West Indies vs Australia – 1st Test – May 22-26 2008
Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica

Sometimes the mind says : TOO MUCH IPL! But mate, it never is enough, when it comes to pleasures of life. But not in this post. I would try my best!
If you are a Kolkata Knight Rider fan, you would have a bitter feeling now. Bitter as your team has been knocked out of the IPL. Bitter as one of your star signings Ricky Ponting could do nothing to help you in your quest for a semi-final berth. Bitter as the same guy has scored 154 in …read more

So the Australian Open finished off with the results I had predicted in this post. Masha, aka, Maria Sharapova sailed through to the trophy. As I said, nobody in the tournament weiled the kind of power she did, and on the men’s side, Djoker, aka, Novak Djokovic, got the better of suprise finalist Tsonga. We had been pretty much hooked to the tournament, so much so that we missed out on a lot of cricket. With the Commenwealth Bank Series on, we’re back to bats and balls.

 
Eat Cricket, Drink Cricket, Sleep Cricket
It’s official. Michael Clarke has become an issue of national importance for the Australian media. The players just don’t want to stop debating over him.

The best way to do this would be to elevate him to the vice-captaincy in all forms of the game.
–Shane Warne
I don’t necessarily agree with [Warne],” Ponting said in Adelaide. “I don’t think that needs to be the case right now. Gilly’s not going to play forever, we’re all not going to play forever, but Michael’s opportunity is going to come.”
It might not be right now, it might not be six …read more

Eat Cricket, Drink Cricket, Sleep Cricket
 
It’s official: Kenya are world’s most successful ODI side. And no, this is not a joke. Their success rate so far in 2007 has been 77%, better than Australia’s 73 something.
They played 17 ODIs in all and won 13. Only two matches were against Test-playing nations–England and New Zealand–which they lost, of course.
Ohkay, busted. Some kidding there, but I thought this discovery by folks at Caught Behind needed some word-of-blog spreading.
Anyway, just in case you don’t already know this:

“I was surprised Panesar didn’t start and I couldn’t really work out why Read didn’t start, either. He certainly looks the part with the gloves and he did OK in the Pakistan series with the bat. At the end of the day, you have to pick your best players and in the last couple of Tests it became pretty apparent that Read is a better keeper than Jones. When those sort of things happen in a team, it unsettles a few players.”
I don’t actually need to say anything else, do I? I just hope someone calls Ponting as an expert …read more

Day 2 could easily have gone one of two ways, in fact I expected it. Possibility 1: Australia would bat like demons, score 600 before tea and reduce England to 25/4 by the close of play. Possibility 2: Australia would buckle under the pressure, get bowled out for a hundred and be forced to follow on. By the close of play, neither scenario had played out, and we were left with something rather in the middle. Hayden fell earlier, and was soon followed by Damien Martyn, but pain-in-the-arse Ponting and the irrepresisble Hussey started to build an innings for the …read more