Six and Out - Some Serious Cricket

Now the footy is over, it’s time for the Ashes

by Duncan on October 3rd, 2006

G’day Six and Out readers.
My name is Duncan Riley, and I’m a cricket tragic.

Now I’ve got that out of the way, greetings and salutations.

Matt has kindly agreed to allow me to guest post here at Six and Out during the forthcoming Ashes series.

But of course, it still seems like it’s far away, right?

Wrong.

Football season (both AFL and Rugby League) is now over as of the weekend passed. And in Australia that means we move from Winter Sports to Summer sports, and there is only one really big game in town come summer, and that’s cricket. And of course this summer it’s better than ever: it’s the Ashes, where England plays it’s traditional rivals Australia on our beloved soil.

I little disclosure about how I landed this guest posting gig.

Sure, I’m one of the founders of b5media, the blog network in which Six and Out resides. But the history is a little deeper than that.

My family history is pretty big in terms of sport. My great-grandfather was one of the founding members of the Eastern Suburbs Rugby League Club, and indeed, the Presidents Cup (the old Under 21s competition) had a trophy that was given to the NSWRL by my Great Grandfather.

My cricket heritage is a little better however. My Grandfather played for the Prime Ministers XI during WW2. OK, so he was based in Canberra during the war so that probably helped. My great uncle however (my mothers uncle) was Jack Fingleton (John Henry Webb Fingleton..Webb being my mothers maiden name) who batted opposite Bradman during his glory years, and indeed according to Wikipedia helped Bradman set a world record 346 run sixth wicket partnership against England in Melbourne.

That aside however, more recently I spent 2 1/2 odd years working for the Western Australian Cricket Association (WACA). I won’t go down that path in depth, but suffice to say it wasn’t time I’d say that I’d count amongst my glory years, however it did give me the opportunity to both meet and/or observe the current crop of Australian cricketers at close range. I’ll leave my observations of the Australian Cricket team for a later post.

Anyhow, I don’t want to make this post too long…but it should be noted for Australian readers you’ve now got some balance to the Englishman who edits this site. I look forward to posting regularly during the Ashes series, and if you ever want to drop me an email it’s duncan @ b5media . com.

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