Why didn't John Howard's bid for the vice-presidency of the ICC succeed? Simple. The ICC found this footage on YouTube:

Here's a download link, for those who want to listen while they're doing other stuff. Sorry for the crappy editing!

http://www.archive.org/download/DropkicksRound12/DropkicksRound12.mp3

The distance between our two countries may physically only be 2,200km but Shaun Tait, Brendon McCullum and Martin Guptill showed that there's a bigger gap when it comes to celebrating good work.

I love it when Popbitch turns up a good sports story...

Ian Botham, we're told, tells a great Geoffrey Boycott story. On Beefy's first tour abroad, Boycott was dropped halfway through the series. So Botham, feeling sorry for him, took a bottle of whisky up to Geoff's room to commiserate. He finds Boycott naked, apart from his pads. He made Botham sit on the bed, while he got his bat and practised his forward defensive, saying to Beefy "Now tell me, what's wrong with that stance? Nothing, that's what".

Story works best if you imagine Geoffrey's broad Yorkshire accent. Samples of that, and a passable impression of aforementioned forward defensive stance can be found in the following video...

Birds get hit quite often in baseball, but not so much in cricket - even though seagulls are always on the blimmin' pitch in Aussie. Maybe the Wellington City Council could give Jacques Rudolph a job?

Is this supposed to be some sort of omen?

PM is kinda like the Australian version of Radio New Zealand's Checkpoint programme. On last night's show this story was aired detailing a push by AFL and Cricket Australia to change the Copyright Act to protect pictures taken by media at their events.

I can see their point. They provide the spectacle. They [or the ground] take the photos. Then the media go off and sell their shots.

But hold on. Isn't that a good thing? The number one thing sport needs is exposure. If it doesn't get that it dies, because they need viewers to gain sponsors, to get revenue. So if an organisation is taking your photos and selling them on doesn't that just tell you they're doing a better job of exposing your sport than you are?

I'm not sure how the Australian Copyright Act is currently structured, but surely a resolution can be reached without it needing to be changed? Such as 'hey we'll start charging you guys a subscription fee' or 'how about for every sale you give us 12%'? Or in the easiest and most obvious solution, why not just say 'stuff it, you lot take your own shots'?

The NY Times has a nice fluff piece on cricket in the US today. It seems they treat it with the same amount of curiosity as the NZ media treat the Superbowl.

By the way, if you want to join the mentioned Facebook group, here y'are.

Now, while this is just a bit to raise awareness and inspire 'Nawww, haw qwaint' responses from New Yorkers [heh, there's a cricket-related pun screaming out there], is it possible for cricket to gain a foot-hold in the US? If Twenty20 is the way this is achieved, will the traditional naysayers still get wound up that it is an abomination?