I hope it’s because of the accent I assume Dirty Dirk has and not a final nail in the coffin of local culture due to the overwhelming saccharine shinyness that is the main feature of the apparent total American cultural hegemony over the great southern land in this sad century.

OK, as a strayun living in pommieland maybe I’m biased but the seppo use of ‘ass’ where ‘arse’ is the right word clearly shows the inability of 300 million people to get the point of anything with any subtlety – including cricket, for that matter. It is good to call someone an ‘ass’ – the horse donkey mutant. It is also good to call someone an ‘arse’ – the thing that pads your spine when you sit. In fact arse is usually more offensive and having this gradation of meaning gives us all extra nuance with which to abuse someone.

By the way, and as a lone voice in the wilderness apparently, I quite like one day cricket. It’s 20 Twenty (Twenty 20, 20/20, twentytwenty) that I find dull. I’m happy that Indian people seem to enjoy their IPL (although I wonder at the truth of it) but it seems that just as the game starts to get going it’s over. Good for TV, bad for wasting a day (or a week for test but no-one seems to dislike test cricket in the ‘blogsphere -uggh to that term – or sporting press).

DLF Maximum to the max!

This is why McGain won’t ever get picked for Australia again. Forget the mauling he got against the saffers, there is not a chance in hell that Australian selectors would pick a bloke who speaks with correct grammer. Maybe if he put “and that” at the end of the sentence, or if him randomly threw in the word cunt, but otherwise … he’s cactus.

Asked if White should fill the vacancy left by Ponting as skipper of Australia’s T20 side, McGain said: “Absolutely. No question at all.

“It would be a great selection for the future. He has got great leadership qualities so I would absolutely endorse that,” McGain said.

and…
“His record is second to none. It’s comparable to the world’s best in Twenty20 cricket,” McGain said of Hodge.

“There’s no better opening bat than he. He has proven to be the best opening bat in Australian domestic cricket.

“It’s a different game and the experience lies with the domestic players who have been doing it for a number of years.

“So it (including Hodge) would make a bit more sense from the Australian selectors going into that West Indies series.”

I guess McGain is giving up on ever playing for Australia again if he is pushing Hodge to the Australian selectors.

thanks for that.