I’m doing my masters in journalism from ACJ, Chennai. I was given an assignment to look up blogs and rate them. Now, i know that I have absolutely no authority to do that, but as far as i’m concerned, your blog (and this article) are amongst the best peices of cricket writing i’ve come across so far! I’ve looked at about 23 blogs so far, by the way!

I like what you said about Atherton’s comments (“puerile prank gone wrong; harmless, silly and unlikely to be repeated“) Now, I happened to be watching the match. The incident was bad enough, this attempt to justify it only makes it worse.

All of his attempts at justification are incredibly absurd, and I think the English cricketers (Atherton included) need a crash course in being ‘good losers’

The other thing is the ’2 foot no-ball’!? Is that what we are calling it!? Oh well, if gentlemen can throw jelly beans on the pitch (and that is OK, coz my nephew who turns two next month often does it too), gentlmen can also overstep by a mile…

It’s sad, though, that certain people try to mar the experience of what was otherwise the perfect test match, just because one team was ‘out played, out performed, and thrashed’ by another team that doesn’t ‘travel particularly well’…

But will be going to South Africa for Twenty/20 Tournament

Horses for courses??

First there were assertions by players and also the coach of the England cricket team over the sledging accusations. Even a player of the stature of Matt Prior doesn’t feel bad about the sledging. The coach Peter Moores dismisses such allegations. Collingwood is not ashamed at the jellybeans thrown by some his teammates at the Indian players.

But the cake should go to Mike Atherton, the former captain of the England team and now a media professional. It is right for Atherton to go hammer and tongs at Sreesanth for his boorish behaviour during the test. Sreesanth bowled a beamer at Kevin Pietersen and then shoulder barged Michael Vaughan. Such behaviour should not be condoned by any means. Atherton is not happy with the punishment meted out to Sreesanth. The former skipper wants Sreesanth to be dropped from the third test. Sreesanth looks most likely to be dropped given his shoddy efforts in the match. It is true that the match referee Ranjan Madugalle took a rather lenient view of the whole Sreesanth. But what authority does Atherton have to talk about a tougher punishment?

Atherton himself is someone who does not have the moral authority to sermonize. This same gentleman was once caught by cameras taking sand from his trouser pocket and applying the same to a ball during the course of a test. Then the punishment was not severe, by today’s standards. Probably that is the reason for the present outburst. If Sreesanth’s bowling a beamer was ‘rancorous’, then what should we call Atherton’s behaviour? Sreesanth can walk away from the controversy on the pretext of an accidental act, while Atherton does not have that kind of a luxury.

In a one dayer prior to the Ashes of 2005, Simon Jones hurled the ball at Matthew Hayden when the batsman was not even attempting a run. The ball hit the shoulder of Hayden. The whole of the English media praised this incident as the ‘aggression’ of the English team.

Clearly, it is a case of different strokes for different people.

Not brand me a racist, just yet.

A few vertebrae of iron innings thrown together in a bin of sawdust wasn’t going to get him to be called Sir Michael, which anyway is already taken. He hasn’t walked his way for charity, and an Ashes Knight he isn’t. So what does he do when other-Michael Vaughan just wants to get on with it?

Play a tabloid knock from the exalted altitudes you mention in your article of course! If the slimmest chance of the ruse succeeding comes about (Sreesanth does worry the English bats more than others for non-technical reasons), Walt Whitman’s poem could be easily re-written to O Captain! My ex-Captain!…in a salutation of his batting for England from the sidelines.

A knighthood from there is merely a hop away.

The same man speaks about cricket spirits when this man called a Pak journalist a buffoon (now I see him as a buffoon) and was caught with dirt in his pocket to change the shape of the ball 14 yrs back as a captain of his team.

Is that within the spirtis of the game ?

The Indians on the other hand are planning on setting a leg side field and bowling bouncers (& beamers) and are going to target at hitting the batsmen (rather than get them out). They have even come up with a name for it – Bodyline