Watch County highlights each day

Great weather for the first proper day of the summer (given that the MCC v Durham game was played in an empty stadium in Dubai) - fingers crossed that remains the case for most of the season!

This Guardian article makes interesting reading entitled "ECB's muddled thinking generates less with more", outlining how players are playing fewer competitions but more cricket now compared to 30 years ago. But what really caught my eye was the final paragraph:

"...those who value county cricket can now, for the first time, watch highlights of each match free online each day throughout the season on ECB and county websites."

Finally! I wondered when the ECB or the Counties would get round to that - surely something that every County cricket supporter has been wanting for years. Hopefully I'll get the time to watch...

Symonds will be good to watch

Although I should of course go and watch Sussex now I live on the south coast, I can't help thinking that Andrew Symonds will be good to watch in Surrey colours, and the Oval just so happens to be the nearest ground to my office! Scoring a half century at a strike rate of 220 to help win the match in the IPL seems like good practice for the mostly second rate (in comparison) County bowling he'll face....

Those of you watching the IPL: was Pietersen not available for selection for Bangalore, or dropped?

McCullum replaces Dilshan as Sussex Twenty20 recruit

I knew I'd spoken too soon....but Brendan McCullum is not a bad replacement for Sussex!

Malik gets divorce

For those remotely interested in the long-running saga of Pakistani Shoaib Malik and whether he was or wasn't previously married, it seems he was. You'd have to feel a little concerned if you were his bride to be, Indian tennis player Sania Mirza, wouldn't you?

Player earnings shouldn't be public knowledge

It seems the Australian Cricket Board have decided to publicise how much they pay their top players as part of a campaign to ensure that cricket is considered equally by young sportsmen with rugby and Aussie rules football. I can understand the reasoning, but I'm not sure that anything is being achieved that couldn't have been by simply saying that their pay is at least competitive with other sports.

IPL boredom

I've lost track of the IPL and when the group stage finishes - when does the exciting knock out bit begin?

Perhaps it's because I don't have ITV4 and don't have a broadband connection that would allow me to watch YouTube coverage without annoying screen freezes (not to mention a lack of available time!), but I'm now totally bored of this part of the competition. Whenever anything amazing happens friends send me clips of great catches, misfields, great balls and great shots so hopefully I'm not missing much. If someone can let me know when the group stages are over, that would be greatly appreciated, and then I'll take a bit more of an interest....

That said, ITV seem to be doing pretty well out of it, and Modi deserves some praise for giving away the UK rights to the IPL cheaply to stimulate a bit of much needed interest outside India.

Swann drink drive arrest

It had to happen - what makes him "a character" and therefore successful on the field was always going to lead to problems off it! So Graeme Swann's arrest for allegedly drink driving is probably not a surprise to the England team management - hopefully they have a plan of action for any event like this happening to an England player. Whether it's Flintoff, Swann, or whoever, they need to be guided through it with the minimum fuss possible so that it doesn't impact on their performances on the field.

I hope and trust that the number 3 bowler in the world will not be any the worse for his arrest....

I think I might be missing the point

I think I've burbled before about dancers at T20 games - I just don't see the point, and that's not an old duffer talking. I'm a huge fan of T20. But I'm really confused about the current competition.
Why with the matches being held in India are all the dancers blonde caucasians ?
When we went to Lord's to see Rajashan Royals take Middlesex apart all the performers - dancers and musicians - were Asians.
It's clearly marketing and I think someone's got some explaining to do.

Collingwood finally makes IPL debut

Good to see that it went well (he scored a half century) - although it looks like the game will rightly be remembered for David Warner's century...

Time to bring back single-wicket cricket ?

As we get closer and closer to the days when players move around almost at will - or to wherever the next pay cheque is (no criticism this, just natural order), and on a day when, like many I hope, I'm now watching Tendulkar bat like a god for a team in blue against a team in darker blue (who cares which team is which when you get entertainment like this?), I wonder whether the time can be long off for the return of single-wicket cricket. It had a revival in a not very serious way as an end of season filler at Lord's in the late 60s and very good it was too!

Michael Lumb in the IPL?

That Shane Warne Hampshire connection obviously runs deep - I hadn't realised Lumb had got an IPL contract with Rajastan Royals. But sadly he was out to the first ball of the match today.

Excellent value at the 'G

Fancy watching Victoria play Queensland at the MCG here in Melbourne? It's the final of the Sheffield Shield and Victoria are looking good to win tomorrow.

The cost of a family ticket is $10 (about £6). The same ticket at Hove or Lords for a county championship game would be £35-£40. Excellent value and worth a trip down to the ground I'd say.

Kumble photography book

Reading about how Anil Kumble has produced a coffee table book with all the photos he's taken throughout his career, I thought that could be a nice (if totally unecessary) buy. So I went to the site - wideangle.canvera.com - and clicked on the link to see how much it would be in pounds. £97 apparently - seems a little steep, even for a cricket obsessive like me. Might keep my money in my wallet....

IPL shrewd business in India

Apparently investment in an IPL team has turned out to be a shrewd investment for India's billionaires - far better than the stock market.

Cricket all balls to Hitler

"Hitler has only got one ball, the other is in the Albert Hall..." I believe it goes, but it sounds like Hitler never quite got the hang of bowling a cricket ball. According to this account, he couldn't get his head around the Laws and wanted to make cricket more violent.

Without helmets in those days, it's just as well Mitchell Johnson wasn't around - he could have done some damage playing to Hitler's laws...

The Lara Bingle / Michael Clarke summary

I've been expecting an Aussie point of view on the Bingle/Clarke affair in Australia but it hasn't happened so for the Brits, here's my brief summary....

Bingle is a model - very attractive and darling of the tabloids.

When she was aged 20 a married sports star with a child had an affair with her - not sure of his name but I think he was a rugby league player or Aussie rules or something.

The guys wife left him and the affair became public. Bingle claimed not to know he was married.

She meets Michael Clarke who not unaturally thinks she's a bit of a hottie. And then the start to officially date.

They get engaged.

The guy she had an affair with makes public some nude pictures of her in the shower.

She is appalled. Clarke returns to her side rather than play for Australia in the ODI series v New Zealand. Much criticism of Clarke's loyalty to his other half rather than the national cricket team.

Clarke announces that their engagement is off on Friday. And that he'll rejoin the team for the first Test in NZ.

There you go - citizen journalism at it's best!!

Shut up Dominic Cork

I've had virtually no time to take an interest in the current Bangladesh v England Test match, but I did tune into TMS yesterday morning to see how things were going just before tea. I was free to listen until the end of the day's play, but the period I listened to wasn't exactly pleasurable listening as Dominic Cork's ego took over, so I switched off.

Commentating with Simon Mann he seemed to want to somehow get the better of the senior commentator. He has a right to his opinion and there are many that were arguing like him that England should have enforced the follow on, but he puts his point across like a spoilt teenager arguing with his mother having not been allowed out one evening. Multiply Ian Botham's bleating by 10 and you'll get the idea. And then he started to say that Trott should be dropped - that's when I switched off....

Perhaps CMJ could take him to one side and explain that he is meant to give his opinion, but the days of him having any influence on the decision are over. His role is to give the rationale for his opinion and let the listeners consider it for themselves - not ram his view down the throats of the listeners without giving both sides of the argument. So next time, shut up Dominic.

Sussex announce Dilshan signing

Unlike Middlesex, Sussex are in a position to actually announce a class signing for the summer - Dilshan will play in Hove in Twenty20 cricket. The world's best Twenty20 batsman is not a bad bit of work by Sussex although without knowing what he's being paid it's difficult to know if he'll be good value for money.

Now all I need to do is work out what time I'd need to start work in order to complete a normal day's workload and get back to Hove in time to watch Dilshan play in evening Twenty20s....about 2am!

Mysterious

I missed Middlesex's early season forum so could only read the reports on line. Apparently they've got new stars coming later in the season but who it is is the big secret, they were even named at the forum and all were sworn to secrecy. Can't wait. http://www.middlesexccc.com/news-detail.asp?NewsID=1986 and http://www.cricketnetwork.co.uk/main/middlesex-ccc/s66/st155303/march-2010-forum--minus-the-juicy-bits

A batsman with a better Test average than Bradman?

There is one apparently. I didn't realise that - this article on The Roar about unfortunate cricketers explains that Andy Gantaume of West Indies scored 112 in the 1st innings of his only Test and didn't bat in the 2nd.

D/L method struggling to keep up with powerplays?

I couldn't agree with Daniel Vettori more. How can New Zealand lose 5 overs, including 2 Powerplay overs, in their chase against Australia, and only get 8 runs knocked off their target? Australia scored 41 in their 5 batting powerplay overs (9, 9, 6, 8, 9) so I find it difficult to see how that was worked out. Anyone clever/mathematical wish to explain? Thought not!!

Goal line technology rejected by Fifa

We've had many debates about technology being used to increase the accuracy of decisions in cricket on Cricket Burble. It seems that even the simplest use of technology in football - goal line technology to check if the ball has crossed the line - has been rejected. Ironically, on that same day a Birmingham goal was ruled out by the officials who didn't have access to the TV replays.

Anything that allows the watching audience to check if the referee of umpire are correct should be considered in all sports, if the ruling bodies want to see the authority of referees and umpires to remain. The only question really needs to be how the technology can be used without a huge impact on the sport in question. Goal line technology is a no brainer - it's not going to be used very often so won't impact on the game much and when it is used, it won't take long at all - it either is a goal or isn't.

FIFA say "the door is closed" but it's only a matter of time before they are forced to put this in place - I'm not sure if it will be years or decades but it will happen. Imagine if the World Cup final hinged on a wrong refereeing decision about the ball being over the goal line! More poor leadership from a sporting body (note "leadership" as opposed to "management" - most can manage, it's harder to lead).

Cricket Porn

Totally gratuitous cricket porn - but I think I know my audience....

McCullum brilliance

I went straight on to YouTube the other day to see if McCullum's innings was there following reports of his ramp shots during his Twenty20 hundred v Australia. At that point there were no highlights there, but highlights are there now. Some incredible shots!!

New Zealand just got home today in the first ODI too - it seems to me there have been a huge amount of close games in all formats over the last year or so. Just me?

Windies plumb new depths

After the surprisingly competitive test series between Australia and West Indies there was some talk about how the Windies may have turned a corner. It appears that was yet another false dawn after they managed to lose this T20 match against Zimbabwe, despite an incredible six ducks in the Zimbabwe innings, including all of the first four wickets to fall.

Atherton oh so wrong in 2007

Mike Atherton is a must read for me on all cricketing matters, even though I seem to find myself disagreeing with him quite a bit. Tendulkar's amazing innings did make many people, including me, think of 2007 when he was *apparently* on the edge or retirement or being dropped.

At The Cricket Watcher's Journal, they dug out this piece from Mike Atherton in 2007 that suggested that Tendulkar was on the wane. It happens to the best of us - I remember dismissing Shane Watson's ability to bat in the top order in a Test match!

Shane Warne's latest product - underwear

Shane Warne's never-ending quest for more publicity and money continues as he launches an underwear range....

God-like Tendulkar

There's not a great deal I can add. 200 not out in an ODI...and a strike rate of 136 - very special.

Can't resist a reminder that back in 2007 Indian's were discussing whether Tendulkar was past it. Perhaps this innings will stop the rediculous notion that batsmen that have a bad run of form in their early 30s should be dropped and/or retire? I doubt it....

Bats - a brilliant idea

We all know that batsman are stupid ( why else would they whack it straight up in the air?) but I think they are missing the biggest trick ever.
Why bother with adjusting your hands or position to play reverse sweeps etc. - why not just have a bat with two faces ? The technology is there and I can't see anything in The Laws to prevent it.
Sorry to all fellow bowlers.

Twitter Pressure

I know I'm meant to be a Twitter advocate because of my job as a digital marketer, but I stuggle with it as it's a blog with a very small limit on number of characters. Why wouldn't I just post a few words on this blog if I wanted to publish a very short post?

But I felt I had to for work purposes. So I registered on Twitter as Cricket Burble and then (of course) worked 70+ hour weeks and left the account completely dormant. That meant that I got various strange people trying to follow me while I did nothing, but all of a sudden the ECB have now decided to follow me on Twitter.

I'm not sure what to do now. I feel under pressure to talk very knowledgably about cricket in a rediculously small number of characters. "Great India v South Africa match - isn't test cricket brilliant" was my first thought. Then "Is Eion Morgan a Test player?" after today's performance. Perhaps "England will win the next Ashes" would be good. I don't know. I have in the end opted for a dignified silence. The ECB will have to wait for my prophetic offerings. Perhaps "We need less professional cricket teams in England" may get their attention?

Everything rests on Amla

It seems that Hashim Amla is the key to South Africa's rearguard today, playing the Collingwood role. Odds must be against them (they are current 5 down), and India deserve to level the series the way they've played (scoring at 4.2 an over when batting for example). But Amla is the thorn in their side with a rediculous average of 435 to date in this series as he's only been out once so far - worst case he'll average well over 200 for the series after this innings.

Typical he should come into sublime form after the England series when he was in my Fantasy team!

Pangbourne suffer fire...

Not good news for Pangbourne College - their cricket pavilion has been damaged by fire....

Review of Reviews

The Editor's view in The Cricket Society News Bulletin this month contains a number of observations on what I think has become an absurd system that really does not work. I have picked out a few of the points for further thought.

This winter you had a better chance of surviving an appeal in South Africa than in Australia where they had all the technology. Surely it makes sense for there to be a uniform requirement and, as the Television Networks use all of them they should be made available to the third umpire as part of the tendering process.

Once again, the question arises as to whether referrals should be restricted to umpires alone. I firmly believe that this should be the case. Also I understand that, at professional level, the square leg umpire is not encouraged to help with lbw appeals by indication the height of the ball. This happens all the time in club cricket and is encouraged on the training courses.

In summary, the whole review process needs to be reviewed and the technology agreed and standardised.

Lucky escape for Pakistan

While the wrangling continues about what role, if any, Javed Miandad plays in Pakistan's future, I can't help thinking that his emotionally charged leadership is not what Pakistan need right now. Thankfully for them, he's turned down the offer of Head Coach. Their problem now is an absence of credible alternative candidates...

Sad death results in cricketing trips of a lifetime

This cricket fan has asked his mates to scatter his ashes at various Test cricket grounds around the world....and paid for them to make the trips. A sad reason to go there, but I'm sure it will be a great experience...and he's stipulated they drink a locally brewed beer too.

Alastair Cook's facial hair

Hmmmm, not sure what I think about an England captain who's still experimenting with facial hair. He's 25 now, you would have thought he's past that stage....to be fair he's probably been influenced by Kevin Pietersen's terrible attempts at facial hair. But look what happened to his captaincy stint - it doesn't bode well!

Champions League dates - what's the problem?

It's not easy to find out exact dates of future fixtures it seems - give it a try and you're a better man that I if you can work out the exact date that the first match of the 7 match ODI series between India and Australia is on October. Looking at the ICC's future tour programme spreadsheet, it looks like it doesn't start until the second week of October - i.e. w/c 11th October.


Now looking at the English county fixtures, it looks like they finish 18th September. If you want to worry about the Pakistan ODIs that England play - I suppose the ECB have to given existing sponsorship and TV deals - they finish on 22nd September. So the Champions League could quite easily start on Friday 24th September and finish Monday 11th October (apparently it needs 17 days as the dates suggested are 10th-26th September). That would allow India to play their series against Australia by the end of October, starting towards the end of w/c 11th.


Rather than reluctantly having to be unavailable, English counties shouldn't need to. India should be moving back their ODI series against Australia and stop suggesting that they have no flexibility over the 2nd October apparent start date.


The problem here is that the ICC is powerless. They should be able to instruct India to change their dates and avoid this problem altogether, but they...like everyone else...has to bow to India's money and work around them.

Franklin back where he belongs

Looking at the New Zealand scorecard from today, it looks like they've realised he shouldn't be batting ahead of the likes of Vettori and Oram. It's taken a while but maybe the penny has dropped.

Graeme Smith right to consider win only

South Africa's huge win over India by an innings also included a declaration by Graeme Smith when Hashim Amla was on 253 not out. It seems there has been some consternation in South Africa over the timing of the declaration as Smith holds the record for runs in one innings by a South African at 277 and some have suggested he declared to stop Amla getting past his mark.

I just can't see it - he's all about winning and they won. He wanted to have a chance to bowl at India on the second evening and I don't thing any captain in the world would have played it differently. As they won, no one in South Africa should have any quibbles....

The death of 50 over cricket

Australians seem pretty much decided on the fact that 50 over cricket will die and I've got to say I agree with Shane Warne, who has been the most vocal in arguing that the world doesn't need 50 over cricket any more. And the BBC's Australian correspendent, Nick Bryant, appears to agree.

The best thing that could be done? Play the 2011 World Cup and then move to Tests and Twenty20....

Hotspot exposes Bollinger hairline

England didn't even have the luxury of Hotspot in South Africa, but it appears that where it is used, it can help with more than just umpiring decisions.

Players like Shane Warne are well known for their attempts to halt the loss of hair, and now poor old Doug Bollinger seems to have been exposed by Hotspot in his follow through! (Thanks to Steyning's man in Australia Pete Vielvoye for pointing this out).

Bollinger seems to have put in a pretty special performance with the ball taking 4 wickets, leading to another cringe-worthy headline starting "Bollinger explodes..." but sadly for him the Australian public will probably remember his hairline more than his bowling in this game!

India struggling - debutant Saha under pressure

Looking at South Africa closing in on 500 in the first innings of the match against India with 4 wickets down, I checked the Indian team while considering how they might fight back. No Dravid and Laxman was always going to be a problem...I don't rate Yuvraj Singh so highly but he's also missing.

Vijay and Badrinath have come in for the first two slots, but somehow Saha has come into the side too, despite really being the wicket keeping back up for Dhoni. It does seem that India were very unlucky with Sharma injuring himself in the warm up, but I'm not entirely sure why it's not Dinesh Karthik acting as understudy for Dhoni? It was only 2007 when many suggested that Karthik was a better keeper than Dhoni so he's surely India's keeping number 2, and a more seasoned batsman.

Saha is now under immense pressure - if he can handle it then good on him.

The best bowlers and batsmen in Tests and ODIs

Of course this type of analysis is always open to question, but Cricinfo have had a go at working out who the best batsman and bowler is when you take into account Tests and ODIs.

The best batsman? Sachin Tendulkar.
The best bowler? Muttiah Muralitharan.

Tait falls short of record but still 3rd quickest

Interesting to see some of Shaun "Wild man" Tait's comments after he bowled 160.7km/hour with his third ball in Australia's exciting Twenty20 win over Pakistan. That delivery made him the 3rd fastest bowler of all time (since speeds were recorded) behind Shoaib Akhtar, who holds the record at 161.3km/hour and Brett Lee.

“There’s only certain moments when you’re bowling in your career when you’ve got a chance to do it. I was saying to the boys before you’ve probably got only two balls in a game – tonight it was my third ball – and I had a crack the next ball after that just to have a go, but after that it’s hard to get up to that pace.”

Nice to see his mind was on winning the game then!

Extra match on Ashes tour

When you see a headline saying there's an extra match on an Ashes tour you expect that to mean 6 Tests don't you? I got all excited, only to find there's another warm up game....probably 12 aside judging by recent England warm up games.

A 6th Test would be better....

Athers agrees

Anybody who's been listening to me will know that I reckon all this fuss about near neighbour John Terry is pure flannel and now the mighty Athers has made the same point in today's Times -'what does a football captain actually do?'. He's got virtually no decision to make beyond 'heads' or 'tails' and 'where shall we go paintballing next?'

New car report

I hadn't realised until my employers recently told me to get a new car (lucky me!) how few modern cars there are that have long wave radio. And obviously you need long wave to get TMS (or DAB but my experience anywhere away from London on that is that it's still pretty ropey). So you make a choice from a list limited by that and then find that my new Renault has a special socket near the drivers seat that is exactly the right size to store a cricket ball. Who says that the French don't understand the import at things in life?

Strange goings on in Oz for Pakistan

Even stranger than the loss from a seemingly impregnable position in the 2nd Test v Australia, was Pakistan's day yesterday where they lost by 2 wickets in the final ODI.

First Khalid Latif was rugby tackled by a spectator, and then Shahid Afridi took a bite out of the ball in a desperate attempt to get some movement as Australia closed in on victory! It's not the first lunatic piece of behaviour from Afridi - many England supporters will remember his 360 degree swivel on a length when there was a bomb scare during one of England's 2005 Tests in Pakistan. Given that it's not his first offence, he's got to be very satisfied with only a two Twenty20 match ban.

Just to add to their woes, the chief selector has resigned too, off the back of whitewash in Australia's favour in the Test and ODI series. And that comes 6 months after Abdul Qadir resigned as Chief Selector, who himself was only in the job 6 months. Pakistan cricket makes the Moores/Pietersen affair look like a trivial reshuffling of the pack! Given that they also had another Chief Selector resign in October 2008, they may do well to look at changes that need to be made at PCB level to avoid this continuing - they are now looking for their 5th Chief Selector since the 2007 World Cup!!