Monthly Archives: September 2010

Fantasy Cricket Team

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I have just finished creating my fantasy cricket team for the upcoming Australia tour of India. It’s only a 2 test series but I like that extra little spice to the game. I created a rather dismal team for the Champions League, mainly because I was rooting for no one in particular.
This time I am definitely rooting for India. I do like many of the Australian players and the fantasy game allows me to cheer a little for both teams.

So here is my list:
SK Raina
M Vijay
MEK Hussey
V Sehwag
SR Watson
SPD Smith
MS Dhoni Trump Player
Z Khan
DE Bollinger
Harbhajan Singh
NM Hauritz

I have a history of bad choices when it comes to fantasy cricket but I think this is a pretty good line up. My team on cricinfo is called AmCricketFan. Feel free to list your own teams in the comments.

–Ken

Effort to Aid Zimbabwe

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Yesterday my church participated in a day of prayer for Zimbabwe.  The day was organized by all the major Christian organizations in Zimbabwe.  information about what they’re trying to achieve is here.  I hope very much that their efforts to increase the productivity of Zimbabwean farms is successful.

The reason I am bringing this up on this blog is not only because Zimbabwe is a test playing nation.  The main reason is to comment again on the uniqueness of my passion for cricket in my current social circle.  As part of our service we watched a sermon given by Scott Marques.  At the beginning of the sermon he discusses a pivotal moment in his life where an opponent in a cricket match walked after an umpire called a genuine caught behind not-out.  The sermon was given to an English audience so the story was not lost on them, but I could just imagine how incomprehensible much of the story was to the rest of the congregation.

I don’t have a grand point to make about this.  It is just another highlight to how odd my interest is.  Also, if I actually have any readers at this point, I wouldn’t mind spreading the news about what’s going on in Zimbabwe.

–Ken

New Features from Willow.Tv

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This weekend has been an exciting one for those of us who watch cricket online. Willow.tv has just made itself much more valuable. For me the changes started Friday afternoon with an email from willow.tv about the iPhone streaming beta.

I immediately went to m.willow.tv. I have to say it was awesome! The picture looked great and the stream was consistent. Yesterday I had the stream going on wifi and it played without fault fir at least 20 min. And when it did hiccup, it only buffered for a couple of seconds and then it was back on track. 3G performance has been equally impressive. It even works while I’m riding in the car. I have a vacation planned for dec. and I no longer worry so much about missing the Ashes. I look forward to new features including constant live streaming and replays and highlights. But for now, great job willow.tv!

The people over at willow.tv have been busy. Not only have they come out with iPhone streaming, but thy have also introduced a 1Mbps live stream. This is awesome for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious is the higher quality stream. Which I have to say looks great on my 40″ Samsung. The second reason is that it is a flash stream as opposed to a windows media stream. This combined with the new Silverlight streams opens the door to watching cricket on Linux systems. The computer attached to my tv in the living room is now running Linux and it works great. Both the flash and silverlight streams work without issue.

I have already written about my disappointment with the hassle of getting the Willow Cricket channel on Dish Network. (it’ll cost $200) I’m not so frustrated anymore. I think for me, the $14.99 a month is better spent on the website. As I write this I am watching Willow Cricket on my tv in the living room and while I can tell it is an Internet stream, it looks ok. Also, on my tv I can watch the 2009 Ashes if I wanted to, right now. Add in the iPhone streaming and the television channel becomes less of a priority. Not that I wouldn’t get them channel if I didn’t have to pay for a new satellite.

One of the hardest parts of being a cricket fan in this country is finding a way to enjoy it. There is no cricket being played in my town and trying to watch for free on the Internet is a massive headache. Zee Sports America has become useless when it comes to international cricket and I have dropped my subscription. willow.tv has not only made watching cricket in America, and anywhere really, not only possible, but practical and enjoyable.

– Ken

An Interesting Cricket Dilema

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What a fun reason to have a replay. Just watching the first Champions League match and laughed at the problem of figuring out who was run out. This whole tournament is going to be fun for me because I don’t care who wins. My hope of the Knight Riders of making it are small. For me this tournament is about my fantasy team on cricinfo. More about my success and, more likely, failure after the first match is over.

–Ken