Two Test Match Policy
Sri Lanka after being rated as one of the top teams in the world, still gets the step motherly treatment when it comes to test series.The Lions are gonna play two test matches later this year down under and I totally disagree with this two test policy.
After all India will be in Australia soon and India has been allocated four test matches. Is this the result we’re getting from ICC after all these successes? Currently Sri Lanka plays better cricket than the Indians and still the Indians get more opportunities than us. The fact remains the same when it comes to the West Indies. They just won their first match against Bangladesh in the super8’s and they are ranked on the bottom of the ICC rankings. Yet they will play four to five test matches against the teams like Australia, England and South Africa.
I personally believe for any International team there should be at least three test matches in a series. In this case if you play two test matches and if you lost the first the best result you can get is to level the series. The recently concluded New Zealand series is one example. Sri Lanka lost to the kiwis in the first and came back strongly in the second. if they would have played the third who knows? It should have been an away series win for the Lankans. Read more
The Gentleman can succeed too, you know?
My Physical Training class during my High School days at St. Peter’s College, Colombo; purely consisted of Cricket. Having had various other options at the time with school facilities boasting of a swimming pool, Basketball court and a huge athletics field every student chose Cricket and there was no exceptions to that! Such was the interest in the game at the time that the students would only want to play or be taught cricket and nothing else.
One of the first coaching lessons I had included a very thorough introduction to the game and the constant and consistent reminders that Cricket is a game that boasts of high spirits and only taken up by gentlemen who can up hold the spirit of the game. Kudos to the PT Tutor at the time for his efforts in trying to not only inculcate the spirit of the game to his students but also for moulding us into players who boast of exemplary behaviour.
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Seeking Consistency in Umpiring Decisions
I received a very positive response from ICC to this letter. They are actually trying out on-field umpiring challenging process at domestic level in England. If it gets approved by the players, then it will be introduced in International matches.
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It has come to a stage where watching an International match on TV is meaningless when the TV’s slow motion shows clearly a batsman is out, yet the on field umpire has ruled him not out and vice-versa. From that point on, you get a feeling that you are basically watching a “fixed†match.
In this commercialized world, with all the high tech tools available at your disposal, why should you still resort to conventional methods of making an on field decision?
Why can we not implement a system for LBWs, Caught behinds and Bat-Pad catches just like we successfully make the correct decision on a run-out, a stumping and deciding a boundary?
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American Football style challenges for on-field umpiring decisions
After seeing Mathew Hayden getting a life from umpire Billy Bowden (he was plum out for a James Anderson delivery) against England the other day, I decided to post here the letter I wrote to ICC some time back. I received a response to this letter from Mr. Dave Richardson.
Even Adam Gilchrist was lbw but was not given early in the Aussies innings. Who knows, had they both gotten out it would have been a different story.
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It is about time ICC introduces an American Football style replay process to reverse an on field umpiring decision. The fielding and the batting side BOTH should get something like 3 chances to challenge each per inning to ask for a replay once a doubtful decision is made against them by an on field umpire. It must be similar to the “coach’s challenge†process currently implemented in professional Football games, played in the United States.
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Cometh the hour.. Cometh the aussie..
From time to time I unearth some rare beauties in regards to noteworthy articles on the net. My latest find is not only noteworthy it deserves to be displayed to the world. An article written by an Australian named GEOFF ROACH for the The Advertiser in Australia really caught my eye.
Before I get into the details of that article I would like to take you back briefly to the Sri Lankan tour of Australia way back in the 1995/96 season. The tour was just prior to the 1996 Wills World Cup and will be most remembered for the constant hounding of Murali and the campaign against him. I say campaign because i never saw a more organized effort to tarnish a man’s reputation and career, both the media and
Australian officials seem to be on such a coordinated path it looked likely that Darrell hair’s ‘calling’ of Murali during the boxing day test was well planned months ahead. Cometh the hour then…came Darrell Hair and Ross Emerson. These two single handedly destroyed the spirit and the history of this great game by their deeds. Even Don Bradman spoke of it in his book. The great Don went on to state in a book entitled Chuckers, a history of throwing in Australian cricket compiled and written by Bernard Whimpress, conversations with Tom Thompson between 1995 and 1998 reveal that Bradman believed Murali’s action to be clean and his ordeal unfair.
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