Some hope for West Indies Cricket, apart from Chrab of course.

Talking about chrab, his leadership skills have been praised by many, and his batting, well, he has averaged about 75 over the past two seasons in test cricket, the entire dough is more cleverly pointed out by my friend here.

Post from: EveryJoe

Xavier Marshall : Where did he come from?

It was a fighting match. Just that the West Indies were fighting as soon as Ponting made 150 on the first day. In the end, needing 240 odd to win on the last day, they succumbed to the accuracy of Stuart Clark, Brett Lee and Stuart McGill and ended the innings at 191, 96 runs short.

Clark returned with a five-for. Mc Grath II seems to be learning fast. From the West Indies, Ramdin the little keeper showed sparks of guts with his 36 of 61 balls, but when he was out, the fat lady had already cleared her throat.

Test Cricket was the winner, though. Australia showed again that perseverance and accuracy pays all the time. All in all, a nice beginning to a really boring tour. LARA COME BACK!

Photo : Newscom

Post from: EveryJoe

Australia beat West Indies

Asif Karim is the man we were talking about in Cricket Trivia 3

*Played three World Cups: 1996, 1999, and 2003; captained Kenya in 1999.

*Played another sport: Captained Kenya’s Davis Cup team. Woah, he had talent!

* Renaissance Man of Kenya Cricket: Played Kenya’s first 25 ODI’s and was their most popular player for a while.

(I mentioned in the comments he had an India connection. Well, he’s of Indian origin. So that’s the connection.)

Surprise fact: Kenya lost their match against Australia in the 2003 World Cup, but Asif Karim went home with the Man-of-the-Match for his bowling. Interestingly, Brett Lee had struck a hatrick in the same match.

–

There were some other answers, like Dave Houghton, that fit the bill as well, but Asif Karim is what I was looking for.

Oh, and I know I kept you all confused right until the end. You know how I am. Heh.

Thanks for playing. You’re all superb. No, really, I mean it.

The first correct responder was S. Jagadish. Congratulations!

Post from: EveryJoe

Cricket Trivia 3 Answer

Check it out for yourself:

Post from: EveryJoe

The other side of Brett Lee

But this morning was different – Kevin Pietersen, well, we all know he can bat against the Australians, and Ian Bell, was a man on a mission with something to prove. The first hour went well. Ian Bell played solidly, KP looked quite mellow. Apart from when he lost his head, went for a hook and ended up 7-ironing it to mid on. Fortunately for him, Stuart Clark dropped it, but that single shot was enough to wipe out any sort of lingering hope. England eventually capitulated for 157, that’s right, a score 40 runs short of what Ricky Ponting racked up on his own. But Ponting seemed intent on rubbing it in – rather than enforcing the follow on they decided to bat again, and between Langer, Hayden and himself, managed 180-1 at close. 626 runs ahead. England’s task for the last 2 days? Bat. That’s all they can do. Bat and bat and bat. But on a wicket that increasingly looks like a set of rift valleys and canyons that would be more at home in Nevada than in the middle of the Gabba, with the likes of Lee, McGrath… and Warne bowling at you, what are the chances? “Well it’s not an impossible task, but pretty f*cking close to it”.

Australia will be taking a 1-0 advantage to Adelaide. We wait and see if this is simply England’s slow start, or something much much worse.

Sidenotes:

Did anyone else find Micheal Atherton inserting 4 fingers in to the pitch disturbing in a sado-erotic sort of a way?
Giles and Jones both scored 20 odd runs each. Does that warrant their selection? No. What’s the point of these runs when the recognised batsmen haven’t done their jobs in the first place and Steve Harmison sprayed about 40 runs away in wides.

Post from: EveryJoe

Brisbane: Day 3: No surprises

Admittedly, when you have Brett Lee opening the bowling for you, you have the right to be a bit smug. But the difference between Lee’s opening delivery and Harmison’s? Well it was obvious, and yet another sign of things to come. Not to mention McGrath opening up from the other end, and despite almost being ready to draw his pension, he certainly provided a lesson to the youngsters of the England team on how to bowl. Stuart Clark looked handy enough. Oh and Shane Warne.

This all amounted to England ending day 1 on a pitiful 53-3, the casualties: Strauss, Cook and Collingwood. Strauss should bit sitting in the corner of a very dark room with no supper thinking about what he did for that sort of dismissal, literally gifting it away. Cook got a good ‘un, and Collingwood, well, it was really a case of putting him out of his misery, he really doesn’t look like a No.4 batsman.

It still makes me laugh to see some of the interviews with the Aussies before the series started, where the likes of Atherton and Hussein were trying to goad them in to saying something silly meanwhile bigging up England by saying things like “So how humiliating was it to lose in England”, “Do you want vengeance for England being all over you last year” – which considering it was the first time we’d won in like 20 years… well you get the point. Perhaps last year really was only a blip in both teams respective results – that is, Australia winning and England losing.

That’s quite cynical and it’s only the first game, but I’m struggling to see how the bowling attack will ever take 20 wickets. It just doesn’t have the venom required. And as for our batting – Brett Lee, number 8 for Australia and a bowler, outscored 3 of our top order batsmen.

Two months ago Fletcher should have said “(Subject to injury) this is the starting 12″ and let the team settle and bond and do all the other manly dressing room stuff. Despite being hideously out of form, most of the boys barely know what day it is due to all the change. The preparation has been abysmal.

We all hoped to turn on the TV last night and to see Harmison a changed man. He was going to steam in and get 5fer in 3 overs. Not so. Since there’s no rest between this test and the next, there’s little or no opportunity for him to do any work on his action, so I think it will be very hard for Fletcher to pick him for the next game. But what will that do to his confidence?

“It’s just one big f*ck up all round.”

Post from: EveryJoe

Brisbane: Day 2: Good cricket