If nothing else this summer, we’re about to discover the value of a sound preparation in the scheme of modern cricket tours. For the first time in a long time, England have picked a squad with credible back-up in all areas, arrived early, played serious warm up games well, and appear genuinely ready for what [Read more]
Caught Behind 2/100
November 24, 2010 by 3 Comments
By Steve Ingham An opinion piece on Australia’s favourite summer sport WHERE HAVE ALL THE PERSONALITIES GONE??? No doubt we live in a world much more sanitised than decades before. No Australian Cricketer will attempt a beer can drinking record on a flight to England, I mean Andrew Symonds was sent home and never wore [Read more]
Memories of “Urnest” battles
November 22, 2010 by 17 Comments
The Vietnamese-Cambodian border, transient nightclubs in St Kilda, and the turquoise blue waters of the Amalfi Coast in Italy. Among the reams of Ashes literature penned over the decades, I doubt whether these three destinations have been mentioned. But for me, they form part of my Ashes memories. Part of my urn worship if you [Read more]
English Hope Springs Eternal
November 10, 2010 by Leave a Comment
This Guardian piece from Mike Selvey shows that even some of the more level-headed English pundits are starting to get their hopes up. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/nov/04/england-australia-ashes-phoney-war Almanac Admin
Caught Behind 1/100
November 10, 2010 by 1 Comment
By Steve Ingham An opinion piece on Australia’s favourite summer sport THE SOUND OF SUMMER While every commentator and fan in the country is ringing the alarm bells about the state of the national cricket team- and I will address that later- I want to focus on my favourite sounds of summer: ABC Grandstand Cricket, [Read more]
Sri Lanka Celebrates as Australia Wobbles Again
November 4, 2010 by 11 Comments
1st ODI- Australia v Sri Lanka- MCG 3rd November 2010 It’s usually unwise to rush to judgement on the basis of a single one-day match, but last night’s astonishing Sri Lankan comeback would have done nothing to allay the anxieties of Australian supporters contemplating the summer ahead. This midweek fixture was ludicrous in design, especially [Read more]
Old not-so-reliables will have to fly the Ashes flag
October 28, 2010 by 8 Comments
For those who may have erased the moment from their memory, it has been 431 days, or nigh on 62 weeks, since Graeme Swann dismissed Mike Hussey at The Oval, and England claimed the Ashes with a 2-1 series victory. As we sit 28 days out from the next Ashes test, it seems opportune to [Read more]
Name Your Team
October 28, 2010 by 87 Comments
The Cricinfo website has just undergone an extensive process to pick their all-time World Eleven. This is the team they arrived at. ESPNcricinfo All-Time World XI- these blokes can play a bit. 1st XI Jack Hobbs Len Hutton Don Bradman Sachin Tendulkar Viv Richards Garry Sobers Adam Gilchrist Malcolm Marshall Shane Warne Wasim Akram Dennis [Read more]
Caught Behind 1/0: CROWDS HERE ONE DAY, GONE THE NEXT
October 25, 2010 by 7 Comments
An opinion piece on Australia’s favourite summer sport By Steve Ingham After a non-eventful day in the whites myself (we got pummelled by 10 wickets), I sat down on Saturday Night to watch a little bit of Victoria v WA on the telly, and was once again disappointed but not surprised at the vision of [Read more]
Link: Cricket in the USA
June 4, 2010 by Leave a Comment
What would be more fun than playing a game of cricket in Central Park? With a growing Indian expatriate community in the USA, there are attempts to revive the great colonial game. A cricket ground has even been built in Florida. The Guardian’s Spin blog casts an eye over developments. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/jun/02/thespin Almanac Admin
From Many Wins to the Must Win
April 3, 2010 by 3 Comments
By Paddy O’Keeffe The 2009/10 summer of cricket has finished. More than 120 days ago, Jerome Taylor trapped Watson plumb in front for nothing. Taylor would only contribute a further 8 overs to the summer, while Watson made up for lost time by scoring a mountain of runs. Much has changed in the time that [Read more]
Down at the Basin
March 27, 2010 by 1 Comment
By Patrick O’Keefe When I was a kid, New Zealand seemed like such an exotic location to be playing cricket. I could get my head around a cricket match being played on the subcontinent. It is hot there. Cricket is played when it is hot. I could follow that logic. I think I grew up [Read more]
The Kiwi stomach punch
March 27, 2010 by 3 Comments
By Dan O’Sullivan At the beginning of March Kiwi cricket copped a kick to the teeth. It was swift and painful but hardly a surprise. And no, Scott Styrus was not involved. The pudgy trundler still has his front teeth fully intact as far as I’m aware, assuming he had them in the first place. [Read more]
Cricket: Weighing up the harmless and dangerous aspects of twenty20
March 1, 2010 by 1 Comment
I’ve been pretty negative about truncated cricket. It’s surprisingly fun to play, but I can’t say I get much out of watching it, and even less out of thinking about it. Those animated conversations about great games from last year just don’t seem to happen. Even half-watching what’s left of the West Indies trying to [Read more]
Cricket: Winners are grinners, especially against Victoria
March 1, 2010 by 10 Comments
When fluid-enhanced social intercourse among this nation’s sporting experts tackles the subject of great sporting rivalries, the punters often fall for the trap of blinkered vision. ‘Poms and Australia at Cricket’. ‘Waddabout Kiwis and Australia at Rugby’ ‘Naaar, Collingwood and Carlton,’ and on and on and on. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish and more rubbish. Phantom
Book Review: When dreams come true
February 25, 2010 by 5 Comments
Book: Golden Boy: Kim Hughes and the bad old days of Australian cricket Writer: Christian Ryan Publisher: Allen and Unwin, Melbourne, 2009 Price: $35 Reviewer: Les Everett WESTERN AUSTRALIA is a big State but it’s a small place. In 1974, when I left Kalgoorlie-Boulder to attend Graylands Teachers’ College, 600 kilometres away in Perth, I [Read more]
Cricket: The Summer of Cricket. Or was it the Season of Watto?
February 24, 2010 by 1 Comment
By John Butler Whilst lowering the curtain on the slow death that was the Hobart Test, Exalted Supremo of the Almanac, Paul Daffey, declared it had been a strange summer. Amen to that! The date was 18 January. It seems a very long time ago. As the Australian team returned from an ill-fated Ashes campaign, [Read more]
Club Cricket: What’s that burning sensation?
February 12, 2010 by 2 Comments
Not over the Hill – Issue 2 By Andrew Gigacz When I made a decision to return to playing cricket after a gap of more than a dozen years (see Not over the Hill, Issue 1 – The Legend of Chicken Man), I was pretty confident that I’d be able to slip back into the [Read more]
Cricket: Late debut proves memorable
February 11, 2010 by 19 Comments
By Paul Daffey When George Georgiou, president of East Coburg Cricket Club, asked me to play a game in the fourths I was chuffed. I’d never played a game of senior competitive cricket. My one game of junior cricket was as a 16-year-old fill-in with St Bernard’s at the Overland Reserve in East Keilor, where [Read more]
FOOTY: Life and times of the bush Bartel
February 7, 2010 by 26 Comments
By Paul Daffey Terry Bartel was still 15 when he announced himself to North East Victoria as a serious sporting talent. A slip of a kid with deceptive strength through his shoulders, he opened the batting for the Beechworth senior team and plundered 227 to break the Ovens and King Cricket Association record. In a [Read more]
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