Performing cricketers

This morning (London time) there was a cricket game on in Sydney. The Twenty20 format seems to be more about drawing crowds and puttnig on a show than a serious contest, but that Australian captain Ricky Ponting's dislike of it didn't seem to stop him and his team recording an emphatic victory over the demoralised English.

There are some other competitions that are definitely about putting on a show. Amy is quite keen on the celebrity/professional performance competitions that have been on TV lately, such as Strictly Come Dancing. The 2005 edition of this dancing event was won by fast bowler Darren Gough, and the next year Mark Ramprakash was invited to compete. Apparently his reply was

"Look, mate, I'm really sorry but it's not my thing. If you can get me on the football show on Sky I'll happily do that'."

but at some point he must have changed his mind, since in the final on 23 December, he came out top. So, when Mark Butcher appeared on Just the Two of Us singing duets with Sarah Brightman and generally sounding better than all the other duos, I started to wonder whether English cricketers were winnning everything except the cricket. As it turned out, they weren't quite popular enough with the voting public, and were the first of the three finalists to be eliminated, but it still leaves me wondering just what is it with these English cricketers?

Beginning of the year, end of careers

Having grown up in Sydney, one of the things I associate with New Year is cricket. Given the fact that ten of the twelve nights of Christmas were scheduled to have Ashes cricket going from 11:30pm to 06:30am London time, it would have been a perfect opportunity to go nocturnal and celebrate new Year in the way I mentioned yesterday. As it turned out, I didn't, but I did spend quite a bit of time listening to the Test Match Special coverage at strange hours of the morning.

Although the Sydney Test was the first Test of the year, it was the last Test for opening batsman Justin Langer, spin king Shane Warne and probably one of the best bowlers of the last decade, Glenn McGrath. Due to the relatively recently implemented structure of the Australian cricket season, with Test matches proceeding the ODI tournament, it will probably be quite normal for cricketers to end their Test careers in Sydney at the beginning of the year, but the departure of these three is quite significant. While Langer has an impressive record, Warne and McGrath stand out even more. While Warne's accuracy and huge spin and McGrath's metronomic precision niggardly combined with tricks uncannily deployed make them both outstanding bowlers in their own right, their partnership of 1001 Test wickets has been synergetic.

	Glenn McGrath						Shane Warne
	M	O	R	W	Av.	SR	M	O	R	W	Av.	SR
Both Playing	104	4105	10435	488	21.38	50.47	104	4773.4	12763	513	24.88	55.83
Other Matches	20	769.4	1751	75	23.35	61.57	41	2010.3	5232	195	26.83	61.86
Total	124	4874.4	12186	563	21.64	51.95	145	6784.1	17995	708	25.42	57.49

The two bowlers were probably the biggest difference between Australia and the other teams during Australia's period of dominance. While the period has seen Australia boasting a remarkable depth of batting talent, the batsmen have generally been facing bowling attacks of significantly less quality. The surprisingly low number of Tests Australia has drawn in in recent years has been attributed to the attacking, quickly-scoring batting, but the ability to take 20 wickets quickly is at least as much to "blame". While too much shouldn't be read into these figures, it is interesting to see a breakdown of Australia's results since McGrath and Warne first played together in Perth in 1993/4.

W/D/L (%won)	With Warne	Without Warne	Total
With McGrath	71/17/16 (68%)	14/3/3 (70%)	85/20/19 (69%)
Without McGrath	13/5/6 (54%)	5/2/2 (56%)	18/7/8 (55%)
Total	84/22/22 (66%)	19/5/5 (66%)	103/27/27 (66%)

While it is hard to imagine another pair of bowlers doing quite so well, it seems possible that the hole they will leave won't be too big. Stuart MacGill has been ready to play in Warne's absence for quite a while and we will never know what he could have achieved if he had had Warne's opportunities. Perhaps more significantly, this Ashes series has shown that Stuart Clark is capable of the type of McGrath-esque accurate bowling that takes wickets at both ends. However, as nice as it would have been to say that the new year marked not only the end of three great careers, but the beginning of a new-look Australian Test team, we won't see them in action again until November!

Beginnnings

Being very interested in calendars and the measuring of time, I used to like being in a new year, even though I knew it wasn't particularly significant, but somehow it seems hard to ignore it's insignificance this year. I'm not sure why. It's probably relevant that the new calendar year isn't as significant here in England as it is in Sydney. The academic year started back in September. For Christmas and New Year, the schools tend to have two weeks off, while the undergraduate students had three before coming back for Semester B.

Being in London has also made it more obvious just how arbitrary the timing of "New Year" is. There are many calendars out there, including some with perhaps less arbitrary definitions of the start of the year, such as the Persian spring equinox. (Then again, the new year here does seem to vaguely coincide with when I start to notice that the days really are getting longer again!) But even ignoring other calendars, and thinking about so many people all celebrating on 1 January, I notice that either we decide the year starts at a set time in an arbitrary place (Greenwich?), or we end up we me in 2006 talking to someone in 2007, as I mentioned yesterday.

The only thing special about New Year's Day is that it is one year after the previous New Year's Day. Time and life keep going on, however our minds choose to file things. I suspect that most of us take a while to get used to the new "file" - I found myself thinking of things from August and September as "2005", because I'd somehow realised that they were now last year, without ticking my mental clock over to 2007. Some of us might enjoy noticing the first of the year. I once had a thought that rather than staying up on NYE, it might be nice to get up to welcome the year in at midnight, then stay up for the first sunrise. Some of us might feel that it is an opportunity for a fresh start, even making all sorts of resolutions. Maybe it's easier for us to focus on things like that when the year starts, and it's definitely not a worse time than any other to seek a new beginning, but don't be fooled into thinking that habits naturally have a tendency to get thrown out with the old calendars.

Apart from a bit of fun, I don't think the new year by itself brings anything other than a chance to think of things on a yearly scale. The thoughts this year brings to my mind are how little I managed to do in 2006, and have left to do now; several friends planning to get married this year; a fourth wedding anniversary; four-yearly events like the cricket World Cup; and not knowing what we'll be up to at the end of the year. New things, and old things continued, but in all of them trusting the God who makes all things new. There isn't anything special about New Year following Christmas, but new life does follow from receiving God's ultimate Christmas gift.

...to its setting

So the sun has set on 2006. I had some thoughts on Christmas that I might have posted if I'd spent more time online and/or been able to express them in a way that didn't say something I didn't mean. Now, though, I think they can wait until next December. After all, the end of the year follows hard on the heels of Christmas, and next Christmas is already this year!

After a great Christmas Day and a strange week when many things were on holiday, we reached New Year's Eve. My first conversation of the new year was that afternoon, when I happened to be online and talking to someone who was in Sydney, and so had already passed midnight. Pointing out that "it's still 2006 here" is just that little bit stranger than telling people it's still Sunday evening for us, or something like that.

Then, to see the new year in, we went to an event at church together with the Russian-speaking congregation. After some food, there was a quiz, which featured two rounds of biblical questions from Yuriy, including his usual riddles, and two science rounds from Dan. One of the latter was quite easy for anyone remembering their high school science lessons (probably quite difficult if you didn't like them!), but the other was a complete joke, with all questions relating to aerodynamical engineering! I'm not sure everyone saw the humour, and I think our team were the only ones to even guess the two answer questions, getting one of these right and guessing another where the answer was zero.

After that we had a fast and furious game of relay-Pictionary. We managed to win this as well as the quiz, and enjoyed the box of chocolates we received as a prize. After this, similar quiz a few weeks ago (Amy and I were on the winning team then, too), I'm starting to think maybe Australians do have a tendency to take anything competitive just a little bit too seriously!

While this was happening, around us there were more cross-year conversations from China and then Germany, and then at 11:30, we had a service and time of prayer. It was good to pray together and direct our thoughts from Philippians 4, but I particularly appreciated Winston's solo. He sang a song which appropriately talked of the end of a day, and the sunset moving from continent to continent. It reminded us of those who sunset had already left behind and those who were yet to finish their day or year worshipping God, while he faithful whatever the time or place. As Psalm 113 says, "From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the LORD is to be praised."

Christmas light

Last Saturday, there was a Christmas meal for international students at East London Tabernacle. On Friday night, a few of us were there to help set up. After peeling and chopping the last spuds, ending up with more than we needed, we were mainly setting up tables and decorating.

While I don't think my Greek carols were widely appreciated, BJ did get the silly mood going, with his headwear. The next night @lex and Nick* did their best to convince some that tinsel and baubles are traditional English Christmas fashion (see right). I think the highlight of the decorating was the lights on the Christmas tree, particularly that big star covered in light globes at the top.

The Christmas lights are up all over the place now, with bells, trees and candles outside our house, as well as the shapeless coloured lights that hve been up since Eid/Diwali/Guy Fawkes. The lights are definitely a welcome cheery addition to the long nights and a contrast to the sun, which for the few hours that it is up each day, is right on the horizon, and in my eyes through my south-facing window. They are definitely appropriate for any sort of winter festival, but have extra significance when we think of the Christ of Christmas. His birth was announced by a throng of angels and a star that would put tree-topper to shame. More than that, John says that not only is this baby the word of God that said "Let there be light", he is also the ultimate light of the world, brightening a darkness much deeper than any winter.

(* according to their name tags. "Nick" was claimed to be the name of the silent central character in the life of King David, but that's another matter...)

1 December

It's now December, meaning that it's summer in Australia. In the northern hemisphere, there doesn't seem to be a uniform idea of when the seasons start. In the United Kingdom, the start of winter seems to be as often thought of as the winter solstice (the astronomical definition) or 1 November as the beginning of December. However, the meteorological definition of the seasons is the same as that used in Australia, and so it was announced today that the just completed autumn was the warmest since some time in the 70s. It has been fairly nice. In fact, I only got my scarves and gloves out yesterday.

When this report was mentioned on the radio this morning, it was tied in with several other stories related to today's date. It is five years since museums of galleries here were opened to the public for free, with entry fees only applying to special exhibitions. Given the number of such institutions in London, we really could make more use of that! It is also World AIDS Day. I think the red ribbon was the first of the now numerous coloured ribbons for various causes, in this case the plight of those suffering from a disease that looks likely to be more of a killer than the Black Death. Speaking of ribbons, the ABC reports that this weekend New South Wales Cricket Umpires and Scorers Association umpires in Sydney Grade Cricket will be wearing black ribbons for a cause of signficantly less importance. Once a member of this association, I agree with their point, whatever it's place in the scheme of things. However, the wearing ribbons of any colour, no matter how worthy the cause, pales into insignificance when I think of the work of the Christ Church Christian Care Centre and many others round the world actually working with the victims of AIDS and other problems.

Forget the spies, where are the doctors?

Despite my statement at the birth of this blog, all my posts so far have been about Australia and England, or at least have mentioned Aussies in England. (There were three of us watching the Lord Mayor and ghosts, together with a German, a Japanese, several Chinese and three Brits.*) This is about to change, as by request, this post will not involve interactions between antipodes, but is a matter of East and West, in the Cold War sense. I haven't been paying enough attention to this issue to do it justice, but hopefully it iwll be interesting and not too inaccurate.

Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died last week in London. He first became prominent in the news when he was rushed to Universtiy College Hospital halfway through the month with a mystery illness contracted just after a meeting with "a contact" in a sushi bar. The media were quick to point out that Litvinenko was a major critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin and raise the possibility that he had been poisoned on the orders of the Russian government. This was repeatedly mentioned in news reports over the following weeks, interspersed with references to many other connections of Litvinenko who might also like to see him gone and suggestions that the FSB (the KGB's successor) might be being framed.

There was some discussion of Litvinenko's background, possibly motives for killing him, and exactly what he had been doing/who he had contacted on the day he fell ill, but the focus of the media turned reasonably quickly to his deteriorating condition and the question of what was wrong with him. Initial reports mentioned thallium poisoning, but later doctors said they might never know what the cause was and announced that x-rays had revealed "objects" in Litvinenko's stomach. It wasn't until after his death that the cause was identified as polonium radiation.

Litvinenko's death on the 23rd also turned the spotlight back on the issue of possible Kremlin involvement, particularly fuelled by comments attributed to Litvinenko hours before he became unconscious. Scotland Yard's "suspected deliberate poisoning" became an "unexplained death" and then suspicious. Russia's new law concerning extra-judicial killings was brought up and the politicians got involved. Members of opposition parties were outspoken, calling for statements from the government and saying that relations with Russia could be affected, without saying anything definite. The government was even more cautious, limited by ongoing investigations and most probably a sensible desire to avoid any unnecessary diplomatic troubles. The Home Minister said that the Russian ambassador had been told that full assistance was expected from the Russian authorities, but apart from that, but his statement focussed mainly on the actions of the health authorities.

The attention of the media understandably also swept back to public health implications, as traces of polonium radiation were discovered first in hotels and Litvinenko's house and then on BA planes. While these discoveries are potentially quite helpful for the police investigation, the general tone in the media seems to still be as it was described on a BBC panel game about a week ago: not so much concern that foreign spies might be killing in our capital, as an episode of House. I wonder whether this is simply because the health aspects might affect us more generally, or whether they are also more interesting to the modern audience. Even the detective genre of TV shows seems to be showing a trend towards more emphasis on the medical side of investigations. Maybe the medics are taking over from Bond and the like. (I'd defintely rate House ahead of Casino Royale!)

(*I have a question, particularly relevant at the moment: Are the Welsh "poms"?)