In your boat race…

And so the great British sporting spring begins with surely one of the most pointless sporting events ever, the Boat Race. We sat through it last night out of pure politeness (Mrs Spurt had never seen one before) and we have to report that as a sporting spectacle, it did not cover itself in glory.

Originally conceived as a way to thin out the academic gene pool and for the university nobs to run riot about London town (if PG Woodhouse is to be believed), we can remember our folks coming over all a quiver at the prospect when we were knee high to a grasshopper, but even back then it seemed as pointless as a politician’s promise.

Twenty minutes of pure tedium given a glossy sheen by esoteric language and frankly rubbish tactics (“They’re driving for the Middlesex station but Oxford move to cover it”, “Cambridge have the smoother stroke rate” – what? What?!), it’s basically a dull pull-a-thon that could easily be decided down at the local gym.

You can occasionally judge a sport by it’s coverage and when the funniest quote from two hundred years of competition is the 1949 radio commentary from John Snagge "I can't see who's in the lead but it's either Oxford or Cambridge" then you know you’re not in for the finest of sporting spectacles.

Apparently someone won (either Oxford or Cambridge ho ho - we'd lost the will to live by then) and nearly quarter of a million people watch from the banks of the Thames and over 120 million world wide on TV.

People you need to get out more.

Pay Days

More trouble at t' mill today as the Indian Greed Premier League gears up to make a land grab on the last country to hold out against the Twenty20 money fest, our dear beloved old Enger-land.

Following New Zealand’s capitulation t’other day, hope was springing eternal after there was a strong line offered by ECB chairman Giles Clarke, who said that England wouldn’t change its domestic first class calendar to accommodate the Indian League. So there!

Strong words indeed, but of course money roars and today the Professional Cricket Association’s Sean Morris said that England players would want to join in the cash dash and a solution should be found or ‘money will talk.’

Undoubtedly it will it always does and with IPL chairman Lalit Modi recently hinting that the IPL would shift its season forward so that the England players could be accommodated into this essentially meaningless license-to-print money league.

It’s going to be hard for players to resist the lure of an easy Twenty20 slogfest rather than grafting away at the gruelling round of Test and ODIs and it’ll only take the likes of a Harmison to sign up before other players think ‘screw that I’m up for some easy money’.

Not so bad perhaps if it's a old pro like Stephen Fleming or Shane Warne looking to cash in at the end of their career, but what about a young gun like Stuart Broad just starting out for example?

So sad to see the traditions and foundations of cricket slowly being eroded by a format which was not long ago being hailed as its saviour.

Reasons to be cheerful?

So as we predicted yesterday, England finally broke the habit of a lifetime and came back to win the series against New Zealand 2-1.

But what does this mean for the team and what does it bode for a tough summer ahead of the Aussies visit next year? Well it’s a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand winning any series is welcome and England haven’t won away since Sri Lanka three years ago. Coming from 1-0 behind to turn around a three-Test series is no also mean feat, so on the surface at least, there’s plenty to be positive about.

But - and just like Nigella’s - it’s a big ‘but’, the Kiwis are probably the weakest Test playing nation outside Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, so there’s no reason to crack open the bubbly quite yet.

Yet, there are reasons to be cheerful especially in the bowling department. Ryan Sidebottom’s emerged as the real leader of the bowling pack and Stuart Broad looks like he could become an all-rounder of genuine potential. Nice to see Monty back in the wickets too (eventually), but the jury is still out on Harmy and Anderson, while Hoggy will have to put in some work to earn his place back.

Now the batsmen. Well Collingwood and Bell emerge with real credit and it was good to see KP back in some kind of form back after his comparative recent lull, but for the rest of the willow-wielders it’s case unproven. The top three of Cook, Vaughan and especially Strauss still have plenty of work to do before the Aussies start looking over their shoulders. The return fixture can't come soon enough and England will need to hand the Black Caps a comprehensive thrashing on home soil to carry some momentum through to South Africa during this long, hot summer.

England’s double shocker

We go away for a short Easter break with Mrs Spurt and what on earth is the sporting world coming to? First up long-standing England posh lad Andrew Strauss rescues his career with a mighty career-best 177 against the Kiwis, then new wunderkind Stuart Broad bowls like a demon in tandem with Monty to set up what should be a thrilling series-snatching victory from the the sheep worriers.

However it’s a bit of a measure of how far the mighty have fallen that we should have to win an away series (or indeed any series) coming from behind in such a manner. Doesn’t bode well for the return of the Aussies next year.

Awesome news too from the world of Bangladesh cricket, where following Andrew Symonds recent vigilante impersonation, Bangladesh's Mohammad Ashraful has handed out a spot of summary justice to a spectator who was booing him. Ashraful didn't even wait for a game to begin, this was a slap handed out in the nets before the match. Fine work from the 23-year old Bangladesh skipper.

Elsewhere in shock news new England footy boss Fabio Capello names dozy drug test dodger and sometime centre back Rio Ferdinand as skipper against Les Blues for the friendly tomorrow night. The smart money was apparently on John Terry, or as a real surprise, the Becks, so it’s a bit of a left field call from the Italian boss. But at least it keeps everyone on their toes while the captaincy rotates around the main candidates. Let’s just hope Rio remembers to turn up on time.

Becks is back...

So clothes horse, gay icon and part-time footballer David Beckham is back in the England fold for next week’s soiree against France and rightly so we believe here at the Spurt.

Not that we Spurters are sentimentalists or anything, or indeed think the former England skipper has any real future with the squad, but let’s just get this 100th cap malarkey done and dusted so the team can move on, because frankly, it’s becoming distracting.

Credit where credit is due though, and in between the pant shoots and ill advised sarong flouting, the boy Dave’s done a great job for England over the years, skippering a team of woeful underachievers, always trying his nuts off for the team and on occasion, carrying the entire side on his shoulders..

There’s been many lows (elimination at every quarter final stage and not even qualifying for this summer) and quite a few highs (that wonder goal against Greece) but it would be churlish to deny him a century of England caps.

However the future of right midfield now looks sown up in the form of David Bentley and to a lesser extent Aaron Lennon and Sean Wright-Philips. So let’s get the boy Dave his 100th cap and pack him off to the States to spend the twilight of his career entertaining the Yanks. It’ll be a suitable end for a fine player who always had more than a touch of the Hollywoods.

Road to Recovery

And just like that, we’re back. Yup apologies for the break in transmission, nope we weren’t lying low to avoid Sports Council sponsored hitmen, or dodging sordid tabloid spurting revelations - and rumours that we had anything to do with organising that latest rumble in Tibet (Chinese Military 30 – unarmed Tibetan protestors 0) are absolutely wide of the mark.

Nope unfortunately the truth was - like England’s top order batsman - a touch more prosaic. It was the flu wot done it and as were lying stretched, feverish and sweaty and labouring under the influenza cosh, we could have sworn we saw England triumph in the cricket, the rugby and the Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton took the chequered flag in Aussie land.

What’s that? Feverish hallucination? None of that actually happened? Nope? Must have been the delirium then...

Still, great news greets us on our return to what laughingly passes for sanity around these parts with news that Cricket has struck back against the evil monetary empire of the Indian Premier League with home boards now able to veto any individual player’s involvement in the IPL.

Awesome news and a real dose of much needed bulwark against the fairly pointless cash cow which was threatening the integrity of our beloved and most holy Test cricket.

It’s just what the doctor ordered.

The seven deadly sporting sins...

Intriguing news from that bastion of sanity and probity the Vatican, with a hilarious recent updating of the seven deadly sins.

Out go old stalwarts like sloth, gluttony and (our personal favourite) lust and in come polluting the planet, eating dairy and having your iPod on too loud on public transport (note. we may have made those up, because we couldn’t be bothered to actually read anything the Pope says).

But it did get us all of a ponder... surely there must be some mileage in a seven deadly sporting sins?

And sure enough, there was...

Drugs
The idea of competitive sport is to pit your natural skills, wit and abilities to outwit or defeat your opponent. Chemically enhancing your chances is a no-no. Otherwise you’ll be said to have ‘Done a Dwayne’ and your profile will be measured in Chambers, the new official unit of sporting unpopularity.

Bribery
If you can’t win by fair means... bung the umpire a few quid or a couple of hookers and suddenly all the fifty-fifty decisions start coming your way. You’ll probably get caught eventually of course, but if it’s good enough for Serie A...

Knobbling
We don’t mean a little bit of jiggery pokery which is fair enough, like getting the West Indies so pissed on the black stuff on the night before that they were 25 All Out against Ireland in 1969. Nope, we mean deliberately knobbling or kicking the shit out of a opponent. Naughty, naughty.

Bad losers
You got beat, get over it. Yup, the weather/pitch condition/planetary alignment/referee or opposition’s skill level just proved too much on the day. Get on with it and stop whining. Ferguson, Wenger we’re looking at you.

Arrogance
Yeah you might have won everything under the sun, be three times undisputed champ and a multiple award winner. Hell you might have even won the biggest one all, BBC Sports personality of the year (cough) but a touch of humility wouldn’t go amiss alright?

Punditry
Nothing wrong with some good honest punditry per se, but the ‘Not as Good/Tough/ Hard/Competitive/Skilful or Difficult as it was in my day’ brigade can piss right off. So can the TV execs who keep hiring them. Note: We’re still available TV land.

Being French/Australian
Probably the most unforgivable sporting sin of all...