Player Profile(#30)...Ryan Sidebottom(England)

Ryan Jay Sidebottom (born 15 January 1978 in Huddersfield) is an English cricketer who plays international cricket for England and domestic cricket for Nottinghamshire. He is a primarily a left-arm fast-medium bowler. Sidebottom played his first Test match in 2001 against Pakistan, but failed to take a wicket and was dropped for six years. In 2007 he was brought back into the side following an injury to Matthew Hoggard and took four wickets in his first innings. Since then he has become a prolific bowler for England. He took the 37th Test cricket hat-trick in his 11th match for England against New Zealand, becoming the 11th English player to do so, on 8 March 2008, and on 23 March he took his third five-wicket haul in the same series, breaking the previous record for an Englishman in New Zealand. His father, Arnie Sidebottom, was also a cricketer, and played one Test match for England in 1985 against Australia.

Sidebottom made his debut for his native Yorkshire in 1997. The winner of the NBC Denis Compton Award two years running, (in 1999 and 2000), he finished as the leading domestic English-bowler at the end of 2000, conceding only 12.5 runs for each of his 24 wickets, and capping this with a nomination for Cricketer of the Year by the Cricket Writers' Club. Injury problems took away much of his 2000 season, but, during the winter, Sidebottom toured the West Indies with England A, taking 16 wickets at a bowling average of 16.81. He made his international debut the following summer against Pakistan in place of Matthew Hoggard. He played in two ODIs in October 2001 against Zimbabwe.

Sidebottom left Yorkshire to join Nottinghamshire at the end of the 2003 season, having taken 163 wickets for Yorkshire at an average of 25.12. At Nottinghamshire, he took 50 wickets in both the 2005 and 2006 seasons, helping them to the County Championship title in 2005; he had also won the title with Yorkshire in 2001.

He sports a flamboyant hairstyle which has led to the dressing room nickname of "Sexual Chocolate". Sidebottom's long hair indirectly led to a second nickname, "Stringfellow", after a hapless Henry Blofeld repeatedly confused him with long-haired nightclub impresario Peter Stringfellow during the first Test match against New Zealand in 2008.

New Zealand Cricket Test, ODI and Twenty20 schedule

Here is a schedule of the games that are going to be played by New Zealand at home during the 2007/2008 home summer season. Make sure you proudly show your support for your favourite teams and make this summer of cricket an entertaining occasion, and who knows, you could be made famous by showing some enthusiasm and dedicated support for your team.

If you are a BlackCaps supporter lets attend the games' dressed in black and on mass and let Bangladesh, West Indies and India know that we are a force to be reckoned with!

Here is the Black Cap's home schedule for the home summer season of 2008/2009:

2008:

West Indies in NZ

Test
Dec 11-15: New Zealand v West Indies Dunedin
Dec 19-23: New Zealand v West Indies Napier

Twenty20
Dec 26: New Zealand v West Indies Auckland
Dec 28: New Zealand v West Indies Hamilton

2009

One-day matches
Dec 31 New Zealand v West Indies Queenstown
Jan 3 New Zealand v West Indies Christchurch
Jan 7 New Zealand v West Indies Wellington
Jan 10 New Zealand v West Indies Auckland
Jan 13 New Zealand v West Indies Napier

India in NZ

Twenty 20
Mar 6 New Zealand v India Wellington

One-day matches
Mar 8 New Zealand v India Napier
Mar 11 New Zealand v India Hamilton
Mar 14 New Zealand v India Auckland
Mar 17 New Zealand v India Wellington
Mar 20 New Zealand v India Christchurch

First class match
Mar 22-24 New Zealand v India Lincoln, Canterbury

Test Matches
Mar 26-30 New Zealand v India Hamilton
Apr 3-7 New Zealand v India Wellington

Player Profile(#29)...Gautam Gambhir (India)

Gautam Gambhir (born 14 October 1981, in Delhi) is an Indian opening batsman. He has been a member of the Indian national cricket team since 2003 (ODIs) and 2004 (Tests). Gambhir had been a prolific run-scorer in domestic cricket with an average of over 50 but his two successive double-hundreds in 2002 (one of them against the visiting Zimbabweans) made him a strong contender for India's opening slot. He became only the fourth Indian batsman to score a double century in a tour game at home; the previous three being Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar and Sachin Tendulkar.

Gambhir was selected in 2000 for the first intake of the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore.

He made his ODI debut against Bangladesh in the TVS Cup in 2003. In his third match, he scored 71 and was named Man of the Match. His maiden century {103 off 97 balls) came against Sri Lanka in 2005. In 2004, he made his Test debut against Australia in the fourth and last Test match of the Border Gavaskar Trophy but did himself no favours by getting out for 3 and 1. He made amends in his second Test, however, scoring 96 against the South Africans. His maiden Test century came against Bangladesh in December 2004. Gambhir then made a number of starts in the home series against Pakistan in 2005, but was able to make only one half-century in six innings. He made 97 in Zimbabwe later that year, but failed to reach 30 against Sri Lanka at home, repeatedly struggling against Chaminda Vaas, and was subsequently dropped from the Test team. He was replaced in Tests by Wasim Jaffer, who made a double hundred and a hundred in seven Tests. He has often been criticized as not being able to convert his starts of 20 and 30 into larger scores and his string of poor scores is continually cited as evidence for this assertion.

While he has been out of the Test team, he has played a number of One Day Internationals for India between 2005 and 2007. However, he was not selected for the 2007 Cricket World Cup as the selectors opted for a top-order of Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, and Sachin Tendulkar. After India's first-round exit from the tournament, Gambhir was selected for the One Day International on India's 2007 tour of Bangladesh. Gambhir scored his second century on that tour and was subsequently selected for the One Day International on India's tour to Ireland in 2007. He scored an unbeaten 80 against Ireland in the first game of that tour and was awarded the man of the match award for that effort. In the post-match interview, he indicated that performing more consistently was a top priority for his career as he had done so in the past. If he does become more consistent, he could cement his place as a One Day International opener in the Indian cricket team.

Gambhir was selected in India's squad for the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, which India went on to win in South Africa, beating Pakistan in the final. Gambhir performed well in the shortest form of the game, ending the tournament as India's top run scorer, with 227 at an average of 37.83, including three half-centuries which included a crucial 75 runs off 54 balls against Pakistan in the final.

2008 started well for Gambhir. At home, he scored an unbeaten 130 in the Ranji Trophy final to help Delhi beat Uttar Pradesh by nine wickets just two days before the team for the ODI tournament in Australia was to be announced.

Gambhir was forced to miss the Test series in Australia due to a shoulder injury. In the 2007-08 CB Series, he scored an unbeaten 102 at the Gabba against Sri Lanka in a match washed out due to rain. Three weeks later at Sydney, he scored a career-best 113 off 119 balls against Australia, in a high scoring match which India lost by 18 runs. He finished the CB series as the leading run-scorer with 440 runs.

Gambhir scored a double century in the Kotla Test against Australia in October 2008.





*Acknowledgements to Wikipedia.org and owner of Youtube Video.

Back from my "forced" vacation...

Hello one and all,

As you can probably tell I have been away for over two months now, due to moving town, career changing stuff, work, and spending many hours up late watching the cricket on satellite tv. I am in the process of getting my internet connection set up again and as it is easier (not to mention far less expensive) for me to write articles to this site from home I will be back to writing 3 to 4 articles a week, within the next two weeks.

In the meantime I have seen some great cricket action, including the Aussies getting walloped by India in the 1st test of the current October series over there, and of course the famous victory the Bangladeshi's scored over the Black Caps (by 7 wickets in Mirpur, Bangladesh). It shows they are able to pull off some suprise wins (also refer to the 5 wicket win over the Aussies at Sophia Gardens in 2004) and do have the ability to pull together as a team and put in a good cohesive performance.

Also played my first beach cricket game of the "season" and just about got washed away by the sea as the bowler didn't tell me there was a wave coming in! Though that didn't really bother me. Am looking forward to many more games of recreational cricket and to perhaps emulate some of cricketing's greatest.

Also many thanks for the cricket site's owners that still have me linked to their site, I really appreciate your patience and I have seen a steady flow of visitors coming in from your site to mine. Thankyou!

Also I checked the other day that my site has climbed to a Google Page Rank of 3, I know its still low but I have a lot of time yet to apply tweaks to the site and update content etc. It's why I appreciate all the comments I have been getting, they really help with the development of the site, thankyou!

Keep your eyes taped open for more content and hope you enjoy!

Should Cricket have been in the Olympics?

Well the 2008 Beijing Olympics have finally arrived. As I am presently watching the opening ceremony and watching the masterful displays pieced to gether by meticulous choreography, I ponder to myself one question, one question that has made me write this post...Should cricket have been in the Olympics?

I bet there are many cricket lovers that are wondering the same thing. Is it because China isn't a leading cricket nation? It shouldn't really matter if China is or not. Cricket is fast gaining interest in this hugely populated country and because of its huge population there is a huge market for cricket in the country.

Perhaps the Twenty20 would have been a crowd favourite at the Olympics, as a Twenty20 game lasts around 3 to 4 hours, and most crowds would be able to watch a game of cricket for this long. Baseball lasts about the same duration.

Just imagine what if cricket was at the Beijing Olympics? It would've catapulted China furtherer up in the cricketing world and the sport itself would've got enormous amounts of exposure (as I have just heard on the commentary that there is approximately 4 billion people watching). Imagine that if cricket was in the Beijing Olympics there would be thousands and thousands of Chinese cricket teams sprouting up and forming a very stable foundation for the future of cricket in the country. Could you imagine that if cricket was in the olympics, it might have been a catalyst for, lets say an example, a major ODI/Twenty20 or a Super Test series being played beside the Yangtze River in the picturesque Gorges region? Or perhaps a super series involving all major cricketing nations including China in the modern metropolis of Beijing itself? The possibilities are endless and are only limited by the vastness of ones imagination, which are infinite.

Of course many people would have their views on whether cricket should've been in the Beijing Olympics. Feel free to let your opinions be known by voting in my poll which asks the very question.