If Michael Phelps is a country himself alone

What if Michael Phelps is a country himself alone rather than representing United States of America? Michael Phelps has already gathered 8 Gold medals in Beijing Olympics 2008 including 3 relays. Most of the participating countries happened to go back empty hand, so many players are participating knowing they are not up to the level of winning a medal. But consider this man, he's breaking world records in most appearances.

If he is playing himself alone as a separate country named "Phelps" he would still have 5 Gold medals and ranked as 11th country in Beijing Olympic medal table. Around 200 countries will be behind him. Medal table would look as follows.

Rank	Country	Gold
1	China	35
2	USA	14 (19-Phelps)
3	Australia	11
.....
11	Phelps	5

He is creating new history with a set of world records and we are really proud to see such a person in this planet. We doubt any one living right now in this planet will be able to witness another performance like this in their lifetime. If they could, it will be again only by this big man. This is fabulous! one person winning 8 Olympic Gold medals while so many countries are trying at least to win one bronze medal for their country to mark their presence.

Now Michael Phelps has 14 Olympic Gold medals in three Olympics becoming the most Olympic Gold medal holder in the world. As he is only 23 years, this is going to be just the beginning in his career and all of us wish him to swim more than 10 years to create so many world records to raise the standards in this planet into a superior level.

We love to see an amazing man like Michael Phelps in this planet.

[Cricket] Most wickets in debut Test series - World record by Ajantha Mendis

Most wickets by a player in his debut 3-match Test series; a 60+ years old world record has been broken. By whom? By Sri Lankan newly found precious mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis. He produced this new world record yesterday, 2008-08-10 with the wicket of Sachin Tendulkar, another master of cricket. Up to now, he has got 25 wickets in this series, and he has passed the 24 wickets record held by English bawler named Alec Bedser.

Ajantha Mendis has so many variations, and so difficult to read from the hand. Most of the Indian batsmen are still struggling to play against him while he is improving with his variations and accuracy.

In the current India-Sri Lanka Test series he played in all 3 matches (and 6 innings) and performed fabulously. Still he is bawling in the 2nd inning of the last Test match and 5 more wickets are left in Indian team. So we wish Mendis to get some more wickets out of those and improve his record into an untouchable one in history.

Well done Menda.

Update:
Ajantha added another wicket to his record, now it's 26 wickets in a 3-match Test series. He is the man of the series in his debut.

Six sixes in one over in Twenty20 Cricket - World record

Six sixes in one over in Twenty20 (Twenty Twenty, T20) Cricket? Oh! World record!!! It was an amazing over; all the balls went over the rope like rockets. The Start was Yuvraj Singh from India, and the poor bowler was Stuart Broad (England). This happened on 2007-09-19, in Twenty20 world up match. Yuvraj did this in the 19th over.

Unsurprisingly, he scored 50 runs in 12 deliveries, creating another world record. And think for a minute? He scored 50 with 3x4 and 6x6, which adds upto 48 runs in 9 balls. This world record will not be broken for a longer time and will stay than any other record?

With this six sixes, Yuvraj joined the club of Six Sixers as the 4th person. Before him; West Indies great Sir Garfield Sobers and India's Ravi Shastri joined there while Herschelle Gibbs joined this club this year in March. Well done Yuvraj.

[Cricket] Sangakkara joins the "five double hundreds" club

Today Kumara Sangakkara become the seventh cricketer to reach five double hundreds in Test. This is a real achievement and it shows Sangakkara's patiences as well as the talents. Sri Lanka is the only country to have more than one player in that list of seven players.

Here are the seven players with five or more double hundreds.

1. Donald Bradman (AUS)- 12
2. Brian Lara (WI) - 9
3. Wally Hammond (ENG) - 7
4. Marvan Atapattu (SL) - 6
5. Javed Miandad (PAK) - 6
6. Kumara Sangakkara (SL) - 5
7. Rahul Dravid (IND) - 5

Well done Sanga.

Sri Lanka through to World cup finals playing against 11 or 13?

Today is a special day for Sri Lankans as SL made their way to finals in World Cup 2007 after the semi final victory over New Zealand yesterday. That was a fantastic match even though it was hard to judge whether SL were playing against 13, not just 11 players. SL was playing against 11 friendly and claim NZ players (and 2 slightly unfair professional umpires).

Interesting point was both the 2 umpires, RE Koertzen (South Africa) and SJA Taufel (Australia) made poor LBW decisions against SL. One LBW was given for a thick edge and the other for a ball going far away from the leg stump. When NZs were batting, umpire RE Koertzen warned Dilhara twice putting him under huge pressure. Another a tough LBW decision was given against Rose Tailer for a ball slightly missing the stumps. We can not guess why such experienced umpires give that much bad decisions in crucial matches like semi finals.

Even with that type of a situation, SL team came up brilliantly in batting, balling as well as fielding. NZ got the wicket of SL inform batsman Sanath Jayasuriya pretty early putting SL under pressure. But SL came back strongly with Upul Tharanga's 70 followed by the superb captains knock of 115* by Mahela Jayawardana. SL scored over 100 runs in the last 10 overs. In the NZ innings, it was just a series of perfect bowling to get them all out for 208 runs. My deepest sympathies to all the New Zealanders.

We were discussing about the match here (before the match). Congratulations Sri Lanka and all the very best wishes for the coming finals to bring the World Cup here again.

World Cup Semi final on 24th: Sri Lanka vs New Zealands

Tomorrow (2007-04-24) is going to be a big big day for both Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Two teams meet each other in a crucial match, semi finals. In recent past, SL have done well against New Zealand. They once met in the super eight matches and Sri Lanka won comprehensively by 6 wickets.

According to news, the pitch at Sabina Park in Jamaica will have some bounce. This is said to be favoring NZs because SLs have much experiences on subcontinent wickets. But having the best balling department, SLs will be able to get the benefit of the bounce as well.

A quick comparison over the two teams

1. Captaincy:
Stephen Fleming, the New Zealand captain has more experience and is a good leading captain. But Mahela Jayawardane is one of the best positive captains in the world who has shown much colors in a lesser number of matches. So I weight SL has a good captaincy.

2. Balling attack:
NZ comes with one of the best ballers in the world, Shane Bond. But SL goes with 4 high class ballers: Vaas, Murali, Sanath and impressive Malinga. So SL has a huge advantage.

3. Batting:
NZ has a good batting line up starting with their captain, Fleming and following with Oram, Styris, McMillan and McCullum. SL comes with Sanath Jayasuriya (World's best batsman who frightens the opposite), following Sangakkara, Mahela, Chamara and Dilshan. So seems both have good batting attack. But it's a matter of getting some of them to show their class.

4. Fielding:
NZ is doing well of fielding, but they are not up to the level as much as SL. SL are putting huge pressure on the opposition by a showing a good team effort at the ground.

These are some comparisons, but the team that play as one unit and perform best will defeat the other. This is the first time NZ plays for a semi final in a world cup. So it will be a huge game for them.

But still I believe SL will beat NZ and go for the big final on 28th.

All the best wishes for SL from me and all the SL lovers. (Hope you are also joining with me to wish SL).

Cricket: Sri Lanka won by two runs over England in World Cup 2007

Sri Lanka vs England super 8 match was on 2007-04-04. They played an amazing match, it was the best game so far in this World Cup. Even that was one of the greatest matches I ever had watched.

Sri Lankans were all out for just 235 runs causing many discussions to calculate how many runs should have been added to make it a winnable score. Then England started batting, but they were 12/2 after 6 overs.

Over 20: Englands were in a comfortable situation, 100/2 with a RRR(required run rate) of 5.4. But this was easily reachable as Pietersen was batting impressively putting Sri Lankans under pressure.

Over 34: Pressure on Englands. They were 134/6, with a RRR of 6.4. And Sri Lankans needed only one wicket two celebrate the tail enders' fun. And England fans were dead silent.

Over 46: But that required wicket didn't fell and England batsman were rotating the strike well and they were 217/6 with a RRR of 9.5. But this was easily reachable as both the batsman were well established. It was just 19 runs from 12 balls.

Sri Lankans were under huge pressure, two more overs to go. Who should ball the late two overs?

Over 49: Lasith Malinga called for the 49th over. Big task for young Malinga.
1 1 0 1 W 4
This is a fantastic over. Malinga got the needed break through, but the last ball went for a four.

Over 50: Last over, 6 balls more to go, needs 12 runs. Who should ball the last 6 balls? Chaminda Vaas had two more overs, Sanath Jayasuriya had two more... No no it was Dilhara Fernando to ball the last over.
49.1 - 1 run
49.2 - 4 runs
49.3 - 2
49.4 - 1
49.5 - 1

Just 3 runs from the last ball, the well set batsman Bopara was facing. Dilhara came to ball the last ball, but stopped at the last second. Crowd get confused!!! He came back again, and balled him!
Oh! Dilhara balled him! Can you believe it? Sri Lanka won the match just by 2 runs.

What a fantastic game? You should have watched it.

Congratulations Sri Lanka.

[Cricket] World record - Six sixes in one over

Herschelle Gibbs, 34 yrs South African right hand batsman made a big record on 2007-03-16. He did this against a leg-spinner, Daan van Bunge of Netherlands in the 30th over.

This is where those bullets went.

29.1 : long on
29.2 : long off
29.3 : long on
29.4 : deep midwicket
29.5 : wide long off
29.6 : deep midwicket

Gibbs got 72 off 40 balls with 7 sixes before Van Bunge caught him in the next over at long on.

West Indies great Sir Garfield Sobers and India's Ravi Shastri had done this six sixes in one over during first-class matches. But this is the first time in an international match.

Congratulations Gibbs.

Related:
World record test cricket partnership

World Record Test Cricket Partnership - 624

The two Sri Lankan cricketers Mahela Jayawardana (captain) and Kumara Sangakkara (vice captain) put a world record partnership - 624 for any wicket on last Saturday (29/07/2007) against South Africa, a leading cricket team. This is the first time a partnership grew over 600 mark in cricket history.

In this brilliant knock the scorecard of the two players;

• Mahela J - 374 (752 mins, 572 balls) with 43x4 & 1x6
• Sangakkara K - 287 (675 mins, 457 balls) with 35x4

This is Sangakkara's 4th double hundred (& carrier best) while Mahela's first ever 300. This is the 21st time a player passed the 300 mark ever in history.

Updates for record books

World

1. Best partnership for any wicket - 624 runs (& so the best partnership for the 3rd wicket as well)
   
   
   • 576 - Sanath Jayasuriya & Roshan Mahanama (SL) v IND 1997
   • 467 - Andrew Jones & Martin Crowe (NZ) v SL 1990


2. Best scores by two batsmen in the same innings.
   
   
   • Garfield Sobers (unbeaten 365) and Conrad Hunte (260) for the West Indies against Pakistan in 1958


3. 4th best score by a player (374)
   
   
   • 400 - Brian Lara, WI v ENG (2003)
   • 389 - Mathiew Hayden, AU v ZIM (2003)
   • 375 - Brian Lara, WI v ENG (1993)


4. 6th top score in a inning by a team
   
   
   • 952-6d SL v IND (1997)
   • 903-7d ENG v AU (1938)
   • 849 ENG v WI (1929)
   • 790-3d WI v PAK (1957)
   • 758-8d AU v WI (1954)

Sri Lankan

1. Best score by a player (374)
   
   
   • Previously held by Sanath Jayasuriya - 340 SL v IND (1997)


2. 2nd Best score in a inning
   
   
   • 957 - SL v IND (1997)
   
   

[I believe these statistics are correct and if there's something missing just remind me]

And.....Congradulations
SL won this match by an innings and 153 runs.

This is a wonderful time for Sri Lankan cricket which reminds the 1996 world cup tournament. All cricket fans are waiting to see the coming adventures of Sri Lankan team while wishing their success.

All the very best guys.