Since it's the end of another decade for cricket , I thought why not reminisce about they great decade of cricket we had. I would focus on team India as it's the team of which I can claim to have followed the majority of the matches.
2011-12
The first year of the decade , Indian team was the No: 1 test side since 2009 , dominating at home and being extremely competitive abroad winning in NZ , Eng, drawing in SA and fighting well with Ponting's Australia down under all in a span of 3-4 years. To add cherry on top of that winning the World Cup meant this was the peak of Indian cricket and given where we were at the turn of the century it was one heck of an achievement to reach this position.
Note that Ishant Sharma was still pretty shit.
2012-13
As big as the highs were , who knew the lows were going to be just as deep. The no 1 test team team crashed and burned in incredible fashion and got white washed in two consecutive series in Eng and Aus , tons of legends had to retire and if that wasn't enough the nail to the coffin was hit by Sir Alistair Cook and his men when they beat India in their own fortress after 28 years when Panesar and Swann taught Indians how to bowl spin and I think at this point the stumps , bails , bat and ball basically anything to do with cricket should have been burnt and sent to England at that point. Funnily this series was my introduction to cricket as a 11 year old who despite being in india didn't know the name of a single cricketer other than Sachin Tendulkar.
Phew, Anyways the horror show ends here, or does it..? Though it doesn't feel like much now , but at that time when Pakistan was visiting for the first time after the terrorist attack and beat India in an odi series in India , it felt like a huge deal, I guess it was the series where we discovered Bhuvi, and during those days he used to swing like a banana albiet a bit slower, his wickets of the first balls on debut where fucking ridiculous. Regardless we did fine in ODi compared to our standards back then when we never used to win odi series in SENA , and Virat Kohli's thrashing in Hobart stands out even to this day , and to think that his 183 is still his highest after 43 fucking hundreds is a miracle.
Anyways the redemption in test cricket came when Australia visited India. We didn't know at the time , but in retrospect the worst Australian side I have ever seen play test cricket and poor bastards thought they could sneak a victory against this depleted in
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It could be a player, an ex player or a journalist
Thanks to everyone that submitted a nomination for the bestof awards for 2020.
Nominations to be voted on are linked below for each award, and will be open for a week or so.
Subreddit awards:
Cricket awards:
Best of luck to everyone, and thanks to everyone that votes!
A lot of comments in the match thread on how shit Australian commentary is, in particular Warne. I agree it is pure dogshit, but it is a bit easier to deal with when you understand why. It isn't because they are idiots (exception: Warney), and it has been like this in Australia long before channel 7 got the rights or T20 took hold - go further back to the decline of Benaud's influence as he aged, and rise of people in his place like Brad McNamara.
These guys are under direction to commentate like matey chatterboxes who barely add anything of value. You get one of them on Sky Cricket in England, for example, and they are quite different - even Warney dials it back and is tolerable 50% of the time.
We may not like it as knowledgeable cricket fans, but this isn't sky cricket in England - the target audience isn't people like us, fans who love cricket so much they will pay an exorbitant monthly fee to watch it. Let's be honest, they could have Warney play a recorder for 6 hours and we would still be tuned in, what choice do we have?
This is free to air, which is simultaneously the greatest thing in the world, making top quality test cricket freely available to the masses, and the worst thing in the world, dumbing down the coverage for the masses. The target audience is dumb cunts who don't know that much about cricket and would be bored by an technical analysis of why Privthi Shaw has a vulnerability to balls moving in towards his off stump. They need their attention captured as they flick through from their cardoons to I'm A Fuckwit Get Me Out Of Here. They commentate like it is an AFL match because that macho all action blokey bullshit is an easy way to get people excited, even if it doesn't match with test cricket at all. It's part of the reason why cricket remains widely popular in Australia and not limited in appeal outside of rich private schools like in England, or like Rugby Union in Australia.
Obviously Australian cricket did pretty well on free to air without shit commentary for a long time. Hopefully there will be a day where the balance can be struck again between keeping it interesting for casual viewers and knowledgeable and low key for fans. In the meantime there is always ABC Grandstand and syncing techniques if you really need to fix it for yourself now.
With everything that's happened in the world it was tempting to call this the worstof awards this year... But with matches all wrapped up it's time to look back and reward the contributions to the sub the community considers the best of the year.
As in previous years, nominations are now open for the following awards:
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Best Post
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Best Statistical Post
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Best Submitter
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Best Comment
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Best Commenter
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Best Humourous Post
Prizes will be given to the top voted nominations in each category, thanks to the reddit admins, once we've received the coins and determined how they'll be distributed.
Also like previous years we will be voting on the best cricket performances of the year (no prizes for these obviously). Nominations can be from any format (test, ODI, or T20I; domestic or franchise first-class, List A, or T20; Women's cricket; or any other cricket match):
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Best Cricket Match of 2020
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Best Batting Innings of 2020
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Best Bowling Performance of 2020
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Best All-round Performance of 2020
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Best Cricketing Moment of 2020
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Funniest Cricketing Moment of 2020
To nominate, reply to one of the top-level comments in this thread for the relevant category with your nomination; also please note that self-nominations are not permitted.
If it's not clear what your nomination references, please include a link, e.g. to a scorecard. Use no participation mode for any reddit links and observe the reddit rules on not voting on such linked content.
Votes in this thread will not count, to avoid giving an advantage to the earliest posted nominations. Once all the nominations are in we will create new voting threads for each category so the voting is fair.
Nominations will close in around a week and then we'll start the voting. Thanks everyone!
Alright so this was a bit of a discussion in todays match thread at the start, and i thought i may as well highlight this issue and Saj Sadiq.
I'll leave these screenshots of today before i begin.
Saj Sadiq probably known by lots of you here for his twitter screenshots being posted here. Him and Mazhar Arshad, another twitter handler like Saj run PakPassion. PP is a forum site for pak cricket which has also at times done interviews with domestic cricketers.
Anyways with this being introduced, i'll let you know it is the most vile and toxic places to view. Constant bashing of our own players, demeaning other country's players for example India's. Spreading gossip and rumors to an unhealthy extent.
Imam ul Haq will be my first example here. Who stated he cried upon opening his phone. And recieves catcalls of parchi from crowd stands. How did this term get attached to his name?
PP's threads started topics on Imam being Inzi's nephew, shat on him for his performances to praise any afridi-eqsue type of batter, asked him to be dropped for every format including psl. And coined him with 'Parchi'. [Parchi means ticket. Aka a ticket into the team because of his uncle]. Still criticized him blaming him for Sami's departure to US cricket a few weeks back.
How does their rant matter? You see Saj apart from stats ends up posting these itsy bitsy knowledge to his twitter feed on basis of what his 'toxic users think of (x) player' and any news revolving around it.
This term parchi slowly spread across the community until it became a term popular enough for Imam to come open his phone to. AKA contributing to real life cricketers mental health, while saj and mazhar's fat nerdy ass sit there tweeting abt players not gyming/performing properly. And due to how much he can easily delude an entire social group into believing him, his talks can easily be spread right to the point where our actual cricketers will end up hearing on their comments section on their social platforms and in person. Like how sarfaraz was sweared for 2 mins straight at a mall by some cunt in person while he was spending time with his son. Made his wife cry later on the day.
Second example is Babar Azam. Still a very few rant sometimes abt his SR but honestly ignore it.
So there was news about him being a Rapist which was later found as being False.
Before it reached
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I've been a fan of the Black Caps for a long time, and never thought I'd live to see this day. Congratulations to Kano and all the guys!
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/new-zealand-v-pakistan-2020-21-1233950/new-zealand-vs-pakistan-2nd-test-1233963/live-cricket-score
Records are meant to be broken’. This has become more of a cliché but some of the records have stood unbroken which of them do you think will be broken soon? records below
- 400* vs eng 2004 (17 years long) by Brain lara (has highest score 501* in first class cricket)
- 19 wickets (in single test) in 1956 by Jim laker
- 800 test wickets by or 1347 total international wickets by Muralidharan
- 100 international centuries or 34,348 runs international runs by Sachin tendulkar
- 8/19 ODI (maximum wickets by a bowler in alloted 10 overs) by Chaminda vaas
- 175* ipl score by Chris gayle
- 264 in odi by or 3 double hundreds by Rohit sharma
- Most number of matches as captain in test cricket (109) by greame smith
- Most no of catches in test cricket ( 210) and most no of balls faced in test cricket (31,258 ) by Rahul dravid
- Average of 99.94 in test cricket is by Don Bradman ^((totally forgot about this)****)
Edit : Added a few more records
Expecting this to be an especially hot take considering most of Reddit is American.
I believe that Cricket as a sport is kind of memed in America for being impossible to understand, but as an Australian who was born and raised on cricket there is no sport that is more subtly brilliant.
To use movies as an analogy, a lot of sports are kind of like a Jason Bourne or mission impossible movie where there's lots of flashy action and the rules and goals are simple and easy to understand. Cricket is more like a slow paced thriller where it builds up for a while to a satisfying flash of excitement.
The beauty of a test match is that it takes constant concentration and sharp play by both teams to stay competitive, and lapses in judgement and execution can have huge implications.
It's hard to put into words, but in the same way I'm sure there are a lot of uniquely American things I will never understand, no American can truly appreciate the beauty of seeing Steve Smith hit a full face cover drive into the gap for four while sipping cordial on the sofa during a 40+ degree day in summer (Celsius).
Also, to anyone from America or indeed any other non cricketing countries, do any of you know who Don Bradman is? I had a discussion with my friend on the subject the other day.
Ask any NZ Cricket fan what the number one thing on their wishlist for the future of the game in NZ is and you will hear a resounding “more Test Cricket please!”. With the NZ Teams growing stature on the international stage, you’ve begun to hear the same from international fans as well. It's hard to fathom that the best team in the world will play just 4 tests at home this summer.
NZC are often slagged off for favouring White Ball Cricket in the scheduling each summer, as well as a refusal to host Test Series more than 2 matches.
The crowds this 'summer' have been the best in recent memory, with incredible atmosphere at all four tests - often being close to a “full house” on Weekend Days. The NZ Cricket Fan must be asking themselves “what more do we need to do to get more Test Cricket” - Number One in the world, excellent attendance, awesome atmosphere... surely NZC must see this and want to host more Red Ball?
The real issue however, often unspoken in favour of simply slagging off NZC, is venues to host Test Matches - but not in the way you might think.
We all know NZ punches well above its weight for performance, but the same can also be said for Cricket Venues - In the last 5 years the Black Caps have played at 10 different international venues across all formats. Pretty incredible when you consider that there are just 5 million people in the country. That’s the same as Australia who have five times as many people.
However, across the same time period, NZ have played their 25 home tests at just six different grounds, with 21 of those being played at one of Basin Reserve, Hagley Oval or Seddon Park. In the last two years, Bay Oval has been elevated to Test Status and hosted two tests, with the remaining two split between University Oval and Eden Park
It’s long rumoured that The Basin and Hagley are the only two test venues that turn a profit each summer, with the creation of Bay Oval as a test venue seeming to be a success so far. Seddon Park must break even or be close to it as the third most frequent test venue in this time period.
While it does happen occasionally, hosting two tests in a summer every summer would undoubtedly lead to diminishing returns for the premier venues - particularly if your touring teams aren’t big draws. Anyone who attended the Basin Reserve Bangladesh Test of 2019 will remember very, very poor crowds in comparison to the Sri Lanka Test Earlier in the Summer.
So where does that leave us? Where can NZ host mor
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Australia : Starc, Cummins, Hazzlewood (Pattinson) | India : Bumrah, Shami, Ishant (Siraj) | New Zealand : Southee, Boult, Wagner (Jamieson) | South Africa : Rabada, Nortje, Ngidi | Englad : Broad, Anderson, Wood (Archer & Woakes since Broad & Anderson are at the end of their career) | Pakistan : Afridi, Abbas, Naseem | West Indies : Holder, Gabriel, Roach
Didn't follow Sri Lankan cricket for quite sometime to know their strength. Please shed some light on their pacers.
To put things in perspective, Australian cricketers got on an average 5000 USD per match in the WC. Brendan was also the highest run getter before the knockout stages began.
Walking around the State Fair looking at the livestock and the kids that raise them, it struck me that Mini-Livestock were not represented. Considering the fact that they’re easy to raise humanely, they’re sustainable, and super nutritious, it was a shame that they weren’t represented. So, I decided to do something about it and wrote this article on How to Raise Crickets.
Crickets offer a real animal protein with all nine essential amino acids. They are a prebiotic fiber (nutrition for probiotics), high in antioxidants, a perfect Omega 3:6 balance, high in B12, Calcium, Zinc, Iron, and more. They are a very bio-available food source.
Raising crickets is not terribly hard and can be a lot of fun. It’s a great activity to do with kids.
Crickets can be fed leftovers and since the females lay around a hundred eggs during their six to eight-week lifetime, once you establish your mini-herd, it will re-populate even after a heavy harvest.
