How wrong one was, as the first cricket legend, Dr. W.G. Grace, when bowled out by the first ball he faced, decided to put the bails back and continue batting. His retort to the umpire was that the crowd had come to see him and not the bowler and certainly not the umpire!
The Ashes battle between England and Australia soon developed into a fierce encounter in which winning became a very important factor. The spirit of cricket was tarnished in the 1932/33 series by the England captain, Douglas Jardine, when he introduced the ‘Bodyline’ to stop the run-scoring Australian machine, Sir Donald Bradman.
The Bodyline series buried the spirit of the game completely. Jardine, if looked at in the present context, played according to the rules. His strategy after intense research and detailed planning could have been made into a Harvard case study. However, his tactics even though he was successful,...
The Ashes battle between England and Australia soon developed into a fierce encounter in which winning became a very important factor. The spirit of cricket was tarnished in the 1932/33 series by the England captain, Douglas Jardine, when he introduced the ‘Bodyline’ to stop the run-scoring Australian machine, Sir Donald Bradman.
The Bodyline series buried the spirit of the game completely. Jardine, if looked at in the present context, played according to the rules. His strategy after intense research and detailed planning could have been made into a Harvard case study. However, his tactics even though he was successful,...
- 10/16/2022
- by Glamsham Bureau
- GlamSham
Cricketing films tend to focus on heroics on the pitch, but a new campaigning documentary, Death of a Gentleman, looks at the dirty tricks off the pitch
Mismanagement by cricket’s administrators is threatening the sport’s existence, says the new documentary Death of a Gentleman. Cricket journalists Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber spent several years making the film. They start by asking whether there is a future for Test cricket and go on to rail against the state of the modern game.
Test cricket, says Tony Greig, one of many former players and commentators featured in the film, is “a character builder”. But the five-day game is threatened by the rise of T20, which has condensed cricket into three-hour, bite-sized chunks of entertainment with big hitters and cheerleaders. India, the main driver of TV revenue, calls the shots to the detriment of the wider game outside the “big three” of India,...
Mismanagement by cricket’s administrators is threatening the sport’s existence, says the new documentary Death of a Gentleman. Cricket journalists Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber spent several years making the film. They start by asking whether there is a future for Test cricket and go on to rail against the state of the modern game.
Test cricket, says Tony Greig, one of many former players and commentators featured in the film, is “a character builder”. But the five-day game is threatened by the rise of T20, which has condensed cricket into three-hour, bite-sized chunks of entertainment with big hitters and cheerleaders. India, the main driver of TV revenue, calls the shots to the detriment of the wider game outside the “big three” of India,...
- 7/28/2015
- by Toby Chasseaud
- The Guardian - Film News
Fire in Babylon
Written and directed by Stevan Riley
UK, 2010
Fire in Babylon is a 2010 British documentary covering the rise of the West Indies cricket team of the 1970s and 1980s, written and directed by Steven Riley. The film includes historic footage and interviews with the characters of the time, including Colin Croft, Joel Garner, Gordon Greenidge, Michael Holding, Clive Lloyd, and Viv Richards.
The documentary follows the ascension of West Indies cricket from the “Calypso Cricketers” team, due to their exciting but unsuccessful style of play, to a team that never strays far from the top of the cricket betting odds.
After briefly describing the history of cricket in the West Indies, the documentary picks up pace when it reaches the 1970s, with the West Indies still failing to turn a group of 11 players from different parts of the Caribbean into a united team. The appointment of Clive Lloyd...
Written and directed by Stevan Riley
UK, 2010
Fire in Babylon is a 2010 British documentary covering the rise of the West Indies cricket team of the 1970s and 1980s, written and directed by Steven Riley. The film includes historic footage and interviews with the characters of the time, including Colin Croft, Joel Garner, Gordon Greenidge, Michael Holding, Clive Lloyd, and Viv Richards.
The documentary follows the ascension of West Indies cricket from the “Calypso Cricketers” team, due to their exciting but unsuccessful style of play, to a team that never strays far from the top of the cricket betting odds.
After briefly describing the history of cricket in the West Indies, the documentary picks up pace when it reaches the 1970s, with the West Indies still failing to turn a group of 11 players from different parts of the Caribbean into a united team. The appointment of Clive Lloyd...
- 1/28/2014
- by Kyle Reese
- SoundOnSight
In light of the current saga surrounding the future of Kevin Pietersen, and the ongoing fallout from Tony Greig’s Spirit of Cricket lecture (interpreted by some as an exercise in India-bashing), it seems a good time to look back on some of cricket’s most controversial moments. In this age of 24-hour rolling news and sensationalistic journalism, it can seem like an earth-shattering imbroglio every time a cricketer picks his nose. But which moments still touch a nerve with players and fans alike?
One caveat before we start. By ‘controversy’ we mean an event which caused a considerable divide in opinion, rather than something which simply got headlines. For that reason we’re not including incidents like Allan Donald’s epic duel with Michael Atherton in 1998; though that prompted many column inches, events like this are generally held as having a positive impact on the game, and are remembered...
One caveat before we start. By ‘controversy’ we mean an event which caused a considerable divide in opinion, rather than something which simply got headlines. For that reason we’re not including incidents like Allan Donald’s epic duel with Michael Atherton in 1998; though that prompted many column inches, events like this are generally held as having a positive impact on the game, and are remembered...
- 8/21/2012
- by Daniel Mumby
- Obsessed with Film
You can wait for years for a cricketing film, then suddenly two documentaries come along. First there was James Erskine's From the Ashes, about Ian Botham's brief captaincy of England and his subsequent role in winning the Ashes in the early 1980s. Now there's this riveting film about the doldrums in which the West Indies found themselves in the 1970s, and how under the captaincy of Clive Lloyd then Viv Richards they abandoned the cheerful losing mode known as "calypso cricket" and became formidably aggressive winners. It's a rousing film about ex-colonials uniting to assert their pride and to recover a dignity that continued to be denied them by the English and Australians. Nothing gave them a greater desire to fight back than hearing Tony Greig, the deeply unpleasant South African-born English captain, say that he intended to make the Caribbean cricketers grovel. It's great to see Greig get his comeuppance.
- 5/21/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
My Ayrton-Senna-as-panto-villain stance had never been properly challenged until I saw a preview of Asif Kapadia's upcoming documentary
I have only the vaguest idea where I was when Princess Diana died, and hopefully you'll have guessed from the photo that I wasn't around for JFK. But I remember exactly where I heard about Ayrton Senna's death. I was in my dad's Volvo 245 Estate on the A1081 from St Albans to Harpenden, coming home from choir rehearsal. We'd seen him crash, live on television, earlier in the afternoon. They hadn't shown a replay. Now, two hours later, a radio bulletin was explaining that his brain injuries had been too severe for him to survive.
I remember feeling surprised and even a little guilty as the tears formed in my 15-year-old eyes, and Dad drove on in respectful silence. Senna, it's fair to say, had not been a much-loved figure in our household,...
I have only the vaguest idea where I was when Princess Diana died, and hopefully you'll have guessed from the photo that I wasn't around for JFK. But I remember exactly where I heard about Ayrton Senna's death. I was in my dad's Volvo 245 Estate on the A1081 from St Albans to Harpenden, coming home from choir rehearsal. We'd seen him crash, live on television, earlier in the afternoon. They hadn't shown a replay. Now, two hours later, a radio bulletin was explaining that his brain injuries had been too severe for him to survive.
I remember feeling surprised and even a little guilty as the tears formed in my 15-year-old eyes, and Dad drove on in respectful silence. Senna, it's fair to say, had not been a much-loved figure in our household,...
- 3/30/2011
- by Emma John
- The Guardian - Film News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.