Woe be England?

Tomorrow sees the start of the first test between India and England in Nagpur. After this summers stunning Ashes victory over Australia, optimism in English cricket was flying high. They were gonna become the new superpower of world cricket, starting with victories on the sub-continent this winter. This optimism now seems like a memory from a distant world. England gave away a promising position to loose their first test in Pakistan, and from there it went downhill. They lost by an innings in the final test, to hand the hosts a 3-0 victory. They went on to loose the ODI series 3-2, so based on their recent performances on the sub-continent they have little hope to triumph in India- where they haven't won a test since 1985, and even Steve Waugh's awesome Aussies never found an opening. And it has gone from bad to worse for England: Captain Steve Vaughan is out of the first test with the knee injury that troubled him in Pakistan, and it is uncertain whether he will be back later in the series or not. Opening batsman Marcus Trescothic has gone back to England and will miss all three tests, spinner Ashley Giles is out, and most recently Simon Jones pulled out of the opener in Nagpur after twisting his knee during practice. With Vaughan and Tresco out, the captaincy falls on the shoulders of last years Ashes hero and BBC sports personality if the year, Andrew Flintoff. For England to achieve anything in this test, he must somehow inspire England to the heights of their past glory. Of course, there is the possibility that the added responsibility of captaincy will inhibit his game, another doubt for England.

In the Indian camp, they also lost in Pakistan, but at least they put up a fight, and they bounced back to win the ODI-series. The Indian batting-order is fearsome: Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni. Their attack looks sharp too, consider the record of their spinners on home soil: Kumble has taken 309 of his 494 Test wickets in India while Harbhajan has snared 154 of his 219. And both men take their wickets at an average of under 24 at home.

Unless the captaincy of Andrew Flintoff can inspire every Englishman to top-perform, I do not see any result but a series win for India. The question remains whether the tourists can save any draws.

Great cricket to come!

What a great time it is for cricket-lovers! I still haven't caught my breath after the thrilling series between Pakistan and India, and now not one but two amazing series are coming up: Oz in South Africa, and the Pommies in India. As we all know, both Oz and RSA played in a tri-nations just resently, where Sri Lanka surprized everybody by making it to the final where they put up some good resistance but finally lost two games to one. However, the ODI matches suggested that this will be a close series, as neither team managed to put on the game that we know they are capable of. One important factor for Oz is that Adam continues his brilliant record against RSA; 3 tests, 473 runs, and an amerage of 157.66! These figues also includes his best ever batting performance, 204 NO. The Afrikans are as usual depending on Pollock doing significant damage to the fierce Australian batting lineup, and that captain Smith can step forward and produce good figures again. All in all I expect the Aussies to win the test series, but the ODI matches are much more unpredictible. The series opens with a 20twenty on Friday 24th, with Oz missing both McGrath and the new wonderboy Hussey due to personal matters, so RSA must be favorites in this one. AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!!

Cricket, from a Norwegian point of view

Welcome to the first, Norwegian hosted cricket blog!

I'm writing this as India, one of my favorite teams, are chasing Pakistan's competitative total of 286 runs in their 5th and last ODI of the series. As India has already sealed the series, they have rested a few players to let the less experienced ones get a chanse. Dhoni and Singh are now at bat, doing well, but India require another 101 runs with 8 wickets and 12.5 overs remaining, so it's gonna be an exciting finnish!


I hope we will be joined by some foreign contributors here, so my modest knowledge of cricket will grow. Of course there are many brilliant sites on the web with all the facts you need (and don't need) to know of the game, such as Cricinfo and Wikipedia, but knowing what to search for can be difficult. I therefore hope that members of this blogg will be able to post their favorite "cricket fact of the week", either about a player, statistics, a field etc.

Finally it is only fair that the greatest batsman of any sport of all time, Sir Donald Bradman, gets to officially open the Blog. Cheers!