The Reverse Sweep

A mention in Wisden? Surely not...

Trying to juggle a busy job, young family, two houses and occasionally updating this blog can at times prove demanding, which means that by yesterday evening we had only managed to reach page 161 of this year’s Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack despite receiving the parcel containing the sacred tome over ten days ago.

This particular article was one we had been especially looking forward to given it was written by one of our fellow bloggers - the excellent and entirely deserving Leg Side Filth aka S A Rennie – being a rather splendid and entertaining review of the year in blogs.

So, we poured ourselves a goblet of a rather excellent 2006 Chateau Grand Pontet and settled down to read. Just as we were thinking that “this is rather good”, we got a pleasant and wholly unexpected surprise.

Near the bottom of the page was a reference to this blog and our little contretemps last summer with Alviro Petersen, which we at this point should add was amicably resolved a couple of days later. Rennie used it as an example of how even mild criticism of an image conscious cricketer on an obscure (and let's be honest fairly insignificant blog) could provoke a response.

It was only a couple of sentences but there we were in Wisden. It might not rank with scoring a hundred for England in a Ashes series decider – Jonathan Trott does that far better (whatever Bob Willis might say) – but for a micro-second at least, it did impress the long suffering Mrs Reverse Sweep.

Where next?

County Championship XI of the week #3

West Indies' losing battle with the IPL

It's not jealously KP, it's pure and simple indifference

If you like this, follow us on Twitter @thereversesweep

We Are Two Today

December 23rd is a pretty random date to start a blog about cricket, but that is exactly what we did two years ago to this day.

For once the Christmas shopping was done and we were sat in the office with nothing to do et voila.

The life of a blogger is nearly as precarious as it was to be a despot in 2011, but like Dictator Dan we managed to get through the year unscathed.

It's been a good, bad and ugly year in cricket. The good was seen in England's Ashes triumph through to the absolute walloping of India to replace them as the number one Test side. It was also seen in Lancashire's County Championship triumph, Ireland's victory over England in the World Cup, Pakistan's resurgence, MS Dhoni's batting in the World Cup final and the arrival of a number of immensely talented young cricketers such as Darren Bravo, Pat Cummins and Jonathan Bairstow.

Sadly, there was a lot of bad topped by the unseemly spot-fixing trial that saw three cricketers sent to jail. As for the ugly, one didn't need to look further than the ICC. Whether it was allowing Zimbabwe back into the Test fold, dithering over the presence of the minnows in the next World Cup, backtracking over the World Test Championship or making a hash over the use of the DRS.

We hope you've enjoyed it. We have. Now it's time for a tantrum - well we are two.

Where next?

Happy 1st birthday

Dear Santa... - What have these cricketers requested for Christmas?

Check out some of our Cricket XIs: They also played cricket, Rugger Buggers, Cricketing Criminals , A team of cricketers that died young, The Worst Australia Ashes XI of the last 30 years, The Worst England Ashes XI of the last 30 years

Check out all our Reverse Sweep cricket heroes and zeroes 

If you like this, follow us on Twitter @thereversesweep

London Calling - the end of an era

 

When we arrived in the South of France in January 2005, Kevin Pietersen was yet to make his Test debut, England hadn’t won the Ashes since 1986/87, Tony Blair was still Prime Minister and no-one had heard of the Arctic Monkeys.

We started this blog at the end of 2009 and have been able to post on a fairly prolific basis thanks to not exactly being busy at work.

All that is about to change as we are moving back to England in the next few weeks for a job in London and house in Surrey – how very middle class!

Today is my last day at work in France and the coming weeks will be taken up with all the joy of relocating from one country to another.

This blog has a bit of an uncertain future. We will be popping in from time to time and we’ve already scheduled a feature on our favourite cricket blogs, which will run over the next few weeks.

But we fully intend to maintain this blog – it’s too much fun to let go – and with the new job likely to be very busy we will have to adopt a quality over quantity policy. That could prove to be a challenge!

Lastly, if anyone fancies renting our four bed villa with pool in the South of France in August or September then please feel free to visit our page on Holiday Rentals for pictures and a full description.

Where next?

Read all our County Cricket coverage

See if you agree with our other County Championship XIs of the week

Check out all our Reverse Sweep cricket heroes and zeroes

If you like this, follow us on Twitter @thereversesweep

Buy our 4 bedroom villa with pool in the South of France

 
Those that follow this blog will probably know that The Reverse Sweep clan currently live in the South of France. We've been here for six years, but now is the time with our young son and daughter both under three to return to the UK to have access to a support network and schools.

It's available for 675,000 Euros and a full description and a couple of photographs follow below. If you or any friends, family or acquaintances are interested, either send me a direct message on Twitter @thereversesweep, respond in the comments section or use the contact details in the description below.

_____________________________________________________________________

Fabulous 4 Bedroom Villa with pool for sale in Callian/Fayence - 675,000 Euros

A wonderfully spacious & private villa of 180sqm with 3 double bedrooms including one luxury master suite with ensuite bathroom and dressing area & separate luxury shower room with Italian shower.

Separate kitchen, large living room with cathedral ceiling, dining room and mezzanine.

 
Utility room and cave. 

Heating & air conditioning is electric, clim reversible.

Also a separate independent studio house of 24sqm with ensuite shower room and kitchen.

8x4m Desjoyaux swimming pool with terrace surround.

2850sqm of fully enclosed mature landscaped gardens. Ample outside terraces for dining and entertaining. Electric gates. Automatic sprinkling system. Greenhouse.

 
Close to access for A8 and all local amenities yet very peaceful location. 25 minutes from Cannes, commutable to Antibes/Sophia in 40 minutes and 45 minutes from Nice Airport.

Price: 675,000 Euros

Registered results of: Diagnostic de Performance Énergétique, Logement D 152, Faible emission de GES 5,6 A

No agents please, this is a private sale

Please email [email protected] or phone on +33 (0)6 86 69 09 47 for more information or to arrange a viewing.

The Reverse Sweep in The Independent - Fame at last!

Well not quite. We can't really call it fame, but we were featured on Saturday in The Independent magazine as part of a piece about prolific purveyors of comment on the Internet.

The writer, Rhodri Marsden - who actually has a pretty good article about drawn Tests on his blog - has taken a bit of poetic licence as I only really use 606 to promote my cricket blog, and by no means am even close to being prolific! And I am not skiving from work as the piece infers. No really!

Anyway, if you fancy a read click on the link here. I am at the bottom of the piece under the amusing and (some would say!) ironic tag of 'The Expert'. There's even a photo too, which as per my contract was heavily airbrushed.

Where next?

Check out our Reverse Sweep XIs

Read all our 2011 World Cup posts here

An XI of unlikely World Cup heroes and a not so heroic 12th man

If you like this, follow us on Twitter @thereversesweep

Happy 1st Birthday

The Reverse Sweep is one year old today.

Some (ok no-one) likened the arrival of the Reverse Sweep as the Second Coming, but as you can see we were premature by two days - unlike Alastair Cook who was born on Christmas Day and had fooled us into thinking he was the Second Coming of Wally Hammond in Brisbane and Adelaide.

Like most one year olds, we are still learning to walk, talk and familiarise ourselves with the world, but unlike many other cricket blogs we have made it to our first birthday, which is pretty good considering the infant mortality rate of bloggers.

So whilst we blow out the candles on our cup cake and drink our tea on this chilly morn, here are an XI of our highlights (or maybe low-lights?) of an eventful first year out of the womb.

1. Finding that there are similar like minded cricket addicts with warped minds and acerbic tongues via several excellent cricket blogs, Test Match Sofa and Twitter (where we have incredibly amassed over 600 followers)
2. Being named one of the 50 leading cricket web sites in the world by The Times and getting over 120,000 hits in our first year
3. Getting a shout in Dawn for our piece on Pakistan's flirtation with Hollywood during the Headingley Test against the Aussies
4. Being paid to write about cricket - it was great whilst it lasted until said site suddenly stopped paying its contributors - you know who you are
5. Getting published in the first three editions of Cricket Sadist
6. Discovering Test Match Sofa - which has literally saved our lives when work and broadcasting restrictions have meant that Sky and Test Match Special were not available
7. Getting a reply from Graham Onions on Twitter when we suggested Gary Sobers, Keith Miller and Imran Khan as alternatives to his assertion that Jacques Kallis was the best all-rounder ever
8. Witnessing the continued resurgence of the England cricket team, which has taken in a World T20 win, vastly improved ODI performances and a near two year unbeaten record in Test series - a win at the MCG over the next few days will be the icing on the cake
9. Launching our most popular features including Heroes & Zeroes and the labour of love that was the Ashes 100 day countdown - the latter a collaberation with our good friends at World Cricket Watch
10. Reading the brilliant biography of Harold Larwood by Duncan Hamilton - the best cricket book we've ever read and the perfect appetiser for the Ashes
11. Finally, but most importantly, the birth of Miss Reverse Sweep Junior, which with Master Reverse Sweep coming just two years before completes the best (and only) double hundred we've ever scored

Happy birthday Sweep - with love from Sooty and Sue.

Where next?

Check out all our Reverse Sweep heroes and zeroes

See our Ashes 100 day countdown

Heroes: Test Match Sofa

If you like this, follow us on Twitter @thereversesweep

Ashes 100-1: 50 - Who will win? Have your say in our poll...

With 50 days until The Ashes kick off at The Gabba, this seems like an appropriate time to launch an Ashes poll (see left hand side bar). This marks the chance for you to have your say before The Ashes kick off. We’re teaming up with some other fine cricket websites on this one to try and gauge the opinion of the public. You can also see the poll featured at: World Cricket Watch | Test Match Sofa

The week in cricket on World Cricket Watch

As some of you may already be aware, we write a weekly column for World Cricket Watch under the banner of the Reverse Sweep, which is intended to be an alternative and irreverent round-up of the week that was in cricket.

This week's column is now up on World Cricket Watch (click here to read it) and features:

• A preview of the 3rd Test at the Oval with a prediction that is looking none too wise now
• A laugh at Ricky Ponting's expense after his near-Glenn McGrath moment of earlier in the week
• Yuvraj Singh's annus horribilis (and for those non-Latin buffs that doesn't translate to Yuvraj's horrible anus!)
• A round-up of the FP T20 Finals Day at the Rose Bowl
• An assessment of Cricket Australia's madcap new limited overs format

I'm going to Barbados...

...well not exactly, but we will be spending the next few days with Mrs Reverse Sweep and the Reverse Sweep babies at our home in the South of France. It is definitely time to put in a bit of quality family time.

That means taking a bit of a break from cricket between now and the start of the third test between England and Pakistan next week.

It also means we will miss the Finals Day of the FP Twenty 20 competition, but we're sure we'll cope with that. Our only regret being that we won't get to say good riddance to what has been perhaps the most tedious and over-inflated cricket tournament of all time (although the 2003 and 2007 World Cups run it close).

In time honoured Blue Peter fashion, there will still be some posts appearing on the blog every day that we prepared earlier. Mostly these will be one of our Heroes or Zeroes, but also the 17th August will see the start of a new feature on the Ashes.

Enjoy and ciao for now.

Our 'Week in Cricket' column on Pongo Cricket & World Cricket Watch

When we first started writing about cricket, we posted regular articles on World Cricket Watch (we recommend checking out the new WCW One Hand, One Bounce weekly podcast by the way)  and Pongo Cricket. This included our regular weekly column entitled 'The Reverse Sweep' (hence the name of our blog, which we created a few months later). The name came from the fact that we aimed to take an alternative and irreverent take on the big stories in cricket. Hopefully, we've achieved that in a small way.

Anyway, whilst we've continued to post the column on World Cricket Watch (read past issues of The Reverse Sweep here), we haven't posted it on Pongo. That wasn't a deliberate move, but in the main due to the trials and tribulations involved in becoming a father for the second time. We also saw that the number of people posting blogs on Pongo had dried up.

But this week, we've decided to redress the issue and have posted the latest column on Pongo as well as World Cricket Watch (once David uploads it to the site!).

Read The Reverse Sweep's Week in Cricket - 28th July on Pongo here

This week's column features a preview of the England-Pakistan test series, which kicks off tomorrow at Trent Bridge. We also take a look at the mounting problems facing Australia ahead of the Ashes, suggest the teams that should be involved in the next MCC Spirit of Cricket Series, take a potshot at the run laden Colombo SSC pitch and ask what has happened to India's fast bowlers.

If that sounds up your street, head over to Pongo and/or World Cricket Watch and give it a read. 

A new little Reverse Sweep and Shane Watson

Today is a momentous event in the Reverse Sweep household. It sees the birth of our second child - a daughter which, God willing, will be taking place right about now.

How do we know you may ask? Well just like our son, little Reverse Sweep is a big baby, so the doctors have advised a cesarean birth.

So we knew in advance that today was the day. That certainly helps our blogging, as this means we can plan some posts in advance. Hence, the All-Time England XI series and other goodies coming up over the next few days whilst the Reverse Sweep himself is changing nappies.

We thought it would be fun to see which cricketers were born on 17 June. As an English household, we were delighted to see that one of England's greatest Brian Statham (pictured) was born on this day in 1930. We were also pleased that Surrey and England keeper Steven Davies was also born on this day in 1986 He is going to have some battle with Craig Kieswetter and Matt Prior over the coming years for the England wicketkeeper's spot.

Outside cricket, a host of people in history were born on 17 June. Some we were pleased with like Edward I of England (1239), tennis star Venus Williams (1980), composer Igor Stravinsky (1882) and crooner Dean Martin (1917). Others are not so good like "singer" Barry Manilow (1943), former London Mayor Ken Livingstone (1945) and Nazi Martin Bormann (1900).

Back to cricket and in Australia the little known Alec Hurwood, who played just two tests was born on this day in 1902. But it was the identity of another Australian cricketer born on 17 June that provoked dismay in the Reverse Sweep household - our favourite figure of hate Shane Watson.

But we are not going to let that spoil our day!

The Reverse Sweep v2.0

A couple of weeks ago, we promised that this site was about to undergo some major changes to its look and feel (note to self: I must stop sounding like a Marketing Consultant). Well we are delighted to launch our new site today to coincide with England's first home test of the summer and the likely test match debut of perhaps the best exponent of the Reverse Sweep - Eoin Morgan.

It's already been a fairly momentous week for the Reverse Sweep. Firstly, our humble blog received its 10,000th hit since its launch at the end of December 2009. Amazingly we are now getting an average of 150-200 hits a day, which is fantastic. Thanks very much Mum and Dad for your continued clicking! Not quite what you imagined from your retirement I know, but it's a worthwhile cause I hope.

Secondly, we were humbled to be included in The Times' list of the best 50 cricket web sites in the World, which certainly gave us a huge lift on a miserable Monday morning in the office.

So, we now present the Reverse Sweep version 2.0. I'm not sure if we've quite hit the intended button of being as beautiful as Scarlett Johansson, but it's certainly a huge improvement on version 1.0. Well at least we hope so.

We now have in no particular order:

• An About page, telling everyone a bit about us

• Pages providing links to Popular Posts, Our Lists and XIs and a one stop shop for all the articles we wrote on the World T20 - yes, we are still basking in the glory of England's win there

• There's also information on how to Advertise and Subscribe with us, links to our favourite Cricket Sites and Blogs (please drop us a line if we have missed you somehow) and a link so you can follow us on Twitter

• We are also finalising details of how aspiring cricket writers and bloggers can Contribute to this site. Unfortunately, it will be purely for love rather than payment, but you never know the exposure could lead to some paid work for other cricket sites and publications (we should know) - more details coming soon.

We hope that new and old readers alike (yes, Mum and Dad we are talking about you again) enjoy the new look, and as an added bonus here is another picture of Scarlett Johansson to brighten up the day.

 

The Reverse Sweep is named as one of The Times' 50 best cricket websites in the World

Imagine our delight when we logged onto The Times website this morning, navigated our way to Cricket Central and found that our humble blog had been included as one of the 50 best cricket websites in the World. Indeed, we are happier than Yuvraj Singh would be having stumbled upon the World's biggest naan bread.

Happy days. Now it is time to prepare that speech!

It's time for a revamp

Regular readers (if there actually are any!) of this blog may notice some differences in the coming weeks.

Just as the UK has decided it needs a new look and style at the head of its Government in the form of the first coalition since World War II, so we at the Reverse Sweep feel it's time to spruce up the look and feel of this blog.

In the five months or so since we started this blog, we have worried more about the quality of the posts (or at least that's been the aim) then the look, feel and usability of the site. But now its time to upgrade and move from an Anna Friel (nice, but quite plain) to a Scarlett Johansson (great to look at and with substance too). Or to use an cricketing analogy, move from the batting style of Paul Collingwood (effective but hardly attractive) to that of a Virender Sehwag (effective and so good that you can't keep your eyes off it).

Well that's the plan anyway. So expect to see more features, more information and the disappearance of that horrid olive green background. It will take some time because a) my IT skills are should I say limited, b) because I am not being paid enough to make this my full-time vocation I have to hold down a non-cricket related day job, and; c) my wife is nearly eight months pregnant with our second child with the first being an energetic eighteen month old boy.

So bear with us over the next few weeks. The actual posts will keep coming, but it will be a work in progress. 

 

Forthright views on the future of county cricket

The new English domestic cricket season kicks into full swing today with the first round of county championship matches. It does so under the shadow of an IPL season approaching an exciting conclusion. And as it casts envious eyes towards the sub-continent, English cricket knows that its nouveau riche Indian cousin is here to stay; they only need to look at the attendances and viewing figures on ITV4 to realise that.

 

We at the Reverse Sweep must be in doomsday mode at the moment, as this week's column on World Cricket Watch leads on our belief that the county system is in urgent need of reform. This is the theme we have taken even further with our most recent article on CricDude called Envy and the need for reform.

 

Please read the articles and let us know what you think? Do you agree, and if so what would you do? If you disagree, please tell us why and we may write a follow-up article to offer a more balanced view and hopefully prompt further discussion. 

The best cricket blogs in the world

My friend and colleague at World Cricket Watch, David Siddell has certainly been a busy bee. He has compiled an excellent summary of the 40 best cricket blogs currently active on the web.

I can assure you that no nepotism was involved in David's choice and am delighted to report that we at the Reverse Sweep are included amongst the usual suspects and a number of blogs I wasn't previously aware of.

Go and have a look at 'the 40 most exciting cricket blogs on the web' and do let David know if he has left any other good blogs out.

The Reverse Sweep on World Cricket Watch & Pongo

Those of you that enjoy this blog may not already know that I also write for the World Cricket Watch and Pongo Cricket sites. This includes my irreverent (and hopefully humorous!) weekly round-up of the week that was in cricket. This week the column looks at England’s test series victory over Bangladesh, the last seven days action in the IPL,  Australia’s victory over New Zealand in the 1^st test, Shahid Afridi’s elevation to the Pakistan captaincy for the World T20 and details a novel way of listening to England games abroad.

Get over to World Cricket Watch or Pongo now to read it.