Sky Sports have released some particularly brilliant adverts for the coming few months involving cricketers and golfers in places you wouldn’t expect them! A raccoon friend of mine brought the KP one to my attention first – and the second one is also class with Ernie Els playing at the MCG! Enjoy!

As you have no doubt noticed, this blog has a new theme! I got a bit bored with the old one and wanted something that looked a bit fresher and different.

Things may shift around a bit for the next week or so whilst I return everything that existed on the old theme, and if there is something you think I should include let me know!

There’s been nothing going on really in the cricket world in the past couple of weeks. Today India and Pakistan started a five game ODI series which is big for the two countries but does little to inspire me. Australia and Sri Lanka will start up a test series as well this week, but for the England fan things are quiet (apart from that idiot Fletcher still getting media attention).

So for today I’m just going to point you to a news story I saw on the BBC site this evening about a bunch of people who are going to play cricket on the slopes of Mount Everest, setting a world record in the meantime. They are hoping to raise a bit of money whilst having some fun. One thing though – the temperature up there could me -13…. just think of the hard cricket ball hitting your hands at that temperature. I moan enough at the start of the UK season when I think its cold! Take a look at the story at BBC News, and if I find anymore info or pics of this event I’ll let you know!

A quick post here – This is an old’en but a good’en I saw again tonight – Borat trying to play cricket!

Whilst sat at a the county ground in Taunton last weekend basking in the un-summer-like sun, I heard something from a kid in front of me that got me thinking. The boy was probably around 10, and was at a Pro 40 game with his dad. About an hour in, he said “I’m bored, I prefer twenty20″. He moaned that they had only bowled 13 overs in an hour (slow admittedly, but it was very hot), and that it wasn’t exciting enough. Bearing in mind that Trescothick and Langer were at the crease on a small Taunton ground and it seemed like the boy’s problem was rather in his head than what he was actually seeing. He liked twenty20, therefore anything longer than that must be boring. And lets face it, there is a bit of that kid in all of us.Twenty20 has been so hyped up by the marketing bods at the counties, on TV and in the magazines and newspapers that almost everything else is a let down in comparison. We think we want to see boundaries every over, balls hit out the ground and some blistering run rates. However, twenty20 is only one part of cricket and however successful it has been, I’m starting to think its almost getting too successful and is close to harming the traditional forms of the game.

Come a Saturday afternoon, those that want to play a game of club cricket generally want it to be a 45-50 over affair. There are longer forms of the game going higher up the ECB pyramid also, and these games are supposed to get people ready for county cricket and maybe beyond. If the counties were to start playing more twenty20 cricket though, the skills required to be successful as a county player will change, and from there upwards our test players would change in skills also. Test cricket is still the pinnacle and gets great attention in the media and crowds, and we need players who can play the longer form of the game (something our current batsmen are making look hard!)

We need to do something to ensure that the cricketers coming through get experience of all types of cricket, and if the youngest generation only want to play the short version of the game that isn’t going to happen. Something needs to be done to generate interest in the Pro40, County Championship and Friends Provident trophies. Pro40 out of these doesn’t do too bad at some counties (if the weather is right), but there is still more that could be done. There are far too many kids at these games who aren’t even watching the cricket which surely isn’t right. Running around the ground, playing cricket with a tennis ball and not being able to see the pitch whilst Tresco, Langer and Blackwell are batting, surely Pro40 can’t be that bad?

One thing I know cricket misses out on is the pre-match news and views that other sports give. If we take football for an example, before any match we will have been on the club website, seen who might be playing, who is injured and a couple of interviews with managers and players. Sky Sports News is currently full of transfer rumours and injury news and the football season hasn’t even started yet! You try getting some information about the latest team news etc from a county club and it just won’t happen. If you offer this kind of service and news it may then get picked up by the TV and newswires which will immediately get you some possible additional coverage.

The ECB do offer some cricket clubs tickets for participating in schemes such as Focus Clubs, Cricket Force etc, but they are not greatly advertised and as such many people wouldn’t know how beneficial it is to participate. You cannot just give out some free tickets either though and expect everything to be all right. It needs a considered, long term plan to get people through the turnstiles at grounds around the country, something which I don’t see any evidence of currently.

It is an issue that needs to be addressed or forever you will get kids not going to any game that is “boring” or not Twenty20. What did his dad say to the boy mentioned in this post “Give it a chance”. I imagine he went home that night though and wondered whether it was worth returning until an “interesting” Twenty20 game comes around again. Clubs cannot build a season around getting crowds in for two weeks of the season, and something will have to be done to ensure all forms of cricket are marketed well throughout the country.

A couple of days in cricket land and there seems as though there has been a bit to talk about but I missed it all due to being kinda busy!

We’ve had Vaughan blaming Freddie for the failure of the England team in the world cup in The Guardian, so it was kind of surprising anyone saw it! This was then followed by lots of people shouting Vaughan down, and saying (quite rightly) that you shouldn’t “bag” your own teammates in the press. And finally (for the moment), we’ve had Vaughan saying he was misquoted, and that he didn’t say “Fredalo” which was the word for Freddie and Pedalo incident apparently! At this moment I’d like to insert a comical picture of a said “fredalo”, but my photoshop skills are a bit rubbish, so I’ll let anyone else out there do it and get in touch!

It was all Vaughan’s fault now apparently – he was a rubbish captain and didn’t play very well himself he says. I’ll agree with the second point, but we were never going to get anywhere in the World Cup as we have no idea who should be playing. And anyway that was a couple of months ago now and to be honest, I think everyone has moved on!

Alan Donald has started his five weeks of consultancy with the England team, and I’m looking forward to seeing if he can bring some fresh impetus to Harmy and Plunkett. They aren’t that far off where they need to be at times, but a fresh mind and ideas can only be a good thing. It should be good to have the updates again during the day at work, before coming home to watch the highlights on sky (oh no, my sky box is broken isn’t it!). Channel Five highlights it is then!

Away from the actual playing of cricket, I read a post elsewhere (i’m sorry I can’t remember where it was) about the horrific tv programme that is “Cricket AM“. I completely agree, I think this is about as bad as TV can get. The recipe seemed quite simple: Take super popular, well branded show (soccer am), and replicate for cricket. New sport – check; new presenters – check; new silly features (throwing “wrong-handed” at the stumps) – check. So where did it go wrong. Well it started with the presenters – they are so wooden that I imagine they are being used as stumps somewhere in the London area on a Saturday. The female clearly doesn’t know what she’s doing, and this is the second season of the show! There are big pauses, inane chat and crap questions to the people there. I’m really surprised that sky brought the programme back – Soccer AM, and the “Allsports Show” on a Friday night in the winter, work well, but this is so obviously rubbish I’d rather watch Saturday Kitchen…..

I’ll try and keep up with news in the future so posts don’t seem as jumbled as this was.. at least in my head it was!