AK's view from the boundary

My son was born 21 years ago to this very minute.

Happy birthday dude.

All I want to know is where did all those years go?

Sad day but understandable from a purely cricket point of view. It did cross my mind last year that Michael might retire back then.

As a Captain of England I put him right up there with Mike Brearley.

In 2002 he scored over 900 runs in the home series against Sri Lanka and India. He then went on to batter the Aussies on the 2002/3 tour down under to the tune of 600+ runs. His tally for 2002 alone was 1,481.

After his knock of 156 against South Africa at Edgbaston in 2003 he was made Captain. Then followed that good run of results in 2004. Played 13, won 11, drawn 2. this was then followed up by the 2005 Ashes win.

In late 2005 we saw the first of many occurrences of his knee problem and he was never the same again.

It’s always been a given that a test average of 40 labels a player as great and he did achieve this.

Tests 82 Runs 5719 Average 41.44.

He also had the most exquisite cover drive ever seen in the game and it’s that alone that I will remember him for.

Thank you for all those runs and just for a while making us a great team through your captaincy.

PS. Just to cheese the Yorkshire mob off, he was actually a Lancastrian, born and bred in Eccles.

Crowded trains U-turn fury.

Yet again the good folk of the Greater Manchester area have been shafted by NuLabour. The 180 new rail carriages promised in an announcement In January 2008 are being reduced to a maximum of 106. Since the announcement was made 18 months ago we’ve seen diddly squat by way of new carriages anyway and it concerns me that the word maximum is now being mentioned and as such, I expect the reality to be considerably less than the 106.

I’ll hazard a guess that not one single penny is taken away from London’s Cross rail link that has had £6 billion chucked at it.

While I’m posting about a transport related issue I’ll mention today’s bus ride home.

The 256. Stank of piss and beer and had bottles and cans rolling around on the floor. Add to that lot the fact that the bloody heating was on. IN THIS WEATHER FFS!

Quo were good value for money as were Madness, but it was all about the night time wasn’t it?

Prodigy, awesome.

Blur, shite, always were. Over hyped dipsy pop band.

Best performance over the 3 days? For my money it was Florence and the Machine. This was the performance that had “We’ve arrived” stamped all over it, a coming of age if you will. Very, very impressive.

PS please as it’s getting a tad hot.