Cricketing World

One of the more pleasant byproducts from the age of British colonialism is the enthusiasm spread all over the world of England’s very own game of cricket. The Australians have been England’s hotly contested rivals for nearly a hundred and fifty years and provides cricket fans with more than enough excitement year after year. But one of the greatest success stories for cricket is how well it has been embraced by India.

Long fans of the game, with numerous fans and athletes playing wherever they could, India has taken this astounding popularity for the sport and created their own Indian Premier League in 2008. Currently consisting of eight teams with two more slated to join their ranks in 2011, the Indian Premier League teams are challenging the world for cricket domination.

While the league began with many foreign players in their ranks, native Indians are rapidly filling the ranks. Being supported and sponsored by Bollywood stars and major business tycoons, the Indian Premier League has managed to become in such a short time, their players have become the second most highly paid players in the world being surpassed only by the American NFL. With such celebrity support behind them, it is no wonder cricket’s popularity in India rivals if not surpasses English cricket enthusiasm.

The Indian Premier League has a current brand value of over $4 billion dollars. They have used innovative ways to increase interest in the League. One such way was to be the first sporting event to be shown live on the Internet video-sharing site, YouTube.

England captain Andrew Strauss has hailed batsman Eion Morgan after an incredible innings from the Irish born star dismantled the Australian attack to lead England to a four wicket win in the first Natwest series match.
Morgan has been in fine form of late in both ODIs and in the Twenty20 World Cup last month and continued this form by hitting 103 of 85 balls to get England off to a winning start in the series.
His captain Strauss believes that he is a future star and praised his man of the match performance after the game.
“What a fantastic innings from Eoin Morgan – that was one of the best I’ve seen,” said Strauss.

“Halfway through our innings it looked like we had some hard work to do. I think we always felt that 267 was very chaseable on that wicket.
“He’s playing that finishing role, but he’s also playing a very, very aggressive finishing role,” the skipper added.
The Irishman is one of several new players to come into the limited overs game in the last year, with players like Tim Bresnan, Michael Yardy and Craig Kieswetter also making an impact recently and Strauss and the England selectors will be hoping that these exiiting players will be able to transfer their form over into the test game as we look towards this winters Ashes tournament in Australia.
Morgan himself was thrilled with the way that the game turned out and found it hard to contain his excitement after that match.
“I’ve been in good nick for a while now and I want to play more cricket to take advantage of it,” said the 23-year-old.

“I think I try to keep things quite simple and it’s easy to do when you’re in good nick – it came off today, so happy days.”
Australia captain Ricky Ponting felt his side’s total not good enough.

“We managed things pretty well during the middle of our batting innings,” said Ponting.

England are 9/10 with totesport to win the next match of the series with 888sport offering 10/11 and Ladbrokes are offering even odds.