Category Archives: Cricket

International cricket is divided into three forms of the game, which are becoming more distinct with each passing year. The shortest, and newest form, is Twenty-20 (or T20), which is less than a decade old, lasts about three hours, and consists of 120 balls for each team. The next form is One-Day cricket, which has been in existence for nearly forty years and lasts about eight hours, consists of 300 balls for each team. The third, and oldest form of the game, is First-Class or (when played between nations) Test cricket, and can last up to five days. This site divides its blogs into these three categories, and then sub-divides the categories between the rules of each form of the game and news and thoughts about each form.

Let’s Play Two

Ernie Banks’s enthusiasm was contagious as Covid as he declared, “Let’s play two!” Will the regularly scheduled doubleheader, the double-dip, ever make a comeback in Major League Baseball? Auguring this is a matter of time. Literally. To produce a leaner … Continue reading

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Wait ’til Next Year

The drouth was over. It ended the only way it could. A rebarbative, plague-infected, player celebrated along with the still-healthy ones. After six games. Some fans were inside a gleaming hitherto-unused, untested (no pun in this “get-tested” era) stadium: the … Continue reading

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Great Stadiums (11): From Blueprints

Credit Rod Kennedy Jr. for a keen perseverance. Pursuant to the story linked to his name, Kennedy unearthed (the right word) the blueprints for Ebbets Field. This is where Kennedy lives in his memories (as all us fans of baseball … Continue reading

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There Used to Be a Ballpark Again

“How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!” (Lamentations) William Carlos Williams is the author of an epic poem about Paterson. It is one of the cities “left behind.” Maybe not anymore. In fall 2019, it was announced … Continue reading

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The Baseball Scene

Henry James, for whom no abstraction, no characteristic or gesture, was too subtle to be examined (and examined), qualified and qualified again, is generally credited with a fictional form that was actually pioneered by women, mostly Continental-women writers on to … Continue reading

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Baseball and Pythagoras; or, Finger Painting the Word Picture by Numbers

The Right off the Bat (ROTB) project was angled toward the hallowed halls of Cooperstown this week. Since we have rescheduled for 2019 or probably into the 2020s, permit me (Evander), in this our 601st blog and with little else … Continue reading

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Ripeness Is All

Relentlessly, the English medium-fast bowler James Anderson is climbing the list of all-time wicket takers (in Test cricket). At the time of this writing, he’s placed fifth (with 544), a mere 19 wickets below the great Australian quick Glenn McGrath, … Continue reading

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The Thousandth Test

On March 15 1877, Charles Bannerman and Nat Thomson strode out to open the batting for Australia at Melbourne against an England team, in what is generally acknowledged to be the first “Test” match—a cricket game of two innings each … Continue reading

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Streaking

Like the proverbial first-small-step of the longest journey, record-MLB streaks begin innocently enough. Each captures the imagination of the public in different ways. The most enthralling streaks occur over the course of a season. A few, equally impressive, are accomplished … Continue reading

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Group Psychotherapy for Cleveland

Nicholas Frankovich asks if Cleveland Indians (in 2022 to be called the Guardians) fans require a big-couch session with a group psychotherapist. It’s a reasonable question. The 1954 Indians still hold the modern record for regular-season winning percentage—till the nonexistent … Continue reading

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