Another football injury

No, not in the England team! This time it's Dilshan who's broken his nose while playing football during the Sri Lankan warm up. They don't say who played the Owais Shah role....

ECB get the rough end of the stick

I can't quite work out how the ECB are so involved in the legal dramas between the ICL and the BCCI. The BCCI may have a case to answer for restraint of trade, but the ECB simply reacted to a set of events in the most commercially attractive way they could. As I've said before on Cricket Burble, I'm no legal expert(!), but surely there's no case for the ECB to answer until after the BCCI have been proved guilty, if that were even to happen?

Oh dear Cricinfo!

An entirely predictable headline on Cricinfo!

Cricinfo poll results....

Following Ben's post, Cricinfo have run a poll on the issue of moving The Ashes back to terrestrial TV in England - the results are pretty conclusive!

ICC to move back to England?

This report suggests that there is a proposal on the table to bring the ICC offices back to London from Dubai. It must be so disruptive to keep moving offices and they've now gone from Lord's to Monaco to Dubai in recent years. Let's hope that any such move from Dubai is their last for a while and they can concentrate on cricketing matters moving forward....

Cricket on terrestrial TV

The news that Ashes cricket will return to terrestrial TV for the next home series is fantastic news for English cricket fans without a Sky subscription (as well as the unwilling, that group includes people in nursing homes, children etc) who have been deprived the chance to watch live cricket on terrestrial in the UK since summer 2005.

It’s a fact that in that time, the UK has been the ONLY major cricket nation to offer its citizens NO free live test match cricket.

But how much of this decision has been driven by Rupert Murdoch/News International’s decision to abandon its support for the Government and back The Conservatives instead? And if the Tories win next years election, will we see this decision quietly dropped?

Channel 4’s viewing figures for 2005 peaked at 10 million for a 2-1 Ashes victory, while this year’s 2-1 win saw a peak of only 2 million tune in. Back in 2005, the England cricket team were sponsored by Vodafone, who used terrestrial TV as a way to reach millions of potential customers. As soon as that reach was diminished, the sponsors left, leaving the ECB totally dependent on the Sky money.

Nobody disputes that Sky’s cricket coverage is excellent – but inaccessibility remains the main problem. The ECB can fund all the “grass roots” initiatives it likes, but if kids don’t see the next Freddie Flintoff on their TV screens they will inevitably bleed away to other sports and distractions. Besides, the ECB’s definition of “grass roots” seems to mostly encompass the major cricket clubs at the top of the club pyramid – quite how much money gets to the roots is disputable.

A workable solution in future could be for Sky to offer some (or all) of its test match portfolio on a free-to-air digital channel – it could launch Sky Sports News 2 and show live cricket there. It would get the same ratings that Channel 4 used to and it would enable Sky and the ECB to sell serious advertising (ie Vodafone) – hell, it might even increase Sky subscriptions as viewers came back to cricket. But my guess is that Sky will be confident of retaining its monopoly on live test match cricket, and the rest of us will have to muddle on with 45-minute doses of Mark Nicholas until the series DVD is released

Symonds back for Queensland

Injuries have hit Queensland and Andrew Symonds is back in for their next one-dayer in Australia. It will be interesting to see what happens if he plays a great innings or takes match-changing wickets....

Questions from the first P20 match

Why did so many S A fielders wear watches - why would they ever need to know the time?
What is that logo on their sleeves that looks like a flag or a giraffe's head ?
Why did the umpires miss so many no balls - overstepping (as opposed to their offspinners srilankan elbow) ?
Why did they use goalposts (Nasser said they'd been literally moved) ?
Why did the players need to waste time consulting D/L sheets when the par at the end of the next over is on the scoreboard ?

Hoggard faces daunting captaincy challenge

This is post number 1001 on Cricket Burble by the way!

I worry for Matthew Hoggard's prospects after taking on the Leicestershire captaincy. Not only is there not a lot to work with after they struggled so badly last year, but I also wonder if he'll under bowl himself. Time will tell, but since I saw him putting his arm round Flintoff to console his captain and have a quiet word with him to pep him up in Adelaide in 2006, I've always wondered how Hoggard would do as skipper.

He can't do worse than last year so I suppose....

'Spect

I think that's how the youngsters say it these days....respect has to go to Australia for winning away against India with their second team - quite an incredible display given the circumstances. And as a result they rightfully hold on to number 1 in the ODI rankings.

I must admit that given Australia's record in dead rubbers, and the fact that India will be hurting and want to take a little revenge in the final match, I'm sorely tempted to put some money on India to win the final match...

10th wicket pair almost pull off shock for Pakistan

Sadly, for Pakistan fans, Mohammed Aamer and and Saeed Ajmal just came up short in the final over against New Zealand. So near to glory, and yet so far.

Sri Lanka's Travelling Woes

I read today that Sri Lanka are yet to win a single test match in India, South Africa or Australia. They are currently ranked 2nd in the ICC Test rankings.

This is not a criticism of the ranking system. No system is perfect and they all have their limitations. Just an interesting quirk that the team ranked No. 2 has failed to win a single match in their history at one third of their away venues.

Nelson

With the sad demise of David Shepherd there has been much in the press about Nelson and why it's called that - we all know.
But I've never seen any explanation about why it's unlucky beyond my own theory that it looks like 3 stumps without bails and that's clearly unlucky for the batting side - and, as we all know, it's a game for batsman.
I think, however there was a bit of ammunition for this theory in a letter to The Times today from a chap (must be quite old) who says that when he was doing hand writtem tenpin bowling scores he was taught to always put a hat on the digits if 111 because without it was unlucky. His 'hat' would have been a straight line - like bails .

436 - not bad for a 12 year-old

This innings in India relegates Sachin Tendulkar to 10th in the all time top scorers in this Indian schoolboys competition. So there's a pretty decent chance that you'll hear about Sarfaraz Khan again in a few years time....

The Ireland problem....

Ireland have made their intention to become a full member of the ICC clear, but the tricky thing to work out is how they will ever make the step up if England keep taking their best players. If anyone is truly world class they're going to get snapped up, so if you start from the point that Ireland will at best be an England 2nd XI then they're already struggling.

I don't have the answer, but that's a tricky one to solve....

An amazing innings....

....but still on the losing side. Glad I had Tendulkar as my double scorer in fantasy cricket!

BCCI selling sponsorship rights

It'll be interesting to see what exorbitant sum the BCCI end up selling the sponsorship rights to the Indian team for. It may be a recession, but I'd be surprised if they have much of a problem - if they don't have some resistance to the price they have of course priced it too low!

By the way, 1 crore = about £150k.

Tendulkar nears latest milestone...

In Thursday's 5th match of what's been a pretty absorbing series between India and Australia, the likelihood is that Sachin Tendulkar will pass 17,000 runs in ODIs. That's pretty special.

In case you're in any doubt just how special that is, here's the top 3 ODI run scorers:

Tendulkar: 16,993 runs at an average of 44.25 in 434 matches, hitting 44 centuries.
Jayasuriya: 13,377 runs at 32.54 in 441 matches, with 28 centuries.
Ponting: 12,241 runs at 43.25 in only 328 matches, also with 28 centuries.

Believe it or not, over the years Indian's have at various times called for the Little Master to be dropped from ODIs - personally I'd like to see him play at least until the 2011 World Cup....

Wow!

Look at this !

http://www.mousebreaker.com/games/ashes2asheszombiecricket/playgame