Shoe

Cook says it's Anderson.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-india-2014/c...

I disagree. What do you think?

I love the sound of the old tinkling piano like you can hear on several Muddy Waters tracks (did he have a regular pianist or use session players?) and Billie Holiday songs among others. What can you recommend?

i) with the Velvet Underground

ii) solo

iii) overall

It's fair to say that with Warne, Murali, Kumble and (a bit earlier) Qadir, we've been through a golden period for spin bowling. But it seems that because of that, we seem to forget that there were many great spin bowlers before them. This bias towards modern players happens across all disciplines, but it seems more-so with the spinners.

So here's the list of "notable spin bowlers" from Wikipedia. Who are the top 10?

Australia

Richie Benaud

Clarrie Grimmett

Bill Johnston (Also bowled pace)

Stuart MacGill

Ashley Mallett

Monty Noble (Also bowled medium pace)

Bill O'Reilly

Hugh Trumble

Shane Warne

England

Tich Freeman

Tony Greig (Also bowled medium pace)

Jim Laker

Tony Lock

Wilfred Rhodes

Fred Titmus

Derek Underwood

Hedley Verity

Johnny Wardle

Graeme Swann

India

Bishen Singh Bedi

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar

Dilip Doshi

Subhash Gupte

Harbhajan Singh

Narendra Hirwani

Anil Kumble

Vinoo Mankad

Erapalli Prasanna

Venkatapathy Raju

Srinivas Venkataraghavan

New Zealand

John Bracewell

Hedley Howarth

Daniel Vettori

Pakistan

Abdul Qadir

Danish Kaneria

Iqbal Qasim

Mushtaq Ahmed

Saqlain Mushtaq

South Africa

Paul Adams

Hugh Tayfield

Sri Lanka

Muttiah Muralitharan

Ajantha Mendis

West Indies

Lance Gibbs

Sonny Ramadhin

Garfield Sobers (Also bowled Fast-medium)

Alf Valentine

Zimbabwe

Ray Price

Paul Strang

Here's mine:

Watson

Vijay

Ponting

Tendulkar

Raina

Laxman

Paine

Singh

Khan

Bollinger

Ojha

Tough choice between Raina and North - Raina: one good score, one dismal failure and one in between. North: one century and 3 dismal failures.

Tempted to pick Dhoni as a captain, but Paine was the better batsman in this series and probably made fewer errors behind the stumps.

Bollinger and Laxman make it on the basis of one test (one innings in Laxman's case - but what an innings!)

and why is it so expensive?

If it really is different, I'd appreciate a recipe (or a link to one.)

When I build a new house, I want music in the kitchen. The ideal way would be to have ceiling speakers. I know Bose are usually very expensive, but their ceiling speakers seem quite reasonably priced. My question is whether I need two speakers, or the single one is enough. A single speaker has two tweeters and a 7 inch woofer.

I remember seeing an All Black try where Umaga did a no-look pass over his head to Cullen (or vice versa).

I'm not sure who scored the try, but I'd really appreciate a youtube link, or even details of what game it was so I can find it myself.

Here’s a look at their averages:

NT Paranavitana

Home: 43.69

Away: 28.75

Difference: 14.94

TM Dilshan

Home: 47.11

Away: 40.57

Difference: 6.54

KC Sangakkara

Home: 62.97

Away: 50.24

Difference: 12.73

DPMD Jayawardene

Home: 65.44

Away / Neutral: 42.15

Difference: 23.29

TT Samaraweera

Home: 59.1

Away: 44.07

Difference: 15.03

AD Mathews

Home: 45.16

Away: 29.8

Difference: 15.36

HAPW Jayawardene

Home: 34.31

Away: 27.47

Difference: 6.84

That’s a difference of 94.73 among their top 7. It’s also a difference of 51.05 among their three top batsmen. At first glance it looks like a batting lineup full of greats. On second glance – it’s clear that Sangakkara is very good (great?) but while the others have decent averages, are they really just a bunch of flat track bullies?

Here's my selection from the players that didn't make their cricinfo all time XI:

Desmond Haynes

Roy Fredericks

Frank Worrell

Everton Weekes

Clyde Walcott

Collie Smith

Jeffrey Dujon

Joel Garner

Andy Roberts

Colin Croft

Alfred Valentine

That includes the 3 Ws - who are considered the best middle order to have ever played the game! And I've still left out Kanhai, Rowe, Lloyd and Richardson in the middle order and Hall, Walsh & Bishop in the fast bowling ranks!

2nd question: Do you agree with my selection?

For the first XI: http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/468...

To show what I mean, here's my view on New Zealand:

We've had many players who have been great players for New Zealand (eg. John Wright, Nathan Astle and Stephen Flemming...), but who wouldn't be considered genuine greats on the world stage.

We've had quite a few players who would have been considered among the greats of their own era (Martin Crowe, Bert Sutcliffe, maybe Daniel Vettori...), but who probably won't be talked about in 50 years time (except in New Zealand).

But we've had one (sadly only one) genuine great - Sir Richard Hadlee

Nobody can deny he has hardly been the Ponting of old in the last few years (though he has still been averaging in the low to mid forties). Now with the lead up to the Ashes, and the Ashes itself, he says "I've got the biggest eight months of my career coming up."

We've all seen in the past how he has not let controversies affect his batting, so do you expect the added pressure to bring the best out of him, or do you think the old Ponting has gone for good and will only ever be seen again in fits & spurts?

I know songs with Sunday, Monday, Tuesday (several), Thursday, Friday and Saturday (several) in the title, but I can't think of any with Wednesday.

1. What songs (& by who) have Wenesday in the title?

2. What's your best week in song?

I'm re-asking this question as it was removed when a troll copied it.

Cricinfo has just started the selection of the all time West Indies XI.

http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content%E2%80%A6

I think this will be the most difficult to pick of all the teams - there is so much talent to choose from among the middle order (Lara, Richards, Headley, Weekes, Worrell, Walcott, Kanhai, Sobers, Lloyd all fighting for 4 places - 5 if Walcott keeps wickets) & bowlers (Marshall, Garner, Holding, Ambrose, Croft, Walsh, Roberts, Hall) fighting for 4 places (assuming they don't choose a specialist spinner)

i) Have I left anyone out? (I know I haven't put openers, keepers or spinners on the list)

ii) Is this the most difficult selection of all countries?

iii) Who would you choose?

Cricinfo has just started the selection of the all time West Indies XI.

http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/463...

I think this will be the most difficult to pick of all the teams - there is so much talent to choose from among the middle order (Lara, Richards, Headley, Weekes, Worrell, Walcott, Kanhai, Sobers, Lloyd all fighting for 4 places - 5 if Walcott keeps wickets) & bowlers (Marshall, Garner, Holding, Ambrose, Croft, Walsh, Roberts, Hall) fighting for 4 places (assuming they don't choose a specialist spinner)

i) Have I left anyone out? (I know I haven't put openers, keepers or spinners on the list)

ii) Is this the most difficult selection of all countries?

iii) Who would you choose?

Cricket Australia is looking at changing the ODI format to a 40 over game - each team would play two 20 over innings.

Martin Crowe says drop the ODI format altogether & stick with Tests & T20.

Q1: Do we need ODIs at all.

Q2: If we do, should the format be changed (either as per the Australian idea, or in another way?)

The criticism of New Zealand teams has for a long time (quite rightly) been that the top order don't score enough runs consistently. But this test has highlighted another problem - on a pitch that was supposed to be fast & bouncy & support the quick bowlers, Dan Vettori bowled more overs on the first day of the test than any of the quicks. Bangladesh is the only other test playing nation where this would happen.

My votes go to Michael Holding (Whispering death) and Bruce Taylor (Haystax - because he was so lucky that his teammates figured that if he fell out of a plane he'd land in a haystack.)

The Australian reported the security discussions caused a split between high profile freelance players and Ricky Ponting when the situation was outlined at an Australian Cricketers' Association meeting in Sydney on Tuesday. The paper said Shane Warne, Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist, who have supported each IPL tournament, clashed with Ricky Ponting over the way forward.

Cricket Australia-contracted players want to follow the ACA's advice while Warne and Hayden, a Cricket Australia board member, have said they want to go. If players pull out of the tournament they could be banned from future IPL editions, a decision which would cost some of them millions of dollars.

(from this article on cricinfo http://www.cricinfo.com/ipl2010/content/current/st...

Do you really think Warne, Gilchrist & Hayden would be arguing about it if they were being asked to pull out of a test tour to India due to safety reasons. I think they would express their fears strongly (something I have never criticised them for.) All of a sudden they've become fearless!

Please note:

** I'm not suggesting it's not (or it is) safe to go to India & participate - only that their response to the threats is very different now.

** I mention the Aussie players because they are the one in the article - I'm sure the same applies to players from my country (NZ) & other countries.