I thought today couldn’t get any worse when I got bowled out for one by Ryan Sidebottom and then found that Jonathan Trott had stolen my Official Team England dinner plate and spoon set in order to eat one of his disgusting biltong and melktert sandwiches that he says his nana used to make all the time when they was growing up in Shipton-Under-Witwatersrand and which he says is actually as English as warm beer, red post boxes and a crushing sense of being trapped by soul-sucking mediocrity and I dunno about that but to be fair he’s here now and that’s the main thing, stolen plate notwithstanding.

I get out the iPhone and there’s like six missed calls from Colin Gibson, who is what’s called a Director Of Communications at the ECB which is not as the name might suggest someone you go to if you can’t get a signal on your phone or Andersony’s hogging the official team laptop and you want to play Murder Death Kill IV: Revenge Of The Third Umpire online against some bloke in Myanmar but is in fact a sort of Public Relations person.

Anyway this Gibson isn’t your usual Public Relations person in that he doesn’t have blonde hair and a kind reassuring smile and say “Hi I’m Kyla / Katie / Klare / Keithetta etc” and offer to get you a hot or cold beverage before they make you answer the questions from the Bad People with the notebooks but in fact this Gibson is a large, angry man and he’s already on the iPhone again and I have to say he’s using some industrial language and not quietly neither. Read more…

Administrator England Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, ECB, England, Ian Bell, Jonathan Trott, Ryan Sidebottom, Twitter

Minister of State for External Affairs, Dr Shashi Tharoor’s cricketing journey has been a romantic one

DR Shashi Tharoor has not watched a cricket match in Pakistan, yet he has co-authored a book on India-Pakistan cricket. But not even a cynical view of this irony can prevent one from being convinced that the Minister of State for External Affairs is a cricket nut.

He has met the biggest of names during his travels as a diplomat, but his Friday meeting with present and former cricketers at the release function of his book Shadows Across the Playing Field was so memorable that it was quickly posted on Twitter.

During his chat with commentator Harsha Bhogle at the launch on Friday, Tharoor showed that he had a deep love for the willow game, developed in an era of simple dreams and pleasures. Unfortunately, his co-author Shaharyar Khan couldn’t make it to Mumbai; he wouldn’t miss the Ashes for anything.

In February 1967, Tharoor watched Ajit Wadekar flay a formidable Mysore team to score a Ranji Trophy triple-century at the Brabourne Stadium. Wadekar was among the audience on Friday.

Way back then

Tharoor proudly claimed that he wrote about Sachin Tendulkar in the late 1980s Read more…

Administrator Indian Cricket Ajit Wadekar, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Dr Shashi Tharoor, Gavaskar, Harsha Bhogle, Minister of State for External Affairs, Pakistan, Ranji Trophy, Shadows Across the Playing Field, Shaharyar Khan, Twitter