Dreamcricket's Fantasy Cricket game was mentioned in 'The Hindu' ahead of the 2003 World Cup.   

 Monday, February 10, 2003

World Cup on the Web

EVEN A cursory search using well-known tools such as Google or Altavista for Internet resources on the cricket World Cup throws up hundreds of websites -- good, bad and ugly.

The last time around, cricket on the Internet was something of a novelty and many providers vied with each other to come up with innovative resources. This time most cricket websites are dishing out essentially the same thing -- past statistics, team profiles and live updates of the current matches.

The big change is that many international sites have gone from free to fee and live video highlights and other ball-by-ball coverage can be only had against payment. But, for hardcore fans, some free resources are still to be had. The major web resource is probably Cricinfo.com whose website www.cricket.org also hosts the official sites of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

The video feed requires a Real One player and even this service is free only on a trial basis after which one has to pay in dollars for the privilege.

The official site of the hosts South Africa is www.cricketworldcup.com which contains little more than the match schedule and details of the teams and the grounds. A look at the section entitled `Visa Regulations' shows that cricket fans from the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Holland are provided visas on arrival but those from other countries including India, West Indies, Pakistan, Bangladesh and South Africa's closest neighbours such as Zimbabwe and Kenya have to obtain a visa before leaving their own countries.

Clearly some things in South Africa are still the same as the bad old days of apartheid.

Among Indian resources, the cricket page of Rediff.com is full of information as well as some well-known specialist cricket columns.

Cricketweb.net provides a number of goodies for fans including a freely-downloadable cricket game which is just 212kb.

For those who want to play fantasy cricket by selecting dream teams of their choice, espnstar.com lets you be a `super selector'.

Another site that lets you select your team is dreamcricket.com. Finally, if you are a fan of Navjot Sidhu's unique brand of cricket commentary, msn.com contains a total archives of `Sidhuisms'.