The cricket world is mourning the death of Hanif Mohammed at the age of 81, one of the finest cricketers that Pakistan produced and who played in the very first Test match after that country received Test status. A player of diminutive stature, he was noted for his excellent defensive technique and responsible for some incredible batting records.
[Read more…]
I wrote yesterday about the Australian betters currently touring Sri Lanka finding the spin bowling almost unplayable. But what surprised me was that one of the spin bowlers Lakshan Sandakan was described in articles as a ‘chinaman bowler’.
It is not that I was unfamiliar with the term’s past use in cricket. But at least in the US, the word ‘chinaman’ is seen as pejorative and its use highly frowned upon, except perhaps maybe by Donald Trump supporters, and so I thought it had been retired and was startled to see it again.
[Read more…]
It has been a while since I wrote about cricket and the fans of the game among this blog’s readership (yes, both of them) may have felt that a post was long overdue. What prompts this one is a shocking result in which Sri Lanka has thoroughly defeated Australia in two consecutive Test matches played in Sri Lanka.
[Read more…]
The West Indies beat England in the final of the World T20 tournament played in India in a manner that gave new meaning to the terms ‘last ditch effort’ and ‘spectacular finish’.
[Read more…]
West Indies and England have won their semi-final games against India and New Zealand respectively and will meet in the final on Sunday.
The West Indies v. India game today was a real nail-biter. India batted first and scored 192/2 in their 20 overs and this would normally have been a winning score but this tournament has seen teams successfully chasing extremely difficult targets and West Indies engineered a masterful chase, despite losing their star batter Chris Gayle in the second over. Lendl Simmons and Andre Russell engaged in some serious hitting late in the innings and they reached 196/3 with just two balls remaining.
[Read more…]
The four semi-finalists have been decided in the World T20 tournament currently underway in India. England will play New Zealand on Wednesday and India takes on West Indies on Thursday, with the final being held on Sunday. I will be cheering for New Zealand and West Indies and if they both win I will be neutral in the final. The 20-over form seems to be the one area where West Indies is still playing well and they have a good shot at the title.
[Read more…]
In the opening match of the World T20 tournament that began today, New Zealand pulled off a great win against hosts India. New Zealand batted first and managed to score just 126/7 in their allotted 20 overs, a poor score in a format where you need to score about 160 runs if you bat first. But India suffered a spectacular batting collapse and were all out for a mere 79, giving the Kiwis a big victory.
[Read more…]
In a comment to an earlier post on cricket, Marcus Ranum asked an interesting question about sports that I thought deserved a thoughtful answer.
I am interested why an otherwise rational person such as yourself, Prof. Singham, feels concern about a professional national team’s performance. What makes you feel connected to their defeat or victory?
It never made any sense to me why anyone cares about professional sports, other than tribalism or nationalism. How do you make an emotional connection between the little guys in the pictures, who are being paid to play a game, and “my team”?
I do enjoy occasionally watching professional sports because they are so super darned good. And all the weird musculature from the performance-enhancing drugs is kind of fun to look at. It’s the emotional connection that makes no sense to me at all.
I am not a big fan of the T20 format of cricket where each side gets to bat for only 20 overs. Sure, it is very popular because it lasts only about three hours and thus is more commercially viable but it encourages batters to be hyper-aggressive and hit at pretty much everything, rather than play the judicious strokes that are the essence of the game.
[Read more…]
In an earlier post, I wrote about the fact that although there is an essential similarity between a ‘foul tip’ in baseball and a ‘caught behind the wicket’ in cricket, they have very different consequences, with the batter being immediately given out in cricket.
[Read more…]