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Cricket geekery epitomised
By Will 2 months ago, No Comments; be the first!
It’s a wonder Andy Zaltzman is still a married man. Outstanding cricket geekery:
No Comments »Happy New Year, Confectionery Stallers, and welcome to a new year, a new decade (or the last year of an old decade, depending on your decade-defining proclivities). I am firmly in the New Decade camp, and so, I assume, is Jacques Kallis, if only so he can claim to be the 29th member of the highly exclusive club of players who have scored Test hundreds in three different decades.
(I have a full list of these 29 cricketing legends, but will not list them here for fear of antagonising my wife, who is anxious for me not to join the equally exclusive club of husbands who have spent excessive parts of two decades working out things on Statsguru. But a special mention for the great Indian batsman Vijay Merchant, who is the only man in the history of humanity to have scored just one Test century in three separate decades. Throw that little fact into your next conversation at work and see how people react. Hang on, I’m not quite finished with this one yet. If Kallis can somehow muster another five-wicket innings from his creaking limbs, he will become only the eighth bowler to take a five-for in three different decades, and join Kapil Dev as the only player to have both scored hundreds and taken five-fors in three decades. I’m done now.)
Top posts of 2008
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of December, 5 Comments »
It’s the end of the year, and here are the most-viewed posts. No great surprises here:
1. Ishant Sharma to Ricky Ponting video
2. Video of Harbhajan and Symonds sledging
3. Listening to Australia v India
4. Symonds was called a monkey by Harbhajan
5. Ajantha Mendis
6. Tickets for 2009 World Twenty20 on sale
7. Does India run the game
8. Handbags at dawn
9. London 2009
10. England v Superstars, Stanford 20/20 for 20
The most non-2008 piece read is, as usual, the video of Shahid Afridi’s 45-ball hundred, followed by KP and Watson sledging and lots of Trescothick things.
Happy Christmas and see you all in 2009, the year the Ashes are regained by England!
5 Comments »Alert to all statto geeks
By Will 3 years ago, at the end of December, 3 Comments »
If you’re even remotely interested in cricket, chances are that there’s a lurking geek within you. Don’t worry – we’ve all got it and flaunt it. I notice that Cricinfo’s new statsguru, which has been under wraps for ages, has been let loose on you ‘orrible lot. It is a thing of total, unabashed brilliance…where you can find out such must-have things as the best five-fors conceding 10 runs or less, or spinners who have opened the bowling on the first day of a Test match.
Pub quiz masters: go forth and splutter.
3 Comments »Geekery on Hussey
By Will 3 years ago, mid-November, 1 Comment »
Outstanding geekery from Patrick this morning:
Even I wouldn’t dare put this up on the blog – would look like I am far too sad – but I did some number crunching and I reckon that Hussey needs to average just under 109 per innings between now and the Ashes (assuming he plays in every game scheduled and gets not outs at the present rate) in order for him to be averaging 100 over his career by the time the Ashes start!
Update: the geek is out of the closet!
1 Comment »Some utterly meaningless milestones
By Will 4 years ago, mid-May, 3 Comments »
I’m fast reaching the stage where it does actually feel as though I’ve been blogging for A Long Time.
Just passed 200,000 words; 1,000 different people have now left a comment (perhaps doesn’t a lot, but that’s many more than most); 12,000 comments have been left and we’ve just passed 1,500 posts.
(just out of interest)
3 Comments »1000 Murali wickets
By Will 4 years ago, at the start of March, 8 Comments »
I think it was Courtney Walsh who first broke through the 500-Test barrier and, at the time, I remember feeling utterly amazed that anyone could have got so far. I was equally doubtful that anyone would ever better it. Since then, Shane Warne and Muttiah Muraliatharan have waltzed past it as though it were nothing; Warne broke past 600 at Old Trafford in the summer. Today, though, Murali has gone past 1000 international wickets! It makes Walsh’s effort look pitiful and feeble*
Rather appropriately, his 100th wicket was controversial: “Khaled Mashud was given out caught when the ball only hit his pad” (S.Rajesh / Cricinfo)
* I am, of course, joking. It’s all very well for these glitzy spinners to take hundreds of wickets, but it’s all the more incredible for a fast bowler to manage it.
8 Comments »How did you find this blog?
By Will 5 years ago, at the start of September, 33 Comments »
OK, question: how did you find this blog? I know I was featured on the BBC, along with every other cricket blog, and the Guardian have also ‘found’ us…but nearly 1500 people have come here today, and I haven’t even blogged anything [much]. How is this happening? Who are you, and where do you come from? EXPLAIN YOURSELVES! (seriously…I’d quite like to know, out of curiosity. Did you come from Google, or another search engine, or a blog, or where?)
Ta all, and “hello” to all the new readers.
33 Comments »Trescothick reaches 5000 milestone
By Will 5 years ago, mid-August, 6 Comments »
Marcus Trescothick hit his 5000th Test match run today at Old Trafford against Australia. Interestingly, only Jack Hobbs (55 matches), Len Hutton (55), Wally Hammond (59) and Ken Barrington (61) have reached 5000 Test runs for England in fewer matches than Trescothick (64). Nice stat. Update: Viv Richards and Bill Lawry also reached 5000 Test runs in 64 matches.
Second update:
More stats:
1. Shortest time span from debut to 5000 runs in Tests
5 years 12 days ME Trescothick
6 years 64 days R Dravid
6 years 94 days MA Taylor
6 years 186 days AR Border
2. Fewest Tests to reach 5000 runs in Tests
36 DG Bradman
52 SM Gavaskar
55 JB Hobbs
55 L Hutton
55 ML Hayden
56 GS Sobers
59 WR Hammond
60 GS Chappell
61 RN Harvey
61 KF Barrington
61 RB Kanhai
61 BC Lara
63 R Dravid
63 HH Gibbs
64 WM Lawry
64 IVA Richards
64 ME Trescothick
Many visitors
By Will 5 years ago, at the start of August, 3 Comments »
Always surprised and pleased so many people read this humble blog. Just been told that today’s post on Edgbaston is now the most-clicked-post on a sort of directory website called Blogs Of The Day. Spiffing work, chaps!
Stats, boring stats
By Will 5 years ago, at the end of July, 16 Comments »
Probably thanks to Avinash’s updates during the first Test, the blog has published its 100,000th word – an absolutely pointless statistic. Less pointless is AKR’s century of comments – what an innings, AKR! Full of deft glances and flourishing cover-drives – raise your bat to the MCC members 
Scott is two away from reaching the honours boards himself, and fellow Aussie Harry nine-away from a very quick hundred.
These stats can be found on the right of the main page.
16 Comments »Two more fine fifties
By Will 5 years ago, mid-July, No Comments; be the first!
Two more frequently-posting commenters have reached their half centuries, and are gratuitiously waving their bats around the blogosphere. Thanks and congrats to Harry (54) and Jagadish (50). Scott is leading the way with a well compiled 58…
No Comments »A fine half century
By Will 5 years ago, at the start of July, No Comments; be the first!
Scott Wickstein, during the crazy events of yesterday where 74 comments were posted, brought up a fine half-century of comments here at this blog. Well played, Scott! Not quite a 50 before lunch, but not bad going…(top commenters can be found on the right-hand-side of the main page)
No Comments »1000 comments
By Will 5 years ago, at the end of June, No Comments; be the first!
“worma” posted the 1000th comment on my blog just now – hurrah. Stats:
85,768 words
154 people have contributed 1000 comments
Top commenters:
1: S Jagadish (46)
2: Innocent Abroad (43)
3: manish (42)
Busiest day yet at The COU
By Will 5 years ago, at the end of June, 2 Comments »
Yesterday was the busiest day yet for my blog. I never imagined so many people would bother reading it when I first started back in November. 15,000 hits yesterday alone, and 1000 unique visitors.
Middlesex chase down 406 – Joyce makes 1000
By Will 5 years ago, mid-June, 3 Comments »
As if today’s news couldn’t get any better, Middlesex have chased down an amazing 406 to beat Glamorgan – absolutely brilliant, albeit whilst batting on a road. The best news of all, though, is Ed Joyce has made it to 1000 runs for the season – as I hoped he would – and I’m over the moon. His innings today of 70 came from just 61 balls, on top of his first-innings 155 – 225 runs in the match, without being dismissed. Phenomenal.
I’m not really a stats-man, but here are some for those that are. He’s made 1002 runs (1000 runs in a season is the benchmark for batsmen in England – in case some weren’t aware) @ 91 per innings. Curiously, 4 of the top 6 run scorers this season are English – which hasn’t always been the case, and is especially encouraging given the number of overseas players there are this season (and indeed Aussies). They are (Englishman highlighted in Bold):
Name Mat I NO Runs HS Ave SR 100 50 Ct St Team EC Joyce 7 13 2 1002 192 91.09 67.06 2 8 5 - MIDDX AN Cook 9 16 0 901 195 56.31 54.70 3 3 5 - MCC/ESSEX M van Jaarsveld 8 14 1 858 262* 66.00 56.18 4 2 12 - KENT SA Newman 8 13 0 842 219 64.76 69.24 4 - 6 - SURREY A Flower 9 14 4 823 188 82.30 49.69 3 3 5 - MCC/ESSEX IR Bell 9 14 3 823 231 74.81 58.57 2 4 4 - WARWICKS/ENG
At this stage in the season, to see an Englishman (ok – an Irishman, but he qualifies in about 2 weeks time) be first to 1000 runs (I think he gets an award for this, too – anyone know?) is really encouraging news, as is the number of young batsmen in the top 20. We’re generally accustomed to seeing the Old Stagers, like Ramprakash and Hick, in the top 5 – but they’re languishing miles behind having made 622 and 620 runs respectively. English Cricket is certainly becoming stronger and stronger with every season, and players – like Joyce, Shah, Key, Bell, Newman – are thriving.
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