TOP 100 SPORT SITES
| |||
|
| |||
| |||
|
| |||
| Census promotional effort set to begin at Fiesta Bowl Along with Idaho State and TCU, add the U.S. Bureau of the Census to the list of teams hoping to turn in a winning performance at this evening’s Fiesta Bowl at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. bizjournals.com |
Barney Ronay: Is New Slowness the future for cricket? Playing slow-baked cricket generates drama ripe with internal resonances and glacial sub-plotsThis week England's cricketers continued their campaign to promote the previously unfashionable five-day draw as the acme of sporting achievement, as they saved the third Test in Cape Town with another thrillingly nurdled, buoyantly taciturn, extravagantly introspective rearguard. This was an epically resigned and stoical quest for the non-result and, while in the immediate aftermath it was tempting to focus on the drama of the last-ball escape, there was something cheap and showy about that final twist.England's real progress on this tour lies elsewhere. In the last decade there was a lot of talk about Steve Waugh's Australia revolutionising Test cricket by fearlessly upping the tempo of the game. With their filibustering over rates in the field and constipated new puritanism with the bat, England are currently introducing a new tempo of their own. A slack one. A woozy one. An indolent one. And a tempo that South Africa, at least, are already finding it hard to "live with". For England this is an era of New Slowness.This is an unexpected turn of events. The received wisdom has been that England's batting would come to be dominated by the caffeine-rush stroke play of Kevin Pietersen, caught up in jittery, muscle-bound extroversion. This was the new orthodoxy: the switch-dabbed scoop-six bravado implosion. But rather than careering forward into a cloudless, frightening new future, England have instead gone home and sat in the shed, with Paul Collingwood now the central figure, a man with a forward prod so flamboyantly inert it seems almost sarcastic.The tone in South Africa was set by Alastair Cook, with his revamped batting style based around a Gandhi-like process of self-denial outside off-stump. How long can Cook go on like this? Fifty more Tests? Ten million furiously watchful crab-like leaves? It's all very gripping and I notice also that Cook now mouths "watch the fucking ball" to himself through gritted teeth, as Mark Ramprakash used to, something I also copied when Ramps was my adolescent hero (although people would sometimes stare unkindly or even get off at the next stop and wait for another bus).Ian Bell has also reinvented himself. Bell now snarls at the crease. Perhaps this is a necessary reaction to his demotion from ginger-haloed prodigy. The snarl seems to say he wishes to be seen as just another gun for hire, a grizzled mercenary of the peachy cover drive. Where once Bell wanted to be an Australian, now he looks like he wants to be a Kolpak, or, even better, an ageing sun-baked Zimbabwean.The best thing about playing slow, though, is the drama it generates. This series has emerged as a succession of slow-baked five-day sleepers, arthouse cricket ripe with internal resonances and glacial sub-plots. Plus, it's also a reminder that no other team sport offers such stillness or such fine detail. At Cape Town Jonathan Trott was booed for taking his guard too slowly, surely the first ever case of a man drawing angry jeers as a result of a slightly quirky method of scratching a line in the ground with a bit of wood.It's also worth noting the positive effects of England playing Test cricket in a way that's more like Test cricket, rather than less like Test cricket and more like basketball, or football, or watching a wild-eyed, crack-smoking pinch-flailer fly-swat a match-winning 14 for the Wellington Fishcakes. It has been fashionable to say that Test cricket is dying but, watching the last Test and looking forward to next week's irresistible decider, it feels like Test cricket is a small window of vitality and stalwart tumescence. I don't smell death here, just the invigorating, hair-shirt revivalism of England's defiantly retrograde New Slowness.England Cricket TeamSouth Africa cricket teamEngland in South Africa 2009-2010CricketBarney Ronayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Thierry Henry cleared over play-off handball Thierry Henry, the France forward, will not be punished for his handball in the World Cup qualification play-off against the Republic of Ireland. feeds.timesonline.co.uk |
City, Paulson finalize PGE Park deal The city and Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson have reached a deal to renovate PGE Park in order to accommodate a Major League Soccer team. The deal will go to City Council next Wednesday. feeds.bizjournals.com |
Ospreys charged over fielding 16 players • Club and full-back Lee Byrne to face charges on Friday• Leicester lodged official complaint with European Rugby CupThe organisers of the Heineken Cup today charged the Ospreys, and their Wales full-back, Lee Byrne, with misconduct after Leicester complained that the Welsh regions had 16 players on the field for some 50 seconds during the match between the sides in Swansea last Saturday.Roger O'Connor, European Rugby Cup Ltd's disciplinary officer, filed the charge after spending two days gathering evidence from the two sides and the match officials on duty at the Liberty Stadium. He also viewed video footage of the incident which happened in the last quarter when the Ospreys were leading by five points.A three-man disciplinary panel will hear the case in Dublin on Friday.Leicester have asked for the match to be replayed, arguing that Byrne prevented a potential try from being scored by getting in the way of their scrum-half, Ben Youngs.England were fined for having an extra man on the field during their 2003 World Cup match against Samoa, but a misconduct charge carries an open-ended list of sanctions. It is what Harlequins and four individuals, including Dean Richards and Tom Williams, were hit with after the fake blood substitution in their Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster last April and Quins faced being thrown out of the tournament.Wales will wait for the outcome with concern. If Byrne is banned, he faces missing the opening Six Nations match against England at Twickenham.OspreysLeicester TigersRugby unionPaul Reesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |