World of cricket 2: Despair and non-MSM cricket coverage
I was planning to follow-up my previous cricket-related post (why else would I name it #1?) with one about the rec.sport.cricket usenet group and a couple of cricket related blogs, mixed in with some gloating over India's victory, which was more than a distinct possibility back on Friday. Unfortunately, equilibrium has been restored in the world of cricket - Australia came back to beat the Black Caps - pretty convincingly in the end and the Indians lost their plot on the final day and let Pakistan draw the test, though to be honestly appreciative, it was some fine rearguard action by the #7 and #8 batsmen of the latter. All this threw me into the depths of despair and depression. On top of that, UNC lost the ACC semi-finals against Gerogia Tech on Saturday afternoon (no I have not been converted into a college basketball nut - but living in the Research Triangle area it is difficult, as a general sports fan, not to get sucked into this - besides when you are sinking - you want to clutch onto something).
I guess I have somewhat recovered now. Going back to the original ideas for this post, I was going to recommend reading Amit Varma (India Uncut) and Anand Vasu's (Not Circinfo) cricket-related blogs. Both are regular contributors to Cricinfo - but their blogs provide a refreshingly different perspective on the cricketing world. Although India Uncut is more about India in general rather than being cricket-centric (Varma has another blog, 23 yards, devoted to cricket, but it has not been updated for sometime), he has been blogging regularly on cricket as he covers the India-Pakistan series for The Guardian. In fact, he was blogging from the press-box as the game progressed during the first test (probably a first), covering a variety of topics from 'cricketing cliches' to the difference in how cricket is covered by the English versus vernacular language journalists.
One of the ways to maximize the enjoyment of following a cricket series while in the US is to read the posts from a motley group of enthusiastic (sometimes to the level of being fanatic), key-board tapping cricket 'experts' on the usenet newsgroup, rec.sport.cricket. Usually, during a test or ODI series, the posting rate on the group is quite prolific (close to over by over if not ball by ball updates). This time around, however, things seems to have mellowed down a bit. Of course, with Agarkar not present and no shouts of Aag! Fire !.....I guess that cuts down the number of posts by a quarter. But where is Nikhil Shah's detailed pre-match analysis of how the local soil, humidity and weather conditions should affect team composition and the end of the day wrapup by R Bharat Rao ? An old troller by the name of 'squarecut' is still espousing the virtues of South Indian cricketers versus their northern counterparts and how the former are overlooked in the team. Also, cries for Ganguly's head still ring out loud - but overall much more muted . Are people losing interest in cricket or do these people finally have some life ? (considering that I spend way to much time in a day reading those posts, I should get a life too !!)
I guess I have somewhat recovered now. Going back to the original ideas for this post, I was going to recommend reading Amit Varma (India Uncut) and Anand Vasu's (Not Circinfo) cricket-related blogs. Both are regular contributors to Cricinfo - but their blogs provide a refreshingly different perspective on the cricketing world. Although India Uncut is more about India in general rather than being cricket-centric (Varma has another blog, 23 yards, devoted to cricket, but it has not been updated for sometime), he has been blogging regularly on cricket as he covers the India-Pakistan series for The Guardian. In fact, he was blogging from the press-box as the game progressed during the first test (probably a first), covering a variety of topics from 'cricketing cliches' to the difference in how cricket is covered by the English versus vernacular language journalists.
One of the ways to maximize the enjoyment of following a cricket series while in the US is to read the posts from a motley group of enthusiastic (sometimes to the level of being fanatic), key-board tapping cricket 'experts' on the usenet newsgroup, rec.sport.cricket. Usually, during a test or ODI series, the posting rate on the group is quite prolific (close to over by over if not ball by ball updates). This time around, however, things seems to have mellowed down a bit. Of course, with Agarkar not present and no shouts of Aag! Fire !.....I guess that cuts down the number of posts by a quarter. But where is Nikhil Shah's detailed pre-match analysis of how the local soil, humidity and weather conditions should affect team composition and the end of the day wrapup by R Bharat Rao ? An old troller by the name of 'squarecut' is still espousing the virtues of South Indian cricketers versus their northern counterparts and how the former are overlooked in the team. Also, cries for Ganguly's head still ring out loud - but overall much more muted . Are people losing interest in cricket or do these people finally have some life ? (considering that I spend way to much time in a day reading those posts, I should get a life too !!)
Mumbled by BongoP'o'ndit at 9:13 AM
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