Ashes

[El Gordo]

Sir Geoffrey of Boycott was his usual scathing self in post match analysis, questioning whether we have got what it takes to come back from this spectacular collapse to even compete in the next test.



Whoever could you be refering to MLC?

I agree, a 20:20 match is superb entertainment. Why I'll concede that the last hour this morning/evening was quite entertaining. It's the preceding four and a half days of dull tedium that one had to wade through first to get to the good bit, that's the problem.

I'm almost with you there, SP. Actually being at a test match on a long hot summer's day, with a few friends, a hamper, couple of newspapers and a bar that's open all day really is one of life's great pleasures. Watching any but the final day on TV however, is rarely much fun. And even then, they only really stop mucking about in the last hour or two, and finally turn it into a sporting contest.

Surprisingly perhaps, I feel the same about Champions League football. The group stages usually amount to 3 months or so of tedium before the real stuff -- the knockout stages -- finally appear and it gets interesting at last. At least this week's final group matches have one or two issues to be resolved at last, but in the main it's been breathtakingly dull. It's awful to watch Chelsea lose while knowing that they've progressed to the next round in any case. A terrible waste of a defeat. It should be stored up and used in the knockout rounds. Bring back the good old days of knockout rounds from the very start. But of course, financially speaking, the turkeys will never vote for Christmas.