New zealand cricket team

Oz at its bouncing best: England's cricket team (and Piers Morgan's ribs) take a pasting Down UnderBy Piers Morgan. Published: 13:47 BST, 26 January 2014 | Updated: 18:58 BST, 1 February 2014 e-mail 148 shares 10 View One day,' I promised my sons Spencer, Stanley and Bertie, years ago, 'we will go and watch the Ashes in Australia.' After England's rampant 3-0 victory in last summer's contest, the perfect time appeared to have arrived.'We're going to the 4th and 5th Test matches in Melbourne and Sydney,' I declared in September.'What if it's already over by then?' asked Stanley, 16.'It won't be.' I chuckled. 'Not even this Aussie team could lose the first three games at home.' It's a family affair: Piers with sons Stanley, Bertie and Spencer at the Sydney Opera House Thus emboldened, I splashed out a sum of money approaching the national debt of Estonia to book us all flights from various parts of the world (me direct on Qantas from Los Angeles, my sons and youngest … [Read more...] about Oz at its bouncing best: England’s cricket team (and Piers Morgan’s ribs) take a pasting Down Under

For many years one of the staples of family entertainment on television was the art of plate spinning. The most impressive example, according to the Guinness Book of Records was in Bangkok in 1996 when David Spathaky had 108 plates spinning simultaneously. In rugby union the equivalent is a weekend of World Cup quarter-finals, with 184 players all frantically looking to keep their childhood dreams intact. Every four years it is the same: one false move and everything comes crashing down. Knockout footy, to coin a phrase set to reverberate across Japan this week, is different for precisely that reason. Keep calm and carry on rucking? Aside from keeping the referee onside, executing basic skills precisely, coping with the screeching external pressure, outwitting your opponent tactically and silencing the doubting chimp on your shoulder, there is nothing to it. It is harder still when the tackle height margins are so desperately fine and fitness levels have increased across the board. … [Read more...] about Japan and New Zealand have higher goals after showcase weekend

Steve Hansen has warned Ireland that recent form will count for nothing when the two sides meet in the World Cup quarter-final at Tokyo Stadium on Saturday evening. Ireland have beaten the All Blacks twice in three meetings since the last World Cup, including a 16-9 victory in a relentlessly physical encounter in Dublin last November, and they arrived in Japan at the top of the world rankings having nudged New Zealand off the top. “Ireland are a very good side and our last three results against them are lost, won, lost,” said Hansen, who is in his final month as the All Blacks’ head coach having taken over from Sir Graham Henry at the end of 2011. “We are now at the stage of the tournament where games are do-or-die and that makes it pretty exciting. “They won last November because they were better than us on the day in a titanic struggle. Like us, they have a settled way of playing that works for them. We enjoy facing Ireland and that has not changed … [Read more...] about New Zealand seek to forget recent history with latest Ireland challenge on horizon

If you’re interested in the end of the world, you’re interested in New Zealand. If you’re interested in how our current cultural anxieties – climate catastrophe, decline of transatlantic political orders, resurgent nuclear terror – manifest themselves in apocalyptic visions, you’re interested in the place occupied by this distant archipelago of apparent peace and stability against the roiling unease of the day. If you’re interested in the end of the world, you would have been interested, soon after Donald Trump’s election as US president, to read a New York Times headline stating that Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook, considered New Zealand to be “the Future”. Because if you are in any serious way concerned about the future, you’re also concerned about Thiel, a canary in capitalism’s coal mine who also happens to have profited lavishly from … [Read more...] about Why Silicon Valley billionaires are prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand

The New Zealand government will create a dedicated investigative team to find and prosecute terrorist and extremist content online, seven months after a gunman live-streamed the mass murder of 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said NZ$17m would be spent over four years to employ 17 new full-time staff, allowing the department of internal affairs to double its investigative, forensic, intelligence and prevention work in partnership with other countries. “We will have a dedicated team focused on targeting and disrupting violent extremist content across our digital channels. This will work in a similar way to how we target child sexual exploitation material by working with online content hosts to find and remove harmful content,” Ardern said. The package is the main domestic component of Ardern’s Christchurch Call – a global voluntary pledge to eliminate terrorist and violent content online devised in the wake of the attack. … [Read more...] about Christchurch attack: New Zealand tries new tactic to disrupt online extremism