Commentary conundra

featuring the very welcome return of Ben Roberts, cricket connoisseur.



The recent passing
of both Tony Greig and Christopher Martin-Jenkins, along with that of PeterRoebuck a little over 12 months ago has forced a reflection on the poor state
of cricket commentary in Australia. Where the sound of cricket musings used to
form an addictively pleasant and informative background to the summer, I

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New goalkeeper stats available

After literally an two and a half hours of data collection and limited analysis, we've manage to update Balanced Sports' European Goalkeeper Stats page.  It now includes all of 2011-12 and stats from the first half of 2012-13.

Thanks must go to Blogger, whose algorithms for some reason stopped screwing up the spreadsheet inserts.

Debate away!

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Obituary: Remembering Tony Greig

Few players have impacted the
worldwide direction of cricket.  Or, to
put it another way, while many cricketers turn a game by dint of skill or
attitude, precious few shape cricket's big picture. 



For all his talent, memories of
the great Sachin Tendulkar will highlight his nonpareil ability with the
willow.  However, the One Day revolution occurred during his peak and he did
not compel it,

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Bowler's preview: MCG

While the first day of the Second Test between Sri
Lanka and Australia at the MCG provided us with thirteen wickets for
approximately 300 runs, this is no real surprise considering the way the pitch
has played over the course of the past half-decade, and indeed this season.



The average first innings in Tests at the ‘G over the
past five years has been slightly over 324 runs per innings, with

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Man United v Real Madrid steeped in history

The “storied” clubs in European
football history spring to mind with the merest effort. There are
only a few clubs whose dominance has spanned the decades of memory: a
few clubs each from England, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy and
Germany.




So when two of these clubs with rich
histories face each other, it's only natural that these encounters
become keenly anticipated. Column inches and

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Bowler's Preview: the case for/against Nathan Lyon

Over the past five years, Test scores at Bellerive have steadily declined.  The last time scores of real significance were made at Hobart was during the Sri Lankans' last visit (2007/08), where Kumar Sanggakara made a chanceless 192; this followed on from forgotten man Phil Jaques' Test-best 150.  In fact, while each dismissal in 2007-08 cost 52.4 runs, this average has declined over the

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Yet more miscellany

Apologies for the lack of recent posts - it's finals week for a hideous quarter of neurophysiology, limbs anatomy and functional skills.  Hence ... a dearth of time for writing.  Hopefully I'm back up and running in a week.


In the meantime, this may provide some more explanation.

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