Diegetics

Outstanding judoka. HIghly respected open-weight competitor.

Hydroptere reached 61 knots in a later run but capsized so it is not an official record.

Adidas skate team doing some nice ollies and rail slides in Japan. Nicely produced video.

This is a great match between a master striker and a master Jujitsu grappler.

dont know if sparky follows the cricket (not i suspect) but heres to the poms getting their arses whupped in the ashes.

He does - but not as religiously as he did in his youth owing to work and that vile countryman of yours Murdoch snaffling the game from the public airwaves many years ago.

I suspect you're right - a traditional thrashing is on the cards in Oz.

my love of the game was tested last summer - a pakistan and west indies tri series which was so poor, to find out in hindsight they where actually cheating and trying to lose, was almost a relief.

Cheating - at cricket, forsooth! It quite took the shine of England's trouncing of Pakistan in the recent test too.
Speaking of sporting corruption:
Fifa investigate 'fake' Togo team at Bahrain match
Fifa is investigating allegations that a fake Togo team played a friendly against Bahrain earlier this month.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footba ... match.html

Always thought that cricket looked like an interesting game, although I have no understanding of the rules.

What bothers me when I watch cricket on TV is that I NEVER succeed seeing how wickets fall! I presume the ball hits them, but it's so fast I never see it happening. On the other hand I can't imagine how the ball finds a way to hit the wicket with those huge guys standing in front of them and the ball hitting the ground at an angle which would take the ball over the wicket, if it ever succeeds in passing the batsman. It's a mystery...

Cricket is the most subtle bat and ball game on the planet, because of all the complex variations possible in batting, bowling and field placing . If you think that the offside rule in football(soccer) is complicated, then try to understand leg before wicket..


The three day or five day game is slow for the modern world. Cricket mad India has jazzed it up into a three hours only 20 overs a side format called 20/20, played in the Indian Premier League - very Indian in that it is exciting, entrepreneurial and deeply corrupt. I was in India earlier this year and got tickets to see the semifinal of the IPL: Mumbai Indians v Royal Challengers Bangalore. Great atmosphere, although the heat was overpowering, even in an evening game.

Noddy, we all expect England to get slaughtered down under. Steve Finn might bowl well in Aussie conditions, and Grahame Swann is now the best spinner in the game, but the batting is crap (mostly the South African B team, but then you have a Pom Prime Minister, don't you?)