Submitted by rickeyre on
The women were first with a Cricket World Cup, holding their first in 1973 while the men didn't get started till 1975. Now the men have announced a medal for best player of the England-Australia Test series, five years after the women did the same.
Submitted by rickeyre on
The future of the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy is in grave doubt following the publication of an opinion poll in New Zealand on Monday. The poll found that 53% of those people questioned support the banning of New Zealand sporting teams from touring countries "that violate human rights".
Submitted by rickeyre on
Let this be the first and last time I use the buzzword "Twenty20" to describe what is nothing more than glorified 20 overs a side tippety-run like we used to play at school. The PCL (Pyjama Cricket Lite) game between England and Australia at the Rose Bowl, Southampton is about to start.
You've gotta hand it to Channel Seven. Sky Sports' coverage absolutely enhanced with Tony Squires anchoring their telecast in Sydney, Stuie MacGill alongside him for expert insights, and Boofhead Lehmann at the ground with the sideline mike.
Doesn't matter, I have the TV sound down and listening to BBC Five Live. Now this is amusing. Agnew drivelling about PCL being "the future of cricket", while the good old Booker T and the MGs theme sound, circa 1968, playing in the background. Future indeed.
Submitted by rickeyre on
Zimbabwe departs from the VB Series with their worst record in three outings in the Australian triangular. At least they managed one win in both 1994-95 and 2000-01. This time, a washout at the MCG was the best they could muster.
The sad thing is that Zimbabwe's cricket team is not improving. The upper order batting collapsed on a regular basis and the bowlers suffered some extraordinary punishment at times, most notably at the hands of Adam Gilchrist in Hobart. Only Heath Streak, Stuart Carlisle, Grant Fowler and Sean Ervine can really hold their heads up as players of genuine international calibre.
Submitted by rickeyre on
It's not exactly in the same league as selling mail order Via*gra, X[a]nax or p3nis enlargements, but the Zimbabwe Cricket Union's unsolicited email to the eighteen first-class English counties on Monday will go down as one of the daftest acts by a cricket administration in recent times.
The Zimbabwe Cricket Union, stretched for funds in a deteriorating economy and suffering on the field from a drain of most of its best players, is desperate for every scheduled international tour to its country to proceed. And with October's tour by England in serious danger of cancellation, ZCU chairman Peter Chingoka and chief executive Vince Hogg were desperate enough to decide to bypass the ECB and appeal directly to the county administrations.
Submitted by rickeyre on
Kumble bowls. Waugh sweeps. He lofts it high in the air. Tendulkar waits just inside the square leg rope and takes the catch. And it's all over.
After 18 years, 168 Tests, 260 innings, 82 scores of fifty or better and 10,927 runs, Steve Waugh had played his last innings for Australia. He scored 80 and helped Australia draw the Fourth Test against India.
Submitted by rickeyre on
With one day remaining in the Sydney Test, Australia needs 433 runs to win with ten wickets in hand. It shouldn't be possible. Shouldn't.
But this Test - and indeed many Test matches lately - have been so unusual that it can't be absolutely ruled out.
We've seen an exhilirating four days of batting at the SCG. Australia made 474 in their first innings, yet it wasn't enough to avoid giving Indian captain Ganguly the option of enforcing the follow-on (which, as it happened, he elected not to do).
Submitted by rickeyre on
It was nineteen years ago - January 1985 - when Clive Lloyd played his 110th and last Test, his 74th as captain, leading the West Indies against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground. A world-beating team at the peak of its form, the West Indies was expected to trounce Australia as they had done throughout that series, sending Lloyd out on a high. Instead, the Aussies won by an innings and 55 runs.
Submitted by rickeyre on
Australia is the outstanding Test team of our time, there can be no doubt. They have a batting lineup whose depth and talent is of historic proportions. Matthew Hayden demonstrated amazing staying power with his world record 380 against Zimbabwe at the WACA, while Adam Gilchrist is an extraordinary player to be coming in to bat at seven. The bowling, however, does not have the same immense depth to draw upon.
Submitted by rickeyre on
The streak is over. Australia's run of twenty-one successive one-day wins has been cut down by the West Indies in Trinidad this morning. Which is a good moment to spare a thought for the New Zealand cricket team.
The Kiwis defeated Pakistan in the Sri Lankan town of Dambulla on Friday to win the Bank Alfalah Cup. This would be a totally forgettable event if it were not for the fact that this was the second time New Zealand had won a one-day cricket tournament. That's the second time ever. In three decades of trying. Onya Kiwis.
