India will play 2000th test !!

[Cricket Tragic]

We won the series in England in 2007. The last time England won a series in India was in 1984. :cantstop:

[Sidhoni]

We won the series in England in 2007. The last time England won a series in India was in 1984. :cantstop:

Ya, i remember that, was under Dravid's captaincy!! :hatsoff:

[Sidhoni]

2000th test in history of cricket. 100th between England and India. At the historic "Lords", what an occasion for the master to complete 100 international centuries.

[gaurav92]

2000th test in history of cricket. 100th between England and India. At the historic "Lords", what an occasion for the master to complete 100 international centuries.

:two_thumbs_up:

[Sidhoni]

BUMP India abt to win no. 1997!

[Feed]

Celebrating 2000th test : Ave Test cricket The Test match, eh? Not even Lalit Modi could sell it. Fortunately he doesn't have to. Here we stand on the brink of the 2000th, and frankly the prospect could hardly be more mouth-watering. Tendulkar at Lord's? No dancing girls required here; no cricketainment necessary. More... Ave Test cricket Many premature reports of its death later, the five-day game still stands, a byword for excellence in an era that encourages, and even worships, mass mediocrity Gideon Haigh June 21, 2011 Say what? You start about 11am and go till around 6pm, right? Why? Oh, never mind… You break for lunch? And for afternoon tea? You play in the open air, so that rain and darkness can ruin everything? And you play for five days and still might not get a result? Look, no offence, fella, but it will never catch on. You have to understand: we're too time poor, we're too attention-challenged, there aren't enough sixes, there isn't enough colour, you can't squeeze it into a tweet. I think you have to face it: sports marketing isn't for you. Have you considered a career weaving baskets? The Test match, eh? Not even Lalit Modi could sell it. Fortunately he doesn't have to. Here we stand on the brink of the 2000th, and frankly the prospect could hardly be more mouth-watering. Tendulkar at Lord's? No dancing girls required here; no cricketainment necessary. Cricket spaced 803 Tests over its first century, meaning that 1197 have been shoehorned into the 34 years since, despite more than 3100 one-day internationals having been wedged in over the same period. But there don't seem too many Tests; arguably there are too few, even if this is probably better than a surfeit. Not everything is rosy in the garden, of course. During their recent series in the Caribbean, West Indies and Pakistan looked like schoolboys trying to solve differential equations by counting on their fingers, so technically and temperamentally ill-suited were they to the rigours of five-day cricket. But the essence of a Test is that some must fail. Identifying inadequacy helps us recognise excellence. In an age in which it has been deemed obsolete countless times, the Test match somehow sails on, not so much a mighty ship of state any more as a reconditioned windjammer - not the fastest thing around, but somehow the lovelier for that. Administrators busily infatuated with cricketainment have rather neglected it of late - no bad thing, really, given the damage administrators do without trying. Players, praise be, still value it. You could feel the joy in England's cricket this last Australian summer. You could see a couple of weeks ago how much runs at Lord's mattered to Tillakaratne Dilshan. And some days just sweep you away, like the last in Cardiff, where four days of slumber preluded a fifth of nightmares. Test matches do loudquietloud better than the Pixies. Test matches survived a nasty brush with malpractice last year, better than seemed possible at the time; India's No. 1 status has been a boon for interest and relevance; Australia's decline probably has, too, in addition to representing a stern cautionary tale, a punishment for hubris. For what a falling-off is here. England might have invented cricket, but it was Australia that more or less invented the Test match, as a literal "test" of its prowess, as an expression of rivalry and fealty. The origins of Test cricket lie in the primordial ooze that was early Anglo-Australian competition. There was then no structure, no schedule, no over-arching organising body - just an interest in settling who was better, and let it be said, making a few quid. The Marylebone Cricket Club would not come along with its ideas of fostering the bonds of empire until early in the 20th century; likewise there was no notion of providing for the rest of the game out of the profits on Test matches until the advent of the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket in 1905. The first 30 years of Test cricket are in the main the work of private entrepreneurs, jobbing professionals and local officials, all busily making up the rules as they went along. The edge in competition mattered to the English, but to Australians it always mattered that little bit more. So it is that cricket owes an unacknowledged debt to the Adelaide sports journalist Clarence Moody, who wrote under the pseudonym "Point" in the South Australian Register. As a kind of five-finger exercise, Moody set out in a section of his book South Australian Cricket (1898) a list of what he regarded as the "Test matches" played to that time. Moody was hard to impress. He must have been tempted, out of national pride, to instate Australia's 1878 defeat of MCC at Lord's, honouring Spofforth's 10 wickets for 20, but on Australia's inaugural tour of England he decided that no Tests had been played; nor would he recognise the games played against "Combined XIs" by the rival English touring teams of 1887-88. Perhaps because he was so discriminate, and also in the absence of anything better, the list became canonical. The other aid in the propagation of the Test match was, strange to say in an era that regards it as staid and unchanging, its pliability. Draw what inferences you will about the national characteristics they reflect, but the English preferred their Test matches to last three days, in order to minimise interference with the County Championship, while Australians insisted on a result, and cared not how long it took to obtain. All cricket down under was timeless, in fact: the first Test of the 1886-87 series, for example, actually began at 1.45pm after the completion earlier that day of the Victoria-New South Wales intercolonial match. When Sydney's gift to Somerset, Sammy Woods, originated his oft-quoted mot about draw(er)s being useful only for bathing, he was expressing a national, not just a personal, partiality. The Test match resisted standardisation, furthermore, well into its evolution. Only after more than a century was the five-day format made entirely uniform; only in the last quarter-century have 90 overs in a day been the enforced minimum. And while ICC playing conditions make certain stipulations about arena dimensions, cricket in general has unconsciously preserved a pre-modern variety in the specifications of its grounds - a reminder of cricket's bucolic origins that Test cricket in its unregulated early development helped preserve. Well established after half a century - no, nothing about this game happens in a hurry - Test cricket then took its other seminal step. Two Imperial Cricket Conferences at Lord's in 1926 agreed to England's exchange of visits with West Indies, New Zealand and India - a remarkable, seemingly unconscious expansion of the game on the stroke of a pen and a handshake or two. Had the step been contemplated twice, it may not have happened; as it was, cricket began an imperceptibly slow tilt from its Anglo-Australian axis. What is sometimes ignored in the modern relativist custom of embracing cricket's "three forms", in fact, is that cricket owes the Test match everything. The one-day international was born into the global estate Test cricket created, like an heir with all the advantages; Twenty20 has come along in the last five years like the proverbial third-generation thickhead with a silver spoon sense of entitlement, good for nothing but money. Its future, moreover, will depend on the degree to which cricket can be preserved as something other than a scam for sharkskin-suited spivs and third-rate politicians. One of the several ways in which cricket has been turned topsy-turvy in recent times is that after a hundred and more years as a bastion of conservatism, the sanctum sanctorum of the establishment, the Test match is the rebel game: uncompromising, unpredictable, ineffably appealing, immutably long, difficult to understand, resistant to commodification, and apparently unfriendly to the young, or at least to the condescending conception of the young as too dumb for anything but the bleeding obvious. Here it stands, plumb in the way of the marketers and money men who see their role as sucking up to people who don't like cricket, and quite probably never will. Here it stands, relentless in its demands on players for excellence in an era that encourages, and even worships, mass mediocrity. Here it stands, kept alive by a love of the game that can't be bought, or feigned, or mimicked, or manufactured. Want to be the man? Want to fight the power? Celebrate Test cricket.

[Sidhoni]

http://indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=266855

[Sidhoni]

BUMP No. 1998 in progress!! :yay:

[zen]

I will be more interested if we win that test!

[Captain of Bhangra]

Quite fitting. The perceived inventors of the game, against the current best side in the World, at the most famous ground. Would love it if we won that, and Sachin got his 100, BUT, the script was written for his 100th 100 in the World Cup final, so these things aren't a given...

[Sidhoni]

BUMP! 1999 over!

[J P K]

ICC starts poll for greatest team ahead of 2000th Test Dubai, July 11 (IANS) The International Cricket Council (ICC) Monday started a fan poll to pick the greatest Test team of all time in the runup to the 2000th match to be played between India and England at Lord's July 21. Voting is now open on ICC's official website where cricket-lovers can select a dream team from a shortlist of 60 players split into five categories and they will be asked to pick two opening batsmen, three middle-order batsmen, a wicketkeeper, three fast bowlers and one spinner. The results of the poll will be announced the week before the Lord's Test. 'With the 2,000th Test coming up it is appropriate to remember some of the great players through the ages that have thrilled audiences and inspired us all,' said ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat. 'With so many legends of the game to choose from, it is a very difficult task and, I am sure, one that will lead to plenty of fond recollection and great debate. 'Test cricket is the pinnacle format of our great sport and it is important we continue to protect and promote it so that it grows even stronger over the next 2,000 matches.' Short-list for the greatest Test team of all time: Opening batsmen (two): Geoffrey Boycott, Sunil Gavaskar, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton, Hanif Mohammad, Virender Sehwag, Herbert Sutcliffe, Victor Trumper. Middle-order batsmen (three) - Don Bradman, Greg Chappell, Wally Hammond, George Headley, Brian Lara, Javed Miandad, Graeme Pollock, Ricky Ponting, Viv Richards, Sachin Tendulkar. All-rounder (one): Ian Botham, Kapil Dev, Aubrey Faulkner, Richard Hadlee, Jacques Kallis, Imran Khan, Keith Miller, Wilfred Rhodes, Gary Sobers, Frank Worrell. Wicket-keeper (one): Les Ames, Mark Boucher, Jeff Dujon, Godfrey Evans, Andy Flower, Adam Gilchrist, Alan Knott, Rod Marsh, Clyde Walcott, Wasim Bari. Fast bowlers (three): Curtley Ambrose, Sydney Barnes, Michael Holding, Dennis Lillee, Ray Lindwall, Malcolm Marshall, Glenn McGrath, Fred Trueman, Courtney Walsh, Wasim Akram. Spinner (one): Bishen Bedi, Richie Benaud, Lance Gibbs, Clarrie Grimmett, Jim Laker, Anil Kumble, Muttiah Muralitharan, Bill O'Reilly, Derek Underwood, Shane Warne. http://cricket.yahoo.com/cricket/news/article?id=item/2.0/-/story/cricket.indiaabroad.com/icc-starts-poll-greatest-team-ahead-2000th-test-20110711/

[Sidhoni]

BUMP 2 days to go.:aha: :aha:

[Pagalpanti]

Rain forecast for the opening day. :(( Forecast for London

[ahilya]

who cares about such milestones .win the test and series :) rest I don't care :)

I care.Not for its gonna be 2000th test match but its gonna be sachin's hundred century test-match and He is not gonna fail like the great Don.

[deepak_sach]

Rain forecast for the opening day. :(( Forecast for London

:(( We dont want a supersport park,centurion...

[mishra]

It rains everyday as per forecast. There will be game. Forecast is allways wrong

[Sidhoni]

Rain forecast for the opening day. :(( Forecast for London

:nervous: :nervous:

[ahilya]

On The Front Foot: Trent Bridge is actually 2,000th Test – and the Rest is not history

On The Front Foot: Trent Bridge is actually 2,000th Test – and the Rest is not history

It has been widely publicised that the Test match in progress at Lord's is the 2,000th. Poppycock, of course. The occasion has been wonderful and Lord's has been characteristically grand even when it has been tipping down, but it has not been the extra-special event we have been led to believe by the International Cricket Council. This is either Test match No 1,999 – with the 2,000th at Trent Bridge next week – or it is No 2,005. The ICC are having it both ways at present. Included in their list of Tests is the high-class exhibition between Australia and the Rest of the World in late 2005. Those were the days when Australia were cocks of the walk (remember them), and though it was slightly inconvenient that they had just lost the 2005 Ashes to England, the ICC in their infinite wisdom decided the match should have official status. The whole idea of Test matches is that they should be between teams representing countries. However, the ICC made the judgement and that was that. But they have steadfastly refused to recognise the five matches between England and the Rest of the World in 1970 as official Tests. They were extremely entertaining and skilful encounters, arranged after the cancellation of South Africa's tour that summer. For years they were recorded in Wisden as official Tests, but then the ICC decreed they were not. And that, too, was that. The greatest individual casualty was the Glamorgan opening batsman Alan Jones. He played for England in the first of the five matches, at Lord's, making 5 and 0, and was never picked again. He was alone in that regard. All others who appeared also played in matches deemed official. There is not the remotest chance of the ICC changing their mind about 1970 (unless India ask them), though those matches have more right to proper recognition since they formed a genuine series, rather than a one-off jamboree. If they were to be counted, the 2,000th match would have been the First Test between England and Sri Lanka, at Cardiff and forgettable in every aspect except its climax. Trent Bridge next week, it is. Duncan not ducking issues A few strange things have been happening since Duncan Fletcher's arrival as coach of India. He has a well-known wariness of the press, whom he views as a mischievous influence at best. In his time as England coach he performed his media duties reluctantly and when he was batting consultant to South Africa he made it a condition of employment that he had no dealings with the press at all. It was generally assumed that the approach of a reporter this summer, whether from England or India, would see him turn on his heel. Not so. He gave a perfectly engaging and engaged press briefing in Taunton and after the first day of the First Test he virtually bounded into another. Then there is the matter of India's bowlers. When Fletcher was England coach he was an adherent of speed for its own sake. Skilful bowlers who were a bit slow were given short shrift. Yet in the First Test, India paraded Praveen Kumar, a skilful manipulator but distinctly on the slow side. It will be intriguing to see how his career progresses. Trott sets a strong pace Jonathan Trott has a Test average of 63. In the history of the game, of those to have played more than 20 Tests, only Donald Bradman has higher. This is slightly misleading since Trott, admirable though he is, has scope to decline. At the same stage in their Test careers, after 35 innings, seven players had scored more runs than Trott and seven had a higher average. But of England players, none had scored more runs and only Denis Compton had a better average. Long Rhodes ahead for Sachin Sachin Tendular seems to have been around a long time. But at 21 years and eight months his international career is only the 11th most enduring of all time. He will have to play on for another nine years if he is to overtake Wilfred Rhodes, who played for England between 1899 and 1930. At this rate, he may well do so.

[Dayman]

Interesting, but not a big deal.