Cricket v Baseball

Check out this great article from Mike Marqusee, a US-born cricket tragic who’s now a Brit and loves both the games dearly.

Sticks and balls

Clash of the Titan-Wannabes

Die Proteas*
The South Africans’ loss-less streak of 19 games is known to most cricket followers by now. The prospect of seeing two fast-rising teams go head-to-head is mouth-watering. Given that the Proteas are missing some first-choice players and are playing in foreign conditions, my money would be on India to win this series.
*Commentary will be available in Afrikaans somewhere, I presume. Confused? Look up “die” in Afrikaans.

Guilty until proven innocent
The innocent have nothing to fear. We’ve all head this before. If Gibbs and Boje are truly innocent, why then are they afraid to tour India? Their guilt is clear to my eye. Peter Roebuck (another one of my favorite cricket writers) dissects the issue in this fine article. UCB, by siding with these frauds, is debasing itself.

Promising, not proven
The rising, young Indian stars are promising, but not yet proven. There’s a lot of inexperience at the international level among Raina, Gambhir, Dhoni, RP Singh, Sreesanth, Kartik and Yadav. Playing in home conditions, however, will be helpful. They’re used to these conditions. The real test will come when they head overseas.

Dew diligence
Nothing like dew to dampen the prospects (except rain). It is a widely-held opinion that the evening dew aids batting and hampers fielding. That’s a shame given that 4 of the 5 games are day-night affairs. Can anybody shed some light on this issue? Is dew a problem at all grounds in India? Is it just during this season or throughout the year? I am just wondering what could be done to mitigate its effect (other than not holding D/N games).

After-thoughts
Looking at the tour itinerary (Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai), it seems the Poms had a point when they were complaining of being assigned remote venues.

A couple of years back, pitches at a lot of the Indian grounds were relaid, with the assistance of some New Zealanders, in the hope of making them faster. From what we’ve seen in the previous series against Sri Lanka, that hasn’t materialized (assuming a few of the venues used in that series were the ones that received the newer pitches). Most of them were slow with low or uneven bounce. Does anybody have an (official) status update on this? Are we still waiting for the pitches to get faster?

The Gentle Giant

Inzy remains one of the elite batsmen in contemporary cricket, and one of my favorites.  His stoic demeanor, intimidating presence, unphased temperament and languid grace make him a fascinating sight on a cricket pitch.  Mike Selvey pays his homage to this last of the breed non-conformist in this humorous piece.

The king of taking it easy

Cricket comes first

Scyld Berry and Christopher Martin-Jenkins have expressed their discontent at the proposed English tour schedule announced by the all too fallible BCCI.  While their concerns are valid, my biggest disappointment is that once again there will only be three tests (not to mention another 7-ODI series).  In his brilliant piece, The unique drama of Test Cricket (a must-read), Mike Marqusee posits why three-test series are not ideal.  In this case, however, the blame lies not with the Indian board, but its English counterpart: the last paragraph in Martin-Jenkins’ piece reveals that the ECB had turned down BCCI’s request for five tests this time around.  Sure, that was before the English resurrection, but surely somebody must see the reason of having one or two additional tests between these two top sides now.  The next time these two outfits go head-to-head in the subcontinent, their constituency could have altered vastly.  This time around, two ODIs could easily make way for an extra test without adding any more days to the tour.  With two more tests, the Englishmen’s request to see some well-frequented tourism spots in the list of test venues could also be accommodated.  Hopefully, somebody will insist on putting all issues aside in order to give the fans what they crave the most: some riveting Test cricket.

Cricket made for women?

This wonderful piece (published in The Observer back in August) by Joanne O’Connor, about the Ashes 2005, should be read by those unfamiliar with or new to the sport (in particular the female of the species).

A summer of love started at Lord’s