Archive for the Cricket Category

« Older Entries

Sport and Politics

Posted in Cricket, Football, Politics with tags , , , , on May 24, 2026 by telescoper

I have found this a very disappointing weekend in many respects for sports. Two Irish rugby teams (Ulster and Leinster) both lost their cup finals against French opposition (Montpellier and Bordeaux in the Challenge Cup and Champions Cup, respectively). Glamorgan’s cricketers lost their first two Twenty20 games of the season (both narrowly). And today’s last round of matches in the English Premier League saw Newcastle lose, an outcome made worse by the fact that Sunderland won.

At least however there was an opportunity to enjoy Ireland’s greatest spectator sport (after hurling, of course): the counting of votes in an election. Friday saw two by-elections, one because of the resignation of Paschal Donohoe (FG) from his seat in Dublin Central in order to take a lucrative job at the World Bank, and the other vacated by Catherine Connolly whose seat in Galway West became vacant when she took on the role of President. Neither of these are constituencies in which I could vote, but it was fun watching the results come on.

These elections, like all elections in Ireland, were held under a system of Proportional Representation (Single Transferable Vote). The constituences return multiple members in a General Election, but in the case of a by-election only one candidate is elected. This simplifies matters a bit because the part of the process that involves transferring surplus votes from candidates who exceed quota is not needed. Voters rank the candidates in order of preference with votes progressively reallocated as the lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated. You can rank all the candidates or just some. In the system employed here one ranks the candidates in order of preference with votes progressively reallocated in various rounds until one ends up with one winner.

There was also the presence of gang leader Gerard Hutch among the candidates in Dublin Central, but in the end he didn’t put up a serious challenge.

Opinion polls gave Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan a narrow lead on first preferences, but since SF are notoriously transfer-unfriendly, I was very confident that lead would be overturned by Daniel Ennis of the Social Democrats. As it turned out, however, Ennis actually led on first preferences which confirmed me in my opinion that he would win. This is how the transfers panned out.

Ennis won comfortably, and John Stephens of Fianna Fáil gaining the distinction of getting the lowest share of first preference votes that his party has ever recorded in an election. There are some bizarre transfers, e.g. from the left-wing PBP (People Before Profit) to Fine Gael. Other than that the outcome was as predicted.

Not long ago Sinn Féin were riding high in the polls and might have expected to win a seat here, especially since Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Féin leader, holds a seat in Dublin Central, but their popularity has slumped. I think that’s primarily because they have recently lurched to the right – rather like UK Labour has – and many who want a genuinely progressive alternative to the crumbling neoliberal consensus have decided that they can’t support SF which puts on the mask of a progressive party when it suits them but are quite to remove it when chasing the right-wing vote. is quoted as saying that there is ‘no confusion’ for voters about whether the party was left-wing or right-wing. I think she is correct there, but perhaps not in the way she intended…

A genuinely left-wing party of the size of Sinn Féin should be building coalitions and knocking at the door to power, but instead it has squandered its position by pandering to anti-immigrant sentiment, jumping on the bandwagon of the recent “fuel protests” and signing up to transphobic policies in Northern Ireland. I don’t understand why they have chosen this path, but it looks very foolish to me. I’m not the only one to think this. Is Morgan McSweeney now working for Sinn Féin?

As I write, the count in Galway West is still going on but it has come down to a contest between two unpalatable right-wing candidates so I’m not following it as closely. Oh, the Fine Gael candidate has won.

5 Comments »

Back to May(nooth)

Posted in Biographical, Cricket, Maynooth with tags , , on May 4, 2026 by telescoper
Not May Blossom (actually Common Pearlbrush)

So here I am, back home in Maynooth after a long weekend away in Not Maynooth. The weather forecast for Maynooth was typically dreadful for a Bank Holiday weekend but I have to say I can’t sign see much sign of the heavy rain that was predicted.

On the way back I checked the cricket scores and discovered that Glamorgan won their County Championship game against Hampshire by an innings and 69 runs. That’s worth marking on this blog because it is their first win in Division One since 2005. Historic. Their first three games this season ended in a defeat and two draws, so it was 4th time lucky. Well played to them!

Anyway the last four days of teaching term beckon, including a 9am lecture tomorrow morning, so I had better leave it at that and try to get into a work frame of mind.

Leave a comment »

John Venn’s Bowling Machine

Posted in Cricket, mathematics with tags , , on April 14, 2026 by telescoper

Most readers of this blog will be aware of the existence of Venn Diagrams, but not a lot of people know that their creator, John Venn, invented a mechanical bowling machine for use by cricketers in batting practice. Recently some folks at Cambridge University built a replica of this machine, presumably with the aid of some sort of diagram, and here’s a fascinating video about it.

Modern bowling machines fire the ball at you like a cannon, but this machine has the virtue of the batter being able to see the arm coming over which must help a little. This creation is also able to impart quite a bit of spin, in either direction but it looks like it should be quite easy to pick. The examples shown in the video also demonstratte that batting is only partly about hand-eye coordination – a key element is how to move your feet!

1 Comment »

Cricket over Easter

Posted in Cardiff, Cricket with tags , , , , on April 6, 2026 by telescoper

The Easter long weekend (Good Friday to Easter Monday, April 3rd to 6th, inclusive) this year coincided with the first round of matches in the County Championship. It doesn’t seem very long since the last season finished! I haven’t followed cricket very closely since I moved to Ireland, but I do look on the internet from time to time to see how Glamorgan are getting on. I follow them because I live in Cardiff. Glamorgan were promoted from Division 2 to Division 1 last season and at the time I wrote that I wouldn’t bet against them getting relegated so it was with some trepidation that I checked the scores on the first day of their first match against Yorkshire at Sophia Gardens.

As it happened, the weather was very bad in Cardiff on Good Friday and play started very late. When it did get going (in the late afternoon), the playing conditions were evidently very helpful for the bowlers, and Glamorgan slumped to 28-4 with a batting disaster on the cards. After that. though, they recovered well, though slowly, amid various interruptions for rain and bad light, to reach a respectable score of 302. Things looked even better when they bowled out the opposition for 226 for a first-innings lead of 76. They had a chance of forcing a victory on the last day, after a bold declaration before lunch, but didn’t have enough overs to bowl Yorkshire out for the second time – I think the batting conditions had probably improved over the four days – and the match was drawn. I think this was not a bad outcome given the position they were in on Day 1.

Looking at the County Championship Table I realised that scoring system has changed. It is still 16 points for a win, but it used to be 8 points each for a tied match and only 5 each for a draw. Now it’s 8 points for either a draw or a tie, so it is back to being a zero-sum game (in some sense).  I see that change was made back in 2021!

I was also initially surprised to see Glamorgan given only 1 batting bonus point despite scoring 302, but then I remembered that bonus points are only given for the first 110 overs of the first innings and Glamorgan had not reached 300 after that number of overs. The same reasoning also denied Yorkshire a bowling point, actually.

I admit however that I haven’t figured the rules for adding on time at the end of a day when play has been lost to the weather. I thought only a maximum of 30 minutes could be added in the County Championship on the first 3 days: with a scheduled close of play at 6pm, that would mean delaying the close to 6.30pm. Last night – i.e the end of Day 3 – play went on until well past 7pm. I suppose the umpires have discretion to carry over more of the deficit if the 30 minutes per day is not sufficient. In all, 61 overs were lost in this match anyway, despite the time added.

4 Comments »

The County Game

Posted in Cricket, GAA with tags , , , , on February 13, 2026 by telescoper

The National Hurling League – not to be confused with the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship (which follows it and ends in the All-Ireland Final) – started a couple of weeks ago so inter-county hurling has been on the telly recently once more. The League is organized in 5 divisions (1a, 1b, 2, 3 and 4) and the TV coverage usually focusses on higher-division teams . Last week for example, there was a televised game between Cork and Tipperary, last year’s Championship finalists, in Div 1a. Cork won a feisty contest in front of a crowd of over 40,000 that exploded into a huge brawl near half-time . Anyway, I was looking through the lower divisions on the web and did a bit of a double-take when I reached Division 4 as I thought I’d got muddled up with the cricket!

Yes, there are two English counties in the Hurling League. There’s also a team from London in Division 3. None of them are doing very well, but if you want to see some live hurling in England you could check out Lancashire GAA, Warwickshire GAA or London GAA.

2 Comments »

Ashes to Ashes…

Posted in Cricket with tags , , , , , , on January 8, 2026 by telescoper

I woke up this quite early this morning but when I checked the cricket scores I discovered that the Fifth Ashes Test between Australia and England at Sydney had already finished. Australia wobbled a bit chasing a modest target, but won in the end by 5 wickets and thereby won the series 4-1. I think that result is a fair reflection of the performance of the two teams and Australia thoroughly deserved to retain the Ashes. England’s victory in Melbourne, on a difficult batting surface, prevented a whitewash and gave them a Test win for the first time since 2010, but none of the other matches were particularly close run. In terms of attendances it was a very successful series – the five days at Sydney broke the record – but the quality of the cricket was very variable, and Australia taking a 3-0 lead after three games made the last two Tests feel rather irrelevant.

It was a particularly disappointing series for England, who must have thought they had a better chance of winning than for a long time. Australia were without key players, especially Josh Hazlewood and captain Pat Cummins (the latter only played one Test). On top of that, England captain Ben Stokes won four of the five tosses. Winning the toss at Sydney, as Stoke did, could have set up an interesting contest had England scored enough runs when they batted first (although they lacked a world-class spinner who could have won the match). Call me old-fashioned, but one of the things I enjoy best about cricket is seeing a high-quality spinner in action. Australia didn’t have one at Sydney either, Lyons having been injured.

England of course had their own injury difficulties during the tour, losing two fast bowlers in Mark Wood and Jofra Archer early in the tour. Of the replacement bowlers, Josh Tongue looked the best – and most likely to take wickets in Australian conditions – but Stokes seemed reluctant to let him open the bowling.

As it turned out, Mitchell Starc (Man of the Series) led the second-string of Austalian bowlers extremely well. It is also worth mentioning Michael Neser, a bowling all-rounder who has played for Glamorgan, who stepped into the breach and doing well with the ball. Other Glamorgan Australians Marnus Labuschagne and Usman Khawaja did not have such a successful series; the latter has now retired from Test cricket.

Jamie Smith playing an idiotic shot against the bowling of Marnus Labuschagne

I didn’t see much of the cricket – only highlights – but it seems to me there was a crucial difference in the fielding. England dropped far too many catches, including easy ones, while Australia held onto some stunners. England’s batters also had a tendency to play stupid shots at important times. I’m thinking primarly of Jamie Smith’s dismissal off the innocuous bowling of Marnus Labuschagne, which was calamitous, but there were others. Above all, though, I think the first few matches revealed England’s preparation to have been completely inadequate. Questions should be asked not only of the squad selection but also of the management of the tour, especially the lack of practice matches.

On the bright side (for England), Joe Root scored his first Test century in Australia and then scored his second. Jacob Bethell who is only 22, scored a fine century in the final Test at Sydney. I’ve read articles praising him, but didn’t see much evidence in the stats to justify their opinion. Now he’s shown what he can do in the Test arena, I wonder if he will turn out to be a successor to Root?

Anyway, that’s the Ashes done and dusted (so to speak). By the time of the next Ashes series Australia (2029/2030) I will have retired. Although I’ve been to Sydney, I’ve never visited Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide or Melbourne. Now there’s an idea…

P.S. I was slightly surprised that Mitchell Starc was Man of the Series. Travis Head scored 629 runs, which was to my mind even more impressive. Still, this award is ample compensation:

Travis Head named the Beard of the Ashes series

2 Comments »

Summer’s Over

Posted in Biographical, Cricket, Maynooth with tags , , , on September 28, 2025 by telescoper

I’ve done quite a few posts recently about the ending of summer – the Autumnal Equinox, the resumption of teaching, the start of a new season at the National Concert Hall are three indicators – but now we really have reached which I regard as the definite conclusion. Yesterday saw the last day of the last round of matches in cricket’s County Championship.

I haven’t followed cricket very closely since I moved to Ireland, but I do look and see how Glamorgan are getting on. The County Championship started very poorly for them, with a thrashing by Middlesex, but they improved substantially and went into the last round of matches secure in 2nd place of Division 2. They lost their last match in Cardiff against a team from the Midlands, by 7 wickets – a game that actually ended on Friday – but they still finished second. That means that they get promoted to Division 1 for the first time in 21 years.

I wouldn’t bet against them being relegated straight away, though. Last time they got promoted (in 2004) they played just one season (2005) in the First Division, during which they lost 14 of their 16 matches, and dropped back down. They almost got promoted in 2010 but were pipped for second place by Worchestershire, who were the beneficiaries of an exceedingly generous – let’s put it that way – declaration by Sussex that allowed them to win their last match. Anyway, to avoid the drop next season Glamorgan need to improve their pace attack considerably. I wonder who, if anyone, they’ll sign?

Glamorgan plays an important role in the international cricket ecosystem, especially with the Ashes coming up. Many of Australia’s star players – including Marnus Labuschagne, Michael Neser, and Usman Khawaja – only came to prominence after stepping up to the big time to play for Glamorgan.

Knowing that the cricket season was almost over, on Friday I decided to give my front lawn one last mow too. The mower is now in the shed until next spring. Leaves have been falling for some time already, so I swept up what I could after cutting the grass. That reminds me to share this, which I found on Bluesky:

I really hate those things…

Anyway, we have completed one week of teaching at Maynooth University which passed off reasonably smoothly. I only had one timetabling glitch, but that was resolved trivially by just swapping two sessions. This year the Department of Physics has quite a lot of students in the final-year on the Physics with Astrophysics programme, run before the merger by the Department of Experimental Physics. Now we’re combined we can share the load and I’ll be supervising a couple of students on an astrophysics project, which will be a new experience. I haven’t really taught much astrophysics since coming here nearly eight years ago, so this will make a nice change.

3 Comments »

Cricket Limbo

Posted in Cricket, Music with tags , , , , , on August 5, 2025 by telescoper

Since moving to Ireland I haven’t seen much cricket, though I do follow some games on the internet and watch the highlights from time to time. Yesterday’s final-day victory by India over England by just six runs at the Oval brought to an end an excellent series of five Test matches, drawn 2-2 with one match drawn. Chris Woakes had to go into bat at Number 11 with an arm in a sling because of a dislocated shoulder. Shades of Colin Cowdrey going in to bat against the West Indies at Lord’s in 1963 with a broken arm. Neither Cowdrey nor Woakes faced a ball, actually. England drew in 1963, while still six runs behind with one wicket standing, while Woakes was not out as India won by six runs. A series draw just about seems a fair result to me.

Test cricket is something special and the 2025 England vs India series had more than the usual share of memorable moments. The two teams were evenly matched, tempers got a bit frayed from time to time, but both sides should be congratulated for providing such magnificent fare. A Test Match series is a cricket feast like no other.

As Keith Flett mentions in his blog, the Oval test has traditionally the last of the summer, usually taking place later in August, the lengthening shadows given that distinctive end-of-season feel. This year, however, the Oval test finished on 4th August (yesterday), and there’s no more Test cricket this summer. The schedule has been pushed forward to accommodate the gimmicky and unintestering competion called The Hundred, which starts today. The first of the last three County Championship fixtures don’t start until September 8th. It’s all a bit shit, really.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Monday: Test cricket finished for the summer; Tuesday: The Hundred starts

Anyway, just for nostalgia’s sake, I thought I’d post the old theme song from the BBC’s cricket coverage (when it used to be free on TV). It is Soul Limbo by Booker T. & the M.G.’s. We never got to hear the whole track, but as proper cricket is in Limbo for a month it seems appropriate to do so now.

1 Comment »

How to Hold your Hurley

Posted in Cricket, GAA, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on July 6, 2025 by telescoper

This is a big weekend for fans of hurling, as we have reached the semi-final stage of the All Ireland Senior Hurling Championship. Yesterday Cork trounced Dublin by 7-26 to 2-21. I’ve never seen such a high scoring game at the top level, nor a margin as large as 20 points (a goal is worth 3 points)! Though not expected by many to progress, Dublin had deservedly beaten Limerick in the quarter-finals but they were never in the game yesterday.

The other semi-final takes place this afternoon at 4pm, and is between Kilkenny and Tipperary. Which of these will meet Cork in the Final? We’ll soon find out!

Update: it was another high scoring match, finishing Kilkenny 0-30 to Tipperary’s 4-20, so Tipperary won by 2 points (with a goal in the last minute). The All Ireland Final will therefore be between Cork and Tipperary.

Both semi-finals are held at Croke Park, as is the final. Many supporters come through Maynooth on their way to these matches, as we’re on the train line that goes into Dublin Connolly via Drumcondra (the nearest station to Croke Park). There is an arrangement by which supporters can park their cars at the GAA ground in Maynooth and take the train, as there is no chance of parking near Croke Park.

Yesterday evening I needed to do a quick trip to the shops and ran into a crowd of returning Cork supporters who had just arrived by train. Most fans were in very good humour (unsurprisingly) but a few were very much the worse for drink: one young lad had passed out on the footpath and concerned pedestrians called an ambulance; over the road at the bus terminus Gardaí were dealing with a drunk and aggressive person; and in Supervalu a hopelessly inebriated bloke staggered into the off-licence part to get more booze but ended up falling over and dropping the cans he had picked up, with one bursting and making a mess all over the floor.

Anyway, none of this is to do with the intended subject of this post. Cork’s victory yesterday reminded me of a little bit of hurling information that I found interesting, concerning the way to hold the hurley. Having been brought up on a different bat-and-ball game (cricket), I was surprised to learn that in hurling you are supposed to hold the bat the wrong way round! What I mean by that is that in cricket the batter holds the bat with the dominant hand at the bottom of the handle near the blade and the other hand at the top. For illustration, here’s a forward defensive shot played by a right-hander:

For illustration, on the left, there’s a forward defensive shot played by a right-hander. You can see the left hand at the top of the handle and the right hand near the bottom. Shots like this are played predominatly with the bat moving in a vertical plane, guided by the left hand with the right hand guiding the direction. A hook or pull shot is played with the same grip but swinging the bat across the body from right to left with more bottom hand.

When I was at school I tried batting left-handed in the nets. It was quite interesting. I found I could play defensive shots equally well that way as with my usual right-handed stance, but I couldn’t play attacking shots very well at all.

It’s the same arrangement in baseball (or rounders, as we call it on this side of the Atlantic). The batter will hold the bat with their weaker hand nearer the end of the handle, i.e. towards the thin end.

On the other hand (!), a hurler holds the hurley the other way round. On the right you can see a hurler at the ready position, with his right hand at the top of the handle and the left hand near the blade. When striking the sliotar (ball), the hands are moved closer together. Holding the end of the hurley in the dominant hand means that more strength can be applied when reaching away from the body with one hand, something that isn’t really done in cricket. The typical long-range strike of the sliotar is rather like a hook shot in cricket, except it’s played the opposite way across the body.

Here’s a video:

This seems very unnatural if you have been brought up to use the opposite basic grip, which explains why so many struggled even to hit the sliotar at the practice at the EAS Social Dinner in Cork a couple of weeks ago. In Ireland, however, kids learn to play hurling when they’re still in kindergarten so this is instilled at a very early age.

2 Comments »

The Test Final and Final Examination Board

Posted in Cricket, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , , on June 12, 2025 by telescoper

Had I not been obliged to attend this morning’s final Examination Board for Theoretical Physics programmes at Maynooth University, I would have been at Lord’s today watching Day 2 of the World Test Cricket final between Australia and South Africam where it is now the Tea interval. There certainly wouldn’t have been any cricket in Maynooth this morning, as there has been torrential rain all day so far, but the Exam Board went ahead and finished even before South Africa were all out in their first innings for 138, after late-order collapse, in response to Australia’s first innings total of 212.

As I already mentioned, today’s Examination Board we went through the results in the presence of our External Examiner. Since this is the end of the academic year, we also looked at the final grades of those students who are completing their studies this year in order to consider the classification of their degrees. Another (pleasant) duty of our Examination Board was to award prizes for the best performance, not just for finalists but for students at every stage, including the first year. These will be announced in due course.

But that’s not quite the end of it – there is an overall University Examination Board that covers all courses in the University to formally bring an end to the examination process. It is not until after all the Boards have done their business that the students get their marks. If all goes to plan, students will receive their final marks on Friday 27th June.

Soon after that, on Tuesday 1st July, we have a Consultation Day, where

Staff will be available in all Departments to discuss results with students. Students are entitled to see their examination scripts if they wish, these will be generally available on this day or at another mutually convenient time.

If I had my way we would actually give all students their marked examination scripts back as a matter of routine. Obviously examination scripts have to go through a pretty strict quality assurance process involving the whole paraphernalia of examination boards (including External Examiners), so the scripts can’t be given back immediately but once that process is complete there doesn’t seem to me any reason why we shouldn’t give their work, together with any feedback written on it,  back to the students in its entirety. I have heard it argued that under the provisions of the Data Protection Act students have a legal right to see what’s written on the scripts – as that constitutes part of their student record – but I’m not making a legalistic point here. My point is purely educational, based on the benefit to the student’s learning experience.

That’s one set of examination duties done and dusted, but not everything. Next Tuesday I am Internal Examiner for a PhD at Maynooth and, about a month from now, I have to travel to a foreign land to be an External Examiner. It’s all go…

Leave a comment »

« Older Entries