Cricket Masters

Players Profile: Ben Hollioake

2008-03-11T06:44:00.000-07:00

Ben Hollioake died when his Porsche 924 left a freeway exit road, made slippery by light rain, and crashed into a brick wall. He had been driving home from the customary family dinner that preceded his and his brother Adam's return to Surrey for the English season, having spent much of the winter with England's one-day squad in Zimbabwe, India and New Zealand. Ben was just 24 years and 132 days old: no England Test cricketer had died so young.

The England captain, Nasser Hussain, flew from the Test series in New Zealand for his funeral, which was attended also by Surrey colleagues and Australian players, testimony to his immense popularity. "Ben was the most naturally gifted cricketer that I have ever played alongside," said Alec Stewart, who captained him for Surrey and England. Everyone recalled his easy-going approach to life and the friendships he fostered with his gentle nature and whimsical sense of humour; Adam, in his funeral address, described him as "a beautiful work of art, a classic sculpture". And in the game's collective memory, the picture of Ben Hollioake remained fixed on a spring afternoon in 1997 when, making his England debut at 19, this tall, loose-limbed allrounder set Lord's alight with 63 in 48 balls against Australia to take the Man of the Match award.

Players Profile: Raman Lamba

2008-03-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

Raman Lamba was a flat-track bully, a journeyman who was a lion in his own den. He came into prominence in the 1986-87 one-day series against Australia, when a hundred and two fifties in six matches won him the Man of the Series award. Short on technique but long on bravado, Lamba was blessed with a superb eye and quickfire reflexes. He liked to give bowlers the charge, and had a flair for improvisation that made for great entertainment. His one-day form was patchy after that dream debut, and he looked pedestrian in his four Tests. He remained a prolific scorer in first-class cricket, with two triple-centuries and a Ranji Trophy average of 53. He had expressed a desire to play on for Delhi until the age of 45, but he was only 38 when he died after being hit on the head while fielding at forward short leg during a club match in Bangladesh.

What does 'chucking' in cricket mean?

2008-03-03T00:55:00.001-08:00

Law 24, clause 3 defines a fair delivery with respect to the arm:
A ball is fairly delivered in respect of the arm if, once the bowler's arm has reached the level of the shoulder in the delivery swing, the elbow joint is not straightened partially or completely from that point until the ball has left the hand. This definition shall not debar a bowler from flexing or rotating the wrist in the delivery swing.

Records Held by Sachin Tendulkar

2008-03-02T05:02:00.000-08:00

1. Highest Run scorer in the ODI
2. Most number of hundreds in the ODI 41
3. Most number of nineties in the ODI
4. Most number of man of the matches(56) in the ODI's
5. Most number of man of the series(14) in ODI's
6. Best average for man of the matches in ODI's
7 First Cricketer to pass 10000 run in the ODI
8. First Cricketer to pass 15000 run in the ODI
9. He is the highest run scorer in the world cup (1,796 at an average of 59.87 as on 20 March 2007)
10. Most number of the man of the matches in the world cup
11. Most number of runs 1996 world cup 523 runs in the 1996 Cricket World Cup at an average of 87.16
12. Most number of runs in the 2003 world cup 673 runs in 2003 Cricket World Cup, highest by any player in a single Cricket World Cup
13. He was Player of the World Cup Tournament in the 2003 Cricket World Cup.
14. Most number of Fifties in ODI'

Funny incidents on the cricket field cont.....

2008-03-01T03:27:00.000-08:00

Neil McKenzie v Australia in Telstra Dome (ex Colonial Stadium) in the first ODI held there. Steve Waugh hit a cover drive off Shaun Pollack, McKenzie was at deep point and chased it, dived, normally he would of got there, except he plugged, he just stopped, and his pants fell down, and looked up with a sheepish look on his face. I wonder if he's been able to live that down in the South African dressing room?

Funny incidents on the cricket field

2008-02-29T04:49:00.001-08:00

Cricket always brings in some funny incident which you have never watched, no matter how long you have been watching cricket.The cricket ball going into the glass of beer of the bloke in lords was such a funny incident.Lets keep putting other funny incidents we can remember on this thread.One which always makes me laugh is from a test in 1997 between West Indies and India. Anil kummble was batting and the ball hit him in the 'unmentionables' as Ravi Shastri always puts it. Kumble just went flat on the pitch and lay there on his back for about 5 minutes. Thats the most memorable such incident I have seen of the millions which keep happening.

How Durst You? The National Honor Argument

2008-02-27T02:58:00.000-08:00

If you didn’t know it before, you know it now: Indians take their cricket really, really seriously. It’s always interesting to me how so many Indian fans like to think that it’s just about the cricket, when, in reality, the actual game matters very little to them. It’s about Indian glory, Indian dominance, Indians shining — all the usual upper-middle class mumbo-jumbo about a rising India we’ve been hearing in India for the last 15 years.
And so, without missing a beat, the Harbhajan Singh scandal has been portrayed as nothing less than a full-scale assault on the Indian identity. More than a few ex-cricketers and Indian statesmen have argued that just the accusation that an Indian could be racist — true or otherwise — is too much; after all, they say, Indians waged a campaign against racism (that is, British imperialism and, later, South African apartheid).
It’s strange, because these people are relying on the same sloppy thinking that, well, racists employ.

List of cricket incidents cont....

2008-02-26T18:10:00.000-08:00

2003
Kaushal Lokuarachchi crashes his car into a bus stand at Colombo, killing a woman and critically injuring her son
Shafiuddin Ahmed accused of setting his girlfriend on fire for which she received burns to 70% of her body
Andre Nel was arrested and charged with drink driving after being pulled over by police in Australia
2004
Runako Morton is arrested after stabbing his cousin in the chest during a family dispute. He escaped with just a reprimand

Suresh Perera is arrested for assault following a brawl outside his home in Sri Lanka. Two men were hospitalized
An unnamed Pakistani cricketer is accused of raping a woman in their team hotel during a tour of Australia
Mark Vermeulen is charged with arson after the Zimbabwean Cricket Academy and boardroom are destroyed by fire
Yuvraj Singh is alleged to have assaulted a guest at his birthday party
2007
Moin Khan, the former Pakistan captain and wicketkeeper, was freed on bail after a brief detention over a complaint that he beat up his wife at home. His wife says that he was drunk while beating her. She also said that Moin repeatedly kept on accusing of her of adultery. Unable to talk properly due to the bruises she suffered, she told that this was not the first time Moin had physically abused her. “He usually beats me whenever he is drunk but last night it just got too much,” said the battered woman who further revealed that her left shoulder joint was dislocated during the beating.

List of cricket incidents cont..

2008-02-26T04:55:00.000-08:00

1955
Leslie Hylton is hanged for shooting his wife.
1967
Roy Gilchrist got involved in an argument with his wife during which time he branded her face with a hot iron. He was found guilty and sentenced to three months probation.
1986
Ian Botham is charged in Australia with assaulting a passenger on the flight to Perth. He was bailed and fined £400 .
1988
Navjot Singh Sidhu beat a man to death following a road rage incident. In 2006 he was sentenced to three years in prison for 'culpable homicide not amounting to murder'.
1993
Wasim Akram, Mushtaq Ahmed and Waqar Younis are arrested in Grenada and charged with possession of marijuana. The charges were later dropped.
1994
Stephen Fleming, Matthew Hart and Dion Nash are fined and suspended after admitting to smoking cannabis at a barbecue.
1996
Geoffrey Boycott assaults a 45 year old woman in France for which he received a three month suspended sentence in 1998.
1998
Saqlain Mushtaq and Mohammad Akram were alleged to have been involved in a bar brawl during Pakistan's tour of South Africa.

List of cricket incidents

2008-02-25T01:38:00.000-08:00

Shivnarine Chanderpaul shot a policeman in Georgetown with a revolver after he mistook him for a burglar. The officer received a wound on his left hand, but Chanderpaul was not charged due to the mistake.[9]
Peter Roebuck is accused of caning three South African teenage cricketers who he had been coaching. In 2001 he was found guilty and received a 12 month suspended sentence
Makhaya Ntini is arrested and charged with rape, but he is acquitted on appeal.
Ricky Ponting involved in a nightclub brawl at Sydney for which he received a $5,000 fine,

Make way for the Mumbai Meat Market

2008-02-24T06:36:00.000-08:00

The finest cuts of meat, as any butcher will tell you, do not stay in the mouth for long but collapse obligingly and slide down the throat. Precisely the opposite applied during the 10-hour meat market that was the Indian Premier League auctions, in relation to Australia players anyway.

Mystery Ball called “Doosra”

2008-02-22T23:15:00.001-08:00

When Saqlain Mushtaq discovered the mystery ball which he named doosra in the 90's he had little idea that this ball would become the subject of huge controversy, which would change the face of cricket forever. The story goes that when Saqlain was perfecting this
delivery in the nets, Javed Miandad who was the Pakistani coach at that time used to prompt Saqlain to bowl this ball by calling it "doosra." This was then the origin of the name Doosra.

Money for nothing

2008-02-22T22:21:00.000-08:00

These businessmen are putting improper money in Cricket and are terminating it. Players are bought and money is spending on them on the basis of their local status. If this money game will remain continue than Indian Government will not be needed soon. At last, business men will run the country. Stop this Gamble and save the Cricket. Do you have power to do this, isn’t it?

All hail the young 'uns

2008-02-21T23:23:00.000-08:00

The U-19 World Cup has started, and a promising young quick from Delhi has already ripped the guts out of the South African top order (this is the same lad. Pradeep Sangwan, who took care of Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy Super League, for which feat I will remain eternally grateful).

Hurricane has arrived!

2008-02-21T20:13:00.000-08:00

Here I am rock you like a hurricane! I am sure that's what Ishant Sharma prompting to Ricky Ponting and its good to see yound fast bowler from India creating havoc in the Australians den. So let's hope he will keep serving for India for long time.

Keep the faith

2008-02-20T21:15:00.000-08:00

It's time now to trust on young talent like Rohit Sharma, Manoj Tiwari and others who just strated their international and give them enough time to display their potential. Even Sachin in his early days was not as promising as he is now. He got his first ODI hundred in after 89 matches.

IPL for young talent

2008-02-20T07:11:00.000-08:00

Today is the day when some of the big names going to bid for players. I am just worried and have a question that does this IPL really going to hellp cricket? I think its nothing but a legal money game which is going to ruin a common man's interest and the passion for the game.