England

You can always tell when a major football tournament is around the corner when there is a massive drama surrounding the availability to a key England player.

Just to clarify that I am not talking nonsense and that there is, in fact, a curse on us, here are some are the biggest storylines to appear in this soap opera that has haunted England in the last 10 years:

2002:

On the pitch, John Terry is the embodiment of the power, passion and dedication that marks out any great leader. Throughout his career at Chelsea and for England, the 29-year-old has put his body on the line. Managers across the world would kill to have some like Terry in their team.

There is no doubt that he is a fantastic player, but as a man he leaves a lot to be desired.

It appears the England cricket team loves to give their fans quite the emotional rollercoaster ride. They very nearly subjected us to a 7 – 0 whitewash by the Australian’s, out for revenge; but then go to South Africa and not only beat in-form Sri Lanka, but also knocked-out the hosts in a superb all-round display. However, although their job is done for now, the side went back to their seemingly more traditional style against New Zealand, collapsing whilst batting first and going down by 7 wickets with 25 overs to spare.

It hardly seemed likely that on the eve of the third Ashes Test of the summer I would be writing that Ricky Ponting’s Aussies are well and truly on the back foot after failing to win at Cardiff and being comprehensively beaten at Lord’s by an English side determined to play exhilarating cricket.

It seems only yesterday that Michael Vaughan was lifting that little urn in front of the packed Oval crowd on a gloomy Monday evening in the middle of September; but now, four years on and a lot has changed on the eve of the Ashes 09.

On Saturday night England women’s cricket team managed to do another thing which their male counterparts have failed to achieve by winning the ICC Women’s World Cup in a nail-biting victory over New Zealand at the North Sydney Oval.

It has been an eventful 10 days in the West Indies, and a week and a half the English camp will want to forget – a demoralising innings and 23 run defeat including a second innings slump of 51 all out; a test match in Antigua which lasted only 10 balls before it was abandoned and moved 50 miles into town; but finally, some good news, as the English top order ran the West Indies fielders ragged on the first day of the 2^nd test, take two.