Sport

Cricket Crazy

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

It is still Thursday in California, but it is Friday in India and that means opening day for the first ever season of the Indian Premier League. That’s six weeks of Twenty20 cricket played by all-star teams from around the world. In terms of talent it is very like North America’s National Hockey League in that it features a sport that is popular in many countries but all the best players play in one league in the world’s biggest market. Kevin and I have our Internet coverage lined up, so we’ll be able to follow the games. At $59 for the entire 59-game series Willow TV are offering a very good deal. Some of the games will be in the middle of the night, but the majority start around 7:30am California time, which is very convenient for us. The season kicks off tomorrow morning (our time) with Rahul Dravid’s Bangalore side visiting Sourav Ganguly and the Kolkata Knight Riders. I’m looking forward to it.

Of course I do need to pick a side to support, and the decision wasn’t hard. Jaipur’s Rajasthan Royals are led by the inimitable Shane Warne, and the side also includes Dimi Mascarenhas, the only Brit in the tournament, and Justin Langer, who has done such a fine job for Somerset over the past year. They’ve also got Graeme Smith, Younis Khan and Shane Watson. Sadly they don’t have much in the way of star Indian players, but so it goes. Anyone else out there following the tournament?

Post Party Wrap

~ Cheryl

Well, that was a fun evening. As Kevin reports in comments on his post, the Consul-General has a very nice house near the Presidio just a few doors down from Diane Feinstein’s place. It was quite a small gathering, and it wasn’t full of venture capitalists as I had feared, so I actually got to talk to the Vice Chancellor a bit. I was delighted to hear that my former colleagues in the Department of Oceanography now have proper research vessels and can swan off the to Seychelles to do their research rather than have to bob around on small boats on Southampton Water like we did in my day. There are also some interesting new developments going on. All I’m saying for now is that one of the things that the VC mentioned perked my interest and the first thing I did on getting home was to email Cory.

Oh yes, and it turned out that the Consul-General is a Welsh rugby fan and as soon as I get back to the UK I am getting a copy of this.

Baseball Tickets for Sale

~ Cheryl

Kevin and I signed up for a share of a Giants season ticket scheme run by people at his office, but for some reason we don’t quite understand only one of the 6 days we got turned out to be a day when we could attend the game. We’ve got rid of two pairs, but there’s another three pairs available. Kevin has details on his LJ.

Gloom and Despondency

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Today is opening day in the baseball season. Normally at this time of year all of the baseball pundits are predicting that the Giants will finish bottom of their division, and Giants fans are quietly assuming that these predictions will be wrong again. This year, however, it is Giants fans who are predicting a disastrous season. Of course with 40% of the roster being new, and many of them almost unknown, anything could happen, but I have a bad feeling about this. On the basis of spring training performances I’ll be happy if we win 50 games.

Update: Here’s a pundit who thinks we might win all of 75 games! That’s a 50% improvement on my gloomy prediction.

Sehwag!!!

~ Cheryl

Virender Sehwag is one of those frustrating batsmen whose performances vary wildly between sheer brilliance and abject failure. He has been out of favor with the Indian selectors for some time, particularly for test cricket, but he’s been given a chance again for India’s home test series against South Africa, and my how he has taken it.

The first test is taking place in Chennai. South Africa won the toss and elected to bat, and that looked like a wise choice because they did very well, registering 540 all out. Several of their top batsmen got big scores, including 159 from Hashim Amla. India are now batting, and they have got to 468, for the loss of just one wicket. Of those 468 runs, Sehwag has 309, and he has made those runs off just 292 balls.
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Giant Squid Alert

~ Cheryl

Suddenly I have a reason to go to Paris. A 21 foot long giant squid has arrived in the French Museum of Natural History. And it is a real squid – caught off New Zealand, and with its innards “plastinated” to prevent it from decaying and ponging, and allowing it to be displayed outside of a formaldehyde-filled jar. The squid is called “Wheke”, which is short for “Te Wheke o Muturangi”. That’s not a Hurricanes war cry.

Hello Ireland

~ Cheryl ~ 6 Comments

Yes, it is St. Paddy’s Day once more. The green beer will doubtless be flowing in pubs around the world. Having seen what passes for “Irishness” in Australia and America, I’m rather relieved that St. David’s Day doesn’t get the same treatment. However, not everyone goes in for the Celtic Cuteness thing. John Scalzi does a pretty good job of representing Irish culture. In a similar but related vein, here are a few things he missed.
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Good Weekend

~ Cheryl

Wow, that was a busy one. There will be more posts coming today, but for now I just want to do a quick comment on sporting stuff. Obviously I’m still on cloud 9 over the Welsh Grand Slam, and I expect to be there for some time to come. However, congratulations are also due to the England cricket team for starting to get their act together in New Zealand. It looked messy at times, but a win is a win. Congratulations also to Lewis Hamilton for starting off the season in fine form, and to the seriously cute Nico Rosberg for his first podium finish. If Melbourne is anything to go by, it will be a great Grand Prix season.

SLAM!!!

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

That’s my boys! 🙂

Wales 29-12 France. Five wins out of five. Normal service has been restored, and all is right with the rugby world.

Not that I actually saw any of it. It isn’t available on TV over here, and anyway I was stuck at a conference in Berkeley all day. Kevin kindly kept an eye on the Internet for me, and txtd the result to me. Fortunately we’d just broken for lunch, though the other people at my lunch table did wonder why I suddenly left up and punched the air. Weird people, these Brits.

Busy, Busy, Busy

~ Cheryl

Work, jet-lag, weekend conference to attend, SF in SF reading, BASFA, off to ICFA. And of that wasn’t enough, there’s the cricket (thank you, Auckland, for helping Jimmy Anderson get match fit), the rugby (Welsh Grand Slam on the way?), and the start of the new Formula 1 season. I need a clone.

Danger, Finnish Drivers

~ Cheryl

The Formula 1 season kicks off in Albert Park over the weekend. Kevin and I are both very busy, and will probably end up watching the race on video at some point, but we can at least look forward to the action. We are helped in this by The Guardian who produced a helpful little guidebook to the new season free with their Monday paper. Parts of it are quite funny, especially the history of last season told as if it were a Facebook feed. “Ron Dennis has joined the group “Cooperating with Inquiries”; Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are no longer friends.”

One of the articles, however, is about why Finns make such good racing drivers. Mostly they get this right. Young Finns learn to drive at crazy speeds when they are barely out of nappies. It seems they don’t have many police on Finnish country roads, or at least no one much minds if kids use them as race tracks. The article also pinpoints other aspects of the Finnish character. It notes, for example, that a Finn always wins the annual Christmas Eve round the world aerial sleigh race, largely because he’s the only person who has figured out how to build a suitable vehicle. The Finns are also the only people to have won the Eurovision Song Contest while dressed as Oakland Raiders fans. Apparently Finland is home to an annual wife-carrying world championships, but the Finns are no good at that and it is always won by someone from Estonia. However, the article mentions the Finnish passion for ice hockey only in passing, and completely ignores their talent at running science fiction conventions. My guess is that the Finnish talent for raising sponsorship must have Bernie Ecclestone terrified.

Cricket Punditry

~ Cheryl

Well, it has been amazing day for sport. We’ve had Wales win the Triple Crown, Scotland actually win a rugby match, Manchester United and Chelsea knocked out of the FA Cup (Karen Traviss will be over the moon, Brian, at the success of her beloved Pompey), and starting it all off an amazing comeback by England’s cricketers. After producing three and a half days of the dullest test cricket I have seen in a long time, they suddenly brought the game to life and people are talking about an England win. I think it is unlikely. Here’s why.
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Triple Crowned

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Wales went to Ireland today more in hope than in expectation. The Irish are a top-rated side whose performances over the course of the tournament had shown steady improvement. They would also be playing at home. Most of the pundits, therefore, predicted an Irish win.

For the first 20 minutes it seemed as if they would be proved correct. But from the point where Mike Phillips wrestled Shane Horgan away from the try line, preventing what seemed like a certain Irish score, Wales began to boss the game. And they continue to boss it even through having Phillips and Martyn Williams sin-binned for silly professional fouls. A little bit of magic from the twinkling feet of Shane Williams was all that was needed to secure a very confident and professional win. We all know that this Welsh side can play, but it seems like they now know how to keep their collective heads as well, even if the occasional hot-head loses his.

Ireland 12-16 Wales

Bring on the French.

In Edinburgh we saw what happens when two side with no imagination or ambition and little talent get to play each other in dreadful conditions. Still, congratulations to Jonny Wilkinson for becoming the leading points scorer in international rugby history (even if he did have a dreadful game) and to Scotland for giving the English a taste of their own medicine.

Ancient Sport Revived

~ Cheryl

If rugby isn’t quite insanely violent and dangerous enough for your Celtic spirit, how about wild boar hunting. Remember though, this isn’t as easy as Asterix and Obelix make it look. Boar are Very Dangerous Animals. There’s a reason why they put that cross-piece on a boar spear.