Rainman talks Cricket

# RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy In 2001, travelling to the Lord’s with her father Ian, this little girl named Anya Shrubsole told him that she’d like to play in a World Cup Final on the ground. 16 years later, she turned the Women’s World Cup Final around by bagging 6 wickets against India, in the process helping England win a match they looked pretty close to losing. Something that she did in the post-win celebration that was overlooked then was a massive moment in women’s cricket history. On the honours board at Lord’s, that carried the names of some illustrious performers from Test cricket, she pasted a chit with her name and bowling figures from the day on it. Technically, she wasn’t allowed to do so, for the Lord’s honours board were purely a male bastion till then and had no name of women on it. The real reason is that the Lord’s honours board only honour performances in Test cricket. And believe it or not, no Women’s Test has happened on the Mecca of cr...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy "Who writes your scripts?" Fewer photos are more iconic for me than this one. Why? Let's see what's happening here. This is Ian Botham celebrating the wicket of Jeff Crowe for his 356th Test wicket in a 1986 Test against New Zealand. This was his first match after a ban for smoking marijuana and here he was, going into the record books for becoming the bowler with the most Test wickets, overtaking Dennis Lillee's tally of 355 scalps. But that's not what makes it iconic for me. It's the expression on the face of Graham Gooch standing in the second slip that makes it one of my favorite photographs, an expression screaming a question that he famously asked Botham when he equalled the record with the first ball he bowled in the match - "Who writes your scripts?" If one looks at the careers of the two men, it's not difficult to understand Gooch's bafflement. While Botham conjured up magic with his rou...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy The story of the rarest Wisden almanack The Wisden almanack of 1916 was merely of 299 pages as opposed to the previous edition that ran up to 791 pages. It had the obituaries of two of the greatest names – W.G Grace and Victor Trumper. Till today, it remains the rarest of all the almanacks partly due to its massive purchase by non regular Wisden readers. Howev er, that had got nothing to do with the obituaries of the two legends. The 'Great War' from 1914 meant a halt to cricket in England. And also led to a lot of First Class cricketers serving their armies and perishing on the battlefield. The non-regular purchasers of the 1916 edition of the almanack were the friends and families of all those who perished, who collected these almanacks as some sort of last souvenirs of those who left. Here, some of those who served in the battlefield are seen enjoying a game of cricket.

# RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy Here is my favorite little nugget from the most epic Ashes I have seen. Not too many cricketers have been able to gain so much fame as Gary Pratt despite having never played international cricket. A favorite of trivia quizzers, Pratt is best remembered as the man who turned the greatest Ashes on its head by running Ricky Ponting o ut with what was an absolute rocket throw in the Nottingham Test. Needless to say, Ponting wasn't pleased and let his emotions translate into a barrage of expletives on his way out. He didn't mince words about his displeasure over a specialist fielder being used as a sub after Australia went on to lose the Test by 3 wickets. One interesting but little known story associated with the whole Pratt-Ponting rivalry goes beyond the Ashes arena. On his day of joy i.e the day he ran Ponting out, Pratt received a call from his Durham captain who asked him to immediately join the team for a One Day game against Scotland ...

# RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy To most, this would be quite an enchanting setting to play cricket in. Not to Shane Watson though. The 600 year old Lumley Castle, which forms a pretty backdrop to Durham's Riverside Cricket Ground, was converted into a hotel in the 1970's. Since 90s, it's been used by visiting cricket teams. The castle, however, remains notoriously haunted. The legend states that a woman named Lily Lumley was thrown into a well within the castle grounds. Her ghost is said to float up from the well and haunt the residents. When Australia came to Durham in 2005 for the tri-series involving England and Bangladesh, Lily probably decided to give Shane Watson a 'show'. Whether it was Lily Lumley Watson saw or not remains unclear, but people from the hotel tell the story of the big Australian all-rounder leaving his room to sleep on Brett Lee's room's floor. He refused to go back to his room. Watson wasn't the only o...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy Captaining South Africa for the 93rd time in Tests, Graeme Smith had his heart in his mouth when Matt Prior threatened to equalize the series with a spirited knock in the final innings at Lord's in 2012. Eventually, it was Smith who accepted an offering from Prior in the slips to seal a 2-0 win for his team that took them to the top of the ICC Test rankings and  made them the deserving owners of the ICC Mace. However, unlike most times, there was no Mark Boucher with the gloves next to Smith. The wicket-keeper who had begun the tour on the verge of a landmark 150th Test appearance was forced to retire after a horrific eye injury in the team's first tour game. Boucher's cornea was damaged after the bail hit him in the eye. As a result, AB De Villiers took the gloves for the series and Smith took the responsibility to end the series well that had started on such a sombre note. When the time came to collect the ICC Mace, Graeme Smith c...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy In a pre-match press conference in the 2003 World Cup, Andrew Caddick said to the media, 'Sachin's just like another batsman in the Indian team, and there are a lot of others in the Indian side.' Possibly your average pre-match jousting, you can say. But the way Tendulkar came out all guns blazing in the match, one could say it was somewhere more than that. T endulkar tore into Caddick in the match like a hungry beast set to devour its prey. Although he just scored 50 in a match where India managed 250, he sprinkled it with some of the most beautiful boundaries witnessed on the day. The best, of course, remains his pull that went out of the stadium off none other than Caddick. In the end, Caddick finished with his worst ODI figures by conceding 69 runs in the 10 overs he bowled. 3 wickets that he took came in the final over when the batsmen were trying to slog balls into the orbit. All that on a Durban pitch where, later in t...