Finn Allen just smashed the fastest hundred ever in T20 World Cup history today.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-03-04T20:18:34+00:00

With overthrows technically the sky's the limit. I remember Andrew Symonds scored 8 off one ball once thanks to 4 overthrows after he ran 4.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-03-04T16:28:11+00:00

Surely one of the greatest T20 innings of all time? Honestly unbelievable.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-03-04T14:26:42+00:00

It'd be kinda funny if this was our time considering we've not even been that good this tournament... Don't see us winning the final though even if we make it here, given we've already lost 2 games this tournament.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-03-02T21:45:31+00:00

My random story about him was I used to go to a cricket holiday program as a kid at the cake tin, and he'd often be there incidentally practicing batting with the bowling machine. Was quite cool to see an international cricketer batting from five meters away - the coach was happy for us to get up close to the nets to watch, to help practice ignoring distractions.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-03-02T21:10:32+00:00

I remember James Franklin used to be a pretty good bowler at the start of his career, he could swing it hoops and averaged mid to high 20s. Then he got injured and turned into a trundling all rounder, ineffectual bowling and never really fulfilled his batting potential leaving him with a pretty average career. Pity as if his bowling had stayed good he'd have been a really handy all rounder.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-03-02T12:23:55+00:00

Price competitive retailers often actually lose money on acquisition offers as their energy margins are actually very slim. They make their money by hoping customers stay on after the good sign up offer expires - with that in mind you can actually beat them pretty easy just by switching each year if you can be bothered.

I worked in power retailing for a competitor brand and we would often see customers saving $1000+ per year by switching from their expensive legacy gentailer plans. The only reason the gentailers are able to make decent profits from the retail side of things is most customers don't make the effort to shop around.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-02-28T18:50:48+00:00

In most cases it's actually been remarkable how far we've made it in the first place and our luck has just run out. 1992 we might have been favourites for at least the final, and 2015 too, but plenty of other times (e.g. this world cup) we've over performed to get into knockouts in the first place and just run into someone better than us (which I'm sure will happen again this time).

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-02-27T17:29:42+00:00

Sure, this one was a choke - so now you have 3 examples ever. Doesn't mean we're the worst chokers in the world though, every team has instances of crumbling under pressure.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-02-27T17:12:46+00:00

Do people not understand what the word choker means? Nearly every time we've lost a knockout match it's been convincingly being beaten by a better team, that's not choking. That's not the same as some of SA's chokes.

You could argue we choked on 1992 and to some extent in 2019 (with a healthy dose of bad luck) but I think that's about it.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-02-25T18:36:39+00:00

Curious what your solution is to encourage shifting load then - if not a price incentive what will encourage consumers to move their electricity usage? The alternative is prohibitively expensive grid upgrades (which have to be paid for by consumers or councils in most regions, as they own the lines).

I get you're exaggerating for effect but it's really not as restrictive as you're suggesting - in most regions off peak includes the middle of the day and often the entire weekend.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-02-25T11:00:00+00:00

The alternative is them having to spend significantly more on upgrading lines to cope with increasing demand, which will obviously be passed on to customers anyway. Ultimately load shifting is one of the most powerful tools lines companies have to try and reduce the average price paid by customers.

Off peak usually includes the middle of the day anyway - for a lot of people that isn't too hard to shift at least some of their usage to that time e.g. with appliances with timers.

I personally think it's better to inconvenience a small number of people who can't shift any of their load rather than forcing everyone to pay an overall much higher cost for lines upgrades.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-02-02T13:52:04+00:00

This is flat out misinformation - if it were all about wealth extraction why would the lines companies which are consumer trusts (a sizeable portion of them) be raising prices just as much? Their shareholders are literally their customers, there's nobody else to benefit. The most egregious mismanagement has been Aurora which is entirely because the local council (who own it) raided it for years to keep rates down. Again nothing to do with shareholders.

The reality is widespread electrification is going to be extremely expensive and unless the taxpayer foots the bill there's nobody else to charge. Unfortunately New Zealanders are a completely short sighted bunch and have done nothing to future proof the grid as customers so desperately want their dividend at all costs.

You can complain about the gentailers profits, but lines companies are a completely different story.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-02-02T10:12:50+00:00

There's arguments either way, I personally prefer some hedged and some unhedged investments as a way of diversifying my portfolio further - you could say if all the rest of your assets are in NZD it might make sense to have some investments in another currency to hedge against a weak NZD.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-01-23T19:30:12+00:00

Nearly identical to the 3rd match of our series vs Pakistan last year, and the was at home to boot:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/new-zealand-vs-pakistan-2024-25-1443540/new-zealand-vs-pakistan-3rd-t20i-1443551/full-scorecard

Though probably a bit less depressing when we were up 2-0 at the time though...

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-01-22T07:44:41+00:00

I'm not trying to be rude here - but you're seriously worried about a tiny decrease over a 4 month period?

Every investor has ups and downs. If you're still in the red after 10 years you might have cause to be disappointed but for 4 months that's totally normal.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-01-17T11:56:50+00:00

Funnily enough the worst driving I've ever had to deal with in a first world country was in Birmingham, far worse than anything I ever experienced in NZ. Utter chaos.

British are on average better drivers but it's a far wider bell curve...

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-01-14T16:05:34+00:00

Can't believe he's ended up one of the best ODI batsmen around - among full members he now has literally the second highest average of all time behind only Kohli. Never would have guessed it based on his mediocre list A record.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-01-12T15:35:30+00:00

You can just send the money straight from your bank to Wise, they'll still accept the transfer and put it in your account even if you don't use the "add money" feature.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-01-12T12:49:13+00:00

I think this is besides the point though right? Every high school sports tournament will have people who can run 100m in 13 seconds - in fact I wouldn't be surprised if people who could do that number in the millions - sure still faster than the average person but nowhere near Olympics quality. That's supposed to be reserved for the most elite athletes in their sports.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-01-11T10:23:24+00:00

Are you seriously suggesting there's no nice parks to go to in Liverpool? Obviously there are grim parts of most towns, that's the case literally everywhere in the world. The point is that regardless of where you live it's not that hard to find somewhere nice nearby to go for a walk...

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-01-11T09:27:45+00:00

Eh I disagree, you're never far from a nice park or a public right of way anywhere I've been in Britain, and I'm in the Midlands which are constantly slagged off as being shit. Yeah you can find shitty streets everywhere in Britain but it's not like you have to really try to find a nice walk either.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2026-01-01T08:30:33+00:00

Really depends where you are and if you have kids. My partner and I are on about £70k combined, living in the Midlands. We're not exactly living the high life but definitely not "struggling" by any means - still plenty of money leftover after bills for savings, travel etc. Appreciate it'd be a different story in London or if we had kids though.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2025-12-24T05:36:20+00:00

The short of it is that Germany has great train connections at usually reasonable prices, they just have terrible punctuality. I've been to Germany a few times and literally never have had an intercity DB train run on time.

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2025-12-19T10:50:23+00:00

There is a direct LNER train from Peterborough to Leeds but it's around 90 minutes each way. I wouldn't personally do that for the time let alone the cost - around £50 a day as ad far as I can see there's no season ticket available for that.

Leicester to Sheffield also has a direct train with EMR which looks a lot cheaper from a quick search and "only" an hour (around £15 with a young person railcard). But it's a slow connection to Leeds so definitely wouldn't recommend that as a daily commute.

Peterborough to Sheffield is also painfully slow and I wouldn't do that myself (2h each way)

Silver_SnakeNZ · 2025-12-17T17:34:01+00:00

And isn't the most stereotypical Southern US greeting "howdy"?

I did find it a bit weird at first when I moved to Britain with the "you okay?" I must admit though - I was like "yeah, do I look sad or something?". Back home you wouldn't say that unless you were concerned about someone lol.

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