Pink Cricket Balls
I posted last November about an MCC trial during 2008 to use pink cricket balls instead of white balls with a view to implementing this into international one day cricket. Their trial started on Monday, and Tuesday morning on the BBC news the sports reporter talked about it as he was part of the first trial. Looking at the ball which was in the studio (not sure how many overs it was used for), and what the reporter says, it sounds like it was a decent trial. The pink lacquer doesn’t get dark like the white ball, and if it rubs off at all, the white underneath can be seen and it still remains quite visible.
From first impressions, it seems like pink cricket balls could well be the way forward, but we will have to see how the ball responds under lights and most importantly for its success, if the TV cameras can pick it up ok. It was the TV cameras not being able to pick up a yellow ball which condemned that idea, but with pink being not that far in the colour family from red this should be better.
If the manufacturers and shops could get a few of these manufactured I’m sure there would be plenty of people looking to buy them and give them a go themselves!
Cricket Being Played Again!
I havn’t talked much about the actual game of cricket over the past couple of weeks - too much new England shirts and Telegraph fantasy cricket to worry about!
However, the county season has begun under grey skies and on damp pitches (this April is rubbish compared to last year), with the County Championship and Liverpool Victoria cups. I tend not to cover county cricket in too much detail here, there is far too much going on and not enough time to keep on top of it all, but I also find some interest at the start of a season, and below I mention how the start of the season will affect some of the England hopefuls.
Sky Sports showed their first game of the season on Sunday between Durham and Yorkshire in the LV Cup, and they managed to pick a decent game with a surprisingly tight finish. Yorkshire managed to nearly win the game thanks to Bresnan and Shazad, after looking right out of it, and it was a really good game to see the end of. Hopefully we’ll have more decent county cricket, but in the sunshine! Twenty20 managed to hit the worst part of the summer last year but that is always good fun, although now it will forever be compared to the IPL/ICL - the first of which started last Friday.
There are a few test match places up for grabs, so the start of the season is an important one for some England hopefuls and those who need to cement their place in the team. Shah will probably miss out but needs to score some runs to put pressure on Strauss who himself needs to score (for the same county - no run outs there please!). If Ravi Bop can continue his storming start to the season his hat will be in the ring as well.
Flintoff needs lots of hours batting and bowling, the second part of which Harmison, Hoggard and Anderson also need. Mustard and Ambrose both showed promise over the winter tours, but one of them needs to step up to the plate, and a decent start to the county season might just help them do that. Add in players such as Plunkett and Mahmood who will harbour thoughts of getting back into the frame and it could be a fighting first month in the bowling department!
Also, my own games of cricket start in a couple of weeks time - I should probably have played a friendly or two, so I’ll go into the first league game a bit cold but hey, its too cold to play cricket at the moment!
Telegraph Fantasy Cricket 2008 - Players To Consider
I spent an hour or so yesterday looking at the player lists for Telegraph Fantasy Cricket 2008, so it seems only fair to let you know some of the players I was picking out. Bearing in mind, I still havn’t chosen my final XI, so these won’t necessarily make it into my team. My general strategy though I’ve decided is to go for an all round team, with few high rated players. I’m going to pack the 5 and 6 point players into my team I think, with county proven players who are going to win the LiveCricketUpdates.com mini league for me!
Batsman
After the first week of county games and LV cup games, Ravi Bopara has had a storming time of it. He also bowls, so there could be vital extra points there to be had. Although, being 7 points he isn’t cheap and he could be a risk - if he keeps his form up England will call him up and if he doesn’t, there is little point in having him!
Francois Du Plessis via South Africa to Lancashire is only a 3 point player, but he has a big reputation as a player for the future so things will be expected of him. Hasn’t really had a chance yet to show what he can do, but if you like a risk and need a 3 pointer he could be it.
Another 3 point batsman who has started really well is Usman Afzaal at Surrey. A ton in the county champ game and his experience of the county game make a mockery of his rating, with the only doubt being whether he’ll play every game given the strength of the brown caps batting lineup. Plus, will everyone have him in their team given he is a name people have “heard of” and see his cheap rating?
Mark Pettini has also had a good start to the season, and is only a 4 pointer. I think he plays in all forms of the game so could be someone to put in and forget about for the season! You have to be very careful not just to pick the players scoring tons at this stage of the season though, its tempting but you need to see the bigger picture!
Batsman such as Langer, Tresco, Key, Ramps, Rudoplh are all very much a given in this game. They’ll all score good runs, but you’ll pay in starting rating, and by having to make sacrifices in other areas of the team. Not to mention how similar your starting XI’s wil be!
Wicket Keepers
I tend not to spend too much on a wicket keeper in this form of the game - it seems that as long as you choose a guy who plays regularly and has some decent form with the bat that’s enough for me and I’ll save the points for other parts of the team. With that in mind, Nixon, Batty, Mustard, Foster etc are all out and I’m looking at one of three 5 point keepers; Jones, Sutton or Kieswetter. Jones is the obvious choice again as people have heard of him, but I like my team to be different so I’m looking at one of the other two probably. Kieswetter opened for Somerset yesterday and can hold a bat, whilst I might wait for Lancashire to play a couple of games before I decide on Luke Sutton or not.
All Rounders
Ryan McLaren from Kent could be in with a chance of getting into my team rated at 5 - I saw him bowl pretty sharpish last year, but I can’t remember how good he was with the bat, so I might have to check that out first.
Sean Ervine is only rated as a 5 as well, but I’ve picked him before and he’s infuriated me with his lack of getting involved with a game. He might have to bowl more with Hampshire’s winter troubles with bowlers, so he could be a decent pick for someone though.
The Dutchman Ryan ten Doeschate of Essex came close to being in my team - he scored a ton in the opening County champ game and is another one rated at 5, but I don’t know quite enough about him to happily put him in at the moment. Another one worth a look though.
Adil Rashid is a popular choice as well, but I think 6 points is too overrated for him this year. He needs more time in county cricket to deserve those kinds of ratings in my eyes.
Grahame Swann seemed to score a shed load of points last year, and as long as you watch when he gets picked for England in the ODI side he might be worth the 7 points he costs. One you will have to watch as the season goes on though, which isn’t really my style!
Bowlers
I’ve not had much chance to look at the bowlers list and decide where the worthwhile players are - but on early season wickets the seam bowlers are always the ones worth going for. Shreck and Onions are two popular choices, both with a very outside chance of making it into an England squad.
Onions had a poor year by his standards in ‘07 after a brilliant year the year before, and he could do it again. Plunkett is another bowler from Durham who is currently out of favour with the England selectors, but he should get points galore (but he is rated 7). Finally from the North East we have our friend Harmison. If he bowls well he’ll probably be called back into the England team, if he doesn’t then he won’t. Either way, you probably don’t want to pick him despite his decent enough showing in the LV cup yesterday.
Another player who impressed with both bat and ball yesterday was Tim Bresnan from Yorkshire - he is only a 5 pointer and as long as he gets a game every time he will be a popular pick. His bowler partner in crime at the end of the Yorkshire batting innings also showed himself in a good light - Ajmal Shazad. Rated only 3, he had something about him and if he plays regularly he’s a decent shout.
From Somerset Charl Willoughby has caught my eye - with the lack of anything else really standing out from Taunton someone is going to have to take the wickets, and at 6 points I think he could be a decent shout.
Apart from those mentioned i’m struggling to really find the quality in the bowling list - we have other England players in years past in Jones or Mahmood, Hoggard - but my knowledge of the county bowlers is much less than I thought!
The new England Adidas Cricket Shirts Revealed!
Ok, so this is a day early and the ECB/Adidas may not like me for doing this, but who cares.. I can reveal exclusively the new Test, ODI and Twenty20 shirts below. Top line - they look pretty damn nice, and I’ll be buying at least one of them. Pre-order them here
The Test shirt looks pretty smart, with a small red piping - but there is little they can do colour wise so that is about all I can say!
The ODI shirt is a dark blue, and has a real classy look to it. I remember we had a darker blue shirt in the past (I remember Hussain scoring a ton in it), but that also looked a bit messy and this looks so much neater, nicer and classier.
The Twenty20 shirt won’t get an awful lot of use seeing as we don’t play that much Twenty20 cricket compared to the other forms of the game, but again it looks really nice. To be honest i quite liked the red we wore in the Twenty20 world cup anyway, and this actually looks even better! And thank god it has sleeves unlike the Australian version!
So there we have it, the new England Adidas cricket kit, and I like them all. Remember they are being sold from next Friday (25th April), but if you want to pre-order, you can do so from Kitbag!
Wisden Cricketers Of The Year
Sorry for the lack of action here this week, but I’ve been playing and watching sports other than cricket this week - namely golf and football. There is an eerie quiet in England regarding cricket at the moment, its still a bit cold to get excited about playing or watching, so the pre-season games that are on are getting very little coverage. We do have the ever present merry-go-round of the Indian leagues and who will/won’t be playing over here but its all getting very dull.
Wisden did announce the other day though their five cricketers of the last year, an annual thing which precedes the publication of the new Wisden. I found it rather odd that players can only be given this honour once in their career - if they’ve had a good season surely it shouldn’t matter how many times they’ve been given the honour? The overall cricketer of the year was Jaques Kallis, and although he isn’t the most exciting cricketer to watch, he has an immense amount of talent with the bat and the ball (and a pretty hot wife as well!) and has scored x runs to deserve the accolade.
Sidebottom and Bell are two England players named as one of the best five of the year, and they have both had decent years. Sidebottom went from being a “who?” when brought back into the England side, and is now arguably the lynchpin of the bowling attack (I’ll start eating my hat once i’ve finished writing this). Bell has had a decent time and if only England would stop shifting him around the order he could be the key to England’s batting over the next 18 months (Ashes series included). Otis Gibson also got a mention for his stunning county season, and Durham have already admitted he’ll be a big loss for them in the upcoming season. Chanderpaul was the final player given the honour, which isn’t surprising as he has racked up the runs over the past year (also winning a damn close game for the WIndies yesterday against Sri Lanka). The final player was Zaheer Khan, which to be honest doesn’t really register with me. He was decent over here last year, but I’d have thought there were better players than him over the whole year.
Anyway, its nearly time for the proper season to start, so hopefully there’ll be some interesting things to talk about soon!
Telegraph Fantasy Cricket Update - I’m In!
I mentioned about telegraph fantasy cricket the other day and how I wasn’t sure if I would enter or not.. well I’ve caved in after a mate of mine set up a super league and I have to show him my superior knowledge! I’m already hammering him in Fantasy Premier League (football), so why not carry that over to cricket!
I’ve downloaded the player list from here, and this evening I will take a look at the lists and get my winning team together! Without giving too much away, I’m going to go for the approach with players that should be here for all the summer (none of these 3 week overseas players), and play in all forms of the game. This will allow me to effectively forget about my team once it has been setup and not worry about who’s playing for their country, in the IPL/ICL etc. So although I won’t be challenging those at the top of the leaderboard I should do ok. And if you’re really lucky I’ll give you some updates here!
Right, I’m off to choose my winning team… any tips gratefully received in the comments!!
