Friday, March 30, 2007

Super Eight Matches Schedule

Here is the schedule of 24 matches in Super Eight stage of Cricket World Cup 2007.

March 27: West Indies vs Australia (Australia won)
March 28: South Africa vs Sri Lanka (South Africa won)
March 29: West Indies vs New Zealand (New Zealand won)
March 30: Ireland vs England
March 31: Australia vs Bangladesh
April 01: West Indies vs Sri Lanka
April 02: Bangladesh vs New Zealand
April 03: Ireland vs South Africa
April 04: England vs Sri Lanka
April 07: Bangladesh vs South Africa
April 08: Australia vs England
April 09: Ireland vs New Zealand
April 10: West Indies vs S Africa
April 11: England vs Bangladesh
April 12: Sri Lanka vs New Zealand
April 13: Australia vs Ireland
April 14: S Africa vs New Zealand
April 15: Bangladesh vs Ireland
April 16: Australia vs Sri Lanka
April 17: South Africa vs England
April 18: Ireland vs Sri Lanka
April 19: West Indies vs Bangladesh
April 20: Australia vs New Zealand
April 21: West Indies vs England

India may be Out ...

ICC don't want to forget India even though India is out of the league after first round. ICC fined India for slow over rates against there final match of first round in Cricket World Cup 2007.

India was one over short of its target with respect to allowed time which made ICC match referee Jeff Crowe to fine Indian team.

As per the rule captain will lose 10% and rest of the team will lose 5% of their match fee.

So along with Fans and Advertisers, ICC also showing real path to Indian team.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Players and Advertisements..

The poor performance by the Indian players have bowled them out of the ads. Yeah, most of the companies are expressing their dissapointments over the game the players played in WI. Companies like Videocon, Pepsi, Sansui are among the top ones who had an all exclusive multi-crore world cup ad campaigns. Some reactions..

Videocon promotions will not feature Dravid and Dhoni for the time.

Dravid may or may not lead the Indian team but Sansui defenately plans to sack his captaincy.

Pepsi had to close down 'Ladega to Jeetega' ads, coz their tigers have done everything but 'Ladega'.

Some other cos take it differently. Exide says that they wont go by the performance of Dhoni for such a short period and they will continue to have him as their brand ambasaddor till November 07, when the 2 yr contract expires. Exide was the first company to sign Dhoni, in 2005 - even before he made it to the Indian team.
Sunfeast too backs up the 'har ghar mein Sachin' campaign.

There have been cases where ppl from an area have taken a oath! yeah oath that they will not buy any of the products endoresed by the Indian cricketers.

Common this act is just not done.

Anil Kumble Announced Retirement

India’s leading wicket-taker Anil Kumble has announced his retirement from one-day cricket and he will continue in Test cricket only.

Kumble has 547 Test victims and 337 victims in one-dayers and last performed in ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 against Bermuda.

Kumble's best Test match performance was against Pakistan where he took all ten wickets in an innings in New Delhi in 1999.

He will be seen performing next against Bangladesh in May in two Test matches.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Cricket World Cup Song

I was just browsing through the Internet and found this cool Cricket World Cup song: The Game of Love and Unity. A 4 minute 52 seconds song is not too bad and grows on mind after a while.

You can listen here.

Diamond Studded Cricket Ball

Mahima Chaudhry holding Diamond Cricket Ball
A leading Indian gem and jewelery manufacturer Gitanjali Group has unveiled specially designed 30-carat diamond studded cricket balls.

This diamond studded cricket ball held by Bollywood actress Mahima Chaudhary is only one of two that will be presented to the best Indian cricketer and the best interim player of the world cup 2007 tournament which is currently being played in the West Indies. Each diamond ball is studded with 5,728 pieces of diamonds with a worth of approximately $68,500.

ICC and YouTube Video Clips

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has asked Google owned YouTube to remove all World Cup clips claiming copyright infringement. "We are here to protect the commercial broadcast rights for the ICC and GCC and there is an issue here," Christopher Stokes, chief executive - online rights protection agency 'NetResult', which represents the ICC told to a reporters.

Now, following this if YouTube actually deletes the WC2007 video files, there will be a huge dissappointment in the cricket fan world as they will not have an easy access to the missed magical moments of the world cup.

Also, taking this further, if the online video hub removes all the cricket, soccer, and other clips involving copyright infringement, it would sadden the regular layman youtubeists as they will not be able to broadcast their tastes on the events with such a mass.

Records at world cup ..

There have been a lots of occasions of sudden ups and downs for any player or team in the previous editions of the tourney. It took some of the tough players to storm hard at the opponent teams, and when the time was really tough, the tougher players have risen to the occasion and have seen their team through.

This reminds me to quote the players who have played a vital role in the world cup wins for their countries. Lets have a look at some of the previous records:

Man of the match at the finals of each world cup

1975 world cup : West Indies --> MoM : Clive Llyod (102 runs)
1979 world cup : West Indies --> MoM : Viv Richards (138*)
1983 world cup : India --> MoM : Mohinder Amarnath (26 and 3-12)
1987 world cup : Australia --> MoM : David Boon (75)
1992 world cup : Pakistan --> MoM : Wasim Akram (33 and 3-49)
1996 world cup : Sri Lanka --> MoM : Aravinda de Silva (107 and 3-42)
1999 world cup : Australia --> MoM : Shane Warne (4-33)
2003 world cup : Australia --> MoM : Ricky Ponting (140*)

Since 1992 world cup the 'Player of the world cup' is being awarded. The players who left their mark even if their teams may not have lifted the cup that year :

1992 world cup : Martin Crowe, captain of New Zealand was really consistent with his bat and also brought in innovative idieas with slog over approach in first 15 overs and spinner in Deepak Patel leading the bowling attack.

1996 cup was dominated by the then minnows Sri Lanka, spearheaded by Sanath Jaisuriya with his extra fast performance with the bat and a good supportive role with the bowl.

1999 world cup saw a desperate attempt from the Zulu, Lance Klusner of South Africa who almost took RSA in the finals almost single handedly. Effort in vain for the very unfortunate run-outs in the history of cricket.

2003 event saw the Indian master blaster at his best, hitting on target in almost all the matches but the Big final against Australia. In the process, he took the team to finals with the help of his team members, also scored the highest runs in the world cup.


2007, hain koi jawab ?

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

India's early exit: Advertisers Nightmare

India's early exit put advertisers in a tragic situation. As India's early exit will result in fall of viewers for other matches and viewers loss will upset advertisers as they have put lots of money for advertising during this World Cup 2007.

As CricketWeblog says:
In a One-day match, there are around 5,000 seconds of ad time. Currently, the rates are Rs 1.25-1.30 lakh for matches not featuring India which may reduced 1 lakh as India is no more part of the next stage. This may mean a drop of up to Rs 150 crore in advertising revenue for the broadcaster.

Advertisers are demanding for bonus spots and/or discounts as reported by Rediff. Also advertisers are reducing there budget for advertisement from the previous alloted amount like Videocon reduced it to Rs 10 crore from 20 crore.

On the contrary it may benefit channels showing TV serials as there TRP will get near to normal again so are there ad rates. Also hotels and restaurants which don't had TV sets for there customers and facing tough time in the evening slots.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Web World and Cricket Mania I

Cricket World Cup 2007 is currently taking place in the West Indies from March 13 to April 28, 2007 where total 51 matches will be played among 16 teams. As cricket fever is high on all over the World for a while so is in Internet also and everyone is hoping to cash on the world cup frenzy.

Here are the few good sites trying to cover this event from whichever sides they can and using all there angles.

CricketWorldCup is indya.com powered official website of the Cricket World Cup 2007. It has all the latest news, videos, trivia, historical statistics, voice of the world, games and many more things related with ICC's initiative for creating a fruitful cricket matches.

Rediff has a very good and useful feature of live score which shows ball by ball updates. Another interesting stuff from Rediff for this CWC7 is World Cup Prediction Game. Here you will get 10000 points initially and you can use this points to bet on different predictions which may or may not occur in this game. Start predicting here.
Also don't forget to check regularly updated slide shows of matches and related events by Rediff.
And for fans and children by heart they have masks of few of the very good cricketers in pdf format.

Criki is digg like news sharing website where you can find and share any cricket related news, pictures, audios and videos. Also you can vote and give comments on others news items.

CricTV is an online community site for cricket fans where you can share videos, pictures,

Finally here is a very good excel sheet called AceFixtures to keep track of all the matches and its results as suggested by our good friend Sidharth.

Keep check here as i will add more good websites related with cricket. Also aware me with other sites, blogs which you are using regularly to keep update your Cricket Quotient.

Super Eight's are Here

First round of Cricket World Cup 2007 is over with the final match of first round between Bangladesh and Bermuda from group B. Where Bangladesh defeated Bermuda with 7 wickets and secured a space for itself in second round.

Australia and South Africa are qualified from group A with Australia taking lead by 6 points after defeating South Africa in an interesting match which also features record of fastest century in Cricket World Cup by Mathew Hayden in 66 balls.

Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are qualified from group B where Sri Lanka is leading the group tally by 6 points.

New Zealand and England are qualified from group C where New Zealand is leading the group by winning all three matches and securing 6 points.

In group D West Indies secured its place in Super Eight rounds with 6 points while Ireland also qualified for the next stage from this group.

Super Eight round will start with West Indies's match against Australia on 27th Mar 2007 at Antigua & Barbuda and also end with West Indies's match against England on 21st April 2007 at Barbados. Also Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and West Indies are already having two points each in their account as they beated South Africa, Bangladesh, England and Ireland in their first round of matches respectively.

Super Eight round will be filled with clashes between six titans and two minnows who can upset the points calculation in this stage in a same way as it happenes in first round for India and Pakistan.

All the Best to All the Teams in Super Eight Stage.