Cricket Blogging

Devanshu and Matt – two cricket bloggers whose blogs I look forward to – have written two wonderful pieces on cricket blogging and cricket bloggers. I suggest you take time out and read them – I also suggest you follow these 2 blokes.

Here is what Matt has to say:

And maybe that’s why we cricket bloggers help each other out, because we are selfish and know that if we promote someone, they will promote us possibly down the road and maybe Andrew Miller will see it and then PAYDIRT. 

Or not. Actually, I don’t think that it is true at all. I think maybe cricket just attracts funny and interesting and smart and kind people who like to read about and write about and follow a silly old anachronism of a bat and ball sport. That’s all. And when someone like Freddie Wilde posts something we like about Sachin Tendulkar, we simply want others to see it so they can like it too.

While Devanshu adds on with his experience on twitter:

Twitter is where this blog gets its traffic from. It’s where I formulate my ideas. It’s where I’m challenged and encouraged. And it’s where my people live. And I’m convinced that’s how it is for the cricket blogging community.

They echo the exact sentiments of every cricket blogger who started his/her blog. I had taken a break from 2006-09 from the online world and I missed out on the period where most excellent blogs erupted onto the scene. Over the last 2 years since I’ve got back, I’ve enjoyed reading a lot more than writing on cricket. I always struggle on time to put in the kind of effort that I see folks around the world put into their blogs and I admire and appreciate them.

Twitter is a fantastic forum, despite some of the nonsense that goes on it especially when cricket outrages run riot. I landed up meeting a few people over the last year. My fear of befriending online folks and meeting them in real life has lessened a bit after meeting these few folks. I would not have discovered so many wonderful writers if it weren’t for twitter. Twitter taught me to keep my biases about the writer aside and I learnt to appreciate or dislike the post for its content alone.

Twitter is my first source for cricketing news – be it live updates, scores, pre-match analysis and post-match analysis. I hardly follow any famous ‘celebs’ but the “common man/woman” on my TL offers me insights that sometimes even a Dravid can’t – and there in lies the beauty of this forum. It is also a reason for most of us bloggers who hit a writing block to churn out and activate our passive blogs – like I just did today.  I’m at the end of my 3 week long hectic vacation and had not updated the blog in months – see what Devanshu and Matt just helped me do 🙂

Over the last 2 years I’ve spent on this blogging and twitter forum – I’ve concluded that non-journalists turn out far better insightful and incisive pieces on cricket and cricketers than the current crop of journalists – we started a platform with the objective in mind to get out such hidden writers and I’m very hopeful we will someday give it a serious turn.

 P.S: Thanks for the mention Devanshu – pleasantly surprised and the smile has not yet gone from the face:-)