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Glamorgan versus Essex: Vitality Blast Twenty20

Posted in Cricket with tags , , , , , on August 7, 2018 by telescoper

I’m back in Cardiff for a few days sorting out some logistics, and also to make the most of what remains on my season ticket for Glamorgan cricket club, where I spent this evening.

While my late supper warms in the oven I just have time to post a quick item about this evening’s events at Sophia Gardens.

I don’t normally do selfies unless they’re of other people but I’m posting the above one because it made it via Twitter onto the big screen during the match. Fame at last!

Essex won the toss and out Glamorgan into bat. Glamorgan got off to a poor start, losing both openers cheaply. That brought Colin Ingram to the crease and the scoring accelerated, especially when he took apart the hapless Quinn for 30 off one over.

Glamorgan reached 110 for 3 off 11 overs, of which Ingram had scored 85, but they then faltered against good bowling. Ingram fell with the score on 135 for 7, at the start of the 17th over. Essex were on top.

Graham Wagg and Ruaidhri Smith then launched a stunning counter-attack and in the blink of an eye and a flurry of boundaries, Glamorgan were suddenly 198 for 7 off their 20 overs.

It was a good score in the end, but Essex started well with the bat and Glamorgan’s bowlers at first struggled to contain them. Gradually however Glamorgan began to exert some control. Wagg was outstanding in the crucial middle overs.

Pressure built, some wickets fell, but Essex didn’t collapse and kept more or less in touch with wickets in hand and the experienced Bopara at the crease and looking in good form.

The crowd waited anxiously for the climax. Essex needed 48 off the last 3 overs. Then 32 off 2. Then, after an excellent penultimate over from Wagg, 24 from the last. With Ravi Bopara on strike.

Michael Hogan ran into bowl. His first two balls conceded two fours, one a very difficult dropped catch that might have gone for six if the fielder hadn’t got a hand to it. Now it was 16 off 4 balls. The next ball was skied but fell safe for 2 runs. That meant 14 from 3; at least one six needed. Hogan bowled and Bopara obliged, slogging one into the Grandstand.

Eight now needed off two balls. Possible. Nerves jangling around the ground, Hogan bowled again, a very good one. Bopara was beaten and the ball went through to the keeper. A dot ball. A huge cheer went up from the crowd. That was effectively that. An inconsequential single off the last ball meant that Glamorgan won by six runs.

That makes it four wins out of four for Glamorgan, who go 3rd in the table. They now have a good chance of a semifinal place that looked beyond their reach four games ago. Poor old Essex are bottom of the table, with only one win from ten matches.

Walking home just know it occurred to me that as well as ones for fours and sixes they should give out cards to wave when a dot ball is bowled. It’s often those that win matches!

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A Tribute to Fanny Blankers-Koen

Posted in Sport with tags , on July 30, 2018 by telescoper

I was reminded yesterday that it was on 29th July 1948 that the Olympic Games began in London after a gap of 12 years since the previous Olympics owing to the Second World War. That gives me the excuse to do a little post in tribute to one of the greatest athletes of all time.

The London games saw the emergence of legendary Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen, who won no less than four gold medals: 100m, 200m, 80m hurdles and 4 ×100m relay. She probably would have won the Long Jump too, as she held the World Record in that event at the time, but was only allowed to compete in four events. Her achievements are made all the more remarkable by the fact that she was 30 years old – an age many would have thought was past the prime for an athlete – and she was also the mother of two children.

Fanny Blankers-Koen became a household name to my parents’ generation, and the inspiration to countless aspiring athletes. I remember my Mum talking about her when I was little, and what I remember from that is that she was regarded as exceptionally tall – in fact she was 5′ 9″ – which helped reinforce the impression among many British people that Dutch people were all giants!

Anyway, here is a little video with some clips of her in action. She won the 200m by miles!

Fanny Blankers-Koen passed away in 2004, at the age of 85, but her legend will live on.

 

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Glamorgan versus Somerset: Vitality Blast Twenty20

Posted in Cardiff, Cricket, Uncategorized on July 20, 2018 by telescoper

After a little drinks reception in the School of Physics and Astronomy (at which I was given a very nice gift of wine) I joined the staff outing to Sophia Gardens to watch this evening’s Twenty20 cruise cricket between Glamorgan and Somerset.

The start was delayed by rain so we lingered in a pub on the way only to be caught on the hop when play actually started and missing the first few overs. Somerset batted well to reach 190 off their 20 overs, with Anderson hitting four big sixes in his 59.

Without Shaun Marsh, who will miss the rest of the season, the Glamorgan batting lineup seemed to have a very long tail and a lot rested on Khawaja and Ingram. Both scored runs quickly while they were in but neither could build a big score. Once those two were out, the Glamorgan innings faltered and they never looked like reaching Somerset’s total. The finished on 160 for 9, losing by 30 runs.

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World Cup Félicitations!

Posted in Football on July 15, 2018 by telescoper

French President Emmanuel Macron seemed rather excited at the end of this afternoon’s World Cup Final, and why not? France are worthy winners of what has been a fascinating competition after a very exciting final, which I watched in a pub in Maynooth. Most of the crowd there were rooting for underdogs Croatia, actually.

Incidentally, before the match, the bookies were offering odds of 4-1 against Croatia, which I reckoned was quite generous. Although I thought France would win, I didn’t think there was all much between the two sides. I didn’t place a bet though…

As it turned out I thought Croatia were a bit unlucky, actually, and for long periods they looked the better organised and more composed team; they were certainly better at keeping the ball in midfield: overall Croatia had 66% possession, which is an amazing statistic for a team that lost 4-2!

France’s prodigiously talented forward Kylian Mbappé was particularly wasteful, giving the ball away frequently in the first half. It was only when Croatia fell 3-1 behind and had to throw men forward that Mbappe started to find space and from then on he was a constant threat.

Much of the reaction to the result focussed on the penalty for handball, which didn’t look intentional to me. That may have been vital but I think Croatia’s goalkeeper should have done better with the two second-half goals that really killed off the game.

Anyway all credit to Croatia for playing their part in an exciting final, and for keeping going right to the end. They definitely had chances to get back into the game, but it just wasn’t to be.

Croatia were a little unlucky this afternoon, but over the whole competition I think France were the most consistently impressive team and deserved to win the World Cup.

Le football rentre à la maison!

P.S.

P. P. S. We had a bit of rain today, which was nice!

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After Extra Time

Posted in Biographical, Football with tags , , , , , , on July 12, 2018 by telescoper

My blogging activities have been a little thin over the last few days as I’ve been in a race against time to submit a grant application. The deadline for that was 4pm today. I was advised to submit it `in good time’, however, and managed to do that. The electronic submission receipt is time-stamped 3:59:47. I guess that’s what they call `Just-in-time Delivery’!

It’s my first attempt at a grant application in the Irish system and I had very little notice of the funding call. It took me quite a while to figure out how to construct a budget using rules that are different from the UK, and that left me relatively little time to write the science case. I cobbled something together but don’t expect it is coherent enough to get funded. On the other hand, I might get some useful feedback on what to do better next time. This approach doesn’t work in the UK system, because for many schemes there you can only apply once every three years.

Anyway, to get a break from grant-writing yesterday evening, I strolled around my local in Maynooth for a pint and to watch a bit of the World Cup Semi-Final between England and Croatia. I got there just in time to see Croatia’s equalizer, which drew huge cheers from the (predominantly Irish) crowd, and decided to stay until the end. Croatia’s second goal got an even bigger cheer, though it wasn’t exactly a surprise even if it did take them until extra time to score it. From what I saw, Croatia thoroughly deserved to win. Congratulations to them.

(In case you’re wondering, yes I did bet on Croatia to go through. But only €50, at 5/2….)

It has been a strange World Cup for England. With Germany, Argentina, Spain, Portugal and Brazil (and Italy not even qualifying) it seemed that the fates had paved a relatively easy route to the final. I do think, however, that people overestimated the quality of the England team: they lost to Belgium’s B-team in their last group game and only just scraped past Colombia in the following round. It’s true that they beat Sweden comfortably in the Quarter Final, but I thought that was more because Sweden were poor than because England were good.

In the end I think Croatia won because England displayed a longstanding weakness of English teams – an inability to maintain possession of the ball in midfield.  Against teams with good attacking players you just can’t afford to keep giving the ball away!  They also seemed to get very rattled when Croatia equalized. On the other hand, this is a very young England side which promises much in the future.  There’s plenty of time before the next World Cup for them to grow proper beards, for example. And one person who definitely deserves praise is manager Gareth Southgate, who has not only shown that he’s a pretty good tactician but also that he’s a very nice bloke, with a fine sense of sportsmanship.

So football’s not coming home after all. But where will it go? I do fancy France to win it, but I hope it’s a good final. I have a feeling that the 3rd/4th playoff between England and Belgium might be a good game too!

 

 

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Three Lions

Posted in Football, History with tags , , , , , , on July 11, 2018 by telescoper

I’ve been struggling and failing to put together lots of bits for a grant application today; the deadline is tomorrow at 4pm so it looks like I’ll be working late tonight (either side of the England-Croatia World Cup semi-final). Anyway, having a short break for a cup of tea I decided to put up a short post about the `Three Lions’ symbol used by the England football team and its supporters.

You can study the evolution of this symbol in detail here but essentially it is based on a design originally brought to England by Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou (in France), grant patriarch of the Angevin dynasty and father of Henry Plantagenet (who became Henry II of England). Geoffrey of Anjou’s emblem had six lions rather than three, and his son used designs with either one or two, but King Richard I and King John occasionally used versions with three lions and by the time of Henry III (who lived from 1216 to 1272) the Three Lions appeared on the Royal Coat of Arms pretty much as they are now:

En passant, in heraldic jargon this coat of arms is described Gules, three lions passant guardant Or. The objects shown in the centre of a coat of arms (i.e. the lions in this case) are called `charges’. `Gules’ is basically `red’ and `Or’ is yellow; `passant’ means `moving towards the viewer’s left’ and `guardant’ means `looking at the viewer’ – a lion passant would have its head facing the direction of motion.

Anyway, my point is that this symbol which is now taken to represent England was actually of Angevin origin and is really a French emblem. I don’t know for sure but I don’t think any of the Angevin or Plantagenet Kings mentioned above could even speak English…

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Glamorgan v Northants: Day 4

Posted in Cricket with tags , , on June 28, 2018 by telescoper

This morning I made my way again to Sophia Gardens for the final day of the County Championship Division 2 match between Glamorgan and Northamptonshire. I wasn’t exactly brimming with enthusiasm, so didn’t get to the ground for the start of today’s play, but I thought I’d observe the last rites.

When I got to the ground, night watchman Tim van der Gugten had already been dismissed, but there was some reasonably bright batting by Chris Cooke and Kieran Carlson. Coincidentally, I took the above picture just as Brett Hutton was about to bowl the delivery that accounted for Carlson, who nicked it into the slips for 32. Hutton also accounted for Cooke, who got one that seemed to keep low and knocked his leg stump out of the ground. Glamorgan reached 199 for 8 when Smith was lbw to Nathan Buck for 4. In came the youngster Prem Sisodiya who survived the rest of Buck’s over. Salter got off the legspinner Prasanna at the other end to bring up the 200 and bring Sisodiya on strike. A few balls later he pushed too hard at a good length ball and it went straight into the midriff of silly mid-off, who held on. That was a bit unfortunate for Sisodiya, who thereby bagged a pair in this match.

Prem Sisodiya’s dismissal made it 200 for 9 and, with Mike Hogan being unable to bat owing to injury, that was the innings closed and the end of the match. As I predicted, it was all over before lunch. Northamptonshire won by 233 runs. Congratulations to them on a well-deserved victory: they were clearly the stronger team.

I always thought Glamorgan would struggle with the bat on the last day on this pitch. The variable bounce that has been there throughout the match seemed to get worse. The wrist spinner Prasanna extracted appreciable bounce and turn throughout the morning, to the extent of making life very difficult for his own wicket-keeper. One delivery from Prasanna leapt up so alarmingly that it went over the keeper’s head for four byes. I must admit, though, that I enjoyed watching the legspinner in action with fielders around the bat. As someone who tried to bowl wrist-spin when I was younger, I always enjoy seeing it done properly.

Other amusement was provided by a seagull who took it upon himself to patrol the area around mid on while the rest of the fielders were in attacking positions…

I think it is important to look on the bright side of disappointments like this. After all, in an uncertain and at times frightening world one can take comfort in the reassuring familiarity of a defeat for Glamorgan. Moreover, having already finished bottom of the table in the Royal London One-Day Cup, and looking likely to do the same in Division 2 of the County Championship, there will be a lot riding on this year’s Twenty20 competition: can Glamorgan pull off the treble?

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Synesis, Metonymy and the World Cup

Posted in Football with tags , , , , , , on June 27, 2018 by telescoper

The shock defeat of Germany by South Korea this afternoon means that the world champions fail to progress from the group stage and are eliminated from the competition. In other words, Germany are out. Or should that be Germany is out?

Strictly speaking, the singular form is correct (as was Nelson with his “England expects..” message at Trafalgar) but that doesn’t mean that the English plural is necessarily wrong. This is an example of a figure of speech called a metonymic shift, whereby a thing or concept is referred to not by its own name but by the name of something associated with it. An example is found in the phrase “to boil a kettle”: obviously it is not the kettle that gets boiled, but the water within it, but this isn’t an error as such, merely a grammatical device. Metonymic shifts also take place when we refer to the Government as “Westminster” or the film-making industry as “Hollywood”.

When we come to the “Germany is ” versus “Germany are” debate, the noun “Germany” can be taken to mean “The German team” (singular) but in British English the metonymic shift takes this to mean a collection of individual players (plural), i.e. the meaning is transferred from the “German team” to the “German players”. The use of a verb indicating a singular subject constitutes “formal agreement” with “team” whereas the plural form would be “notional agreement”.

I know that this usage is regarded as incorrect by American colleagues I have discussed it with, to the extent that it actually grates on them a bit. But I think “the team are fighting amongst themselves” is a better construction than any I can think of that includes formal rather than notional agreement. Moreover this kind of construction is correct in languages with more precise grammatical rules than English.

The Greek term synesis refers to a grammatical alteration in which a word takes the gender or number not of the word with which it should regularly agree, but of some other word implied by that word, a device much used in both Greek and Roman poetry and also in rhetoric. The distinction between “the Government is united” and “the Government are divided” offers a particularly interesting example.

Related to this difference is the fact that American sports teams tend to have names that are themselves plural, e.g. the Cubs, the Dolphins, the Jets, the Broncos etc, whereas in Britain they are more often singular (though with exceptions, such as Wolverhampton Wanderers).

Anyway, here’s a quick poll to see what you think:

UPDATE: Just to prove, as if it were needed, that I don’t have a life, I had a look at the English Football League teams for the 2018/9 season, with the the following results as to how many names are plural:

Premiership: 1/20 (Wolverhampton Wanderers)

Championship: 3/24 (Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Queens Park Rangers)

League One: 3/24 (Bristol Rovers, Wycombe Wanderers, Doncaster Rovers)

League Two: 3/24 (MK Dons, Forest Green Rovers, Tranmere Rovers)

In Scotland there are:

Premiership 1/12 (Rangers)

In the lower divisions there are a further four: out of thirty teams: Aidrieonians, Raith Rovers,Albion Rovers, Berwick Rangers.

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Glamorgan v Northants: Day 3

Posted in Cardiff, Cricket with tags , , , on June 27, 2018 by telescoper

For the record, I thought I’d post a short update on today’s play at Sophia Gardens.

I only attended the morning session today. I forgot to take my phone so there’s no picture. It was a good morning’s play actually, with Glamorgan’s bowlers doing better. The huge opening partnership of 208 was eventually broken when Procter fell, soon followed by Duckett. How often it happens that both batsmen involved in a big stand get out in quick succession. Another three wickets fell for the addition of 90 runs. However at 259 for 5, with the Northants lead at 289, at lunch I reckoned the game was already beyond Glamorgan, and instead of returning to the ground after lunch I took a stroll around sunny Bute Park and went into the Data Innovation Research Institute office to attend to a few things.

Northamptonshire progressed to a total of 406 and declared when their 9th wicket fell. Tea was taken at that point. In the last session, Glamorgan slumped to 121 for 4, the first innings hero Khawaja among the fallen.

Glamorgan need to score 313 tomorrow to win. More relevantly, Northants need to take 6 wickets. I wouldn’t bet against the game finishing before lunch, actually.

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Glamorgan v Northants: Day 2

Posted in Cricket on June 26, 2018 by telescoper

As I settled into my seat, checked the scorecard, and applied yet more sun lotion before today’s play I was as struck by the weakness of Glamorgan’s batting order, especially the very long tail, as I was by the lack of a quality third seamer in the bowling attack yesterday. A lot would depend on Khawaja, Carlson and Cooke, I thought. As it turned out, only one of those three made a decent contribution, Usman Khawaja, who was last man out, for 103, with the Glamorgan total 254. He had got Glamorgan within 27 runs of Northamptonshire when that looked very unlikely. He also became the first player ever to score hundreds in each of his first three County games for Glamorgan.

Earlier on, Glamorgan’s top three batsmen got into the twenties and then got out, taking them to lunch at 115 for 3. I went home for lunch again and, as it was so hot, I had a siesta. Returning to the ground, I found Carlson, Cooke and Salter had all fallen, and saw Smith and Sisodiya follow them. At this point Khawaja was on 67 and, sensing he was about to run out of partners he decided to go up a gear. A flurry of sixes and fours followed to take him to his hundred. He was out the next ball.

Still, with a deficit of only 27, some quick wickets would swing the balance in Glamorgan’s favour. Sadly for them, that emphatically did not happen. Northants openers Procter and Duckett had started the first innings very cautiously but, with the wicket still offering quite a lot to the bowlers they decided to be more aggressive and try put the pressure on the bowlers. It worked.

Glamorgan’s bowling attack became ragged as Duckett in particular took the bull by the horns. The lack of a decent third seamer was again exposed. Marchant De Lange is missing with a hamstring injury and Lucas Carey wasn’t picked, leaving Ruaidhri Smith to do the honours as first change. He bowled poorly, as did the more experienced off-spinner Andrew Salter.

As the runs piled on, the body language of the fielding team showed they knew the game was slipping away.

At stumps, Northamptonshire were 169 without loss, a lead of 196, with Duckett not out on 111 and Procter not out 50. I have to say that Glamorgan bowled too many bad balls at this pair, but you still have to take advantage of your opportunitues as a batsman, and they did so very well indeed.

Northants are well ahead with two days remaining. The likeliest scenario now is that they will amass a huge total tomorrow, bat Glamorgan out of the game, and wrap up victory on the last day.

It’s hard to tell if the pitch is getting easier or harder. After two full days under the grill you might expect it to wear, but there was no sign of that in the batting this evening. On the other hand, the umpires did have a look at the pitch a couple of times, as if they were worried by its state. Whatever happens to the pitch, it certainly doesn’t look like the weather will save Glamorgan!

Now, I need a drink.

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