The Buzz
Cricket, under the world
No, we're not talking about the Ashes. This particular match took place 'down under' in a more literal sense. Down under a mountain, in a slate mine, in Lake District
Nikita Bastian
06-Dec-2013
No, we're not talking about the Ashes. This particular match took place 'down under' in a more literal sense. Down under a mountain, in a slate mine, in Lake District - a mountainous region in northwest England. Two village teams, Threlkeld and Caldbeck, were involved in the game, widely believed to be the first underground cricket match.
Honister Slate Mine hosted the game, a fundraiser, amid a network of underground tunnels inside the mountain Fleetwith Pike. And if everyone on hand had to wear hard hats it was because of the 2000ft of rock and slate above their heads, not because a flurry of sixes were expected - there were no designated boundaries in the match and the batsmen had to run all their runs, resulting in a middling target of 28 from six overs for Caldbeck to chase. The team made light work of it, winning with 10 balls to spare.
Full postAshes computer game crashes spectacularly
Controversy has enveloped the official computer game, Ashes Cricket 2013, which was handed a thrashing by consumers comparable with England's defeat at the Gabba and has since been withdrawn from sale
ESPNcricinfo staff
28-Nov-2013
With England and Australia contesting the second of back-to-back Ashes series, the action on the field has become increasingly heated. For different reasons, controversy has also enveloped the official computer game, Ashes Cricket 2013, which was handed a thrashing by consumers comparable with England's defeat at the Gabba and has since been withdrawn from sale.
Licensed by the ECB and Cricket Australia, the simulation produced by 505 Games was originally planned to coincide with the Ashes series in England. Despite a five-month delay in production, the publishers were able to launch Ashes Cricket 2013 in conjunction with the return series Down Under, only for severe problems to be revealed.
Released last Friday, initially for PC, gamers have reported numerous glitches, with videos being uploaded to YouTube showing incompetent fielding, batsmen making unlimited runs, shots disappearing at bizarre angles and mysteriously claimed catches.
A 505 Games statement said: "The development of Ashes Cricket 2013 has been fraught with challenges almost from the outset. The chosen developer, even with their many years of cricket game development experience, was unable to overcome the unexpected challenges that the chosen game engine threw up, even with multiple extensions to the development schedule.
Full postThou shalt not pass the beach ball
What do you do if a beach ball flops onto the field next to you at an international cricket match? Nothing
Nikita Bastian
23-Nov-2013
What do you do if a beach ball flops onto the field next to you at an international cricket match? Nothing. Photographer Patrick Hamilton learnt that the hard way at the Ashes Brisbane Test, when he was escorted from his spot on the boundary by security for tapping a beach ball that fell onto the ground back to the crowd a few too many times.
An award-winning local photographer, Hamilton eventually earned the right to continue to take his photos from the stands after a bit of negotiation with security. The security personnel, of course, earned their fair share of boos from the fans for being party spoilers. And the fans, it is likely, lost a beach ball in due course.
Full postShami spoils best-laid plans
When Mohammed Shami demolished West Indies on the third day of the Eden Gardens Test, he ruined the CAB's plans of giving Sachin Tendulkar a flowery farewell
ESPNcricinfo staff
09-Nov-2013
When Mohammed Shami began his demolition job on the West Indies batting line-up yesterday, the visitors weren't the only ones worried about the Test coming to a premature end. With every passing wicket, the fans' cheers were accompanied by an increasingly saddening realisation that it was probably going to be the last time that the Eden Gardens faithful would get to see Sachin Tendulkar on the field.
The disappointment was felt most by the Cricket Association of Bengal, which in a bid to provide Tendulkar a grand farewell, had planned for three aircrafts to shower 199 kg of rose petals - or roughly 400000 flowers - over the prize-distribution area, creating a two-inch thick carpet of petals.
"Our aircraft are two-seater Cessna-152 light-engine planes capable of carrying around 30kg of flowers at a time," Saket Agarwal of Trans Bharat Aviation told Metro. "We would have made more than one sortie each to airdrop the 199kg of flowers. It would have been such a spectacle."
Full postBird elevated to higher ground
ESPNcricinfo staff
01-Nov-2013
Dickie Bird was most admired and respected during his 24 years as an international umpire and now he is being raised to a higher status. By five feet to be precise. Not the real thing but Bird's statue in his hometown of Barnsley. The move comes after his bronzed index finger was being used to hang a variety of interesting items on including pants, condoms and chip boxes. Bird has been seen removing rogue items from his own statue but said he didn't mind what people were doing and saw it as a sign of respect that the statue had not been damaged.
"We are not going to stop it," Sculptor Graham Ibbeson said about a plinth that will be erected beneath the statue. "What we are going to do is make it a little more difficult. We are raising him up where he belongs.
"On Friday and Saturday night everybody who wobbles home from the town after a few sherberts seems to gravitate towards that finger, with knickers, brassieres, condoms, whatever. Dickie has been seen occasionally cleaning the debris off himself, so it needed to be done. It's horrible when people are abusing it like that. It is a bit of fun but it is a bit inappropriate."
Full postThe Vatican Cricket Club
The Pontifical Council for Culture has announced plans to form Vatican cricket teams - one for men, made up of priests from around the world, and a women's XI comprising nuns
Nikita Bastian
19-Oct-2013
The cricket team that shoulders a billion hopes? No, we're not talking about India, but cricket's new converts - the Vatican. With ecclesiastical records numbering members of the Catholic church at around 1.2 billion worldwide, the ICC, in their bid to expand the game, would sure welcome the news of the Vatican being interested in cricket.
And that's what it seems to be, with the Pontifical Council for Culture announcing plans to form cricket teams - one for men, made up of priests from around the world, and a women's XI comprising nuns. Australia's ambassador to the Vatican, John McCarthy, a former SCG Trust member, is helping to put the teams together, and hopes to organise a match against a Church of England XI.
Cricket, McCarthy said, was already popular in Rome, with priests and religious arriving there from around the world, and the Vatican's teams would draw on talent from everywhere cricket is played. "Internationally one would have a team representing the Vatican drawn from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies," McCarthy told Vatican Radio. "We are looking for Sri Lankan, Indian or Pakistani sisters who have played cricket and if they are found, they certainly will be invited to join the [women's] cricket team."
Full postFrom hurling javelins to bowling bouncers
Andrew Fidel Fernando
18-Oct-2013
In a case of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", cricket in Sri Lanka has gained a convert from the world of athletics, thanks to an evangelistic prod from Dinesh Chandimal. National javelin record-holder Sachith Maduranga shocked the track and field community in Sri Lanka when he retired from his sport at 23, last month, citing his frustration at the lack of recognition for his achievement. But weeks later, he has turned his attention to cricket - which is the country's biggest culprit for robbing other sports of their limelight.
School-mate Chandimal had reportedly suggested that Maduranga try his hand at fast bowling, and he has since been working in the nets at the Premadasa Stadium to some success, according to fast bowling coach Anusha Samaranayake.
"He averages between 130-135kmph without any difficulty," Samaranayake told The Island newspaper. "The only concern is his bowling action which he said he would like to work with us to improve." Maduranga said he had not yet fully committed to a career in cricket, but a bowler of his description will be a boon to Sri Lanka's sparse fast-bowling stocks.
Full postPonting 'wasting his time playing cricket'
He might have been one of the greatest players to have ever played cricket but Ricky Ponting has been told that he has been wasting his time playing cricket.
ESPNcricinfo staff
09-Oct-2013
He might have been one of the greatest players to have ever played cricket but Ricky Ponting has been told that he has been wasting his time with the sport. That's because he has quite an aptitude for golf and many observers have suggested Ponting should have a crack a playing professionally now his cricketing days are over.
Ponting was told by nine-time major winner Gary Player that "The way you hit the ball, you're wasting your time playing cricket." A handicap of +1 and a career low-score of 66 give credence to that claim and fellow Australian cricketer Dean Jones believes Ponting could become a dual international. "He hits it super-long, he's a great putter and he just loves golf," Jones said. "He spends time with his mate Marc Leishman, he has dozens of sets of golf clubs - I've seen his garage. When he's not playing cricket, he lives and breathes golf."
Full postAll the moves like Bravo
Dwayne Bravo is swapping dancing on a cricket field for dancing in a Tamil movie
Rachna Shetty
07-Oct-2013
The next time he gets a wicket or finds himself on a winning team, Dwayne Bravo could well break into the same dance moves that he's been busy learning on movie sets these days. The West Indies allrounder, who plays for Chennai Super Kings, will be appearing in a promotional song for the Tamil film Ulla.
On Monday, he tweeted pictures of himself getting makeup touch-ups and posing in his costume, looking the part of "Chennai's newest film star", as he calls himself.
According to Rajan Madhav, the film's director, Bravo agreed as soon as he was offered the chance to shake a leg under the arclights. "Our producer approached him through a common friend. He is known for his freestyle dancing and we want to capitalise on it. Show him the way the audiences would love to see him on screen," Madhav told IANS.
Now there's an off-the-field PR opportunity the IPL franchises never dreamed of.
Full postGuy Whittall's close encounter of the reptilian kind
How Guy Whittall spent the night with an eight-foot crocodile and lived to tell the tale
Nikita Bastian
18-Sep-2013
Guy Whittall, the former Zimbabwe allrounder, put up an uninvited guest for a night earlier this week. The house guest followed the rules of etiquette too, remaining quiet, not putting the family out, not even snapping at the feet dangling invitingly in front of its nose ... A well-behaved, eight-foot, 165kg Nile crocodile, it was, which spent the night inches away from Whittall at the Humani Ranch, the Whittall's game reserve in southeastern Zimbabwe.
The crocodile had made its way into Whittall's house from a nearby river and, presumably, spent the night under his bed. It was only discovered by a housemaid in the morning, who understandably screamed bloody murder as Whittall breakfasted in the kitchen. "The really disconcerting thing about the whole episode is the fact that I was sitting on the edge of the bed that morning, bare foot and just centimetres away from the croc," Whittall said later. "It came from the Turgwe River, which is a couple of kilometres from the house. They often wander about the bush, especially when it's cold and raining. I think he liked it under the bed because it was warm."
Whittall called in his co-workers at the reserve and the croc, after a bit of wrestling, was returned unharmed to the wild.
Full post