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Video of Sehwag’s 293 v Sri Lanka
By Will 2 months ago, No Comments; be the first!
If anyone has it, do leave a comment. Not yet seen a single ball of it.
No Comments »Probably the best backup in the world…
By Rich Abbott last year, mid-November, 1 Comment »
Australia’s victorious ODI series against India ended in washout yesterday, but you have to admire their post-Ashes salvage job. In the space of a few months they’ve proved they have both the best one-day side in the world, and – crucially in today’s game – an unmatchable squad strength.
Their results in 19 post-Ashes ODIs have been impressive enough – 15 wins, 3 losses – but more so when you consider they’ve used 22 players, including 17 in September’s 6-1 demolition of England alone.
A stream of players, such as the could-only-be-Aussie Clint McKay, have been thrust into the international limelight in India, and carried on exactly where they left off in State cricket. Do England have a similar strength stream?
They’ll need one. International cricket’s packed calendar is starting to stretch squads more and more. Injury to key players is less a valid excuse for failure, more a common occurrence.
Typical Australia. Just when my days of envying them seem to be on the wane - with England finally cobbling together a first team of comparable quality – Ponting and co unveil a cast of backups capable of resurrecting my green tinge.
1 Comment »Cricinfo readers love a bomb scare
By Will last year, mid-October, No Comments; be the first!
From our Facebook page (join it. I need to get it up to 100,000 quickly)
No Comments »Tour diary in India
By Will last year, mid-October, No Comments; be the first!
Ed Craig’s tour diary of his trip to India is required reading:
No Comments »Here’s another way that I was persuaded to part with more cash than was strictly necessary:
“I hate cricket,” he says – which is a surprise as he has a well-groomed Shahid Afridi beard, the same floppy hair and looks like he spends most of his days bowling over-quick legspin. I am sure it is Afridi.
“I hate cricket. There is too much money.” Mr Non-Afridi is a tour salesman. He organises trips for visitors to the likely sites around Delhi – the Taj Mahal being a popular destination and that’s where I am trying to go.
India for virgins
By Will last year, mid-October, 1 Comment »
If you’ve never been to India, have a read of Patrick Kidd’s tour diary. He does a good job of describing just how hectic it is, especially coming from a country like Britain whose roads are all flat, where laws are feared and obeyed in near-equal measure; where even the act of not turning off your indicators in a car can cause minor road rage for those following behind.
In India, it seems, there are no rules on the road – and I use the term “road” very loosely. Every junction seems to be a spaghetti junction, every brief stretch of clear road is a chance to lean firmly on the horn to warn cows, donkeys, beggars of your potential arrival, depending on pot holes. It’s a totally mad existence which leaves you speechless for the first hour, before realising that, well, everything works just as well. Things just don’t happen quite when you expect them to, or how you expect them to, and everyone (on the roads, at least) moves so slowly that there are hardly any accidents.
I ruddy love it.
1 Comment »Most Indian cricketers are born in December
By Will last year, mid-August, 12 Comments »
Deepak is a new chief architect of Cricinfo. Or head programmer. Or – sorry, Deepak, I’ve forgotten your title. But he’s dug out an interesting stat: most Indian cricketers are born in December.
+-----------+-------+ | Month | Count | |-----------+-------| | December | 867 | | October | 709 | | November | 688 | | September | 679 | | January | 488 | | May | 453 | | March | 449 | | July | 438 | | August | 438 | | April | 422 | | June | 391 | | February | 334 | +-----------+-------+
I was born in February…
12 Comments »England beat India. World turns upside down
By Will last year, mid-June, 10 Comments »
What’s happening? That isn’t rhetoric. Please: what’s going on?
England lose to the Dutch, thrash Netherlands, are put back in their box by South Africa and now throw everything at India, spanking them convincingly. These are not the results anybody expected; that India, the champions, are going home is difficult enough to comprehend. That it was England who did it, a team so laughably inconsistent, who play one-day cricket as though so little depends on it, is perplexing in the extreme. It’s wonderful, too, and not because I happen to be English; wonderful that this stupid format produces such ridiculousness. It encourages outlandish behaviour and cricket but the crucial essences of the sport still apply. A year ago, I don’t think you’d have accepted a captain suggesting to your team “let’s bounce them out”, even if that team is particularly inept at playing short-pitch bowling. If anything, Twenty20 encourages orthodoxy as much as unorthodoxy.
It’s all gone brilliantly bonkers. This time tomorrow, England might be in the semi-finals. Stop laughing at the back.
10 Comments »India v England, 2nd Test, Mohali
By Will 2 years ago, mid-December, 4 Comments »
Have just moved house so there’s been no time for anything. And nor is there any now but, if you like, keep an eye on the match and offer your thoughts below.
4 Comments »Well played India
By Will 2 years ago, mid-December, 25 Comments »
Three cheers to India for winning a superb Test. That it took place at all was a surprise. That Sachin Tendulkar hit the winning runs, bringing up his hundred in the process, was a script not even his mother could have written. It was a bizarrely pristine and classic manner in which to end a Test whose preparations were blighted not by rain, or poor form, or injuries, but by terror.
There will be some sickly and romantic notions in the coming days that this win has shoved it up the terrorists. That India have won and the terrorists have lost. And it’s true that without the Mumbai terrorist strikes, we wouldn’t be feeling like we are at the moment. England’s supporters can be proud of a team who, for three-and-a-half days, dominated a Test on the subcontinent. India’s are ecstatic for two brilliant performances which propelled an unlikely win. Even removing the context of Mumbai, India’s win today was hugely significant.
Impressive for its boldness, but what struck me (I’ve only seen highlights so don’t shout me down) is how un-Indian their approach was. India have occasionally produced bullet wins out of nowhere before tripping up. Yet this win had a composure and belief about it. Granted, Virender Sehwag’s Gilchristian attack on the fourth day provided much of the belief (and vital runs), and who else would you rather have anchor a fifth-day chase than Tendulkar? But those two huge figures aside, India rose to the occasion when it mattered and believed they could win more than England.
One word of warning: don’t let’s compare India to Australia. It’ll happen – let’s face it, India is going to be drunk on this for days on end – but it would be premature to suggest they are the new No.1, however much their fans demand it be true. They’re definitely on the right track though.
So too, I think, are England. India is the hardest place to tour and they dominated much of the Test when nobody expected them to. That they lost it in the last day-and-a-half nevertheless suggests Kevin Pietersen will be as sleepless in Mohali as he has reportedly been in Chennai.
Indian fans, by all means praise your team to the hilt … but non-Indian fans, do also wade in. Anyone from South Africa, West Indies, Pakistan or wherever else, post your thoughts below.
25 Comments »What a brilliant game
By Alex Try 2 years ago, mid-December, 2 Comments »
Watching Sachin Tendulkar score a hundred in front of 40,000 adoring fans takes away some of the pain of losing. There is time enough in the future to dwell on missed opportunities and Monty’s lackluster bowling effort. I was just a pleasure to watch a brilliant game.
The Chennai crowd was as much a part of the experience as anything that happened on the field. When India are batting, the most conservative old man is transformed into a fifteen-year-old. He shouts and cheers and dances for every run they score. When Tendulkar walks into bat the crowds flock. Even when he’s fielding, when he touches the ball a roar erupts like a wicket has fallen.
The highlight came last evening while Sehwag was hitting fours and sixes at will. After every boundary the two women sat behind me, both clad head to toe in black chadors and hijabs, starting jumping up and down on their seats and blowing horns in my ear. It was fantastic. The atmosphere at a cricket match in India is unique to anything I have ever experienced. Even as England are getting thrashed you can’t help looking around you and grinning like a mad-man.
Strauss’s twin hundreds, Swann’s double wicket opening over, Flintoff’s confrontation with Yuvraj, Sehwag’s blitz and a Tendulkar century to win the game! Its such a cliché, but cricket really is the winner. Onwards to Mohali, and we will see if England can pick up the pieces.
Alex Try is in India blogging England’s tour for The Corridor
2 Comments »Day five, the Test’s still alive
By Will 2 years ago, mid-December, 8 Comments »
India need 256; England, just nine wickets. The greatest game of all is still alive and well, and there is a small but delicious irony in the delicate state this match finds itself in. That it is taking place so soon after the Mumbai terrorist attacks is honourable and pleasing. But that Chennai should be producing such a corking match, in India, at the end of a year which has seen the Twenty20 machine snowball almost out of control…it’s a reminder to everyone, in particular the often one-eyed BCCI, of our responsibility to cricket’s richest asset. Not Twenty20; not television or advertising revenue; not even Sachin or Brett or MS or KP, and certainly not Mr Stanford. But Tests. The oldest and still the most rewarding format of the game, and possibly the best of any sport there is.
It’s like a really good bottle of port to Twenty20’s vodka and Red Bull: rich, occasionally musty, with a multitude of flavours.
8 Comments »Bristling moustaches abound, but cricket wins
By Alex Try 2 years ago, mid-December, 1 Comment »
Above anything which took place during today’s play, it is just a relief that cricket is back on again. The significance of this first Test for Indian cricket, with IPLs and Champions Leagues coming up, goes without saying. This might be the most important two-Test series ever played.
Security was tight but not oppressive. Lots of cops with bristling moustaches and ample girths glared at fans outside the stadium before play began. This moustache-to-belly ratio seemed to be an indicator of officer seniority but, despite their intimidating persona, almost everyone was welcoming.
Inside the stadium cameras, mobile phones and sun-cream were banned but many people managed to sneak them in anyway. A big screen which asks spectators to text messages onto it had a constant turnover, so the guards frisking can not have been that effective.
On the subject of ‘effective’ – England’s total was indebted to Andrew Strauss, who compiled his 13th Test hundred with minimum fuss. He and Alastair Cook seemed to be going some way to proving that a warm-up was not needed after all. If only the rest of England’s batting could have lived up to their start.
Paul Collingwood’s performance stood out in particular. Seemingly playing with a ping-pong bat, it would surprise nobody in the ground today if replays were used by the U.S Army to interrogate inmates in Guantanamo Bay. Given Owais Shah was England’s only consistent batsman during the one-day series, and Collingwood hardly scored a run, the England XI is confusing at best.
However, wherever England’s ended up at the end of the day’s play, the real story is that this Test is being played at all.
Alex Try is in India blogging England’s tour for The Corridor. He is envious of bristling moustaches
1 Comment »India v England, 1st Test, Chennai – live chat
By Will 2 years ago, mid-December, 2 Comments »
Cricket. Actual cricket is happening with real-life English and Indian players. It’s all very novel and exciting, so I thought I’d keep this post open for the Test and let you miserable lot leave your comments. There’s a detracted feeling to this series, but if Kevin Pietersen’s XI can pull off a draw – or even a win – the praise will be long and lavish. Let’s hope there’s some good cricket in which to end the year and provide a fitting sporting contrast to the events of the past few weeks.
2 Comments »MCC puts stamp on England v India
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of December, No Comments; be the first!
A new stamp from Bletchley Park to celebrate 75 years of England v India in Test cricket:
No Comments »Marylebone Cricket Club will be celebrating the 75th anniversary of England
v India in Test cricket on January 5th 2009 with a very special stamp and
commemorative cover. The M.C.C. as it is more commonly known, is the world’s
oldest cricket club and “Keeper of the Laws”. Its base at Lord’s Cricket
Ground, St John’s Wood, London being revered worldwide as “The home of
cricket”. The cover is being issued in association with the Cricket
Association of Bengal. Its base is Eden Gardens, Kolkata, India’s oldest
cricket club and the venue for the greatest number of Test matches played in
India. The first was in January 1934 against an England XI led by Douglas
Jardine. Jardine and Indian Captain CK Nayadu will be featured on the stamp
to be cancelled with an MCC postmark on 5th January. The day the match
started. The cover design features the scorecard and match day images from
1934. Inside will be a replica of the scorecard for the four-day match. Each
cover will be individually numbered in a presentation pack as a limited
edition of just 1000. Issue price will be £10 plus post and packing.The cover can only be ordered through Chapman and Mitchell Covers at
Bletchley Park Post Office, Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, MK3 6EB, Tel:
01908 272690/631797. Or from the MCC section of the website at
www.bletchleycovers.com.
India’s Pakistan tour in doubt
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of November, 6 Comments »
…and here we reach the most dangerous crossroads of all. The one terrorist India managed to capture happened to be of Pakistani origin, and there is increasing evidence that Pakistan were involved in the terrorist strikes. It seems inconceivable that India’s tour won’t be cancelled. Pakistan have warned the world that they’ll stop fighting the Afghanistan insurgents and turn their attention to India instead. It’s all getting a bit messy.
Steve Waugh’s thoughts on the future of the game:
6 Comments » « Previous EntriesThe danger to cricket is that the game needs India and any long-term interruption will have major ramifications. At present we have Pakistan cricket crippled by the threat
of terrorism, Sri Lanka regularly blighted by a civil war and Zimbabwe mismanaged by corrupt administrators and government.
The game is on the verge of a crisis and clear, concise thinking will be required from the various cricketing bodies to make sure that the correct decisions are made.
Time is a great healer but, much like 9/11, life on the subcontinent will never be the same. The need for security will be paramount and this will affect all facets of life.
My gut feeling is that cricket will see an interruption in the short term but business will resume as normal shortly afterwards.
