Bowled over

Obviously, it is quite understandable if most of you are not feeling very kindly towards Pakistan cricket team at present, considering their abysmal loss in the one-day series against India. At the time of writing this article, Pakistan has just lost the fourth one day international in the five match series, giving India a 3-1 lead.

However, the current situation aside, cricket in Pakistan is definitely one of the most popular sports, and quite heavily sponsored as well. There are many avid fans who enjoy not just matches involving Pakistan, but also follow cricket in general, particularly, if it involves renowned teams like Australia or South Africa. And besides keeping themselves updated on the different matches and on going series, cricket fans worldwide form a significant online presence. This presence ensures that there are many websites which are solely dedicated to enable these fans to keep track of matches, read comments by experts and of course, discuss everything and anything thoroughly among themselves.

If you are a cricket fan, then no doubt you must have come across some of these websites at one point or another. However, one website which definitely stands out among the rest is Cricket 365 (http://www.cricket365.com). As the name suggests, this website is all about cricket and has just about everything related to cricket categorised effectively. Hence, whatever your purpose for visiting the website, you are sure to find something for yourself.

For instance, if you are at work and cannot watch the matches, you can straightaway access the live tracker from this website, and see the scores as they are updated. Alright, it is not the same as watching a match live, but it is certainly the next best option available. You can also use this option if none of your available sports channels are telecasting the matches live.

There is a section on cricket news as well. Here, you can find out all the latest news regarding matches, the tournaments and the players. There are match reports and match previews, plus in-depth analysis and follow-ups of any conflict between/among players. Statements given to the mainstream press are also reported here. So you can find out what is happening on the Warne-Muralitharan front, read up on what Sachin Tendulkar has to say about his recent unfinished centuries, and which player has signed up for which county.

Apart from news, there is a separate section dedicated to major teams. Each section carries news pertaining to that specific country only. Also, there are detailed profiles of player with the test and one-day statistics. Featured teams include Australia, India, Pakistan, SriLanka, South Africa and others.

There is a separate section for counties as well. If you are interested in county cricket, then you can use this to keep yourself updated on all that is happening on county level in the cricket.

There are some other interesting features as well. These features are divided into ‘soap box’ and ‘guest speakers.’ These basically constitute the expert opinions on the different aspects of cricket. So, if you want to read all about chacha cricket, look no further than this section.

As with every website these days, this one too comes with a blog and forums. The forums, of course, are the place where you can interact with cricket fans all over the world, rejoice in your team’s victory and rant and rave when they lose. There is an exclusive section on ‘Your say.’ All you need to do is register yourself and you will be ready to post your comments which are equivalent of ‘Letters to the editor.’

So basically, if you have time and the inclination – and of course if you are a die hard cricket fan – then log on to http://www.cricket365.com , and watch cricket all around the year.