A "Hot or Not" Based on Cricketing Ability

I discovered this site today. nyone who goes there gets to choose the better cricketer in a randomly selected pair of world cricketers. A nice feature is that one can see the winners and losers.

More Bad News Down Under

Now Brett Lee, the highlight bowler of the last World Cup, is out of the picture for this one, and suddenly the Aussies, who cruised to victory back in 2003, are looking like definite underdogs. Their bowling attack was already showing an inability to defend even large scores, and now their fastest bowler is gone.

It could have been worse, though, because the loss of Brett Lee allows them to correct a silly omission. At the end of the Ashes, Stuart Clark looked like their best non-retired bowler. He hasn't had such an impact in the one-day game, but it was a mistake for Australia to leave him out of the World Cup squad. Now he's back in it.

The Aussies are still dangerous if their bowling attack can hit on all cylinders, but 2007 West Indies will not be a repeat of 2003 South Africa, when the Aussies won every match they played.

The Other Whitewash

England has just whitewashed Australia 2-0 in the CB series final. A couple weeks ago it looked like England's next win would come in a practice match vs. Bermuda on March 5. Now they've won 4 matches in a row and will leave Australia with a trophy.

The great thing about sports is that no matter what you think will happen, you could be wrong. Here's your proof. Even though England came to Australia the #8 ODI team, with Australia the overwhelming #1 and New Zealand #4, and even though England seemed hopelessly out of form for months, and even though England's best ODI player was dropped from the series with a broken rib, and even though England's captain came in, dropped out with an injury, came back, and dropped out again, and even though the Barmy Army has dwindled from about 6000 fans to fewer than 100, and even though Australia won more matches in the series than England, England has thrashed the Aussies on their home grounds in the matches that mattered.

It's not really a sports miracle - Collingwood caught fire at the crease with two hundreds and a 50 in the last 3 matches. In the Ashes he was unlucky not to have won a match with the bat at Adelaide.

I had thought the World Cup would provide some entertainment in determining who would get to lose to Australia, but now who knows what will happen.

Who Are These Guys?

What a treat it is to follow international cricket, especially England cricket. Just when you think England cricket has mastered the art of the collapse, they do something brilliant!

A week ago it looked like England would leave Australia with 10 losses and no wins against their hosts. Now they're winners of 3 matches in a row - 2 against the hosts - and are one win away from taking home the trophy for the CB tri-series of ODI's.

Even with all the hope England, still the worl's #2 test cricket side, had for retaining the Ashes, no one thought their ODI side - #8 in the world at the start of this year (they just moved up to #7) - would accomplish much in the one-day part of their tour against even #4 (now dropped to #6) New Zealand, let alone the overwhelming world #1 Aussies, hot off their first ever ICC Champions win and gearing up for a World Cup which seemed all but awarded to them already. The idea of the England team, having faced a demoralizing series of beatings, could win an ODI series against the overwhelming World Cup favorites on their home soil was unthinkable just a week ago. Now it seems almost probable. We'll see what happens - there are probably more twists and turns to come.

Now I have to say that the World Cup looks to be in play. It all depends on which Australia team shows up (the dominators or the team that played okay but looked human today), and likewise which England team, which Pakistan team, which Sri Lanka team, which India team, which West Indies team, etc.

It seems England has already moved up a spot to #7, and New Zealand has dropped two spots to #6.

3D Cricket

The technology blog Read/Write web has a nice post about new 3D visualization technology on CricInfo.

I'm going to try it out tomorrow during the battle to determine who gets to lose in the tri-series finals in Australia.

I expect the visualization to be somewhat limited. My wildest hope would be that it would be as good as watching live hawkeye trajectories. We'll see how it goes. I'll have the ABC cricket radio on RealPlayer, a browser tab on the BBC scorecard, a browser tab on the BBC live text, and a browser window with the CricInfo 3D flash control. We'll see whether that enhances my cricket-following or makes my computer explode. ;-)


UPDATE:

My computer did not explode, but I found that the experience, while holding out some promise for the future, is not quite ready yet. What would make it a compelling experience would be showing the field settings (even if the fielders, other than the one who stops or catches the ball, don't move) and synchronized radio coverage. Right now the experience of one of reading a ball-by-ball update and watching computer-model batsmen take runs. If I listen to the radio I can use my imagination to visualize two batsmen crossing, so I didn't get a lot out of this, especially since the radio coverage was ahead of the 3D model.