite apparent misgivings, that Harry Redknapp will manage England at this year's European Championships. The common-sense logic is that England will likely qualify for the second round and then be eliminated. Such things were written in stone, long ago.
Were he to go, however, who would replace him at Spurs? Noises have been made about summoning Jose Mourinho from Real

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Book review: More than a Game - John Major

by columnist Ben Roberts
I really do need to admit that although being a born and bred Australian I am spending more and more time putting my head above the neighbouring fence and enjoying the delights of sport as enjoyed by the English. This is quite the admission, and flies in the face of everything I learned from the likes of Dean Jones, Allan Border, and Steve Waugh. English cricket to them

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The A-League: spread too thin

The furore surrounding Clive Palmer and Gold Coast United has cast more unwanted focus on soccer's position in the Australian sporting hierarchy. The club failing is bad enough, but for component on-field parts to auction themselves to prospective employers is like your soon-to-be ex auditioning potential replacements in front of your eyes.
Most galling of all is for this failure to occur in

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What I learned this Summer

As part of a series on The Sledge, several online columnists were invited to submit what this past cricket season has taught them.  Featured contributors included cricket blogosphere stalwarts Ant Sims of Wicket Maiden, Dave Siddall of World Cricket Watch and Subash Jayaraman of The Sight Screen.  The following was Balanced Sports' contribution.

What I learned this summer:

Andrew Hilditch was

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Villas-Boas fired for breaking coaching's golden rule

And so Andre Villas-Boas is gone, cast to the recycling pile like a dapper cardboard cut-out in a suit that's slightly too small.
Roman Abramovich may as well have employed a cardboard cut-out, as he almost certainly would have performed better in the job with the highest expectations in England.
It's not that Villas-Boas is a bad manager – that's not even close to the truth. He's an excellent

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Shocker: Billionaire football club owner is mental

The Australian A-League, a competition set up to minimise infighting and partisanship while maximising club longevity, has again slid inexorably into disarray. And this time, it's one man's madness rather than hyper-optimistic expansion or Kevin Muscat perpetual battle with the red-mist.
The lone figure isn't even Harry Kewell.
Although the league is markedly strengthened from it's nascence,

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My Favourite Cricketer: Stuart MacGill, by Kristian Gough of The Wrong 'Un

Snoop Doggy Nott my favourite...
As both a legspin fetishist and amateur practitioner, I would more likely pick Snoop Doggy Dogg as my favourite cricketer than a batsman or seamer and to me MacGill represents the leggie's leggie and my personal favorite.  
Warne was too freakishly accurate to be considered a 'real' leg spinner, real ones dish up at least one four-ball every few overs.  And he

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Redknapp's England

This week came the startling revelation that Pearce's England looks a lot like Capello's England. Capello's England looked remarkably like his predecessor's, and his two forebears. As England produces elite national teams about once per generation, it is hardly surprising that althought the managers differ, squads appear habitually mundane.

 England have tried many of the tried-and-true

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The future isn't so rosy: Australia's next batsmen

Although the first nation into the CB finals series and coming straight from a whitewash of India in the recent Test series, Australia has far from a settled lineup. Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey are the two oldest First Class cricketers in the nation, while the third was only recently sacked from the Australian team.  The youthful promise of Phil Hughes and Usman Khawaja has tried the country's

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Cricket lookalikes: Matthew Wade

Matthew Wade is a lot of things.  Aside from being Australian keeper-elect, he boasts several different looks.  Here, we can see him batting well for Australia, while in this pic he is batting well above his average.  In yet more photos he's the d*** at the pub trying to impress chicks. 

However, when viewing the red carpet photos from last night's Allan Border medal he became the topic for our

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Hiddink's Anzhi choice says it all

They say you should never meet your heroes.
Or see them sign for Anzhi Makhachkala.
When Guus Hiddink last week signed on to manage the pseudo-Dagestan-based club, it opened the eyes of several admirers to the single greatest driving factor behind his choice of clubs.
Hiddink is held in lofty esteem across most of Australia, the greater part of Holland, significant chunks of Russia, the entirety

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Comparing EPL efficiency across years

Last week I posted a graph which showed the Offensive and Defensive efficiency of teams across Europe's four major leagues.  The chart was measured teams' conversion rates against the number of shots they faced before conceding a goal.  As with all statistics, this is informative in isolation, but doesn't provide a full understanding of the situation without further context - as in,without

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On Internet Comments

This is why I love – and hate – the internet.
It emerged last Monday that every time Aaron Ramsey scores for Arsenal, a really famous person dies. Inspired by some comments to a similar story run in The Sun, it's interesting to ponder what would happen if he scores a hat-trick.
This is perhaps the first story in ages that I've bothered reading the comments to, simply because it draws such a long

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The most efficient teams in Europe

The following chart was inspired by a similar chart on the blog Experimental 3-6-1.  It displays the ratio between the average number of shots a team needs to score a goal, versus the average number shots they face before they concede.  Click the image to zoom in.


From the graph, we can surmise that Borussia Moenchengladbach has by far the sturdiest defence, while Freiburg offer about  as much

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My Favourite Cricketer: Shoaib Akhtar, by Assad Hasanain

Assad Hasanain, of the superb AssadHas, writes on that most amusing playboy fast bowler: Shoaib Akhtar.  Assad tweets @assad_hasanain.
There were drugs. There were women. There were rumors of sexually transmitted diseases. There were tantrums. There were smashed skulls.  There was always adrenaline.  
Shoaib Akhtar's is one of the most fascinating soap operas to have come out of Pakistan

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On the Australian Captaincy

Steve Waugh has recently questioned the Australian selection panel in regards to their handling of the captaincy and of ousted wicketkeeper Brad Haddin.  He is well within his right to, considering his personal achievements and stature in the game.

Up until Ricky Ponting - the man whose temporary institution he contests - the opinions of most Australian captains are considered continuing

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Harry Redknapp - checking (most of) the boxes

The odds are that Harry Redknapp will replace Fabio Capello. The Spurs manager has been heavily backed for the position by everyone from Wayne Rooney to former FA Chairman Lord Triesman. That Stuart Pearce has received the FA's blessing to take charge for England's February 29th match with Holland indicates that any potential decisions won't be made swiftly. Spurs fans can cling to the knowledge

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Cricket lookalikes: Chris Lynn

Doing a bit of research the other day, I happened across the Cricinfo photo of Queensland batsman Chris Lynn.

And the following thought struck me:



If you have any other lookalike suggestions, please email them to me (balanced sports [at] gmail.com) and I'll try to make them a regular feature.

I'm very grateful for the image of Roger the Alien (American Dad!) from http://gh-arts.blogspot.com/

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Capello's greatest failing

With Fabio Capello’s recent statements to the Italian media concerning John Terry’s fatal reign as England captain, he has once again displayed his most obvious characteristic as England manager.  Although no-one has tipped England to succeed later this year, Euro 2012 betting markets have become less murky in recent days – why would you bet on a team that can’t win? 
As a squad devoid of

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Kris Boyd's arrival signals a change in Timbers' style

With the Portland Timbers signing ex-Scotland striker Kris Boyd, the MLS in the Pacific Northwest takes on an intriguging new look. He replaces former USA international Kenny Cooper, who was traded to wannabe-glamour-club, the New York Red Bulls.

The Timbers started their MLS existence relatively strongly last season, finishing sixth in the Western Conference and two games out of a wildcard

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The Return of "Smithy"

As I flicked past the A-League results page on ESPN Soccernet's page this morning, I chanced upon an odd name: a player named “Smithy” apparently started at centre-forward for the Wellington Phoenix in their match against Adelaide on Friday.


Screen dump from ESPN Soccernet

This struck me as odd, as the last guy to make it big in the world of football with that name was (sit down Alan

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My Favourite Cricketer: Anil Kumble, by Rishabh Bablani, the Cricket Nerd

In our series "My Favourite Cricketer", we invite the best writers and bloggers to tell us why the look upon a certain player more fondly than others.  Today, Rishabh Bablani of The Cricket Nerd describes one member of the "600 Club", Anil Kumble.
The lasting image of Indian cricket in the 1990s is that of a young Sachin rising to prominence, fulfilling the prophecies that had marked him as

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Book Review: Miller's Luck, by Roland Perry.

by Ben Roberts, a re-post from our affiliate Book Review blog, Books with Balls.

I entered into this book with trepidation. For a long time I have been searching for a Keith Miller biography that was not this effort by Roland Perry, with no luck. One of the great cricket writers David Frith was scathing in his review of Perry's work, citing multiple factual errors that grated on him.

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Cricketing relationships

by Ben Roberts
I may be going to sound like Oprah or Doctor Phil, but there is clearly a deep emotional need for success in all cricketers. They cannot subsist on footwork and line and length alone, and the absence of beneficial outside relationships is quite possibly catastrophic.
Take for example the beginning of the Australian summer and the very public spat between always-fiery teammates

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A statistical breakdown of Premier League goalkeeping

Last year, we asked what would  happen if we applied hockey stats to goalkeepers in the English Premiership.  The results were interesting, if expected - decreased save percentages and often reduced GAA across the board.

What was more interesting was the amount of variation between goalkeepers on the same team: where David Stockdale rode an early wave of form (and a Mark Schwarzer injury)

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Craig Bellamy - the signing of the season?

Everyone loves something for nothing.  In the high-priced world of professional football, the same is even more true.  When in August last year Kenny Dalglish asked Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini nicely for Craig Bellamy, the Liverpool icon became the proud “owner” of one very cheap, slightly-used Welsh forward.
That very cheap, slightly used Welsh forward – who spent last season on loan

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Shaun Marsh - the galling truth

On Monday, we shared a graphic detailing Shaun Marsh's horrendous form against India.  His slump has become epic - the only slump that hangs about as much in the modern memory was Ken Rutherford's near career-devastating debut series where the teen prodigy was worked over by a West Indies attack in their absolute pomp.

With Marsh, not only is his footwork weighed down but also his confidence. 

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Here's something we prepared earlier: Brad Haddin - The Schizoid Man

Originally published on the Sight Screen, on Sunday 22nd January.
Brad Haddin’s feeling tired, is he?
It’s not really surprising, given he’s been Australia’s first choice wicketkeeper in all formats of the game for nearly five years now.  “Victorian” Matthew Wade, (rather than Tasmanian Tim Paine) now looms largest in his rear view mirror, and Haddin has admitted to feelings of stress and

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Shaun Marsh's Test Average

Any reason to doubt the return of Shane Watson to the Australian side?  After his excellent 141 on debut at Kandy and a subsequent 81 straight after, Shaun Marsh's form has hit the toilets.  Apart from 44 in his first innings in South Africa (after/during which he suffered a debilitating back injury), his scores have continued to plummet.  With another failure today, it looks increasingly like

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My Favourite Cricketer: Chris Pringle by Mykuhl of Cricketgeek

We've scoured the web for the best cricket writers and bloggers to contribute to our series "My Favourite Cricketer".  Today, Mykuhl from the splendid Cricketgeek tells us why he thinks of Kiwi spearhead Chris Pringle most fondly.
As a child I enjoyed playing cricket, and to a lesser degree watching cricket.  I think what I enjoyed most about watching cricket was that normally it was something I

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3 Reasons "Second" teams in the "Second" Division won't work

Andre Villas-Boas has been roundly criticised by Football League supporters this week for suggesting he’d like Chelsea’s B team to compete in the nation’s second tier.  Unfortunately for him and his club, Villas-Boas’ recent press statements have seen him become something of a mini-sensation magnet and he seems to spend more time now rebutting sly criticism than providing novel insights into the

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My Favourite Cricketer: Ray Bright, by Dan Lonergan of the ABC

In sport I’ve always admired the underdog. That’s probably why I follow the Western Bulldogs in the AFL, who will always be the underdogs. I will admit I do support Manchester United in the English Premier League, but I started following them in the mid-1980s when they weren’t the club they are today.

In cricket, Greg Chappell was a hero of mine. Growing up, my first real memory of the game was

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Everton failing to paper over the cracks

It’s time to talk about money.  To be precise, about Everton FC owner Bill Kenright’s lack thereof. 
One of England’s great clubs has begun the slow decline that accompanies a squad’s ageing and find themselves in eleventh position.  They are in no threat of relegation, but the club faces a greater existential crisis than any other club with a similarly storied history.
The Toffees have been on

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Balanced Sports on the Back Page Lead

An adaptation of the piece published here on Friday on Denver quarterback Tim Tebow has been published on Australian sports website The Back Page Lead.  You can view the article here - all comments and ratings are much appreciated.

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On Tebow, Divine Intervention and Subtlety

Yesterday, USA Today released a poll that said 43% of Americans believed Divine Inspiration was the primary reason behind the Denver Broncos victory over the heavily favoured Pittsburgh Steelers in their first-round playoff encounter last weekend.
Why would God favour the Broncs?  Because their quarterback is Tim Tebow.
Tebow was described last week by TIME Magazine as “perhaps the most

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A truly fatal four-way

If the Australian selectors are starting to consider playing four pacemen for the third Test against India in Perth, they’re just as muddle-headed as the team they replaced. 
Let’s not go into the ramifications of kicking another promising young spinner in the teeth (cf. Beau Casson, Dan Cullen, Nathan Hauritz and Michael Beer), it belies common sense and, eventually, come back to bite Australia

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Why the Melbourne Victory looked overseas

When Mehmet Durakovic was fired last week as boss of the A-League’s Melbourne Victory, their coaching search immediately led them overseas to names like Roy Keane, Graeme Taylor and Iain Dowie. 
The Victory eventually ended up with Jim Magilton, the Northern Irish manager recently involved in Shamrock Rovers’ run to the Europa League and also a finalist for the Northern Ireland job vacated by

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Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics: Cricket's Moneyball effect

Ben Roberts
It's my turn to throw my voice into the vortex of latter opinion and desire borne out of the 2011 release of Moneyball. I only recently watched this film, and enjoyed it immensely. It's release has awoken the rest of the sporting world to a concept that was not even new in the period portrayed in the movie, but has been around for over 30 years. Suddenly everyone wants a piece of the

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Victory sack Durakovic - let the merry-go-round commence!

Mehmet Durakovic has been fired as manager of A-League side Melbourne Victory, with the club enduring its worst ever start to a season. The team, who splashed out - big time - for Harry Kewell during the offseason, languish in eighth position in the ten-team competition, with only perpetual strugglers Perth and Gold Coast sitting below them.
Durakovic was never likely to have a lengthy career

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