Today is the day of the football World Cup Final. Yesterday in the match to decide the bronze medal, Holland beat Brazil 3 - 0. Those last two games have been soul destroying for the nation of Brazil. Secure in the knowledge of their expertise in this game they were confident of their abilities and would win the World Cup on home territory. This left them oblivious to their team's failings when they were less than impressive in some of the qualifying games and were absolutely atrocious when they were defeated 7 - 1 by Germany. They were little better against Holland and spent a lot of time diving about the field trying to engineer penalties and free-kicks. Above all, they suffered from.complacency and were prone to bouts of unconnected ramblings around the field. Most of their players play in Europe and hardly ever play together — but they were still atrocious. The Brazilians are not used to such disastrous performances and the fans were in tears. .
On the other hand, we have come to expect our footballers to be useless, overpaid, arrogant, failing prima-donas led by donkeys and they, ever anxious not to be found wanting, oblige. We can take it on the chin, in preparation for the next disaster. In recent times we have got quite good at many sports — except football — but this has not been our best year. We had a fabulous time at the most successful Olympics in history and we won the Tour de France for the second time in 2 years but after that it was all downhill. The rugby team is getting better and they may do OK at the World Cup — but it is over ten years since we won it.
And then there is the cricket team. We have beaten the Aussies several times — and that is the main thing. We went off to Australia last winter, full of confidence, odds-on favourites to give the Aussies another thrashing. In the event, we were in trouble from day one and ended suffering a 5 - 0 humiliation. A return to normalcy, said the Aussies. We were beginning to feel confident about the cricketers but they came back well-beaten and needing to sort out what was wrong. They lost the three match series in England against Sri Lanka — giving the visitors their first ever series win in England. Pretty bad that. Now we are playing the Indians and that was not going too well either in the first test at Trent Bridge — Nottingham. The Indians compiled 457 runs in their first innings and then England laboured to 352 for 9 at the end of the third day.
The last batsman had come in when the score was 298, so the last pair had already added 54 runs. Nevertheless, things were not looking good with England still more than 100 runs short of the Indian total. On day four Joe Root came out with England's No.11 batsman James Anderson to see if they could add a few more before they had to start getting the Indians out again.
But then we had some magic and the record books were shattered. James Anderson played the innings of his life. He stayed there for 230 minutes, scored 81 runs and when he was out England were on 496, 39 runs ahead of the Indians. Root, NO 154, and Anderson had put on 198 rune for the tenth wicket — a record in all test cricket. In the last test against Sri Lanka, Anderson batted in the second innings for 81 minutes without scoring trying to get England a draw. He was out on the next to last ball of the match. He had tried so hard to save England and he felt that he had failed everyone. It would be churlish to suggest that Anderson was only put in this position by the failings of higher order batsmen but, nevertheless, he was in tears as he walked off. Today was going to be different. This was the first time that Anderson had ever exceeded 50 in an innings in test cricket. Yet in making these runs he played some strokes which Geoff Boycott said he would have been proud of making himself. He posted the highest score ever by an English No.11 batsman, the longest ever innings by a No.11 batsman in all tests [230 minutes and almost one hour longer than the previous record]. Interestingly, the previous record for a tenth wicket partnership was also set at Trent Bridge — in 2013, when Philip Hughes and Ashtong Agar scored 163 for Australia against England. Has this wicket got some peculiar properties that make it very suitable for No 11 batsman?
On what is still a flat lifeless pitch, this morning India have reached 211 for the loss of 6 wickets. If England can get these last four batsmen out quickly, they may yet win this match and that would be a real triumph. More likely is a draw.
But I hope that the Germans thrash Argentina!
Good Luck lads.
Later :
Good Luck lads.
Later :
The Cricket ended as a tame draw but Germany did beat Argentina, if only by the one goal.
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