Cricket

There was no dew yesterday. It's just our total were very low.
 
He is 7'1. Pakistani with their never ending supply of pace bowlers.
 
Irfan's been a handful again, will be interesting how he does in the ODIs.

Pakistan will be happy with this position. Hopefully restrict India to 130.
 
He'd make a brilliant test bowler. And I like the look of Rahane as well. He's got a cracking temperament and all.
 
What's the deal with Pakistan and direct hits?
Stop it!
 
fecking yuvraj.

India should easily win this game. Batted very well today.
 
Excellent start, just what we needed. Although, there will be an inevitable collapse at somepoint.

Only seen Jamshed a few times but he looks like he has decent potential.
 
Hafeez is playing very well.

57 needed off 30...
 
Lovely shot Hafeez. Regardless of the result, he's played a majestic innings.

26 off 12, we should do it...
 
Big wicket. India will win now.

Fantastic innings from the captain.
 
Terrific over Dinda. cnut.

20 off the last over needed, don't see it happening.
 
Epic game once again between these 2.

Yuvraj played a terrific innings and India posted what I thought was 20 runs too many. Fair play to the openers and Hafeez for keeping us in it but we fell too far behind and India took wickets when it mattered. Hafeez played some wonderful cricket shots in his innings. India held their nerve at the end and took some 'easy' catches. Dinda bowled well under pressure.

3 ODIs now coming up. Would like to see a Test series between the two but I get the impression both sides would prefer playing another series with the shorter format of the game instead.
 
The second most-important high for me… I am a great believer in skill and character at cricket, all ball games. I think character is so important. There is a young man called Jonny Bairstow who I've been close to. His father was a good friend of mine and he went and took his own life when the kids were young. He has a sister, does Jonny. So I've helped with his mother, my wife has, we've been very close to the family as they've grown up. We've seen him grow and he's a wonderful cricketer. And he played the summer in the Test matches against West Indies. Through the summer he had a torrid time against Kemar Roach. Roach gave him a real working over, very much so in the Test matches before we get to the one I'm going to talk about.

He had a tough time with the bouncers. Roach hit him on the arm. He wasn't looking at the ball, he was getting himself in a little bit of a mess, and he knew he had to do something about it. He lost his Test place when South Africa came. England picked Bopara. And then at Leeds, they picked James Taylor in place of him, in the Test match where Kevin got this wonderful 149. But at Leeds, you remember, there was all the fuss about Kevin's texts and so forth, so Kevin was dropped for Lord's and just luckily, the Pietersen affair gave Bairstow another chance.

But there was going to be a huge personal battle for him. You had the best bowlers in the world, with Steyn, Morkel and Philander coming at him. You were going to get the short stuff, and rightly so. Everybody knew you're going to get more of it - the crowd knew, he knew. There's never a place to hide against fast bowlers when they've seen a chink in your armoury. And they came at him strong, and the time when he went in to bat, England were 54 for 4. They were chasing 309, they were in big trouble, they had two young kids playing, Taylor and Bairstow, no KP, and playing the best seam-bowling side in the world (and Lord's is a great place to bowl seam). He was up against it personally, and the team was in trouble. And he played out of his skin. He played unbelievable.

Roach had got him for 16 and 4 and 18 and made a mess of his technique, but that day, he ducked, weaved, looked at the ball, looked a different quality player. And he went on to make 95 and he batted even better in the second innings: he got 54, when England tried to chase down a total and didn't make it - they actually lost the game by 51 runs.

I have a personal interest, I admit that, from seeing the young man grow up in adversity, with his father doing an unfortunate, silly thing. But the kid can play. He's got a lot to learn about playing in India on slow, turning pitches, but he's not the only one that has to learn playing in India. But he played fantastic that day [at Lord's], and that, for me, was a great high, to see a young player in real difficulty against the quicks, and I mean real difficulty… to have the character, skill, the temperament, against the best seamers in the world, your team's in trouble and you personally are in trouble. And you've got to get out of it, and he did. That, for me, was the second high moment of the year.

And just to finish with, I have to say this because you asked me about two lows. My second low I haven't given you and I have saved it till last. It's about Sachin Tendulkar. I had a great sadness and disappointment watching one of the greatest players of the world of cricket struggle and be a shadow of the iconic batsman he was. To me, Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar, two very different styles and two very special talents, have strolled the world of cricket in the last 20 years. They've been very special, they've achieved many things and been way above other batsmen. Way above many of us other batsmen could even dream about. And he was making mistakes against England that he didn't make before.

Now we the public, that's you, me, those that love him, we haven't been used to seeing him fail time after time. We've occasionally seen a slight dip in form, everybody's career has that, but then we've seen him return with gorgeous, crafted centuries.

He is a lovely man. We've known him since he was a lovely boy. He's always had time for me. I don't bother him much but if I ever see him, he'll chat to me. He'll always come and say hello and we'll chat about things a little, as if I've never been away. If I ask him for anything, he always obliges. I care about him very deeply, like many of you. And his legacy to cricket will be very special. When you care about someone and you can see them struggling, you worry, you hurt for them. Not unlike many other people. I don't want to see him embarrassed, I don't want him to embarrass himself. So my New Year's resolution is: Sachin will play zonal cricket, he'll make some runs, he'll get into form, get some confidence and come back and make runs against Australia. I hope so.
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Boycott. Did not know about the Bairstow connection. Two of the best inning of the year against SA.
 
Very surprised that M.Hussey will be retiring after the current series with Sri Lanka. He's been in good form and with the back-to-back Ashes series coming up his loss is going to be huge for the Aussies. Their batting line-up will be a big concern now, more so if Watson picks up an injury as he is prone to do so.

Pak-India ODIs coming up. Interesting rule changes which I didn't know about: allowing 2 bouncers in an over is good but only giving the fielding side 4 outside the circle makes it easier for the batsman.
 
Brilliant bowling! Pakistan off to a very good start, the Indian openers looked lost out there - 17/2.
 
And another falls! Superb swing bowling, reminiscent of Wasim in his heyday.
 
crappycraperson said:
Disgusting decision to drop Rahane and play Sharma instead
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Just got back from the match.

I don't understand why Rohit's first class record keeps getting him picked for ODIs and never for tests.

Rahane should've opened, direct replacement for Sachin.
 
india-pak-t20-2.gif
 
NZ all out for.... 45 :lol:

Philander with another 5 wicket haul (his figures 5 for 7). Kallis just 14 runs short of 13,000 career runs in Test matches - superb player.
 
Philander is really a freak.
 
He's brilliant. SA's pace attack is just fecking awesome.
 
Yup. Steyn will go down as one of the best pace bowlers in history. He's amazing.
 
I don't get it with Philander. On the face of it he is very average, barely any pace and yet when you look at the wickets column he always has a bunch of wickets to his name. I don't think he would get as many wickets as he does if SA didn't have Steyn and Morkel
 
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