Best of the Best Book
For all of those people who have contacted me wanting to find out how to get a copy of "Best of the Best", there is currently one on Ebay in...
View ArticleWhen England needed Four Keepers
It is not commonplace for teams to use more than one wicketkeeper during the course of a match. In first class cricket for Western Australia, Tim Zoehrer used to start keeping to the quicks, before...
View ArticleBest ways to rule yourself out of a game
In tribute to the home state of the best cricket blogger out there (the mighty Uncle J), I thought I would quickly touch on some of the better reasons players have missed games.The top of the list has...
View ArticleIs Test Cricket Being Killed?
Flicking between the two tests played this week has been pretty dreary, even for an absolute cricket junky like myself. Are games like this killing test cricket? The pitches have no pace or bounce, and...
View ArticleBook Review - The Summer Game by Neville Cardus
Neville Cardus was born in Manchester in 1888, the illegitimate son of a woman described as a ‘genteel prostitute’; hardly the auspicious birth for a man who became renown around the world for his...
View ArticleBook Review - Rain Men by Marcus Berkmann
Marcus Berkmann is well known to many cricket lovers as both a writer for Cricinfo and Wisden, and as the author of Rain Men and the sequel Zimmer Men. His first book, Rain Men, has been acclaimed by...
View ArticleBook Review - Silence of the Heart by David Frith
Many commentators have said that cricket is, when you break it down to its purest essences, just a game. This definition is certainly simplistic, and perhaps even a little sacrilegious for many, but...
View ArticleThe Sub-Continent is the hardest place the bat (or why Hussey is the greatest)
The Sub-Continent is clearly the hardest place in the world to bat. Of the batsmen with the top six averages of all time (for players with over twenty tests), only Hussey has managed to conquer the...
View ArticleProject Snow
Apologies for the delay in updating the blog - real life and laziness gets in the way :).Many people may not be familiar with Project Snow, or how close world cricket came to a serious split. This...
View ArticleCultural Differences Part II
I commented a while back about the cultural differences between our countries (Cultural Differences in Cricket) , and how this could possibly lead to the problems we are sadly seeing now. At the time I...
View ArticleThe Gregory Era - Introduction
OK, long time between drinks. I have, however, not been completely idle. I decided a while ago to stop writing the shorter profile pieces and instead sink my teeth into something a bit longer. The...
View ArticleThe Gregory Era - Chapter 1
Part 1 - Edward William GregoryThe start of cricket in Australia can be traced right back to the time of the First Fleet. 1787 saw a number of coincidences that were perhaps indicative of the...
View ArticleReferences for The Gregorys
In response to Soulberry's request, here is an (currently incomplete) listing of the references used so far. I'll update it again in the not too distant future.BibliographyCricket Reference Books •...
View ArticleThe Gregorys - Chapter Two
Dave GregoryThe birth of Edward and Mary Gregory’s third son in 1845 occurred at a time of considerable change for the colony of New South Wales. Sir George Gipps was nearing the end of his eight years...
View ArticleThe Gregorys - Chapter Three
While two other English teams had toured Australia since the first led by HH Stephenson in the early 1860s, it was James Lillywhite’s tour of Australia in 1876/77 that has since been recognized as...
View ArticleThe Gregorys - Chapter Four
Thursday the 15 March 1877 is now recognised as the first day of test cricket history. Whether the Victorian organizers deliberately chose the Ides of March as the starting date has not been recorded,...
View ArticleChannel 9 is a disgrace
I am ceasing to write about the Gregorys for one post to express my extreme disgust at the Channel 9 commentary team in the current Test match against South Africa. Every hour or so, they are quoting...
View ArticleAustralian Elite Cricket - A crisis at the top?
In amongst all of the either gloating or lamentations, depending upon whether you live in Australia or not, there is a general consensus that Australia are struggling at the moment. They are not...
View ArticleThe Transmogrification of Graeme Smith
Australia and South Africa have always shared a close but also strained relationship. Both countries have a large number of similarities including a history of migration dogged by ethnic conflict, and...
View ArticleThe Hometown Umpiring Advantage - Why?
OK, a quick question; why do home teams get such an advantage in 50/50 calls from the umpires?If we look back over recent series, almost every time the home team has got the rub of the green in the...
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