When Australia toured England last summer, they were beaten 3-0 in the five Test series, with two no-decisions (‘draws’ in cricket-speak), one of which could easily have been an additional loss. Then six months later, England toured Australia and just received a massive drubbing, losing 5-0. Such clean sweeps are rare. I do not recall a previous time when dominance between two teams switched so overwhelmingly in such a short time and I am at a loss to explain it, though to be fair, I have mainly been following the top-line scores and not in detail. I am sure that England and Australian cricket fans can probe more deeply. [Read more…]

The country has qualified for the 2015 Cricket World Cup to be played in Australia and New Zealand. Given the fact that this country has been in pretty much a permanent state of major war for the past three decades, that turmoil in the country has seemed to be continual fact of life, and the fact that cricket is relatively new to that country, this is a remarkable achievement. [Read more…]

As regular readers know, I was a huge cricket fan in my youth, losing touch with the game after I came to the US. But with the advent of the internet, I have rekindled my interest and started following it again. One of the big surprises for me was to discover that women’s cricket is now being played at the international level. Back when I was a boy, girls did not play at all at any level, not being included even when boys formed pick up games. [Read more…]

The ICC Champions Trophy matches are going on in England right now, featuring the eight highest ranked cricket playing nations in the world. I have been watching the games from time to time, especially the ones involving Sri Lanka. [Read more…]

After I came to the US in 1983 and before the internet became available to keep up with events worldwide, I lost touch with cricket news. One of the things that happened in the interim is that it has become increasingly popular with women and now there are women’s teams that compete internationally. [Read more…]

West Indies had a convincing victory over Sri Lanka in the final game, despite the latter having a huge home-field advantage.

West Indies won the toss and chose to bat first. This was not unexpected since batting first has turned out to be a good thing in this tournament. But the Sri Lankan bowlers and fielders, who had been a little sloppy in their semi-final game against Pakistan, were brilliant, especially early on in the game where they tied up the West India batsmen in knots, especially the dangerous Chris Gayle who had destroyed the Australians in their semi-final game. [Read more…]

In the second semi-final game in the Twenty20 World Cup tournament taking place in Sri Lanka right now, West Indies easily beat Australia, setting up a contest with Sri Lanka in the final on Sunday. [Read more…]

In the first semi-final game against Pakistan in the Twenty20 world Cup tournament, Sri Lanka scored 139 in their 20 overs. This was lower than the 160 or so runs that teams feel gives them a pretty good chance of winning but according to the analysts, the quality of the pitch (an important factor is cricket where the ball bounces before reaching the batsman) was such that this was a reasonable score. And they were proved right when Pakistan was able to score only 123 runs in their 20 overs. [Read more…]

The Twenty20 World Cup cricket tournament is currently going on in Sri Lanka. The original 16 teams were whittled down to eight in preliminary group matches. Those eight were then reduced to four (West Indies, Sri Lanka, Australia, and Pakistan) in another set of group matches. These teams will now play in a sudden-death format to see who emerges as the winner. [Read more…]

My post yesterday about Afghan cricket generated some comments about people’s bewilderment about the rules of the game. This is understandable since the rules are not obvious to anyone who happens to just watch it. For those who would like to understand it and are looking for a quick primer, I recommend my 2006 post on it, followed by this video.