Category Archives: breaking news

A Warm Goodbye to a Great Cricket Blogger: Amy S

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amy s

One of the more prolific cricket bloggers, Amy S, passed away in a car accident in July in Canberra. Her friend Kate has posted a glowing tribute to Amy on her blog. I am shocked and saddened. Amy provided a great and unique perspective on Australian cricket and she also blogged significantly about the IPL and South African cricketers. The cricket community will miss her. She was only 26.

Other bloggers have added their final thoughts – I have linked them below and will continue to update this post as I find more.

  • Straight Point: “her blog used to exhibit so much energy“
  • Cricket with Balls: He is observing a 24-hour silence in her honor.
  • Chinese Cut: “She was a writing machine, churning out 6-7 posts everyday despite her tough job as a journalist. Her blog posts about Albie Morkel and AB de Villiers will be distinctly remembered.“
  • Arm Ball: “Its just plain shocking that one of the best and ardent blogger is no more with us.“
  • Maidenbowling: “She was so amazing. So funny. So generous. So full of life.“
  • Miss Field: “Amy was such a passionate, entertaining, engaging and knowledgeable blogger. She shared my inexplicable fascination with Saffers, and laid a claim on Albie from the get-go that I didn’t even try to argue with“
  • Eye on Cricket: “Only the good die young.“
  • Line and Length: “She was a fine and passionate writer“
  • The Old Batsman: “Like everyone who followed her blog I felt like I knew her a little, yet as her friend Kate’s tribute shows, writing was just one of her talents.“
  • Different Shades of Green: “We’re really all in this together.“
  • The Silly Mid Off: “Amy’s writing was laden with wit, and her blog’s content and structure was one which I looked at a great deal while starting up this blog.“
  • Cricket Minded: “She was amazing with words, funny, intelligent and just plain and simply awesome.“
  • Gift of Devil: “Her works were a treat and I liked to kill many an interesting hour reading her stuff.“
  • Ducking Beamers: “For a good stretch of time, I couldn’t write a single post without linking to Amy S., whose humor absolutely floored me.“
  • Short of a Length: “Amy’s is my favorite cricket blog and, in my opinion, is the best. Easily.“
  • The Cricket Watcher’s Journal: “Her blog was about the joy of being a spectator, and there wasn’t any of the bitterness which creeps into our own blogging.“

Rest in peace, Amy.

Bangladesh Too?

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Bangladesh is cancelling all foreign tours citing the reason that it cannot guarantee enough security for the visiting teams. This immediately means an end to the planned tour by the Pakistani team and, for the short-term future, an end to visits by any cricket team.

So Pakistan and Bangladesh are out of the running. Sri Lanka could be the next as the Tamil Tigers sense an opportunity to disrupt the calm in Colombo. And India is also facing many challenges with heightened security concerns after the Mumbai attacks. Any repeat incidents could put an end to any international matches in the sub-continent.

It is time for governments to step in and fix the security issue from both a police/military standpoint and a political view. All of these crises involve some political grievances and it will require political leadership to solve them. The Indian sub-continent had been growing by leaps and bounds in the last decade and terrorism could put a quick end to that.

End of the Line for Pakistan?

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The terrible terrorist attack against the Sri Lankan cricket players has effectively killed international cricket in Pakistan for the foreseeable future. The countries outside the sub-continent had already given up visits to Pakistan. India followed suit after the Mumbai attacks. Sri Lanka had stepped in to fill the void and was rewarded in the most appalling way one could think of. As we noted previously, Pakistan did not play a single Test in 2008. The rest of this year promises to go the same way.

The last time a sporting team was targeted was the infamous massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Germany (West Germany then) was able to withstand the incident mainly because the attackers came from outside and West Germany was a stable nation. Pakistan, on the other hand, has been suffering from many terror attacks recently, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

If there are no playing opportunities at home, Pakistan will play less cricket and that would mean fewer opportunities for its players, who will be more attracted by IPL, ICL and other non-international tournaments. Pakistan’s international experience at the Test level will go down and a once-strong team will decline. In some ways, Pakistan’s situation is starting to resemble Zimbabwe, which is now entirely out of Test cricket because of its internal breakdown. 

The other country which has to be careful is Sri Lanka, which has been torn by a civil war for several years. If the Tamil terrorists try similar tactics in Sri Lanka, we could see the Lankans experiencing the same fate as Pakistanis. 

This is a really bad time for the cricketing nations in the Indian sub-continent. Hope these bad times go away soon.

Terrorist Attack against Sri Lankan Cricket Team

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In breaking news, there seems to have been an attack against the Sri Lankan team by terrorists near the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore where the 2nd Test was happening. 

This is terrible news. We wish well for all  the Sri Lankan players, who have escaped with minor injuries.

News reports from across the world:

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