The Good 

• KP’s performance as the new England captain - came in with no captaincy experience and managed to get players performing and you can’t ask for more. A little bit worried he might just pick his mates even when times are tough, but I could be proved wrong.
• The return of Freddie - Rejoice! Flintoff back into the side is a HUGE boost, he adds something with bat, ball and character and we’ve missed him big style. Fingers crossed for no more injuries.
• England’s ODI performance against SA - 4-0 is a fantastic result for us, as things clicked in most areas for a change. We’ll not get too over the top but it was a pleasing sight after recent efforts on the ODI front. Maybe good things will happen at the Stanford Twenty20 competition!
• Stuart Broad - Not an outstanding test series summer, but he did very well in the ODI’s, and proved enough about him to see that is a real one to look forward to watching in the years to come.
• Getting Harmy back in the side - We all want Harmison in the side if his head is in the right place and he is bowling well. He was doing just that for Durham so he was brought back in and didn’t let us down. Please let it continue!
• KP’s Switch Hit - Brilliant, genius shot!

The Bad

• Not performing well against SA in the test series - we may have scored over 600 at Lords, and won the final test, but the fact of the matter is we lost the series and didn’t play consistently good cricket - we failed to even compete in stages.
• The Furore at the Oval ODI against NZ - with Grant Elliot being run out whilst lying on the floor this wasn’t a pretty occasion (despite my feelings that not that much was wrong with it). It died down pretty quickly, but for a while there cricket didn’t have a great ‘rep’.
• Tim Ambrose - Sorry Tim, but shut the door on your way out. No runs with the bat, dropped catches and not enough about you as a keeper, your time is up my friend.
• Playing NZ away, then home - It bored the crap out of me seeing the same opposition for what seemed likes months on end - shocking planning.
• The ODI against NZ at Edgbaston - I was there and I loved the day (and the nights before and afterwards..), but it was crap weather, I was in shorts and t-shirt fancy dress and the match was abandoned a few balls short of being an official match - what a waste of everyone’s time!

The Mediocre

• Strauss, Bell, Collingwood with the bat - individually at small stages they did well (Bell’s 199 in particular), but looking at the whole series they did it when they looked about to be for the chop which is really depressing. We know they can do it, so its frustrating when they wait for last chance salon to perform.
• Sideshow Ryan - After being the best and most consistent England bowler for a year, this summer wasn’t a great one for Ryan. Whether it was caused by injuries or not, he didn’t look threatening or worthy of a spot in the team towards the end of the year. A real shame after a great year previous but there are others pushing for this spot and he’ll have to put in some work.
• The Summer - Just generally, if you had to put a tag on the summer of cricket ‘mediocre’ would be it. We beat NZ like you would expect, but not in a convincing fashion, and then lost to SA before winning the ODI series. Up and down like normal for England then!

I’ve probably missed some bits out - so let me know what you thought of the summer in the comments!

They havn’t changed that much from the last year, but they have introduced the Slazenger i-blade and the Slazenger air blade to the bat range. Collingwood will use the i-blade, the bat which is the “power” bat in the new Slazenger range. The air blade bats are Slazenger’s lightest ever bat range, and will be used by Ian Bell. Pictures will follow as I find some good’uns (I’ve only seen rubbish ones so far!)

It is called the Albion NXT, and it will eventually replace the current Albion helmet, which has been very successful and taken a good chunk of the market share (especially in Australia, Albion’s home market).

The basic idea behind the helmet is to make the most comfortable helmet based around a newly developed “articulated shell assembly”, which appears to be a cross between their standard helmet and those from companies such as Masuri.

I still think the helmet looks a bit too much like Police riot gear, but you can’t argue against improvement, especially in an area such as safety (especially of your head). I’m not sure the slightly odd looks will appeal to everyone, but then the plastic look of the previous helmet was different and we quickly got used to that.

The Albion NXT isn’t available to purchase yet (they are saying December but that could be just in Australia), but as soon as it is it will no doubt be available in all the usual online stores!

“From a team point of view it was the worst display we have had for probably two years”
“The guys will come out and you will see a different side.”

Well then, what happened today Jacques?! The game was more or less over by the time I’d made it home, when I was looking forward to a nice evening watching cricket after the decent first ODI. I’ll have to settle for watching the highlights, and it’ll be interesting to see how, or why they were bowled out for so little and how we set about the target with ease. It isn’t what you’d expect from either team (or more to the point, you’d not be that surprised if it was England who capitulated!), so seeing the reaction from the SA camp will be good.

I’m not going to get too excited though, I’ve seen too many false dawns recently as an England fan to think we’ve suddenly become world beaters!

As there has been great interest in past posts of mine on equipment, and seeing as my general writing interest in live cricket is low at the moment, I’m going to start showcasing some new stuff as it hits the press. If you have any “scoops” or info which you think is worth me talking about, let me know and I’ll give you the credit if you so wish!

There is talk and rumour about Adidas releasing some cricket equipment this winter after the success of their English and Australian replica shirts. There is no doubt that with a brand name as big as theirs that they will have a certain amount of success, but until we see the quality of the equipment then i’ll reserve judgement on the full success.

Early ‘09 news from Gray Nicolls is two new bat ranges, the ignite and xiphos, and from Albion there is a rather bizarre looking new helmet, as worn by Andre Nel the other night. I’ll try and find a better picture in the next few days but it looks more like a police riot helmet than a cricket one!

Speaking of the Premier League (the football kind not the cricket kind), now that it has started cricket will start to find press and tv coverage harder to come by. Unless anything really outstanding happens in the upcoming ODI series against SA, cricket will be nothing but the odd mention a few pages in, which is par for the course and accepted pretty much by now. Clubs around the country have only a couple of league games left in the season and thoughts turn to depressing things like winter. Who’s joining me on a flight to Australia?!

I don’t have high hopes for the series, I’m not that bothered if we win either to be honest, I just want to see some entertaining cricket! We tried to play Scotland today in a warm up to the series, but being August it rained a lot - I don’t know the forecast for the first Twenty20 game, but given this current weather we may not have that much hope of getting a full decent game in. We can hope though!