Too Much Sport

Last weekend was setting up to be a sporting dream come true. The Ashes test at Lord's; rugby v NZ and our local NY Ashes match as well.

Well...the Lord's test was shocking. Too much horrible bowling gave the Poms a good start and we never fully recovered. The umpiring did not help but we only have ourselves to blame for this one and hopefully we can get things going again soon. You have to reckon Stuart Clark has to come into the side in some way...can we drop Johnson???

The rugby was almost worse as we really threw this one away. Bombed opportunities and a few key moments cost us the game that we should have won. We have a few weeks to get over this one but I was very disappointed in this result.

So, it was up to us to beat the NY Poms in our annual Ashes game. I did OK in the field - took a catch and got a wicket...but we have a lot of players who turn out once a year and we leaked about 30 runs more than I think we should have through bad balls a wides. They ended up with 192 from their 35 overs. In our reply, we lost a few wickets but I was able to get a few partnerships going. The one key moment happened about 1/2 way through when I called for a single and the runner hesitated before being run out. There was certainly a run there so it was quite frustrating to end this partnership in this way. I had to up the pace at the end and ended up stumped for 66, leaving us with about 20 to get. We needed 12 from the last two balls and our keeper sent one into the trees to give us a chance, however, a big swing and miss at the next one left us 6 runs short of the total. It was a great afternoon though and we will be looking for revenge next year when we do it all again.