Old Trafford post-renovation

It's going to be in London, apparently. Either that or they're going to recreate London's skyline as a backdrop.

*OR* Gamebience, Cricket Life 2007's Canadian developers, have confused Manchester with London, which is a very big mistake to make where we live (Manchester).

On the left is an interpretation of London's skyline in 2012. On the right is a detail of a Cricket Life screenshot of Old Trafford.






Dear Canada,

Please try and control your videogame developers. We know that you are aware of more than one British city - you're not the US, after all - so please don't attempt to pass off the future skyline of London as that of present-day Manchester.

Don't let it happen again or we'll ask all of your residents what part of America they're from whenever we meet one. We don't want to do this, but if you can not control your videogame developers, we refuse to be held responsible for our actions.

Yours sincerely,
The United Kingdom

Some kind of special award goes to The Scientician for spotting this. We're really going to have to give him a job or something if he persists in making a much better fist of creating updates for this site than we do.

We'd also like to point out that he's contributed to about three updates on this site in the time he's done precisely NONE for his own site, so maybe he should get his own house in order before stealing all the glory and limelight round at someone else's.

This may sound like faint praise for someone who's made a frankly world-class spot and offered it to us for free, but bear in mind that we've just had to spend half an hour cropping photos and remembering bits of XHTML that we'd long since forgotten when really we should have been working.

24 hours around the cricket

9am - Catch bus.

9.15am - Alight from bus and start walking down our special shortcut to Old Trafford.

9.30am - Remember that our 'special shortcut' was actually a shortcut from where we used to live and not from the bus stop. We've actually added distance to our journey.

9.40am - Arrive at ground.

11am - We don't really know several of the people we're sitting with. They go and get beer. It seems early.

11.15am - The people seem keen to get more beer. We start to feel under pressure. If it weren't for the relaxing properties of the beer, we'd probably be having a panic attack about now.

11.30am - The bulbous pint-glass bottom situation comes to light, as the first drink is spilt. This will be a theme for the day.

1pm - We start a beer-glass worm. When we say 'we', we in fact mean the people we're with, together with the row of people in front of us. We provide some glasses though. We feel that we were there at The Worm's inception.

3pm - A large cheer greets the joining of The Worm with a relative.

3.30pm - The Worm is dismantled by a steward. Our dreams of a beer-glass boundary rope are quashed.

6.30pm - The match finishes and we walk over to the grocers to buy some coriander.

6.40pm - The shopkeeper refuses to let us in on "the secret" to growing coriander well. He appeases us by telling us that it just grows better in Pakistan and places.

6.45pm - As we leave the shop the shopkeeper reveals that the thick, lush coriander we have bought was grown in Manchester. We reach a tentative agreement that he will reveal "the secret" the next time we purchase coriander.

9pm - We are at home. We start to get a hangover, which is very disconcerting at this hour.

9.30pm - We fall asleep on the settee.

10pm - We fall asleep on the bed, but in our clothes.

3am - We awake to find that the Beer Badger has already visited. In addition to taking all of our money and doing something in our mouth, the Beer Badger has brought a profound sense of our own worthlessness which is quite astounding in its clarity.

4am - Curse the Beer Badger for his work as it is denying us the sleep that we so desperately need.

8.30am - Arrive at work and check the clock for what is likely to be a very, very, very, very long day.

Note: The picture depicts an occasion when Mark Richardson of New Zealand hit the ball into the crowd and it landed in someone's beer. We thought it was an apt photo.

First day of the cricket season: A photo journal

It's the first day of the cricket season. The nation's buzzing. We went down to Old Trafford for Lancashire against Hampshire to sample the party atmosphere.



This was what the sky looked like this morning. We Mancunians pride ourselves on knowing the local weather. These aren't rain clouds.


Hmm. We're not in north Lancashire or south-west Cheshire. We're in the bit without "brighter, drier intervals".

This picture tells us two things: That we're still in our house at 13:06 because of the rain and that we like to pile CDs on top of our stereo.

Woolly hat. Check. Ski socks. Check. It's officially a 'double trousers day' too. Readers in warmer climes may be unfamiliar with the concept of wearing two pairs of trousers simultaneously. Believe us, sometimes it can and must be done.

Play eventually started at 3pm. Lancashire asked Hampshire to bat which meant that we didn't have to endure Iain Sutcliffe's batting. Even Iain Sutcliffe's mum's favourite cricketer isn't Iain Sutcliffe.

Lancashire opened the bowling with ageing medium-pace all-rounder, Glenn Chapple...

...and ageing medium-pace all-rounder, Dominic Cork.

We missed John Crawley's wicket. This is where they put the big screen when there's a Test match.

Glenn Chapple enjoys a bit of banter with the crowd.

Here are a few notable names who could have been playing in this fixture, but weren't: Kevin Pietersen, Shane Warne, James Anderson, Andrew Flintoff, Brad Hodge and Sajid Mahmood. Not to worry though, because the Old Trafford faithful were treated to Dominic Thornely and Nic Pothas instead...

We hadn't seen Tom Smith before, but we were impressed. He consistently made the batsmen play and on occasions beat them for pace. He fully deserved his 3-29. Are we the first off the mark in lauding him? What do we win?

We were slightly disappointed that nobody spoke to us, like World Cup winner, Andy Bichel did, but we still had a good day, largely due to Lancashire's success and partly due to the large amount of clothes we wore.

Sophia Gardens gets Ashes Test

Glamorgan's Sophia Gardens in Cardiff has been awarded one of the 2009 Ashes Tests. Many people are emphasising how this is great for Wales and Welsh cricket and all that. Balls to that.

Sophia Gardens is getting an Ashes Test at the expense of neglected, decrepit Old Trafford - OUR ground. This means that we'll have to go into Yorkshire or somewhere to see an Ashes match. Mancunians aren't welcome in Yorkshire. We wear different style flat caps and have different flattened vowel sounds. It's an entirely different culture.

Come on. Everyone aim a big silent boo at the ECB. A silent boo is exactly the same as an ordinary boo, but you don't make any sound - self-explanatory really. It's the greatest weapon in the critic's armoury.

That's a picture of Old Trafford. It'll probably get a Zimbabwe match. We can't think of anything worse than that. We'll still go, but we'll be silent booing our way through the whole day.