I've done plenty of research on quality bbq joints in Texas and I don't think I'll be fucking around in a queue for hours at Franklin BBQ for something maybe 5% better than other places.

It'd be interesting to know if the vastly smaller grounds and crowds they'll get here will be a little underwhelming for India and perhaps even performance inhibiting after playing in the big stadiums in Australia with a shitload of Indians (and fuck all Aussies) in the stands.

@No-Quarter said in Black Caps v India:

@MN5 said in Black Caps v India:

@Siam said in Black Caps v India:

@MN5 bless you

3 quick reasons backing the ordinary bowling line up appraisal?

Got home after a night out and was extremely pissed. I think I thought I was posting in the mid 2000s. It's my only explanation cos I seriously don't remember writing that.

I got the batting part right at least....

Well at least your not stuck in the mid 90s anymore. Progress.

Unlike Australia's ODI totals

Boy, this fizzled out in a hurry didn't it.

Anyway, the plan changed. We pushed the trip back to October / November largely so I can go to an NFL game as well as NBA. Can't book until April when the NFL draw comes out though as that'll be the tricky one to tie in and get tickets to with a maximum of two games we can attend in around six days. At least with the NBA we have three cities we can get to a game in over the same period and potentially multiple games to choose from in one or two cities.

So now we're looking at driving the Texas Triangle with less time in Mexico. This'll mean 1-2 nights in each of Dallas, Austin, SA and Houston. And the good thing about this is we get to stop at places in-between and see more of the country.

Having revived this thread now, any further advice etc would be happily received.

@booboo said in Aussie Cricket:

@NTA said in Aussie Cricket:

Is Brian Waddle the guy who thinks he's a warrior poet?

Suspect you think Jeremy Coney (former test captain)

Have heard a bit of Coney this summer and I think he's jumped the shark. Talk about Captain Obvious. Certainly his best days are well behind him.

@barbarian said in Aussie Cricket:

@shark I think you need to differentiate Fox from Channel 7.

I found the Channel 7 test match commentary to be pretty good. A nice departure from the blokey bloke Channel 9 coverage, with a few foreign voices and good analysis from Trent Copeland. In the breaks they bought in journos like Gideon Haigh and Peter Lalor for some high-brow cricket chat, which I very much enjoyed.

Whereas the Fox guys went down the blokey route, with Waaarrrney leading the way.

Hang on, who's got which coverage? Do Foxtel and 7 both cover international cricket? And Foxtel additionally has the BBL, is that how it works? If so, we don't get the 7 coverage so theres zero differentiation to be made.

I'd love to see a Pats vs Saints Superbowl. In that case my leave request stays in and I go to a function. If the Pats lose this week it gets cancelled. The Patriots have been my team for as long as I can remember, while I have tremendous respect for the city and people of New Orleans and what they've been through since Katrina. New Orleans is just this beautifully turgid, almost larger than life mash-up of cultures soaked for a couple of hundred years in amazing music, food and booze and I loved the joint.

@ACT-Crusader It's a weird old summer for commentary this year in Aussie cricket. With the shift in networks they've tried to jazz the test and ODI commentary up, more akin to previous years' BBL commentary rather than the staid Ch9 crew. Quite a few of the same people are being used from the BBL commentary. And for the BBL, the good little group they had on rotation has been expanded and diluted in return. The results aren't great and probably aren't what was wanted.

The loose banter that works in festival-esque T20 commentary doesn't translate well to the longer formats, while the BBL commentary can lack personality and pizazz while a lot of the previous years' commentators are on international duty.

As it stands I don't class Bracewell any more an all-rounder than Matt Henry, Tim Southee and Adam Milne; all bowlers who can on occasion hit a long ball.