Posted by The Cricket World Cup is insanely long. Cycling’s ‘grand tours’ are considered epic feats of endurance but the World Cup started in May, halfway through the Giro d’Italia, and finished in July, halfway through the Tour de France.
(Here’s a recap of the first week of this year’s Tour and here’s where you can get the next two weekly recaps emailed to you.)
The World Cup is simply too big to hold in your brain. Here are some of the things that happened.
1. The 82% amazing Ben Stokes catch
Airborne blind backhand catches anyone?
2. Sri Lanka have four goes at stopping the ball and fail
Why fail to stop the ball once when you could fail to stop it four times?
3. Jason Roy decking umpire Joel Wilson and umpire Joel Wilson not being at all happy about it
Flooring an umpire while securing your hundred is maybe 50 per cent funny. Joel Wilson’s face in response to Jason Roy’s apology for said flooring was about 96 per cent funny.
4. Faf du Plessis having to explain everything
Being South Africa captain at a Cricket World Cup is a very rubbish job.
5. Glenn Maxwell’s 10-ball knock against Bangladesh
And people say he had a bad tournament.
6. Lasith Malinga paunching England to death
They’ll never, ever master facing him.
7. Carlos Brathwaite runs out of magic
It seemed like he could do anything. But he couldn’t.
8. Chris Gayle’s diving stop
Timberrrrrr.
9. Richard Kettleborough’s face when MS Dhoni was run out
The run-out was pretty memorable. But the face. It was all in the face.
10. Usman Khawaja ramping the ball into his own stumps
Shot!
11. Steve Smith getting run out through his legs
Contrast with the Ben Stokes deflecto-non-run-out in the final.
12. Jason Roy v Umpires Part II
Poor Umpire Dhamasena.
13. Sky letting Channel 4 broadcast the final
Hats off, because they didn’t have to. (There’s a petition to get more international cricket on free-to-air TV, by the way.)
Assuming no major developments before August 1, Now TV will probably be your best option for watching the Ashes, with highlights (at a civilised hour) on Channel 5.
Wonderful work – some unforgettable scenes here (although I had already forgotten some – thanks for the reminder).
Thanks also for the magnificent and frequent coverage which has added an extra, very enjoyable dimension throughout this epic (in both senses) tournament. Chapeau!
We have other work to do as well as this, so even with missing a full week at the end of the group stages covering the tournament has at times felt pretty tough. (Partly because everything becomes so frenetic either side of going away.)
We always appreciate a thank you and we’re glad to know there are people who enjoyed at least some of what we did. As always, please put the word out, sign up to the email, follow us on Twitter etc.
Most welcome, KC. Following recent travels, I also have what in these parts might be termed ‘a submission’, which in a cricketing and literal sense is purest village. I look forward to my ability to spake returning, along with the getoffarseability to actually put some words to what is a most amusing and unusual scene. Watch this spake, as one might say.
Crackin’.
Thanks also for linking to that petition. Although a) it’s a bit depressing/sobering to see that they are setting their sights as low as 45,000 sigs and b) the buggers only tried to get money out of me when I signed up…
… I had not seen anything like that until (literally) yesterday when my daughter came down and asked my permission to sign an online petition for an environmental campaign; we did it using my details, at which point they not only asked for a donation, but rather made it look as if our “signature” would not be counted otherwise. That turned out not to be the case, but by that point I was probably already swearing at the laptop. (Can’t actually remember if I did or not, but swearing at the laptop is pretty much default mode in these cases, sooooo…)
Is that normal now, then? You stick yer head above the parapet by declaring your support of some cause or other and they immediately try and hit you up? Cos, like, fuck that.
A most sobering pair of results in the CC this week, Dane. Are we still confident? I suppose the title is technically still ‘in our hands’, although that requires us remaining within c.15 points of Essex going into that final game showdown…
I have been avoiding talking about it..! Could barely bring myself to look at the scorecards over the last few days… at first it looked as if Essex might not win their match, but once it became apparent they were likely to do so, I just tuned out really. There is a very negative little voice inside me saying that now they have overtaken us, we will never catch them again… of course the gap is only four points at present, but what worries me really is that – for all the games they have already won this season – when Somerset fail, they really look very vulnerable indeed…
Thirteen is an ideal number of moments. So clickbait-yet-not-clickbait. Fine work.
Excellent summary of hugely entertaining coverage.
I still can barely spake.
I haven’t heard a squeak from Charley “The Gent” Malloy nor from Nigel “Father Barry” White. I guess none of us can spake.