Deep Backward Point

Blog against the machine.

Category: Link List

April 19, 2011

ODIs Don’t Matter

King Cricket makes an honorable editorial decision:

Between squad rotation, experimentation, dead rubbers and lack of interest from fans and players, we no longer see the average ODI as being an international cricket fixture. Writing about them as such maintains the illusion and amounts to tacit acceptance of scheduling that we believe is wrong. [..]

It’s not that we’ll ignore ODIs. It’s just that they don’t matter. If there is a one-day series before a Test series, it helps build the narrative for the matches that do matter – the Tests. Those ODIs have merit in that they support the Tests, setting the scene, providing intrigue. They are like warm-up matches. That’s how we’ll treat them.

While I won’t go quite as far as them, I believe it’s an excellent rule-of-thumb. This coming from the guy who just wrote a few blog posts about the IPL. I’m sorry.

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April 19, 2011

How the Girls Got to Mohali

At the end of the guard changing ceremony at t...

(via Wikipedia)

I’m a little late to link to this, but here’s the remarkable story of how three girls from Pakistan got to the semi-finals in  Mohali. I was following this on Twitter as it unfolded, and then suddenly the twitter account (@sanakazmi) went silent. The day after the game, she reported that they had made it to the game:

[W]e started a #getthegirlstomohali hashtag on twitter asking for ticket/visa information, and secretly hoping for ridiculous favours. We had 5 days to get visas, find match tickets and get on a plane or a train or a taxi to Mohali. How hard could it be?

Pretty much all the information I got on how to make this cricket pilgrimage happen – from the link to the right visa form to where in Islamabad I could find a printer at 5AM – came from twitter.

Heartwarming.

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April 8, 2011

County Cricket: The Anti-IPL

A classic Jarrod article over at Cricket with Balls:

The first day of county season is the opposite of the IPL in so many ways, but the amount of straw hats and the colour of the spectators as you walk in is your first two hints that it isn’t going to be an IPL experience.

County cricket truly is one of the whitest events in human history, if the BNP really wanted to cleanse the UK of dark skinned people, they should stage county matches on every corner.

Racists are just never clever enough to use tactics like this.

If you have half a sense of humor, love cricket and don’t read Cricket with Balls, you should be ashamed of yourself. Or maybe you love the other kind of crickets.

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April 7, 2011

The Last Auction

Harsha Bhogle on the IPL auction:

For all the drama, I hope this is the last auction.

So do I.

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April 4, 2011

Why is This So Hard To Understand?

Shanaka Amarasinghe, on why Sri Lanka lost:

If there is one word that can sum up the difference between the two finalists of 2011, it would have to be “belief”.

No. If there was one word that could sum up the difference between the two finalists of 2011, it would have to be “skill”.

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April 1, 2011

Shahid bhai

“India se kyun itni nafrat le ke baithte hain, kya dusri team nahi hoti?”

Shahid Afridi

Start watching at 3:00 if you don’t have the time:

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March 30, 2011

England Return from War

Though India v. Pakistan was sold as war, England is the team that sound like they’ve actually been through one:

Ajmal Shahzad currently unavailable with a hamstring strain, while Ravi Bopara is awaiting the results of a scan to determine a side strain. Stuart Broad is currently rehabilitating after a side strain curtailed his World Cup campaign, Kevin Pietersen is resting after hernia surgery, while Paul Collingwood will undergo a minor knee operation in the near future.

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March 25, 2011

India v Pakistan

Miandad and More

Miandad and More

King Cricket sums it up:

It’s India’s two-and-a-half frontline bowlers against Pakistan’s two-and-a-half competent batsmen.

Only partly tongue-in-cheek.

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March 22, 2011

Three Sentences That Capture the Debate Over Walking

Tendulkar Walks

Tendulkar Walks

Last week, Tendulkar walked after edging the ball to the ‘keeper, but Ponting didn’t. Andy Bull sums it up:

By walking [Tendulkar] gave a wonderful example to hundreds of millions of fans and spectators, which is more than you can say of what Ponting did. At the same time, what would those same fans think if he did it in the first over of the World Cup final? Ponder that, and you get close to understanding the merits of both sides of the argument.

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March 21, 2011

An Extended Moment of Almost Illegal Pleasure a.k.a. Virender Sehwag

Daniel over at Test Match Sofa on Virender Sehwag:

Perhaps he deserves a top ten to himself starting with the first ball of each of his five innings to date, all of which have been dispatched for four. That in itself is ludicrous, as if he is toying with us, suggesting he could in fact hit every ball for four but decides against it for the good of cricket.

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