Category: West Indies

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After 1968, Australia has not won a five-game series at home after losing the first Test

If Australia wins the current Test series against India, it would be the first time since 1968-69 that it has won a five-game series at home after losing the first Test. That season, Australia played the West Indies and lost the first Test at Brisbane.

But the locals then bounced back with wins in Melbourne and Sydney, before a thriller in Adelaide ended in a draw. The fifth and final game saw the West Indies thrashed by 382 runs in Sydney, giving the home team a 3-1 series win.

Australia’s win against India in the second Test of the current series has levelled things at 1-1, with three games left. Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney will host those three Tests. Given the way the series has see-sawed thus far, it is difficult to predict with any degree of certainty the outcome of these three games. Continue reading “After 1968, Australia has not won a five-game series at home after losing the first Test”

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Chasing big totals to win: Why are batsmen in such a hurry these days?

When a cricket team is set anything more than 400 to win a Test, the target is generally considered out of reach.

The thinking behind this stems from the fact that only on four occasions has a team scored more than this figure in the final innings to win a Test, beginning in 1948 when Australia scored 3 for 404 to defeat England in the fourth Test at Headingley.

Two Australian legends, Arthur Morris and Donald Bradman, made big centuries in the win, and this only made the target seem more difficult: the logic became that unless you had some top-notch batsmen in your side, you had no chance of achieving a target that big
Continue reading “Chasing big totals to win: Why are batsmen in such a hurry these days?”

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Bairstow was out, sure. But it was the end of the over and…

There’s one little fact that’s been left out when talking about the incident in the second Ashes Test, when Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey stumped his English counterpart Jonny Bairstow. And that is the fact that this happened at the end of an over.

Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey.
Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey.

There have been numerous other cases of batsmen being run out in a similar manner cited, but none of them was at the end of an over. In earlier years, once the ball had landed in the hands of the wicketkeeper at the end of an over, it was considered to be dead.

In other words, you could not use the ball to effect a dismissal at that stage. Continue reading “Bairstow was out, sure. But it was the end of the over and…”

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Pakistan captain must take the blame for losing to India

Pakistan skipper Babar Azam blew it. Which captain in the universe would choose to give the last over in a T20 match to an inexperienced spinner rather than a fast bowler, when the side chasing a win is on the wrong side of the equation?

The match one refers to is the T20 clash between India and Pakistan at the MCG on Sunday [October 23].

[India needed 48 off the last three overs and then 16 off the last, after Pakistan made 159 in their 20 overs.] Continue reading “Pakistan captain must take the blame for losing to India”

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Don’t go overboard with the sentiments, Warne was just another flawed human being

There is an unwritten rule in most human societies that one does not speak ill of the dead. You can be the worst murderer, thief, rapist or sociopath and beat your wife every day of the week, but the moment you die, you have to be treated as some kind of saint.

This kind of hypocrisy is so embedded that at least in one language there is a specific word to describe it: Sinhalese, the language spoken in Sri Lanka. [Despite all my efforts, I just cannot recall the word which was told to me when I was in the eighth standard many moons ago.]

Courtesy: megapixl.com

That rule appears to be asserting itself in Australia following the death of cricketer Shane Warne, a player who revived interest in the art of spin bowling when he came on to the international scene in 1992; this was after fast bowlers, predominantly from the West Indies, had ruled international cricket for two decades.

Continue reading “Don’t go overboard with the sentiments, Warne was just another flawed human being”

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Vale Shane Warne, the man who revived spin bowling

The master has gone. Spin legend Shane Warne bows out, bowled for 52.

Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne has shuffled off the mortal coil. He died in Thailand on Friday at the age of 52, felled by a suspected heart attack.

The leg-spinner arrived on the international scene in 1992, a blond-haired kid from Melbourne, but did not catch the attention of the game’s pundits right away.

It took a while, but under the captaincy of Allan Border he grew in stature and slowly became the go-to bowler when Australia needed a wicket.

Continue reading “Vale Shane Warne, the man who revived spin bowling”

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Serena Williams, please go before people start complaining

The US Open 2020 represented the best chance for an aging Serena Williams to win that elusive 24th Grand Slam title and equal the record of Australian Margaret Court. Seeds Bianca Andreescu (6), Ashleigh Barty (1), Simona Halep (2), Kiki Bertens (7) and Elina Svitolina (5) are all not taking part.

But Williams, now 39, could not get past Victoria Azarenka in the semi-finals, losing 1-6, 6-3, 6-3.

Prior to this, Williams had lost four Grand Slam finals in pursuit of Court’s record: Andreescu defeated her at the US Open in 2019, Angelique Kerber beat her at Wimbledon in 2018, Naomi Osaka took care of her in the 2018 US Open and Halep accounted for Williams at Wimbledon in 2019. In all those finals, Williams was unable to win more than four games in any set.
Continue reading “Serena Williams, please go before people start complaining”

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Racism: Holding and Rainford-Brent do some plain speaking

Michael Anthony Holding, one of the feared West Indies pace bowlers from the 1970s and 1980s, bowled his best spell on 10 July, in front of the TV cameras.

Holding, in England to commentate on the Test series between England and the West Indies, took part in a roundtable on the Black Lives Matter protests which have been sweeping the world recently after an African-American man, George Floyd, was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis on May 25.

Holding speaks frankly, Very frankly. Along with former England cricketer Ebony Rainford-Brent, he spoke about the issues he had faced as a black man, the problems in cricket and how they could be resolved.
Continue reading “Racism: Holding and Rainford-Brent do some plain speaking”

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The BBL is going downhill slowly, but surely

The ninth edition of Australia’s annual 20-over cricket tournament, the Big Bash League, ended on a rather downbeat note, with the final reduced to a 12-over-a-side affair, though the fact that it would rain on the day was known well in advance.

Despite that, the Sydney Sixers, a finalist and the eventual winner, did not want the game shifted to Melbourne due to the home ground advantage that it claimed it would have.

The other finalist, the Melbourne Stars, would not have minded moving the game so that the full 20 overs could be played, but moving it to the MCG, which was the alternative venue, would have afforded the Stars home-ground advantage. Shouldn’t professional teams be able to play at any venue and win?
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Fast bowlers have lost their balls

There was a time in the 20th century when there were more class fast bowlers in the game of cricket than at any other. Between 1974 and 1994, pacemen emerged in different countries as though they were coming off an assembly line.

It made the game of cricket, which many call boring, an exciting spectacle.

From Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, to Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft, Joel Garner, the late Malcolm Marshall, Imran Khan, Sarfraz Nawaz, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Devon Malcolm, Bob Willis, Ian Botham, Allan Donald, Fanie de Villiers, Richard Hadlee, Courtney Walsh, Curtley Ambrose, Patrick Patterson and Craig McDermott, they were of several different types and temperaments as is to be expected.
Continue reading “Fast bowlers have lost their balls”