[OT] Blog search

I found this link which is basically a search engine for blogs. Enter the keywords and it goes ahead and searches for them in the blogs. I was wondering how to get mine in there... I guess I have to include words like Affan, Cricket or even Affan Qureshi and cricket. Since this is a cricket blog and moreso cricket about Pakistan, in fact its called Cricket ka Pakistan, so I guess if some1 enters cricket or pakistan or even 'Pakistan and Cricket' ya 'Cricket ka Pakistan' or even 'Pakistan ka Cricket', this blog (a.ka. Cricket ka Pakistan) should show up in the results for the query 'cricket ka Pakistan'. But wat if someone mis-spells Cricket (as criket, cicket, circet, cricet, crackat etc.) or Pakistan (pkistan, paistan, pakisan, paakistan, packistan etc.)? i guess it should still show up rite? now i dont expect ppl to misspell Affan or Qureshi and write it exactly as 'Affan Qureshi'... or if they dont like Affan Qureshi together, they can write either Affan or Qureshi separately and they should see this blog by Affan anyways...

phew.... enough keywords?

Well not really... .what about words like Wasim Akram, Saeed Anwar, Shoaib Akhtar, Waqar Younus, Inzamam, Afridi (in fact Shahid Afridi), Javed Miandad, Imran Khan, India cricket, West Indies cricket, test match or matches, One day international, Younus Khan, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Andrew Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen, the Ashes series or Ashes Cup or Ashes tests, cricket mania, cricinfo, Rameez Raja, etc. etc....

(feel free to append the list :P)

"Dressing room incident"

How come news like these come out in the press? And how come its usually the Pakistani team that they are all about? Anyone ever heard about any of the Aussies fighting in the dressing room, or even Tendulkar and Dravid (whom we believe are not the best of friends?) having a "disagreement"?

[EDIT: Again!! another story on the same incident... which I feel should've been dealt with "internally"... weird isnt it? is it our players who are woooo-ed by media publicity etc.? I am sure they are not that "cheap" and of course there is a "code of conduct" in place by the _PCB_]

Wierd! my words exactly...

I cant believe it! There is this article on cricket.org which says exactly what I had written last week about the England team! (and its comeback under Vaughan and Flintoff's role etc.)....

Even the thoughts on Bangladesh series are exactly mine; which I had recently expressed elsewhere.

There is some leak of the stories for sure.... !

To Hook or not to Hook

Another article on the best shot players series. This time focussing on the Hook and Pull shot - truly "the most exciting shot to watch" as mentioned by this cricket.org article.

Again this analysis doesnt do justice to many of the best players of the shot - Ricky Ponting being my favorite. As the article mentions Aussies a re likely to be a master of this shot much better than the sub-continent players (only Tendulkar, Laxman, Jayawardena and Inzamam making the list). Just look at the # of runs they scored: Ponting (597), Hayden (557), Gilchrist (519) , Langer (418). Another noteable is Lara's trade-mark pull-glance shot - i wonder if they included that here or not - a shot which he used so often/regularly in his 375 and 501 innings.

	Runs/ outs	Average	Strike rate	% of total Runs
Nasser Hussain	293/ 2	146.50	196.64	13.14
Shivnarine Chanderpaul	409/ 5	81.80	206.56	14.56
Herschelle Gibbs	485/ 6	80.83	211.79	13.24
Jacques Kallis	484/ 6	80.66	180.59	11.04
Brian Lara	321/ 4	80.25	191.07	8.12
Graham Thorpe	311/ 4	77.75	193.16	14.55
Michael Vaughan	463/ 6	77.16	228.07	13.42
Ricky Ponting	597/ 8	74.62	215.52	14.49

The Flintoff/Afridi factor

Its interesting to observe the effect Andrew Flintoff (and somewhat Shahid Afridi) has had on his team. I don't remember England ever playing a raging aggressive player such as Andrew Flintoff. Him and Mathew Hoggard I believe are the biggers reasons why England sees (and is seen by the opposition) the game differently than perhaps five years ago. The selectors did well to persist with Flintoff in spite of his mediocre performances in his initial outings. But he has matured into one of the most dominant all-rounders, both in One-Days and Tests. He has improved as a bowler by leaps and also played a few responsible knocks lower down the order. Of course the new wave comprising of Steve Harmison, Simon Jones, Kevin Pieterson add more fire power to the side, but I think Flintoff and company turned the wave around for England.

I remember how Flintoff turned that One day match on its head when England toured Pakistan last time around.

Although Hussain was an aggressive captain (when we compare him with his predecessors) but Vaughan deserves a lot of credit for this new look, fresh England side raring to take on the world.

Shahid Afridi also possesses the same potential of impact on his side. And he does provide that mental edge when Pakistan team steps into the field with Afridi in their ranks. I just wish he could become as consistent as Flintoff and take himself to the next level in the process, in other words continue to improve as he has over the past couple of tours.

Writer-ship (Shane Warne's comments/painting article)

Ok this is a little off topic but just funny to see how "adeptly" the author has merged two different stories into a single article... can't help mentioning it :P

I mean how else can you combine his comments on Kevin Pieterson and the innauguaration of this portrait in a single article? well done :-)