This is just another day. Let’s do the things we normally do.

Love the song. Love this short film.

One of the coolest videos I’ve ever seen online.

Cartwheeling

This 14-second-long video is just so much fun to watch, over and over again. Shaun Tait (Australia) bowling to English ‘keeper Geraint Jones in the 2005 Ashes series. Now, I don’t rate Tait very highly as a bowler. He has a tendency to spray the ball all over the place. However, he does bowl at a pretty rapid pace, and on the few occasions that he does get it to pitch in the right area, he can be lethal, as Jones found out. Granted, Jones isn’t the best batsman in the world, but he was in reasonably good form in that series, and he had absolutely no idea what happened there. Sheer pace.

And what brilliant, insightful commentary by Mark Nicholas. “Shaun Tait has bowled Geraint Jones”. I wonder how he comes up with these gems.

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YouTube has finally got a decent-looking video player. Finally. So now I don’t have to feel bad about displaying YouTube videos here.

Here’s the first, then. World Cup semi-finals have always been tense affairs (I’m not counting the farce that was the 2007 World Cup). The 1996 World Cup semi-final was between Australia and the West Indies — you know, back when the West Indies still had a great cricket team. Australia won the toss and decided to bat. The opening bowling combination of Curtly Ambrose and Ian Bishop reduced them to 15/4 in the first 10 overs. Somehow Australia managed to make 207 in their allotted 50 overs, thanks to resilient half-centuries from Michael Bevan (69) and Stuart Law (72).

The West Indies got off to a good start. Chanderpaul opened the batting, making 80. Brian Lara and Richie Richarson got useful 40-odd scores as well. They were 173/4 and cruising for the win. And then thing started to go terribly wrong. A certain Shane Warne decided that he didn’t quite like how things were going. He picked up four wickets. Damien Fleming bowled brilliantly towards the end as well, especially the last over. The West Indies lost their last eight wickets for 37 runs. The final score: 202 all out. That was the first (and I guess last) time the West Indies have ever lost a World Cup semi-final. I was 10 years old at the time and I remember feeling bad about the result, because I really wanted the West Indies to win the World Cup.

Also, watching the ‘96 World Cup on TV was a little more fun because of the Pepsi commercials. You know, the “nothing official about it” commercials with Dickie Bird, Dominic Cork, etc. I think I’m the only one who still remembers them. Ah, well.

Anyway, here’s the video of the semi-final, then. Highlights of the second innings, with commentary by Michael Holding and the inimitable Tony Greig.

Coming up next: Australia vs South Africa in the 1999 World Cup semi-final. Yeah. That match.