The puzzling stability of cricket bails

In cricket, there are three upright sticks (called stumps) about knee height behind the batter. If the ball delivered by the bowler hits any of the three stumps, the batter is out. This is the case if the batter completely misses the ball or hits it and the ball still goes on to hit the stumps. In order to provide an unambiguous signal that the ball has hit the stumps, on top of the stumps are two small cylindrical objects known as ‘bails’ that straddle the two gaps between the three stumps. These bails rest on grooves carved into the top of the stumps and for the batter to be out, at least one of the bails has to be dislodged and fall to the ground. The grooves are supposed to be deep enough that the wind won’t dislodge them but shallow enough that even very slight contact by the ball with any of the three stumps will cause them to fall. On very windy days, umpires have the option of using heavier bails.
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Brilliant catch in World Cup

The West Indies came close to causing an upset by beating Australia today. Australia batted first and West Indies had them on the ropes before allowing them to recover. Set a target of 289 to win, West Indies fell just short, disappointing many in the cricket world who tend to cheer against Australia partly for being part of the cartel with India and England and partly because Australia practices a vicious form of gamesmanship that extends to even cheating, taking the view that it’s ok as long as you are not caught.
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Afghanistan has disappointing loss to Sri Lanka in cricket World Cup

Sri Lanka beat Afghanistan today in a rain-affected, low-scoring thriller, the third exciting game in a row after a dull start to the tournament. The quality of the cricket on both sides was decidedly less than stellar but Afghanistan was playing better for most of the game until their batting collapsed towards the end. Although Sri Lanka is technically the team I should support, given that I was born in the country and such tribal allegiances tend to determine whom one cheers for, I actually wished that Afghanistan had won. Beating a top ten Test match team for the first time in a World Cup match would have been an enormous boost to that war-torn country’s morale.

Sri Lanka meanwhile has been going through a woeful period, especially in the shorter forms of the game, and a loss to the lowest-ranked Afghanistan team would have been depressing for them but perhaps the shock that the Sri Lankan cricket authorities needed to realize that they had to shake things up in their administration, selection, and coaching. The only bright spot is that their current team captain Dimuth Karunaratne, appointed after a series of rapid-fire changes in the captaincy, is leading by example, batting and fielding well. It now requires his teammates, especially the batters, to step up.

So now we go on to tomorrow’s matches where India plays South Africa and Bangladesh plays New Zealand. Both games should be close. India has to be favored over the talented but underperforming South African team that has already lost twice and is furthered hampered by their ace fast bowler Dale Steyn being ruled out of the rest of the tournament because of a shoulder injury. New Zealand is favored to beat Bangladesh but the latter team has been surging, as seen in their upset win over South Africa.

Cricket World Cup update

I am sure many of you have been dying to know what has been going on with the World Cup currently being played in the UK, so here’s an update.

There are ten teams in the tournament and the first round consists of a round-robin format with each team playing every other team, with the top four going to the semi-finals. Early betting favors India, England, and Australia (whose cricket organizations comprise the corrupt cartel) making the semi-finals, with England having a slight edge to win the trophy because of home-field advantage. South Africa and New Zealand are vying for the fourth spot.

The first four games were one-sided snooze-fests with England, West Indies, New Zealand, and Australia strolling to easy wins over South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan respectively, with Pakistan and Sri Lanka turning in particularly woeful performances.

But then things came alive with Bangladesh and Pakistan turning in thrilling victories against the more favored South Africa and England. Pakistan is living up to its reputation as the most mercurial of teams, going from pathetic in their first game loss against low-ranked West Indies to looking like world beaters in their second game against top-ranked England. You never know which team is going to turn up for a game, even if the players remain unchanged.

Tomorrow, Afghanistan plays Sri Lanka and has the opportunity to avenge its loss in the 2015 World Cup. India, the 2011 champions, plays its first match on Wednesday against South Africa. The latter team seems to never live up to its potential in these big tournaments and seems to be repeating that history this time too, already losing its first two matches. This makes New Zealand favored to gain the fourth semi-final spot.

Corruption and greed in cricket

The latest episode of Hasan Minhaj’s excellent show Patriot Act examined the deplorable state of international governance in cricket. He points out that the official bodies of the big three cricket nations (India, England, and Australia) act like a cartel and ram through measures that benefit themselves at the expense of other nations and the game itself. They have also resisted efforts to enable more nations to play at the highest level, because they seem to feel that widening the game’s appeal would dilute their power. They even derailed moves to have it included as an Olympic sport.

Here is the show.


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The world of cricket is topsy-turvy

It’s been awhile since I had a post about cricket. There have been some unusual happenings recently and the good news is that it does not involve cheating or other bad behavior by players but instead is about the game itself. It used to be that national Test cricket teams had periods of dominance of a few years when a good crop of players matured together and then went into a slump as those players retired and new ones entered who had yet to find their feet. But now teams lurch from looking dominant in one series to looking awful in the very next one and then bouncing back again, all within a period of months.
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Film review: Fire in Babylon (2010)

I just watched this absolutely riveting documentary. Ostensibly it is about how West Indian cricket became a dominant force in the years from 1980 until 1995 but it is about a lot more than that, weaving in the politics of race and colonialism. Even if you do not know anything about cricket, the politics of the film is utterly absorbing, a story of a victimized people fighting back at their former oppressors, with cricket serving as the vehicle for exacting that revenge.
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The new lions of Afghanistan

Afghanistan was the sensation in the cricket Asia Cup that is currently underway. Despite being considered a hopeless underdog, they crushed Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the first round to advance to the second round of four, along with Bangladesh, Pakistan, and heavy favorites India. There they proved they were no mere flash-in-the-pan, all three of their matches ending in nail-biting finishes. Afghanistan provided pretty much all the excitement in the tournament.
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A minnow bites the whales

I know all you cricket fans must be disappointed by the lack of posts recently on this topic. Well, the big news is about Afghanistan, that country that is wracked by violence aggravated, if not caused, by decades of interference in its internal affairs by outsiders. Currently the Asia Cup is underway to which six countries were invited. The format consisted of creating two groups of three countries for the first round. Within which group, each team would play the other two with the top two teams going to the next round.
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Former cricketer Imran Khan set to become Pakistan’s next prime minister

Early indications from the elections held in Pakistan yesterday indicate that Imran Khan’s party Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI, translated as Movement for Justice) will win a majority and he will be the next prime minister. He has claimed victory but it looks like the outgoing ruling party that has been in power for so long is not going quietly, promising to fight the result, and there could be a continuation of the violence that has plagued this election.
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