Ta to the BBC for this one…

England Ashes-winning hero Ashley Giles has conceded Old Trafford star Monty Panesar must now be recognised as the team’s number one spinner.

Panesar showed great skill to remove five specialist Pakistan batsmen on Saturday as England won the first Test.

And the injured Giles, also a left-arm slow bowler, told Five Live: “Monty in this last game performed superbly and he’s now the man in possession.

“I have to get my place back. That’s the danger when you get injured.”

Giles said his immediate concern was to get back and bowling “in any form of cricket”.

He admitted: “I can’t bowl and I can’t run. The actual prcess of rehab is going really well but it’s just another four weeks before I reach that point.”

The 33-year-old, a veteran of 52 Tests, has played no competitive cricket this calendar year.

After leaving the Pakistan tour early last November, he underwent an initial hip operation.

But when that failed to clear up his injury, he needed another at the start of July.
Giles is hopeful of making a return before the Ashes tour, and his plans include the ICC Champions Trophy in India in October.

But for now, he is happy to sing the praises of Panesar, a man nine years his junior who has played just eight Tests.

“Monty is a brilliant technician,” said Giles.

“He works extremely hard, he has lovely drift on the ball, puts lots of revolutions on it and turns the ball.

“His consistency is something that has impressed me since he has come into the team.”

You may also remember that I updated that by saying that I was breaking the law in asking you to do so, so you must not do (unless of your own free will, of course ;)) - otherwise I’d lose the little I’d gathered up.

Well, we’ve completed nearly three months, and in that time, you, via Adsense, have picked me up the princely sum of $5.36. Or, in real money, £2.88. Thanks a bunch, guys!

So, I’ve found a wonderful way for you to have no excuses but to part with that cash and send it my way, it’s easy with PayPal, the eBayer’s best friend.

Click the button below to send me some money. No really, send me some. It’ll be great for you if you do.

Well, Just tiny ones.

If you’ve been visiting with any regularity (and if you haven’t, shame and a very swift death to you!) then you’ll see I’ve been playing around again.

It’s okay - we’ve now got our own logo. I’ve changed some of the link buttons to other features to match it, as well as getting that England World Cup banner out of the corner of the screen. Fat lot of good that did.

Updated the Sounds of the Day, today though. Go see.

Well, James Morrison does, anyway.

Terrific song of his I’ve taken a liking to.

Has a good mix of music and vocals that’s always appealed to me. He’s a guy with obvious talent so it doesn’t need to be drowned out by a crappy background, but he also doesn’t try and sing you to death by overdoing his voice in the way I think James Blunt does and Will Young used to, though not anymore.

My recommendations never really carry for very much but I’d get you to check this out, either for 79p on iTunes or a couple of quid from the shops.

He did a Live version on with Jools Holland recently (which automatically gets him brownie points from me) and sounded terrific, go find whichever you’d prefer!

Thanks to Sky News for another quality one…

A jump jockey has apologised after being caught on camera headbutting a horse.

Paul O’Neill was seen angrily lashing out at City Affair after he was thrown from the horse before a race in Stratford on Sunday.

The Horseracing Regulatory Authority said it would hold an inquiry after viewing footage of the incident.

O’Neill apologised for headbutting the John O’Shea-trained horse and said he had “never done anything like this before”.

He told the Racing Post: “The horse had been very unruly leaving the parade ring and when we went to look at the last hurdle before hacking down to the two-mile start, he started reversing when we got to the hurdle and went under a railing which he lifted out off the ground.

“It took me five minutes to leave the railings and get him down to the start which I had to do as gently as I could.

“When I got to the start he headed straight for a car with me, stopped five feet from the car, whipped round and dropped me.

“I landed on my feet, but a bit awkwardly for my knee and I was a little bit angry then, but I’ve never done anything like this before and I’m glad to say the horse is okay after it and I have spoken to John O’Shea.”

He added: “I would just like to say to the public that I’m very sorry they had to see such a thing. I’ve never done it before and it will never happen again.”

The pair went on to finish fourth in the Claydon Horse Exercisers Novices’ Selling Hurdle.
RSPCA officials described O’Neill’s behaviour as “stupid and unacceptable”, the Daily Mirror reported.

The incident was reminiscent of Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt on the Italian defender Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final earlier this month.*

The French captain headbutted Materazzi in the chest after the Italian allegedly insulted the Algerian-born player’s sister and mother.

* What? The chap didn’t floor the horse and leave it rolling around, did he?.

Besides, I wanna know what John O’ Shea makes of it all…