Entries Tagged 'Cricket' ↓

Well the Indian Premier League (IPL) started over the weekend, and aside from seeing Brendan McCullum carving up big time, the highlight was discovering the names of the teams.

One in particular stood out - The Super Kings which I reckon is the best team name ever. They are not just Kings, they are Super Kings. And Super Kings are clearly better than plain old Kings.

There are a few other great team names in the IPL

• The Kings 11 (totally un super)
• The Royal Challengers (my 2nd favourite)
• The Delhi Daredevils
• The Deccan Chargers
• The Knight Riders (Does David Hasslehoff own this team?)
• The Mumbai Indians
• The Rajasthan Royals

Compare these names to the teams in the new Trans Tasman netball comp, and the netballers seem rather boring.

• The Firebirds
• The Swifts
• The Thunderbirds
• The Vixens
• The Mystics
• The Magic
• The Pulse
• The Tactix
• The Steel

I’m not yet convinced the IPL tournament has a long term future, but they are off to good start based on their team names.

Putting aside all the other dramas that came out of the Sydney test match, the fact that Michael Clarke somehow took the last 3 Indian wickets in one action packed over has been overlooked.

However, surely this is one of the great pieces of test cricket in recent times - an inspired piece of captaincy by Ricky Ponting, and then the performance by Clarke.

I did not actually see it - about 20 minutes earlier I stopped following the action on cricinfo assuming the game would be drawn . . .silly me.

I was quite astounded when I refreshed the page, and rightly so. India somehow gave the game away in that one over.

Despite umpiring blunders during the match you would expect an international side hold out for 2 more overs to get a draw - so it’s a credit to the Aussies for getting the win, and a poor reflection on India.

Match numbers/stats are here.

2007 could have been the greatest year in our history as we may have ended it holding world championships in Rugby, Cricket (one day and twenty20) Netball and of course the America’s cup. Suffice to say we got none of those. Anyways, this is how I saw the best and worst of the 2007 sporting year.

Best Cricket Match
It was the Hamilton run chase by the Black Caps against the Aussies for the Chappell Haddlee series. Chasing a mammoth 347 to win, we were gone at 41/4. Enter Peter Fulton and Craig McMillan who carved up the Aussies and got us back in the game.

The innings from Mark Gillespe was surreal as he somehow managed 3 valuable boundaries. McCullum finished the game in style and we had the silverware. A true spine tingler.

Best Rugby League Match
Warriors v Roosters (a 31 all draw). The Warriors were down about 14 (maybe 16) nil, and were playing poorly. But in the space of 15 minutes they tore the Roosters to shreds thanks to Epalahame Lauaki. He started with a two handed off-load in the tackle to Wade McKinnon who sprinted away for the try. Two minutes later Hame threw a long ball which Jerome Ropati picked up on the bounce and (after a few passes) scored under the bar. Five minutes later Hame scored himself. Both coaches had to change their half time speeches such was the turn around.

The Roosters were great as well and when the teams scored two tries each in the second half, a draw was an accurate reflection on the days proceedings. Gary Freeman’s commentary during the game was a highlight for me as well.

Best Rugby Match
Damm, I can’t think of one to be honest. I know there were a few good ones during the rugby world cup, but I never saw them. So lets say it was the France V All Blacks match. Once again the French showed how passion and toughness can win you big games.

The ‘I told you so’ award
That would be me for my ‘why the All Blacks will lose the world cup‘ and my post about the All Blacks fitness. I told you so.

Team of the year
I can’t split two rugby teams. Argentina for their best ever world cup and the English for making the final of the world cup and proving in the process that boring rugby is winning rugby. They also get a pat on the back for peaking at the right time.

Best Houdini Act
Those disappearing All Blacks car flags - soon to be clogging up inorganic collections all over New Zealand

The ‘lets milk the brand for every last dollar’ award
The All Blacks album - soon to be clogging up bargain bins all over New Zealand.

Biggest Choker
Another tie here. First is the New Zealand Rugby League who managed to get rid of Brian Mclennan, the best Kiwi’s coach this generation has seen. They did this by not overturning their ‘Kiwis coach must live in New Zealand’ rule when Bluey took up a job at Leeds. Quite how they came to this decision is beyond me. The results speak for themselves - new coach Gary Kemble is out of his depth at international level. We suffered a record defeat against the Aussies and got beaten by the Poms 3-nil.

The other winner is the New Zealand rugby media, who clearly know very little about sport, especially Chris Rattue who wrote this aweful preview of the France - All Blacks quarter final match.

Best Losers
The Silver Ferns. Not good enough to win the championship but at the end of the game, they came across as gracious in defeat and proud of their own performance.

Highlight of 2007
Winning the Chappell Hadlee 3-nil - an achievement that cannot be underestimated. This was almost as good as winning the cricket world cup.

Low light 2007
The All Blacks at the world cup. Nuff said. Oh and this guy.

So there you have it. I know I’ve missed heaps of teams and players and events, but these are the ones that stuck out for me. Leave a comment if you think I’ve missed something.

The biggest cricket battle this summer is taking place in Australia - India are heading down under to carry on where the last clashes left off - heated, aggressive cricket. Throw in the issue of racism (suffered by Andrew Symonds at the hands of the Indian crowds) and this series will be a cracker.

India play 4 test matches against Australia, as well as the traditional limited overs cricket tournament

Get the full schedule of the Australian summer including the 4 match test series against India, ODI tournament with India and Sri Lanka and the twenty20 matches)

This great spreadsheet, designed by Aaron Heath allows you to enter the match scores so you can track progress of your team.

Download the schedule in Excel.
Australia v India cricket schedule (2007)

Ouch, that has gotta hurt!

New Zealand cricketer Jeetan Patel throws the cricket ball in from the outfield and strikes his team mate Lou Vincent flush on the head! Now if you know how hard a cricket ball it this will make you cringe!

I’m still trying to work out how Black Cap Jeetan Patel managed to do this . . I guess he and Vincent had a chat after the cricket game to work this out as well!

Enjoy!

It’s for a beer commercial apparently.

I guess it makes sense that Shane Warne should get dressed up like his mother - after all, he’s done enough dumb things in public over the last 15 years.

sigh . . . .

It’s been nearly 12 months since the Black Caps last played test match cricket. 2007 has been dominated by one dayers and twenty/20.

Anyways, the drought is over, a test match has been played, but the result was not what we wanted.

All over with over a day to spare - South Africa dealt another hiding to the Black Caps. No easing in period for new captain Daniel Vetorri then.

To make matters worse, Shane Bond is out of the 3 match series, and Jacob Oram is in doubt for the next match.

Sigh, things just don’t seem to change do they?

Another test loss, another fast bowler breaking down.

Although it was only about 8 months ago, the high of the Chappell Hadlee series seems far away.

I think it could be a long summer ahead. Note to self - stay positive about the Black Caps, the hurt is never as bad as certain other New Zealand teams!

At the moment, if you want to Digg an article about cricket you have to select the ‘other sports’ category.

I realise that not all sports can have their own category - but cricket is big - really big. There are millions upon millions of supporters and fans all over the world.

Just witness the number of articles about the twenty20 world cup in the Digg ‘other sports‘ right now and you’ll see there are many articles about cricket.

So lets organise all this information properly and give cricket it’s rightful category. India, which is now the most powerful nation in cricket has millions of web surfers - many of whom use social media sites such as Digg.

I think it’s time Digg shows some sense and gives cricket (quite possibly the greatest sport of all) it’s own category.

Let me know if you think Digg should add Cricket as a category.

OK, so we lost the semi final against Pakistan, but my biggest regret about the twenty20 world cup was simply not being able to stay up and watch what seems to have been some great cricket.

Yuvraj hitting six sixes would have been awesome to watch. I guess there is always youtube to fix that problem.

I’ve been to one twenty20 match and had a great time. It was Chris Cairns’ last match for New Zealand as the Black Caps took on the West Indies.

The game started at 7.30 pm, and after the match I realised what a great night’s entertainment twenty20 could be, and wondered aloud whether I would bother attending another one day international.

This match was notable as the first in international history to be decided by a ‘bowl off’. This, after Shane Bond calmly smoked a boundary of the last ball of the New Zealand innings to tie the scores.

No one quite knew what to do, including the officials - many specators thought the game was a tie and started leaving, before it was finally announced that the match would be decided by a bowl off - as per the rules.

The players practiced aiming at one stump for a few minutes - many of them hitting it. However during the real thing it took an age, as the first 12 attempts all missed!

Up stepped Bondy who knocked the stumps over twice, allowing Scotty Styris to finsh the job a few minutes later - an awesome finish to an awesome night.

Anyways, the played the highlights of that match last night before the Black Caps lost to Pakistan, and I was sufficiently motiviated to write a bit about it. Read the full match review.

Thanks to Aaron Heath for sorting out another great sporting spreadsheet. This time it’s the twenty 20 cricket world cup spreadsheet.

The first 20/20 cricket world cup is being held in South Africa, and starts on September 11. Get the schedule in an Excel spreadsheet and track your teams progress.

Download the 20-20 world cup schedule in excel (750Kb)