Short pitch: Sheffield Shield Efficiency

(c) Balanced Sports, click to enlarge

The chart above maps the combined batting/bowling prowess of each of last year's Sheffield Shield teams.  It forms a very rough guide to each state's efficiency by mapping the cumulative batting and bowling averages of each state's specialists against each other.  Please note the curious wording (batsmen/bowlers) - only recognised  batsmen and allrounders

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The Dempsey Dilemma

courtesy: mlssoccer.com


Clint Dempsey is having another
fantastic – and well-documented – season for Fulham. In fact,
his conspicuous excellence for three successive managers in concert
with a slowly expiring contact (June 2013) mean England's
most scurrilous have started to chirrup about a potential move to
a “bigger” club.



Is he good enough? Can he deliver in
the Champions League?

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My Favourite Cricketer: VVS Laxman by Minal of Granger Gab

We've invited some of the very best cricket writers and bloggers to tell us why certain players stand out for them above all others.  This week, Minal of Granger Gab and The Sight Screen writes of the most stylish Indian of them all, a man whose nickname was the ultimate compliment: VVS Laxman.  Minal tweets @granger_gab, and we really suggest you follow her.

 As
much as we love to deny it, we

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The Balotelli Curve

Click to enlarge




 When he thrust his spikes into Alex
Song's knee, popular opinion finally and perhaps definitively swung
against Mario Balotelli. The Italy forward leapt into numerous
dangerous challenges during Manchester City's weekend
loss to Arsenal and finished the match copping a pointless red
card in the tie's waning minutes. He arrived in the sheds to a power
of criticism flung

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Short Pitch: Occupy Cricinfo

Cricinfo, the arbiter of finality for all oval-based pub discussion, is a necessary evil.  It exists almost entirely to disseminate information about a game played where a cork ball enveloped in leather is flung at at someone wielding a ruddy great lump of willow.

The interweb - and through the magic of Google, its affiliation with ESPN and Search Engine Optimisation - is where an awful lot of

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Teams of the Year - by league position

As the Premier League season draws to a
close, it becomes typical to start vetting candidates for awards.
Why wouldn't you? I mean, it's like writing
about All-Star selections in the NBA – it's easy column inches
relying on relative opinions rather than absolute logic and saves you
from using undeveloped ideas before they're fully mapped out.



So with seven matches per club left in
the

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Why Kenny Dalglish was (sort of) right

Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish was
roundly
chastised last week for suggesting that Liverpool's season, by
every other measure than Premiership points, had
been a success. The Reds sit in eighth position on the Premier
League table after a forgettable 2012 that has seen them take only
eight points from their twelve fixtures since the turn of the year.



Although a peculiar statement, the fact

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