THE Y-AXIS by Rajesh Kumar

While driving to work this morning, I noticed a used car dealership hoarding on Chamiers Road -Cenotaph Road crossing. It read: India's Latest Weapon - AK37 Capt. A nil K umble Age 37 - AK37 Wonder what the cool Capt. of Indian cricket team has to say on his latest sobriquet!

It is indeed amazing that Yuvraj Singh became the first batsman to hit six sixes in an over in nascent Twenty 20 format. But what is more amazing is the way internet has made it possible for people to see the magical moment as and when possible, at a time of your choice, and as many times.Not only did I receive an email containing a clip of this Yuvraj packing off Stuart Broad of England at Kingsmead, Durban as an attachment and folks also forwarded multiple links on various video sites. Not sure where these sites stand on the issue of Copyright violation in such cases, but at this point it is all up for folks to see. Whoever knows the impact of today's new and emerging communication media such as Video and Blogs?

In earlier posts we discussed how communication has become conversational and flat . In yet another post, we discussed how cricket boards across the world such as Pakistan and Australia, have chosen to create their websites, and also those such as BCCI have, chosen not to have their websites . The essential challenge is for organizations, cricket boards included, is to reach out to all key stakeholders via all available means of communication. The current unpopularity of BCCI is partly due to its inability to think of cricket lovers beyond just ticket buyers/ TV viewers. This has meant that cricket has been sold as a commodity, not as a well cultivated brand . I hope folks at ICL will soon realize that a great communication advantage awaits them, if they choose to engage cricket lovers via the web. That essentially means, get an ICL website up very soon. A website that breathes and lives. This is no rocket science wisdom, but merely common sense. The engagement possibilities remain pra...

...and now one hears it is going to be Kepler Wessels . He played cricket for Australia and South Africa and was quite a name. That begs the question - Can he play ball with the BCCI?!

Based on feedback received from scholarly observers of the game of cricket, ICC has made some changes in the upcoming 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup. The tournament will be kicked off by vivid culturals, followed by the Award Ceremony, where the cup would be presented to Australia.

While the cricket fans of India and Pakistan are smarting over early exits of their national teams , here is a suggestion to BCCI and PCB to utilize an excellent opportunity ahead of us. Forget the ICC WC 2007. Organize a quickfire India Pakistan ODI series in parallel! Yes!! Hold five matches in India and five in Pakistan. Why does this make sense: 1. Cricket fans in the subcontinent would not just be happy, but delighted. Nothing generates more fun than India Pak cricketing encounters. 2. The advertisers would have a mighty good alternate option . Nothing generates more money than India Pak cricketing encounters. 3. Matches would happen in IST & PST . Late night would be reserved for encounters of the other kind! 4. For BCCI and PCB, there is tons of (more) money to be made .ICC would realize the power of the cricket fans inthe subcontinent. Its TRPs and ad revenues would dip sharply and BCCI and PCB would have their chance to settle scores with ICC. ICC would accept any barga...

Never before in the history of ICC World Cup tournaments have so much emotions been generated at such an early stage of the tournament. The early rounds are supposed to be easy for the fancied teams and it is assumed that the 'minnows' will walk out at the end of this stage.Not really this time. Pakistan, a former winner of Cricket World Cup is thrown out this early(though technically they have one more match with Zimbabwe left), India, another former champion facing a prospect of the same having lost to neighbours Bangladesh, and saddest of them all, Bob Woolmer, a cricketing legend lost, perhaps to stress and sadness. To add to it, there is already a captain, Inzamaam, who has already announced his intention to step aside and possibly even retire. Are we expecting too much of a magic from our national teams? Are we forgetting that our teams are made of human beings, and we all have our days? There is a sad picture in today's Hindu about Dhoni's under-construction hou...

ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 is all set to begin on March 11th in the Caribbean Islands with the opening ceremony. Nine Caribbean countries have come together to host this tournament. Infact the practice matches would get going from 5th March itself and there are 16 such practice matches in all, four per day on successive days. This World Cup, there are 16 teams participating and just in case you would like to refresh, they are as follows: Group A: The mighty Aussies , equally mighty SA , and not so mighty Scotland and the Netherlands Group B: Sri Lanka , India , Bangladesh & Bermuda (yes, Bermuda, it is a speck in the Atlantic, spot it if you can) Group C: New Zealand , England , Kenya & Canada Group D: Pakistan , West Indies , Zimbabwe & Ireland . No guesses, Group A & C appear very tough groups. The tournament itself is in four stages: Stage 1: Group Stage (Teams within the groups play each other, once). This stage kicks off on 13th March with a WI at Pak match....

There are four groups in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 and sixteen teams in all.While there are bound to be injury related changes, like the Brett Lee and the threat looming over Irfan Pathan right now, here are all the teams for your quick reference. Group A: Australia World Cup Squad: Ricky Ponting (Capt), Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Michael Clarke, Mike Hussey, Brad Hodge, Shane Watson, Andrew Symonds, Brad Haddin, Brad Hogg, Brett Lee ( injured, now replaced by Stuart Clark), Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Tait, Nathan Bracken, Glenn McGrath. South Africa World Cup Squad: Graeme Smith (Capt), Jacques Kallis (Vice-Capt), Loots Bosman, Mark Boucher, AB de Villiers, Herschelle Gibbs, Andrew Hall, Justin Kemp, Charl Langeveldt, Andre Nel, Makhaya Ntini, Robin Peterson, Shaun Pollock, Ashwell Prince, Roger Telemachus. Scotland World Cup Squad: Craig Wright (Capt), Ryan-Watson (Vice Capt),John Blain, Dougie Brown, Gavin Hamilton, Majid Haq, Paul Hoffmann, Douglas Lockhart, Ross Lyons, N...

I was pretty surprised to note that there is not a single match in the day night format this cricket world cup 2007. The official ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 website makes a very innocent one line mention that all matches start at 9:30 AM local time. And never mind the importance of sponsorship monies that getting pumped from India in sustaining ICC and in sustaining cricket itself, ICC website does not provide the match timings in IST . The even more horrible dimension is that the website 'partner' is Indya , owned by Star . To rub salt to insult, it provides the same schedule in GMT, where perhaps only a handful of people may be interested in knowing about it.Perhaps for ICC and the likes, the centre of world cricket is still Greenwich meredien. Pretty funny isn't it? But atleast the event has a website, unlike BCCI , which has so far not felt the need for a web presence! Updated: Click here for the schedule in IST.

All I wanted to know was BCCI's history, official version and looked up on the web. Unfortunately, I failed.In this age when class VII students(perhaps even younger kids do so) host their own websites, I was astonished that a search for BCCI official website on Google made me no wiser . Am I to believe that world’s richest cricket board does not know what a website is? Yes, I am talking about Board of Control for Cricket in India, the body that governs cricket in India. ICC, or International Cricket Council, has its own official presence on the web . 'Poorer' boards such as Cricket Australia , England and Wales Cricket Board , New Zealand Cricket have their own websites, where they have variety of content pertaining to the game. Pakistan Cricket Board too has a website . Is this not snootyness, or plain and simple disregard for public communication, that an organization that conducts the most popular sport in India does not feel the need for official content on the web(sup...