cricinfo.com > Reviews (17)

Cricinfo is the largest Cricket related website out there and not only is it the largest but it is by far the best too. With over 20 million users the site is one of largest websites in the world. It was launched in 1993 and was based in London. Today the base has moved to Bangalore, India, no doubt to cut down costs. There are offices in London, Chennai, Mumbai and Colombo.

First impressions are good. The homepage is clear and precise. Sports websites are often packed full of banners, adverts and pop-ups but not this one. It has advertising but only a small amount of it and it no way impedes the quality or usefulness of the site. The main colour is blue which goes hand in hand with the blue Cricinfo logo which many could accuse of being bland. Personally this doesn't bother me. Quality and relialability are far more important factors to me and no doubt others. The speed of the Cricinfo site is very fast, pages load quickly and it has a very reliable server. I have never known the site to go down in all the time I have been using it which must be some five years now. The other cricketing nations India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand and West Indies have their own servers.

The homepage is dominated by news and articles related to cricket which are written by Cricinfo's dedicated contributers. For instance at the moment there is a lot of material regarding the impending ashes series and the current test series being played in India between India and the West Indies. There is a huge amount of content on the site but it is extremely well organised and presented thus making navigation simple.

The left hand side of the homepage lies the menus which link to the different areas of the site. There are literally hundreds of sub links and are too numerous to mention. The main ones are the fixtures, news and photos index where you can catch up on recent games or plan a visit to an impending one. There are columns and blogs written and updated by established Cricinfo writers. There are various styles and you soon learn which ones are of interest to you. Probably the most useful and most used area of the site is the stats guru which is an absolutely huge database of statistics updated on a daily basis. This database is so good it is used by most of the best coaches employed in the world of Cricket today. The information for any player ever to be involved in the game of cricket and team can be obtained quickly and accurately.

Cricinfo also produces a Cricket magazine and it can be found online here too with archives of old issues. Wisden (owned by Paul Getty) which has a personal interest in Cricinfo has it's material on the site including it's famous almanack whcih is a hive of information. On top of this there is a game section where you can play Cricket top trumps or play Cricket fantasy league much in the same style as a lot of people play football fantasy league.

The audio section is just that, live cricket being played through your home PC. I tried it earlier this summer and found it a bit hit and miss as quite often I was kicked out and had to keep loading the audio again which became annoying after a while.

This particular feature needs improving.

There is a Cricinfo shop where you can buy a wide array of items ranging from caps, shirts, bats, autographs etc etc. I found the stuff a bit pricey to be honest so havn't bought anything yet.

Then theres a travel section where you be diverted to external websites to buy tickets for overseas games or hotel rooms etc etc. Again I havn't used this feature but it could be very useful if say your planning a trip to the Cricket World Cup next year.

The right hand side of the homepage is dedicated to the betting side of things. Bet 365 is the site Cricinfo uses and you can bet on outcomes of games, next man out, highest run scorer, next wicket taker etc etc. If your a gambler like me then this can be very inviting.

¬Conclusion¬

So in summing up if your interested in Cricket then check this site out. It is the only site to consider of it's type and my write up doesn't really do it justice. Anything to do with Cricket is there and in abundance.

and finally my team to face Australia in the first test in the Ashes later this week ;

Strauss/ Cook/ Pieterson/ Joyce/ Newman/ Flintoff/ Prior/ Lewis/ Mahmood/ Harmison/ Panesar/ Hoggard

I think Australia will regain the Ashes unfortunately. We will miss Jones and Trescothick a lot and Vaughan's captaincy too as we certainly had an edge in that capacity last summer.Site rating 10/10

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WormThatTurned2006