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ExileGwilym

Listed below are comments made by ExileGwilym between Saturday, 20th June 2009 and Friday, 18th September 2009.

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Vaughan joins Test Match Special 1:25pm on 18 Sep 2009 Didn't hear last night, but this sounds like good news to me. TMS thrives on intelligent wit, cricketing knowledge and charisma of the team, all of which Vaughn always appeared to excel at when interviewed as captain. All those having a go at Henry need to lighten up - yes, he's a bit of a confised old duffer at times, but he conveys such a sense of sheer fun and enjoyment that far outweigh any lpses with the stats. I could listen to him all day and we definitely need more of him, not less. Tuffnell and Hayden have been excellent all summer and I'll welcome them back to my radio any time. Phil is perhaps the Henry of the future, in a way. I'd gladly see Boycott dropped, though - he's becomming a parody of himself and the chips on his shoulder seem to get bigger by the day. Entertaining as a bit of Geoffrey baiting can be (I still laugh remembering Agnew trapping him into virtually confessing to tax evasion a year or two back when there was a news story about benefit years or payment in kind or something), it gets a bit tiresome and is far outweighed by the repetitive and self-important droning.
Flintoff a very English hero 10:25pm on 23 Aug 2009 I wonder what Flintoff's stats would look like if we took away the early part of his career when "The Next Botham" tag weighed heavily on his shoulders.

Let's not burden Broad with being "the next Flintoff". He has the technique to be far more of a "proper" batsmen and if he looks more at Glenn McGrath as a bowling icon than trying to produce Flintoff-like explosiveness, that will be no bad thing. He can fill Fred's place as the all-rounder in the side, but let's not crush the guy under the expectation that he'll be the same.
Strauss's England worthy winners 10:06pm on 23 Aug 2009 @ #30 "the company that pays the most gets it" - not true, Wimbledon, the FA cup final, England home football internationals, the football world cup, the Olympics and perhaps 6N rugby and some others all go to free-to-air TV. No issues with Sky's coverage except that I'd have to stump up enough cash to see the entirety of 2 tests live to see it. When you've got to go to work for all but the last hour or so of play most days, it's simply not worth it. I'd happily see the Sky team on Freeview somewhere, but I simply don't have the cash to watch them.

@ #32 They may have been lucky at Cardiff - lucky not to be facing Messrs Warne & McGrath, who certainly wouldn't have let Monty and Anderson survive 12 overs. You don't win a Test without taking 20 wickets and on that day, as Ponting himself pointed out, Australia's bowlers weren't up to the job.
Strauss's England worthy winners 9:43pm on 23 Aug 2009 Ben, Flintoff will be nil by mouth tomorrow evening because he's going under general anaesthetic on Tuesday... perhaps you missed the interview with Jonathan Agnew - the BBC's cricket correspondent - where he told the world he had plans for dinner with his wife? I don't suppose she'll let him go back on that.

To the guy (2) who dropped Collingwood from his South Africa squad... difficult call, I know, but he's one cool head in an otherwise fairly young and excitable line up. Remember Cardiff. Trott deserves a run in the side and Bopara will be back one day but perhaps not straight away. KP needs to look at Ponting - he's got the talent to be the best batsman in the world, he just needs to show some application and part of that should be knuckling down and batting 3. Not sure I'd take Harmison on tour - he's great when he's firing, but away from home he doesn't do that much, and nor will he be doing that in 4 years time. Let's find someone for the next 10 years.

Can't remember when Sky's contract is up, but the BBC, C4 and/or C5 need to ensure they get the live coverage for the rest of time. The old problems about blocking up a channel all day and upsetting the fans of selling-crud-at-car-boot-sales programmes just don't apply while half the digital channels are sitting idle all day. Get together, divert money from Wimbledon and Big Brother and persuade the ECB that making cricket accessible to all is a credible alternative and better in the long term, even if it means opting for a slightly lower stack of cash in the short term.
Calm before the Cardiff storm 9:30pm on 07 Jul 2009 Looking forward to it... hopefully the cricket will be up to the standard of '05, but unfortunately there won't be the same atmosphere and capturing the imagination of the general public - there simply isn't the option of leaving work a bit early to catch the last couple of hours, or first-time cricket watchers getting engrossed during the day. You've got to be a hard-core sports fan to shell out for satellite, which is a real shame. Thank God for TMS... hopefully the streaming service will work at work. Sometimes the BBC thinks I'm abroad and won't stream some content, and there's no DAB signal at my desk :(. I remember start of the '07 series even more clearly than '05 - I was very ill in hospital but managed to keep myself going just to hear the first couple of overs. When Aggers said "it's goine straight to Andrew Flintoff at second slip" I was leaping out of my bed in excitement, then I realised he really meant "straight" to second slip, not via the edge, and my heart sank. Can't be that bad this time around!
Lions ratings 5:42pm on 20 Jun 2009 I don't think Gethin or AWJ deserve the blame for Vickery's scrummaging and deserve 7's apiece - it was still AWJ when Adam Jones/Matthew Rees came on and sorted the scrum out. Gethin's the only prop in world rugby who could get near Habana! As for Monye, don't forget he also threw away a 2-man overlap by going for the line himself towards the end. Shane may not be on his best form at the moment, but that just means he can't make tries out of nothing. Even now, you'd have to back him to get better than 0/3 of clear opportunities when the others in the team have done all the work. Interesting listening to the raido commentary, Williams (M) got a lot more mentions than Wallace despite being on the pitch 1/2 as much time. Starting XV for 2nd Test:
Byrne (please be fit, else Kearney)
Bowe
BOD
Roberts
Shane
S Jones
Phillips
Gethin
Rees
A Jones
AW Jones
POC (too late to drop the captain now... perhaps it should have been BOD after all)
Croft
Williams
Heaslip

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