Hi all!
After a little hiatus, I’m back with a blog! As a wee life update, I’ve been traveling in the US to weddings, seeing friends, and celebrating some happy family milestones too!
As a taster, here’s a pic of me finally trying the much beloved LA fast food burger “In N Out”. The review — 6/10; this burger hasn’t dropped out of high school… but I don’t think it’s ready for university yet😂
Moving on, in today’s blog I’m going to get back to some of my early blogging roots in reviewing some FanCraze moments — specifically with a recent announcement from the FC team in mind.
Before I do that I just wanted to shout out on a few items
1) The rest of the Wordsmiths for a great Ice bucket IPL challenge 🥶
2) Everyone that signed up / participated in the challenge
3) A massive nod to fellow FC community member TMC36 — who won the IPL jersey raffle and kindly donated it to Rambo in the community (your RCB jersey is in the post!)
And Last but Not least:
A big congrats to Robbieoz for becoming the latest wordsmith — This is a great acknowledgement to the work he’s done for all of us. His YouTube videos on Flash are a wonderful watch for ALL levels of FC folks. Here is a link to his channel, please give him a look as we enjoy this cricket collecting journey together.
FanCraze Update
The following update was dropped by PhilosopherPrince on June 12th:
Whilst there are a few exciting things in here I’m going to speculate on the final announcement — Moment Quality.
What Might Quality Mean?
There seem to be two things mentioned here:
Attributes of the Moment Clip
This is what I’ll focus on in this blog — most would agree that not all shots, wickets, or catches are created equally. A delivery that beats the bat and sends the stump cartwheeling is much more pleasant to the eye than a poorly executed pull shot, off a dodgy short pitched half tracker. Similarly, a slog sweep into the stands for six is better than a edged four.
FanCraze moments have managed to capture some amazing , and memorable commentary on moments too. The audio accompanying these moments from the likes of Harsha Bhogle, Danny Morrison, Shane Warne and other greats, only adds to the experience.
With this in mind, I teamed up with TMC36 (who graciously donated the winning IPL jersey to Rambo) to outline some of the moments we feel have “High Quality” and why below.
Features of the Cards
It’s unclear if this is a verbiage slip from the FC team (did they mean to say moments, or cards; as cards will be a distinct collectible on the site and this would mean they are planned to feature in Flash!). Taking the post word for word (Assuming it’s not FC moments the post is referring to), the world of card collecting offers some interesting insight into the “features of a card” that are incremental / detrimental to value. I’ve got a blog later this week lined up for this topic, stay tuned!
For now — lets dive into the Quality moments TMC36 and I selected and why.
Comment down below, or @CraigSnax on Twitter to let me know which moment you think is high quality
FanCraze Moment Quality
Rather than explicitly try to define what quality is, TMC36 and I came up with a shortlist of some of our high quality moments. As a side note — we generally arrived at more Epics in our shortlist before I put this blog together, than other rarity moments. Commons were generally hard to identify — which in my opinion is exactly how it should be.
Curtly Ambrose — Epic
The Windies legend has a really great cricketing moment on the site. The cartwheeling stump on this moment is an absolute beaut!. With an equally cool finger point from Sir Curtly that says “Yeah, I knew that was coming, gothca”, this is a great moment to watch over and over. Add in the juxtaposition of the soothing voice of Michael Holding over a devastating delivery like this— it’s a high quality moment
Matthew Hayden — Epic
Equally devastating is this enormous six from Matthew Hayden. The moment already has bags of collectability, in terms of Hayden’s legacy as a destructive batsman, a key part of an all time great team, and the Golden Bat badge. However, the fact that this is (I think) the only moment showing a player literally hitting the ball out of the stadium is something worth considering. Add in the commentary “This is a BIG, BIG, Shot, Don’t even bother going to try and get it”— top, top quality!
MS Dhoni — Epic
This moment shows us MS Dhoni’s last boundary in International Cricket, the commentary on the moment is full of energy as Dhoni tries to pull India into another World Cup Final. On top of that, the view of the crowd as it sails for 6 is a great piece of camera work, not to mention finally that its a signature helicopter cut shot. Mama Mia!
Honorable mention: Shaoib Akhtar — I've already written about this moment is a separate blog, its sooo good (Link here)
Brendan McCullum — Rare
The newly appointed England coach features in a moment I could watch over and over. B-Mac sets off down the pitch to only one of the best bowlers in a generation — Dale Steyn. What I really love about this moment is the stump camera offering a great view of the dispatched delivery, and a very brief glimpse at Steyns reaction — “You’ve got to be kidding me”. This moment represents B-Macs playing style perfectly.
Natalie Sciver — Rare
The dab, dap, scoop, ramp… whatever THIS shot is called, is one of the more innovative shots in the game today. A deft touch by Natalie Sciver runs this one to the boundary. A batter with this shot in the arsenal causes all sorts of headaches for the opposing captain. Add in some of the nice camera work showing the execution of this shot side on — it’s a Guddun’
Steve Smith — Rare
The quality of this moment definitely leverages to circumstances of the match. It’s probably, at least statistically, the second best Aussie batsman to ever play the game. In a World Cup final, playing a 56 not out to help the Aussies lift the trophy. It mightn't be the most graceful shot….but whoever said Steve Smith was graceful whilst batting.
The other great element to this moment is one Aussie great who lifted several world cups, Shane Warne, commentating on another — for me this adds a really nice element of quality.
Mohammad Rizwan — Common
It seems like this man is coming in wayyy under the radar ahead of the World Cup this year. Despite being ranked as the second best batsman in the ICC T20 rankings, I’d wager a bet that folks don’t hold him in as high a regard as Butler (perhaps understandably based on very recent form), Pant, or de Kock. This moment is from the World Cup in 2021, helmet off, giving it the full can of beans. Look how close he gets his head to the ball, managing to not sacrifice form while piling on the power to this slog for six — one for the aspiring cricket coaches out there to show their students. It also brought up his 1000 runs in T20 cricket — and has the Ian Bishop commentary is nearing the same gear as his famous Carlos Brathwaite commentary from 2016!
Mitchell Starc — common
An Aussie vs England moment had to feature here. Starcs top notch Yorker, beating England Talisman Ben Stokes. This was a fairly unstoppable ball, Stokes actually gets his bat down in time, but the inswing on the ball has him playing the wrong line. You can see the joy in Starc’s celebration, and the dejection in Stokes has he drops the bat and hangs his head.
Hassan Ali — common
Wrapping up this blog we have another Pakistani moment, with a Rizwan cameo. Hassan Ali’s pace delivery catches the outside edge of India’s SKY, and Rizwan takes a quality diving catch to his right. This is another moment from a key rivalry in cricket, and Hassan unleashes his signature celebration for the occasion 👌
What are your “High Quality” moments?
Til next time,
Craig
