Random Cricket Thoughts

Lights Out

2008-11-20T21:54:00.003+01:00

I propose a new rule for limited-overs cricket: "offering the light" now means offering to turn on the lights. I didn't have the opportunity to watch any of today's One-Dayer between England and India, but apparently nobody got to see the the exciting conclusion of it for a reason which seems very silly: bad light.

How can we have day-night matches in this format and yet stop an interesting match in its tracks because of bad light? They did not bother to turn on the lights. If its fair to have one side bat in the sunlight and another bat at night under the lights, then why is it unfair to make a side finish its innings under the lights while there's still a bit of sunlight left?

Injustice in Bangladesh Cricket

2008-09-18T21:00:00.003+02:00

I feel the need to say something about the Bangladesh Cricket Board's decision to ban 13 players for 10 years for playing in the ICL. There's no justification for any kind of penalty against these players. All they did was take a side job that doesn't interfere with their oblications to their national team. The BCB is cheating their players and all cricket fans. And what's the motivation? I have no inside knowledge, but I imagine that certain powers in India put pressure on them to join in their collusion to choke the rebel cricket league out of existence. This outrageous monopolistic behavior first became apparent with restrictions on which teams could compete in the so-called "Champions League".

It's just a matter of time before the ICL folds under the pressure, which will leave Indian cricket fans and cricket players around the world with fewer choices.

Harmy's Back!

2008-08-23T08:15:00.000+02:00

High School Cricket Teams in New York

2008-04-06T13:40:00.001+02:00

According to this article, there are now high school varsity cricket teams in the U.S.!

Indian Farmers Win

2008-03-03T07:40:00.002+01:00

According to the BBC, the debt of Indian small farmers will be forgiven. This makes me wonder whether these guys below might not have won a match recently:

Update: Apparently it was a good day for Indian cricketers across the board yesterday. Their Under-19's won the world championship, and the big boys beat Australia in the first final match of the ODI tri-series.

Microsoft and Cricket

2007-09-10T06:14:00.000+02:00

Interesting article about cricket on Microsoft's Redmond Campus.

My favorite quotes:

"There are probably more women playing cricket here than in all of India."

On the World Cup: "I can tell you Microsoft saved a lot of work hours because India got knocked out early."

Videos

2007-08-27T23:04:00.000+02:00

Since I can't get TV coverage of the England/India ODI series (which is looking pretty exciting), the next best thing is cricket-related drama. Here are a couple of interesting videos on YouTube. First is part 1 (there are currently 24 small parts with possibly more to come) of the "Bodyline" mini-series:

Too serious? Well, another look at cricket in that era can be found in this episode of the hilarious "Jeeves and Wooster".

Test Match Vacation 2007

2007-08-18T15:52:00.000+02:00

I'm back from my second and final cricket-watching trip of the summer (which was also a fun trip outside of cricket). I watched days 2,3 and 4 of the drawn 3rd test between England and India at the Oval. Overall, it was a fun trip, but it would have been a more interesting match if India had lost the toss (or if the bidding system I described in my last post had been in place). Dravid's India team, leading the series 1-0, labored hard to prevent a result. There was some good quality cricket to watch - excellent batting from Dhoni and Kumble on day 2, good bowling by Sreesanth, Tendulkar and Kumble and good batting by Collingwood and Bell on day 3 things got interesting for a while. Dravid's bizarrely conservative decision not to enforce the follow-on when England was under their thumb opened the door just a crack to a possible England victory after a brave opening spell from James Anderson and Chris Tremlett (taking on extra duty due to the injury to Ryan Sidebottom) left India's second innings in a crisis at 10 for 3. Extremely cautious batting from Dravid, along with a much-needed 50 by Saurav Ganguly, closed the door on England's last realistic hope of victory, but they left England in a position to fight for a draw. I had hoped being at day 4 of a test for the first time, to watch a result in person, but alas I found myself listening to the final few overs on the internet from home in Paris.

One thing I like to do at a cricket match is take photos and, if possible, videos. A test match is especially difficult to capture because the action is far away, and you never know whether the next thing worth photographing/videotaping will happen in 5 seconds or 3 hours. Nevertheless, I made an effort to record the event in photos and video clips. Here's a montage of some of the video clips. It was very difficult to hold the camera steady with a strong zoom, so the video is choppy. The footage below shows a lot of different deliveries and happenings on day 2 and day 3. It includes the wicket of M.S. Dhoni, Kumble's century, bowloing by Monty Panesar, James Anderson, Chris Tremlett, Sachin Tendulkar, and Sreesanth (who seems to be quite an interesting and energetic character), 50's by Cook, Collingwood and Bell, and a few bits of crowd ambiance (including a beer worm rebellion late on day 3):

Test Match Ambiance
Uploaded by threegp

Enough of the chopiness. Now for some photos:

Auctioning Off the Toss

2007-07-20T22:05:00.000+02:00

BBC cricket broadcaster Christopher Martin-Jenkins gave an excellent talk this week, full of good ideas. One of the ideas (not originally his) is the idea that instead of having a toss to determine who bats first, we could instead have the captains bid runs.

This seems a perfectly logical progression from the Duckworth-Lewis rule, which also uses economic theory to compensate for asymmetric playing conditions. In the case of DL, the asymmetric condition is the number of overs - one team gets more of them, so what's a fair way to adjust the scores in compensation?

Replacing the toss with bids compensates for unequal light, swing conditions, weather and pitch wear. It's particularly relevant in day-night ODI's, where one team clearly has better light to bat in. If it's worth x number of runs to bat first, why not give those runs to the team that bats second? Or vice-versa in some cases.

The original idea for implementing this was to have some sort of interactive multi-round bidding, but the best solution is to have a sealed-bid instant 2nd-price auction (a.k.a. Vickrey Auction). This means that each captain brings an envelope containing his assessment of how many runs it's worth for the choice to bat or field first. The winner is the captain with the higher of the two bids, but the runs awarded to the losing side are what the losing captain bidded. Example: Paul Collingwood bids 40 runs for England and Saurav Ganguly bids 30 for India. Collingwood is awarded the toss, but when India bats, they begin with 30 bonus runs on the board. This is the simplest and fairest type of auction for this, because both sides have the incentive to bid what they think it's worth. If you bid higher than you think it's worth, you might get lucky, but you risk your opponent getting more bonus runs than you think the toss is worth. If you bid lower than it's worth, if you win your lowering the bid does not lower the opponent's run bonus, but if you lose you've lowered your own bonus.

So what happens if both captains bid the same amount (let's say 35 runs)? Then toss a coin and the winner get to choose to bat or field first, and the loser gets the bonus runs which both captains thought the toss was worth (35).

I think this system would be much fairer than the coin toss (especially for limited overs matches), and I applaud CMJ for bringing it to light and cricket coach David Harris of Herefordshire for coming up with the basic concept.

P.S. - One odd side effect of this system would be to introduce the theoretical possibility of an innings defeat to limited overs cricket. If team A is awarded the toss in exchange for 40 bonus runs, and they're bowled out for 38, team B wins by an innings and 2 runs.

20/20 Fun

2007-07-01T11:37:00.001+02:00

Maybe it's just because I'm American, accustomed to sporting events which take less than half a day to end, but, now that I have actually been to an international 20/20 match, I have to say that it's a great format to watch. I was at Friday night's England vs. West Indies match, which was by far my best experience attending an international cricket match in person.

It was an excellent match. It began with muscular, middle-of-the-bat fireworks from Chris Gayle, who scored 33 runs before his batting partner got off his duck. Then the outcome hinged on a couple of key bowling changes. First, when England captain Paul Collingwood put himself in to bowl and got Gayle to sky one he gave himself a chance to win his first victory as captain. Then, when the West Indies fast bowlers had England shackled after eliminating their big-name batsmen, they were forced to put on their slower bowlers, who were subjected to some clever boundaries by man of the match Owais Shah. The key moment was a pre-meditated shovel shot by Shah which dribbled through the wide-open fine leg area to the boundary. This happened while the unfortunate guys next to me had gone out for beer. Before their beer run Shah and Mascarenas had been reduced to nudging for singles with the required rate looking too high, and then suddenly they were in the hunt again after getting something like 14 runs off the over. England won with just 3 balls to spare.

Not coincidentally, this was the first time I had the opportunity to be present at the finish of an international match. Last year's one-day match at Cardiff was rained out, so there was no finish to cheer. I've also gone to two test matches, but in both cases when the match ended I was not even in the same city. 20/20 is a great format for people who have to travel in order to see international cricket. You only need to spend one night in a hotel (in London this is a real issue, given the high prices), and you have time to do a little tourism or shopping, too. In August I plan to watch 3 successive days of test cricket, because I enjoy the strategic complexity and the tactical differences of the long form of the sport, but it will be expensive, and there will be significant lulls in the action to endure.

Is there hope for world class cricket in the U.S.?

2007-06-16T10:45:00.000+02:00

After the undermining and collapse of the nascent pro cricket league afew years ago, and the failure to win a venue for the 2007 World Cup, after the ICC pulled the plug on Project America because of the Kafkaesque nature of the USACA, I would have said no. But hope springs eternal.

Vaughan is Back!

2007-05-26T09:36:00.000+02:00

There was a lovely moment at Headingley yesterday, when Michael Vaughan reached 100, showing the naysayers and doubters (and I put myself in this latter category) that despite a series of injuries and frustrations he still merits his place in the England test side. He wasn't the only one happy to see him come back in a big way. Kevin Pietersen (who later went on to get his own 100) was at least as jubilant as Vaughan, and the Barmy Army could be heard singing (to the tune of "Cumbayah") "Michael Vaughan, my Lord, Michael Vaughan..." A few minutes later it all came down to earth when drunken louts threw beer in the stands, and then Vaughan was caught near the boundary to end his knock of 103, but it was a great moment, the kind of moment which makes following the sport worth putting up with all the lesser moments.

Cricket Scandal: Gilly's Squash Ball Cheat!

2007-05-08T09:49:00.000+02:00

I'm just kidding about the "cheat" part, but Sri Lanka has questioned whether it's in the spirit of the game for Australian wicket keeper Adam Gilchrist to have put a squash ball inside one of his batting gloves.

The article says he did it to help his grip. I'm not sure why that would help his grip more than just getting a better glove. I'm thinking it's probably more useful as extra padding or as a shock absorber, and given how hard Gilchrist hit the ball against Sri Lanka, I would think it's probably a good thing.

Squash balls could become all the rage among cricketers now, though for England, at least, there are not too many batsmen who last long enough at the crease these days to justify it.

Is it unfair to stuff a squash ball in the glove? Presumably it expands the volume of the glove slightly, which slightly increases the chance of getting caught behind off the glove. Will it make the ball go farther when hit? I doubt it. I can't think of anywhere to put a squash ball that would make me bat like Gilchrist.

An Oasis of Cricket

2007-04-24T22:31:00.000+02:00

Northern California's best cricket ground, seen via satellite on Google Maps. I never actually had an occasion to go there when I lived in the region. I had heard rumors of its existence but did not know where it was.

Scenes from Bois de Boulogne - a large park in Paris

2007-04-23T21:33:00.000+02:00

Dailymotion blogged video

Lots of Job Openings

2007-04-23T21:26:00.000+02:00

Of the 16 teams in this cricket World Cup, at least 8 will be changing coaches (so far we know about England, Pakistan, West Indies, India, Bangladesh, Ireland, Netherlands and Canada).

There are also at least 2 changes in captaincy, with Brian Lara and Inzamam Ul Haq bowing out. The world cup seems to encourage a certain amount of house cleaning.

Fletcher beats Lara by 1 wicket in swan song match

2007-04-22T17:03:00.000+02:00

Yesterday saw the last international cricket match for Brian Lara, and the last match as England coach by Duncan Fletcher. Neither of the two departing men was at the center of yesterday's result, really. Lara was run out for 18, leaving Chris Gayle's blazing 79 off 58 balls as the dominant knock for the Windies. Lara doesn't have to prove anything to anyone, though. He retires as a batting superstar. In contrast, Michael Vaughan did have to prove himself. This match could have been Vaughan's swan song as well, at least in ODI cricket, but he showed that he can add real value to the team. England looked to be in real trouble, but Vaughan came through at the right moments.

I didn't even know Michael Vaughan could bowl at all, but his figures of 3 for 39 in 10 overs were easily the best of the lot and he kept the target from getting completely out of reach. Vaughan also came through with the bat, needing just 10 more balls to match Gayle's 79. Vaughan's contribution alone was not enough, though. It also took a fast 100 by the frequently impressive Pietersen, plus a fighting 38 by keeper Nixon, plus some brief pressure-packed batting for Stuart Broad and even 11th man James Anderson to overhaul the Windies' 300.

So what can we make of this result? England deserves their 5th-place spot. That's not really good enough for their critics, but it's actually a big improvement over their performance in the last World Cup. They one every match they played against teams which were not among the semifinalists, and they came very close to beating Sri Lanka. It was not always pretty, and there's plenty of room for improvement with both bat and ball but if they hadn't managed to rally and win the CB series in Australia this winter, I think the press might consider this 5th-place finish a step in the right direction.

It's been suggested elsewhere that the Aussies are #1 because their fans will accept nothing less. Maybe it's the other way around. It's good to complain about problems that can be addressed (and which are worth addressing), and no one with a competitive attitude will be happy with 5th place, but it's also important to appreciate what you have. Yesterday, Fletcher's England team were able to show that there is something there worth appreciating.

Stiff Upper Lip Time

2007-04-18T20:28:00.000+02:00

Yesterday England had a chance to rise above mediocrity and sneak into the semifinals of the World Cup. Instead, they suffered a humiliating thrashing at the hands of South Africa. It was, as Jonathan Agnew described, England cricket "laid bare".

An amazing thing happens, though, when England's cricketers break the hearts of their supporters. It unleashes the brilliance of English sarcasm. While the match was pretty dismal cricket by all accounts, the BBC text narration (credited to Tom Fordyce) and associated comments were sometimes amusing. Here's a gem from the 7th over of England's innings:

Kaboom! Vaughan gets off the mark after a mere 20 deliveries, getting a thick edge through gully for one. You can't defend against those sort of fireworks. Bell does the same, and England are rampant.

I also like Fordyce's summary of the rivalry:

In case you're unaware of the history behind this particular showdown, Pietersen left his homeland for England because of the quota system - South African rules state that no team can field more than three massive egos in any one match.

The user comments were sometimes fun, too, such as one spectator who found a unique way of coping with the frustration of watching England's opening batsmen:

Why can I not shrug off the Benny Hill theme tune currently ringing in my ears?

The sarcasm only got sharper after a Mr. Rhodes complained about the negativity of the narration. This inspired some positive spin of the circumstances:

Rhodes version: "Huge, huge improvement from Mahmood - nine fewer runs off this over than his last one."

Unfortuately, Sajid Mahmoud was a pretty easy target. On a good day he can be a very fine bowler, but yesterday, and probably too many other days in this World Cup, that was not the case. Even his fielding was grist for the mill:

Mahmood then produces a sublime moment on the point boundary by jogging across to Kallis's gentle cut and booting it accidentally over the rope for four, in the manner of a clown entertaining children.

England still have one more match to go, but they can look forward to facing more sarcasm and bitterness, as well as calls for change which are hard to dispute at this point. If you had asked me before the tournament whether it was reasonable to expect England to finish 5th or 6th, I'd have said "yes" without hesitation, but with the manner in which the batting crawled along and then collapsed against South Africa, a reasonable result has become a humiliation. It seems their style of play in one-day matches works well against the minnows but only work against the big boys when KP ignites, or if a couple of tailenders bat exceptionally well. Even in those cases, - when England batted well against Sri Lanka and Australia, for example - it wasn't always enough. England will leave this tournament having lost to all four of the semifinalists.

Beautiful Slow Motion Footage

2007-04-14T10:10:00.000+02:00

Cricket's a difficult sport to film, since the camera crew is usually pretty far away from the action, and the most interesting things happen suddenly and unpredictably. So it's worth taking a look, if you haven't already seen it, of this lovely slowed-down footage from the 2005 Ashes:

Oh, England

2007-04-09T15:51:00.000+02:00

England will likely have to live with some what-ifs. Against Sri Lanka and against Australia some great individual performances were wasted. I actually got to see them bat against Australia yesterday. I braved the second-hand smoke of an English pub with a Sky box. Kevin Pietersen was amazing, hitting his first one-day century with rather limited support from partners. Ian Bell deserves credit for an excellent, if somewhat slow 77 in his new role as opener. And Bopara batted well in the tail. You'd think a 50+ from an opener, a century from your middle-order star and a fighting 21 from a tailender would be enough to win, but this is England vs. Australia, and other than those 3, plus some of Andrew Flintoff's usual quality bowling, England was pretty bereft.

England has a hole in the batting lineup. A big hole which was not filled at all by Vaughan and Strauss, who made similar mistakes. Flintoff's dismissal was perhaps the worst, though. Bradd Hogg simply out-thought Flintoff, and it seems like maybe that's not such a big accomplishment these days. On one ball Hogg nearly pulled Flintoff into a stumping, and the next ball landed just a bit further out and did pull him out of his ground for the stumping.

On the bowling side, Flintoff has been excellent, and the others have been inconsistent at best. Mahmoud had a fine match against Sri Lanka. If he'd had a fine match against Austrlia England would have won, but he didn't. He didn't get much support from the pitch or the other bowlers, though (Flintoff aside).

Now England will have to fight for what's left of their hopes in this tournament against a Bangladesh team celebrating its shocking demolition of the world's top-ranked one-day side.

The Most Interesting Team in this World Cup

2007-04-09T15:28:00.000+02:00

So far Sri Lanka has been the most interesting team in this World Cup. Their matches against South Africa, in which South Africa limped to victory after a near-fatal collapse (including the remarkable 4 wickets in 4 balls by Lasith Malinga), and against England, in which a great rearguard effort from England's tailenders Bopara and Nixon fell just 2 runs short. That's one-day cricket at its most exciting.

What makes them interesting? In part its that they have a really dangerous batting lineup. The formerly retired Sanath Jayasuriya is an excellent batsman, and Australia's Adam Gilchrist is the only other wicket keeper-batsman in the same class as Kumar Sangakkara. But what really makes them unique is their bowlers. They don't just have good bowlers, they have bowlers who are one-of-a-kind. There will never be another bowler like Muttiah Muralitharan - his deformed elbow makes him pretty much impossible to emulate. Now that Shane Warne has retired, he is undisputably the sport's premier wicket-taking spin bowler. Then there's the aforementioned Lasith Malinga. Not only does he have an unusual style of delivery, which has been much discussed, but now he's got hair to match. There's also Chaminda Vaas, who almost became a priest instead of a cricketer.

I can't predict that Sri Lanka will win the tournament, but I can say that they are the team to watch. Now, if only I could actually get some TV coverage of their matches...

Well, for now there's YouTube:

How NOT to handle defeat

2007-03-22T07:36:00.000+01:00

1) Tear up the wicket keeper's house - According to this article, a mob in India attacked the under-construction home of wicket keeper Mahendra Dhoni. It's crazy how they literally build up and tear down their stars. In a country with a billion people, it's understandable that there will be a few people who go to extremes, but again, this group took it way too personally.

There's an informative related post on Cricket 24x7.

I should add that this sort of issue is not a uniquely South-Asian problem. Even in ultra-polite Canada there have been riots after hockey teams lost. In my native U.S. there are sometimes riots when a team wins a championship. In the most extreme case, a soccer match in El Salvador resulted in a war!

2) Lead a drinking expedition the night before the next match, followed by a pedal-boat excursion - Of course this is the odd news about England star Andrew Flintoff, which cost him the vice-captaincy. This may also be a case of taking things too personally. One would expect Flintoff to have the occasional drinking binge, but not the night before a match. I'm sure that disappointment about losing to New Zealand must have clouded his judgment a bit.

3) Murder the coach - This is really the extreme logical extension of taking wins and losses too personally. Valuing victory in a sports event above human life is quite simply insane and evil, but it's not that far beyond valuing victory over sportsmanship or common courtesy.

This shocking revelation also presents another problem for Pakistan cricket. How does one recruit a new cricket coach when the last one was murdered for performance reasons? Who would want to take that job?

There's a certain irony to this awful tragedy. In recent years there have been security concerns surrounding teams touring Pakistan (New Zealand cut short a tour after a bomb blast, and other teams have had concerns as well), and in 2003 there were security concerns in Africa. None of that crossed anyone's mind with the Caribbean, where the main concern was whether the venues would be built on time. This is the biggest security incident in the history of international cricket, and it's not linked to terrorism or political instability.

A St. Patrick's Day Miracle

2007-03-18T07:43:00.000+01:00

Congratulations to the Irish, still the only team in the history of the World Cup who have never lost a match.

Pundits said the pitches in the Caribbean would favor South Asian teams. Some picked Pakistan and India as the most likely teams to pry the cup away from the Australians. But now, stunningly, Pakistan is the first team eliminated from contention (before Bermuda, even!), and India is in danger of following suit.

If Ireland's winning ways continue, it will be interesting to see whether Ed Joyce begins to regret his choice of country. An England-Ireland match-up in the super-8's could be interesting, but England has to beat Kenya to make that happen. After a day where the minnows won 2-0 I'm not going to count on that happening. It's also possible that Ireland could fail to advance if Zimbabwe also beats Pakistan.

A year ago the idea of Pakistan leaving the World Cup without a win was unthinkable, but at this point it can't be ruled out as a possibility. Despite the brilliance of certain batsmen, it's been a tough year for Pakistan's cricket program.

A Perfect 36

2007-03-17T14:21:00.000+01:00

Here's the BBC article about what Herschelle Gibbs accomplished in one over against Holland yesterday. It's very impressive, hitting all 6 balls for six. It's actually easier for me, given my level of talent, to identify with the bowler, Daan van Bunge. To his credit, he did not bowl any extras in the over. Given the hammering he was taking it would have been understandable for him to get rattled or try something beyond his abilities.

I once heard an interview with an English club cricketer who hit 7 sixes in an over, thanks to a no-ball. So that's a 43-run over for some unfortunate club bowler.

What caught my attention in the article was that the Dutch captain did not know where to place his fielders. Suppose you're the captain, and your opponents need 6 off the last ball to win. And let's say the on-strike batsman is Gibbs and the bowler is van Bunge (sounds a lot better than "the bowler's Holding; the batsman's Willey"). Where do you place your fielders?

I don't know whether it's in the spirit of the game (there's a bit of Jardine in me, I guess), but I would put fielders OUTSIDE the boundary. If I understand law 32 correctly (if you're an accredited umpire and disagree, please leave an explanatory comment), a fielder can prevent a six by catching the ball in the air, even well outside the rope, and throwing the ball back in play (as long as the ball is released before his feet touch the ground).

From that point on, it probably makes more sense for the fielder to pick up the ball and throw it back to the bowler or keeper in a hurry. If the batsmen have not scored a run by the time the ball is reached I believe the fielder could throw the ball over the rope to end the match with a 1-run win, but law 19 makes this scenario very risky. If the fielder throws the ball over the rope, the batting side gets the 4 runs plus whatever runs the batsmen have taken before the throw went over the rope. By the time the ball goes to the extra-deep fielder and back in play, and the fielder gets in to pick it up, the batsmen will likely have scored a run, and the fieldsman will not have had the opportunity to check whether or not they have (or, even worse, he might not notice a no-ball signal from the umpire). So the best bet is to get the ball in before they can run 5 for a tie or 6 for the win.

Another radical fielding idea more appropriate for the actual scenario of Gibbs' heroics (i.e. not chasing, and there's one ball in the over after he's scored 30 off the first 5 balls) would be to put fielders at the boundary in pairs - one inside and one outside. So the one outside could try to take the ball with feet off the ground and lob the ball in for the other fielder to take the catch. Don't leave anyone but the bowler and the keeper more than 5 yards inside the boundary. In that scenario, Gibbs might think twice about trying to hit the big one.

March Madness

2007-03-15T23:51:00.000+01:00

If you don't know what the NCAA basketball tournament is like - and if you're not American, that's quite understandable - you have the opportunity to find out this week on internet radio. If, on the other hand, you don't know anything about the cricket World Cup and would like to find out, well, if you're not in one of the participating countries you're out of luck.

Today it was the luck of the Irish which escaped me, as cricket minnows Ireland pulled off a near-miraculous tie against degraded former cricket power Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe seemed to have it easily in hand, but the Irish took a flurry of late wickets, including, apparently, a runout of the last man on the final ball of the 50th over. This luck escaped me because no one has bought the rights for even internet radio broadcasts of the World Cup here in France, so I only know about the match from reading about it.

The ICC is a monopoly which tries to maximize its short-term interests to the detriment of the sport. It's a disgrace to the sport of cricket that this supposedly world-wide event is blacked out even from radio and internet radio coverage in much of the world, which is not the case for a university league event in the U.S.

A "Hot or Not" Based on Cricketing Ability

2007-02-28T23:09:00.000+01:00

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

2007-02-23T22:44:00.000+01:00

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

2007-02-11T12:41:00.000+01:00

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?

2007-02-09T22:38:00.000+01:00

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

2007-02-05T20:57:00.000+01:00

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.

4th ODI in Australia

2007-01-20T12:19:00.000+01:00

This week's defeat in Australia was a less depressing one for England. The highlights on the Sky Sports web site were actually fun to watch (though they did not show the controversial edge by Hussey which was given not out). There was some great fielding, especially (Cameron White, lying on the ground, head pointing away from the wicket, managing to run out Ian Bell), and a couple of impressive shots by England's new discovery Mal Loye.

Loye presents a problem for England's selectors - evidently a problem of their own making. He may be England's best one-day opening batsman, but it will be difficult to get him into the 15-man World Cup squad, given that he did not make it into the current 30-man squad. I guess the good news is that maybe by the time England is done being thrashed in Australia and the World Cup, they may have a good sense of who their best ODI squad is for the coming summer season. With luck, they might even know who the captain is, too.

Scorecards Gone Wild!

2007-01-20T12:01:00.000+01:00

Something is messed up with the live score feed from the Pakistan test match in South Africa:

It's not just Sky Sports - the BBC site is showing the same stats.

Better Late than Never

2007-01-18T07:05:00.000+01:00

This week England got their first match win in Australia, on day 72 of their tour.

I'm a bit behind schedule myself. I just noticed a couple of interesting things in my January issue of The Wisden Cricketer (I should be getting the Feb. issue any day now).

First of all, cricket has now joined the world of the dummies.

If "dummy" isn't self-deprecating enough for you, how about "pervert"? That's the term used in a brilliant quote from Dave Kidd of the Sun to describe people who watch cricket in the middle of the night because of time zone differences:

During previous Ashes tours... there was something shameful about following the action live on TV in the wee small hours. Cricket perverts would tell their wives they were staying up late to watch porn, hoping not to be rumbled when she was woken up by the sordid sound of failed English lbw appeals.

You know it's going to be a tough World Cup when...

2007-01-13T10:23:00.000+01:00

Your night watchman is selected as an all-rounder.

England has selected their 30-man squad for the World cup. The BBC has an article here. When I looked at the bowlers I noticed that not a single one of the Ashes-winning bowlers was in that group. It makes a lot of sense that Flintoff is in the all-rounders group (though lately he seems to struggle a bit with either bat or ball in each match), but I was quite surprised to find Matthew Hoggard there with him. Hoggy's a lovable character and a devastating swing bowler in the right conditions, but with the bat he's mainly known for blocking. His batting average in ODI's is 4.25.

Otherwise, the squad includes 8 of the 12 MBE/OBE awardees from the 2005 Ashes. No Harmison, no Trescothick, no Joneses. The young and the restless will compete for the other 4 spots. At least they will have a few guys who are happy to be there even if they have to witness some batting collapses. If Pietersen's rib heals well they may even get to see some fireworks.

I think World Cup 2007 will be a lot of fun, but probably not for England. The Aussies have to be favored. They look as good now as they were in 2003. They always seem to have a tailender or unsung all-rounder who steps up if the batting or bowling stars have an off day. Other teams to watch include the hosts (you never know what the Windies will do), and South Asian batting powerhouses Sri Lanka and Pakistan. You can never completely count out New Zealand, 2003 semi-finalists India, South Africa and England. It would be a shocker if any of these 8 teams fails advance to the super 8 round - unless there's a lot of rain. The unfair thing about the World Cup is that matches are generally not replayed (please leave a comment if you know whether this rule has changed since 2003). Each of the favored teams has two matches against weaker teams, but if those matches are rained out, they lose half the points they could have gotten by winning. So it just takes ! upset win and a washout or two to produce a shock result in the standings. The shock story of 2003 was Kenya, but they'll be far from home in the Caribbean. Bermuda will be near home, but they've never played in the World Cup before. Other possible Cinderellas include Bangladesh and Canada.

Full Circle: Michael Vaughan (OBE) becomes England Captain

2007-01-07T10:45:00.000+01:00

On the surface it seems a bit crazy to anoint a captain who has not even played at the international level since last Spring. Add to that the recurring knee injuries, and it really seems wacky. But I thought it might happen because it allows England's star player, Andrew Flintoff, to save face. Selector chairman David Graveney's comment that Flintoff was "keeping the seat warm" for Vaughan was quite revealing. You can bet that if things had been reversed and Flintoff's team had won the Ashes 5-0, that seat would have burst into flames.

Vaughan really is a good captain, and if he survives the triangular series and bats reasonably well this choice will have been vindicated. But it reminds me a bit too much of the selection of Giles and Trescothick to the Ashes squad. They chose politics, continuity and personal sentiment over a realistic assessment of the situation. I believe the last overseas tour that went well for Michael Vaughan was 2 years ago in South Africa.

I was in favor of Strauss as captain from last Summer, and I still think it's the sanest choice. Flintoff didn't offer anything as captain that he didn't already offer as the team's most explosive player, and his ankle was also going to be a worry. Strauss did a good job in turning around the one-day series vs. Pakistan, and I thought he earned the job.

Langer, too

2007-01-03T19:32:00.000+01:00

It's getting a bit dull writing about Australian cricketers retiring, but I had to say something nice about Justin Langer. Why? Well, as an American I had never been interested in cricket because there just weren't any opportunities to see it on the grand stage. As a tourist in Adelaide, Australia in 2001, I was on the bus from the airport to my hotel when a nice lady asked me whether I had come to see the cricket. I had no idea there was cricket in Adelaide, and I was afraid I would not understand what was going on, but I decided to check it out. It was day one of a test match vs. Shaun Pollock's South Africa side, and when I showed up Langer and Ponting were at the crease. After a while, they announced a 50 partnership. Then a 100 partnership. Then a century by Langer. After that, the wickets started falling, so I got to see, somewhat briefly, the Waugh brothers. But Langer's century, which the local papers called "Bradmanesque", was my introduction to this majestic sport. So, good on ya', Justin. Enjoy your retirement. It's been a long and beautiful innings.

England Cricketers Oversold

2006-12-31T01:42:00.000+01:00

I don't want to get too negative about England cricket over just one dismal away series - the better team has won, and that doesn't mean England isn't talented or fun to watch. But I do have to say that England's cricketers have been overmarketed since the 2005 Ashes victory. The most egregious offenses in this regard were premature biographies by Pieterson and Strauss. And now I find that even Monty Panesar has a slick merchandising machine of a website.

In the meantime, the world of cricket moves forward. India is touring in South Africa. So far the test series is 1-1. Makhaya Ntini was the standout player in the last match. He's long been known as a great athlete (the program I bought from their Australia tour in 2001-2002 said that he was known to eschew the team bus in favor of running to and from practices), but lately he's become a very consistent bowler à la Glenn McGrath.

There's also a little thing on the way soon called the 2007 Cricket World Cup. Even without Warne the Aussies will be the favorites, but there are several teams which could step up and surprise (especially if the Aussies end up overcelebrating after a 5-0 Ashes whitewash). Of course the biggest surprise could well be the pitches, because many of the venues in the Caribbean are still under construction. I was disappointed that the bid to have a venue in Florida was rejected. It would have been a great step for spreading cricket in the U.S., and the construction would have been done on time. It's the West Indies' show, though, and there's still a chance that they will show the world that they're ready for the big time.

Good news for England and bad news for Australia

2006-12-28T19:45:00.000+01:00

The good news for England Cricket is that no one's going to get injured playing on day 4 at the MCG. That's, of course, because it took only 3 days for Australia to thrash them. The bad news for Australia Cricket is that they have to give 100,000 day 4 ticket-holders their money back.

Other than that, things look pretty bleak for the visitors and quite sweet for the hosts. England now has an investigation to do, as well, since they had bowling plans leak out. At least they HAD plans for the bowling. I'm not sure there were any batting plans to leak.

The other bad news for England cricket is that my hero Monty Panesar did not even come close to winning BBC Sport Personality of the Year. Apparently they gave the award to the Queen's granddaughter for winning some equestrian thing. Sounds like the deck was stacked against Monty, but what really hurt was not being a part of any England team that won a match since August. Of course there were not many wins in those matches where he was left out, either - just a couple ODI wins against Pakistan, and one win in the ICC Champions. At least he's the odds-on favorite for Beard of the Year.

McGrath to Follow

2006-12-24T09:30:00.000+01:00

Poor Glenn McGrath - even in retirement he's overshadowed by Warne. He thought he'd be clever and announce his retirement after the next test, but instead the Warne announcement started a media feeding frenzy of speculation about McGrath.

Despite Warne's shadow, McGrath has been one of the greatest fast bowlers in the history of test cricket. It will be interesting to see how Australia fare without their golden bowling tandem. They seem to have a long line of great young batsmen waiting for a shot at the big time, but I'm not sure what sort of young bowlers they have to work with. The answer to that question will shape the international cricket rankings for the next decade.

Warne Out - End of an Era

2006-12-21T08:15:00.000+01:00

Shane Warne is retiring from international cricket. This is a big story, as he's been, and could have continued to be, a major force in the sport of cricket. It also puts the World Cup in play, though the Aussies managed to win the last one without him (and they have to be odds-on favorites to do it again).

He will play 2 more years of county cricket for Hampshire.

To me the decision seems premature, but I guess he's accomplished everything he wanted to, and now he can spend more time with his family (and mistresses?).

It's interesting that he would have retired in 2005 if Australia hadn't lost the Ashes. It really looks like losing the Ashes last year was the best thing that could have happened to Australian cricket at that time.

Accidental Fireworks

2006-12-16T17:14:00.000+01:00

Even in a one-sided match, test cricket can create some interesting stories. Today Adam Gilchrist hit the 2nd-fastest century in the history of test cricket, rapidly crushing any but the faintest hope of England retaining the Ashes. This alone is a story, but the interesting part is that it should not have happened.

Here's what Gilchrist said:

"After I got my fifty we threw the question back to the rooms, did we want to try and have a look at them (England) if we could press on? We took it as a yes, apparently it was a no."

Translation: Gilchrist got the wrong message, and instead of grinding out a slow, safe innings until the end of the day as captain Ponting had planned he put the pedal to the metal and swung away. The way England has been batting lately, I'm not sure it would have made a difference even if Gilchrist had been caught out on 50 making an imprudent shot, but now the England team has to hold 9 wickets for 2 days or score another 538 runs in order to have any hope of keeping the Ashes. They really only have 3 batsmen left who seem capable of making a century (Bell, Collingwood and KP - Strauss is gone, Cook is too mistake-prone, Flintoff and Jones are out of form, and then you've got the bowlers). Even if all 3 make centuries England could still end up losing by more than 100 runs.

Hats off to Australia. England's Ashes victory in 2005 awakened a sleeping giant. England's team has been in some disarray since Michael Vaughan's knee injury, but this Australian side is better than the one that Vaughan's England team faced in 2005.

UPDATE: Guess I was wrong about Alastair Cook, who just got his first century vs. Australia. Well played! Too bad England hasn't been able to put all these great individual efforts together at the right moments...

Things getting back to normal

2006-12-16T10:52:00.000+01:00

Normal is Australia holding the Ashes, as they have for something like 17 of the last 20 years.

For one day, at least, all is as it should be

2006-12-14T20:04:00.000+01:00

Today was a great day for the Barmy Army in particular. They got back their trumpet and their Monty. And what an Ashes debut Monty gave them! While he humbly says he trusts the England selectors, by turning in the 3rd-best innings ever bowled by any Englishman at the WACA he let us know that those selectors are in fact morons.

In a way, the selectors did Monty Panesar a favor by not selecting him until now. He's untainted by the debacles in Brisbane and Adelaide. He also gets to feed off a resurgent Steve Harmison. The two make a great "good-cop, bad-cop" pair. Harmy scares the batsmen, and then when they relax or get aggressive against Monty he catches them off guard.

I don't know whether Monty could have turned either of the last 2 matches in England's favor - we'll never know. I don't even know if his efforts will be enough to prevent them from losing the whole series this week. But he was already my pick for England's Sporting Personality of the Year award (or he would be if I were English and could vote in it), and this just makes his case stronger.

Controversial Cricket Happenings

2006-12-09T10:42:00.000+01:00

It's been an eventful week, with 3 controversies raging.

1) The Ashes. Australia was able to snatch away a match that should have been England's, and England's fans have given up hope of retaining the Ashes. The principle scapegoat seems to be Ashley Giles. It's true that he did not bat well, his bowling was mostly mediocre, and he dropped a catch which could have turned the match in England's favor. I think it's a mistake to blame Giles. His bowling was not much different than it was in the Ashes-winning effort last year, when he was the King of Sp(a)in. It's just that two things have changed on the bowling side: his teammates aren't bowling as well, and England now has a better spin bowler in Monty Panesar. It's not fair to blame Giles for not being Monty. Blame Fletcher for choosing Giles over Panesar and Flintoff for not insisting on having the best bowling attack possible under the circumstances. As for the batting, while he's supposedly a better batsman than Panesar, there were many more acclaimed batsmen in the England side who failed. If Flintoff had batted well no one would be concerned about Giles's batting failure. And as for the catch, KP dropped 7 catches in the 2005 series. All a player can do is practice taking all sorts of catches and hope that the technique developed will work at the right moment. It's like in figure skating where the skater who can hit the triple lutz 8 times out of ten because of years of effort hopes that one of the bad ones isn't during the Olympics. That's big-time sports. England fans had a good emotional high from last year's win, and now a few of them are looking to lash out because their high has crashed.

England blew this opportunity not because Giles failed but because of weak strategic coherency. They chose some tactics which were designed to bring a draw (like choosing Giles over Panesar for batsmanship and experience) and some tactics which were designed to pursue victory (like the declaration on 550-6). It's unfortunate that Collingwood's brilliant fighting effort was in vain, but the fish rotted from the head. I should also say that, even though I was hoping England would win, it was a fascinating match and a brilliant win for Australia.

2) Drug tests. Pakistan has overturned the steroid bans of Akhtar and Asif. I don't know whether the cases were genuinely deserving of mercy, but this is the second time this year that Pakistan has threatened the rule of law in the sport. The reason given for the overturn was that the PCB had not done enough to educate the players about the dangers of supplements. Since the PCB signed on to WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) and the ICC policies, it means the PCB failed to live up to its agreements. They need to get their act together and act like a great sporting nation instead of a backwater.

3) The run-out of Murali. Today New Zealand was able to beat Sri Lanka, and they were helped by a controversial run-out which ended Sri Lanka's batting. Sangakkara had just completed a century, and Murali left his ground to congratulate him before the throw came in to the keeper. The keeper then took off the bails and Murali was out. Sri Lankan players said this was against the spirit of the game, but I tend to disagree. The spirit of the game is that when you're playing you're playing. As Fleming pointed out, if the throw had gone wide they might have taken an overthrow. If the throw had gone really astray and all the way to the boundary, would it have been in the spirit of the game to award Sri Lanka the extra runs?

It was a lapse in concentration on the part of Murali. Murali is a great bowler against whom no batsman can afford a lapse in focus, and I don't think he should be let off for his own lapse.

I have to say that cricket would be dull if there were never any controversies like this, but it does seem like 2006 has had more than its share of cricket controversy.
In 2003 there was Shane Warne's diet pill and England's refusal to play in Zimbabwe, in 2000 there was the huge match-fixing scandal. In 1981 there was the big underarm ball controversy, and in the 70's there was the Packer rebellion and aluminum bats. And it seems there's always some controversy about someone's bowling action (often Murali's). But this has been quite a week and quite a year.

Double Snubs in Australia

2006-12-01T08:50:00.000+01:00

Today was the first day of the second Ashes test, and while it was a good day for England's batsmen, there were two bits of disappointing news:
1) No Monty again. Monty Panesar is the best finger spinner in the world, according to England coach Fletcher, but for the second match in a row they chose Ashley Giles instead, presumably because of his experience and batting ability. I've never coached a cricket side, but England needs to win a test. Why not trust Strauss, KP, Collingwood, Bell and Flintoff to take care of the batting and put the best bowling attack you can muster. It seems like both sides selected players with a draw in mind. Given the slowness of the pitch, a draw seems like the most likely result, but Monty has shown the ability to take wickets on unfriendly pitches.
2) No bugle again. I haven't actually heard the Barmy Army bugler (perhaps I'll get the chance next summer at the Oval), but I understand he's actually talented (a classically trained musician). For the second straight match Cricket Australia has not allowed him to bring his bugle. I don't quite understand this policy. I fear the result will be more drunken ditties from the Barmy Army.

Tickets Bought

2006-10-31T07:10:00.000+01:00

There was some angst at first, but at around 7:00 a.m. this morning (6:00 in London) I was able to get into the Surrey ticket system and buy seats. Not cheap, but not eBay prices, either. So I picket up tickets for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the India test match in August, and for the Friday night 20-20 match vs. West Indies in late June. I had a choice of stands, and the prices varied. For the test I chose the Peter May stand, which is probably the cheapest at 40 pounds a seat. From my experience, it looks like a decent place to watch from, as long as you have a sun hat and an umbrella.

For the 20-20 I'll be in the Lock Lower covered area, which is 43 pounds per seat for that match (I think that area cost 50 for the test).

Cricket Ticket Maze

2006-10-14T17:27:00.000+02:00

Getting tickets for an international cricket match in London is no small feat. Up to this point I simply have been unable to accomplish it, due to distance and a lack of organization, as well as an unwillingness to pay insane eBay prices. The ratio of seats to fans is quite small in London. Many of the seats are reserved for members, and there are long waiting lists for membership at both London venues (Lords and the Oval).

Up to this point I've been to two international matches in the U.K., both outside London (Nottingham and Cardiff, to be specific). In both cases it was a fun visit, but the inconvenience and extra hotel costs may have slightly outweighed the savings from not having to pay insane eBay prices, especially now that I'm just a 3-hour train ride from London here in Paris.

For next year, I plan to achieve the incredible and obtain tickets to see India at the Oval, and you have the opportunity to follow my ticket buying journey on this blog, a journey which began today.

It turns out that tickets for India at the Oval go on sale to Surrey CC members on Friday. That's for a test match on August 9-13 (my first choice event). There's also an ODI on September 5. As I said, there are no Surrey memberships available, but if you're willing to loan them 6000 pounds interest-free for 75 years they'll give you great seats.

So what can I do? The general public gets the right to purchase tickets on December 4, but for 25 pounds they offer the chance to purchase tickets online starting on Halloween. This seems like a bit of a scam, but London cricket tickets are mania-inspiring rarities, so I decided to go for it. And since I'm already invested, I think I might as well try to score a seat at the 20/20's they're hosting vs. the West Indies in June. We'll see. So far I've just purchased the right to buy tickets after the members but before the general public. I suspect that actually what I've really purchased is the right to try to buy tickets. They haven't guaranteed that I can actually get them. We'll see at the end of the month whether I can nail down the seats, or whether it's like Lord's, where you buy the tickets up front, and then they figure out who actually gets the tickets - and everyone else gets a refund with no interest.

So far it reminds me of the casino at Monte Carlo, where they charge you money just for admission, but honestly if the price of admission puts you off you really don't belong there, as the admission is tiny compared to the money they could suck away once you go in. By the way, I didn't pay the admission to the casino, which is why I can afford to bet 25 pounds on a shot at cricket tickets.

If you're feeling lucky, details are here.

Fry and Laurie on England vs. West Indies

2006-09-28T00:25:00.000+02:00

It takes a couple minutes before the sketch about cricket (4 minutes and 12 seconds, to be exact), and keep in mind that this was the early 90's, when the Windies still dominated England and most other teams.

The Young Ones play cricket

2006-09-24T18:29:00.000+02:00

Young Ones Cricket
Uploaded by stevanhogg

Don't try to make too much sense out of these guys.

The England team shrink

2006-09-20T23:42:00.000+02:00

According to this BBC article, Monty Panesar is talking to England's team psychologist about how to be ready for some fierce taunting. I think Monty will hold up well. I think Harmison needs to talk to the shrink about not getting homesick. Trescothick - apparently he needs to talk about India, because there's something about that country that incapacitates him. And England's selectors need to talk to him about how to handle the stress that will come from picking an Ashes captain that is not yet medically fit to play.

And what they all need to talk about with him is how to handle the stress created by this guy.

Cardiff

2006-09-14T23:05:00.000+02:00

It's taken me a while to get around to it - I've been crazily busy - but I wanted to put down a few thoughts and impressions about my recent trip to Cardiff to see the opening match of the Natwest series between England and Pakistan.

If you follow either of those two teams, you probably know that the result from Cardiff was a washout. I can't complain too much, though. I saw I an Bell score 88 runs, and I saw Shoaib Akhtar take 3 wickets (as well as Stuart Broad taking 1 in just 3 overs).

I also got some perspective on two controversies. First of all, the controversy around picking Cardiff to host an Ashes match in 2009. I have mixed feelings about this one. My impression of the facilities at Sophia Gardens was not too favorable. It's a lovely enough ground, but the lines were huge, to get in, to get food, and for the porta-loos that were brought in because of a lack of adequate bathrooms. Of course what's there will all be torn down and rebuilt with a bigger budget, but it's an act of faith that they'll get it right. On the plus side, Cardiff's a great town to visit for a couple days. In a very short span of time, I toured the castle, went to the museum, saw the Rolling Stones live, walked around the touristy areas in Cardiff Bay, and saw the Dr. Who exhibition - all without ever having to rent a car.

The other controversy is this: What the heck are they doing holding day-night cricket matches in the U.K.? The stadium lights were pretty good, actually, but the problem is the weather. It barely rained at all, by U.K. standards, but at night the field just could not get dry. They need a helicopter if they're going to play big matches at night. I had one shot to see international cricket in 2006, and it was blown all because they wanted to finish the match at night for a TV audience.

It wasn't a bad trip, though, overall, and I saw a county match at the Oval in London.

I made a montage of my trip, including photos and little video clips, which includes a fair amount of cricket. It has other stuff, too, but you can click the progress bar to skip around if you just want to see the cricket:

Edit video online at onetruemedia.com

Mick's Passion for Cricket Costs Me Money

2006-08-26T13:54:00.000+02:00

I'm all set to go to Cardiff this week for the first England/Pakistan ODI. I booked my hotel back in April, and I was stunned to find that all the hotels in the city center were doubling or tripling their prices for the night before the ODI. I thought, "Wow, I guess this cricket match is a big draw."

I just found out that it's not the cricket at all. There's a Rolling Stones concert in Cardiff the night before the ODI. It can't be a coincidence, though. As I've already mentioned on this blog, Mick Jagger is a huge cricket fan. I'm sure he will be at Sophia Gardens next Wednesday.

Hairy Situation, part II: Bad Idea

2006-08-26T08:43:00.000+02:00

There's a good article in the Guardian about the latest turn in cricket's biggest soap opera.

Hair tried to ask discreetly for half a million dollars in exchange for retiring. I don't want to be too judgmental here - I've had some bad days at the office in my life but I've never been burned in effigy or had a nuclear-armed world leader attack me in the press for something I did at work - but this ranks among some of the most impressive bad ideas.

Now that this information is public, this mess is no longer about whether a Pakistan player tampered with the ball. If they did in fact tamper with the ball, then this is a bad develoment. If they're innocent, as they've claimed so forcefully, then they have won a victory of sorts for justice within cricket, though at a heavy price both for them and for the ICC and the umpires. I still think the most likely scenario is that Hair was just doing his job, but perhaps quite badly in this matter.

Presumably if the ball had shown compelling visible signs of tampering we would have seen it by now. I really want that ball to be on public display, and let me be the first blogger to name it "the Hair-ball".

A Hairy Situation

2006-08-23T20:42:00.000+02:00

It's the longest tea-break in the history of cricket. England and Pakistan went in for tea on Sunday, and they still haven't restarted play. Of course the match has long since been declared a forfeit. You know this if you follow cricket at all. Even my father in New Jersey read about it in the New York Times.

Cricket is always full of drama, but things have really gone over the top now. We have a charge of ball-tampering, which would not have had much impact on the course of the match if it had not been viewed as an attack on the character of the Pakistani team. Pakistani President Musharraf went so far as to say it was an insult to his nation. There is still a drama yet to unfold when the ball in question is finally revealed to the public after investigation. But one thing is certain: Pakistan did not come out to play after tea, and that's not cricket.

In the meantime there's been a lot of talk about the instigator of this charge of ball-tampering, the Australian umpire Darrell Hair. Is he a racist, as some claim? I don't know. I find such a claim without solid evidence to be more outrageous than a charge of ball tampering. Is he an authoritarian? There are certainly many, not just in Pakistan, who think so. This is not the first time he's been at the center of controversy. Incidents like this turn the focus on him instad of the sport, which is a bad thing. He will no doubt sell more copies of his autobiography as a result of this, but perhaps he's just an umpire who sees no room for compromise in the rules.

In the meantime, it looks like a cooling-off arrangement has been made to save the ODI series. This is of crucial interest to me, as I have tickets and various travel bookings to see the first ODI next week. They made up some lame excuse about a match referee having a sick relative so that Inzamam's hearing and possible punishment could be postponed. Bravo! Hopefully tempers will cool and international cricket will become its normal soap opera self again.

Next summer I hope to come back to see another match in England - hopefully India. I'm kind of hoping that Hair is not one of the umpires on the field. On that trip I expect to see this allegedly tampered ball for myself in a glass case in the Lords museum where it belongs.

A Day of Great Pairings

2006-07-29T19:33:00.000+02:00

After writing the near-obituary of England's One-Day side after their disastrous whitewashing at the hands of Sri Lanka two things have now gave me a bit more hope for them. Both happened today, and both involve a pair of individuals dominating a match.

For England, the pair is Monty Panesar and Steve Harmison. Thanks to a special price offer from ECB TV I was able to watch live on the net as these two bowlers acted as hammer and anvil to destroy a strong Pakistani batting side put under pressure by great centuries from Cook and Bell. Monty has suffered a lot of comments about his fielding and batting, but against the meat of Pakistan's order he was a star today, taking all the toughest wickets with some unpredictable turning of the ball. He's a natural player to like because he seems genuinely grateful and surprised by the rewards he's getting from a huge amount of intense preparation and adjustment.

Until the tailenders came out, I thought Monty was the big star of the match. But then I saw that the tailenders were generally frightened of Harmison. Kaneria refused singles in order to avoid taking strike against him, and I think it was Sami who was so jittery that he tried to duck a ball that turned out to be of a good length. When the ball hit him around the shoulder, I think, England actually gave an LBW shout!

Between the two of them, they took 19 wickets, as Jim Laker did by himself 50 years ago on the same pitch. The one they didn't get was a runout.

The other big news is the huge (624 run!) partnership between Jayawardene and Sangakkara vs. South Africa. Those guys brutalized England's wounded bowling attack, making it look quite vulnerable (especially in the ODI's), but apparently they're just two great batsmen on fire this summer. Have a look at the amazing scorecard. Perhaps a drawn test series and receiving a 5-0 ODI thrashing were not so bad, after all. Sajid Mahmoud looked pretty bad against Sri Lanka, but he was not in Nicky Boje's league (65 overs, 221 runs, 0 wickets - not that the other S.A. bowlers looked much better).

This batting record follows an ODI in this summer in which Sri Lanka (led by 157 from Jayasuriya, this time) scored a record 443 runs vs the Netherlands. Clearly these guys can hit the ball. The conventional wisdom about Sri Lanka cricket going into this summer was that they were a team in decline - aging like Australia but not creating any new stars. Now they look like one of the favorites for the World Cup next Spring.

The Ashes of English One-Day Cricket

2006-06-24T19:13:00.000+02:00

Less than a year after the high of their Ashes win, England cricket has hit a low, a deep low. England's ODI side has never quite been up to the standard of their test squad in recent times, but today's series loss to Sri Lanka (who were without their star Muttiah Muralitharan today) can only described as a new low.

In a must-win match today after two increasingly grim defeats in the first two matches of the series, an injury-ravaged England side batted decently (though Murali's absence was surely one factor which helped them to a respectable total) - with a 50 partnership by the openers, 77 runs from the much-maligned Ian Bell, and a battling 33 rearguard by rookie Jamie Dalrymple. But the the bowlers didn't even come close to defending the target of 262.

It seems they have totally failed to learn from their mistakes of the previous matches. They seemed to bowl a lot of balls just where the Sri Lankan batsmen wanted them - short and wide. They did find a way to cut down on the extras, though, which was to bat first and lose quickly. I can't say acting captain Andrew Strauss is to blame. Maybe he could have yelled at some people, but I'm not sure if that's productive, and he didn't have a lot to work with. The selectors are the main culprits in my mind. Sajid Mahmoud was a disaster in the previous match, and they brought him in to dish out more punishment to England fans. John Lewis would have been a superior choice. And star Kevin Pieterson was injured but they sent him in to play anyway. The result is that now he's more injured, and he contributed only six runs and was a useless as a fielder.

I've spent hundreds of pounds booking accommodations to see this one-day team in action against Pakistan in Cardiff, and now I wonder what kind of massacre I will witness. Perhaps by then a lot of injured players will return to the line-up.

Here's the injury status for England's squad:

Michael Vaughan - Almost recovered, and then not. I don'expect to see him play again in 2006.

Andrew Flintoff - I do expect to see him play again soon. I hope he's getting the rest he needs because if he's not there in Cardiff I'll be in for a long day.

Kevin Pieterson - I don't expect to see him play the remaining matches against Sri Lanka. I hope he's back in time for Cardiff.

Simon Jones - Maybe next year

Matthew Hoggard - Resting. He should be okay.

James Anderson - Stress fracture in the back - see ya in 2007.

Ed Joyce - Damaged ankle ligaments

Cricket brings together Soccer fans

2006-06-15T13:14:00.000+02:00

Interesting BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5081230.stm

Vaughan's Book

2006-06-08T21:22:00.000+02:00

Being bedridden with a nasty cold allowed me to read Michael Vaughan's autobiographical "Calling the Shots". It was given to me as a gift.

It's an odd sort of autobiography, in that it only covers a period of less than 3 years - from 2003 to 2005. The focus is his story as England captain, especially the 2005 Ashes.

As someone who followed the England team fairly closely during that period (I even attended the first 2 days of the first test match which he won as captain), there wasn't a large amount of new information there, but it is interesting to see his perspective on events. He does contrast his management style with that of his predecessers Hussain and Atherton. His chief innovation (besides hiring a team masseuse) is empowering players as a means of keeping their heads in the game. It seems a lot of captains just yell out orders, but Vaughan is more of a delegator.

Apart from a couple of journalists, the only personal conflict Vaughan illustrates in the book is between him and South African captain Graeme Smith. The portrait of Smith is not too flattering. Great batsman, not such a great guy. In particular he accuses Smith of childish sledging and acting as a witness against him in a silly issue which cost him a match fee.

The book has a lot of nice color photos and gives a nice account of the England tam's greatest hits of recent years. It also provides some insight into what it's like to be England captain and into some of the key decisions that helped bring about the 2005 Ashes victory.

ECB TV

2006-05-14T08:00:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I discovered the way to watch England cricket in Europe without a Sky box: ECB TV. I paid 8 euros to watch yesterday's test match action live from Lords. There were a few times when I had to reload the page, but otherwise it was a pretty smooth experience.

Cricket Grounds on Google Maps

2006-05-06T08:38:00.000+02:00

I've been having some fun tracking down cricket grounds on Google maps. The list is far from complete (please feel free to add a link for your favorite ground in the comments), and the quality of the satellite photos varies from excellent to, uh, abstract.

In Australia:

The SCG in Sydney

The MCG in Melbourne

The Adelaide Oval

The WACA in Perth

The Gabba in Brisbane

In England:

Lords, in St. John's Wood in London

The Oval - near London

Sophia Gardens (Cardiff)

Old Trafford, in Manchester

Google has a lousy picture of Trent Bridge, in Nottingham

And only half a picture of
the Rose Bowl, in Southampton

In India:

I was pleasantly surprised that Google had a nice picture of Wankhede Stadium, in Mumbai Check out all the cricket pitches in the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, their picture of the world's largest cricket ground,
Eden Gardens, in Kolkata was disappointing.

In South Africa:

The lovely Newlands ground, in Cape Town

In France:

Since I live near Paris, I had to include this amazing satellite photo of this cricket pitch in the city of Paris, in Bois de Vincennes.
Today I went there and saw this, among other things.

Correction: I had said Bois de Vincennes was the only cricket pitch in Paris, but there is a second one, Bagatelle in Bois de Boulogne.

Legendary Cricketers

2006-03-25T05:35:00.000+01:00

This was a great week for the legend of Andrew Flintoff. He was already the biggest thing to hit England cricket since Ian Botham, but this week he did, under extraordinary circumstances, something Botham never did: captain England to a test match win. I received this week the April issue of the Wisden Cricketer, and it shows the record of all England's major post-war captains, and Botham won 0 out of 12 (with 4 draws - a record of 0-4-8). Flintoff, as emergency captain, is already 1-1-1.

And this was not just any win. It was England's first test win in India in 21 years, and with nearly half of the starting XI back home in England with injuries and other crises. And it was not even close, though it might have been closer if India's captain, Rahul Dravid, had not made the very questionable choice of putting England in to bat first on a pitch that was expected to deteriorate. Flintoff accomplished this feat with the help of debutant batsman Owais Shah, who found out he would be playing on the bus to the match, and Johnny Cash, whose song "The Ring of Fire" inspired England's bowlers to come out of the dressing room after lunch on day 5 and destroy the Indian batting order, who lost their last 7 wickets for 25 runs. I should add that it wasn't their 7 last batsmen, either, as 2 of the 3 wickets already taken by lunch were night watchmen.

So if Freddie is a bigger deal than Botham, is there anyone in England cricket history who was a bigger deal? Only two names come to mind: Len Hutton and W.G. Grace. And there's a case to be made that Flintoff, the great all-rounder, is a better player than those two legendary batsmen.

Speaking of legendary cricketers, it was fitting that Sachin Tendulkar finished what was a dismal series with the top score in India's disastrous second innings. He scored 34 of the team's 100 runs, and no one else offered much resistance. In the first innings he was out quickly and was booed by the crowd. Now he's having shoulder surgery and will miss the one-day series. He must have been playing in a lot of pain, and it's a tribute to his greatness that he was the on Indian batsman who came to play on day 5. I'm not sure how many test runs Sachin has left to score, but he's been one of the biggest legends in world cricket.

Catch of the Century

2006-03-07T19:28:00.000+01:00

I already had a blog entry or two about Shane Warne's "Ball of the Century". Now I've got a real treat for you: Nathan Astle's "Catch of the Century".

There's a good description here, by a New Zealand reporter. But here's my own description:

Dwayne Smith of the West Indies hit a towering six which would have landed at least 3 feet beyond the boundary had not Nathan Astle 1) run to the boundary (not sure where he was when he started) 2) stopped inside the boundary without losing sight of the ball 3) turned sideways 4) leaped straight up, vey high 5) caught the ball one-handed with his arm outstretched 6) using his other arm and leg for balance, landed on one foot, in bounds 7) brought the other foot down in bounds.

Wow!

Bush League

2006-03-04T23:28:00.000+01:00

While Indian cricket fans suffered through a day where everything seemed to go England's way (though tomorrow there's a decent chance that India can fight for a draw), their South Asian neighbors Pakistan had to endure an even sadder cricket spectacle: George W. Bush playing cricket. I must admit to having mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, as an American I encourage all my fellow citizens to learn about and enjoy the sport of cricket. On the other hand, this particular fellow American is a bit of an embarrassment to me.

The big cricket news in Pakistan, though, may have been the house arrest of Imran Khan. This is not a political blog, so I won't rant, but it's disturbing to hear that even a former cricket star is denied the right to express his views, even if he doesn't support that same right for Danish cartoonists.

Thrilla in Nagpur

2006-03-03T17:42:00.000+01:00

I haven't been able to watch anything but brief highlights on TV, but at work I've been keeping a browser tab on the England-India match at Nagpur. The drama began even before the first ball was even bowled, as Enlgand was reeling from the loss of 2 key bowlers and 2 key batsmen, including the captain and vice-captain, who both went home.

The match itself has been unexpectedly exciting. It seems to swing back and forth regularly. On day one England had a promising start with a debut 50 from the young last-minute replacement Alastair Cook (not to be confused with this guy). Then Sreesanth (another promising debutant) and Pathan cut apart the English batters and things looked grim at the end. But on the morning of day 2 it was England again, with a great rearguard century from substitute Paul Collingwood - with unexpectedly strong support from Monty Panesar - another emergency debutant/replacement, and known as a poor batsman. And as a bonus, Matthew Hoggard took an early wicket against India.

But then things swung back to India with Jaffer and Dravid putting on 129 for the second wicket. It looked like England was in deep trouble.

But then today Hoggard went hog-wild with reverse swing and took some quick wickets. And Panesar had a debutant bowler's dream come true when he got the legendary Sachin Tendulkar as his first test scalp. What a moment for him!

So with India reeling at 190 for 7 what happens? Another momentum change as a couple dropped chances allowed Kaif and Kumble to put on 128 for the 8th wicket. So India's in control, right?

Uh, no. In the late overs Harmison broke the partnership by getting Kumble and 4 runs later Panesar took Kaif out 9 short of a century.

So what's going to happen in days 4 and 5? I have no idea, but that's a sure sign of a great match. It's VERY unlikely that Sreesanth and Singh could give India a first-innings lead, but they could make things difficult for England's batsmen tomorrow. England will have to build a defensible lead, but it's really hard to say how much of a lead they will need. Jonathan Agnew seems to think England needs to bat all day on day 4 to secure a win, but the way this test has swung around I'm not so sure.

Watching Cricket News in France

2006-02-25T19:41:00.000+01:00

I was pleased to discover that in France I can at least watch at least half an hour of cricket highlights per week on non-pay tv. On my Freebox, I get CNBC Europe, which shows ICC cricket World on Sunday at 4:00 pm. I can also get Sky News, which has occasional sports highlights, but no dedicated cricket programming that I'm aware of. This info, about CNBC Europe, might be useful to cricket fans in other continental European countries.

Hooray for Mick!

2006-01-18T08:38:00.000+01:00

The Smoking Gun has an article about the Rolling Stones touring requests entitled Mick's Cricket Addiction. They, of course, find it very uncool, but I think it's great. The interesting thing to note is that getting live cricket on the tv is a requirement for their U.S. tours, because the tour rider talks about DirecTV, which is the U.S. satellite provider of pay-per-view cricket.

I read another story about Mick's cricket addiction, too. J. Paul Getty, the oil multi-millionaire who passed away a couple years ago, was first introduced to cricket when his next-door neighbor in Beverly Hills, Mick Jagger, rang his doorbell. Mick's satellite dish had conked out in the middle of an exciting match, and Mick asked if he could come over and watch. Getty had so much fun watching that he eventually became a patron of cricket, buying Wisden and the gorgeous cricket ground at Wormsley in Buckinghamshire, and donating the funds to have a new stand built at Lords.

One final note... Mick is not the only rock 'n roll cricket fan. I heard the lead singer of The Stranglers being interviewed on Test Match Special during the Ashes last summer, and he said that cricket is "the new rock 'n roll". Maybe 20/20 is the new punk. :-)

Happy 2006

2006-01-08T04:39:00.000+01:00

Well, now that I'm in France rather than California, I feel a tiny bit closer to the international cricket scene, and England cricket in particular. The recent big news about England cricket was that the team (+ the coach and the captain of the women's team) all received royal honors (a step or two short of knighthood). So they all get to add the title M.B.E. or O.B.E. to their names.

I had some ideas for further titles for England's Ashes-winning cricketers:

Admiral Michael Vaughan
Kevin Pieterson, G.B.S.H. (Great Batsman, Silly Hair)
Lord Freddie of Bat & Ball
Stephen Harmison, Earl of Bounce
Baron Pratt of Ponting-Runout
Matthew Hoggard, Sultan of Swing
Sir Merlyn (the bowling machine, for valiant Shane Warne impersonation in service to cricket)
And, of course, His Majesty Gilo I, King of Spain

Ashes Stamps

2005-09-29T02:13:00.000+02:00

The photos of the commemorative Ashes 2005 stamps from Royal Mail can be seen here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/photo_galleries/4291162.stm

It's apparently the first time Royal Mail is releasing stamps with recognizable figures who are still living, and it's a worth occasion for such a milestone.

England Wins Back the Ashes After 16 Years

2005-09-12T22:16:00.000+02:00

The wild ride of the Ashes 2005 took its last turn today. After a tense morning in which Australia looked like they had the edge, England's batting in the afternoon defied, demoralized and defeated Australia to bring on a well-earned draw and series victory. Kevein Pieterson, who rode his luck early on, became a dominant force with the help of partners Collingwood and Giles.

There was an odd, anticlimactic conclusion as Australia took the light with at least a half hour left with no intention of ever batting again, but ultimately the umpires, like our own Supreme Courrt in the U.S., basically made up a new rule to suit the situation, and the epic contest was ended.

There was overall a great atmosphere with fans on their feet and cheering and singing, and people (including construction workers, who no doubt should have been working) sitting on rooftops to watch. There were Richie Benaud fans saying a fond farewell with signs. There was also a streaker caught by police. And as the England victory became inevitable there were conga lines in the stands.

Awards went to Pieterson for Man of the Match, Flintoff for England Player of the Series and Compton-Miller player of the series, and Shane Warne (who averaged taking 4 wickets per innings and did well with the bat, too) for Australia player of the series.

I took a bunch of screen captures to remember the event:

The Oval was packed and ready for action.

At first the action went against England. Here Gilchrist catches Vaughan off McGrath's bowling.

Here Warne catches Ian Bell for a duck the very next ball.

And then what looked like a potentially fatal blow - Flintoff falls c & b to Warne for just 8.

Then fate intervened. Here Warne drops a routine slip catch to give Kevin Pieterson life. This little mistake probably cost Australia the Ashes. We can't be too hard on Warne, though. Without him Australia would probably have lost every match of the series.

Cricket legend Richie Benaud was doing his last broadcast, and fans said a fond farewell.

Collingwood scored only 10 runs, but he was part of a crucial 60-run partnership which extracted England from serious peril. Here he blocks for a single.

Most of that partnership's runs came from KP. Here he hits a 6.

And here's KP celebrating his 50.

Collingwood gave a catch off his glove to Warne's bowling.

It's hard to see, but here police are closing in on a streaker.

After Collingwood came Jones, who did not last long. Here we see Tait bowling him out.

Jones's departure brought in Ashley Giles, A.K.A. the King of Spain. If you don't know the story, the nickname comes from a mis-print on some mugs which were supposed to say "Ashley Giles, the King of Spin"!

KP kept on hitting. This one went for 4.

Giles got into the act, too. Here he cuts late for 4.

The problem with fielding Shane Warne's bowling, is that sometimes you have to get pretty close to the batsman. Here the helmeted Simon Katich is nailed in the ribs at close range.

An amazing baseball-style line drive pull shot, as seen from the wicket cam. You can see the ball heading right at the camera. Fortunately, it missed the stumps and went for 4.

Fans were risking their lives sitting on rooftops. Here we see about 30 people on rooftops, and a close-up of some construction workers way up high.

The sixes kept coming.

Things started to get away from Australia, as symbolized here by Michael Clarke laid out after trying to stop a 4 by KP.

At one point there was an appeal for a catch, but the ball bounced off the ground and not KP's foot, as the Aussies hoped.

So more sixes...

...And finally KP reached his century.

And with Giles they reached a 100 partnership.

And Giles reached his 50.

Australia tried their best to break through. Here KP has to duck a McGrath bouncer.

But he kept hitting. This drive went for 6.

England fans could sense that the Ashes would be theirs.

Australia could sense that all was lost.

Finally McGrath bowled out KP.

KP got a rousing ovation for an amazing innings.

Soon Giles was out, too, but his teammates were not unhappy to welcome him back to the pavillion.

Hoggard tried to keep things going a bit longer...

... As KP looked on. Notice here KP's tattoo on his arm of the 3 lions (the emblem of his cricket jersey).

Fans outside the stadium wanted to get in on the fun, too.

And inside, the victory party was already starting. Here we see a conga line.

Finally, Harmison was caught by Hayden off Warne's bowling for a duck, ending England's batting.

Warne left the field having taken 40 wickets in this series, a stunning average of 4 per innings.

After a ball went off his helmet for 4 leg byes, Langer was offered the light by the umpires. Langer here appeals to Hayden for guidance. He decides to take the light, bringing on a major anticlimax.

So the crowd and the players had to wait for the inevitable celebration.

Then after a few minutes the umpires entered some uncharted territory by basically making an extralegal decision to end the match, rather than wait for good light.

...and the celebration began in earnest:

Weird Day 4 Sets the Stage for Dramatic Conclusion

2005-09-11T23:21:00.000+02:00

This Ashes series has been one for the ages, and it's fitting that day 4 of the deciding match would be unusual. There's a sense that in order to retain the Ashes, Australia must contend not only with England's cricketer's, but also England's weather. It's somewhat fitting, given that Australia entered this contest much as Napoleon entered Russia - confident of a quick victory, and poorly prepared for the conditions.

Australia came into day 4 cruising towards a big first-innings lead. The question was whether they could build the lead fast enough to bowl England out for a victory. Day 4 changed the question to "huh"?

Even in the morning, the weather seemed to be on England's side, as cold, moist air helped the ball swing, and Flintoff struck.

Australia's anticipated lead never materialized.

Even Warne, who has done quite well with the bat this series, was out for a duck to Flintoff thanks to a catch which Vaughan bobbled but held.

Hoggard got into the act, too. Here we see McGrath edging to Strauss off Hoggard's bowling.

It was entertaining, even for people in nearby buildings outside the ground.

The tailenders took a few odd runs here and there, but nothing big. Here we see Tait running out a single.

Lee seemed to be ready to show his usual defiance, as we see him glaring at Flintoff here...

But he got under a big shot off Hoggard, which Giles caught near the rope to end the innings.

And Australia's innings was all over, with England stunningly 6 runs ahead. Flintoff took 5 wickets and Hoggard 4.

So now England came in to bat. The openers started cautiously against McGrath and Lee, but then the umpires, seeing deteriorating light, forced Australia to take off the fast bowlers and put in spinners. Warne came in for 1 over. Here we see Warne bowling to Strauss with an attacking field.

And here we see Katich celebrating catching Strauss off Warne's bowling.

So now we have a couple of ironies here. First of all, the umpires' attempt to make things fairer for England's batsmen - prohibiting fast bowling - led to England losing a wicket early. This also pointed up the greater irony - that England's bowling success may have actually IMPROVED Australia's chances for victory, because England did not look like they would survive too long against Warne in the current conditions.

But then the wild tale which is the Ashes 2005 took another turn. The umpires, having offered the light to Australia on day 3, decided to offer the same to England on Day 4 under similar conditions. It was a surprising and perhaps mistaken decision for Australia to have taken the light on day 3. For England on day 4 it was a no-brainer, and off they went. Instead of cricket, the fans (some of whom paid huge sums of money for their tickets on eBay) got a sing-along.

The teams were not off for too long before light improved slightly, and they were back in. The Australian players made a statement about the conditions by wearing their dark glasses.

And there was cricket again.

This odd camera shot reminds me a bit of American football:

Here we see McGrath giving Vaughan a little chin music.

Vaughan didn't seem to have too much trouble with McGrath, though, and he hit a couple nice fours off of wide deliveries.

Warne was a bit more of a challenge, though Vaughan managed to hang on...

... and the English fans wanted to see play stopped rather than see Warne run rampant.

Eventually, the umpires gave the English fans what they wanted. Here we see Gilchrist peeking as the umpires look at their light meter.

And there was much rejoicing as England fans celebrated the non-cricket. Here we see fans in Regents Park cheering the umpires.

So this was an odd day with some great cricket and some great non-cricket. Tomorrow, at the end of the day, someone will be holding the Ashes. The forecast is for better weather, so if Warne and company can cut through the England batsmen with at least 30 overs to spare it could be Australia, but otherwise it will be England. So stay tuned, and don't expect anyone in England to do any useful work tomorrow.

Screen captures from the Ashes

2005-09-08T18:07:00.000+02:00

I thought I'd put these screen captures online, since I'm watching willow tv on the net.

This is Funny

2005-09-06T17:47:00.000+02:00

http://www.raindancefortheashes.co.uk/

I have to say, though, for the honor of my country, that there are a few Americans who understand the concept of a 5-day match which ends without a result (even though we do like results here in the U.S.). God Bless America, and I wish we could have diverted a bit of the rain from Hurricane Katrina and sent it off to arrive gently in London this coming weekend.

He's right about the French, though. My fiancée is the only French person who seems to know anything about what's going on with the Ashes, and I think she'd prefer not to know. :-)

Best of luck. What could be more British than a victory parade in the rain at Trafalgar Square celebrating a cricket series which ended in a rained-out draw?

Songs for the Oval

2005-09-06T02:29:00.000+02:00

I posted these song lyrics to a BBC message board, so I thought I should put them here, too. These are some songs (using the term rather loosely), which I wrote for the Barmy Army to sing (and here I use the word VERY loosely ;-) ) during the Ashes in order to affect the morale (positively for the English, and negatively for their Australian opponents). Some were composed this week, but most were composed last winter. Unfortunately, my earlier efforts to pass them on to the right people did not succeed. So here goes:

(To the chorus of "Like a Virgin" by Madonna)
Ricky Ponting
You're in for a very rough time
Ricky Po-o-o-onting
Captain of the
losing side

(To "Oh My Darling Clementine")
It's a no-ball
It's a no-ball
It's a no-ball, one more time.
You are handing us the Ashes
When you over-step the line.

(To "Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie)
Ricky Ponting
You've lost the edge
Ricky Ponting
Your team likes to sledge
Ricky Ponting
How could you lose?
Down 2-1 when you thought you would cruise.

(To "We Wish You a Merry Christmas")
Short-pitched ball to Freddy Flintoff
Short-pitched ball to Freddy Flintoff
Short-pitched ball to Freddy Flintoff
And the Ashes stay here

(To the chorus of "Wide World" by Cat Stevens)
Oh, baby, baby it's a wide ball.
It's hard to get by, bowling such a line y'all
Oh baby baby it's a wide ball
We're piling up extras, having a good time, all.

(To the chorus of "Oops!...I did it again" by Britney Spears)
Oops!...You did it again
You bowled it too short - It got knocked in the stands
Oh baby, baby
Oops!...You think you can bowl
But I'm not sure it's so...
Not against Eng-er-land.

(To the tune of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer -- can substitute a name e.g. "Billy" for "umpire")

Give us a finger, umpire.
Ev'rybody knows he's out.
And if you saw a replay,
you'd agree with England's shout.

High Drama at Trent Bridge

2005-08-28T21:19:00.000+02:00

Wow! I've been a cricket fan for less than four years, but I'm pretty confident that this year's Ashes series is the greatest contest in the history of cricket. I was not alive for the bodyline tour, and I did not follow the '81 Ashes, or the various tied test matches, and my mind was far from India when Laxman's double-century allowed a following-on India to topple Steve Waugh's magnificent Australian squad, but this series is the real deal.

This series has all the hallmarks of a great sporting contest. There's an intense rivalry, which goes back farther than any other sports rivalry I can think of. Not only is it David vs. Goliath, with Australia in the role of Goliath, but there are decades of one-sided humiliation, since England hasn't won the ashes since 1987 - and there were many individual monkeys-on-backs for various England players. There's also youth vs. experience, as the Australians brought a few players whose individual experience outstrips that of the entire England team. There was renewal of hope, as everyone agreed England's squad was on the rise, but only a few dared to predict that they might beat the mighty Australians. And I haven't even begun to talk about the actual matches yet, where an irresistible force seems to be meeting an immovable object.

After some preliminary one-day matches which themselves were entertaining and foreshadowed an excellent contest, the real deal began at Lords, the gently-sloped spiritual home of cricket, with England first showing that their young bowling attack could compete and even intimidate, but then falling to pieces against the experience and brilliance of Australia's Glenn McGrath, who looked to be a thorn in England's side.

Then there was Edgbaston, where the man of the match could have been a cricket ball which Glenn McGrath tripped over before the start. Part of a great sports story is "what if", and we'll never know whether McGrath's presence would have swung things Australia's way, but the all-round brilliance of the then sore-shouldered Flintoff was just enough to overcome the all-round brilliance of Shane Warne and the heroic defiance of Brett Lee. A two-run win to level the series showed that the immovable object could indeed be moved, though not without some damage to frayed nerves. This was a candidate for greatest cricket match ever. I didn't even mention yet that this match featured a near-exact replica of Warne's "ball of the century", this time taking Strauss's off stump after pitching far on the leg side.

Test #3 was at Old Trafford. There, we saw the return of McGrath, but the heroes were mainly people who had previously fallen short of their expectations in this series. There were centuries by Vaughan, Strauss, and Ponting, as well as a half-century by Bell. And then there were the final 3 hours of constant, prolonged tension as England's bowling attack struggled mightily to produce a result. When they fell short by the smallest possible margin, it seemed the immovable object had wobbled but stayed in place this time.

And that set the stage for this week's showdown at Trent Bridge, which promised to be climactic. A win would secure the Ashes for Australia, an England win would put England in control, and a draw would postpone the climax until the final test at the Oval. England got off to a slightly shakey start, but Flintoff came in and, with Geraint Jones, put England in control. Another hallmark of a great sports story is a "secret weapon". In this case, the weapon of choice was swing (especially the mysterious phonomenon of reverse-swing), and England's bowlers used it with great effect in the first Australian innings at Trent Bridge. They made Australia follow on, which is something Australia had not been made to do since the late 1980's. Then the story turned a bit. Australia crawled back into the match, and the tension level rose for England. There wasn't a dominant batting performance, but a strong partnership by Clarke and Katich, and defiance from Warne and the other tail-enders were enough to set England a target of 129, which would turn out to be more of a challenge than it sounded. Ponting pretty much put Australia's thin hopes in the hands of Warne and Lee, who almost delivered a miracle. In the end, it came down to England needing 13 runs with 3 wickets in hand and only specialist bowlers left to bat, including one who was seriously injured. Mercifully for England fans, it did not come down to the injured Simon Jones, as Ashley Giles and Matthew Hoggard earned glory as batsmen.

As with any great sports story, there are lots of interesting side stories. Warne and Simon Jones have had some personal-life issues in the news this summer, and there's the story of McGrath's string of injuries. There's Langer, Lee and Ponting suffering serious blows at the hands of bowlers (for Langer, even his teammate Shaun Tait roughed him up in practice). There's Ponting's fury at England's substitution policy. There's the story of the once-great Gillespie being dropped from his side (and the never-before-seen sight of Gillespie and McGrath bringing in drinks to the Aussie fielders). There's Australia's no-ball problem, England's wicket-keeping concerns, and Kevin Pieterson's run of 6 dropped catches. And there's a sense that Hayden and Gilchrist are not delivering as expected with the bat.

So now all of this story comes down to Seotember 8-12 at the Oval. Will England hang on to what they've fought so hard to win? Will they play for a draw and a historic 2-1 series win, or will they be forced to put everything on the line and go for a 3-1 win? How will Australia's players, who are accustomed to winning and who obviously hate to lose, respond to being behind for the first time in the series?
What dramatic twists and turns lie ahead? Only international cricket could create this sort of prolonged dramatic tension, and I don't think I'm the only one with a significant other who is waiting for all this to end so that her man can focus on other things once again. :-)

Shades of Headingley

2005-08-07T16:11:00.000+02:00

I've tried my best from here near Paris to follow the Ashes - catching a session or two on tv in an English pub and listening to TMS on internet radio. This morning, day 4, I did not miss a delivery on TMS. It was mesmerizing. What a day for both England and Australia.

Here's the scorecard: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/shared/fds/hi/statistics/cricket/scorecards/2005/8/11829/html/scorecard.stm

The whole Australian summer cricket tour has been full of dramatic twists and turns, and that goes double for the second test at Edgbaston. This was a case of a team that had to win facing a team that refused to lose. And it was a bruiser, too. Man of the Match Flintoff batted and bowled with an injured left shoulder, and Brett Lee's defiant 43 not out was made even more dramatic by the damage an adrenaline-pumped Flintoff inflicted on his left hand. Not sure if a bone actually broke, but Lee got a taste of the bruising he's accustomed to dishing out.

I can't envision a more dramatic test match, and I'm sure this one will be remembered for a long time. Besides this dramatic day 4 finale, there was the McGrath injury and boundaries galore on day 1, Langer's innings on day 2, and day 3 included another Shane Warne ball-of-the-century candidate (when he took Strauss's off stump with a ball that pitched far on the leg side at a good length) and heroics with ball and bat by the injured Flintoff. For two decades England's hero of the Ashes was Ian Botham, for his performance at Headingley in 1981, but now a new chapter has been written.

Sometimes one might get the impression that people go to cricket matches in England just to drink beer, dress up in costumes, get a tan, etc. But I think the main reason is that people hope they might witness something like what the lucky spectators at Edgbaston witnessed this week.

Spin Bowling History

2005-07-25T18:21:00.000+02:00

Some other blogs are linking to this video, and I had to link to it, too:

http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=Warne01

Wow! A young Shane Warne in a big test vs. England in 1993, and he gets a ball to curve completely around the England captain, pitching on the leg side and hitting the off stump. I can see why they called it the ball of the century!

Aussies are Human - Continued

2005-06-18T23:21:00.000+02:00

Wow! If you haven't heard the news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/4103576.stm

Bangladesh beats Australia. Even after the Aussies lost the 20/20 and the Somerset tour match, I don't think many people saw this coming. Give some credit to Bangladesh, who played at their highest level, but it feels like the era of Aussie domination may be over. Indeed the way things are going, people who shelled out 250 pounds for a pair of tickets to see the Natwest final might find themselves watching England vs. Bangladesh!

On the other hand, you can't count the Aussies out just yet. The side they brought to England has a tremendous amount of talent and experience, and their domestic league back home is packed with talented players who have been waiting for a chance to don the baggy green.

Aussies are Human?

2005-06-16T07:34:00.000+02:00

Check out these 2 scorecards:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/shared/fds/hi/statistics/cricket/scorecards/2005/6/11995/html/scorecard.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/shared/fds/hi/statistics/cricket/scorecards/2005/6/11670/html/scorecard.stm

This week the Aussies were first bowled out in 14.3 overs (admittedly out of just 20 maximum, but even in Test matches it's an achievement to get all their wickets in ANY number of overs) by England, and then when they batted up a whopping score of 342 in a 50-over match vs. Somerset their vaunted bowling attack (albeit minus Shane Warne and Jason Gillespie) could not defend it. In fact Somerset had 3 overs to spare at the end.

Something tells me they'll have their "A game" going by the time the Ashes series begins late next month, but usually their "B game" (or just their reputation alone) will flatten even a strong opponent. This is the team which didn't lose a match in the 2003 World Cup despite the last-minute loss of Shane Warne and some injuries to others, including Jason Gillespie.

You certainly have to give some credit to the unheralded Jon Lewis (4 wickets) and Paul Collingwood (2 wickets + 46 runs off 26 balls) in the 20/20, and to Graeme Smith and Sanath Jayasuriya (opening partnership of 197) in the Somerset match, but I think the Aussies have lost the intimidation factor this summer.

Any opinions out there? Anyone who saw either of these matches have any perspective to add?

Cricket In the U.S.A. - My First Blog Rant

2005-05-13T02:51:00.000+02:00

The sport of cricket gets very little respect in the U.S., and it's understandable. Most Americans have never really seen the sport. There are some interesting articles on the web about how the situation got that way in the first place (see http://convention.allacademic.com/asa2004/view_paper_info.html?pub_id=1809&part_id1=22794 and http://www.pop.umn.edu/~eroberts/cricket.pdf ), but I'm more interested in where we go from here.

Right now there are a number of thriving community-level cricket leagues throughout the U.S. (in my area there are 3 leagues - the NCCA, the BACA, and the TCA). These leagues can't by themselves make inroads into the non-immigrant population, though (I'm the only player I've seen in the TCA league who is not of South Asian descent). Indeed, it requires great audacity for any local league to see itself as cricket evangelists and not simply a small institution to allow immigrants to enjoy a bit of their own sporting culture. That role should be taken up by the big boys - the USACA and the ICC. Sadly, the USACA is at best internally conflicted and narrowly focused (and that's being generous - even the corrupt dictatorship in Zimbabwe seems to have a more effective cricket board than the U.S., and more support from the ICC).

It seems part of the problem is that no one is accountable for spreading the game. And even worse, when someone tries to do something which might help spread the game, those organizations which have a duty to assist them instead start a turf war and deliberately hinder them. Case in point: the U.S. Pro Cricket league last year. It was a very exciting idea to have pro cricket teams play in 8 cities around the country with some world-class foreign marquee players. But the ICC effectively prevented all but a few of the name players from arriving, and forced a shift in the focus of the Pro Cricket organization from spreading the game to simply putting something together. To their credit, they threw something together which was entertaining. To my dismay, though, they don't seem organized at all.

All that mess pales in comparison, though, to the short-sightedness of the major cricket boards' television strategy. Television is viewed as a revenue stream rather than an opportunity to spread the game (and not just in the U.S.). Americans will watch almost anything on tv - lumberjack contests, hot-dog eating contests, and now poker is a hit. Why not cricket?

I'll tell you why... they expect people to pay $80 and up to watch a cricket series. Even the very cheapest international matches are $10 live streamed over the internet. If I said there's a great sport called "florg", and you can watch it for just $10, what would you say? Watch your language, there, pal... My point is that to Americans who are not immigrants from test-playing nations cricket is "florg".

Steven R. Covey talks in "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" about the importance of "p-work" (where "p" stands for "potential". He gives the example of someone tasked with digging a ditch in an alligator-infested swamp. The poor guy has to fight off alligators almost all the time, but if he doesn't occasionally stop and shovel some dirt he'll stay in the swamp until he's too tired to fight off the 'gators. That's where cricket is in the U.S. - lots of alligators, and not much digging. With the sport of soccer, by contrast, it was nowhere in the U.S. 25 years ago, but thanks to free Spanish-language the game built momentum and has a solid presence here. And more Americans who don't even speak any foreign languages have heard of Spanish-language announcer Andres Cantor than Don Bradman, Ian Botham, Garry Sobers, or any other English-speaking cricket legend.

Okay, enough ranting.

Cricket in Movies and TV Shows

2005-04-23T22:45:00.000+02:00

I am unaware (and so, apparently is Google, that fountain of all web knowledge), of anywhere to get good information about the sport of cricket in fictional movies and tv shows. So here is my attempt to start a discussion about it, based on my own knowledge of the subject.

MOVIES:

Lagaan -- A Bollywood classic, and a must-see for cricket fans. Lagaan was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language movie, so it's a good way to get people unfamiliar with the sport to learn a little about it. It has a compelling story, nice music, beautiful cinematography, and over an hour of cricket! The only complaint is it's very long (3.5 hours). I enjoyed every minute, but it's hard to get some people to watch something so lengthy.
Wondrous Oblivion -- Another great movie with lots of cricket in it. This is a story about cross-cultural relationships and prejudices. It's about a Jewish boy in London around 1960. He loves cricket but is not good at it (I can relate ;-) ) until some Jamaicans move in next door and set up a cricket net. The movie focuses as much on the ethnic tensions in the neighborhood as on cricket, and it all blends together nicely.
Seducing Dr. Lewis -- Admittedly the script writers for this movie did not do much homework about the sport, but it's still a great movie. A small French-Canadian fishing town where nearly everyone is unemployed has a chance to get a factory built there. One small catch, though: they need a doctor to commit to living there for 5 years. When they are able to coerce one (Dr. Lewis, of course) to check the place out for a month, they need to convince him that it's the perfect place to stay. They find out Dr. Lewis is a cricket fan, and their efforts to convince him that they're cricket fans, too are pretty funny.
What's New Pussycat? -- Perhaps the funnest movie of the 1960's, it stars Peter O'Toole and Peter Sellers and quite a few attractive women. The movie focuses on the romantic escapades of an Englishman in Paris, Michael James. Peter Sellers plays his crazy psychiatrist, Dr. Fassbender. There's an early scene where young Michael is padded up for cricket, and there's a quite unusual group therapy scene later on which begins with this dialogue (by Woody Allen):

Michael James: In Britain, we have a national therapy, we call it cricket. Unlike other sports, it doesn't involve anxieties or pressures. It's leisurely and lyrical. It's the song of willow on leather.
Dr. Fritz Fassbender: Is there any sex in it?
Michael James: Oh, no. This is a game for gentlemen, played by gentlemen.
Dr. Fritz Fassbender: It's sick, sick.
Bend it Like Beckham -- Okay, this is a soccer movie, but there's a bit of cricket in it. There's a reference to Nasser Hussain and a bit of batting and bowling at the very end. The cricket is not that impressive (I have trouble believing the father really was a good player after seeing his batting technique), but it's a good movie. Personally, I like the fact that the movie references Santa Clara, as I was briefly a social member of the Santa Clara Cricket Club.
Master and Commander -- Good movie, but if you blink you'll miss the cricket. :-)
There's a brief scene on the Galapagos islands where sailors play cricket.

TELEVISION

P'Tang Yang Kipperbang -- A British made-for-tv movie about a boy looking for love where his romantic efforts are accompanied by cricket commentary by John Arlott.
I have not seen it, so I'm reluctant to comment further.
The Prisoner -- In the episode "The Girl Who Was Death", #6 plays the role of a secret agent who investigates an assassination by exploding cricket ball (the batsman was killed 1 run short of his century, sadly ;-) ). It's hard to explain without giving too much away, but it's the best episode of a legendary mind-expanding tv series.
Dr. Who - Black Orchid -- A 2-part episode of the classic BBC sci-fi series. Peter Davison's Doctor always dressed a bit like a cricketer, and in this story it results in him being invited to play in a match.
Monty Python's Flying Circus - various episodes -- The Pythons had a lot of fun at the expense of cricket. There's:
Play For Tomorrow -- Don't know much about this one
Outside Edge - Again, don't know about it

Are there any that I missed? These are the only movies and fictional tv programs I know of with cricket references. Please ad posts if you know of others.