Posted in australia, tagged australia, baseball, billy beane, john buchanan on May 8, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Andy Bull, writing for the Guardian, has picked up on the sterling work of David Barry (and many others) in the field of ‘cricket sabermetrics‘.
As noted by pretty much everyone who’s ever written on this subject, baseball is way ahead in terms of using stats to improve the way the game is played, and even [...]
Posted in australia, india, tagged indian premier league, ipl, rajasthan royals, shane warne on May 6, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Of all the International stars in the IPL, the one who has arguably profited most (purely in terms of reputation - we all know who’s profiting the most financially) has been Shane Warne.
Warne’s team, the Rajasthan Royals, have been doing pretty well (as I knew they would, of course), and this, combined with the fact [...]
Posted in australia, tagged australia, england, india, indian premier league, ipl, shane warne on March 28, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Part-time Neighbours star and former Hampshire captain Shane Warne has announced his retirement from First Class cricket, in order to concentrate on his other interests such as dubiously flogging hair-loss treatment, playing poker and raking it in playing in the Indian Premier League.
The IPL is already changing the way county chief executives think. The money [...]
Posted in australia, india, tagged andrew symonds, australia, harbhajan singh, india, matthew hayden on March 4, 2008 | No Comments »
India have won the second ‘final’ (which will, ahem, make it the final ‘final’), beating Australia by a mere 9 runs.
As if that wasn’t exciting enough, Andrew Symonds got physical with a streaker, before being dismissed by his best mate in the world, Harbhajan Singh. The same Singh over also saw the departure of Matthew Hayden, [...]
Posted in australia, india, tagged australia, india, sachin tendulkar on March 2, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Sachin Tendulkar has scored his first-ever ODI century on Australian soil to give India victory in Sydney a 1-0 lead in the ‘Final’ of the Commonwealth Bank series against Australia.
It had been suggested recently (although not by me) that Tendulkar was failing as a one-day batsman, especially when India were involved in a run-chase. Today’s [...]
Posted in australia, india, tagged australia, harbhajan singh, india, matthew hayden on February 27, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Matthew Hayden has gone and done something very silly, (and not very Christian) which has obviously made things worse between Australia and India ahead of their three One-Day ‘Finals’ in the Commonwealth Bank series.
This will do nothing to improve Hayden’s reputation amongst the international cricket-loving fraternity, and may indeed worsen it (if that’s even possible).
The [...]
Posted in australia, england, india, pakistan, west indies, youtube, tagged australia, dominic cork, england, harbhajan singh, india, irfan pathan, pakistan, shane warne, west indies on February 23, 2008 | No Comments »
This week’s videos are on the subject of that Holy Grail for Bowlers - the hat-trick.
Irfan Pathan’s in the first three balls of a Test match against Pakistan is a classic of the genre, as is one of my personal favourites, Dominic Cork’s ‘Champagne’ hat-trick against a formidable West Indies side.
Spinners’ hat-tricks tend to be [...]
Posted in australia, england, lists, tagged ashes, australia, dennis lillee, england, icc, james ormond, mark waugh, merv hughes, mike gatting, robin smith, sledging on February 21, 2008 | No Comments »
The ICC today announced that it wants to get rid of sledging.
Hopefully, that means this sort of sledging, rather than this sort, which I find quite amusing.
In honour of the dark art of sledging, here are my three Favourite Ashes Sledges:
“There’s no way you’re good enough to play for England”…”Maybe not, but at least I’m [...]
Posted in australia, india, west indies, tagged donald bradman, garfield sobers, gordon brown, noel gallagher, sachin tendulkar, tony blair, viv richards on February 17, 2008 | No Comments »
Admittedly, this news is from a month ago, but apparently Gordon Brown wants Sachin Tendulkar to be knighted. Who knew the PM was a fan of the Little Master?
If Sachin were to become a Sir, he’d be in good company, with Viv Richards, Garfield Sobers and, of course, The Don all having been awarded the [...]
Posted in australia, england, new zealand, sri lanka, youtube, tagged aluminium bat, australia, bodyline, dennis lillee, england, greg chappell, leg theory, murali, muttiah muralitharan, new zealand, sri lanka, trevor chappell, underarm incident on February 16, 2008 | No Comments »
Cricket, like most sports, has never been a stranger to controversy. And surprisingly enough, it seems the Australians are often involved (although not always as the perpetrators).
First, there was Bodyline (or ‘leg theory’, as it was euphemistically known at the time).
Also involving our friends from down under, there was the case of the aluminium bat, [...]
