Mathew Hayden retires from international cricket! Bowlers around the world would be relieved! Not in the best form of his career lately, he was the centre of every ‘cricket brain’ with a mike or in the middle of media personnel.
With his retirement, Australia have a bigger void to fill in. David Warner (the rookie opener) could not have asked for a better time for his debut . With many people demanding his inclusion to the ODI squad, yeah, it is a good time to make the debut.
The well built Hayden would be remembered for his aggressive cricket (I mean, the batting) and walking down the pitch, even to the pace bowlers. He was one of the key players in the Aussie line up in having their success in the last few years. Test matches being more than interesting and being result oriented.
Wish him good luck in his post-cricket life!
Posts Tagged ‘cricket
when i wake up
Would i see the news of SA making history? Is it the end of Aussie dominance in the cricket field?
Every one has had the laugh!
KP – “When I was batting I saw on the scoreboard South Africa had won – and it made me chuckle a little bit.”
Harbhajan Singh – “Any team can beat Australia”
It is a new world for Australia. They are not used to results of this kind. The exit of McGraths and Warnes would be felt even more now.
Cricket – quotes of the year
A collection of the best ‘cricket’ quotes of the year at cricinfo. My top picks are
“I can get Ponting out any time. I think I can get him even after I come post a six-month lay-off … [he] had a lot to say about our players and about the way we play our cricket. In fact, it is Ponting who first needs to go and learn to bat against spin bowling.”
Harbhajan Singh continues the games even after the contest is won by India
“I appeal to people not to damage public property and to remain calm.”
That man Shoaib Akhtar again, with a statesman-like message after being handed a five-year ban by the PCB
“You are not God, you are a cricketer, and I’m a better one.”
Kevin Pietersen puts Yuvraj Singh in his place in the course of on-field pleasantries in the Mohali Test
“There was a little element of feeling like a cow.”
Sold for US$700,000 at the IPL auction, Adam Gilchrist gets in touch with his bovine side
“I could end up being the bargain buy of the tournament, you never know.”
A smiling Ricky Ponting brushes off his comparatively low IPL price tag
“It’s kind of hard to go on one date, have a nice dinner and then say: ‘That was nice – what are you doing in six weeks’ time? I’m going to Chittagong.'”
Graeme Smith reveals why he is still single
“Maybe some of these guys are thinking about their bank accounts before they start playing.”
Viv Richards tries to figure out why so many catches have been dropped in the first two Stanford matches
“He’s got more tape on his fingers than an Iraqi war veteran.”
Tony Cozier on Murali Kartik, who had just dropped a sitter at slip in Middlesex’s Stanford match against England
“Had I been 21, I would easily have cracked this.”
Rahul Dravid, 35, wished Twenty20 had existed earlier
“It is a $5 bit of cloth. I haven’t got one, haven’t had one since the day I finished. I don’t need to look at an Australian cap to remind me of what I did.”
Ian Chappell isn’t getting sentimental about his (lack of) baggy green
“My cricket age is also my real age.”
Yasir Hameed, when asked why he made a debut aged 25 – old by Pakistani standards
“Should there be only one government school in the country? What if some private schools come up and provide education to few more?”
Kapil Dev puts forth a compelling case for the Indian Cricket League
SA beats Australia
South Africa won the 1st test match against Australia by 6 wickets. SA chased a massive 413 to win to register the seond highest succesful run chases in the history. With centuries from Graeme Smith and AB de Villiers and some useful contribution from Kallis, Amla and the debutant Duminy, they exposed the week Australian attack (except for Johnson). Full scorecard from Cricinfo.
Hayden and Hussey are yet to find some form with the bat. The Autralian bowling department except for Johnson, looked out of sorts! Johnson had his career best figures in the match taking 11 wickets.
With the gap between the world champions and the upcoming teams becoming narrower, 2009 promises to be very exciting. Afterall, this is what we would like to see. Don’t we? A good game of test match cricket, rather than a one sided match with Australia winning hands down!
A gripping test match ended in India’s favor! All those who say Test Cricket would be no more, go get a life!
This being the highest total chased to win a test match in India (and 4th in all). The previous best in India being 276 in New Delhi by West Indies in 1987. More on highest run chases at cricinfo.
With England being in supreme control over the test match for more than half of the test match, saw it slipping away in the last session of the 4th day when India started their second innings. Sehwag, set up the win amazingly with the quick fire 83 (off 68 balls). With no respect for the pitch or the bowlers, Sehwag blazed through. Gambhir on the other end was happy playing the supporting role. Dravid, yet to get out of his woeful form, lasted 19 balls scoring 4 runs. The 5th wicket partnership of 163 runs between Sachin and Yuvraj sealed the victory for the hosts. It was a marvelous innings from Sachin and was supported very well by Yuvraj. Sachin got to his century (103*) in second innings, the first ever to feature in India’s win. The affair between MA Chidambaram stadium and Tendulkar continues! Yuvraj had a point or two to prove those who questioned his place in the test team with a well made 85* and he did that in style.
As he scored the winning runs, Sachin was visibly excited. Rightly so! What a feeling it would have been for the little master! As he revealed in the press conference, the century and scoring the winning runs were special and India winning the test match, made them even more special!
That was awesome! Ponting’s full fledged leap in the slips to dismiss NZ’s James How ( in the second test of Australia – New Zealand) is a sight! Call it fluke or perfect anticipation! Watch this to be believe it! No wonder why he was so much delighted after taking the catch. Ponting had to say this on the catch
You get one or two you fluke through your career, I guess. It’s always nice, I enjoyed it. Any catch you take in the slips is enjoyable, but to get one like that and remove one of their more dangerous players was a nice thrill for everybody.
cricket resumes!
After a week long tension due to the mumbai terror attacks, England’s cricket tour of India resumes. The one day series was anyways called off in the middle. The ECB has given the ‘go’ for the two test match series, after changing the venues to be Chennai and Mohali.
The Indian test team for this series was announced. Yuvraj Singh and Pragyan Ojha get a call. RP Singh was dropped while M. Vijay and S. Badrinath were retained.
A 2-0 result against the under-prepared England team would be a wonderful way to end the year for the Dhoni’s men.
At the end of the second match of the seven match India – England series, England are two down. Although England’s performance today was better than the one at Rajkot, but it was not enough! There were some interesting phases in the match, where England seemed to be in control of the match (first three indian wickets, the last power play during Indian innings, KP and Flintoff partnership) but they lost it soon to some tremendous batting display.
Yuvraj has had a splendid run in this series and today it was his day. He struck with the ball too. His century and the 4 wickets, were the difference between the two sides. Yuvraj has come out of the lean patch and came out strongly after being not selected for the tests. He has silenced all his critics with these two knocks. In the context of the game, this knock was much better and more valuable to the team than his knock at Rajkot.
Yusuf Pathan reached his maiden half century and provided the last minute thrust (17 runs in 4 balls) to the Indian total, taking the score out of reach for the visitors. Gambhir, continuing his excellent form from the Australia series, contributed with a handy half century and helped India recover from the wickets that were lost early.
The English top-order has to fire. One of them need to get a big score! The “part time” bowlers Sehwag and Yuvraj shared 7 wickets among them.
Team India is going through a wonderful period of time. Hope they do not become complacent over their victories! Hope, the last thing we can do!
England in India
India’s victory over Australia in the Border-Gavaskar trophy has not sunk in yet and the next series is all set to start. Read an interesting article Why ugly can be beautiful on cricinfo, on test cricket as it was and how the game’s ‘well wishers’ claim it should have been. Yes, test cricket is not all about a full fledged attack all the time.
The English team is in India, after their loss in “lavish” Stanford 20-20 for 20, and all set to take on Dhoni’s men.
It would be interesting to see how team India gets in to one day mould! Yuvraj would be closely watched and his place will be under immense scrutiny. While the other young guns Rohit, Raina and Kohli might get a nod and would be raring to go and cement their place.
If England promises a better performance than their show in the warm-up games, it would be quite a contest between these two teams. Flintoff, Harmison, KP, Sehwag, Gambhir, Zaheer Khan, MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Raina and Ishant (after his recovery period) are the ones to look out for.
India won the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2008 by beating Australia 2-0. In a nail biting final day of play, India managed to wrap-up the entire Australian batting line-up, winning the match by 172 runs. A target of 380+ runs in the last day in a wearing down sub-continental track will be challenging, but as long as the hard hitting Mathew Hayden was there, it was reachable. He was making sure that Australia were never down in terms of runs scored.
Australia were off track from the beginning of the series. They missed to win to first test match in Bangalore and lost their way in the remaining matches in the series.
The series was never a cake walk for the Indians, it was hard fought. Whoever said test cricket is to die or whatsoever, had to eat their words 🙂 . Australian teams and their captains have a part to play in making test cricket more interesting or watchable. They play for a win and they play for a result. I still remember those good old days of test cricket where most of the matches end in a tame draw and where a run rate of 3 was deemed ‘very aggressive’. These days, most teams comfortably score at a run rate of 3+.
Australia would have a deep look at the series’ outcome and the way they went with it. While the batting line-up is still good, the bowling seems to need some attention. Sure, the replacements for Gilly, McGrath and Warne are not there yet. Brett Lee was out of sorts, often lacking his aggression and pace. Ponting would not be spared too. His tactics behind employing the ‘part-timers’ to bowl at a point in the match where the test could be won, can be questioned. While CA have already shown interest in questioning (to have a feel of the situation 🙂 ) his tactics to know the reasons behind, some critics have already had a go at him. Like any player, a captain can also have a bad test or a bad series.
The series saw Sourav and Anil retiring from cricket, Laxman playing his 100th test match, Sachin making it to the record books for leading run scorer in test cricket and Harbhajan getting 300 wickets in test cricket.
M.Vijay, Amit Mishra, Jason Krejza and Cameron White made their first appearance representing their national teams. The first three have made use of the opportunity well and will look forward for the next call-up to represent their national teams. Good luck to them!
Test cricket is still interesting, at least for those who know the game.
On a side note, this reminds me of a chat with my Cypriot friend, with whom i was talking about this series. Obviously, i was a bit enthusiastic about India beating Australians at Mohali. He said, “Cricket is not interesting… one team bats and then the other team bats and there is no competition between the two teams!”. He was looking for something like football, where both the teams have a go(!) at the ball at a time! I did not want to waste my time in trying to convince him!
phew! quite a lengthy post!
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