Well Pitched was 1 year old.

The Dubai International Cricket Stadium was under construction.

Graeme Swann had not played a test match for England.

No one had heard of Umar Akmal.

Jonathan Trott had not played an ODI nor a Test for England.

Eoin Morgan was playing for Ireland.

Shoaib Malik was the captain of Pakistan.

Anfrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison were key members of the England team.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul was the number 1 ranked test batsman.

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Hello everyone!

Yes, it's been a while since this blog was updated. Well over two months. So without further ado, I will get to the point.

First, the apologies. Sincere apologies to all our readers for our mini-hiatus. Over the two years plus that Well Pitched has been around, we've developed somewhat of a loyal reader base. Without warning, the three authors of the blog simultaneously slacked off (each for their own reasons). This is unacceptable and we plan to reverse course immediately.

Next, our sincere appreciation to our readers and fans. As the posts on Well Pitched dried up, we started to receive comments, personal emails, Facebook messages, etc. asking us where we had disappeared. Some out of personal concern for us. Some out of WPWS (Well Pitched Withdrawal Syndrome!!!) We can not express how much we value your appreciation, and we hope to respond by being more active on the site.

Finally, our extreme gratitude to World Cricket Watch for nominating Well Pitched for Cricket Weblog of the Year! This is a huge honor and we are thrilled just to be nominated. Though winning would be pretty sweet too - so please vote for Well Pitched at:

http://worldcricketwatch.com/feature/introducing-the-cricket-website-awards-2009/#pd_a_2351458

Thanks everyone for your concern and support (and your vote???). We hope to do a better job of updating Well Pitched with informative and insightful posts.

Best regards,

The Well Pitched Team

Well Pitched is well and alive and I hope to be back in full flow soon.

Hopefully around the time the Champions Trophy comes around.

Till then I'm going to try and concentrate on my MBA, which till now has revolved around cooking and tasting a variety of cuisines, checking out Manchester's night spots, mingling with new people from all over the world, acting like animals in a class room, listening to some Manchester United vs Manchester City arguments, and also doing a bit of accounting.

That was an exercise, and yes I am doing an MBA.

I haven't been able to watch a lot of cricket here.

I caught the last half an hour that led England to the Ashes victory. There was no way I was going to miss that!

I also watched the rained off first T20 match between England and Australia.

That was an interesting experience.

Some Indians and myself decided to watch the match at an Australian sports bar called "The Walkabout".

And we were joined by an American woman, a Taiwanese man, and a Greek man; all from my class who were interested in learning about cricket.

Yes they were!

Australia's innings and my cricket tutorial went on simultaneously. Its a pity the match got rained off.

The best part, however, was that the American and the Greek were not bored! In fact, they thouroughly enjoyed it!

Which surprised as well as pleased me.

I've met a number of people from different places here like Mexico, Spain, and Germany; all of them have asked me about cricket and how it is played!

I think that is awesome.

If I get the chance I'll take all of them down to Old Trafford.

One thing though; they have the appetitie for T20 cricket but there is no way they will even think of watching a game that goes on for 5 days or even 8 hours for that matter.

Tip for the ICC: Use T20 and take it to the world!

And as I said earlier, I'll be back in full flow soon. Hopefully.

This 2009 has been some rollercoaster of a year! For me as well as for the Pakistan cricket team.

I'll save my personal ride for some other time; Pakistan's ride has been nothing short of dramatic.

Captaincy change, a first home test series in 17 months, an attack on a visiting cricket team, an ODI series against Australia for the first time in half a decade, return of the ICL rebels, a World Cup win, retirements, a first test tour in 17 months, sensational debuts, unexplainable collapses, and what not.

Pakistan cricket has gone through a lot.

During this time, we at Well Pitched have been around riding this roller coaster with them.

Today as I get ready to shift base from the UAE to the UK, I leave with the news that Shahid Afridi has been announced captain of Pakistan's Twenty20 team.

How awesome is that!

Since the day Well Pitched came online about 2 years ago, I have been writing about two key things that I want to see happen.

One was the permanent inclusion of Fawad Alam in the Pakistan XI in all forms of the game.

The second was the elevation of Shahid Afridi to the position of Pakistan captain.

2009 has seen both those wishes come true.

Couldn't have asked for more, could I?

What's best is that this is just the beginning for Fawad Alam and Shahid Afridi the captain!

Surely better and bigger things are yet to come!

It is I who is moving.

I am currently counting down my last 10 days in Dubai & Abu Dhabi (home for the last 26 years), before I move to the UK for the next two years, or maybe longer.

Manchester to be exact.

Old Trafford, here I come!

Manchester Business School may not be happy to hear that but I guess I'll be found more at Old Trafford than at MBS.

This move could not have come at a better time considering that I am shifting to a country that the Pakistan cricket team is going to call home for the next few years.

The timing is just apt.

I fly out in 10 days from Dubai for a week's visit to London and a 10-day trip to the US; before I reach Manchester around mid-August and settle in.

Why am I telling you all this?

Well just to let you know why there may be a lack of activity on Well Pitched during this time.

Although the glassy post on Pakistan cricket generated a lot of buzz, I have posted only once since then in the last 4 days and have hardly commented on any other blog, which is very unlike me.

I've been pressed for time taking care of things before my move; the next 10 days will be even more hectic. Plus, while travelling it might get difficult to keep up with all the cricket, write about it, and comment.

That in no way means that Well Pitched will not continue to roll. It will and I will be writing; maybe just not as often.

Regular service should resume once I am in Manchester in about a month, unless the MBA starts taking a toll on me.

I doubt that though for you can take me away from the cricket, you can't really take the cricket away from me!

Out of all, I did the best in Sportsfreak's tipping competition.

Check the results out.

Congratulations to 12th Man who came first.

Well Pitched was 2nd.

Welcome to the NEW Well Pitched everyone.

The major change is the addition of the "recent comments" and the "LBW" in the right-side bar, which we thought would be very useful.

Thank you Sledgehammer and Obaid for wasting those precious hours at work working on the new layout and format for Well Pitched.

It was all their doing people, I hardly have any technical know-how.

There are a few minor tweaks that Sledge and Obaid are working on and will continue to do so, but that won't hamper our daily updates.

For the rest of you, thank you for visiting, reading, commenting, arguing, discussing, recommending, analyzing, complimenting, and criticizing - it keeps us going.

Hope you all continue to do the same.

With this I leave you with a fact of the day:

True story ladies and gents.

I'm not being optimistic, just stating a fact.

Thinking of that, I'm going to start a new daily feature on Well Pitched.

Taking the Q from Jrod's Ashes Facts, I will feed you all with "Pakistan Cricket Facts" on a daily basis.

Since I don't have an imagination like Jrod, these will actually be facts.

Take the above world cup one as Fact #Zero.

Let the past be the past, enjoy the new Well Pitched, forget how Pakistan messed up in the last few matches, forget what Younis Khan said, forget how pathetic Pakistan have looked on the field, and lets just support them and hope that we get through to the Super 8s tonight!

Ever heard of Cricket Blips?

I hadn't either, till Ankit of All Padded Up pointed me to it.

Cricket Blips is a type of blog aggregator. They've got all the latest cricket news and articles gathered from different websites and blogs collected in one space.

What Cricket Blips also does is rank cricket blogs - Here are the rankings.

It is no surprise that the King of Cricket Bloggers - Jrod of Cricket with Balls fame - is ranked number 1.

Well Pitched is ranked 2nd, while Homer, of "My two cents", is ranked 3rd.

The best part is that all 3 of us - Jrod, Homer, and I - are well ahead of Cricinfo, who are 4th.

Yeah baby!

BCC! is also there on number 5.

What is strange though is that the top tag for Cricket with Balls is Sachin Tendulkar. I don't think Jrod writes that much about Sachin. Does he?

Well Pitched's top tag is Kolkata Knight Riders. Maybe that has something to do with the Fake IPL Player.

Homer's is Jacob Oram! Really? Oram? Homer?

I'm not exactly sure how the blogs have been ranked and scored by Cricket Blips but it has something to do with linking. They explain it all here.

Is your blog there? If not, you can tell them to put it up. Check it out.

Here it is, thanks to NC.

First the Fake IPL Player increases the daily hits on Well Pitched.

Actually I should say phenomenally increases them by multiple times!

Then the Fake gets Well Pitched into the Mail Today.

He maybe be detrimental to Kolkata Knight Riders and the other IPL teams, but to us, and I'm sure to other blogs, he has been great!

The Fake IPL Player has created the type of frenzy that I have not witnessed before in the online world.

The best part is that he continues to entertain and his identity continues to remain a mystery.

For the sake of the bloggers, I hope it remains that way!

INTERNAL MEMO

To: Students and Readers

18t June 2008

Dear all,

As the Co-Founder of the Allen Stanford University for Cricket Bloggers, I have continued to recruit new faculty members since our launch in response to the growing demand for quality cricket education and entertainment.

Though the new recruits have been brought on board over the last few months, I haven't been able to formally introduce them to you.

What better day to make the introductions than the one on which the Co-Founder & Dean of our University celebrates his 1000th lecture. Congratulations Uncle J!

Our first new facutly members since the launch were DS Henry, Scorpicity, and Trideep.

DS was hired as the exclusive lecturer for "Marketing & 20-20 Cricket Leagues", while Scorpicity and Trideep joined Straight Point as lecturers on "Reporting on Indian Cricket".

The ever growing Indian cricket industry required us to continue the hiring process for this subject as demand from students was unmatched by any other subject. This led to the recent hirings of Som and Samir Chopra.

In between we also recruited our 2nd female member as Miriam of Cricket with Balls joined us as the professor on "Fashion in Cricket". Her first few lectures were on Daniel Vettori's glasses and Jacob Oram's garments from 'Big & Tall'. Her most recent lecture that generated a lot of interest was on Kevin Pieterson's ability to switch (between male and female clothing).

One of our most recent recruit is The Cricket3r who joined us in the Administration of the University and takes care of collating all information and data regarding the faculty members as well as the students. He knows all of us, but none of us know who he is. Not even his name.

At the beginning of this month, we recruited Sledgehammer who joined the Well Pitched crew to alternate on lectures on "How to Manage Cricket in Pakistan".

The growing mismanagement in Pakistan cricket led us to hire some more faculty members to lecture on several areas such as "Selecting a Squad - How Not to do it the Pakistan Way" and "Running a Cricket Board - How Not to do it the Pakistan Way".

Wasim was hired for the former, while Khansahab for the latter.

I officially welcome you to our elite faculty and thank you for the immense popularity we have achieved since our launch.

I am sure that going forward, the Allen Stanford University for Cricket Bloggers will continue to grow and match your expectations in educating and entertaining you with all things Cricket.

Yours faithfully,

Q
Co-Founder, Allen Stanford University for Cricket Bloggers.