Recently, twins Craig and Jamie Overton, were called up to the England ODI squad, and Adam and Simon Yates, are both going to ride the Tour de France.
I thought I'd have a look at these twins, and some other notable sporting twins.
Craig and Jamie Overton (Cricket)
The twins are both at Somerset, and were both recently called up for England's ODI squad against New Zealand.
Craig boasts better bowling and batting figures at this stage, but both are only 21, and have the speed and potential to play at international level.
At 21 their talent is still raw, Jamie has had to work hard to try and eradicate no-balls from his game, and is more of a work in progress than Craig.
The big concern for both brothers is if England's coaches alter with their natural game, as they did with Steven Finn, hopefully they will be able to progress and become future England test bowlers.
Adam and Simon Yates (Cycling)
These cycling twins are precociously talented, and smart as well, as they turned down Team Sky, to join Orica-Greenedge, so they were able to challenge for races from the start of their career, rather than ridign for others.
In his first year as a pro, Adam won the Tour of Turkey , as well as coming 5th in the Tour of California and 6th in Dauphine Libere (the French Tour de France warm-up race). He then finished his first grand tour at the Vuelta.
His 2015 has been disrupted somewhat by a broken finger in the Tour of Basque country in April.
Simon's neo-pro year was not as straight forward as Adam's, in the Tour of Turkey which Adam won, Simon broke his collarbone, which hampered his debut year. However, it did have the unexpected consequence of allowing him to ride the Tour de France, where he performed admirably, getting into 2 breaks, which in the Tour is no mean feat, before being withdrawn by his team, so as not to over exert him.
In 2015, Simon has been on an upward trajectory, finishing 6th in Tour of Romandie and 5th in the Dauphine, two impressive performances, which suggest he maybe able to ride with the front group in the mountains at the tour.
At present both riders are scheduled for the Tour de France, and both will be a force.
They won't be the first twins to ride the Tour, as most recently Peter & Martin Velits rode for Omega-Pharma Quick-Step in the 2012 Tour de France.
Bob and Mike Bryan (Tennis)
Men's doubles tennis has been dominated for the last decade, by these tennis twins.
Bob and Mike Bryan have won 16 grand slam men's doubles titles, while in mixed doubles they Bob has 7 titles and Mike has 4.
They are Olympic champions, won the 2007 Davis cup, have 4 world titles and over 100 tournament titles, in fact they have won every major title, and have not failed to win a grand slam title since 2004.
They are mirror twins, Bob is left handed and Mike is right handed, which helps them compliment each other in covering the court.
Football
The most famous current footballing twins, is probably Fabio and Rafael, the Brazilian full-backs, who were both at Manchester United. Fabio, has since left to join Cardiff City. The most famous incident involving Fabio and Rafael, was in 2009, where the referee Chris Foy, mistakenly booked the wrong brother, the decision was later reversed.
Further down the leagues, Adam and James Chambers play together at Walsall and both started their career in the West Midlands with West Brom.
The De Boer brothers, Ronald and Frank, were probably the most notable past footballing twins, they had a combined 179 caps for the Netherlands, Frank with 112 of them. They both started at Ajax, before playing for Barcelona, Rangers, Al-Rayyan and Al-Shamal.
Showing posts with label Cricket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cricket. Show all posts
Thursday, 25 June 2015
Monday, 6 February 2012
Superbowl, Spinners, Switch-hits and Clenbuterol
It's been a big week in the world of sport. Well, the truth is there are rarely quiet weeks. There is always something going on whether in the ups and downs of the season or the season curtain-raiser.
Switch-Hits
This is a re-hash of a previous controversy. Kevin Pietersen first sparked this of with his switch-hit, but David Warner re-opened the can of worms by switch-hitting Indian spinner Ravi Ashwin 100m for a 6.
The controversy is that a switch-hit involves the batsman switching stance either from right handed to left handed or vice versa.
The fact that a bowler cannot change style of bowling, or the side of the wicket or hand he releases from but the batsman can suggests an unfair advantage.
The shot has been legalised by the ICC, and is a very difficult shot. Warner hit it 100m, further than most batsman can hit with their chosen hand, but this is less to do with the shot and more to do with his frakish and exceptional talent.
I think the fact only the best players can succeed with the shot, is a proof that it is not cheating but a highly-skilled shot.
Spinners
England have just been beaten 3-0 by Pakistan in the latest cricket series. It was by all accounts an abject performance, with averages amongst the batsman ranging from low teens to mid twenties, with only Matt Prior (coming in at no.7) averaging over 30.
The fact is England were undone by the spinners from Pakistan, Rehmann and Ajmal, and struggled to play them at all. Thier overconfidence due to their no.1 world ranking and the fact that many of the batsmen seemed out of touch, didn't help.
The truth is in my opinion to be truly no.1 in the world, you have to be able to win home and away, against both seam attacks and the spinners, hopefully we can improve in Sri Lanka.
With matches against Sri Lanka, West Indies, South Africa and India still to come, if England are still no.1 at the end they will truly deserve it.
Superbowl
There is little to say about the superbowl as I've only seen highlights. This was probably my most bizarre superbowl experience, being at work on a Monday morning while the game was being played. The game did not finish until mid-afternoon Australian time. It makes it very difficult to watch the game being at work and all!
The game featured two very good quarterbacks, but this is only ever half the story, a quarterback needs the support of a good offence to protect him, good wide-receivers to offer options to pass to and good running backs to offer an alternative and take pressure off.
For instance Tom Brady's touchdown throw for the Patriots came due to a great set of plays culminating in some great offence that provided him with what seemed like an age (or a superbowl in itself - it seemed so long) that he could easily pick out a receiver for the touchdown.
http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-game-highlights/09000d5d826aedd4/Super-Bowl-XLVI-highlights
In the end i believe the best team won.
Clenbuterol
Finally to my favourite sport, cycling, unfortunately so often overshadowed by doping, and no more so than today.
I will post more on this soon, but just to give an overview of my thoughts.
Today was no shock, the investigation has been a long saga, much longer than was necessary and cycling has been greatly damaged for it.
This only shows once again the incompetence of the authorities and the muddle of the doping authorities. CAS overrules the Spanish body on behalf of WADA and the UCI, with the Spanish Government also interfering.
There are no winners from this, just losers and defacto winners, but that means very little, to them or anyone else.
On the face of it, it seems like the case was a trial of guilty until proven innocent, in many ways this is true, but a better analogy is one of a crime scene.
A murder has occurred and the suspect's DNA has been found, now he must prove why it was there. The fact is he couldn't, and even though the burden of proof for doping was lacking, there was equally no proof that it was contaminated meat, although as ludicrous as that sounds it is plausible.
What is clear is that cycling is the big loser, Contador was able to continue competing and winning, despite now being judged to be guilty, others are denied their glory and cycling seems no further ahead than in the mid-noughties, despite the opposite being true.
Switch-Hits
This is a re-hash of a previous controversy. Kevin Pietersen first sparked this of with his switch-hit, but David Warner re-opened the can of worms by switch-hitting Indian spinner Ravi Ashwin 100m for a 6.
The controversy is that a switch-hit involves the batsman switching stance either from right handed to left handed or vice versa.
The fact that a bowler cannot change style of bowling, or the side of the wicket or hand he releases from but the batsman can suggests an unfair advantage.
The shot has been legalised by the ICC, and is a very difficult shot. Warner hit it 100m, further than most batsman can hit with their chosen hand, but this is less to do with the shot and more to do with his frakish and exceptional talent.
I think the fact only the best players can succeed with the shot, is a proof that it is not cheating but a highly-skilled shot.
Spinners
England have just been beaten 3-0 by Pakistan in the latest cricket series. It was by all accounts an abject performance, with averages amongst the batsman ranging from low teens to mid twenties, with only Matt Prior (coming in at no.7) averaging over 30.
The fact is England were undone by the spinners from Pakistan, Rehmann and Ajmal, and struggled to play them at all. Thier overconfidence due to their no.1 world ranking and the fact that many of the batsmen seemed out of touch, didn't help.
The truth is in my opinion to be truly no.1 in the world, you have to be able to win home and away, against both seam attacks and the spinners, hopefully we can improve in Sri Lanka.
With matches against Sri Lanka, West Indies, South Africa and India still to come, if England are still no.1 at the end they will truly deserve it.
Superbowl
There is little to say about the superbowl as I've only seen highlights. This was probably my most bizarre superbowl experience, being at work on a Monday morning while the game was being played. The game did not finish until mid-afternoon Australian time. It makes it very difficult to watch the game being at work and all!
The game featured two very good quarterbacks, but this is only ever half the story, a quarterback needs the support of a good offence to protect him, good wide-receivers to offer options to pass to and good running backs to offer an alternative and take pressure off.
For instance Tom Brady's touchdown throw for the Patriots came due to a great set of plays culminating in some great offence that provided him with what seemed like an age (or a superbowl in itself - it seemed so long) that he could easily pick out a receiver for the touchdown.
http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-game-highlights/09000d5d826aedd4/Super-Bowl-XLVI-highlights
In the end i believe the best team won.
Clenbuterol
Finally to my favourite sport, cycling, unfortunately so often overshadowed by doping, and no more so than today.
I will post more on this soon, but just to give an overview of my thoughts.
Today was no shock, the investigation has been a long saga, much longer than was necessary and cycling has been greatly damaged for it.
This only shows once again the incompetence of the authorities and the muddle of the doping authorities. CAS overrules the Spanish body on behalf of WADA and the UCI, with the Spanish Government also interfering.
There are no winners from this, just losers and defacto winners, but that means very little, to them or anyone else.
On the face of it, it seems like the case was a trial of guilty until proven innocent, in many ways this is true, but a better analogy is one of a crime scene.
A murder has occurred and the suspect's DNA has been found, now he must prove why it was there. The fact is he couldn't, and even though the burden of proof for doping was lacking, there was equally no proof that it was contaminated meat, although as ludicrous as that sounds it is plausible.
What is clear is that cycling is the big loser, Contador was able to continue competing and winning, despite now being judged to be guilty, others are denied their glory and cycling seems no further ahead than in the mid-noughties, despite the opposite being true.
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