Opinion: On the Ind v WI ‘expansion’ series

Cricinfo recently wrote an article title Leave Americans to Baseball, in which they discussed how the expansion of cricket is a non starter. I have in one of my previous blog entries explained how some of these expat based countries end up getting the limelight, and take the focus away from countries where cricket ACTUALLY [...]

News: Bermuda beat Canada in a thriller…

Bermuda beat Canada by 3 wickets, with 3 balls to spare in the second match of the WI Tri Series. This puts them in the final with Zimbabwe, with a rehersal game tommorrow.
This is of course better news than Bermuda losing to Canada by 100 runs or so, because that would have opened up a [...]

News: Zimbabwe anhilate Canada….

Zimbabwe have just finished their ODI vicotry against Canada by 143 runs. And if you thought the score would probably be something like Zim 320 and Canada 180, you were wrong. Canada did very well to restrict Zimbabwe to 218, but then slumped to 4-4 in 4 overs (?) and ended up making only 75.
This [...]

News: Malaysia edge out Singapore…

Personally, I am surprised at this news, because Malaysia is supposed to be much stronger than Singapore. The match was a 3 day match as part of the ACC premier league (former FTCT Cup). Competing teams are UAE, Nepal, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. The brief score is as follows:
Singapore 1st Innings 233 all out in [...]

News: Scotland thrash Namibia…..

Scotland have beaten Namibia in their intercontinental cup match. This is a little strange. I was expecting this to the result, but for Scotland to beat Namibia in 3 days by an innings doesnt bode well for Namibian cricket. Namibia have been feeling bad for quite sometime that they were never given a chance to [...]

Opinion: ECBTv’s impact…..

ecb.co.uk recently announced that they are going to be beaming live games from England, first class, ODIs and Tests, into Africa, Central America, South America, Mainland Europe and Japan. This seems to be great news. These territories are not covered by any existing TV Rights deal with ECB.
It goes without saying that having cricket playing [...]

Opinion: Argentina’s junior progress…..

It seems that Argentina recently toured Chile with their U15 and U13 teams….. and beat the hosts on all games in both age groups, some of them being Aus v Namibia like mismatches. I am quite impressed with Argentina's progress. How far they have imporved in standard can only be gauged by the Americas Championship [...]

Opinion: Nations that will make it…..

So which nations do I think have a really really good chance of making it past the associate tag?
Scotland: They have everything going for them, money, govt backing, 2 hrs to a test playing country, playing numbers, 3 ODI standard grounds, 4 players in English county circuit….. they are ready to play, and give the test teams [...]

News: Scotland to play 8 ODIs v SA and NZ in 2008

ICC approved that the top two associates, i.e. Scotland and Kenya, will get at least 2 events/series every year with the test teams. In this regard, it looks like Scotland is going to play SA and NZ in 2008. I think 2007 is pretty much all set for them with the WC and all. The [...]

News: MCC recruits 2 Afghans for their cricket team

This is a slightly strange piece of news. MCC usually recruits European cricketers, either retired Englishmen or sometimes talented players from the 4 neighbouring countries. Good for Afghanistan that 2 of their players will get this benefit. I guess the massive thrashing they gave the MCC caused the recruiting.
I am not all that surprised, because [...]