Gambhir given one match ban.
Gambhir has appealed against his ban recently. I feel that Sunil Gavaskar was right when he said that mostly sub-continent players are punished even if their counterparts equally deserve to be punished.
Now what would be interesting to see would be if Gambhir was successful in his appeal or not.
An exciting contest
So the Border-Gavaskar series is hopefully going to experience a competitive game between India and Australia. This time it is at my home ground Delhi. And hopefully I would be going to see the match for a day or two since the festive season is going on here in India. I may even do a bit of Sports Betting as this always seems to make a game even more exciting. So what really matters now is the visibility on Day 1 that is tomorrow 29th October. Why I m saying so is because today is diwali, a festival on which the whole India burns crackers (which will naturally create pollution).
Anyways I m quite excited now and I wish all the readers of Crick-O a very happy Diwali.
End of EA Cricket series?
Today I was playing Cricket 2007 with the IPL Patch, just to pass my time, and I started wondering why EA has not released any new version of cricket after Cricket 07.
Though EA shouldn’t really end it so early, but to be honest, I feel this is the real end of it. If EA is not going to release EA Cricket 2009, then I am quite sure it has met its end with Cricket 07.
There are a few reasons that I feel might have effected the Cricket series :
1. ICC has taken back the official right from EA for developing and continuing with the Cricket games (seems to be a rumor, but if it is true then the reason behind this is the mistakes that EA has done in the 2007 game(like the names of most of the players were very strange)).
2. Secondly, HB Studios decided not to continue with development of EA Cricket series, so Cricket 07 is perhaps the last cricket game that HB Studios has done with EA.
3. Maybe EA doesn't have enough time to develop a solid Cricket game just like the FIFA series has been doing every year, so they want some more time to make it possible to reach the level of FIFA series. (Remember, EA released a Cricket game after every alternate year other than 2004 and 2005 version coming out continuously.)
Whatever the reason, it is getting unbearable for many cricket fans, like me, to wait for a good cricket game.
As far as I know, there are only 2 cricket games in development : Cricket Life 08 and The Art of Cricket. You may google to find out more about these games.
An awesome victory for India !
So...I am back and feeling very glad.
It was an amazing feeling for me to see India beating Australia to score the biggest margin of victory in the history of Indian Cricket. They completely outplayed the Aussies in every department. Seeing Aussies in such a situation is very rare, and most of us know that not many teams can compete their supremacy, it was good to see Dhoni's men challenging and making the Australians work hard in every way.
The whole Indian team contributed in some way or the other, with Tendulkar going past Brian Lara and being the first person to score 12,000 runs in test Cricket. The openers did a brilliant job, by scoring runs quickly and therefore putting pressure on the Aussies. The middle order clicked this time.The bowlers were mind blowing !!! The way Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma used the new ball to reverse swing was outstanding, making the job easier for Harbhajan and Amit Mishra to bowl later in the innings. Perhaps the new ball bowlers were the main difference between both the teams. Also the Australians did lack a good quality spinner, seeing Camaron White struggling on a pitch which was not at all spin friendly. They were certainly missing a bowler like Shane Warne. Last but not the least, Dhoni (I would call him Mr. Cool Head) played the captain's knock by almost nearing his century in the first innings and an almost run-a-ball half century in the second innings.
What was good to see were the debutants from the teams, the young leggie Amit Mishra from Haryana and Peter Siddle from Victoria. Both of them bowled their heart out, and gave their level best to cement their place in the national squad. You can be quite assured that atleast Amit Mishra has done it to the squad after taking 7 wickets in total. Not that Peter Siddle didn't do anything, this guy who got 3 wickets in the first innings and a single prized wicket of Sehwag in the second innings has done a lot better than Brett Lee in this match. But we all know that we can't judge someone by only seeing his first performance. How can we forget that Brett Lee is the most consistent bowler in the Australia line-up. Obviously things can go bad for you sometimes.
Coming back to the Indian squad, I think it is going to be a huge pressure on selectors to decide the line-up for the next test match. Kumble is most probably fit, and no one would want Amit Mishra to sit on the bench since he has done very well on his debut, and has a lot of potential to do even better. Now the question comes will India go with 5 bowlers or continue with their 4 bowlers only ?
Only time will tell us, but for now it's Kudos to the Indian team, and I hope they continue playing like this.
India are leading the four match series 1-0 after the 2 matches, with 2 matches more to be played.
The third game which is going to played in New Delhi is going to exciting. I would be at my home ground and I would defiantly go to see the match for atleast one day.
Kicks Online review
Kicks Online Review
Developer: Entermate
Genre: 3D Sports Online Multiplayer Game
Platform: Windows
Game Site: www.gametribe.com
Hello Everyone,
So here I present my review on Kicks Online . It didn’t really disappoint me. Kicks Online is somewhat unique in it’s category given the fact that there aren’t many MMOs like this. Seriously, it was quite challenging, especially the quests. What makes it more special is that there aren’t many Football MMOs in this gaming world. Another important feature of this game is that it is for English speaking audiences, as well as for other languages too! When you start the game you get to create an avatar which is quite generic. Once when you start playing matches from your character, you earn experience and points to spend on buying skills (like scissors kick, step over and many more), goal celebrations, and various items like clothes and a lot more.
The basic mission in this game is to team up with other players, play against your opponent in a 3 on 3,4 on 4 or 5 on 5 situation in a quick match. The rules are completely of street football types. Which means, no throw ins, no goal kick, and stuff like that. The maximum level in the game is 55. The developers haven’t implemented penalty kicks, free kicks which means players are free to tackle their opponent in any way, playing their heart out. Goalkeeper is played by the computer. You can choose to be a defender, striker or a midfielder.
The graphics of the game are pretty good though I lag sometimes (that’s my PC’s problem). But otherwise they are quite smooth and if you have a good computer you won’t lag much (in fact not at all). The only problem is that the field size is quite small so if there is match between 5 players on each side, it looks quite messy, and even in terms of performance, it doesn’t look good. Honestly speaking, 4 on 4 is best in every way. Though if you want a lot of experience you should play matches on the basis of 5 on 5. In short, the more the number of players in a game, the more experience you will gain.
The only thing I didn’t like in this game was sound. Though it signifies that the developers are concentrating more on gameplay rather than other things. In beginning the background music which is played during the character selection screen and in-game seems very passionate and energetic, which should be there in a sports game, but later you might get annoyed, particularly I felt it was quite screechy and so disturbing that I had to low down the volume of it. The sound effects are good and are definitely something you would expect to be in a football game.
One of the best feature of this MMOSG is that you can create your own club once you are level 25 which is quite an exciting and somewhat like a dream for many crazy football fans. Getting to level 25 doesn’t seem much difficult since I am myself level 6 now (I did it in less than a week playing for only about 1-2 hours daily).
There are 6 servers in this game, one is the World Server for level 1 - 10 players (though players with higher level can play in it), the second one is for players with level up to 11 - 22. The third one is for players from level 22 - 55. The fourth one is the Tournament Server for which you must be there in a club. The fifth is the Club Server; again it requires you to be in a club. The last one is Practice Mode server, which is for practicing your skills or if you are playing a match with less 3 players on a side (playing in a practice mode doesn’t give your character any experience).
Overall I would rate the game like this -
Gameplay - 8 out of 10
Sound - 4 out of 10
Graphics - 6.5 out of 10
Overall rating - 7 out of 10
Exams
Right now my exams are going on and I won't be able to cover the first test match between India and Australia. Hopefully I would be back for the rest of the series to follow.
See you later guys,
Have a nice time, and wish me good luck for my exams :)
Rishabh
End of Sourav's Dadagiri
So...
The title says it all. Sourav Ganguly has decided to retire after the Border-Gavaskar Series against Australia. The left handed batsman has been the most successful captain in the history of Indian Cricket. Here are his stats -
Test Career -
Matches - 109
Innings - 180
100/50 - 15/34
Runs - 6888
Average - 41.74
Highest - 239 vs Pakistan
Debut - vs England at Lords on Jun 20-24, 1996
ODI Career -
Matches - 311
Runs - 11363
100/50 - 22/72
Average - 41.02
Highest - 183 vs Sri Lanka
Debut - vs West Indies at Brisbane on Jan 11, 1992
His decision to quit really surprised me, though it was expected that this will happen very soon.
He announced his decision today at the press conference. Just when the conference was about to end he said "This is going to be my last series,I have decided to quit."
"I have told my team mates before coming here that this four-Test series would be my last. I thank everyone for the support they have given me. I hope I will end my career on a winning note," the former India captain added.
As far as I know the basic reason for this shocking decision was that he was already under a lot of pressure to perform well, and he couldn't handle it anymore. But life has to move on !
I wish all the very best luck to Dada for his future !!!
I will miss your superbly timed strokes through the off-side, sexy boundaries and Sixes, your aggressive captaincy and each and every way you contributed for Indian Cricket Team. Dada, You Rock !!!!
Kicks Online
Hello Everyone,
So... I was getting bored and was(and still) waiting for the India-Australia series to begin. By the time a wonderful idea struck my mind : to search for Cricket Massive Multiplayer Games. Though I couldn't find any other than Cricket Manager, I managed to find a good game to play atleast once. And that is Kicks Online. A football MMO Sports Game. I m still trying it out, and I hope this won't disappoint me.Till now the experience with it has been very good. After trying it for a week or something, I'll post a review on this game.
Till then, cya all Crick-O readers
Rishabh
