Its pretty difficult to ignore the FIFA World Cup at the moment and earlier today, England beat Slovenia to finally claim their place in the Last 16. It was quite a nervous build up to the match with talk of player unrest following 2 shocking performances against the USA and Algeria.

The BBC put together these short clip with actor Brian Blessed (unofficially Britain’s loudest man). In the clip, Blessed recites part of Shakespeare’s HenryV with a slight amendment for the World Cup. Its well worth watching….

Friday the 13th certainly proved to be unlucky for anyone who wanted to sit down and watch a days cricket at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua between England and the West Indies. As soon as the game started, it was delayed due to rain but when the players emerged to continue, the game was only going to last a few more minutes.

The problem was caused by the poor state of the outfield and the huge amounts of sand that had been put down. It made it very hard for bowlers to get a firm footing on their run up. Discussions took place between the captains, umpires and match referee before the game was abandoned citing concerns over the safety of the players.

No doubt there will huge fallout over this and the blame game will start. It really does beggar belief that an international fixture in an sport with such a following can fall victim so such dreadful preparation.

© 2011 Rob Atherton Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha