A new common enemy.

Q. How do we know that the world is doing alright?

A. When all cricket bloggers has something common to hate other than terrorism.

Yes, that is right, all cricket lovers, rejoice. You have got someone else to hate as much as the Lahore terrorists and Mark Nicholas.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Kiki and Sassy, sponsored by CA.

What have they done till now?

JRod hates them (link), Miss Field think they are going to destroy cricket (link) and Patrick Kidd does not like them (link).

JRod's story has 37 comments as of now, Miss Field has 39. Cannot remember an issue on which so many had so much to say.

Yes, I too think their blog is a waste of internet space, but it is great to have someone to cuss instead of some bloody terrorists.

How they were wrong

Dominic Cork said on Feb 24th.

My simple message to teams is 'play cricket in Pakistan'
I had a nice feeling in Karachi and said this before when I came for the one-day matches last month. I have a great time as a commentator. It is a fantastic experience with top class hospitality and arrangements,
I, as a cricketer, would hope that the ICC get together with Australia, England and South Africa and try and entice people to come back to Pakistan,

On March 3rd, he said

I won't be coming back here while I'm still living. I don't think international teams should come back to this country, whether it's 10 or 20 years.

Am waiting for JRods' post. This is what he said earlier this week.

Miandad on terrorism

"It’s terrible and really sad. It looks like a well-thought and planned assault. Sri Lanka and Pakistan have always helped each other. They have never said no to tour Pakistan and have always helped us in troubled situations. The foreign teams were already not coming and this [incident] is going to affect Pakistan cricket in the future. This is not to say that cricket will stop. The world will have to stay united and fight terrorism. I hope they just don’t say they won’t tour Pakistan. If we do that we will only support the terrorists’ cause."

- Javed Miandad.


May be he should be speaking to a certain relative of his.

End of Pakistan cricket?

Is this the final nail in the coffin of international cricket IN Pakistan?

" A lot of concerns we raised during the Champions Trophy have unfortunately come home to roost. The notion of sporting teams being a protected species was held by many, but it was not a view that we shared, unfortunately." - Reg Dickason, the security expert hired by England and Australia


"I won't be coming back here while I'm still living. I don't think international teams should come back to this country, whether it's 10 or 20 years." - Dominick Cork


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Update
---

Read Kamran Abbasi for a great piece on the ramifications of this attack on Srilankan cricketers would have on Pakistan cricket.

It is a sad day if cricket suffers in Pakistan due to this. It would be a great loss to international cricket community if there is not going to be another Zaheer Abbas, another Imran Khan or another Wasim Akram from that cricketing nation. I doubt they could produce perpetually 18 Shahid Afridi or the last gem from that diamond mine, Akthar.

What is sadder is that this happens when another team, West Indies, seems to be on the rise.

Pakistan cricket, we will miss you. (Hope I am forced to eat these words very soon.)

Jacob Oram catch

Everybody seems to be doing this nowadays. Think coaches will start to include this in the drill. remember how underarm throwing became a part of the coaching drill.

Runs galore

Everybody is getting runs in Karachi..

Poor Mahela, get a double hundred in his last series as captain. Get trumped by Younis getting a triple in his first series as captain.

Now that draw seems to be the only outcome of this match, methinks Younis might go for a 400 hundred tomorrow. If he does, you heard it first here on the net.


As an aside, Can you imagine what would happen if Bryce McGain was here.

Mental disintegration does not work... so lets try something else

Where and When, What (will happen) and now Who and Why. Now only thing remaining is How.

Anticipatory bail... Read Mark Richardson's piece here

To paraphrase, the pitches will be friendly to Indians because

1. NZ public want to see the fabulous Indian batsmen in glory one last time.
2. NZ board want to let India win, because then Indians will visit more often and that translates to more money.

Seriously, Mark, what are you smoking?

Its like, if Indians win, it is because we let them. If they lose..., wait, he does not even mention such a scenario. So he is already resigned to the fact that that NZ cannot win this time.

I cannot think of another series that started with such pessimism. May be after mental disintegration, this must be the new thing on the block, Mental Integration.

Return of the arrogance

Daren Powell after beating England with a draw at Antigua

"It's a bigger wound they have now because looking at the position, if I was the fielding side, I would think I would win the game, especially with me and Fidel there batting. But we batted brilliantly and saved the game. England will feel bad now."

Oh Powell, its okay if you stick in the knife, but do not twist it.

But then this seems to me to be something King Viv would have said, so times must be changing for Windies cricket.

And why am I happy about that? Oh, Windies, I missed you. Welcome back!!!

Adam voges catch

The best quick thinking from Adam Voges. This is simply brilliant. You will see this on internet for a long long time.

It was great thinking from Adam Voges to throw it up and catch it when he thought he is gooing to fall over. These are the catches that will win matches.




P.S. This took hardly 30 minutes to appear on the net. Makes you wonder about the power of internet and speed of information dissemination now. And almost instantaneously, it appeared on google. More power to google.

Dhoni to jump

Auckland mayor wants Dhoni to bungee jump when India tours.

David Gower would have been interested.

Sounds familiar?

Peter Roebok in cricinfo about Australian cricket team of 1970s.

They were an independent-minded collection, whose rise reflected the changing mood as a nation belatedly prepared to assert itself.

.


The same thing is said about the new Indian cricket team. How come cricket teams reflect the national mood.

Cheating at quiz

There is a quiz going on at Line and Length. It is a 51 special. I thought I will use Google to crack it.

The goal I set myself was, I should be able to view the answer in the search result page itself, or the first two results maximum. I was able to crack 10 of 11. The search queries for each questions are

1. australia west indies port of spain 51

2. england "7/" debut in 1946 (confirmed in cricinfo)

3. australia fast bowler 0-100 debut

4. west indies cricket died kingston age 42

5. england cricket player list

6. england west indies antigua 1986

7. england sydney 1995 51

8. 9-51 zimbabwe 2002

9. 8-51 5-20 pakistan 1974

10. == cricinfo statsguru query ==
View: overall figures
Start of match date: between 1 Jan 1951 and 31 Dec 1951
Ordered by: runs scored (descending)

11. 1951 County Championship


This shows the power of google more than anything else. Also explains why Google is miles ahead of other search engines (yahoo, live etc.) and why it is called start page of the internet.

An explanation, finally

From New Scientist

One of its[Einsteen's general theory of relativity] predictions is that a clock will tick faster by 1 second in 10¹⁸ for every centimetre it is raised in Earth's gravitational field. GPS already takes into account such effects, which (assuming you spend most of your life upright) cause your scalp to age a few nanoseconds a year more than the soles of your feet. (Italics mine)


This explains why I become more stupid as I grow older.
Or what happened to Andrew Symonds.
And I think, Jayasurya might be sleeping heads down.

Cricket understatement of the year

From Ian O'Brien's blog

There was a change at the top of the Australian order with Warner missing out and Haddin opening; what a week for him.

what a week, first keeper to get a batsmen bowled, shunned by IPL and now opening...

!

Never thought there would be a day with a headline like this.

Australia wins!

That exclamation mark is the height of journalism and depth of Australian falling. It expresses the fall of Australian cricket better than anything else.

Surely, an exclamation mark is worth 1000 words.

Ricky is back

Ricky Ponting is coming back. Australia looks like India and Pakistan of old.

"Ricky has today made a strong appeal to be allowed to play given that this is a 'decider' game," Andrew Hilditch, the chairman of selectors, said. "Given the circumstance, we have made an on-balance decision to support his request and we will continue to monitor his workload closely.

Just shows how much faith the selectors have in Australian bench strength. What happened to their gold mine of cricketers?

"It should be noted that selectors were pleased with Clarke's leadership and batting form in Melbourne, where he was Man of the Match, but this decision will bolster our batting. We also understand Ricky's desire to lead from the front."

Oh yeah...

Happy

India has 9 straight wins.
Australia has 5 straight losses.

And India is ranked second in ODI.

To be in Aussie Dressing room

Ricky Ponting & Brett Lee, Micheal Clarke & Simon Katich, Andrew Symonds & Andrew Symonds. It must be interesting in Australian dressing room.

Everybody is supporting Haddin though, both Ponting and Clarke

Haddin at IPL

No takers for Haddin at IPL. I wonder why? He is the only keeper who can dismiss a batsman bowled.

Third time (also) unlucky

1.6 Fernando to Tendulkar, OUT, Tendulkar's gone! lbw, nips in towards the batsmen, pitched up by Fernando, hits the batsman on front of leg stump, that looked to be sliding down, another not-too-great decision ends Tendulkar's innings
SR Tendulkar lbw b Fernando 7 (12b 0x4 1x6) SR: 58.33

From cricinfo commentary.

Lightning strikes third time for Tendulkar.