Summer finally arrives....

Summer has finally arrived which brings about the end of the fantastic football campaign of 2010/11 and the start of a action packed summer for cricket. Manchester United paraded around Manchester with just the Premier league trophy having lost in the champions league final and noisy neighbours City pick up their first trophy in over 30 years. So plenty of time for transfers to be made and Henderson to Liverpool and De Gea and Jones to Manchester United are the headline transfers so far but surprisingly City have stayed quiet so far. Arsenal should look to sign a more experienced player but whether or not they will is up to the Gunner’s boss. 

Onto Cricket and a fantastic test match to kick of England’s summer. Action packed last few hours saw England shake up Sri Lanka who thought they would have a comfortable 50 overs to get some batting practise and it would have been if anyone could actually stay at the crease. England were short of their star test match bowler Jimmy Anderson. Horrific performance from Sri Lanka. Eoin Morgan showed the selectors why he should be playing with a very nice 50 and the 2 run machines continued to score, Trott and Cook both getting hundreds for fun and Trott’s double hundred was brilliant to watch. Rain made the test match look out of sight and when England let Bell go out to get his century sent the crowd a message that even England couldn’t have possibly expected to win. After the break England bowled line length and with pace and bounce, and the reward payed of especially for terrific Tremlett who picked up a 4fer and swann bowled brilliantly again. The second test match was the opposite, what i would a game of two halves. Yet again Cook continued to do his job and it’s almost as if he is expected to get a hundred and what he gets after that is what matters. This time he fell short by just 4 and even cook could not believe it. England showed strength in depth, Prior batted quickly and efficiently and is outstanding with the tail. Even Stuart broad made 50 and showed signs of that test match 100 against Pakistan. Sri Lanka’s bowling line up was straight but didn’t cause enough problems on England’s in form Batting line up. Then England’s bowling for the rest of that day was terrible they bowled well wide of the stumps and Paranavitana said thank you very much as he marched his way to a calm and composed 50. Dilshan’s innings as always was a brilliant innings to watch he raced to 100 and punished the poor bowling. He very nearly made his first test double century but fell touching distance away for 193.  The following day both Jayawardenes nearly made 50 but England’s bowling was much better. Steven Finn was top quality as was swann taking 7 wickets between them. After that the test match fizzled out, batting continued to be good but the bowling needed to be good right from the start from both sides to get 20 wickets in less than 6 sessions.  Sri Lanka dismissed the out of form England skipper for 0 but his opening partner produced yet again scoring a brilliant ton. 50’s for: Pietersen in what he’ll hope is a return to form but yet again he got out to left arm spin, Bell who was not out and seems to be in good form, and Trott who recovered form his first innings blip. England declared on 335 for 7 leaving Sri Lanka needing 342 to win in pretty much 1 session. England took 3 wickets including 1 for Jonathan Trott but not quite the heroics of Cardiff to win the match.

The T20 has started and yesterday Lancashire lost to Yorkshire in a battle of the roses it ws taken down to the wire but Yorkshire held strong. Finals day is at Edgbaston this year and Warwickshire will hope they can pick up some momentum and compete at their home ground in August.

So what’s in store for the rest of the summer, England have Jimmy Anderson back for the 3rd test at the Rose bowl and with Dilshan unlikely to be back due to a broken finger it looks as though England will clich the series with what i think will be a 2-0 win. In terms of the Indian series it looks like being a close call, England’s batting line up are in form and only Strauss is struggling for runs. England’s bowlers need to take 20 wickets and it hasn’t been a problem recently and hopefully won’t be a problem for the rest of the summer.

Tough Call....

Sorry for a long delay in between blogs. Today promises a huge deal, Manchester United against Barcelona. It’s Probably harder to pick a looser than a winner and by that I mean, both teams have several strengths but, the team with the most weaknesses is probably the team who will loose and it is unbelievably difficult to find the weaknesses. It’s easy to point out their strengths.

We’ll start with Barcelona, Messi is the first thing that springs to mind, pace agility and an unbelievable eye for goal, arguably the world’s best player and with Xavi and Iniesta behind him United are going to have to play their hearts out.

Messi has got to make runs at the Manchester United defence, we saw Torres do the same in his Liverpool days and had Vidic in all sorts of trouble. Never the less Vidic has certainly improved and after getting journalists player of the year it backs up the defender’s recent form. Xavi and Iniesta will certainly try to play their usual game and look to pass and challenge their Manchester United counter parts. Dani Alves has been amongst the bad press recently for his tendency to go to ground and it will make for a better game if everybody tries to stay on their feet today. Alves needs to be fit and not get lazy because Ji-Sung-Park will certainly be energetic and look to run forward and take advantage of any tiredness Alves may have, If Alves does not put a shift in getting back then Manchester United may have more than a 50-50 chance, especially with the ability Javier Hernandez getting on the line of the last defender and popping up in behind him when he leasts expects him. Defensively Pique has been sound and will be much more confident than when he was at United. David Villa may end up playing slightly out of Position today bu we’ll have to wait until kick off to find out for sure. Villa has a great goal scoring ability for Spain and has not yet been able to quite match that for Barcelona but he will still be a massive threat. He has skill and a very good finishing ability which maybe can’t be said for park. Park is certainly a work force and is good at moving the ball and setting up goals and he certainly can score big goals but i don’t think he can quite match up to Villa. Bojan, Pedro, Villa whoever plays Barcelona will have no problems going forward and producing chances but can Vidic, Ferdinand and Veteran Vandersar stop Barca actually scoring.

If we look at Manchester United then we’ll struggle to find players who can match Barcelona man for man, but that’s not what United will worry about. United have bags of talent but their in different areas. Two very good centre backs will give the reds confidence in defence and with Edwin Vandersar even more so. In midfield there will certainly be a demand for the ball all of united’s midfielders love moving the ball about and the wide men love to run forwards. United have the full squad minus Hargreaves to choose from so selection is not an issue. It’s already been revealed by Sir alex that united will look to attack and that they are very well prepared for tonight’s game. Up front Rooney and Hernandez are in great form and for Rooney he will look to brush aside his former team mate and get some early shots on goal to give him early confidence.  Hernandez needs to play as he has been all year get on to the shoulder of the last man and use his phenomenal movement to get him a goal, he is not going to get goals by muscling off defenders although for his size he is quite tough. Nani will probably end up on the subs bench because Valencia’s recent form has been good and his crossing ability is superb, in a game that United may end up getting just 4 or 5 crosses in they will have to be put on a plate for united’s front men. It will be interesting to see who Sir Alex picks  to play in the RB role. Rafael has been replaced by twin Fabio in the recent games, both of them love to get forward and like an early challenge or slide tackle to et them gong.

My Possible United team: Vandersar, Rafael, Vidic(C), Ferdinand, Evra, Valencia, Giggs, Scholes, Park, Hernandez, Rooney.

My Possible Barcelona team: Valdes, Alves, Pique, Puyol, Abidal, Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Pedro, Villa, Bojan.

My prediction is 2-2 and then 3-1 United in Penalties. I think United will take the lead early through Hernandez, Then just on Half Time go 2-0 up with a good finish from Park. Barcelona will naturally attack and then eventually score twice. Penalties well in the bast big players miss big penalties, Ronaldo in the Semi-Final agaist Barca, Ronaldo in the final against Chelsea, Terry against United so i think Messi and Villa will both miss their penalties and United will win.S

Apologies over the delay of this blog, but the focus point is quite simply the Modern day debacles of International Cricket.               

           All through the world cup people were saying players are showing signs of fatigue after a long, hard winter but surely now the ICC has learnt their lesson. The changes to the Schedule ahead of the next world cup means that 2 ashes series will be played in just 6 months. That may mean that the players will be less tired in the world cup and therefore increasing the quality but surely that will DECREASE the quality of the ashes. It was a fantastic ashes this year and it saw some brilliant performances but 10 tests and 14 ODI’s in 2013/14 will take a lot out of the players. Having said that this summer England host both India and Sri Lanka in 7 tests. Focusing on the next world cup a lot  of controversial decisions have been made. The ‘minor countries’ or the associate nations did not produce the most entertaining of games and in fact Ireland were the only team who caused any kind of upset. The ICC later went on to announce that the next wold cup will be slashed to just 10 teams. The fury produced in the Irish camp caused the ICC to have a rethink and as it stands now it looks likely for the Irish and a couple other nations to have a chance to take part, Brilliant news!!! It has not quite been 100 % confirmed as to how many teams.

             It is quite simply going to be an outstanding sumer in 2011. The fastest improving test nation in England playing two of the best teams in the world, who can’t be excited. The little master playing against England’s Hero Graeme Swann. England’s weakest point, well is their one? To split a hair i suppose it is the batting. There is still plenty of depth but possibly they rely too much on Johnny Trott. Trott always seems to be in form and constantly comes up with the goods. In terms of India, they certainly have the batting but in the bowling they are almost equal. A bit like England to be picky maybe India’s weakness is the lack of a quality second fast bowler to follow Zaheer Kahn, Ishant Shama is still a very good bowler. My prediction for the England team is: Strauss (c), Cook (vc), Trott, Pietersen, Bell, Morgan, Prior (wk), Broad, Swann, Anderson, Finn. Samit Patel has been in good nick recently and will be pushing for a place in the next few months.

Bresnan and Tremlett loose out to Finn in my opinion but i don’t think Finn will last the whole series. India will certainly Play Tendulkar, Yuvraj and Harbajan as well as Khan, Dhoni and Sharma. The rest of the team will consist of probably of Raina, Gambhir, Sreesanth, Dravid and the other spot is probably up for grabs. The Sri Lankan team will involve: Sangakarra, Dilshan (c), Samaraweera, Jayasuriya, Mendis, Welegedera, Tharanga, Herath, Randiv, Perera, Fernando. Certainly a weakened team but with the retirement of Maliga and with Matthews not being chosen Sri Lanka will have to fight hard to get their 1st win under new captain Dilshan. My prediction for the England series vs India is 1-2 in India’s favour. For the England and Sri Lanka encounter i predict a 2-0 victory for England.

           Around the world, Australian captain Ricky Ponting has retired and leaves the space open for Michael Clarke, it will certainly be an interesting year for them as they try to rebuild the great team of 2003-2007. Sri Lanka have their own problems as well, new captain and some fresh faces will make the team a bit more fresh. South Africa look strong and in my opinion one of the top 2 teams at the moment as the rankings suggest. Over to England, Andrew Strauss retires the ODI captaincy and Cook takes his place. Captaincy problems al round then but 2011 still promises an awful lot.

Please let me know what you think by writing a comment about the World Cup or Captaincy problems or just about Cricket in general........... Weekly Blog to follow very soon.......

            

It all Opens up.....

It’s been a massive week in all sports and it will be interesting to see what this weekend has in store.  The champions league saw a one sided first legs in both ties and Manchester United are going to have to combat the outstanding Messi. United are also closely trailed by Chelsea in the Premier league and thats where we shall start. 

         Manchester United will have to fight hard. A draw should seal the title for them but United never play for a draw. They will look for the win from the first whistle and will hope to bag an early goal. Chelsea will also hope to win and take over the league leaders, they're main threat, Kalou will try to beat Edwin Van Der Sar, and with his recent form is more than capable. United’s main threats are Hernandez and Rooney who have linked together well ever since Hernandez broke into the first team. I think Chelsea will play an attacking team to try and break through United’s strong defence. Possible team to play Man. United: Czech, Cole, Terry, Luiz, Ivanovic,  Malouda, Lampard, Essien, Mikel, Kalou, Drogba.

Possible United team to play Chelsea: Van der sar, Rafael, Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra, Valencia, Carrick, Giggs, Park, Hernandez, Rooney. Prediction 3-1 Chelsea.

          Another big game is Wigan vs Aston Villa. Villa have never beat Wigan at home and will hope to do so today. Wigan need the points to keep fighting to stay in the league. Should wigan win and Blackpool fail to do so then Wolves will clamber out of the Relegation zone. It’s very tight down the bottom. Possible team: Habsi, Figueroa, Alcaraz, Gouhori, Boyce, Cleverly, Mc Arthur, McCarthy, N Zogbia, Watson, Rodallega.

Aston Villa: Friedel, Young, Dunne, Collins, Walker, Downing, Young, Petrov, Reo Coker, Heskey, Bent. Prediction: 1-1

         They are just the two biggest games of the day, One at the top and the other at the bottom. Chelsea are really closing the gap on the 18 time champions but United will fight hard. At the bottom West Ham, Wigan and Wolves are all fighting for survival.The race for the champions league places heats up as Liverpool enter contention, Tottenham play Blackpool in a game that could affect both ends of the table. The Champions league itself this year is heading for a grande Finale the best player in your against the best Manager in Europe. Barce beat United two years ago but united were the victors in the 2008 encounter. The Championship, well after QPR survive a point deduction possibility this morning they now have Premier League status, yet again Nottingham forest make the play offs and so do Swansea and i think it will be a Swansea-Forest encounter in the final. 

           Onto Cricket, the season is in full flow, the village cricket matches have started and summer is in the air. However what looks like 3 games heading for a draw in fourth day of the county championship. Middlesex look like drawing to Gloucestershire. Century for Taylor and Fifty for Marshall put Gloucestershire off to a good start and Middlesex replied with Fifty from Dexter and 87 from Rogers. A strong Gloucestershire reply saw a 93 from Gidman and a 72 from Cockbain. Surely heading for a Draw.

            The only positive result looks like its going to be for Northants, so far  2 Centuries altogether Stevens and Hall and several fifties all round keeping it poised. Unfortunately no one could bat well with Stevens in the first innings.

            The IPL hots up now. Valthathy is the under praised star so far doing brilliantly in the opening phases. Tendulkar looses his cap to Sehwag who now takes over as leading run scorer. Eoin Morgan is like a ball magnet always producing brilliant performances in the field and some good runs with the bat. Asked to play midweek at the top of the order and did well, interesting to see how the end of todays game goes. Lasith Malinga is brilliant and continues to wear the purple cap. I think the Mumbai Indians on the whole look set to win and thats the way it’s heading. 


Key Words: Malinga, Cricket, Ipl, IPL, Sports, Premier League, Mumbai, Wigan, Blackpool. County Championship.

          Special Blog on Cricket to follow Early next week..........

Big Bank Holiday....

   A look ahead at the weekend games, cricket, football and any other news in sports. After an eventful friday congratulations must go out to the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William on their marriage. But the weekends football also promises a lot a big game between Manchester United and Arsenal.  Manchester United completely dominated Schalke 04 and deserved their victory and will be hopping for a similar performance against Arsenal.  Arsenal are struggling defensively and that will need to change in order for them to beat Manchester United. United’s attack is going brilliantly and peaking as per usual at the latter stages of the season.  United have a lot of options for their team but my guess is: Van dersar, Evra, Vidic, Ferdinand, Rafael, Park, Carrick, Scholes, Valencia, Berbatov, Rooney. Manchester United also have anderson, Nani, Smalling, Owen, Hernandez to choose from but i think that the premier league top scorer will start with Rooney. must win for both teams as far as the Title is concerned.

Arsenal will have to combat United’s Attack and also break through their formidable defence. Arsenal's potential team to face United: Lehman, Eboue, Koschielny, Djourou, Clichy, Nasri, Fabregas, Wilshere, Walcott, Arshavin, Van Persie.

            Other games in the Premier League this week are Manchester City against West Ham, City’s fight for Europe continues and will expect to win the game this weekend.  The captain is injured but that shouldn’t matter in this game, City will have plenty of chances to score if they play anywhere near their best. West Ham’s main threat must be Denba Ba and Carlton Cole he has a good eye for goal and could cause an upset. Also this week sees the return of Andy Carrol to Newcastle, can he score against his old club? Liverpool are in good form recently under King Kenny and will hope to beat Newcastle. Liverpool have a fielded a slightly younger side in recent weeks and it will be interesting to see if the same happens today. Stephen Ireland is out injured for the season and Captain Nolan is expected to return. Possible Liverpool team to play against Newcastle: Reina, Robinson, Carragher, Skrtel, Flanagan, Cole,Lucas,Spearing, Kuyt, Carrol, Suarez.

Just the one change to the team is what i would expect.

Possible Newcastle team: Harper, Simpson, Williamson, Coloccini, Enrique, Barton, Tiote, Guitirrez, Lovenkrands and Ameobi. Harper Returns after injury and with No ireland a place is up for grabs.

The other big game this week is between Chelsea and Tottenham. Chelsea jump over Arsenal in the table and will be looking to do the same to Man United, although unlikely. Chelsea’s Malouda is in good form an hopefully can score against local rivals Tottenham. Fernando Torres has finally Bagged his first goal but does not look threatening but maybe able to get his second goal against Spurs. Tottenham are doing well this year, and have demonstrated this in the champions league. Huddleston, Bale and van der vart will be tottenham’s threat but what kind of game is Gomes going to have, a good one and Tottenham will fancy their chances a bad one and Tottenham will have to fight very hard. Possible Tottenham Team: Gomes,  Kaboul, Gallas, Akotto, Van der Vart, Huddleston, Modric, Bale, Defoe and Pavlyuchenko and the possible Chelsea team is : Cech, Ivanovic, Terry, Luiz, Cole, Molouda, Lampard, Essien, Kalou, Drogba, Anelka. Certainly a strong team on both sides and an early breakthrough will be key.

            Onto Cricket now and Lancashire edged closer to victory over Sussex but couldn’t get the last wicket to secure victory and the match was tied. Panesar doing a similar thing to Lancashire as he did to Australia. 17 not out from 66 balls helping Sussex draw. Saj Mahmood was taken out of the attack after two beamers, one hitting Ed Joyce on the shoulder. Gary Keedy was brilliant picking up 8 wickets in the match and Glen Chapple got 6. Goodwin, Joyce and Arif all got centuries for Sussex and Nash got a 50. It was a game Lancashire should have won after the position they got into. If Saj Mahmood had been able to bowl surely he would have cleaned up Panesar. Lancashire 590 vs Sussex 290 and 459/9 dec.

              Middlesex hammered Surrey by an innings and 42 runs.Dexter and Simpson both got centuries in Middlesex’s 1st ans only innings but Batty picked up 5 wickets stopping the score from being even bigger. The only resistance from the surrey batting was Maynard 98 and Brown 47 were the only significant run scorers in surrey’s 1st innings score of 203. In their second innings England’s steve Davies who got 94 was  the main run scorer couldn’t do enough to get the draw. Middlesex wicket takers were Finn who got 4 and Roland Jones who got 6 in the match. Middlesex 445 vs surrey 200 and 201

             Warwickshire against Durham looked a very close game after the 1st innings both sides getting  bowled out well after passing 400. But a second innings disaster from Warwickshire allowed Durham to comfortably win the match. Blackwell and Viento both got 100’s for Durham and Porterfield, Troughton and Woakes all got 50’s for Warwickshire. Wicket takers were Onions who got 6 wickets for Durham and Brathwaite also got 6. For Warwickshire wicket takers were Woakes and Rankin who both got 3. Warwickshire 1st innings 429 and 2nd innings 137 Durham 1st Innings 465 and 102/2.

              So Lancashire top the county championship and in terms of performance rightly so. They have played well and seem to have the best all round side.

           IPL things remains the same really but a very poor performance from Tendulkar’s side Mumbai as they scramble to 94/8             

and see their total knocked of by Rajastan after 18.1 overs and the loss of 3 wickets. Mumbai top the table with a game in hand and with the best bowler and batsmen in IPL 2011 so far it’s quite obvious why.

            Next Blog coming soon....

It's just the start.

This week sees a champions league tie between manchester united and Schalke 04. This should be an entertaining tie and sir alex ferguson expects it to be a close game.  The first leg is an away game for united and as always  it will be important that they grab that vital away goal.  As it has been in recent weeks i think that the Hernandez and Rooney pair up front for united will be expected and with the Berbatov injury it is even more likely that the two will start together, the other option is Rooney up top on his own with Giggs or nani just behind him. Hernandez has had a brilliant season for united and could well be the difference not only in the semis but also in the final in Wembly.In defence united will hope to have rio and vida back together and i think it will be john O’shea and evra in the full back positions. Moving into midfield united have a few options, They could go with Giggs wide left and nani wide right and carrick and Sholes in th centre whilst the injured fletcher watches on or they could use the strength of anderson in midfield. Another alternative would be to put Giggs into the centre and Valencia shifted out wide. Schalke will have to try and press united and at the same time try and score a goal, they do not want to chase united at Od Trafford. The Schalke team that played on the weekend was Neuer - Hao, Matip, Metzelder, Escudero - Pliatsikas (Jurado, 46), Avelar - Farfan (Baumjohann, 46), Draxler - Edu (Karimi, 62), Raul it will be a challenging task for Schalke but champions league veteran Raul will hope to add to his impressive record.
         The day after is the big one el Classico. Madrid and Barcelona. Barcelona in the league madrid in the cup in europe its completely different. Ronaldo will hope to score early and lead his team from the front quality midfielder in Alonso, Ozil and Kaka will provide the quality but can madrid get past pique, Puyol and Valdes. Barcelona will provide their own threats up front with Messi, villa and if Bojan but it will be a very tough battle in midfield. Busquetes, Alves, Xavi will all have to b at their best if Barcelona are going to win.
            Onto Cricket now and the county games have started. Several games currently being played, Lancashire pass 115 without a wicket being lost against sussex, Warwickshire play durham in what will be a very close game and Warwickshire already 2 down for 1o3, kent play Gloucestershire who also pass 90 without loss and Worcs play notts who have them 92/3.
 Cook, Bopara, Panesar, Patel, Woakes, Onions are the players to watch when it come to the test series this summer. I think that Lancashire, Warwickshire and Durham will be fighting for the championship this year and it will certainly be close. England will need to focus on finding ODI players after such a inconsistent world cup. The test match squad is very strong and should beat Sri Lanka and give India a very close series. We haven’t seen much of Graeme Onions this year but he had a good ashes series in 2009. Will he get back in the squad? Who knows. At this stage of the season my team to face Sri Lanka is: Strauss (c)
Cook (vc) Trott, Pietersen, Bell, Morgan, Prior (wk), Bresnan,Broad, Swann, Anderson. Bresnan beats tremlett, Shazad, onions,
and Finn after a good ashes test and also a good world cup, he also adds batting depth. 
    The IPL in short- Tendulkar starts of well and has the orange cap and Malinga with an impressive 15 wickets has the purple cap. Lots to look forward too. England's T20 king Eoin Morgan is yet too have an impact, he has had no time in the middle so far. Kallis has also impressed so far. For the team they have Pune are yet to impress and it will be interesting to see who qualifies.
          Tennis, Is Murray peaking before Wimbledon? is his poor form behind him, not long left but i think Nadal is still the more likely to win.