What a series it has been! The two most experienced test teams in the world today met in the best venue for Test cricket in the world, and produced a contest for the ages. This contest may not possess the glamorous history of the Ashes, but in this new year, it is clear that this has become the pre-eminent clash in the cricket world. I don't subscribe to historical rivalries, for when a generation of players retire, and a new generation takes over, the carry over to the next generation of contestants is purely symbolic. One need look no further than the Frank Worrell Trophy which was instituted in honour of the West Indies' first black captain Frank Worrell, who took a group of talented West Indian cricketers to Australia in 1960-61, and forged a great team. They played a series to remember, and the team Worrell built team dominated Test cricket for the next six or seven years. Since then the Frank Worrell Trophy has only rarely produced truly competitive series. It has invariably been either the West Indies who were dominant, or as has been the case in recent times, Australia. It is the series which marked the handing over of the reigns of power which have tended to be most exciting. The best comparison one can offer for the current India - Australia series, are the Pakistan - West Indies contests in the 1980's. In a decade where both England and Australia were regularly hammered by Viv Richards's pace battery, only Imran Khan's Pakistan could compete with them. They produced three thrilling 1-1 draws in the late 1980's.  read more »

The in-form man of Indian cricket Sourav Ganguly leads his Kolkata team out against Dravid's Bangalore in the opener of the IPL but who should your money be on?

So the jamboree is upon us. Six weeks of giddy hitting, pumping music and throbbing hype. Any ad breaks will be entirely superfluous as the entire event is one long commercial opportunity, a parade of India's political and sporting wealth and power. Rather like a trip on a new and dangerous roller coaster, many who saw the brochures and thought it would be exciting are now having second thoughts. As we get closer to the thing itself, the sheer scale of the enterprise and the long, long shadow it is starting to cast over cricket is becoming clearer. It could all end in disaster. Then again, it could change cricket forever.  read more »

As the IPL league winds down, with franchises getting eliminated and the attention shifting from players to owners, the Test match season has begun in right earnest. Earlier in May, New Zealand began their tour of England and forced a stalemate at Lord's. The second Test is being played at Old Trafford. In the Caribbean, Ricky Ponting's Australians have begun their defense of the Sir Frank Worrell Trophy at Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica.

The Lord's Test began with both teams fielding unheralded line ups - the New Zealand batting and the England bowling, both without their experienced stars. New Zealand batted first, and reached 277 thanks in large part to Brendon McCullum's T20 hangover. England eked out a lead of 42 thanks to Michael Vaughan fighting century, and then had New Zealand reduced to a 120/5 (effectively, with McCullum retired hurt), when Jacob Oram came to New Zealand's rescue producing a strokeful hundred to force a draw.  read more »

Australia was fined for a slow over-rate in yesterday's ODI against India at Sydney. Ricky Ponting copped a 20% match fee fine under Clause J-5 of the ICC code of CONduct which prescribes a 5% match fee cut for the players (and 10% for the skipper) for the each of the first 5 overs short of the minimum overs which should have been bowled.

So far so good. Except, Australia were well in excess of 2 overs short. They bowled 49.1 overs in 225 minutes. Being 2 overs short implies they overshot the time allocation by ~ 10 minutes. Which is obviously untrue since they overshot it by 25 minutes!  read more »

The Windies will need 287 runs in their fourth innings to defeat Australia in the first Test at Kingston. A counter-attacking 79 from Andrew Symonds was the only thing that kept the Windies from having a more modest total to chase as only Brad Hodge(27) and Brad Haddin (23) managed to get into double digits. The day started promisingly enough when Daren Powell removed night watchman Mitchell Johnson in the day's first over. However, that brought Symonds to the crease and he and Hodge, with a 52 run partnership, and then he and Haddin, with a 74 run partnership, rebuilt Australia's innings.  read more »

The Melbourne Age coverage of the Sydney Test has been quite interesting to say the least. Their stories have been even handed and they seem to have given an amazing amount of column space to the post match events yesterday. Incidentally Channel 9's post match coverage were abysmal - there was no interview with the visiting captain and the partisan young guns of the Channel 9 commentary team - Taylor, Healy and Slater were busy getting hold of their old chums for a gloat.

A Sydney Morning Herald poll asked : What do you think of the monkey sledging controversy?
After 3936 responses, the results look as follows (the poll has not closed yet) :  read more »

Andrew Symonds and Brad Hodge put on a 52-run stand for Australia to lead by 212 at lunch yesterday on day four of the opening Test against West Indies here in Kingston, Jamaica.

I think Ive worked out exactly what is wrong with Australia Vs India relations. Sydney. The test series was fine, then Sydney came along, Australia started claiming one hand one bouncers, Bucknor found out Roy was his long lost son, Anil Kumble lost his frame of reference, Bhaji and Roy danced orally and Ishant Sharma accidentally got his gloves confused. Then world war three started, it was like a particularly bad Bollywood film, without songs, pretty girls, terrible acting or happy endings. Finally when bastard monkeys and Ricky Ponting's honour was no longer in question we started playing cricket in other states. The BCCI decided that the tour could continue, and the test series was completed.  read more »

Review of the First Test, Australia vs West Indies 2008, at Sabina Park

Australia win the first test by 95 runs

Scorecard

After four stirring days of cricket, there was one session which undid the West Indians on the fifth day. More importantly, one catch which changed the game on that day.  read more »