Roar Rookie
Joined December 2009
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Talking cricket on social media since the 20th century. Former Cricinfo alumnus. Talking #cricket on social media since the 20th century. Cricinfo's first editor. Fan Sydney Thunder, GWS Giants, Newtown Jets. Into sportsbiz, sports CSR, Olympic politics. Tweets at @rickeyrecricket and @rickeyre
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Back on May 21, 1997, I was logged into that great 20th century social medium, IRC, when Saeed Anwar smashed 194 against India to break Viv Richards’ thirteen year-old record for the highest score in a One-Day International.
One-day cricket has been with us ever since the sun began setting in the evening and players couldn’t be bothered coming back the next day to finish the game off.
When it comes to stats and trivia about cricket, I’ve been hooked since I was a teenager. It’s easy to get seduced by the numbers and the mathematical comparisons, but I figure it’s okay, so long as the sport itself remains more important.
oh all right then:
Hobbs, Trumper, Bradman, Hammond, Grace (c), Miller, Botham, Knott, Warne, Laker, Barnes. Steve Waugh can drive the giant Gatorade bottle.
Selecting an all-time Ashes Eleven
I’m confused. You name 12 players in an all-time XI and then add a 12th man to make a team of 13! And with the next Ashes almost a year out, why is this being raised now?
And why John Snow, whose Ashes infamy is confined to a couple of Tests in one series? Why is Bradman the only 1948 Australian in your team – and, at the same time, its captain? Where are O’Reilly, Grimmett, Laker, Verity? Where is Miller? Hammond? WG Grace??? Why are eight out of your thirteen players post-1970 (and even then without Steve Waugh)?
I’ll come back and think up an Ashes XI of my own in November, when it’s topical 🙂
Selecting an all-time Ashes Eleven
The “City of Sydney” is, these days, part of the far eastern suburbs of the Sydney metropolitan area. It’s totally the wrong place to be building more stadia. The Olympic precinct is the obvious central location for sports at the moment (notwithstanding that dreadful decision to shift the V8s there from Eastern Creek), anything new needs to be closer to the people, and that means construction further west (eg Blacktown, Penrith, Campbelltown). The AFL is already onto this, as are CricketNSW with state matches already in plan for Blacktown. As for Darling Harbour, it is an overcrowded, over-touristed mess. Comparisons to the Docklands in MElbourne are pointless.
Sydney needs a Central Stadium at Darling Harbour
I’m waiting for the day that channel 9 straps a Gatorade GatorTracker to every player on the field and we see career stats on the number of kilometres they have jogged in the outfield…
Are we all addicts of cricket statistics?
Fair point about Belinda Clark (no “e”) scoring the first ODI double hundred of either gender. One caveat to that innings, however, is that the Danish team was very weak, and their national women’s cricket association disbanded a few years later through lack of registered players! However, a World Cup fixture is a World Cup fixture, and Clark was a cricketer of the highest order. No other woman has bettered 173 in an ODI against any nation.
Will Tendulkar's record score ever be broken?