What's Next Dave Richardson? The BCS?

http://www.cricinfo.com/ci-icc/content/current/story/410448.html

Dave Richardson and Adam Gilchrist would like to see I-A and I-AA Test Cricket (suck it, bowl and playoff divisions). The feel that people stopped watching the cornerstone of the game is that the games are no longer competitive enough, because there are too many bad teams playing not enough good teams. Ignoring the fact that the sport is biased towards India and England (and occsionally Austraila, except when they piss it away like at the 20/20 Worlds), I don't see how keeping the "bad" teams away from the "good" teams would improve the sport at all. If England wants to no longer play Zimbabwae that's fine, but how do you know you're not killing the sport in Zimbabwae because you're taking away showing those people what they could become?

I mean let's just look at what the two divisions would probably look like (these are based entirely on my assumptions, and Test Results as of May 18, 2009)

I-A:
1) Austrailia
2) South Africa
3) England
4) India
5) Whoever is currently hotter of Pakistan and Sri Lanka

I-AA
1) Whoever is cooler of Sri Lanka and Pakistan
2) The West Indies
3) New Zealand
4) Bangladesh
5) Zimbabwae

There are only 10 teams to choose from in the entire world, and instead of trying to level the playing field and expanding the oppertunities to more teams in the world, they would rather narrow it down and keep the teams they don't like out of their "good game". It's a disgrace and a joke and I hope it never comes to fruition.

A Small Rant and a Big Surprise.

There isn't much to talk about in terms of cricket for the past weekend, England Obliterated the West Indies to finish a 2-0 test series sweep, and play goes on in the Indian Premier League, so I have a small rant for you instead:

With about 2:30 minutes to go in last nights game seven between Boston and Orlando, it was really nice to see all those "die hard" fans check out on a team that had been pouring out heart and soul all season, and making do with a lot of missing pieces. I'm not making excuses for them by any stretch, and I won't say I personally expected them to win the title, but this team was 2 games removed from a 14-2 that put them up 3-2, and 3 games removed from a thrilling buzzer beater that tied the series at 2. Why are you walking out? Why are you quiting on them? That was a disgusting display on your part, and I hope to hell you burned your contract for season tickets cause you don't deserve them, get the fuck off my bandwagon.

Anyways, now that I got that off my chest, it's time for the surprise, which is to keep your eyes peeled around here between June 23rd and July 1st for something exciting and new!

I'm Still Alive, and the happy Afghan story no one is telling.

*blows the dust off*

Sorry about that, school and work have gotten the better of me lately, I often come home, eat dinner and go to sleep, so a month has flown by since I wrote anything (and I left an embittered taste in all of your mouths anyways) I'm back, and just in time, because The Qualifying tournament for the 2011 ICC World Cup just finished (yeah, that's how it is in the cricket world, we get shit done two years in advance) It's a good thing too, since 2015 qualifying starts up this month!

Here's the basic lowdown:

*Ireland won the tournament (I would like to do a serach for a "Bowl Me: I'm Irish" pin, but I don't think I'd get what I want)

*Canada came in second, and qualified for the World Cup (which is an ODI tournament held every four years) along with Ireland, Kenya, and the Netherlands.

*Along with the four Qualifiers Soctland and Afghanistan were granted ODI status for four years (which means they can play ODI's against test nations, which is two steps below full test status)

That brings me to the other half of the title. For a nation that has been suffering through so much strife and turmoil, the media has been jumping at the chance to say "Look at this, they're getting on the right track." They tried their hardest to do so in Beijing, only to have a very unlucky Afghan contingent in the games. Here we are six months later, and everyone has decided to completely ignore that the cricket team has turned it around so much, they've been told they're one of the 25 best teams on the planet, and get to play with the big boys, and get extra funding from the ICC, and NO ONE SAYS A DAMN THING. It's a crying shame, I congratulate you Afghanistan, that was an impressive accomplishment, I know you can do great things, and now you have four years to prove it!

Well so much for that liveblog..

Turn out the lights and go to bed people, there is nothing left to see of the English Test Cricket Team. They must really like snow ball fights, because they layed an egg against the West Indies today, to the tune of 51 all out. Their highest scoring batsmen had 24 runs...let that soak in... two centuries, a 96....and the best they could come up with when it mattered most was...a twenty-four. 2009 clearly looks like it's going to be the year of The West Indies, as they are not slowing down from the manhandling they gave New Zealand last November-December. There is an ODI next weekend, it might be much of one, but I might try to get something up for that. Other than that...enjoy the rest of your weekend...the English sure won't.

Catching you up on England-West Indies

It's the middle of day three as I write this (they're taking their tea break in about an hour) In England's first Innings, which took all of day 1 and most of day two, they went 318 all out, which is a half-way decent score, given the Jamican heat (and leaving Snowy England) and since the late afternoon of yesterday, it's been the first Innings of the West Indies who currently stand at 235/4 which is looking like a very good pace, Chanderpaul and the youngester Nash (only in his 4th test) are at the stumps and Flintoff and Panesar are doing the bowling are doing the bowling (with Flintoff and his two wickets doing most of the work) We'll be sure to keep you up to date as things progress.

There will be Cricket at a decent hour! (as long as you don't live on the west coast)

Well, since I picked up a nice reference (Thanks Schultzie!) I thought it might be a good idea to you know...write something, and just in the nick of time! We have cricket that doesn't start at 11 at night and go to 4 in the morning! Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the first Test (For this season) between The West Indies and England, at Kingston Jamica, will be starting this Wednesday the 4th of February, and go on as neccessary, ending no later than the 8th of February, each day will start at 15:00 GMT (which goes from 10-7 in the morning in the mainland US from east to west, 5 in the morning in Alaska, and 4 in the morning in Hawaii, but I don't think I have any Hawaiian readers) with these decent starting and ending times, I will do my best to get as much up to date information to you as possible, heck if it goes all the way to the 8th, maybe I'll do a live blog. For those who don't know England is one of the top teams in the world, and the West Indies have been up and coming lately, and battling for ground with New Zealand on the ICC rankings, so this should be a great match. And hey, maybe Brian Lara will be there.

The End of the Year, at the Beginning of the Year.

I promised you a year in review between Christmas and New Years, but got busy/sick, so there is no review until now. Clearly the country of the Year has to be Austrailia. They finished 2008 at the top of the ICC rankings for both Tests, and ODIs. There were a lot of exciting tournaments this year, including the Stanford 20/20 (which got me into Cricket in the first place) the Asian Cup for 20/20, Qualifying for the ICC 20/20 Tournament in 2010 (which saw both America and Canada move on) There have also been plenty of quality matches, including the New Zealand-West Indies Test series, the England-India test series to get over the Mumbai attacks. All in all, 2008 was a semi-exciting year for Cricket (the falling apart of Zimbabwae excluded) and we should look foward to many bright things in the future.

Okay okay, so it took a couple of days (and a campy coming of age movie, and an ongoing snowstorm) but I'm back on my feet, so we're ready to dive back into this.

Last Weekend New Zealand and the West Indies got washed out enough that they ended in a tie. This week is whole different story, as apparently Chanderpaul has lit his bat on fire and is simply dominiating the competition and going for 400 RUNS He's sitting off the stumps on 100, as WI is currently 258/6 after 91 overs. To top it off, they are still in their first innings, so it looks like the rout is on, and New Zealand learned nothing from the beat down they took at the hands of Austrailia three weeks ago..

In India, India is on their 1st innings as well, after 72 overs and the end of day one they're going at 179/1, but it is an incredibly slow 179, as the batsmen have combined to see 400 bowls between them, which I'm sure is making for miserable spectating.

Austrailia is picking up right where it left off three weeks ago with New Zealand, only this weekend's whipping boy is South Africa. Austrailia currently has a 322 run lead, and has 3 wickets in hand still in the Second innings, so it's probably all over but the crying for that one.

All of these matches will carry on into the weekend, and after that, it will pretty much wrap things up for the year (next weekend will see the second Test for Austrailia-South Africa, and the start of a Bangladesh-Sri Lanka series, and if you've gotten bored with your toys, you can spend a few hours on the 26th with New Zealand and the West Indies again as they play a 20/20 to wrap up there year) Hopefully we'll have a year in review (that we weren't in exsistance for most of) up sometime between Christmas and the New Year.

Big Happenings (Way Far Away)

Well, well, we're only two days away from the start of two really big Test matches, but they're both going to be big for far different reasons. We're gonna take a look at this from east to west (since east games are going to start earlier in terms of our time) so off we go to...

...NEW ZEALAND where we find an NZ team that was absolutely brutalized by Austrailia last month and dropped all the way to 8th in the ICC rankings. The beneficiaries of that fall? Their oppoents, my friends and yours THE WEST INDIES who moved up to 7th and can maintain that spot with either a win or a draw lose, and they give a spot back to NZ, the previously mentioned Chanderpaul (seen here hitting a century against england)



will be looking to be the star this coming weekend for the West Indies, while Brendon McCullum will hope to continue to do his best and hope that he can get his side to rally around him much better than they did in that miserable Austrailia performance. From New Zealand we travel northwest to...


...India, where after the attacks in Mumbai, there were many open fears about wether this series would even be played, and whether or not the sides could be guarenteed their safety. After a team meeting the English side decided to go ahead with the tour, and look poised to make an impressive performance as one of the best teams in the world. On the other side, India will be carrying the weight of the emotional underdog, after so much strife and stress, how will the players cope? Will they channel that energy into the performaces of a lifetime? We'll find out soon enough. For those who wish to follow live scoring, WI-NZ starts at 4:30 AM EST on Wednesday, and England-India starts at 9. Good luck to all and enjoy the games.

About (MUCH) Earlier Today

So if like me, you were up way too late last night, you had a chance to catch the second match of the Test Series between Austrailia and New Zealand. Well it sure wasn't much to look at, as Austrailia, led by some insane bowling by Lee ( 9 wickets over 2 innings almost a personal Test best) made short work of them, and McCullum couldn't single-handedly carry New Zealand to force Austraila to bat again (not that it would have mattered, since Austrailia had batted 535 in the first innings) Austrailia won 2 games to 0 and thanks to the attacks in Mumbai, the cricket world will slowly start to come to a halt (the Champions League has been postponed due to the attacks, and no one is quite sure what will happen to other games worldwide, espcially those involving Indian players.

Edit: You know since the second half wasn't really my original idea or thoughts, I figured I should give credit to the story it came from (since I don't write for the New York Times)

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/380239.html

Bats Balls and Wickets

So it's been a few days, sadly, unless you really really love Austrailia and the Indian Subcontinent, you haven't missed much, as they're the only ones who are getting any action in to speak of (as I write this we have Austraila-New Zealand and South Africa-Bangladesh test matches taking place live) so I thought it would be nice to delve into some of the more bells and whistles aspects of the game, mainly, what they play with.

The way I've always described cricket bats is they're a cross between a faternity paddle and a field hockey stick. The batted side is flat, and the opposite side is curved to help get lift under the ball. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Cricketbatparts.jpg)

Balls are filled with cork in the middle and wrapped with a hard leather shell (I'm not sure how to convert that into a more recognizable form, so we'll just go with wikipedia) the hardest throwers can throw it 85 to 90 mph ON A HOP. In case I failed to mention the ball has to bounce once before it reaches the batsman, otherwise it's a no ball (the throw doesn't count and the batting team is awarded a run) (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Cricketball.png)

Wickets are esstially the bases for cricket. They look like the wickets you would use to play croquet, only there are three of them lined up together and on top of them rest two bails, which allow you to know when the wickets (or stumps) are balanced. If someone is to cross out of their zone, you can get them out by jarring the wickets and knocking the bails off (the offical name for an out is "the fall of a wicket")

In order to get an advantage on running out a hit, the batsmen will step foward when they swing at the ball, so if they miss and it knocks the wicket over they will be out, because they were definately outside of the box.

The West Indies

Well if you're an American, then I've got news for you. Your circket side sucks. But don't despair yet, because I have some good news for you. If you want to see good cricket, not only do you not have to go that far for it, but you get to take a tropical vacation to do it! Welcome to the only Test Playing Nation that isn't really a Nation at all, The West Indies!

The West Indies have players from every single island you can think of down there, even Cuba. They play hard cricket, they play good cricket (can't be a Test Nation without good cricket) and they have some of the greatest fans anywhere in the world. West Indian Cricket is what got me into the sport in the first place, and I have to say, that if you want to have a good time watching a game, the West Indies are the place to start.

Test Cricket and ODI's

Since this site doubles as an explanation to the sport to people who have never even seen it before, it seems as though a proper explanation of the two types of cricket I have failed to mention so far goes in here.

ODI is short for One Day Interational, and is the most common version played on an international level. Unlike 20/20 which is one innings (yes the singular is plural, I've never tried to understand it either) with 20 overs (estinally overs are the baseball equivilent to an inning) ODI's have 2 innings usually 40 or 50 overs depending on the agreement between the two sides. From there, there's a coin filp (as there is in all forms of cricket) and winner decides to bat or bowl first. From there, it's standard cricket (which is complicated enough that it will probably get it's own post at some point).

Test Cricket, is simply put, what's killed any chance at all of cricket being a major sport in the west (with a notable exception I will cover next time). Test Cricket is the top level of Cricket in the world, unforuntately, one Test Cricket match can take up to 5 days to play. They only play during the day (20/20 is the only cricket that's played at night) and they stop in the middle of whatever they are doing once the sun goes down. It's required both teams wear entirely white during a test match, and since it istop level cricket, you actually need to show that you're able to play it, by winning your way up to the right, and being approved as a full member of the International Cricket Council of which there are currently only 10 members: England, Austrailia, New Zealand, The West Indies, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and Zimbabwae. (for those who are curious the United States and Canada are associate members, and can only play ODI's if they reach World Cricket League Division 1, but for which Canada has an exception to play until next year).

The major problem with test cricket is it's never ever going to translate for tv, they play for 8 hours at a time, with one 30 minute tea break during the match, and an hour lunch break. How would you take any commerical breaks for a show that almost never stops?