Lights Out

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

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!

High School Cricket Teams in New York

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

Indian Farmers Win

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

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

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".