Sunday, September 29, 2013

Depth or Over-cricket?

India is the world's biggest cricketing market.A very  However what sometimes goes unnoticed is the fact that India also has the largest cricket playing circuit as well. Hence a pretty big supply of talent which is quite widespread as well.

Take the current scenario. There are 4 IPL teams playing in the Champions League each with a fair share of the Indian stars and second and third rung players. In addition there is NKP Salve Challenger Trophy underway, which has Delhi (minus Shikhar Dhawan) taking on India Red & India Blue teams. In addition to all this there is an India A team taking on the West Indies A team in an 'A' test. That makes seven Indian teams playing across all 3 formats. That number is more than the total number of first class teams in most nations.And before I forget there is a 4 nation Under-19 tournament also underway.

Not too long ago there was an India A playing in South Africa. Another India A was taking on New Zealand A at home. And there was an India Under-23 team playing (and winning) in an Asian emerging nations tournament in Singapore.

Now how do we look at this issue? 
  1. Is there excess cricket - even at the second rung international level? Curtailing the domestic calendar may be a solution. 
  2. OR that India has such a depth that it can field multiple teams across formats simultaneously and be competitive also?

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Arbit Stats - 23: The Highest Prime

Cricket known for its quirky stats. Via twitter I learned that there are people with sufficient enthusiasm & time to delve into and find out quirkier statistics.  Take this one for example.

337 - The amount of runs made by Hanif Mohammed against West Indies in Bridgetown (1958) also happens to be the highest prime number score made in an individual innings in Test cricket.

Hats off to the person who thought of this.

P.S. the 23rd (another prime number) post in this series does deserve a Prime Number Statistic :)


Monday, September 16, 2013

Arbit Statistics - 22: The Irish-English Tango

Post No. Double 2 in the Arbit Stats Series. And funnily enough it is about a double two event which recently happened.

2007 - Boyd Rankin playing for Ireland bowls out Ed Joyce playing for England for 1. (Picture here)
2013 - Boyd Rankin playing for England get Ed Joyce playing for Ireland hit wicket for 1.

Cricket, as it is your rules are weird enough for normal folks to understand, but this nationality rule is pretty odd. 

P.S. Eoin Morgan who was playing for Ireland in the 2007 game was captaining England in the 2013 game.

P.P.S How does Irish cricket progress if its best players are taken up by England?