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Cricket is undoubtedly India's most popular sport and players
like Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar are among our national
heroes. Cricket is a bat and ball game. The bowler bowls the ball in
an attempt to hit the wicket the batsman is defending. The batsman
in turn, tries to hit the ball far enough for him to get the time to
run from one wicket to the other and score runs. There are 11
players in each team and the winning team is the one that scores the
most runs. |
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| Match Fixing |
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| What is it? |
| Match fixing
means bribing the players or authorities to ensure that the results of the
match are determined according to the match fixers' wish. |
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| Why is this done? |
| Although
reasons can be many, for example - to ensure a favourite country's win.
But the most common reason is betting! Before the match, a number of
people bet on its outcome. An innocent bet would be if you promised to
give your coke to your brother if Pakistan wins! But when a lot of people
are betting on a match, it may benefit some specially the persons
organizing the betting if the results go against the expected outcome. For
example if there is a match between India and Bangladesh, most people
would bet on India winning but what if someone bribes the players to make
Bangladesh win - they could make a lot of money! |
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| Are
matches fixed? |
| While no one
can say for sure that matches are fixed a lot of people including
cricketers believe that matches are fixed. Hansie Cronje, the ex-South
African captain recently admitted to taking money from a bookie (a person
who organizes betting). Manoj Prabhakar, a former Indian cricketer has
claimed that none other than Kapil Dev once offered him Rs. 25 lakhs to
play badly in a match! Prabhakar even secretly videotaped conversations
with cricket officials to prove that match fixing goes on in Indian
cricket and even top players like Azharuddin and Jadeja are involved. So
are matches fixed? Only time will tell! |
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| FACTS |
| * Sachin Tendulkar, perhaps the greatest batsman of his
generation was out first ball in his first two international
matches. |
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* The duck which appears on TV when a batsman gets out
without scoring a run is named 'DADDLES' and was first shown by
Channel 9 of Australia. | |
| * The first ever test match was held between England and
Australia, at Melbourne, from the 15th to the 19th of March 1877.
Australia won by 45 runs. Exactly 100 years later (15th-19th March,
1977) a match between England and Australia was again held at
Melbourne to mark 100 years of test cricket. Australia won - again
by 45 runs!!! |
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* Mohammed Azharuddin has led the Indian team for the longest
duration and is the most successful Indian captain
ever. | |
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| * The first
two twins to play in the same test match were not Steve and Mark Waugh of
Australia, but Rosemary and Elizabeth Signal of New Zealand, versus
England in 1984 - in women's cricket!! |
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| * Anil
Kumble is known as Jumbo, Rahul Dravid as Jammie, Saurav
Ganguly as Dada, Venkatapathy Raju of India is known as
Muscles, Navjot Sidhu as Sherry, Kapil Dev is known as
Paaji (big brother), Venkatesh Prasad is Venky. |
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| * Anil
Kumble and Javagal Srinath got married on the same day. |
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| * The
shortest ever test was between Sri Lanka and India in Colombo, in 1996.
All but 50 minutes of the match was rained out. |
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| * Once every two years, England and Australia play a test
series, alternately in England and Australia, called the 'Ashes'.
They came to be called the 'Ashes' when in Australia first beat
England in England, and the bails used were burned, and their ashes
were preserved. These ashes are stored at the cricket museum at
Lord's cricket ground in London, and a replica of their container
serves as a reward for the 'Ashes'. |
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| * C.B. Fry
not only captained England in cricket, but also represented his country in
football, and once equaled the world long-jump record. |
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| Mad about cricket? |
| Cricket fans
are known to be passionate about the game. From breaking a TV set when the
national team loses to threatening suicide fans can go to the extremes to
express their feelings for the game. Here's a joke about a fan's obsession
with cricket: |
| Gurmeet was always thinking of cricket. One
day his angry wife said, "You think nothing but cricket. I bet you
don't even remember the day we were married." "Of course I do," said
Gurmeet "It was the day Kapil paaji won the World
Cup!" | |
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| The
Little Master |
| Sunil
Gavaskar may be known as the little master but there is nothing little
about his achievements in cricket. |
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Sunil or
Sunny as he is popularly known is:
* The first
cricketer to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket
* The only
cricketer to hit a century in each innings of a test
thrice.
* Only cricketer to score 1000 runs or more in a
calendar year on 4 occasions. |
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* Only
cricketer to score 5000 runs or more abroad.
* The
cricketer to make fastest 1000 runs - in 78 days and 6 tests.
* Highest runs by any player in a series (774) - against West
Indies. | |
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