The Buzz
24-carat Tendulkar
The London-based East India Company has released a limited-edition legal tender coin commemorating the career of Sachin Tendulkar
23-Jun-2014
The London-based East India Company has released a limited-edition legal tender coin commemorating the career of Sachin Tendulkar. The 24-carat gold coin weighs precisely 200g - to mark the 200 Test matches that Tendulkar played - has the number 187 on it - to mark his Test cap number - and only 210 of them - for unspecified reasons - will go on sale for £12,000 each.
"We had been talking to Tendulkar since last December as we thought it would be the best way to immortalise an exceptional career spanning over 24 years," said Sanjiv Mehta, CEO of the East India Company, speaking to Gulf News. "There were some delays in the way as we had to secure the rights for producing it from the Commonwealth currency issuing authority but it was worth the wait."
Mehta added that the company would also mint coins in "one ounce, one-fourth ounce gold and half-an-ounce silver".
Apart from an autographed bat and a helmet, the coin face also features the Gateway of India to symbolise his hometown Mumbai.
Full postChris Martin, the grocer
Chris Martin, the retired New Zealand pacer, has found his new calling. He is going into the grocery store business
19-Jun-2014
Chris Martin, the retired New Zealand pacer, has found his new calling. He is going into the grocery store business. He, with his family, moved from Christchurch to Palmerston North to take charge of a Four Square - a mini-market chain in New Zealand, which offers groceries, fresh produce, meat and drinks, all with "a friendly smile". Clients who visit this particular outlet, will probably be offered that smile by Martin himself, as he plans to be quite hands-on.
"[Wife] Jane and I were quite keen to have our own business," Martin said, according to stuff.co.nz. "We wanted to have something we could own and operate and have ourselves.
"We also have a passion for food, which I suppose translated well to a Four Square. I might get a few aspiring cricketers coming and buying drinks."
Cricket, Martin said, left him well prepared to go into business. "I think with the cricket side of things you have to get out of bed every day and kind of do it all for yourself ... I think owning your own business is similar."
Full postSchoolboy takes 10 for 2
On the day England's bowlers fell a wicket short of a remarkable Test win at Lord's, a 13-year old bowler took astonishing figures of 5-3-2-10 to bowl Sexey's School to victory
17-Jun-2014
On the day England's bowlers fell a wicket short of a remarkable Test win at Lord's, a 13-year old bowler took astonishing figures of 5-3-2-10 to bowl Sexey's School to victory in an Under-14 match in Somerset. Tommy Stewart skittled the Gryphon School for 24, successfully defending the target of 104. He bowled nine batsmen, and caught and bowled the other one. The only runs he conceded were off wides.
"I was disappointed to have got out to a poor shot when I batted and (teacher) Mr Balch told me to channel my frustration into my bowling," Stewart told Western Morning News. "I was just trying to bowl in good areas but the ball was swinging a bit and the wickets just kept falling. I think I'm the first Sexey's player ever to take ten wickets and I'm very proud of that."
Full postThe new, ancient language of commentary
The Chinmaya Mission in Chennai is planning to use cricket commentary for a highly unusual purpose - to promote Sanskrit
16-Jun-2014
The Chinmaya Mission in Chennai is planning to use cricket commentary for a highly unusual purpose - to promote the ancient language of Sanskrit. "Speak Sanskrit Through Cricket" is an elocution contest for students, in which they get to commentate on cricket clips in Sanskrit.
"In India, the way cricket has seeped into living room and dining table conversations shows how significant the game has become in the country's collective mindset," states the press release promoting the event. "Taking this excitement a notch higher, Speak Sanskrit Through Cricket will garnish these conversations with a liberal dose of Sanskrit terms."
The Mission has roped in Kris Srikkanth to inaugurate the event, which promises the winner a trip to Melbourne to watch next year's World Cup final. What's the Sanskrit term for tracer bullet?
Full postServing the community with Chris Gayle's Big Six Club
Chris Gayle is looking to give something back to Jamaican society, through cricket. He has opened an academy in Kingston, at the Lucas Cricket Club, for "underprivileged youngsters"
ESPNcricinfo staff
06-Jun-2014
Chris Gayle is looking to give something back to Jamaican society, through cricket. He has opened an academy in Kingston, at the Lucas Cricket Club, for "underprivileged youngsters". The academy, which also has a branch in England, will have two programmes: the Chris Gayle Academy team, and the Chris Gayle Big Six Club.
The academy team will cater to 16 young players on an annual basis, aged between 16 and 21, and - the plan is - give them the opportunity to play other Jamaican teams and touring youth squads. The Big Six Club is a 12-week programme targeted at kids from troubled communities (think low school-attendance rates, high crime levels, and rising drugs abuse).
An emotional Gayle, at the academy's launch, remembered how he was attracted to the game when he was a kid. "Being here brings back memories of me as a youngster, who used to jump the walls of Lucas from my house across the street, just wanting the opportunity to learn the sport of cricket and become a better person," Gayle said, according to the Jamaica Gleaner. "To have come from that far, and being here now, is quite moving, and the hope is that this academy will similarly open doors and opportunities for youngsters."
Full postMantri's goodwill Pakistan tour
In 1961, a corporate team led by the late Madhav Mantri and including at least five other India Test players toured Pakistan
ESPNcricinfo staff
27-May-2014
On a day the governments of India and Pakistan resumed talks, and the possibility of a cricket series lingered in the background, there emerged this story of an Indian tour of Pakistan in 1961. Not a Test tour but one by a corporate team led by the late Madhav Mantri and including at least five other Test players. The tour itself was born out of a series of coincidences, as Mantri explained in a book brought out by ACC Limited, where he was employed for 30-odd years. ''We were accumulating all the money in Pakistan and could not bring it to India," Mantri wrote. "In 1961, ACC's manager in Pakistan, an Englishman named Banks, wrote to our MD, suggesting that we send over a cricket team to Pakistan and use the money accumulated to fund the visit. Now Banks used to follow cricket and was aware that the ACC had a very good cricket team. There were many players in the company's team who had represented the country both in India and abroad - Polly Umrigar, Bapu Nadkarni, Ramakant Desai, Rusi Modi, Dilip Sardesai, among others. Banks also knew that cricket was keenly followed in Pakistan and a team that had well-known Indian players would be widely welcomed."
Mantri wrote that he was called by the MD and asked to take a team over to Pakistan. "He said, 'Go and spend the money.'" The team spent a month in Pakistan playing matches against teams comprising Test players, at their Test centres - Karachi, Lahore, Sialkot, Rawalpindi, and even Dhaka, right across India in what was then East Pakistan. "Everywhere, there were large crowds cheering the teams," Mantri wrote. "The newspapers too would cover the matches in detail because so many Test-level players were playing on both sides…The goodwill and publicity that was generated for the company by this tour was much more than we could have ever achieved if we had spent the money on advertisements and publicity.'' An early, if informal, version of cricket diplomacy, it seems.
Full postLara's return to Caribbean cricket
Cricket fans in the Caribbean can expect a treat in the coming months, as Brian Lara and Ian Botham are both expected to take to the field for a charity match in the lead up to the Caribbean Premier League final in August
ESPNcricinfo staff
22-May-2014
Cricket fans in the Caribbean can expect a treat in the coming months, as Brian Lara and Ian Botham are both expected to take to the field for a charity match in the lead up to the Caribbean Premier League final in August.
'Beefy's Bash', an all-star charity T20 game involving Botham, Lara and television personality Piers Morgan, is set to take place in St.Kitts on August 12 and will bring together a host of celebrities, cricketing legends and current stars.
"I've always believed in the importance of giving back to the Caribbean, and this match will be a great way to do that," Lara said. "It's going to be fun to play with and against some old friends and reignite some old rivalries, and I've already been contacted by plenty of fast bowlers keen to have a bowl at Piers."
Morgan, who famously survived an over against Brett Lee in December, said that he had already called the former Australia seamer to join in, though this time, he took the time and effort to make sure that he would not be on the receiving end of Lee's deliveries.
Full postTrinidad schoolboy hits quadruple ton
He shares a name synonymous with West Indies cricket and 14-year-old Kirstan Kallicharan matched a number also indelibly linked to the game when he scored an astonishing 404 in a schools match in Trinidad
ESPNcricinfo staff
19-May-2014
He shares a name synonymous with West Indies cricket and 14-year-old Kirstan Kallicharan matched a number also indelibly linked to the game when he scored an astonishing 404 in a schools match in Trinidad.
The mammoth innings came for Vishnu Boys Hindu College in the PowerGen Secondary Schools Cricket League (SSCL) play-off quarter-final. It was only a 35-over contest, but that did not stop Kallicharan - who captains Trinidad & Tobago's U-15 side - ripping up the record books with an innings that included 44 fours and 31 sixes.
However, he is no stranger to setting new landmarks - even if this one did go to a greater level. Last year he had set a new mark for the highest score in SSCL cricket, overtaking a record previously held by a certain BC Lara.
Speaking about his quadruple hundred - a feat Lara achieved in the 2004 Test against England in Antigua to set a new world record - Kallicharan said: "At the beginning I was just batting normal, just aiming to make a hundred but when I got to my century I realised I could score more and more and I just continued to bat," he told the Trinidad and Tobago Express
Full postThe cricket ball goes to space … almost
The ECB has sent the cricket ball "where no cricket ball has gone before": to the "edge of space"
16-May-2014
The ECB has sent the cricket ball "where no cricket ball has gone before": to the "edge of space".
A white ball was sent up from Edgbaston, Birmingham, strapped to a helium balloon, to an altitude of 110,000 feet (or three times the height at which commercial aircraft fly), where it is said to have experienced temperatures of -54C and reached speeds of 500mph while freefalling back to earth. It landed in Newbury, Hertfordshire, in "near-perfect condition".
The stunt was organised as part of the launch of the ECB's revamped T20 competition, the NatWest t20 Blast, and required the input of "a team of aeronautical engineers", according to the ECB site. For the video of the ball on its way to the upper layers of the earth's atmosphere, click here.
Full postBradman's first Test bat for sale
The first bat ever used by Sir Donald Bradman in a Test match is set to be auctioned in Melbourne next week
13-May-2014
The first bat ever used by Sir Donald Bradman in a Test match is set to be auctioned in Melbourne next week. Used by Bradman on debut at the Brisbane Exhibition Ground against England in 1928, the bat did not provide Bradman with the finest start to a Test career - he scored 18 and 1.
The bat, described as a full-size "Duke and Son - Warren Bardsley", was later used by Bradman in scoring twin centuries for New South Wales. He donated the bat to a competition run by the Sun newspaper in Sydney in 1930 to raise money to endow a Don Bradman Cot for the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children.
For more than 70 years, the bat was owned by the same family who won the competition. It sold at auction in 2008 for A$145,000, when an Australian collector made the purchase and put the bat on display at the National Sports Museum at the MCG. The bat was signed by Bradman as "DGB", believed to be because he had not yet become accustomed to signing his name for autograph-hunters.
"He hasn't sort of become himself yet and been asked to sign a lot of autographs since he's not totally in the public eye," sports memorabilia historian Tom Thompson said. "It's a good example of the man before he's about to go on a meteoric ride."
Full post