It's my website so if i like I can put in a favourite cricket photo I took in 2015!

2 January 2016

Starting off 2016's favourite photo section with a cricket pic instead of rugby? Why not? It's my website! But read on with the slight rugby connection!

In November 2015, just after the end of the 2015 Rugby World Cup my wife and I took a trip to Adelaide to watch the first-ever day/night cricket test.

And it was money well spent!

We loved the game between New Zealand and Australia and its three-day excitement (and also the two days of wine touring South Australia which therefore followed!)

I took my camera to the ground and pointed it at the (historic?) moment when Brendan McCullum packed in seven slips (or four slips and three gulleys) as his NZ team pressed ever aggressively for late wickets to fall by the Aussies on the third night.

The wickets didn't tumble and Australia won - but I think the photo has merit. The seven slips were only in place for about 3 balls.

There was a slight rugby connection for me at the famous Adelaide Oval. For about five years I was part of the broadcast team which commentated sevens there on the IRB tour. But on those occasions I was dumb and numb. Each year the media had, as their working room, the Australian cricket team's dressing room. Around the hallowed walls were honours boards with great cricketing name's achievements listed (including D.G.Bradman's many times)

But in those five years did I take one photograph to possibly include here?

No - not one!

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Every day there is Rugby History 4 August 2002

Click to show On this day: there was more Gold for New Zealand rugby at the Commonwealth Games

4 August 2002
More Gold for New Zealand rugby at the Commonwealth Games
This time at Manchester with Gordon Tietjens as coach and Eric Rush as captain New Zealand wins the sevens final beating Fiji 33-25.

A-Z of Rugby

Click to show BAKER, 'SNOWY'

BAKER, REGINALD ‘Snowy’

New South Wales and Australia

2 internationals for Australia, 1904

Though Reg Baker’s international career of playing halfback in both losses against the 1904 British side reads unglamorously, he is listed in any record as one of the sport’s earliest all-rounders. He became the first man to represent Australia in five sports: rugby, boxing, polo, swimming and diving. He actually competed in 24 other different games! Among his greatest achievements was to represent Australia at boxing in the 1908 Olympic Games, where he lost the middleweight final to J.W.H.T. (‘Johnny Won’t Hit Today’). Johnny Douglas was later an England cricket captain. For the record, the bout was refereed by Douglas’s father!

After his brief rugby career, Baker settled in Hollywood, where he taught film stars to ride, swim, fence and fight. He also starred on screen several times. By then, his younger brother Harald (correct spelling) had also represented Australia in rugby and had won Australian titles in boxing, swimming, water polo, and wrestling. Harald Baker was a lock in three tests against New Zealand in 1914.

It goes without saying that ‘Snowy’ Baker won his nickname for having distinctive blond hair.