Alpha Magazine

Oh, what’s a cricketer to do? For years they moan about playing too much, how their marriages are falling to bits, they never see their kids, they never get the chance to rest, recover, practice, retrain, blue sky. But THEN… Then the big bucks arrive and Indian loony leagues arrive…

In news guaranteed to generate pity in absolutely no-one in Australia, the boss of failing French rugby team Toulon has been moaning about how it’s all gone wrong for him. “Volatile millionaire” (rich, interfering, mercenary tantrum-haver) Mourad Boudjellal has looked at the crop of big-name signings (including a knacked Sonny…

Safe in his nice house in [insert name of very quiet suburb in very safe part of town], ICC chief Haroon Lorgat (a double-point score if ever there was one) has asked the England cricket team if they wouldn’t mind returning to the current centre of the terrorist hurricane for…

It’s been far too long since the Bucket made lazy, half-remembered and 78 per cent inaccurate comparisons to 25-year-old TV series, so I’ve rolled up my sleeves and gone for it. There was one episode of Blackadder where the man himself was about to get married and looking for a…

Somewhere in Queensland yesterday, a bloke woke up with a stinking headache, his clobber still on, half a tin of XXXX Gold on the floor beside him and a vague recollection of something important. Then he remembered. He remembered that he became the latest in a long line of people…

Yesterday was the day for doubt and fear. A day to test the faith, go to church and hope a falling tree didn’t get you on the way. It was a day when little girls asked, “Why do bad things happen to good people, Daddy?” And Daddy had no answer.…

Nothing makes clubs angrier, yet nothing is more downright entertaining to the neutral observer, than when teammates grab the handbags and start hitting each other. After that, no matter how often the manager trots out the solidarity line, you know there’s serious cup-throwing going on behind the scenes. And it…

With his crystal balls at the ready (no jokes, please, it’s tough to talk about), the Bucket can make several predictions about the coming Test series with New Zealand: Every time Matthew Hayden gets a score below 30, everyone will say he’s on his way out. Ponting will get a…

A proven and repeated drug-taker who is keen to resume working for a company that bans drug-taking, has become angry that the company will make sure he isn’t still taking drugs when he comes to work for them again. “I can’t believe it,” said the potential employee. “Just because I’ve…