Durham v Nottinghamshire at Chester-le-Street, County Championship Division One

Last Wednesday, April the 11th, was the one year anniversary of Limited Overs.

I remember the day. I started up the twitter feed, the WordPress account, and the new gmail address, whilst sitting at my desk at the job I hated more than any other job ever.  It was nine days after India had won the World Cup, and a month after I had been in London and visited Lord’s.

It was a nothing day, as far as cricket was concerned. Australia and Bangladesh played a ho-hum ODI. Australia won by nine wickets with 144 balls to spare, thanks to a massive 185-not out from Shane Watson (it took less than two hours and he only needed 96 deliveries – maybe “ho-hum” was the wrong descriptor) as well as three wickets from Mitchell Johnson.

The IPL had started three days earlier, as had the County Championship, but neither tournament had really taken hold, as of yet.

Truth be told, I started the blog not out of a love for cricket, but for a desire to work on my writing. I wanted an excuse to write: everyday.  I had been inspired by my friend Tim who writes for 7amkickoff.com, who had started his Arsenal blog for the same reason over four years ago.

Over the last year, I have written 187 blog posts, which works out to a bit more than one post every other day. Not bad, considering the two or three lengthy hiatuses I have taken, and actually much better than I had hoped when I first started this project.

And I like to think that my writing has improved, here and there, bit by bit: I do feel a bit more confident in my words.

Most of all, this blog has allowed me to do two things: understand this wonderful game more than I ever thought possible, and truly explore all of the cricket blogs out there, all of which, for the most part, are just fantastic.

I read a lot of bicycling blogs, a lot of music blogs, a lot of general interest blogs, a lot of Arsenal blogs, a lot of travel blogs…and none of those genres compare in sheer quality of writing to cricket blogs.

Fact.

I look forward to another year.

Goal: 200 posts.

Oh, and I’d like to thank two people: Andrew McGlashan, who responded to an e-mail I had sent him when I first started up. A nice inspiration to keep me going during those first few weeks, a tricky time for any new blog – when one is most at the risk of “blog fade”.

And, most of all, Devanshu of Deepbackwardpoint.com – whose near constant support of Limited Overs has been invaluable.

Until next time.