I for one have been surprised bye Australia’s resurgence in recent ODIs, opponents notwithstanding. I won’t lie, I was expecting a prolonged psychological dent into the Australian outfit with a slow resurgence but this has taken me by surprise. This has forced me to re-evaluate my stance on Australia for this World Cup.
At the face of it, Afghanistan seems like a well-balanced team integrated by the isolated strengths in the various departments. To further elaborate that, take for example Rashid Khan and Mujeeb ur Rahman; both excellent spinners on their own but in tandem, one doesn’t get a feeling of say Trent Boult and Tim Southee or Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal. As Afghanistan gears up to play the big boys of cricket, it will be far-fetched to expect them to do wonders but it’ll be erroneous to think of them as “easy” opponents.
The 12th ICC Cricket World Cup is here and it is the 5th time it is being held in England. Despite arguments that the new format is commercial in nature and doesn’t make the World Cup seem like a “Cup of World Teams”, I’d say that the single round-robin format promises to make the World Cup even more exciting.
The laws of the game are always changing and the custodians of the laws – MCC are constantly monitoring the game to see where laws can be made or modified or removed. This year, too, new rules were announced by MCC and implemented by ICC. While some rules are like daemons in operating systems, some rules will be seen almost immediately by viewers. I managed to compile the new rules into 4 categories – Batting, Bowling, Fielding and Playing Conditions.
The ‘World Cup of Champions’ is here, as the top 8 teams battle it out in England yet once again for what could be only be called another tournament. Apparently, the stakes are not as high as the ICC would like, but it is still a tournament. We bring you the complete round up of the 2017 edition.
If you notice closely, IPL is the only tournament where the regular captain is changed midway through the tournament for reasons other than injuries/non-availability. Is this a trend set by the franchisees or is it something that came along with time?
The reaction of the man says it all. He is ex-South African batsman Barry Richards trying to come to terms with the thickness of modern bats. The bat on your right is the one he used and the one on your right is David Warner’s bats. While the reaction may seem humorous, it is actually a wake up call for Cricket and ICC. Read to find out what harm these bats can do to cricket at large.