Faintly amusing

It seems that the sports desk on Australia's Daily Telegraph has secretly been having fun with English cricket for some time now. No doubt it has been some cheeky work experience lad who has been entering cricket stories to media monitoring service NewsNow termed as English "cricket".

NewsNow Previous Top Stories
English "cricket": Flintoff comes crashing down
The Daily Telegraph, Australia 16:22 14-May-07
Sehwag told to cool it Sky Sports 14:28 14-May-07
'Woolmer was not strangled' The Times 17:00 14-May-07
Racist slur follows PM on Zimbabwe The Herald Sun 16:03 14-May-07

Garner does the beach

A Media Moguls select team took on a random assortment of Barbadian 'Legends' today courtesy of those fine people at the Barbados Tourist Authority. Everything was on hand: Mount Gay Rum; some fine microphone commentary and Big Joel Garner bowling the first over. Nutley's correspondent managed a big one before his dismissal - no guessing which legend he managed it off? Click here for more photos.

1-2-3-4... 5-0

Whitewash complete: today's brief showing from England summed up their tour. As Ian Chappell said today on Channel Nine: "England have been like candy floss - bite in the middle and there's nothing there".

Well, at least there has been one positive from Nutley's point of view. I have seen first hand the Aussie mockery it gives opponents when its own is winning. Nutley has chronicled most of the Australian media's backpages and you can view them here at flickr and over the coming days. Here's a taster from The Age backpage after the MCG Test:

Sunday semi round-up

England have yet to get a grip of themselves Down Under (what Freddie must be thinking as captain?), but at least the media have found some salvation in the form of Ian Bell and his growing confidence as a batsman.

The shorter game, of course, still eludes England. The really limited overs game saw England caught out as well as Dominic Cork's men were soundly thrashed in the Hong Kong Sixes yesterday... by the hosts.

If you are travelling to the Caribbean, I would take the Independent's advice and check out some of the sites of St Lucia over what could be some dour cricket played by England at the Beausejour Stadium.

News reaches Nutley of a leaked ICC document which sounded out Darrell Hair as the governing body's second best umpire before his controversial sacking.

Meanwhile, take a look at what England's movements will be this week, courtesy of Scyld Berry in the Sunday Telegraph.

Ashes cricket set for media-rich content

With the media watching every move (Cricket Australia said 2000 applied for accreditation) and different forms of reporting being explored faster than a Brett Lee bouncer (after being hit for three boundaries in a row), let's look at some of the sites worth perusing during the jamboree Down Under.

It's amazing how I didn't notice cricket blogging last summer, but that's proved how popular the term has become and how addictive it can be if you have one; with the time difference working to the internet's advantage over written media this time around, it only looks set to continue.

Two sites which blogged throughout the last Ashes were first-stop shop The Corridor, written by Will Luke at Cricinfo, and The Ashes Blog, which re-enacts key moments in a Brisbane back garden to by-pass image copyright laws. Both top stuff.

Of the other blogs, The Times' line and Length is the best. Patrick Kidd also linked Nutley on one of his posts, so that's definitely worth its weight! Others worth a gander include King Cricket, the BBC's TMS Blog, Cricinfo's Tour Diaries and Aussie-written The Cricket Blog and Sportnation.

From the Aussie media view, Fox Sports and Sydney Morning Herald's The Tonk are the two most likely to provide creative and lively debate amongst both sets of supporters. Most of the UK's broadsheets will no doubt provide an Ashes Diary along the way: only The Independent's Stephen Brenkley seems to keep these off-beat type stories going on a regular basis.

On the new media side, The Analyst will be providing his short, concise Telegraph podcasts, while Cricket World will be featuring live audio and real time footage throughout the Ashes. Matthew Hoggard will be pesterng team-mates during his video diaries for the Times, while the BBC will be showing brief highlights after each day's play.

A Classic Gold Aussie radio station phoned a few of us up last summer for a breakfast link, so keep your eyes peeled here if they do the same again. BBQ Bob, the host, was a typically lively, early morning DJ. One colleague always seemed to get one over him though, especially when he said that Glenn McGrath falling over the ball and chain at Edgbaston was England's gain. So with this in mind, check out this site and each venue's local radio station to see if any Barmy Army fans have infiltrated the live phone-ins.

And of course, Nutley to Nagpur will be posting from Down Under!