Cricket Blog

Some interesting tidbits on sledging in cricket:

1. In a Sheffield Shield game between NSW and SA, a Waugh twin was taking an enternity to take guard, asking the umpire for centre, middle and leg, two legs - the whole lot. Then he steps away towards leg side and has another look around the field, before re checking centre. Jamie Siddons, a prolific run scorer who unluckily never played a test is at slip, and decided enough is enough. “For christ sake, it’s not a ‘f*cken test match.” Waugh replies: “Of course it isn’t … You’re here.”
2. In the 1980’s Ian Botham returned early from a tour of Pakistan, and on radio joked “Pakistan is the sort of country to send your mother in-law to.” Needless to say the Pakistanis did not find this amusing, and when Pakistan defeated England in the 1992 World Cup Final, Aamer Sohail told Ian Botham “Why don’t you send your mother-in-law out to play, she cannot do much worse.”
3. In one of the tour matches in South Africa, Australia played Hansie Cronje’s province. Cronje was at the non strikers end, there was a short chubby batsman on strike. Ian Healy yelled to Warne, “Bowl a Mars Bar half way down…We’ll get him stumped” The Aussies and Cronje were all in hysterics, all this was before a classic reply from the batsman. “Nah, Boonie (David Boon) fielding at short leg will be onto it before I can move.”
4. Tino Best, never short of a word or two when he is bowling, was done up like a kipper by the England all-rounder as West Indies slumped to defeat in the first Test. Flintoff saw his opponent preparing to face Giles’ off-spin and shouted: “Watch the windows, Tino!” The wind-up had the desired effect, causing Best to come charging out of his crease like a man possessed. He took a wild swing at the ball, missed and was promptly stumped by Geraint Jones. Flintoff spent the next five minutes laughing, as Best sat on the balcony rueing his stupidity.

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More big names join IPL, the official league of the BCCI. The list now includes the following star players:

• Shaun Pollock - South Africa
• Jacob Oram - New Zealand
• Shoaib Akhtar - Pakistan
• Shane Warne - Australia
• Glenn McGrath - Australia
• Daniel Vettori - New Zealand
• Stephen Fleming - New Zealand
• Mahela Jayawardene - Sri Lanka
• Sanath Jayasuriya - Sri Lanka
• Graeme Smith - South Africa
• Mohammad Yousuf - Pakistan
• Brendan McCullum - New Zealand
• Shoaib Malik - Pakistan
• Younis Khan - Pakistan
• Mohammad Asif - Pakistan

The IPL boasts prize money of some $3 million and was created by the Indian cricket board to counter an unofficial version - the Indian Cricket League (ICL) - planned from next month.

The first edition of the IPL will feature eight franchise teams, with plans to extend that to 16 by 2010.

Each franchise will have a squad of 16 players to be comprised of local players, juniors, members of the Indian national squad and overseas professionals.

More pressure now on the ICL to compete with the IPL as a lot of big names have started to snub it off. But this was always going to happen. The ICL management should have worked with the BCCI rather than go against it. With the financial muscle behind the Indian board, the ICL will not have a long life, unfortunately.

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The first match of the Super Eight ended in a close finish, with the Daniel Vettori led Kiwis winning by 10 runs. And did he lead, by god. The man has grown a lot in cricket, and it was all evident as he wound a magical spell around the top Indian batsmen known to be the best players of spin. More on that later.

New Zealand lost the toss and were asked to bat first. The Indian bowlers did a terrific job to restrict the Kiwis from exploding as the wickets kept on falling at regular intervals. At 91-5 only Craig McMillan and Jacob Oram were the recognised batsmen left. And did they make the Indians pay? The last 5 overs cost 78 runs. McMillan smashed 44 from only 23 balls and Oram got 35 from 15. New Zealand ended up with 190 runs where they should have not got more than 160. For India, Harbhajan Singh was the best bowler as his 4 overs cost only 24 runs and he picked up 2 wickets. The most expensive bowlers were RP Singh (4-0-29-2), Sreesanth (3-0-37-1), Yuvraj Singh (3-0-38-1) and Ajit Agarkar (4-0-40-0).

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