INTRODUCTION

Welcome this little look back the test match that finished yesterday morning. I also have links, photos and infographics to share.

ENGLAND REGAIN THE ASHES

The third and fourth matches of this series have just about totalled five days (one test match that goes the distance) between them, such has the speed with which England destroyed Australia in both games. Previously England had won the first match comfortably, but were utterly monstered at Lord’s in the second. All in all, this means that England now have an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five match series. Given what happened on the Lord’s shirtfront the groundsman at the Oval would be well advised to prepare a pitch with some life in it for the fifth match.

In four successive innings Australia have had their batting wrecked by four different bowlers (never before has one country had four different bowlers pick up six or more wickets in four successive innings). The figures that Stuart Broad produced in the first Australian innings of the match that concluded yesterday still test credulity.

Both captains had good moments near the end of the match: Cook by giving the youngster Mark Wood a chance, duly accepted, to finish things, and Clarke by announcing that the Oval will be his last test match, thereby sparing Cricket Australia an unpleasant but necessary decision.

Stuart Broad deservedly got the man of the match award for his destruction of the Australian first innings which set England on the road to victory, while Ben Stokes’ sensational catch (check it out here) deservedly won the champagne moment.

A PHOTOGRAPGIC INTERLUDE

Here a few pictures from yesterday evening…

LINKS

Not so many links to share as sometimes, but enough to split them into subsections.

PETITIONS

Three petitions for your consideration this morning:

• This one via sumofus calling on Unilever to clean up their mess.
• Next, from change.org comes this petition calling for a boycott of all international conferences in South Korea in protest at that nation’s shameful record of animal cruelty.
• Finally, also via change.org comes a reminder of the petition calling on South African Airways to join other major airlines in not shipping hunting “trophies”.

A SINGLE AUTISM RELATED LINK

This piece, from respectfullyconnected is a heart-wrenching account of a piece of thuggery perpetrated someone referred to due to their conduct as “Ableist, Sexist Jerk” or “ASJ” for short. I am sharing at here, as I already have done elsewhere (twitter, facebook, google+) not in any hope that “ASJ” will see it but because it so outraged me that someone thought it was OK to behave in the manner described. The title of the piece is “Don’t You Dare Call My Autistic Son a Sissy”

A TRIO OF FUN FINDS

Switching away from the serious for a moment…

1. A National Geographic piece about scientists successes and fails at fieldwork.
2. A link to what looks to me be an excellent free resource.
3. A link to quirky new blog, featuring Walthamstow among other locations, which I wish every success, called dutchgirlinlondon.

A SEGUE LINK

This is to a new find from this morning, which I got onto courtesy of a post on twitter by Jon Swindon. It is a blog called pollysshortattentionspan and it will no surprise to anyone familiar with Jon Swindon that the segue is to…

INFOGRAPHICS