Peter Siddle was celebrating his birthday and decided to kick of the party but taking a hat-trick to crash England to 197 for 7.
Peter Siddle ended up with 6 for 54.
Video of Hat-trick
Do drop in your views and comments.
Image Credit: Telegraph
Author Archives: Aditya Kane
What makes Laxman very very special?
Laxman was completely out of depth in that match and had a few nervous moments.
It is ironic that VVS Laxman has chosen to make Australia his favourite opponents and pressure something that he thrives under.
Just that today’s (5th Oct 2010) match into account. He managed to come out with an injured back, hang around and put together an impossible win taking India to victory by just 1 wicket.
So what makes VVS Laxman very very special?
VVS Laxman has scored 7490 runs at an average of 47.40 in Test cricket. This is a healthy no for any test cricketer but what makes him special are his match winning innings. We must have lost count of the times Laxman scores run when India truly need those runs.
In the table below are the runs scored and averages of Ponting, Tendulkar and Laxman in the 3rd or 4th innings of a test match. These numbers are usually much less flattering than career stats as all these innings are played under pressure and on a 4th or 5th day pitch.
| Runs | Average | |
| VVS Laxman | 2877 | 50.47 |
| Tendulkar | 3939 | 43.28 |
| Ponting | 3487 | 43.85 |
The table above shows that Laxman average while chasing or setting victorious scores is higher than his career average. No wonder VVS Laxman is India’s go to man.
10 reasons T20 Champions League is a flop show!
During IPL, children stay indoors even during summer vacations and adults suddenly have a sick stomachs and skip going to work so they can catch a game in their city. Nothing like that is happening with T20 Champions League cricket. I thought I will write down 10 reasons why this tournament is a flop show!
- No Lalit Modi: Love him or hate him. He did create a buzz and is a marketting genius.
- South Africa as Venue: Okay why would someone host the tournament in a place which has just hosted the FIFA World Cup. I means seriously is anyone in South Africa interested in Wayamba Elevens play Bangalore Royal Challengers after they have hosted the greatest show on earth?
- South African players are in IPL teams: Imagine if Sachin Tendulkar showed up for Lancashire and played against Mumbai in Wankhede!!! I think South African fans feel the same when Kallis and Steyn show up wearing red for Bangalore Royal Challengers.
- Unknown teams: Wayamba Elevens, Central Districts, Lions. Never heard of these teams and probably will not once this tournament is over.
- Countries Missing: Domestic teams from England and Pakistan are missing. Traditionally they would have added some spice.
- No match fixing scandal: Lets be honest! Now a days for a tournament to be successful it needs a few match fixing allegations to fly around.
- No Star Power: No Preity Zinta or Shahrukh Khan tweeting sadly about their teams loss. No bollywood stars pretending to be cricketing gurus. That obviously gets some people interested in watching the matches.
- No Sreesanth: Lets be honest we all look at Sreesanth wondering if he would rub some cricketer the wrong way again and get slapped on the face on national television.
- Sounds too similar to its Football version: T2o is growing in popularity but seriously I think I will choose UEFA Champions League matches any day over Airtel Champions League. Messi’s 3 goals are much better than Pollards 9 sixes.
- Too much cricket: If Indian public watches any more cricket chances are the economy will collapse. So people are getting their priorities right and giving this tournament a miss and working for a change.
So these are the reasons Champions League cricket is a flop show. I am waiting for India vs Australia Test matches next month. Now that is truly a competition between champions.
Afridi quitting Test cricket again!
If Afridi has been inconsistent as a performer, it seems that his thinking or decision making is also inconsistent. He has been threatening to quit Test cricket for ages. He quit it finally and strange ended up being the T20 captain and also ODI captain. Then he came out of retirement form Test cricket and captained the Pakistan side in England against Australia.
Afridi is quite representative of the state that Pakistan cricket is in right now as it also has been changing its mind quite often. So the latest news in the cricket world is Afridi has quit Test cricket once again. I won’t be surprised if he comes back out of retirement in a year and then retires again.
What do you think? Is this the final time for Shahid Afridi? Do let me know through your comments.
Image Link: Flickr
What will a World cup win mean to each of the semi finalists?
Cricket is a game that always has romance behind it. Small teams beat big teams, reputations are lost and made and teams find themselves in the dumps and manage to rise up from the ashes to become champions. That what a cricket tournament is all about and this ICC T20 World Cup is the same. Here is a bit on the four semi finalists and their prospects and what might drive them to become champions.
Australia has won 4 world cup tournaments in the ODI format along with winning the Champions Trophy twice. They were ranked the no 1 in Test cricket for pretty much the last 15 years until recently when India and South Africa have started to outshine them. There is on silverware Australia has not won and that is the T20 World Cup trophy. So Australia would be desperate to win this time around when their side is probably the most complete and consistent running upto the semi finals.
England has been a surprise in this tournament. They always had talented players but always ended up losing tournaments. When it came to major ICC tournaments unlike Australia which has won almost everything England has a empty trophy cabinet. So this would be a fantastic chance for them to start winning something on the world stage.
Pakistan has had its cricket battered and injured. Sometimes by terrorists who fired bullets at visiting teams and at other times with their captain trying to bite the cricket ball. They are a group of rag tag team which play like champions one day and the next day play worse than a school team. Sometimes they play like both on the same day so they are unpredictable at best but they are defending champions and would love to show the world that they rule T20 cricket again.
Sri Lanka is a fine unit. If you think about their performances they featured in T20 World Cup final last year. They also were runners up in the ODI world cup in 2007. It is obviously talented and have probably the best T20 bowler in Malinga. They would love to win this World Cup and usher in a new era in Sri Lankan cricket like Ranatunga did way back in the late 90s when they won the World Cup.
So that finishes my views on what this T20 World Cup victory could mean to the four finalists. I have a feeling the Australia will end up winners in this edition. So who do you think will win the T20 World Cup?
13th May 2010 21.00 IST England vs Srilanka, Gros Islet – First Semi Final
14th May 2010 21.00 IST Australia vs Pakistan, Gros Islet – Second Semi Final
16th May 2010 21.00 IST Final – Georgetown
Dhoni goes from being Captain Cool to Captain Clueless
India has had a rich history of Batsmen who had wrists of steel and footwork fancier than a gazelle. But they have always had a problem facing short balling and always had a issue with unearthing good fast bowlers. India has always suffered when fast bowlers gave the batting order some chin music but off late India has had the Dravids and Tendulkars to deal with the short stuff and manage.
But the T20 World Cup does not feature these old guys and we have new young breed of batsman who instead of playing a straight forward drive end up playing the scoop. The performance of our batsman must have left MS Dhoni popularly nicknamed as Captain Cool as Captain Clueless.
The curious case of being clueless
MS Dhoni won the toss on two occasions and decided that the pitch had a bit in it for the fast bowlers and so decided to bowl first to get early breakthrough. So far so good, but then India had two pacemen, one spinner and 5 part times spinners.
So India ended up opening the bowling with Harbhajan Singh a spinner and used up his three overs with the new ball on a seaming wicket. So what followed against Australia and West Indies was pretty similar that part time spinners went for sixes and fours all the time and the only respite was when the batsmen thought of taking it easy.
Strangely Indias big win against South Africa came while batting first and that was when Indian batsmen played out the new ball and hammered the older one.
India is pretty much out of the T20 World Cup and will have to beat Sri Lanka and hope that Australia beat West Indies. Too many ifs and buts and frankly not so good for us fans who like a straight forward victory march.
Dhoni is not to be entirely blamed for the bad show as some of the fancied names like Murali Vijay, Y Pathan and R Jadega have hardly made their presence felt.
When Ravindra Jadega bats at number 9 and bowls only 2 overs as a part timer then we are playing with 10 and a half players instead of 11. But then I did warn you that it is Captain Clueless who is picking the team. 😛
Sachin on Twitter: List of cricketers on Twitter
Sachin Tendulkar has finally arrived on Twitter quietly and surreptitiously. Most people might have thought initially that it was a fake but now with Twitter verifying the account along with over hundred thousand followers in 24 hours. Its official that Tendulkar is now on Twitter and now his die hard crazy fans will get to follow their idol’s life.
But Tendulkar is not the only cricketer on Twitter. There are quite a few. Some of them are fakes and some profiles are not being updated regularly so I will leave them out. But here is a list of all cricketers that you can find on Twitter.
Just click on any of the names and you will be taken to their Twitter profile page.
- Sachin Tendulkar
- Zaheer Khan
- Graeme Smith
- Yuvraj Singh
- Shane Warne
- Mark Boucher
- Wayne Parnell
- Micheal Clarke
- Albie Morkel
- Darren Gough
- James Anderson
- Chris Gayle
- Suresh Raina
- Rohit Sharma
- Sourav Ganguly
I am sure there are many others but I could not verify as I mentioned some accounts were too inactive to be really sure. Do follow these on field greats and also please do let me know if there are any other cricketers with Twitter profiles!
Is Duckworth Lewis method unfair in T20 Cricket ?
The ICC T20 World Cup in the West Indies has unraveled two new players. No they do not play for any team and don’t bat or bowl or field for that matter. They are not even controversial umpires. They are mathematicians who came up with the Duckworth-Lewis method of calculating target scores in case of rain shortened matches.
Image Link: Rediff
Duckworth-Lewis method is a statistical method which involved calculating progressive scores based of past scores in One Day Internationals along with using wickets in hand as a resource to score more runs later on in the innings.
Take for instance the match between England vs West Indies. England scored a fantastic score of 191/5 in 20 overs. In the second innings it rained and West Indies had to scored 60 runs of 6 overs. So instead of scoring almost over 9.5 runs an over for over 20 overs it left West Indies to score 10 runs an over for only 6 overs.
I think West Indies can count themselves lucky. I think the problem here is that in a T20 match giving wickets a lot of importance as a resource could be counter-productive unlike in ODIs.
For instance even if a team has lost 6 wickets in 15 overs and has scored 120 runs they can still put up 160-170 runs with the last 4 wickets. The last 4 wickets can be more effective in 5 overs of a T20 innings than a 12 overs of a 50 over match.
So do you think T20 cricket need a different way to calculate scores and chuck the Duckworth-Lewis method atleast in this format of the game. Do let me know through your comments.
It is back to catches and sixes at the T20 World Cup
I sat down to watch the first match in the T20 World Cup featuring Sri Lanka and New Zealand. I saw some boundaries and sixes being hit. There were a few catches too but the good news is that when someone dived and took a catch it was a ‘catch’ not a ‘Karbonn Kamaal Katch’ and neither were those big hits over the fences called ‘DLF Maximums’ they were simply called ‘Six’. IPL can truly be forgotten now, its time for International cricket all over again.
The T20 World Cup started off with a thrilling match. The venue was Georgetown, Guyana which is the only cricket ground on the South American continent. The match started of quite slowly reflecting the slow nature of the pitch in the middle. The Kiwis bowled a tight line but a brave and courageous innings by Mahela Jayawardene who scored 81 Runs of 51 balls. Sri Lanka ended up with a low but fighting total of 135/6.
Image credits: Cricinfo.com
New Zealand started of aggressively but were grounded and slowed down but continuously losing wickets. New Zealand finally needed 10 runs to win of the last over and Lasith Malinga was due to bowl. Nathan McCullum the brother of Brendon McCullum the super start T20 batsman decided to arrive to the part and scored of the runs with one ball to spare.
This way New Zealand pick up 2 points and will be expected to top the group as their next match is against Zimbabwe. Sri Lanka now play Zimbabwe and they have to win otherwise they are out of the World Cup. I doubt the Lankans will allow that to happen, but only two days ago Zimbabwe did beat Australia in a practice match.
After the New Zealand vs Sri Lanka match, West Indies squared off against Ireland. Ireland has great memories of winning against Pakistan during the World Cup in 2007. It also was played in the West Indies.
But any such hopes of Ireland were quite easily dashed of by a under strength West Indies who had Chris Gayle, Jerome Taylor and Suleiman Ben on the injured list. Dwayne Bravo led the West Indies and the Windies never really soared with the bat and managed only 138/9. But the West Indies bowling was far too good for Ireland and they were bowled out for a meager score of 68.
Darren Sammy from West Indies took 3 wickets an scored 30 runs and also took 4 catches. No prizes for guessing who was man of the match there.
Tomorrow India take of Afghanistan in St Lucia and Bangladesh take on Pakistan at the same venue.
India’s Afghan challenge will bring back memories of Caribbean disaster in 2007 World Cup
Remember the ICC World Cup in 2007 in the West Indies. India was places in a easy group with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bermuda. India lost its opening games against the supposedly amateurish Bangladesh team and was knocked out of the World Cup within a week.
Tonight the T20 World Cup starts again in the West Indies and India start of their campaign against another supposedly amateurish team called Afghanistan. Yes, Afghanistan more known for war, bombs and violence has managed to put together a Cricket team and will take heart inspiration from Bangladesh’s upset win over India and try to emulate them.
Somethings that could worry India …
Afghanistan seems to have some decent fast bowlers who can trouble the batsman early on. Sometimes this works in a T20 format where some weak teams can cause havoc in 3-4 overs but not have the ability to match up for 50 over game.
India also has not made things easy they are not playing a single warm-up match. This could be a bit of a issue as the Indian team players were all playing in the IPL and are match fit, but they have not spent time together as a team in match situation. This they will try to figure out in their first game against Afghanistan.
So do you think India will be up for the Afghan challenge or will India get a little nervous? I am an optimist like any Indian cricket fan, so I think Afghanistan has no chance tomorrow against India. 😛