Forgive me for this rather promotional post, but I thought i’d let you all know about a new site I’ve had a hand in producing. The site is called Live Cricket Updates, and it shows all the latest news from the best sites around the globe to give you updated news throughout the day.

The site was set up out of a requirement to be able to see all the latest cricket news without having to trawl all the sites, as I like being able to see everything in one place. We have also tried to include some sites which people wouldn’t necessarily have heard about before. The news has also been split into categories for specific international teams, domestic cricket news etc, so you can find the news you want as quickly as possible.

I hope you all find the site useful, and make sure you bookmark it, and tell your friends so that everyone can use this useful resource! Remember, for all the latest cricket news, LiveCricketUpdates.com is the place!

There have been 59 hat tricks in international cricket, but never once has anyone managed to take a wicket with a fourth ball. Step up Lasith Malinga of Sri Lanka against South Africa yesterday.

With South Africa walking their way to victory and 5 wickets down, yesterday’s game became very tense as South Africa almost threw it away. With two balls in one over, and then the first two with his next over, he became the first player to ever take four wickets in four deliveries. There’s no doubting that Malinga’s slingy action is a bit odd, but he manages to get some wicked swing and reverse swing on the ball, and it did for four of the South Africans.

South Africa won in the end, and it keeps the super 8 table tight at this very early point, but Australia are looking ominously good on the top of the table. And their next three games are against Bangladesh, England and Ireland.. so that’s another 6 points for them then!

Now this news is sad. The ICC have requested to YouTube, and the request has been accepted, that all clips to do with the cricket world cup be removed from the video sharing site. They cite copyright reasons, and say they are trying to defend the exclusive deals that certain companies have to broadcast games.

I’m sorry, but do the ICC really want to clamp down on something so pointless? The only clips I’ve seen are short clips, and I even linked to one of them earlier this month, when Gibbs hit six 6’s in an over. People watch the minute long clip, then go back to what they were doing. They couldn’t see the clip anywhere else so quickly and simply, and have done absolutely no harm to the exclusive broadcasters.

The thing is as soon as a clip is taken down, probably 10 more have taken its place. This is an issue with YouTube I admit, as copyright isn’t something that should be flaunted lightly, but why are the ICC going down this route when seeing things like this probably helps bring people to the game? You’re not able to watch live cricket, neither are you able to watch full highlights, so I really don’t see the problem. And i’m not the only one who thinks this, the cricinfo editor admits the same thoughts here. Lighten up ICC, please..

Amusingly, I also saw that cricinfo are doing 3D updates of the world cup. After the action has taken place, and with a delay of an over or two, the action is replicated in 3D on the cricinfo 3D site. Not the way I’d choose to watch my updates but I appluad them for their creativity!

After the past couple of days pretty heavy news coming out, and with a day without any world cup cricket, I had the chance to do a bit of a search for some photos from the world cup so far. We’ve all seen enough cricket, so I went to Flickr and had a look at the photos that those on holiday had taken.

There are a few that make me jealous, such as this one below:

And ones that make me smile like this:

Seen any decent photos on photo sharing sites? Leave a comment and let me know!

The sport of cricket isn’t having the best time of it at the moment. With the horrible events surrounding Bob Woolmer still rife, and the murmurings around match fixing returning, the media are painting cricket as a corrupt sport.

Its not helped when Vaughan comes out and says he thinks match fixing is still rife in the higher levels of the game. I think this is an incredibly dangerous thing to say by the England cricket captain. If you have evidence, come out and say who, what and where. If you’re going on a gut feeling, keep your mouth shut and don’t feed these rumours. If it is happening, then the ICC should be making huge, tough stances against those involved, and this should be struck out of the game forever. I like to watch a game of cricket knowing that everyone there is trying to win, not get out out for a certain scoreetc to put some money in his back pocket. And the only way people will understand is if those involved are expelled from the game.

In world cup news, it looks like India are probably out, which as expected has been taken pretty hard back in India. There was one story about how a man even committed suicide over it. This seems unbelievable to an Englishman, but that is the way that cricket is seen over there. I don’t think its right, but what can you do – they have another way of life over there. I also didn’t like the fact that “Hundreds of angry cricket fans took to the streets burning effigies, defacing posters and held mock funeral processions of the national team after the defeat.” I’m sorry, but after the events of the past few days this is unbelievably wrong. The players are put on such a pedestal that it is unlikely they’ll ever be able to reach expectations.

Not a problem for the English, there are no expectations and I’m just happy we made it to the super 8’s. I think we’ll beat the weaker sides left, but I can’t really see us troubling any of the major test nations left in the competition. We’ll return back to England in time to watch the semi-finals. Now watch my prediction go wrong!

The Indian team was beaten today by the in-form Sri Lankan’s, and now they need Bermuda to do them a huge favour and beat Bangladesh on Sunday. That in itself doesn’t look like the sort of result that is expected, so we could find ourselves watching a World Cup without India or Pakistan in the latter stages.

I mentioned before the tournament started how India have so much talent, but so often they fail to use the talent and produce the results that the fanatical Indians demand. I bet they wish they knew what the problem was, and if it was England wasting such talent I’d be pulling my hair out!

Ireland will be in the super 8’s, but after the showing against the West Indies they could be in for a tough time. The did ok, if not brilliantly with the bat, but with the ball there was a lack of anything to really get the batsmen out. They’ll be happy just to be there though, and you can’t blame them as no-one gave them a hope.

In other news, Brian Lara 2007 landed on my mat this morning! I havn’t had much chance to play it yet, but once I have given it a good play I’ll submit a fuller review on it!