FUNKY CRICKET T-SHIRTS

INTERESTING.....

NEVER TRUST A CRICKETER

Come all ye fair young maidens and harken unto me,Never trust a cricketer, whoever he may be.
Randier than a sailor, who's been six months at sea.Never let a cricketer's hand an inch above your knee.
First let's take the Paceman, pure speed from first to last.My darlings do be careful, his balls are hard and fast.
Then there's the Medium Pacer, his balls swing either way.He's really most persistent and can keep it up all day.
Watch out for the Off-spinner, girls, another awkward chap.If you leave him half an opening, he will slip one through the gap.
Then there's the wily 'slowy', pure cunning is his strength,He'll tempt you, then he'll trap you with his very subtle length.
So ladies, do be careful---your mothers would agree.Never trust a cricketer----whoever he may be.

And what about the Opening bat, his struggles never cease,He has just one ambition, to spend all day at the 'crease'.
The number Three is a dasher, he seldom prods and pokes,When he goes into action, he has a fine array of strokes.
And do beware the Slogger, not content with one or two,When he opens up for action, then only six will do.
Then there's the real stonewaller, girls, he knows what he's about,and if you let him settle in, it's hard to get him out.
We come now to the last man, be ready for a shock,He doesn't mind if he's last man in -as long as he gets a knock.
So, darlings, do be careful-and be well warned by me,Never trust a cricketer- whoever he may be.
And watch the wicket keeper, girls; he's full of flair and dash,And if you raise your heels, he'll whip 'em off in a flash.
If you take the field with the captain, you had better know the score or he'll have you in positions that you never knew before.
The cricket commentator- is a nosey sort of bloke,He watches all the action and describes it stroke by stroke.
Even the kindly umpire-may look friendly as a pup,You'll quickly find you've had it, when he puts his finger up.
So, darlings please remember, repeat it after me, NEVER TRUST A CRICKETER-WHOEVER HE MAY BE!!!!


BY: MOOSABHAI 'Opening Bat' PATEL

THE 800 CLUB OF ONE: TRIBUTE TO MURALI

Muttiah Muralitharan strides into retirement and history with the ever present smile on his face.

The sound you heard in the distance was the collective sigh of a thousand batsman.

ITS SPRINGTIME AGAIN

Springtime brings in added joy to the cricketers of Marlboro, the dawn of a brand new cricketing season. The blog has been rather neglected recently, but with the excitement to the opening matches building up, there will be regular updates.

I hope you all had a lovely winter, a blessed Ramadan, and an eventful 2010 in South Africa. While i get few blogging ideas in place, I leave you with some lovely silhouette images..

match fixing...with the MAN!!

World Cup Fever

South Africa is a buzz with World cup fever and excitement. And this once in a lifetime opportunity is upon us. What are our plans to make this a truly memorable event? Who are we supporting? Bafana, the Brazillians, Germany?

Personally I'm backing Argentina and England. Perhaps the Dutch as well.

Let me begin with my reasoning. England, purely for Wayne Rooney.Yes they play un-attractive football. Man for man they not a match to the big guns. However this team has a way of getting the all important results. Excellent qualifying campaign, and good performances in recent friendlies.Capello an excellent coach too



The best thing that happened to the squad ( to my disappointment) was the injury to David Beckham. Perhaps not the same player of years gone by, yet still effective on the right.And deadly in set pieces. However this will work in their favour with a wee bit less media attention and pressure without the charismatic superstar.

Argentina, under coach Diego Maradona and current World Player of the Year Lionel Messi has to be seen as a threat. With Champions League winner Diego Milito, Higuain and Tevez as attacking options, they seem deadly. Struggled in qualifying tho, I'm hoping for big things from this South American giants.




Then the perinnial under-achievers, the Netherlands. I treasure my 1988 jersey, as much as the Dutch recall their only great success, the 1988 European Championships. A good crop of exciting players, perhaps South Africa will turn Orange come 11 July!

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All in all we can expect an awesome and entertaining Fifa World Cup, on and off the field.

Let's keep our camera phones ready, in hope for that pic with the superstars visiting our shores. We will definately share it with our readers here on the blog.

Finally, just received an email from a Hungarian reporter coming over to South Africa. Seen my soccer ball collection on www.worldcupballs.info and would love an interview with me on South Africa and football in general. Exciting times indeed. With this interest I don't think we imagine what this World Cup will be bringing to our shores.




Ke Nako-We are Ready!

WHAT TO DO??

SOUTH AFRICA TOUR TO WEST INDIES

Thu Jun 10 - Mon Jun 14
1st Test - West Indies v South Africa
Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica


Fri Jun 18 - Tue Jun 22
2nd Test - West Indies v South Africa
Warner Park, Basseterre, St Kitts

Sat Jun 26 - Wed Jun 30
3rd Test - West Indies v South Africa
Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados

SOUTH AFRICA FIXTURES AT WORLD CUP 2010

11/06 16:00 Johannesburg South Africa v Mexico

16/06 20:30 Tshwane/Pretoria South Africa v Uruguay

22/06 16:00 Mangaung / Bloemfontein France v South Africa

For once its a bitch being a cricketer, you gonna miss the FIFA WORLD CUP!!

Ps Amla ,pull a hammie!

Title for Pakis

After being in the best possible position any team can ask for against the mighty Australians, after an excellent batting display, only one team could lose it from there. THE DAMN PAKI'S. Your suggestion for what we can call them? And sorry wankers has been scooped by the red half of merseyside...

South Africa: Constant Under-achievers?

With the early departure of South Africa at the World T20 in West Indies, where does the problem lie in this constant under-performance?

In this early years of the 20/20 format, many games are still played on trial and error. Are teams are picked based on players abilities over their impact in this format?

Let's look at the South African make-up. Smith, Kallis, Bosman and Gibbs the opening batters. Smith terribly out of form, Kallis 'slow batting' doesn't help the cause, unless he sets up a good foundation to work from. Yes his approach can work, but how often? Gibbs should give it up, Bosman has never proved his worth.

Then to the middle order, AB and JP. Nudgers. At their best can never score at more than 10 to the over. And following the diastrous start of Sanex boy Kallis, not gonna get over the par 150 mark.
Albie and Boucher are crucial. Especially in the last few. However Bouch should call it a day and young blood or AB take over the gloves.

Rollie is a terrible spinner and his rash swinging of the willow hardly if ever works. Botha is the better spin option and batter anyday.
Now here's the biggest problem in my opinion. 5 fast bowlers in the squad. Steyn,Morne, and Langerveld deserve their places. Kleinveld and Rusty came for a holiday. Yes they are good, but when you limited with options in a Batsman's game, does it warrant their inclusion?


With that taken into account, here's my selection for South Africa going forward. Mr Hudson, use it if you wish.
1. Graham Smith
2. Jacques Kallis
3. AB De Villiers
4. Colin Ingram
5. Dave Miller
6. Albie Morkel
7. Morne Van Wyk
8. Johan Botha
9. Morne Morkel
10.Rusty Theron
11.Dale Steyn

Duckworth Lewis Calculator

Duckworth Lewis Calculator is the biggest mystery of cricket. This is how it goes.




Find both the teams' (lets say Australia and India) average runs in the last five one day games. Divide the same by 0.22 (no. of players of both team / 10). Multiply by the number of minutes its been raining to the result. Again add the number of players of each team + umpires to the answer. Subtract the no. of overs to be played by Team 2. Take that as "r". Find 2*pi*r. Bingo! You get the number of runs the second team needs to score in the overs that can be played!

Of course you know i am joking...

Here's how you calculate the Duckworth Lewis. Just follow the link!
www.duckworth-lewis.com/Calculator/tabid/72/Default.aspx

ICC WORLD T20

Cricket never sleeps!
With the conclusion of IPL 3 we get straight into World T20
Your opinions on who will follow India and Pakistan in lifting the trophy?
Leave your comments below,

PS: Uncle Haroon recovering well, his mighty Zimbabwean team on fire in the warm-ups!!

IPL MOVING FORWARD

IPL moving forward

Published by ShaneWarne.com

After being involved with the IPL since its inception three years ago, I have turned my thoughts to, what I believe, is the best way forward heading into for IPL4......

With two new franchises entering the tournament and player contracts up for renewal, there are some decisions that need to be made on the best and fairest way to structure this.

The basis for these decisions should be total transparency and no favouritism to any franchises. This will ensure all franchises will be on an even level.....

1 - Retention of players

If franchises were allowed to retain the services of a set number of players, there may be questions raised as to the amounts the players were being paid. Also, this would not be fair on the two new franchises as the top players would all be locked in too their current franchises.

However, I fully understand that some players are at the core of their franchise and other players who have developed considerably due to the time and effort invested into them over the past three years. This needs to be taken into account and I believe my system allows for franchises to exercise an option to do this.

With transparency being the key, my thoughts are;

• No retention of players is a must for to achieve total transparency in regards to the salary cap. It will increase the creditability of the IPL as the players final price will be established at the auction, whatever that may be.

• However, the player can then offered back to his original franchise for an extra $50k to regain their services.

• If the player is important to the franchise, the extra $50k will be paid to the player to keep him at the franchise if not then he plays for his new franchise.

• All players bought at the auction should continue to receive three year contract for the Auction value per year.

2 - Salary cap/ squad

I believe the salary cap should be US$9 million per franchise, not 7million as most franchises will spend $5/6 million on 6/7 players , which will form the core of the franchises. The rest of the salary cap will be spent on the other 13/14 players. The strategy will be very important here.

The squads for each franchise should be capped at a total of 20 players for the season. There will be variations on how the squads are made up such as some will field 10 internationals and 10 Indians in there 20, others will field only 6 internationals and 14 Indians, etc

All franchises should still be allowed a maximum of 10 internationals in their roster; however, they may not be available for the entire IPL season due to international commitments.

This would mean the 10 franchises are committing a total of US$270 million to the players over the next 3 years ………….. WOW that's a lot!

3 Captains

I believe Captains, for all franchises, should be appointed well before the auction and should not be included in the Salary Cap.

The fans associate the captain with the franchise and, some more so than others, are part of the brand. With this being the case, his contract should be between him and the owners.

If a franchise wants a particular captain, either their existing captain or a new one, they need to negotiate and agree to a deal. If current captains cannot agree to a deal, he can potentially move to a new franchise as their captain or enter the auction.

This will allow for owners, coaches and the captain to make their plans and strategies well before auction time.

I believe it would be great for the IPL to have the owners, coaches and captains all sitting at the table working out which players they were going to bid on. It makes sense and would become a huge media event.

Imagine Lalit plus all owners, captains and coaches arriving in London for a 3 day auction dressed in suits ready to do media conferences, photo opportunities, etc and then culminate with the auction, it would create a real buzz...

All 10 franchises would need to finalise their captains well before auction, around July 1 would make sense.

4 - Super rounds / trades

During IPL4, I think franchises should be allowed 3 super rounds used at their own discretion.

• A super round would allow the franchise to play 5 overseas players instead of 4.

I believe when and where you used your super rounds would become a massive talking point.

I also believe there should be a trade period during the IPL season, around the half way point. During the trade period the franchises could be allowed 1 trade each, however, it would not be compulsory.

However, if they did choose to trade a player, it would be on a loan basis for a set amount of games, perhaps 3. This could be a great option to recruit an international player who is not being used by another franchise.

I Think the IPL should stay a 6 week tournament, even with the 2 extra franchises.

This can be achieved through a more hectic schedule as the T20 format allows for back to back games if there is no travel involved between matches. Also, I believe it is feasible to have 3 games scheduled in a day which will save a lot of time.

My reasoning is that the best players need to be available and if it goes for 8-10 weeks, international cricket boards may have issues as it may impact to heavily on the scheduling.

5 Umpires / bowling actions/laws

There needs to be a set process implemented for any bowler that is reported for a suspect action. This should include being immediately analysed at the official IPL bowling centre such as current centres in Perth or Bangalore.

The definitive decision should be made based on the data provided by the technology used to measure flex levels. This will take away any bias of any individual and promote the 100% transparency that I believe is required.

Umpires are a unique brand of person but are crucial to the sport. The best umpires throughout the tournament should be rewarded with the roles during the finals series.

This can be done through the captains rating each umpire at the conclusion of each match. At the end of the tournament, the votes are counted and the leading umpires are awarded the semi finals and final.

With the entire switch hitting faze the batsmen are going through, the leg side LBW law should be looked at. I believe as soon as the batsmen decides to employ this tactic, the rule stating that a ball pitching outside the leg stump cannot be adjudicated as LBW should be abolished.

If a batsmen wants to try and reverse a bowler or switch hit then it’s irrelevant where the ball pitches. If he is struck in line and the ball was going to hit the stumps then he's out.

Also, any no ball should be a free hit, not just for over-stepping.

6 - Left Field Ideas

• After initial 6, the bating captain has an additional power play or slog over, where only 2 fielders are allowed outside the circle like the first 6 overs, that he can use at his discretion.

• The bowling limitations should be changed to 4 bowlers with a max of 5 overs each rather than 5 bowlers with a max of 4 overs each. This would ensure the best bowlers are bowling more overs.

Bradman blitz at Blackheath

When the great man scored a hundred in three eight-ball overs, spanning around 18 minutes

Few would ever question that Don Bradman is one of sport's - not just cricket's - most remarkable individuals. Rarely has one man so dominated his field and emerged head and shoulders above his peers. But he had, and continues to have, his critics, those who argue he was a batsman who did not take chances and who amassed runs rather than scored them in the more cavalier method of someone like his great rival Wally Hammond.

And yet when the occasion demanded, Bradman could open up and cut an attack to shreds. On Monday, November 2, 1931, he and New South Wales team-mate Wendell Bill travelled into the Blue Mountains, about 60 miles from Sydney, to play in a match to open a new malthoid pitch at Blackheath, the first in the district. The two star names were included in the Blackheath XI against neighbouring Lithgow.

With a large crowd gathered, Bradman was soon in full flow, taking 38 off the first over he faced. After passing his hundred, a bowler called Bill Black was brought on. Bradman casually asked wicketkeeper Leo Waters what to expect. "Don't you remember this bloke?" Waters replied, adding mischievously: "He bowled you in an exhibition match in Lithgow a few weeks ago and has been boasting about it ever since, at your expense."

Black had indeed bowled Bradman for 52 in an up-country match, a feat that caused the supposedly impartial local umpire to yell, "Bill, you've got him" as the stumps were hit. The ball was mounted and Black had been dining out on the moment since.

Bradman ambled down the pitch to chat with Wendell Bill and reportedly said: "I think I'll have a go." What followed was brutal.

In three eight-ball overs he scored exactly 100, with Wendell Bill chipping in with two singles to get Bradman back on strike. There is no record of how long the onslaught took but it is estimated to have been around 18 minutes, given the time taken to retrieve 10 sixes.

The first over from Black produced 33 runs (6,6,4,2,4,4,6,1), the second, from the blameless Horrie Baker 40 (6,4,4,6,6,4,6,4) and the third, again from Black, 29 (1,6,6,1,1,4,4,6), which included the singles by Wendell Bill off the first and fifth deliveries. A bewildered Baker demanded to be taken off with figures of 2-0-62-0, while Bradman was eventually dismissed for 256, which included 14 sixes and 29 fours. Wendell Bill made 68.

"It's important, I think, to emphasise that the thing was not planned," Bradman said years later. "It happened purely by accident and everyone was surprised at the outcome, no one more than I.

"Wendell Bill became one of my staunchest friends, and in later years he said he got more notoriety out of the two singles he scored in those three overs than anything else he ever did in his life."

In 2008, Syd Edgar, who had watched the innings from up a hoop-pine tree as an eight-year old, recalled: "When word got around that Bradman was coming to Blackheath, I think nearly everyone attended. I was yelling at him 'Hit it over here, hit it over here' and he hit one past my head out of the ground."

As entertainment it was superb, but it hardly stood either batsman in good stead for the opening match of the Sheffield Shield season the following Saturday. The pair were dismissed for ducks in the same over from Queensland fast bowler Eddie Gilbert.

At the post-match dinner one of the Lithgow players, Bob Nicholson, a coalminer, sang, so impressing Bradman, who was to announce his engagement later in the week, that Nicholson was invited to sing at the wedding, the following April.

After the match Bradman presented the bat, which weighed 2lbs 2ozs, he used to the Blackheath mayor, who had it mounted on a wall in the council offices. It was said he asked people to swear on it when an honest response was needed. It is now on loan to the Bradman Museum at Bowral.

By; Martin Williamson. Executive editor of Cricinfo and managing editor of ESPN Digital Media in Europe,the Middle East and Africa

NELSON MANDELA FOUNDATION: TO MCC

MESSAGE FROM GCB ON 25TH ANNIVERSARY

WELL WISHES FROM ICC

JUJU AND JONES

MCC Archive Pics

WEEKEND OF 10-11 APRIL 2010

The cricketing season might be over, but the friendships and bonds made during the season continues.

The SA9 players have a fishing trip planned for Bloemhof, lets hope the weather holds up and they have an awesome time!
Catch plenty fish lads!

The 'serious' cricketers of Marlboro travel to Rustenburg for the annual action cricket tournament.On previous visits the team were unlucky, losing out in critical parts of games.
Hoping to bring back silverware this time!!

BEHOLD THE EASTER BUNNY