Paul Farbrace; A Man of Kent who takes matters in his stride

Richard Browne, courtesy of ESPNcricinfo, and the Sunday Leader , where a different title was used

FARBACE -S LEADERThe county of Kent in the south east of England, just 30 odd kilometers away from the continent, is a rural county with a proud history. Known as the Garden of England, the summer sees an explosion of life as fruits and vegetables come into bloom. In days gone by children from the slums of London would come down for the summer to pick fruit, the only prevention from rickets the devastating disease that comes froma lack of sunlight in the then smog ridden streets of east London, which lie just to the north of Kent. Continue reading →

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English cricket team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

OX Celbrate  Continue reading →

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Aussies are in Heaven

 

1.1532079188@web122601.mail.ne1.yahoo.com
   An  American decided to write a book about
famous churches around the world.
So he bought a plane ticket and took a trip to
Orlando, thinking that he would start by working
his way across the USA from South to North. Continue reading →

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Murali b. Serena 00 at Rod Laver Arena Melbourne

SERENA + MURALI

Tennis star Serena Williams and Sri Lankan cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan pose for pictures during a media event ahead of Australian Open Tennis Tournament in Melbourne yesterday.

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Test Cricket is being smothered by T20 cricket

Gideon Haigh, courtesy of The Australian, 26 December 2013, where the title is “Behind the Boxing Day facade, Test cricket is in decay”

MCG -SNAKE INTHE GRASS Pic from Sydney Morning Herald –– symbolically this snake can be regarded as a T20 force undermining Test cricket

BOXING Day: in cricket there is nothing quite like it, a day of national sporting thanksgiving held where Test matches all began, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, almost 137 years ago. You can be guaranteed the biggest crowd of summer. You can expect a vast recumbent audience of home viewers, still in a postprandial stupor, looking forward this year to further lashings of roast pom. No, nothing much wrong with this scene. It’s elsewhere that’s not so rosy.

Because Boxing Day in Australia, and the Ashes more generally, has become Test cricket’s Potemkin village, hiding the decay of the format behind the veneer of its own continuity. This summer, Boxing Day forms part of a tradition significantly overextended: the ninth Ashes Test of the year, in a series already decided, with a final leg of this money-minting decathalomarathon to go in Sydney. Continue reading →

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A Numerical Miracle: Tendulkar equals Cook + Clarke

STATS GREATS

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December 23, 2013 · 8:37 am

Some Characters! Ceylon Cricket Team in the Year 1948

CEYLON TEAM circa 1948

ADDENDUM: Note the XI that faced the Australian Invincibles under Bradman at the Colombo Oval on 27th March 1948 ….. in batting order: M. Rodrigo, S. Nagendra, FC De Saram, M. Sathasivam, SS Jayawickrema, BR Heyn, CI Gunasekera, S. Coomaraswamy, CE Allen, RL deKRETSER, B Navaratne.

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December 16, 2013 · 2:01 pm

A Gentle Cricketer AMLA beats the mercurial VIV to 4000 runs

Michael Jeh, in ESPNcricinfo where the title is “Cricket’s Finest Bloke?”

In between all the bad-tempered shenanigans in the Ashes, the humblest and most self-effacing cricketer on Planet Earth crept up on one of the gods of cricket and broke his record, almost apologetically, as if he had no right to be in heaven. I refer to Hashim Amla becoming the fastest player to reach 4000 ODI runs, eclipsing the mighty Viv Richards. In so many different senses, you couldn’t get players who were any more different in style and power. Amla has none of the swagger and brutality that Viv displayed in his pomp, and yet he is entitled to share in some of that reflected glory, much to the embarrassment of Amla himself.

To be fair to Sir Viv, if he had batted in these times, on flat tracks, facing bowlers who serve up a regular dose of full tosses and with only four men allowed out in the deep, to say nothing of the improved cricket bats, one shudders to think what carnage he may have caused. The general improvement in the standard of fielding might have been a limiting factor but Viv rarely got to plunder poor bowling attacks either. There were hardly any minnows around in his time. Continue reading →

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Sylvester Dias: An Appreciation of Cricketer and Person

I: Mahinda Wijesinghe

Sylvester Allan Solomon Dias (1937 – 2013) was always known as Sylvester, or simply Dias, and there wasn’t a more lion-hearted cricketer in his time be it with ball or bat. He gave his all to the game. His recent demise would be mourned by all who knew him, and especially with whom he played cricket with or against. A medium fast right-arm bowler he had a long-run up and slung them down with all the energy and spirit at his command. As a batsman it took some digging to prise him out. Eventually he did represent Ceylon and played in the Leagues in England but statistics cannot do justice nor measure his large heart nor his effervescent wit. Continue reading →

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Unique Adelaide Oval Scenes: Ashes 2005

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Adelaide Oval Today: Seagulls’ View Continue reading →

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