The Heavy Ball
Future Shock: the Pakistan version
For much too long, fans of the team have had to brace for shock and horror. Let's give them advance warning, shall we?
Imran Yusuf
14-Oct-2010
The shock appointment of Misbah-ul-Haq as Pakistan captain follows years of heart-quickening and soul-destroying surprises for followers of the team. What else might we expect in the future? What should we be ready for? Perhaps hearing the bad news now will ease the pain and prevent heartbreaks and heart attacks. Perhaps not. Either way, you heard it here first. And last (we hope).
PCB sends delegation to the West Indies for joint seminar on "The Art and Science of Running a World-Class Cricket Board".
Danish Kaneria boasts of a new mystery ball. Rejects claims that maybe he should learn the stock legbreak first.
Full postHandy hints for the off season
Everything you've been taught by your coach is wrong. Here's what players need to be doing to stay in shape during the empty winter months
Alex Bowden
12-Oct-2010
Diet
During the season, players have to stick to the tried and tested - whole grains, lean meat, plenty of fruit and vegetables. In the winter they can broaden their eating habits. Large, heavy meals are perfectly acceptable as players won't be expected to bowl 15 overs the following day.
During the season, players have to stick to the tried and tested - whole grains, lean meat, plenty of fruit and vegetables. In the winter they can broaden their eating habits. Large, heavy meals are perfectly acceptable as players won't be expected to bowl 15 overs the following day.
The winter offers a great opportunity to fill muscles with gravy ahead of the coming season. Without gravy, muscles begin to atrophy - a process that actually takes place as the season wears on. In winter players should take on board as much gravy as possible to form a stockpile for the summer.
Animal fats are also a vital element of cricketers' winter cuisine. Beef dripping and rendered pork fat provide lubrication to joints and thus help combat injuries. The ideal winter breakfast for a cricketer would comprise sausages, bacon, black pudding, fried eggs and fried bread. It is also important to use lard when frying, as vegetable oils do not offer the same nutritional benefits. Grilling is highly inadvisable as precious fats are lost during the cooking process.
Full postHelp save the most romantic cricketer ever
From being banished from Lord's. If it helps, this man annoys Ricky Ponting. Join now
Jarrod Kimber
10-Oct-2010
There once was a cricketer more romantic than you, who decided to make his career by bowling into the wind. He had an extra "I" in his name for no reason, liked taking pictures of his own feet, and became Test cricket's greatest blogger along the way.
He is Iain Edward O'Brien, enemy to ghostwriters, saviour of into-the-wind bowling and hero to those he tweets to. While most of us would never have noticed this hardworking Kiwi quick had he not talked about being called rude things by the Gabba crowd, we now know him, and we await his every tweet, blog and commentary stint with the hunger of Bon Jovi fans.
When he left international cricket to be with his wife, international cricket sobbed a big wet soppy tear at losing a true romantic.
Full postWhat Freddie did next
And why it's going to be the only news you'll want to read over the next few months
Daniel Norcross
09-Oct-2010
It is a fact universally acknowledged that a cricket news editor in possession of a press release from English national treasure, world cricketing legend and holder-of-misleading-statistics-that-never-truly-reflected-the-genius-of-the man, Freddie Flintoff, never lacks for a front-page headline.
And so it was that on 16 September this year, the climax to an astounding English County Championship season got buried in sports pages around the cricketing world beneath the shocking and totally unexpected news that "our Fred" was hanging up his boots.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm as fascinated as the next man to discover that honest, salt-of-the earth Fred was looking forward keenly to whiling away his retirement soaking up Player One Sports' exciting new, branded mobile phone content in his down-to-earth but uniquely luxurious apartment, expertly crafted by Dubai-based, British-owned property developers First Group, whilst munching on a can of Red Bull. Who wouldn't be?
Full postRandom fan claims credit for India's win
This victory belong to the spectators. And this time they're taking it rather seriously
Anand Ramachandran
07-Oct-2010
In a rather kooky (some would say bonkers or even batshit) development in the immediate aftermath of India's thrilling win against Australia in Mohali, an Indian cricket fan named Sankalesh Jimmy has sued the ICC for not giving him the Man-of-the-Match award.
In his legal notice, Mr Jimmy has claimed that by the simple act of not watching even a single ball of the match, he decisively turned the tide in India's favour, and hence deserved to be Man of the Match.
"Whenever I watch the game on TV, India loses. So I decided to sacrifice my own personal interest for that of the team - and denied myself the pleasure of watching the match so that India could win," explained Jimmy, neatly sidestepping the logical conclusion that he would only take pleasure in watching if India won, an event that, by his own reasoning, was impossible, thus rendering his "sacrifice" redundant.
Full postThe All-time Greatest World XI of the World
Of all eternity. Ever. As picked by your correspondent during an idle moment
Sidin Vadukut
05-Oct-2010
Many years ago, while in college, I was a member of very tight group of 17 friends. We travelled together, bulk-booked movie tickets, partook of food and beverages together, and watched many foreign films together - except the climax, which we always experienced individually.
However, when you think about it, 17 is an odd number of people to have in a group. In every sense. Both 15 and 20 are round numbers and ideal for restaurant-table bookings, buffet discounts and so on. We frequently ran into situations where we wished we had more friends, or could occasionally jettison a few of the more boring types.
Eventually we arrived at a compromise. We developed a reserve of five or six "emergency friends", who could be called upon whenever we needed to. This way we could round up to 20 whenever we wanted to, with a few back-ups in case of dropouts.
Full postBye bye, Dan (and Dad)
Daniel Vettori takes a tough decision in the best interests of the game
Andrew Fernando
03-Oct-2010
The head of the Vettori household, Daniel Vettori, has announced his retirement from his family this week after seven years of marriage, in order to spend more quality time with the Black Caps. The announcement came as a shock to many fans of the Vettoris, who believed Daniel had at least several years of successful family life still ahead of him and would have helped them achieve a lot more in time to come.
"I just feel the time is right," Vettori said, speaking at a press conference on Monday. "Obviously with my family the way it is, I've had to spend a lot of time away from the New Zealand cricket team. Sometimes six or seven weeks go by when I haven't seen Ross Taylor slog-sweep a spinner straight to deep midwicket or Jeetan Patel being hit repeatedly to the boundary and I know it's been incredibly tough for them without their captain."
The capable husband, and father of two, claimed he was pleased overall on what he had been able to achieve with his family.
Full postAvast, ye Poms!
In which Mr Butt writes to his counterparts over at the ECB
Imran Yusuf
29-Sep-2010
Dear English cricket wallah,
I would say "Dear Sir" but the only Sir among you is that Beefy Botham, who must be having your mad cow problem. We Pakistanis know you only gave the sirhood to that rump because he says the utmost bad things about our mothers-in-law. After all, as a cricketer he was just a white
man's Imran Khan. And all those long walks he does for charity - what's the big deal, I also take the stroll every day. Just this morning I
went half a kilometre without rest and nobody calls me Sir (apart from my driver and cook and teaboy and shoe-shiner and everybody at the
office, okay everybody calls me Sir, but sometimes, you know, sometimes I think they don't say it with enough sincerity, you know? Maybe I'm
being too much the paranoid). Also, let it be noted that your pretend tough guy, Sir Ian, does not have to contend with the unforgiving Lahore
sun.
Ah yes: The Sun. That red-horned devil. That arch-conspirator. That enemy of truth, justice and the good honest bookies of the Eastern
world. Why these saucy scribblers have such problem with us, I do not know. As I have said, they should be looking inwards, looking into the
dodgy dealings of you Britishers first, no? I mean, that is the honourable action to take. You limeys have a nice phrase for this, something like "Don't throw stones in glass houses", and I have my own about "When the bullets hit the bus, duck the responsibility." All good people have phrases and standards they live by and you should learn some lessons from our example.
Full postBucknor gives decision a year after match ends
And the thrilling news of the world's first medium-pace academy
Anand Ramachandran
24-Sep-2010
West Indian umpire Steve Bucknor, known to take his time over decisions, really went overboard last week when he turned up at Mitchell Johnson's residence and shocked the Aussie bowler by granting an lbw appeal he had made against Ashwell Prince - in the Test match played between Australia and South Africa in Cape Town in March 2009, which was, incidentally, Bucknor's final game.
"It was the strangest thing," said a visibly shaken Johnson. "I heard this knock on the door, and when I opened it, it was Steve Bucknor. He proceeded to slowly raise his finger, nod and murmur 'out' in his unmistakable baritone. I had absolutely no clue what was going on - until he explained the situation."
It turns out that, after more than a year of careful consideration, Bucknor had finally decided that Johnson's appeal indeed had merit, and that Prince was plumb in front. So the umpire decided to do the right thing and, even though it was a bit late in the day, give the batsman out.
Full postThe future of online cricket journalism
All the limp, disinterested prose is putting fans to sleep. Thankfully content optimisation is at hand
Sidin Vadukut
17-Sep-2010
Dear connoisseurs of hard-hitting cricket journalism, as you know these are not pleasant times for the media business. If you would ever just take a break from your bloody KindlePad and read a proper newspaper or magazine, you would no doubt realise that print media companies all over the world have been losing money hand over fist. Especially since people started buying this internet thing. And then stopped paying for anything else.
Now it appears that the only way media outfits can make any money is by starting a news website and hoping that millions of readers will visit, read the news, click on advertising and buy merchandise.
However, this is harder said than done.
Full post