Mohammad Amir is still sad.

I read this piece but couldn’t bring myself to watch the video interview because the teaser still is way too tragic.  (If you forget, he is the infant Pakistani bowler implicated in the spot-fixing kerfuffle in England this past summer.)  The upshot is: his career is destroyed, and he’s pretty much just an unfortunate kid who may lack moral fiber but is probably merely young.  I don’t blame the ICC, and I do not exonerate Mr. Amir (if he is indeed guilty), but he is a victim of a broken sporting culture, and that must be addressed sooner rather than later or the sport will die.  He should not be treated specially because he is a particularly fine bowler, but he should serve as a wake-up call to cricket (and, if we’re being honest, also general sporting) authorities.

Per Andy, I will stop calling them “Team Schleck.”

Nice kits! From left: Fabian Cancellara, Fränk Schleck, Andy Schleck.

They are Leopard Trek!  And they are awesome!  And I really really hope they win the Tour this year, because who likes Contador?  (Shockingly, we still don’t.)

Here is Leopard Shleck’s (Am I the first to do that?  I hope so.) website.  Not a lot there, yet, but I’m sure there will be.  And maybe the official Twitter feed will be slightly more literate (if far less endearing) than those of the various members.

Nice scarves, too. Thanks, lads.

And because whyever not:

Certainly our and possibly THE favorite.

Paul Collingwood totally just took Mike Hussey’s wicket.

He’s been rubbish with the bat this series, so perhaps in the near future he will cease to bring us joy as a Test cricketer for England.  For this reason, I am going to ride the excitement as long as possible.  Also, check out this vertical!

Result!

Collywobbles!  Sometimes they work!

Update: And he just caught Smith off Jimmy Anderson, so it’s party time again!  Hooray, Colly!  Figure out how to bat again, please!

Also, dear Aussie cricket commentators: “début” is not pronounced “daboo.”  Please correct.

Both Nadal and Federer have very tough lives.

No wonder Nadal is so full of joy.

Awww.

Does it hurt to be this cute all the time?  Is that what’s wrong with Rafa’s knees?  Can any of you wait until they’re both old and show up to tournaments and make fun of how the new kids are all wimps and bad at tennis?  Because I can’t.  It’s going to be fantastic.  It’ll be like Ian McKellen and Peter O’Toole, only with fewer cigarettes, and slightly more daring clothes.

The Schlecks are still awesome.

There’s no content here, just a cute photo.  Team presentation soon, and Fränk seems excited about the kit, so that should be interesting….

Fränk is über-suave.

Rafael Nadal gets more joy out of life than anyone.

Seriously, look at this photo:

I hope he didn't bite this one; that looks like it could end badly.

He looks that happy after beating Roger Federer in a quite meaningless match in Abu Dhabi.  Which is like looking happy after taking out the trash.  If your cordial nemesis was also taking out the trash, but you did it better.  And it maybe wasn’t even your trash, but you figured you’d do it, just for kicks.  And then someone gave you a spittoon?  And you were just thrilled.

Even Kim Jong-il loves Beckham!

Apparently, Bend It Like Beckham is the first western-made movie to be shown on North Korean TV.

The choice is mystifying, but the movie is great, and empowering, and funny.  So hooray!  And Becks is still very handsome, even if he seems to use topsoil as hair product.

Having a good tailor helps.

And England retain the Ashes.

This is my favorite photo from the series.

Aren't they cool?

They look tragically unhip, but so, so happy, so I’m willing to let it go.  They’re doing the sprinkler.  It was a thing this series, for no reason at all.

This is my other favorite photo of the series, because my love for Paul Collingwood is deep and abiding and I like profoundly dull things like fielding.  Especially when it’s exciting as it is here!  Ricky Ponting is being dismissed, in Perth, I believe.

Gosh!

And the serious part of the post consists mostly in this: Mr. Ponting will probably lose the captaincy and I don’t really see why.  Certainly he should have batted better, and his tirade against the umpires was embarrassing and childish.  But there was no captain in the world who could have made this Australia squad beat this England squad.  Alastair Cook was in good nick, and so was practically everyone else, and Mitchell Johnson had a good match in Perth only after being dropped after the first Test for being totally woeful.  Effort would not have helped; wanting it, whatever that means, would not have helped.  The England team have just been better this winter (except when over-confident and complacent in Perth).

It’s entirely possible I’ll be proven embarrassingly wrong and England will collapse pathetically in Sydney to draw the series.  It’s largely what I expect, since I support England cricket.  But I will say that they are the better team, and while you can and should give Andrew Strauss credit for that, it is not entirely Mr. Ponting’s fault that Australia have not taken the Ashes back.

We are late to the party on this one.

AND good hands? Crikey.

But whatever, it’s bowl season.  This is totally appropriate.  It is a mark of how little college football I watch that I haven’t noticed this earlier; sorry, I can only give up one day of my weekend for American football.  Maybe it should be Saturday, but right now it’s Sunday, so tough darts, Oregon Ducks and your totally hot wide receiver corps, particularly in the person of Jeff Maehl.

Also, boo to the Oregon football website for having a totally misleading and unattractive photo on their roster page; a friend suggested that “cute Oregon player” would be Jeff Maehl, and I said “ew, no” and spent another fruitless half hour trawling through roster pages, because in fact I wasn’t sure if this guy was an Oregon player at all, maybe Stanford, and maybe someone from the Rose Bowl teams this year, but maybe also OSU from last year…  These are the perils of watching SportsCenter out of the corner of your eye with the sound off.  You will waste everyone’s time.  But at least we found him eventually!  And he is super cute.

Whatever, at least Beckham is still gorgeous.

Ladies and gentleman, Russia will be hosting your 2018 World Cup, and Qatar in 2022.  Qatar is neither here nor there (seriously, where is Qatar?  (RHETORICAL)), but Russia?  Really, Russia?

My brain is exploding with Potemkin jokes, snide remarks about human rights, and generalized indignation.  Was it not bad enough to award the tournament (riskily) to South Africa out of a sense of condescension?  What’s wrong with Holland?  They have infrastructure and food!  Also beer.  And I imagine the Panorama program on corruption in FIFA did hurt the England bid.  Possibly because many of the allegations were true?  FIFA, we are so done.

Anyway, I’m going to go calm down, so I leave you with this.

Yes, even with the neckbeard. How DOES he do it?