This Week In Cricket(21/9/2008 - 26/9/2008)

Irani Trophy

This is our traditional season opener that puts previous season Ranji champions against rest of India (ROI). Main reason for starting this tournament was to challenge Mumbai (then Bombay) Ranji team during their domination of Indian first class scene. This time it is more colourful due to the availability of all the Indian test team players except for Tendulkar. The match so far has been keenly contested with ROI having upper hand at this point of time. It has been fascinating to see Indian batting face up to Ishant and Sehwag against Zaheer, Kumble ,and Harbhajan Singh. Dhoni has been the stand out batsman so far with Munaf and Ishant sharing the spotlight on bowling front. There was also a verbal spat between Munaf and Sehwag that has taken interesting turn with Delhi team lodging complaint against Munaf.

Akash Chopra's cricinfo blog

This week I came across this blog (http://blogs.cricinfo.com/beyondtheblues/). It is a interesting read with insights from a player's view.

This Week In Cricket (13/9/2008 - 19/9/2008)

Ganguly's exclusion from ROI team

This is a bold move from selectors. Last time they did this rest of the batsmen performed so badly that they were forced to recall Ganguly. We definitely need to start finding replacements for 'fab four' and hopefully more deserving candidates will get a chance instead of Yuvraj, who has been found lacking time and again in test cricket. Kaif looks to be in good form and can be a good replacement at no.6 if he tries to be solid instead being flashy..

exodus in Bangladesh

Bangladesh along with New zealnd and Pakistan is more vulnerable to ICL due to lack of financially lucrative domestic competitions. Bangladesh cricket will fell the pressure due to their small talent pool. Sooner or later some board has to allow players to play in ICL and represent their countries as well; other option is for IPL to have more players from these countries in their league; this potentially can harm free market promise of this league.

This week in Cricket (9/7/2008-19/12/2008)

ICC annual awards 2007

Chanderpaul getting recognized as the premier cricketer of the year was the highlight of these awards for me; he has been veryconsistent over last few years amidst heavily inconsistent Westindies batting line up. Dhoni's stocks in world cricket are soaring by every passing day, one day cricketer of the year award is another step in the right direction. It is hearting to see a bowler (Dale Steyn) get test crickter of the year award;Dale Steyn at full flight is a sight to behold; his performances with the ball over last year have been phenomenal.

Australian team for Indian tour

Leaving out Symonds from the team was a statement from Cricket Australia to rest of the team and aspiring Australian players that discipline is top most priority irrespective of the stakes involved. Another point to note is the eagerness of Aussies to start the tour early with an extra practice match. This kind of attitude to game and team is what makes Australians the great team that they are irrespective of the individuals.

I have Blackberry 8320 Curve now

Yesterday I received 8320 curve model for official usage. It feels very intuitive to use from the outset. I have not explored the phone features of it as yet; I have started to like the keyboard and trackball capabilities.

This Week In Cricket (1/9/2008 - 7/9/2008)

England SA one day series

Last match of the series was abandoned. This allowed SA to stay in 2nd position in ICC rankings. This brings curtains to busy international summer in England. For England, return of Flintoff and Harmison looks promising along with confident start by KP on captaincy front.

For SA, as hinted by their coach, Micky Arthur, it is time for some seniors to give away for youngsters in shorter form of the game. The most likely ones to get the axe seem to be Ntni, Gibss, and Kallis to a certain extent. SA should give chances to Prince as he seems to read situations well and is an excellent runner between wickets.

Australia - Bangladesh one day series

Aussies have completed 3-0 whitewash. I doubt whether these kind of tours help Bangladesh to improve their cricket as they hardly showed any kind of resistance. One clever thing on CA's part is to host smaller teams during off season; this allows them to avoid small teams during their summer calendar and hence helps preserving public interest and money.

EventHandler generic delegate for events

While reading one of dotnetslackers article, I came to know that now we have a framework defined generic delegate for events. This will reduce the need for having delegates for common events that you have to in your code.

This Week In Cricket (8/25/2008- 8/31/2008)

India – Srilanka one day series

India won the one day series against all expectations mainly due to the presence of Dhoni in the middle order and some excellent bowling performances from Zaheer & co. The manner in which India lost the last match drives home the point that ‘toss’ should have been the man of the series. Day/night matches provide lot of advantage to teams winning the toss ; considering the fact all major tournament finals are day/night fixtures, we need a better system to provide equal chances to both the teams even after the toss.

My idea: Allow teams to choose alternately what they want to do in a series and if the last match is an odd number then allow the lowest ranked team to take advantage of the toss. This will make matches/series interesting and evenly contested. Even we can go one step further and have the visiting team start with an advantage in the first match.

England – SA one day series

What a surprise, this is the reason we follow cricket. England’s dominance in the series has been exceptional. KP's dream run with captaincy continues and England are leading the series 4-0 with a chance to climb to second place in ICC one day rankings if they win the last match. KP’s personal batting form has been excellent and makes me seriously wonder what he would achieved by now if he had started playing international cricket when he was 21/22 instead of 26.

On lighter note, main motivation for England players to do well in this one day series may to secure places for the Stanford 20-20 match and stands a chance to earn big money!