LariatTom

What a bizarre Test match this has been...and we're only two days into it! 16 wickets falling today for barely 200 runs on what is still being considered by experts as a flat pitch and a batsman's dream.

 

Seems neither side is capable of putting on a decent start with the opening few batsman. Looks like it'll be on Bell to deliver once again with the help of the lower order. Prior must be due a decent knock, Broad looks to be happy with the bat. 264 in the lead overnight. I honestly can't see the Aussies chasing anything over 350 in this game, and I imagine Cook will want to play this innings to the very end and be looking at having a target of somewhere near 450-500.

 

In the slightly less exciting world of the NDCV (North German Cricket Federation), I will be making my competitive debut this weekend. I was meant to be playing a friendly against Bremen tomorrow which was cancelled last night due to Bremen seemingly not being able to get a full side together..so that left my Saturday free. Then it turns out the second team have a match against Kiel...and our entire bowling attack is unable to play since they're all fasting for Ramadan, meaning that there were only a handful of players on the team sheet. So that's where I come in, most likely batting at 10 since apparently our 11 is even worse than me (though I've been getting roughly half an hour in the middle during our practice games, so I'm getting more confidence at actually playing rather than blocking every ball).

 

Should be a fun match. Neither side is going to be in the play-offs, so it doesn't really matter if we win or lose. I'm looking forward to a good day in the sun with some mates (and a few Aussies ) and having a game of cricket.

That's the risk of selecting a player who is out of form. He's been messing around with his run up all summer and not really been in the wickets. It's not ideal for him to be dropped now as if he goes back to the county (as you'd expect), we're right in the middle of T20 season so he won't get much in the way of first class cricket to try and find some form and get wickets.

 

Fuck me, what a finish to the match. That's how crucial it can be to manage your reviews properly. A brilliant advert to Test cricket and this series isn't going to be easy at all.

Nice non controversial day. Agar looked out on the stumping, certainly more out than Bell in the Champions Trophy final. Root would probably have been given not out on review, it didn't look like he hit the ball, but hotspot and snicko have been having a mare. Trott was sawn off. Clearly looks like he hit the ball.

 

Like I said, non contreversial all the way through.

 

On the whole Finn debate. He gives away lots more runs than a top flight quick should. I hope Tremlett gets to play a part in the series. I do rate him.

 

I had Agar out on the stumping. Marginal, but out. Sometimes those decisions go on the side of the batsman, sometimes they don't. Root would have been not out had he reviewed it and then Trott being given out baffled me. From what I've seen, the Hotspot technology still had the footage from the Root dismissal lined up ready to go and hadn't been cleared ready for Trott's first ball. Had they had the side angle ready, I suspect we would have seen an edge.

 

Slight smile on my face to see the on-field umpire shrugging his shoulders when having to give Trott out as if to say he had no idea why the technology hadn't picked up the edge.

 

A lesson for Agar that you win nothing with slogging. Joking aside, it was an absolutely fantastic innings from him, and I wonder where they'll have him bat in the second innings as he's apparently batted as high as 3 in previous innings. Cook and KP looked pretty set this evening and if they can get through the first half hour or so in the morning, they must be looking to settle in for most of the day and try to make some big scores to take the game away from Australia.

Loeb was also miles off the pace when he tested a Toro Rosso a few years ago with a view to doing a few races towards the tail end of a season (I think it was 2009?) and doesn't hold a Super Licence, which would make things rather difficult. Most young drivers can get that through their junior single seater career but Loeb has nothing in the way of single seater experience. I think even for Le Mans last year, he was ranked as a Silver driver...

 

I'm not entirely sure Nissan pulled out of the project, more that they felt their work was done and Munoz wanted to continue and take it in a different direction, including making a coupe version for next year's USCR. This electric racer looks very similar, so they clearly feel that design concept is one that works for the experimental cars. If they manage to not only pull this off, but make it competitive, then I'll be very impressed. So, with it being Nissan, I expect to be very impressed.

 

Silverstone, by all accounts, is very wet this morning, though the forecast I've seen suggests it'll be dry for qualifying and the race.

I've been fairly quiet since Le Mans...still rather stunned by Simonsen's death. At the front, Toyota really do have major work to do. Either Audi made massive leaps forward with this evolution of the car (which I suspect is true) or Toyota didn't make the leaps they anticipated, but the guys from K

This is the second time I've bought a game (Last of Us) based on what people here have been saying. The last one was The Walking Dead series. As soon as Amazon post the game out to Germany (interesting fact: it's cheaper to buy the game from the UK and get it shipped to mainland Europe than it is to buy directly out here), I'll be spending many hours on this.

 

You guys are a deciding factor on games that I've been debating on whether to buy or not.

There's a super easy joke to make about Germans and their love for rules and regulations being perfect for something as complicated as cricket with complex things like LBW and Duckworth-Lewis.

 

But yeah, I suspect I might find myself doing that a bit...especially being a left-hander and not as likely to get an LBW decision in my favour usually. Couple of players were telling me on the way home that umpiring is a bit of an issue in the league where they're far too keen to give LBW and all it takes is an enthusiastic enough appeal. These things happen. Yesterday the decisions went against us but next week they might go in our favour. Such is life.

Some utterly shocking shots yesterday to throw the game away for England. Regarding Broad's dismissal, whatever happened to benefit of the doubt going to the batsman in these situations? Looked far too close to call for me. Whether or not it would have changed the outcome (probably not) doesn't really matter, but I'm not sure I'd want to see too many of these decisions given against the batsman in future (and that's coming from a bowler).

 

In the world of German cricket, we had some terrible umpiring yesterday by two guys who clearly didn't have a clue what the LBW rule was and how to apply it. This wasn't helped much by both captains jokingly asking the umpire to explain in detail a decision he'd given and him stumbling through and answer which showed zero application of the rule was a bit of a stunner. It's a brave man who gives an lbw decision from a spin bowler going around the wicket and pitching the ball outside leg stump...especially when the bowler is the lone man appealing and everyone else is preparing for the next delivery.

BoP = Balance of Performance. Something used in sportscars to try and even up the playing field to mean that no cars have a massive advantage over the other, usually used for GT racing (whether adding ballast to cars, reducing fuel capacity, changing the length of the restrictors etc.) If you do some research on the internet, you'll find plenty of articles talking about BoP. The LMP1 guys had changes made to fuel capacity based on whether they're petrol or diesel powered, so the Toyota has a significantly bigger fuel capacity for this race, which is the reason they'll be able to run longer.The ACO is the Automobile Club de l'Ouest, who are the organisers of the race and the main automotive group in France. Without them, there would be no Le Mans.Toyota #7 went quickest in warm-up this morning and beat their own qualifying time. Finally showing their speed before the race? We'll find out in a few hours. The world's greatest motor race is just a few hours away. I tell you, this is better than Christmas

Eurosport have the exclusive rights to show the race across Europe (including the UK), and will continue to be the sole broadcaster of pictures for the next three years after renewing the contract earlier in the week. I've seen people mention that you can buy a pass to watch Eurosport online for

A very interesting set qualifying sessions over the last two days. Red flags in all sessions and two of the qualifying sessions cut short as a result of the stoppages and a need to repair the Armco barrier. If that happens during the 24, we'll just see some long safety car periods (or as they're known to me, a chance to catch a quick nap). Audi are very quick, and I'd love to see what they could have managed if we'd had fully dry running, as the test day times were impressive and suggested we could have seen a pole time under 3.20.Toyota pretty much admitted they weren't gunning for pole and they're concentrated more on race pace and stints. As mentioned, they've got a fuel advantage thanks to some slightly bizarre BoP from the ACO which could give them an extra two laps. I think that was worked out to be as many as seven fewer fuel stops over the course of the full race, and if they can have a half-decent race pace compared to Audi...they're still in with a chance.Brilliant job from the Krohn Racing guys to build a car up from scratch after a massive shunt in Thursday practice. They managed to get another car from an Italian team and convert it from a GT3 to a GTE car in under a day and then get it out on track to do some running last night. Very impressive.Oh, and there was something going on in Paris with Formula Pirelli about no one breaking any rules or someone breaking rules.

Porsche won't be entering LMP1 until next year. They've unveiled a basic version of the car which looks tremendously like a current R18 e-tron and it's just a case of pounding around tracks between now and the start of next year to get any gremlins out of the car. Rumours still suggest Mark Webber will be driving one of their cars next season.The energy recovery systems that some of the LMP1 cars use are fascinating. Toyota and Audi have different interpretations of the rules and systems based on the placement of their kit. The R18s collect and store their energy through the front wheels, meaning they can only use the energy through the front wheels and only when above 120kph whereas the TS030 uses a four-wheel system and can use it from zero, theoretically giving them a boost off a rolling start as they can use the system immediately and also out of slower corners. The rules of how much energy can be recovered will be changing for next year to have significantly greater allowances, which is what these teams want and has real world relevance.Dempsey is a cracking racer. He's been at Le Mans for the last few years and is a regular in the ALMS. Not a bad team and they should be in with a shot of making the podium with a relatively clean run.First practice is this afternoon with night practice on Eurosprout (don't worry, that was deliberate) tonight. All coverage on Radio Le Mans

Nope, that was last year's Garage 56 entry, which is designed to host an experimental vehicle using innovative designs outside of the regulations but looking at future potential. Last year was the Deltawing, which is now running in the American Le Mans Series as part of the P1 category and this year was meant to be the Green GT H2 which backed out a few weeks ago having basically admitted they weren't ready. Nissan are taking the entry again for 2014 with rumours and reports suggesting that they'll be entering an electric prototype with a small internal combustion engine for charging the batteries, with the intention of potentially making a full time entry to LMP1 in 2015 or 16 while using this car as the foundation of the entry.I guess technically there wouldn't have been anything stopping the Deltawing putting in an entry to run this year, but they're still undergoing some reliability problems. Could appear on the grids next year though.

At the front of the field, it's Audi vs Toyota again. Toyota will be looking to come back after a disappointing first two races of the season, and they'll be helped by a larger fuel capacity and some low drag aero kit which might help to make some difference. They'll be slower over a single lap but race pace could be a different thing, especially if they're able to get a few laps extra out of each stint. Worth remembering that Toyota are in their first full season of WEC and didn't even make it to half distance last year in the race so I suspect they'll be wanting to finish this year and perhaps aim for a victory next year. Privateer cars are looking good, though they probably aren't strong enough to challenge for the podium this year. LMP2 is a fantastic field of 22 cars which is ridiculous. Who says LMP2 is dead?? That category is as open as you like, of the 22 entries maybe 15 could feasibly finish on the podium and 10 or so are worthy winners.

 

Ones to watch in each class

 

LMP1 Factory - Audi #1 (Lotterer, F

Decent enough Indycar race last night, I'm always a fan of short oval racing and the Milwaukee Mile usually delivers an entertaining race. Watching it in parallel with Grand-Am was fairly confusing at times, though it seems that plenty of other people were doing the same based on Twitter interactions.Rather sad to think that Le Mans will be over in a week. Still, that means we've got a week of Le Mans activities. Scrutineering takes place today and tomorrow, on-track action for practice and qualifying takes place midweek and then the green flag drops on Saturday afternoon for the greatest race in the world. If you want a good series of previews for each category, Radio Le Mans and DailySportscar have done another fantastic series of podcasts for each of the categories. Best week in the world to be a racing fan.

Will do. Some of the players are of a pretty high standard, as I said we've got some former internationals in the 1st XI and then I believe one or two other members have played List A cricket before moving out here, either for work or for love. Great guys though, and I don't think I've found a better Friday evening after work than a few hours of cricket and then a Currywurst in the clubhouse.

 

I'm annoyed that I'm missing this weekend's game since we're doing a friendly game away at Heligoland, who have got the current claim of being the most remote cricket club in Europe. They only set up their club last year so I believe it's their first match. If I didn't have friends coming over from Leeds to visit me, I'd have been on the team sheet.

 

http://www.cricket.de/erdinger-alkoholfrei...-auf-helgoland/

Doing my best to follow the Champions Trophy and the county season from Germany. I've accepted that my afternoons are spent constantly gazing at Cricinfo pages and watching scoreboards. Doesn't do much for my productivity at all, and that'll only get worse once the Ashes start. Very fun trying to explain cricket to Germans without a clue though, and one of the guys I have regular correspondence with in Chennai is (obviously) a massive cricket fan, so we turned a call this afternoon into talking about ODI cricket. Not entirely sure my boss appreciated it...

Is anyone playing this year. I might turn out for the local 3rds/friendly XI on the odd Sunday if I can be ringed.

I am indeed, pulling on the whites and playing cricket out in Germany...which is a slightly bizarre experience. My club (THCC Rot-Gelb) is, as far as I know, the only club in North Germany to have a real grass wicket, which means that all of our away games are played on artificial wickets. The grounds we play on are stupidly tiny too. I was playing in Hannover on Sunday against Gottingen (Gottingen's ground being flooded after 40 days and 40 nights of rain, and not an ark in sight) and you had square leg umpire being stood on the boundary. No sixes allowed, so even when the batsmen were smashing it over the netting used for a boundary and into the tennis courts, it was four.The seconds (where I'm playing) is made up of a couple of English expats, one or two Germans and then a host of young guys from Afghanistan. The first team has a couple of German internationals if I'm not mistaken.Completely different world to playing back at home..

Perez seems to be trying too hard at the moment to assert himself into the McLaren team by being forceful on the track and maybe letting the pressure get to him. If he calms down a little he could do very well. I wouldn't rate him anywhere near as erratic as the other two.

 

Kamui was one of my favourite drivers over the past few seasons, an absolutely demon overtaker although was a bit inconsistent, in some races he could be completely anonymous . His drive in Japan last year for 3rd place was brilliant. Again sadly its more down to money him not having a drive in F1 this season than his actual talent.

 

Di Resta is the only one of this lot who didn't come in via GP2 (DTM before F1) and whilst I wouldn't rate him worthy of a top 4 team just yet, he has put in some great drives, often un-noticed too. He just plugs away and gets on with it.

 

And its blatantly obvious why Chilton is in F1. A chequebook daddy as we used to call them in karting.

 

Both Kamui and Perez had the problem last year where they could have some demonic races (Malaysia and Monza for Checo, Suzuka for Kamui), but for very large parts of the season, they completely disappeared off the radar and didn't really match expectation from many. Kamui is doing a very solid job in the WEC this year and has finished on the podium in both races to date.

 

Perez is trying to assert himself and show that he does deserve this place in a top team. He was being very aggressive in Monaco, perhaps overly at times, but he was able to pass other drivers and make moves where others were seemingly content to follow the leader lap after lap. I'll commend him for that, and he's moving on from his poor form in the first few races.

 

My problem with di Resta is that he complains far too much for my liking, and it never seems to be his fault for some reason. He was quite outspoken about getting knocked out in Q1 because the team didn't make the decision to give him new tyres. Erm...sorry mate, you are the driver and if you want new tyres fitted during Qualifying, you should come into the pit and tell the team you want new boots.

 

Again, the less said about Chilton...the better.

It's a bit unfair comparing one amazing Indycar clip to one mildly embarrassing GP2 clip. I've seen crashes in Indycar that would make your cock fall off and I've seen overtakes in GP2 that would re-attach it.

 

Don't get me wrong, I agree in principle with all the criticisms of GP2 that have been mentioned, but the gulf in skill isn't quite what the gulf between those clips would suggest.

 

I don't think we should be comparing GP2 and Indy Lights (not even going as far as Indycar) based off those two clips. Indycar has had some utterly ridiculous moments too (need we look any further than the race that cost Dan Wheldon his life?) and GP2 has had some brilliant bits of driving. Grosjean taking three cars in the space of a corner and a half at Barcelona stands as one of the best things to ever happen at that track (which isn't really saying too much to be honest).

 

GP2 is being won by the driver with a combination of wallet and experience. Valsecchi won the series last year having been there for what felt like eternity. Pantano won it in his third or fourth year of racing there, Coletti (current series leader) is in his third full season of racing there...it's experience that pays off. That's why you never see a guy go into the series looking to win in his first year. You've got guys like Mitch Evans who buck that trend and can put in some brilliant drives in their debut season, but provided he gets a top drive next year, he should be virtually unstoppable. Felipe Nasr is another top talent who took his first year to learn the tracks, get used to the car and is now a very reliable and consistent finisher. If he starts winning races, he'll be in the title hunt too.

 

The gulf in skill between GP2 and Indy Lights might not be too big, but the gulf in brains, skill and talent between F1 and GP2 (which let's face it, if you're trying to get into F1, that's your best shot alongside WSR) is just too big at times. Look at Max Chilton this weekend. Very little top level running, midfield most of his GP2 career and causes a massive accident at Monaco. How he escaped with just a drive through penalty is beyond me...

That Indy Lights race was actually from Friday but regardless, it was an absolutely brilliant little race. 4 cars within a blink of an eye, and that's a third of the Lights field. Really disappointing how that support series can have such small fields since it usually throws up some interesting races.

 

If ever there was a video to showcase the power of slipstreaming, that video probably takes it.

 

The GP2 crash. Idiots. It's amazing how these guys are meant to be one step away from F1 and they still pull out so many stupid antics like this. Once again, driving standards in the series get called into question...and the worrying thing is that drivers don't seem to be learning from these incidents. We're then seeing guys progressing from GP2 into F1 and not getting rid of this overly aggressive and quite frankly, sometimes dangerous style of driving. That T1 crash could have been a lot worse...and I fear it's just a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt in a GP2 race.

I forgot about Jakes. Some really good showings from the Brits, Wilson was still right up there going into the last restart.

 

Yeah, it's a shame that Conway seems to have been scarred by his big smashes on ovals. I don't blame him to be honest...he's had some absolute horrors on ovals though. There have been a fair few drivers who have said they don't want to race ovals. Barrichello said that he never wanted to race on them and it was only after talks with Kanaan and his wife that he decided to race on them.

 

Yeah, we're fine to talk about the race. It's 24 hours after the race...I guess usual spoiler rules apply and if you're coming into a thread like this, you can expect discussion. Brilliant race from Kanaan...you could just sense he was really up for it and wanted the win. Ridiculous number of lead changes too, slipstreaming has always been a major thing around Indy and for some reason, the DW12 seems to be absolutely perfect for oval racing. I remember a lot of concern last year going into Indy that it wouldn't be good on ovals and I don't recall a single boring oval race last year.

Without spoiling it, the 500 was an absolutely fantastic race. People can knock the DW12 as much as they like for it being an ugly looking car...but my, it certainly produces some great racing. That was one of the best 500s I've seen in recent year, not only for the level of excitement that it produced during the race but also for the winner.

 

Best of all, not a single discussion about dodgy Pirelli tyres in sight!

 

Also, Pippa Mann (returning after her horrible accident a few years ago) and Justin Wilson were in the race. 4 Brits from a field of 33 isn't too shabby.

That's a very good point. A lot of people say it's confusing for kids...but how many 10 year olds are watching an episode of Dr Who and then going to the internet to try and analyse it to death? There might be some talk about it in the playground on Monday...but I imagine that's it. If it were me, my immediate thoughts would be:

- Did you see the monster in Dr Who, wasn't he awesome and scary looking?

- I wish I could time travel.

- Why doesn't he eat fish fingers and custard anymore?

 

As much as people grumble about there being loose ends and not everything being known, I think I prefer it that way. There should be an element of mystery and room for individual theory. I've seen plenty of different suggestions now about where John Hurt fits into the timeline as a generation of The Doctor. We have six months to speculate on that. Fantastic!

Good episode and for me that really pulled back what I've felt was a disappointing second half of Series 8. It never quite reached the same levels it has in the last year or two and at times it felt as though a lot of the episodes were treated as filled and almost throwaway for the purpose of getting to this final episode and the 50th in November. I've missed the two parter episodes too, I quite like it when they get time to branch out a storyline and give it a bit more depth. They've moved away from the bigger story arcs that we saw in earlier series and it can be a bit hit and miss as to whether it works all of the time.

 

I'm intrigued to see where/how John Hurt fits into everything. He can't be the 12th Doctor since he hasn't existed yet, therefore the things he has done haven't happened yet. Which would mean that he either comes between William Hartnell or, as I suspect may be the case, he fills part of the gap between Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston. That would break canon and mean that Eccleston is the 10th Doctor and everything is slightly mixed up from how we know it. Actually, either of those options would break the canon as the assumption has always been that Hartnell was the original version of the Doctor. Timeywimey.

 

My head hurts. I'm looking forward to the anniversary episode towards the end of the year. I'll be avoiding anything even mildly spoiler related as though it were the plague.

Good weekend for motorsport. Second round of the WEC was yesterday from Spa. Audi dominated and Toyota look to be struggling, though it could just be that they hadn't run Spa before with the TS030. The new car was reckoned to be around a second quicker than the 2012 model and they don't seem to have got that quite right, but their fuel consumption is greatly improved and the long tail which will be used for Le Mans (and was tested on the #3 Audi) worked well. Great race though with fights throughout the field going right the way until the end of the race.

 

European F3 series were supporting DTM at Hockenheim too and produced three cracking races. Marciello looks to be running away with the championship after nine races and already has double the points of anyone else. All it could take it one bad weekend to bring others right into the hunt though. Great to see Josh Hill with a cracking drive in race 2 to get onto the podium.

 

Then there was the first round of the DTM with the inclusion of option tyres and DRS. If you haven't seen the DRS on these cars in action, check it out. It's a bit funny since the wings just look broken (I believe they have a 15 degree flex when activated) but they seemed to work during the race as we actually saw some overtaking. Timo Glock put in a great showing for his first DTM race and was running as high as second before an error in his first pitstop meant the right rear wasn't attached properly and decided to make a bid for freedom down the back straight. He was quick, feisty and comfortable overtaking and among the pack so he can look forward to a good first season. It'd be quite nice for Timo to be an F1 driver to successfully make the switch to DTM and be competitive.