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May 12, 2008
Posted 1 day, 16 hours ago in Miscellaneous
The Australian’s Tim Albone looks at cricket in Afghanistan and finds their coach, Taj Majik Alam, desperate for his side to qualify for the 2011 World Cup and with bigger things to worry about than rain delays:
Alam has been threatened by a suicide bomber for not picking a particular player, one of the star bowlers has been shot in the chest and his training facilities amount to four nets.
The piece also contains a link to Albone’s video documentary of the team’s bid to make it to their first World Cup.
May 9, 2008
Posted 5 days ago in Miscellaneous
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"If you make decisions, then the game will move forward at the right pace and you’ll be on track"
© Getty Images
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Martin Crowe, the former New Zealand captain, was a fine batsman in his time but also proved a shrewd leader, most notably for tossing offspinner Dipak Patel the new ball during the 1992 World Cup and for telling Mark Greatbatch to belt the cover off the ball.
Speaking to Kolkata's The Telegraph, the 45-year-old Crowe says that captaincy requires one to articulate thoughts and ideas and handle people well. Interestingly, he also ranks the current Test captains and reveals that he learnt from Ian Chappell and Mike Brearley’s The Art of Captaincy. And that Stephen Fleming was the captain who impressed him most.
The Indian selectors, in particular, have made a smart move by appointing Dhoni as the one-day captain… This will allow him to grow into the full job step by step… Dhoni has charisma and has a manner… He’s learning from the Sachin Tendulkars… New Zealand Cricket should’ve done the same thing as India instead of rushing and giving Vettori everything all too soon. Fleming could’ve been the Test captain for a couple of years more. Definitely one year, if not a couple… England have Paul Collingwood in the ODIs… He’s a fighting cricketer, yes, but is tactically inept… Tactically, I haven’t seen a worse captain but he’ll try and make up for that by fighting performances.
May 6, 2008
Posted 1 week ago in Miscellaneous
The MCC is in the news as it contemplates changing the laws relating to the make-up of bats. In the Australian Peter Lalor looks at the recommendations to limit the amount of carbon in a handle.
The law will state it must feature 90% cane, rubber and glue. However, Gray-Nicolls is already one step ahead and has developed a bat which replaces the rubber with 10% carbon. The company said it believed the handle for the Fusion II was within the proposed new law.
Read Cricinfo’s story on the changes here.
April 12, 2008
Posted on 04/12/2008 in Miscellaneous
New York has become the first school district in the US to introduce cricket as a sport in public high schools. Most of the players in the New York City cricket league are from the West Indies, India or Pakistan, and the response has been better than expected. Read on in the New Zealand Herald.
Angus Armstrong, born and raised in the United States, has been playing cricket for around three years at Stuyvesant High School, before the league was introduced. He said the experience allows him to gain an insight into cultures of other nations where the sport is popular. "There's an entire international community out there that so many Americans don't know about," he said.
April 10, 2008
Posted on 04/10/2008 in English cricket
Proof that some people have too much time on their hands. Professor Paul Boyle, from the University of St Andrews in Fife, has delved into the lifespans of England's Test cricketers and found that those who have played more than 25 Tests have a life expectancy of 80 years while those who have played fewer than 25 live on average to be 73.
In the Daily Telegraph, he writes that:
“One suggestion is that they benefited from the kudos they earned and this stayed with them for the rest of their lives, meaning they were less likely to be stressed and suffer ill-health."
In a far-from shattering conclusion, he adds that captains live no longer than non captains.
April 4, 2008
Posted on 04/04/2008 in Miscellaneous
Fewer than 1000 people play cricket in the Big Apple even though it hosted the national championships in 2006, reports Timothy Williams in the New York Times. However, the game has been introduced as a school sport and about 600 students are joining in. Despite the interest, Williams says nobody is expecting it to overtake baseball, football or soccer.
“In my travels around the city, it became clear that in the major parks around the city a lot of people were playing cricket on weekends,” the Department of Education’s Eric Goldstein said. “The old baseball field I used to play on in Cunningham Park in Queens is now a cricket pitch. It’s amazing to see.”
Parks on the edges of the city — Van Cortlandt, Soundview and Ferry Point in the Bronx; Canarsie Beach in Brooklyn; and Baisley Pond in Queens — are filled with cricket players on summer weekends, their crisp white uniforms presenting a vivid contrast on the grass fields. Some 650 adults play in the city’s six leagues.
And no story about cricket in the United States is complete without a description of the game.
It is similar to baseball, but with differences that can make it difficult for Americans to follow. Players run with their bats in hand; balls are bowled, not pitched; spit balls are allowed; fielders are not permitted to wear gloves; there is no foul territory; and bowlers (pitchers) sprint before releasing the ball, which typically bounces and picks up spin before reaching a batsman.
Don't forget to check out Cricinfo's Beyond the Test World blog, featuring news and updates from the lesser-known reaches of the cricketing world
March 28, 2008
Posted on 03/28/2008 in Miscellaneous
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Deal or no deal: Is Shane Warne bluffing?
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Shane Warne has put his cards on the table and will play professional poker instead of county cricket. Joe Hachem, a world champion at the tables, says in the Daily Telegraph Warne is pretty good at his new pursuit and his face is hard to read.
"Shane has that competitive nature and that's what makes him a champion," Hachem said. "He brings that competitiveness to the poker table. I said to him in the early days that he had what it takes to be a professional.
"He's also got the poker face now. When he first started out I told him he was giving off too much facial expression. But now he is very hard to read."
March 21, 2008
Posted on 03/21/2008 in Miscellaneous
Even by the game's customary standards, it has been a traumatic week, writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald. Three senior West Indian players putting lucrative club cricket in India before the national team, doomed attempts to suppress the unofficial ICL, a KPMG report into Zimbabwe, the return of Darrell Hair, Charl Langeveldt's pulling out of South Africa's tour of India.
Clearly they [Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shiv Chanderpaul] represent the worst of West Indian cricket, the greed, vanity and vapidity that has ruined a great tradition. Sack the lot and find some youngsters eager to serve. West indies cricket can hardly get any worse. Already the team belongs on the second rank. Money does not talk, it swears.
March 19, 2008
Posted on 03/19/2008 in Miscellaneous
Paul Holden asks if the Mumbai Indians is the worst IPL team name, whether John Bracewell is on drugs, whether India are taking over the world game and more in his blog Sideline Slogger:
Sri Lanka this week adopted Canada from a cricket development perspective - perhaps NZC could send the Indian board our CV and get us in consideration to become their foster child.
February 29, 2008
Posted on 02/29/2008 in Miscellaneous
There aren't too many cricketing memories to list under February 29, Leap Day. But for Kenya and (West Indies) it's a day they won't forget any time soon. Mid-Day's sports editor Clayton Murzello remembers when he was assigned to cover the World Cup game 12 years ago.
In the press box, the Kenyans were willed on by a new set of fans — greenhorns and veteran scribes. At the pavilion end, a group of Kenyan students joined the build-up to one of cricket’s biggest upsets. The organisers had thrown open the gates for the second half of the match.
Odumbe led the charge and sent back Chanderpaul, Adams and Roger Harper. Rajab had not finished for the day. Cuffy became his third victim, the last wicket to fall.
Suddenly, the atmosphere was electric. The Kenyans leapt, ran and yelled in ecstasy. If India beating the West Indies in the 1983 World Cup final was a shocker, this was another one which proved sport has little respect for reputation.
Murzello also interviews Leap Day-born Australian cricketer Gavin Stevens.
February 27, 2008
Posted on 02/27/2008 in Miscellaneous
Dale Steyn talks of his form over the last year, of Morne Morkel's Twenty20 World Cup performance and his plans to go fishing in Chittagong in this interview with the Dhaka-based Daily Star.
There are always other guys coming through, other bowlers like Morne Morkel who basically does the same thing as me … bowls fast. You can never think that your spot is guaranteed. It's good to have pressure from underneath, knowing that there is someone who can take your place.
February 18, 2008
Posted on 02/18/2008 in Miscellaneous
Maths and music have long been linked, but composers seem to have a talent for cricket, writes David McKie in the Guardian. He investigates:
There may be examples lurking in the Wisden Book of Cricketers' Lives, but this has more than 8,000 entries and the only one I've discovered so far is a man called Chadwyck-Healey, "quite well known as a composer of church music". Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have been much of a cricketer: "his enthusiasm greatly exceeded his skill".
The outstanding crossover case in this book is probably Neville Cardus, who within living memory wrote magnificently for the Guardian about both cricket and music. In later years, music seemed the more powerful passion. I can still remember those moments when his handwritten notices would arrive in the features department, brought in by his chauffeur. "From Neville Cardus, Festival Hall", they would say at the top, and at the foot : "please do not cut". One night the concert was cancelled, and his piece of paper proved to be blank; except that it said at the top: "From Neville Cardus, Festival Hall"; and at the bottom, as ever, "Please do not cut".
February 4, 2008
Posted on 02/04/2008 in Miscellaneous
While European cricket, outside some die-hards in the southern regions, is in its winter hibernation, The Times reports that there is one festival celebrating. For in St Moritz it is the 20th anniversary of Cricket On Ice.
The British are credited with bringing most of the sport and tourism to St Moritz and, inadvertently, one distinguished Brit is responsible for the dottiest activity of all.
In 1988, David Gower - soon to be made England captain for a second time - played here in an inaugural game on the lake. It was a marketing ploy, a picture opportunity, but Gower characteristically provided more publicity than planned by sinking his car on a thin patch of ice. They talk about it to this day.
Soon after Gower’s car sank into the murky depths, Daniel Haering rounded up enough British friends to get a team together for another cricket match against his former school. It was the start of an eccentric institution.
February 1, 2008
Posted on 02/01/2008 in Miscellaneous
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'A faultless team man: loyal, modest, chivalrous'
©The Cricketer International
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On the heels of Adam Gilchrist's retirement from Test cricket, and on the day he prepares for his final Twenty20 international, the Telegraph's Michael Henderson opines that there was a greater wicketkeeper-batsman - Alan Philip Eric Knott. Henderson says that in the last 15 years, Australia have been able to call on three cricketers who have changed the way in which Test cricket is played - Gilchrist, Michael Slater and Shane Warne - but still feels for talent with the gloves, reliability with the bat, and loyaty, Knott's the man.
The greatest wicketkeeper-batsman was, and remains, Alan Knott. Most things can be argued either way, but this is one thing that can't. Raymond Illingworth, the captain when England regained the Ashes in Australia in 1970-71, said of Knott's work that it was simply not possible to keep wicket better than he did on that tour.
December 11, 2007
Posted on 12/11/2007 in Miscellaneous
Cricket took a step forward to being included in the Olympics yesterday when it was officially recognised by the International Olympic Committee, Adelaide Now reports.
The earliest cricket could be seen at the Games is 2020.
As it will not have spent the mandatory two-year provisional status by the time the 2008 Beijing Olympics are over, its case will be reviewed following the 2012 London Games.
The Olympic program is determined seven years ahead of every Games.
"Both (sports) showed a lot of activity and work with youth," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies told reporters after the first day of an executive board meeting.
Other fully recognised sports include rugby, golf, squash, bridge and tug-of-war. Provisionally recognised sports include sumo wrestling.
November 23, 2007
Posted on 11/23/2007 in Miscellaneous
With the arrival of Twenty20 and several obits being written on the 50-over game, Harsha Bhogle feels that Test cricket will remain in robust health. The stands may not be full but people know the scores, great performances are lauded, victories are celebrated and statistics greedily devoured.
To my mind, the reason Test cricket will never die is because it gives people the opportunity of fighting back. A mistake is not the end of the world, players stand firm against the tide and sometimes turn it back with old-fashioned grit. Test cricket is not retro, it is still contemporary and even modern cricketers look forward to playing it.
In the same piece in the Indian Express, he suggests that 50-overs cricket can follow the rules of Tests by splitting the innings into two overs of 25 overs each to add more spark to a dying format.
Posted on 11/23/2007 in Miscellaneous
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Kieron Pollard, wielding a baseball bat, was a smashing success in Havana
© Trinidad & Tobago Express
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Mike Haysman, in his column in SuperCricket writes about his visit to Havana for his television show and the baseball exploits of Kieron Pollard, the new Trinidad and Tobago sensation. Pollard, holding a baseball bat for the first time, faced up to Pedro Medina [he is also referred to as Lazo], who was a member of the Cuban national team for 19 years.
Keiron was looking as though he was taking this all in his stride as his typical West Indian gait took him to the batting box. Five minutes later he had not laid bat on ball. He had swung from the hip at every thunderbolt that thudded into Lazo’s catchers’ glove. It was close but no cigar. A smile was slowly appearing on Pedro’s face. Keiron’s eyes grew wider with each delivered strike.
The speed generated by Lazo was quite remarkable. It must have been intimidating from Keiron’s perspective as well, knowing that his pin point accuracy could intentionally be slightly and dangerously adjusted at any chosen moment. Still Pollard swung but still no connection. I could see in Lazo’s eyes that he was enjoying this currently one sided challenge.
And then it started to happen. Pollard found his range. The odd fly ball and foul signalled that the wheel was starting to turn. Before long Keiron was making solid connection and the by now swelled gallery was muttering Spanish words of appreciation. The odd nods of approval were delivered my way by Pedro and Lazo also complimented Pollard.
November 21, 2007
Posted on 11/21/2007 in Miscellaneous
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Kumar Sangakkara was at his sublime best at the Bellerive Oval
© Getty Images
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| Kumar Sangakkara's, who scored 192 in the second Test against Australia in Hobart, has received rave reviews, not only for the manner in which it was scored his runs, but the way he took umpire Rudi Koertzen's decision to rule him out when replays showed that the ball had missed his bat and come off his shoulder.
Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, felt Sangakkara's dismissal could not "erase the memory of the wonderful innings".
Sangakkara was superb. While Sanath Jayasuriya was contentedly clubbing the ball around the ground, he was able to advance at his own pace. In the early hours of his resistance he played a stream of sweetly timed strokes, placements through cover, glides off his pads and assaults on misdirected spinners. When necessary he defended alertly, eye on the ball, biding his time.
The Australian's Michael Davis lauded Sangakkara's sportsmanship.
Kumar Sangakkara proved himself a true champion by shaking hands with South African Rudi Koertzen after the game despite a woeful decision by the umpire that cost the Sri Lankan the chance of making a historic double-century. .
Glenn Mitchell, in his ABC Grandstand Blog, also praises Sangakkara.
Too many times the sporting headlines are filled with elite sportspeople's misdemeanors.
It seems it's more palatable to expose the flaws rather than highlight the grace.
Today at Bellerive Oval, Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara embodied what we want to see from our sports champions, and he deserves to be heralded for his batting brilliance and his extreme grace.
November 13, 2007
Posted on 11/13/2007 in Australian cricket
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Sri Lanka's Sunday Times makes its point
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| As the row over Cricket Australia’s demands to charge agencies for access to international matches grows, the pressure on the board escalates, although it has, perhaps unsurprisingly, found an ally in the Indian board, an organization which is not averse to grabbing income from anywhere it can.
In Sri Lanka there is widespread anxiety that the public might miss out on a landmark when and if Muttiah Muralitharan breaks Shane Warne’s record of Test wickets. The Sri Lankan board has written to CA and Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times published a silhouette figure with its cricket coverage with a caption: "This space is dedicated to what would have been an action picture of the Test match in progress in Brisbane. The black figure is courtesy of Cricket Australia."
The subject has attracted comment across the globe. In the Gulf News, Gautam Bhattacharyya wrote:
Cricket Australia, one of the most progressive and professional bodies to run the sport, is now being termed as 'greedy.' It's very much a subject of debate, but what is certain is that they have set a rather dangerous precedent now.
In Jamaica’s Gleaner, Tony Becca points out that sports needs the media.
Cricket at all levels has been surviving because of sponsors, for sponsors' presence is key. And if the media, if the newspapers are not present, neither will the sponsor's product or service. Sport has become big business, but it has become big business partly because of the exposure and the coverage it receives from the media - and none more so than cricket.
Greg Baum makes a similar point in The Age:
This, though, is not about marketing. Mostly, cricket shares a mutually convenient relationship with media; cricket sells papers, papers sell cricket. It is true of other sports and other media
The Times of India's Partha Bhaduri takes off on the Indian board's stance.
There’s no denying the fact that such demands could spill over into written content as well, apart from changing the way the Internet functions and is regulated.
October 24, 2007
Posted on 10/24/2007 in Miscellaneous
Narottam Puri, writing in his column in cricketnext.com, provides a historical overview of the evolution of cricket commentary on radio, and on the subsequent decline of the same.
History tells us that Test cricket began in Australia in the late 19th century when Australia played England. Few know that it was also in Australia that radio commentary originated.
This occurred in 1922 in a Testimonial match for Charles Bannerman [Test cricket’s first centurion] at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the first commentator being a gentleman named Lionell Watt. BBC introduced sport commentary in its repertoire only in 1927 when Teddy Wakelam did the commentary of an England Vs. Wales Rugby match. Wakelam was soon to be drafted to do first Football, and then Tennis at Wimbledon.
The same year, i.e. 1927, the first cricket commentary was broadcast on BBC in the Essex Vs. New Zealand match at Leyton. Plum Warner, ex England player became the first to do cricket commentary. He wasn’t a success and was replaced by F.H.Gillingham who as John Arlott wrote "had the ill luck to be announced for his first quarter hour when rain prevented start of play. He struggled on to fill his time out of nothing, proceeded to read out the advertisements on the hoarding."
October 15, 2007
Posted on 10/15/2007 in Miscellaneous
Neil Manthorp, writing in Super Cricket, provides a fascinating account of the sights and sounds of Pakistan, along with a description of his meeting with a salesman in Lahore.
The only specific shopping commission I had was for pashmina shawls, a speciality of the region. Made from cashmere, silk or wool - or a combination of two, or even all three - it was an impossible task
[for me, anyway] to work out which were 'the real thing.'
Having attempted to bargain with stall holder Ashraf and his seven-year-old nephew, Ephraim, it soon became apparent that it was not a fair contest.
Ephraim was there because he knew more English than his fiercely bearded uncle but it made little difference.
Ashraf knew immediately that I was his for the taking. Having secured three shawls [all of which felt as soft as cashmere to me] for the princely sum of Rs. 110, Ashraf looked a little crestfallen - and revealed his knowledge of English wasn't as sparse as he made out. "You only tourist today, nobody come here now. Business no good."
And with that he handed me another shawl with the words: "Take and give your friends, you tell that is good place here...Smith must come to see."
September 10, 2007
Posted on 09/10/2007 in Miscellaneous
Microsoft, the American multinational computer corporation, has backed cricket to woo Indian employees as this Reuters piece, carried in the Sydney Morning Herald, highlights. Competing against fast-growing technology companies in India offering jobs with handsome pay raises and quick promotions, Microsoft has to work harder these days to attract and retain the best and brightest Indian engineering talent. And one inititative has been Microsoft's cricket program - comprising four teams that compete against other local teams - that is seen as a valuable tool in keeping the company's largest minority group happy.
September 6, 2007
Posted on 09/06/2007 in Miscellaneous
Andy Zaltzman, writing in the Times bemoans the lack of young superstars to fill the void left by the ageing giants who are nearing retirement.
A generation of record-breaking, game-changing greats is gradually taking its leave of the sport, leaving in its wake a potential superstar drought that could threaten the very existence of multimillion-pound television deals.
According to the LG ICC rankings, of the world’s top 15 Test batsmen, only Kevin Pietersen is under 29. On the same day ten years ago, only Steve Waugh of the top eight batsmen was over 29. Eight of the present top ten bowlers are in their thirties. In September 1997, seven of the top ten were under 30. And of the top ten ranked batsmen and bowlers in one-day international cricket, only Lasith Malinga, the Sri Lanka pace bowler, is under 25.
September 4, 2007
Posted on 09/04/2007 in Miscellaneous
Is the Duckworth-Lewis method as complicated as it seems? No, says Frank Duckworth, one half of the old firm. GS Vivek of the Indian Express caught up with him and Duckworth goes on to reveal that the method of calculation is likely to change to suit the trends of the modern game.
Frank and Tony are great friends who live 60 miles from each other; occasionally they travel halfway to a pub to share a pint of beer and talk. It’s not casual conversations; it’s calculative to the core and serious.
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan too caught up with Duckworth for an informal chat in Bristol over a week ago.
August 13, 2007
Posted on 08/13/2007 in Miscellaneous
Brian Lara's niece was abducted during a gunpoint car-jacking and police believe when the robbers found out who she was they tried to get a ransom.
Police found Adanna Lara, 21, gagged and locked in a room with her hands tied behind her back .
Read more in the Trinidad Express.
August 1, 2007
Posted on 08/01/2007 in Miscellaneous
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Npowering or ... not?
© Cricinfo
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Ah, the Npower girls. You’ve got to love them, don’t you?
Tanya Aldred in The Guardian muses over their continuing appeal, but questions if the concept is not just a little outdated:
It just all seems a little bit 1970s, not such a long way from being draped over a car bonnet, promising the spotty youth in accounts the drive of his life.
The Npowered-up piece referred to in the article is here.
July 17, 2007
Posted on 07/17/2007 in Miscellaneous
Christopher Martin-Jenkins believes that a modern tendency has been responsible for demeaning the game’s fundamental spirit. At Lord's on Monday (July 16) he delivered the Cowdrey Lecture, and The Times featured extracts of what he had to say.
Cricinfo recorded 29 million page views from 7.5 million visits to county cricket alone in 2006 - and has already had 19 million this season so, despite the rain, they expect the figure to be exceeded. Obviously because a great many people want to find out the latest scores. Sadly, if they are on the move in their cars they can listen for them in vain; and when they are given it often seems to be as a breathless afterthought following the big story that Scunthorpe's millionaire chairman has denied rumours that their controversial manager Bruno Boscovic is going to be sacked. Or, more to the point, some utterly mundane comment by Jose Murinho such as he thinks that Chelsea have the players to win the Premiership. What a surprise. The media has been conned to a dangerous extent – if you value the variety of life - into becoming a sort of spin machine for the all-pervading, all-powerful Premiership.
July 12, 2007
Posted on 07/12/2007 in Miscellaneous
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Brett Lee: Member of an increasingly rare species
© Getty Images
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"Whatever the aesthetics of watching spin bowling, I maintain that for the pure adrenalin of cricket-watching there is no finer sight than that of a thoroughbred fast bowler on song, hurling himself into the fray against batsmen of the highest technical and mental calibre," says Mike Selvey in The Guardian.
Where are the genuine pace aces? There is Lee certainly, Harmison when he can be roused and Shane Bond when fit. The three slingers - Edwards, Shaun Tait and Lasith Malinga - are rapid, but that is about it really, isn't it? Some would argue that the volume of cricket conspires against those who want to bowl on the very edge of physical exertion, but I don't buy that: if you can bowl fast, you do. Nor does the state of pitches around the world offer a clue, for the dullest surfaces of them all produced Imran Khan and, together, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, the most prolific pace bowling combination the game has seen.
June 14, 2007
Posted on 06/14/2007 in English cricket
Michael Henderson, writing in The Daily Telegraph, has slammed spectators at Old Trafford for their behaviour during the recent Test.
“Good as it was to see the ground full last weekend, too many people had come to admire themselves. This is not a problem exclusive to Old Trafford. The narcissism encouraged by television, which likes to identify 'colourful characters', and people 'having fun', is evident everywhere. It just seems more apparent in Manchester, where the heavy-handed stewarding continues to offend regular patrons.
“What can be done about the increasingly unpleasant atmosphere inside Test grounds? Not much, I'm afraid. Where once spectators were sober observers (in both senses of the word), immersed in the game's history, we now have thousands of people for whom a Test match offers a splendid opportunity to get riotously drunk, and possibly the chance to disrobe and charge on to the field of play.”
Henderson, who has a track record of taking swipes at Old Trafford, writes that when Shiv Chanderpaul completed his half century “thousands of revellers ignored his achievement, preferring to hurl their beer trays higher and higher. The only ground where these high jinks do not take place is Lord's, where MCC members are often mocked for being snobs. Anybody who was at Manchester last week would say that snobbery has much to commend it.”
April 25, 2007
Posted on 04/25/2007 in Miscellaneous
I think we can assume that the vast majority of Cricinfo's readers have a degree of knowledge about the game (and, in some cases, an actual degree). But your friends might not, so why not buy them a cricket dictionary for their mobile phone?
April 13, 2007
Posted on 04/13/2007 in Miscellaneous
The Hindu's Nirmal Shekar looks at the fading careers of modern era cricket's two biggest batting superstars, Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar, and asks the question: merely because we believe that sporting icons should say goodbye in their pomp, is it fair to nudge Tendulkar and Lara off the stage?
Read on to see if you agree or disagree.
March 30, 2007
Posted on 03/30/2007 in Miscellaneous
Batsmen may be happier and safer wearing helmets, but, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, they prevent fans seeing the batsmen's faces, which, market research has found, makes it hard for them to relate to the players.
But, as Philip Derriman notes, it’s not all gloom.
If they're bad for TV, they're about the only thing in cricket that is. In other respects, cricket is a broadcaster's dream. It lasts all day; the main action is concentrated in a smallish area; it's essentially a one-on-one (bowler-against-batsman) contest; the game lends itself to endless analysis by commentators; and the short breaks between overs are ideal for slotting in commercials.
March 26, 2007
Posted on 03/26/2007 in Offbeat
The USA’s ABC News reports how China has used the World Cup to score diplomatic points over rivals Taiwan. The Chinese involvement in building various stadia in the Caribbean has been well documented, but it appears the knock-on effect has been more wide reaching:
China gave Antigua a $55 million grant to build the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Stadium. It gave $30 million to Jamaica for a new Trelawny stadium. St. Lucia has both a cricket and a football stadium courtesy of Beijing. The 70,000 people of Dominica have received the aid equivalent of $1,600 per person in the form of a cricket grounds, new drains for the capital and better roads.
The immediate reason for this largesse is Beijing's determination to diplomatically isolate Taiwan. Says Harry Sung of the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, D.C.: "Their top priority is to isolate Taiwan. Most of the remaining countries that recognize Taiwan are located in the Caribbean and Latin America."
China's cricket diplomacy led to two West Indian countries, Grenada and Dominica, derecognizing Taiwan as an independent country. Of the remaining 24 countries that recognize Taiwan, four are in the Caribbean and two of these play cricket.
March 7, 2007
Posted on 03/07/2007 in Miscellaneous
This video amused us. It’s very silly – just a compilation of clips to the words of a 12th Man tune, but well worth a squizz.
February 11, 2007
Posted on 02/11/2007 in Miscellaneous
Next month's World Cup in the West Indies will be the most thoroughly policed cricket tournament ever staged, writes Scyld Berry in the Sunday Telegraph.
January 21, 2007
Posted on 01/21/2007 in Miscellaneous
In the Sunday Telegraph Mike Atherton jumps on the Big Brother bandwagon and also draws on the recent Herschelle Gibbs controversies to say that cricket is the ultimate reality show.
Players have long known that their every move – every suspicious thrust of hand in pocket, every touch of nail on ball – is open to scrutiny. The more recent advent of stump microphones, intended to bring the sound and fury of the game to the viewer, means that a player's words, and therefore his thought processes and character, are open to scrutiny, too.
Meanwhile, this week England announced the seven-man panel who will try and work out what when wrong during the Ashes series, a few other things besides. The chairman is Ken Schofield, the former chief of the PGA Golf Tour, and in the Sunday Telegraph Scyld Berry tries to find out a bit more about him. However, he says that even this review committee is unlikely to be radical enough.
When Schofield said he brought passion alone to the party, he was not quite correct. Parallels and analogies are not always useful but this one might well be. Working out of a small office at the Oval, where he met men of Surrey like May and Stewart, Schofield built up the European Tour in the same way that English cricket has to grow if it is to match Australia's
December 31, 2006
Posted on 12/31/2006 in Miscellaneous
Here’s an unusual piece from The Sunday Telegraph, but one which is well worth a read. Michael Atherton unveils the process behind ghosted columns (where a journalist talks to a player whose opinions then form a column) and suggests that there are probably more risks than rewards for the players. He looks at Sajid Mahmood, among others, who got into hot water with the ECB for his comments about not being bowled enough.
Privately, Mahmood has complained that he was 'turned over' by his ghost. Unsurprisingly, the paper disagree and since the ghost in question is an excellent young journalist, who would have known the sensitivity of the issue, it is unlikely. The thoughts on Flintoff's captaincy may well have been paraphrased but they would have reflected the gist of the conversation. Being 'turned over' is as easy a get-out clause for a player, as for the journalist who, when confronted by an irate player, blames his editor for manipulating his copy.
The next time that Mahmood was scheduled to do a column, his phone was switched off for six hours. When the ghost finally got hold of him (from Kuala Lumpur, of all places, which sums up the whole business) Mahmood complained that he was tired and had nothing to say. When pushed, he asked that his exact words be used for the column.
December 29, 2006
Posted on 12/29/2006 in Miscellaneous
Australia are once again moving away from the pack in international cricket and John Buchanan, the coach, has said it is down to the rest to catch up. However, in The New Zealand Herald, Greg Barns argues that if the ICC is to really push forward with its idea of expanding the game it is time for a divisional structure in Test cricket, so that teams have promotion and relegation to focus on.
So how about taking a leaf out of soccer's book and adopting a tier system in which teams are relegated and promoted. One of the reasons why soccer is so popular across the globe is because it operates on this basis. Small countries like Ecuador and Croatia have an opportunity to win World Cup qualifiers and then be "promoted" into the World Cup finals every four years. One way to do this would be to create divisions of countries. Australia, England, India, South Africa and Pakistan and perhaps Sri Lanka would be a natural premier division.
December 20, 2006
Posted on 12/20/2006 in Miscellaneous
Cracking story courtesy of This is Nottingham of how eco-friendly Ben Foster got more than he bargained for when testing his newly-invented biodegrabale box against Notts speedster Charlie Shreck. The box worked fine, but Foster hadn't reckoned on covering his eye-balls, fnarr fnarr, and took a painful above the eye after Shreck dug one in short. "I am pretty sure it was an accident":said a sheepish Foster afterwards, before adding: "The box stood up well".
December 10, 2006
Posted on 12/10/2006 in Miscellaneous
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Cricketers may look and sound better on the field than behind a lectern but over the years there have been some cracking cricket speeches by non-professional cricketers
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If the cricket isn't very entertaining at least the after-dinner speeches will keep you awake. Michael Fullilove, without punning on his name, writes a piece on best cricket speeches in The Age
As prime minister, Menzies became famous for timing his overseas travel to coincide with important cricket matches. That practice was obvious even in 1938. In his VCA speech, Menzies noted that by some extraordinary circumstance, prime minister Joseph Lyons had asked him to go to Britain that year to confer with ministers "about something or other", and that he had sent word to the conference organisers asking that they keep the full list of the Australian cricket fixtures next to their inkwells
In language that may inspire a few of the current Australian line-up, Denton urged Border not to retire prematurely. "You'll know the right time to get out. There'll be any number of telltale signs. One day, for instance, you'll call for a runner and they'll send out someone with a walking frame. Or maybe one day you'll find yourself prodding the pitch — not to smooth out any bumps, but to look for a nice, soft spot where you can have a nap. Or you may simply find yourself going for a quick two, turning for the second run, and then completely forgetting why it was you were running in the first place."
December 5, 2006
Posted on 12/05/2006 in Miscellaneous
Remember Hamid ‘Banjo’ Cassim, the key figure in the match-fixing scandal of 2000? Ajay Shankar, from The Indian Express, caught up with the 'Biltong man' in Pretoria.
Cassim quickly steers the subject to his “friends” in Indian cricket. “I have great respect for Kapil Dev. Paaji is my hero. How is Ajay Jadeja? He was a good friend. And Mohammed Azharuddin? He is a great guy, it’s unfortunate that everybody turned on him. I knew Ali Irani (former physio) very well too, I hope he is fine."
December 1, 2006
Posted on 12/01/2006 in Miscellaneous
Following last week's tremendous news that Billy Birmingham (pictured) is releasing a new 12th Man album, it has been revealed that he will be imitating Kerry Packer - a man who, in the height of his powers, Birmingham failed to recognise.
When 12th Man creator Billy Birmingham was once told by Nine Network cricket commentator Tony Greig that Kerry loved his work, his first response was “Kerry who?”.
“It goes down as one of my greatest faux pas,” says Birmingham in Sydney promoting his latest album.
[...]
Benaud interrupts Packer midway through a high stakes poker game with God asking for advice now Nine’s chief executive, Eddie McGuire, has “boned” the commentating team and replaced them with Birmingham “because he can do all the voices”.
“It’s kind of a weird recording — life imitating art, imitating life,” he says.
More at the Border Mail
November 26, 2006
Posted on 11/26/2006 in Australian cricket
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Billy Birmingham relaxes
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| Fantastic news for fans of the highly irreverent 12th Man CDs – and that includes most of the editorial team – comes with the release this week of the seventh offering – and the first for five years - from Billy Bimingham. Called Boned, it sees a return of the commentators whose utter scorn of political correctness has become legendary.
The Sydney Morning Herald caught up with Birmingham as he put the finishing touches to the double CD.
Here's the drum on the new 12th Man album. Richie Benaud is so peeved with Eddie McGuire's cost-cutting decision to sack the entire Channel Nine commentary team - and hire Billy Birmingham to do all their voices and cover the Ashes series himself - that he forms a band called Richie and Da Boyz who do a remake of Birmingham's song Marvellous in a bid to get their own back against a man who has forged a career out of taking the piss out of them.
And it’s apparent that Birmingham in the flesh is as irreverent as his characters.
I'm all over the place like a suicide bomber's sandshoe … There's so much material. The drama has been trying to cut it all down so it fits onto a double album … It couldn't have happened in any other country. We're a nation of sports nuts and piss-takers and all I've done is combine the two.
November 24, 2006
Posted on 11/24/2006 in Miscellaneous
Here's something a little different to break up all the Ashes talk. It's an interesting piece from The Australian which talks about cricket's role in the development of rugby league in Australia.
Australia's top cricketers were reduced to receiving allowances, while the ABC began to build up financial reserves from Test match income. The change left cricket in a similar situation to rugby union, which was experiencing a groundswell of discontent over the fact the NSW Rugby Union was raking in large profits through gate-receipts from the unpaid labour of their footballers.
November 16, 2006
Posted on 11/16/2006 in Ashes
Matthew Hoggard is doing a video tour diary from Australia for The Times. He's sent over three so far, all well worth a look, and available on YouTube.
Posted on 11/16/2006 in Ashes
Touring sides are increasingly bloated with personnel these days. For all the coaches, trainers – masseurs, even – that litter the dressing rooms, England can now add a resident poet, David Fine, from Bakewell in Derbyshire. Come January, batsmen's concerns might revolve around their stanzas, not their stance...
He will write 25 poems, one for each day’s play of the Ashes, following funding from Arts Council England.
"Wordsworth, Tennyson, Betjeman, Housman, Chesterton and Hughes have all gone out to bat for cricket, in verse.
"A line is a ball, a rhyme perhaps a wicket.
"In the stands, this is reflected by the 41 chants and songs in the Barmy Army's Barmy Harmonies for last year's Ashes Tour," he said.
The BBC have the full story.
Posted on 11/16/2006 in Australian cricket
A scientific study claims that top batsmen can predict the sort of ball a bowler is going to deliver before it even leaves his hand.
A report by Dr Sean Müller of RMIT University in the latest issue of the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology states that the best batsman can predict how a ball will swing and where it will bounce well before it's airborne.
"[Experienced players] can pick up ... cues that the intermediate and novice players don't or aren't sensitive to."
October 26, 2006
Posted on 10/26/2006 in Ashes
So Australia’s throng of fans, cheerily known as the Fanatics, have a songbook for the Ashes to combat England’s notoriously boisterous and equally cheery Barmy Army. The Courier Mail have a list of songs England can expect to “enjoy”, including:
Monty Panesar's Useless
Tune: My old mans a dustman
Monty Panesar useless, a poor old English chap
& when he's not spin bowling, he's visiting the quack.
He's useless in the covers, he's useless in the slips
And when he straps the pads on, he'll pass out with the yips
And...
Ode to a British girlfriend
Tune: Living Doll, Cliff Richard
Got myself a yawning, boring, pasty, nagging, whinging pom
Got to do your best to leave her just cause she's a whinging pom
She's got a lazy eye & big fat thighs from all those chips & pies
She's not the only boring, pasty, nagging, whinging pom
Oh dear. No word yet from the Barmy Army and what their song list might be…
October 25, 2006
Posted on 10/25/2006 in Ashes
Over at The Corridor there's a sneak preview of a collection of cartoon-postcards called Postcards from the Sledge, based on famous sledges in cricket. Beach, the artist, has kindly donated a copy to Cricinfo and we'll have a review of the cards for you very soon.
October 21, 2006
Posted on 10/21/2006 in Miscellaneous
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Adam Gilchrist with nine-year old Mangesh
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Steve Waugh started it. Now, it's Adam Gilchrist making a difference. The stark divide between some vast riches and devastating poverty in this country tugs at the heartstring of all Australian cricketers when they visit here. Gilchrist took it upon himself to sponsor a young impoverished boy in Mumbai, giving him an education he could never have dreamt of.
"The smile on his face said it all when he was able to meet me. Regardless of whether I was an international cricket player or ran my own local shop it meant little to him.It was a look of great gratitude to meet the person that is helping his family and his life."
Read the ful piece in The Courier Mail.
October 13, 2006
Posted on 10/13/2006 in Miscellaneous
In India for the Champions Trophy, Neil Manthorp witnesses the harsh realities of life for the several thousand pavement dwellers in Mumbai and writes how such scenes bring out a person's benevolent side.
The pavement is wet from the thunderstorm the night before. But it is also far cleaner than the rest of the street because it is the home of half a dozen families. They are required to clear it for the benefit of passers-by between dawn and late evening, but there is no mistaking that it is their home. Or, 'home'.
Read the full piece in Supercricket.
October 4, 2006
Posted on 10/04/2006 in Miscellaneous
Clayton Murzello meets who he says is “one of the most fascinating, yet unknown enthusiasts of the game”, a stamp collector who has amassed more than 30,000 cricket stamps in three decades of collecting. Read the interview in Mid-day, a Mumbai daily, here .
September 23, 2006
Posted on 09/23/2006 in Miscellaneous
Bob Woolmer's recent suggestions to legalise ball-tampering in order to even things out between batsmen and bowlers may not be in the best interests of the game, writes Bob Simpson in Sportstar. The trend of batsmen leaking runs at will has coincided with the decline in bowling standards.
But why, after 100 years plus and in an era which is claimed to be the most scientific and professional ever, do bowlers need outside aid and changes to the law when, for over a century, Test bowlers have used guile, skill, hard work and the mastery of line and length to obtain results? Is it that the modern bowlers have lost all these abilities?
The way forward is for bowlers to keep it simple, like Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, who've each fetched over 500 Test wickets by just sticking to the basics.
Posted on 09/23/2006 in Miscellaneous
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When Sachin Tendulkar smiles, the world smiles with him
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Cricket fans better stay tuned in as we can expect a long season of action and drama, with the Ashes series and the World Cup ahead, as well as Sachin Tendulkar's return to form, writes Peter Roebuck.
By next April, a hundred issues will have been settled, a thousand rumours will have been heard — some of them almost true — fifty conspiracy theories will have been mooted, none of them well pitched.
Read the full piece in The Hindu.
September 22, 2006
Posted on 09/22/2006 in Miscellaneous
It's 20 years since India and Australia played out a titanic contest at Madras, only the second tie in the history of Test cricket.
The Times of India revisits the day and speaks to Maninder Singh, the last man to fall, who maintains that he got an inside edge and was wrongly given lbw.
On the other hand, Mid-day, a Mumbai-based tabloid, chats with Vikram Raju, the umpire who delivered the verdict, who sticks by his guns: "My decision was clean as a whistle".
Also read Cricinfo's coverage of the events - Eye-witness accounts from Bobby Simpson, Dean Jones, Greg Matthews and Ravi Shastri. There's also an interview with Dean Jones, who had no hesitation in terming the Test as one that 'marked the renaissance of Australian cricket'.
September 19, 2006
Posted on 09/19/2006 in Miscellaneous
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The coach... according to Warne
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| In The Daily Telegraph, Derek Pringle supports Shane Warne’s recent comments and argues that a coach is not much use to great players.
This winter, England will tour India and Australia with as many as five coaches, and that is not counting the physiotherapist, masseur, doctor, media managers and security advisers who will accompany them. When England toured Australia in 1982-83, neither team had a coach.
The old days might not have been the way to do things, but Pringle goes on to suggest we might gone too far the other way ...
What Warne is really saying is that great players don't need coaches, and he is right. Certainly the most gifted players of my acquaintance, Ian Botham, Vivian Richards and Brian Lara, were instinctive and possessed great flair. The only advice they listened to came from their inner voice. Coaching, by contrast, is about advice based on method and analysis, things anathema to pure talent.
It all comes under the umbrella of team preparation which some coaches, perhaps justifying their hefty salaries, have pushed to the limits of acceptability. While computer and video analysis are considered standard now, wacky ideas such as the use of earpieces between coach and captain (a Bob Woolmer idea subsequently banned by the International Cricket Council) and studying the Art of War by the ancient Chinese general, Sun Tzu (another Buchanan initiative), have invited derision and not just from the press.
September 13, 2006
Posted on 09/13/2006 in Miscellaneous
Hardly a week goes by these days without someone excitedly claiming that cricket is about to take-off in China. Now it emerges that ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed will be in Beijing next week to find out how the land lies.
The China Cricket Association has unveiled a strategic plan that has 60,000 schoolchildren playing cricket in three years and 150,000 in five years, with Beijing, Shanghai and Dalian the hubs for promoting the game. Mandarin editions of the Laws of Cricket are now available in China while Australian cricketing officials have visited the country to conduct coaching courses.
But perhaps the real reason that cricket’s bosses are so keen on China was found in a remark by Syed Ashraful Huq, the boss of the Asian Cricket Council when he told DNA Sport that if China participated in future World Cups then “lucrative commercial windfalls would follow”. He added: “As soon as China breaks through, I foresee the total global revenues for cricket increasing by up to 30 to 40%."
As Gordon Gekko said in Wall Street: "Greed is good, greed is right … greed works."
September 12, 2006
Posted on 09/12/2006 in Miscellaneous
It’s widely accepted that cricketers are a barmy lot. But even by those standards, four people who decided to play an impromptu game on a sandbank on the Skate Bank in middle of Scotland’s Moray Firth can safely be described as barking. One of them was quoted in The Daily Telegraph as saying:
The charts have not been updated since 1918, so there was a chance that it had moved or shrunk. However, we decided it was worth investigating. My brother would not allow me to take his proper cricket gear, but we found a small bat and a tennis ball and set out to play the first game on the sandbar for 80 years.
Unfortunately, their energetic bowling and their enthusiastic celebrations were mistaken by a member of public on the shore more than a mile away as signals for help and a rescue helicopter and a lifeboat were launched to rescue them!
September 11, 2006
Posted on 09/11/2006 in Miscellaneous
Surprise surprise. The legendary Sunil Gavaskar is thinking of making a foray into blogging. Gavaskar was the star guest on the second day of BlogCamp, India's biggest blog unconference.
I look around and I see almost everyone here sitting with a laptop in front. I belong to the transistor generation. My columns even now are written in longhand.
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