By my reckoning, six of the 12 games so far have gone down to the final over, which is a decent percentage. I agree that very one-sided matches are non-events, but isn’t that true of all forms of the game?

However, I’m with you on the issues of Harper and the commentary, which I found funny at first but gets pretty grating after a minute or two.

http://www.hitcric.info

The adverts are annoying but at least you get to watch some cricket.

Interestingly, KP is the only person to make a score on the list against the West Indies. Not surprisingly, 9 out of 50 of the scores were made against Pakistan, while 7 were made against India, England and South Africa respectively, and 6 against Bangladesh. (Hayden is, and always was, a flat-track bully. He is just one of many). There were four each against Australia and Sri Lanka, two against NZ and 1 against Zimbabwe.

It changed my view of him, he is professional and nice with it.

Josh,
Add Gambhir also to the list of Delhiites. Awesome batting firepower. Hoping Kolkata is abit more competitive this time to make matters more interesting.

Srishti – Fair point, I was mainly referring to their 2008 campaign, which was a bit of a disaster and saw Kallis dropped at one point. But you’re right, they bounced back last year and answered their critics.

Josh, it’s purple and gold now.

For the record, I think the ‘Most Fetching Kit’ award goes to the Knight Riders (also a challenger for cheesiest name), that black and gold number really is a hit with me.

The England rugby squad (which includes players of South African, NZ, French and Irish heritage or upbringing) is more representative of most of the rugby clubs in SW London than one made up solely of ‘true’ Englishmen.

“And it makes it harder for new powers to arise in the game”

Rugby union tried to get around this problem a few years ago by introducing a rule that you could only play for one country. Now the Pacific Island nations want it changed becuase they feel they are more competitive if they can pick All Blacks of PI heritage and who are reaching the end of their careers.

Or to put it another way… would Ireland be better off with an Eoin Morgan now, or an Eoin Morgan in 5-6 years time with 50 Tests under his belt?

But it’s the sublime excitement of the test: the ebbs and flows of fortune, the slow realisation that the balance of the game is shifting, in your side’s favour or otherwise, and the nearly-unbearable tension of the close finish that really floats our boat here at Nurdler Towers.

And Modi just has no game when it comes to that stuff.

When he is not complaning about the parentage (a favourite word) and upbringing of Mark Butcher or Kevin Pietersen (but not of Andrew Strauss), he pursues futile arguments with university maths lecturers in which he reveals his ignorance of elementary statistical concepts.

Foreigners in the England cricket team – I would argue the only real “foreigners” are Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen. Prior, Strauss and Kieswetter were all raised in England, which should really be the qualification (I know Kieswetter also spent a lot of time in SA but he has always said he thought of England as home and there is no reason to disbelieve him).

As an aside, in the days when counties also had a birth qualification to play for them, Wally Hammond played for Gloucestershire (where he was raised) not Kent (where he was born) which led to a five-year delay in his playing Test cricket due to the pique of the Kent board. I’d hate to think we were getting back to that level of parochiality. Birthplace is after all an accident over which nobody has any control!

The current team makeup of imports is actually quite low by historical standards – does the name of Basil D’Oliveira ring any bells? Or Allan Lamb, Tony Greig, Robin Smith, and the Nawab of Pataudi Sr? Brendan Nash of the West Indies may also be mentioned – but I’d say he’s doing everyone a favour by giving some much-needed backbone to their lineup.

Cricket tourism is a fact – always has been, and probably always will be. The question is are they – spec. Trott and Pietersen – committed to the England team, or only doing it for money/glamour/ego? As long as the answer to that is “the England team,” I doubt if the fans will care overmuch about the accent. If they are seen to be out for themselves, that will change.

But neither he or Morgan should have been able to play for two different nations within a couple of months.

That really does smell bad.

Thank you

It’s a shame: out of necessity England have finally learned how to live without him (something which took three years to do) and now he’s back we’re still effectively without him.

I thought we needed him to win the Ashes over here, and I was wrong. I’m pretty sure we do need him to win them over there though, so it’s going ton be an interesting few months.

He’s just got out to ANOTHER slow left-armer… this is getting ridiculous!

Is a good story though. There needs to be more matches between the top cricketing nations and ‘minnow nations’.

I know the International cricketing calender is pretty much full at the moment but how good is it watching the ‘minnows’ at the world cup, you even find yourself cheering them on.
Maybe they could play some more 20-20 and One Day matches against the top teams annually. Or even matches with the top state, county, provincial and other ‘first class teams’