Analysis of Cricketing Event of the Week

This story does not begin on the 19th of June, 2018 at Trent Bridge, Nottingham. Rather, I would say that the highest score in ODI cricket history that the English recorded in the third ODI against a battered and bruised Australian side, was the climax point of a 3 year old story in English cricket  - the climax of the same story which began on the 9th of March, 2015, at the Adelaide Oval. So, let's see what actually happened on this specific date, 3 years ago. England- The Mighty English, got knocked out of the 2015 cricket world cup, in the group stages, by none other than the perennial minnows of World Cricket, Bangladesh. That Rubel Hossain yorker, which uprooted James Anderson's off stump, on that fateful night, was the moment, English cricket woke up from a nightmare. Pre-2015 Cricket World Cup If you look at the phase, English Cricket was going through prior to the 2015 cricket world cup, they were living in a self induced bubble of pride and ego, regard...

Dear CricAnsys readers, let us start today's story with a forgotten hero. The reason, I call him forgotten, is because, I do not expect most of my readers to be acquainted with a 1970s school headmaster from Wellington, New Zealand, Mr. Bruce Alexander Grenfell Murray. Yes, this school master played a bit of cricket, and even went on to represent his country, but his international records are nothing close to stellar. As an opening batsman, he scored 598 runs from 13 test matches, an extremely average record at international level. But, the reason , I bring him up today, is that he came out in the open, to criticise professional level cricket in the early 1970s, stating that professional cricket made players more self centred and less of team-men. He even went on to say, that the notion of professional sports is an oxymoron, as it wasn't sport. It hardened players big time and made them selfish & narrow minded, in their views of the world. So, why have I brought...

When Afghanistan squared off against Bangladesh in the 3 match T20 series, very strangely, the Afghans started off as favourites. To be honest, I was surprised by the approach of the Bangladesh team management, in the press conferences, leading up to the series. Shakib himself showed wariness about the opposition, in the press meets, making it seem, as if they were playing against a well experienced test playing nation. That to me was quite baffling, because, Bangladesh has been having a dream run in international cricket, for the past few years, be it qualifying for 2015 WC quarterfinals, be it finishing as Asia Cup Runners up 2016, be it playing the semifinals of Champions Trophy 2017 or be it almost winning the Nidahas Trophy 2018. For a side like Bangladesh, which has been experiencing their best phase in international cricket of late, it was vastly disappointing that they went under-confident, into a bilateral series, specially against an Afghan side, which is yet to make the...

The glitz and the drama and the controversy and the joy and the emotions around the World's Greatest T20 league is over and suddenly, as a weekly cricket blogger, you start to discover that you have a dearth of topics to write about. Is it? Or, is it so, that once the hullabaloo of IPL gets over, and the dust around it settles, as a cricket fan, you start to find out, that there are personalities in the game of cricket, who may not have this larger-than-life image, like the Dhonis or the Kohlis, but they carry out their responsibilities, in a quiet & understated fashion, even today. But wait.. This blog is supposed to analyse the cricketing event of the week. Why is the writer trying to give this impression, that he will analyse an obscure cricketing personality, in the blog today? Well.. I will definitely analyse the cricketing event of this week, but unlike the last 7 weeks where I analysed IPL, and you readers, knew, what I was talking about, this cricketing ev...