Australian Bullies against the Spirit of Cricket

ESPNcricket staff, September 2018, “Moeen Ali: ‘Rude’ Australia only team I disliked”

England allrounder Moeen Ali has called the recent Australia team “rude” and that they are the only one he has “disliked” following the 2017-18 Ashes series and a previous tour three years ago.Shortly after the Ashes, which Australia won 4-0, they w ere sent into crisis by the ball-tampering saga in South Africa which led to 12-month bans for Steven Smith and David Warner and a nine-month ban for Cameron Bancroft.

Cricket Australia commissioned a review into the culture around the team while much criticism was leveled on them, both for what happened at Newlands and also the environment that built up beforehand

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Pulsating Test Cricket in England says Joe Root

Vipin Darwade in Cricket Age, 3 September 2018, with this title “India-England series shows Test cricket is alive and kicking”

The hard-fought five-match series against India shows that Test cricket is still alive and kicking, said skipper Joe Root after England secured a 60-run win in the fourth rubber to take a series-clinching 3-1 lead. “I think it’s a really good sign for Test cricket. It shows that for me Test cricket is still alive and kicking — very much at the pinnacle of the sport,” Root said.

“Credit to India — they’ve played some really fine cricket throughout, not just this game but the whole series. It must have been great viewing for people at home to see the way that especially the first game and this one, how tight they’ve been, how it swung both ways.”

Pic from Getty Images

Down Memory Lane with Michael Tissera

Tilak in Daily News, 26 June 2018

At long last, I got the opportunity through Leo Wijesinghe to meet the much talked about Michael Tissera whom I met at his residence at Nawala. Although aged 78 he still looked the neat smart cricketer I used to epitomize as a budding cricketer.

As we started the ball rolling he mentioned to me that he has nothing to do with the administration of the present set up at the moment, and for very good reasons too, well more of that later.

Ponting sees Good in the Ball-Tampering Bans

 Vipin Darwade in Cricket Age, 8 August 2018 ,where the title is “Ball-tampering Bans a ‘Beneficial Shock’ To Cricket, Says Ponting”

Ricky Ponting believes the lengthy bans given to former Australia captain Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft for their roles in March’s ball-tampering scandal in South Africa have been a beneficial “shock” to world cricket.

David Richardson delivers MCC Cowdrey Lecture: Sane Blokes to balance Ebullient Characters

ONE = Item in CRICKET AGE,  7 August 2018 with title “MS Dhoni, Rahul Dravid as important as ‘larger than life’Virat Kohli, Ben Stokes, says ICC CEO Dave Richardson”

ICC CEO David Richardson said that while cricket needs the likes of Virat Kohli and Ben Stokes, it also needs an MS Dhoni or Rahul Dravid as a balancing act. Richardson, while giving his MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture on Monday, said that cricket needs its “larger than life characters” and its more mellow exponents so as to “stay on the good side of that line.”

“On the field the cricket needs its larger than life characters. Its Colin Milburns, Freddie Flintoffs, Shane Warnes, Virat Kohlis, Ben Stokes but we equally it needs its Frank Worrells, its Mahendra Singh Dhonis, its Rahul Dravids, its Colin Cowdreys to make sure that we all stay in the good side of that line,” said Richardson.

Dhanasiri Weerasinghe enters the Fray: Stormy Currents in Ceylon Cricket in the 1960s

Sa’adi Thawfeeq, in Daily News 21 April 2018, where the title is “The cricket tour that never took place but changed national selection policy” …. AND where Thawfeeq’s sub-title line runs thus: “Dhanasiri Weerasinghe a key figure in the controversy spills the beans after 50 years

It is fifty years since Sri Lanka first attempted a full cricket tour of England, that failed to materialize for several reasons. Many are of the view had that tour taken place in the summer of 1968, Sri Lanka would not have to wait to gain Test status for as long as 1981 but become a full member of the ICC much earlier.

Michael Wille’s Cricketing Journey: Ceylon and Melbourne

Michael Wille, courtesy of Island, 11 November 2017, swwhere the title is My cricketing journey, from big dreams to big matches””

I have been asked to write an article about my cricketing journey from Colombo to Melbourne. I have some reservations about how relevant my article will be. However, I trust that it will serve essentially as an insight to the exhilarating schoolboy cricketing era of the 1950s.

I debuted for Royal in ’54 and captained in ’57. A couple of weeks after the Royal-Thomian I migrated to Australia and was the first Sri Lankan to play District (Grade) cricket in Melbourne.