Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Ashes!!

This years Ashes has been by far the most dramatic series of all times. If there is anyone reading this blog who doesn't know what cricket is then they should definitely follow this series and I am sure they will be addicted. The third test I think was the best. Till the last two hours of play in the test all the four results were possible. I think a draw was just fair as neither of the teams deserved to loose. But here is a incident during the fianal stages which amazed me.

"Before Stephen Harmison started the final over Stuart MacGill rushed out to tell Glenn McGrath to bat a metre out of his crease to reduce the chances of him being given out lbw. What MacGill forgot to tell the fast bowler - why are we always portrayed as being dumb? - was to get back in your crease once the ball had been bowled.

McGrath lurched forward to smother the second ball of Harmison's over but missed it, and Geraint Jones, the wicketkeeper, threw the ball to Matthew Hoggard, who was standing next to the stumps. Thankfully - it would have been a totally immoral way to win a match of this stature - Hoggard chose not to break the stumps, but this did not prevent MacGill feeling that he had almost cost his team a Test match."

Now if australia win the final test and draw the series they will keep the Ashes and somewhere in the bottom of Hoggard's heart he must feel guilty about it. Infact I think this article shouldn't have been published as it puts his live in danger in that senario. Personally I also think it was stupid of him if he did that. Thats a way of getting a batsman out and it is not immoral at all to use it.

Trivia: Did you guys know that all tests in England start on thursdays. There have been only three exceptions in history so far!

9 comments:

vishnoi said...

nice piece of trivia panda!

Anonymous said...

Im no expert on cricket but...
"Personally I also think it was stupid of him if he did that. Thats a way of getting a batsman out and it is not immoral at all to use it."

These were exactly my thoughts too!

nag said...

yaar i was expecting a long article on cricket which u promised long b4....do post it sometime in near future.

Anonymous said...

i agree with the fact that the ashes has been the best series i've ever seen after the australian tour of india in 2001. that series is the best i've ever seen and nothing can ever match up to the drama of that series. anyway, the hero of the series has been andrew flintoff. his innings in the second match and his bolwing in the second, third and fourth matches has been par excellence. do check out his stats on cricinfo.com. if i start talking about it, this would become a fairly long comment. :p
message me some time. we'll talk about the series, and maybe get shrini also to talk about it. he's been following the matches closely. btw, did you also go to the rhcp concert?

Anonymous said...

shashi, dont ask me to check up stats. I do that after every match. In fact got to the point where I see his score calculate his stat and check if cricinfo has made some errors :))))

nah I am not a big concert fan..unless of course some indian artist performs..

Karthik said...

Interesting post. I did some googling and opinion is that it wouldn't have been out as the ball was dead.

But very interesting

K

Karthik said...

Interesting post. I did some googling and opinion is that it wouldn't have been out as the ball was dead.

But very interesting

K

Anonymous said...

does those 3 matches include the "unofficial" world series match?

Golu said...

likhega bhi rather than peeping over my shoulder to see what comment im writing