Top 10 Test Cricket Grounds In The World

1. Melbourne Cricket Ground

The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the largest stadium in Australia and holds the world record for the highest light towers at any sporting venue. The MCG is within walking distance of the city centre and is serviced by the Richmond railway station, Richmond and the Jolimont railway station, East Melbourne. It is part of the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct.

Internationally, the MCG is remembered as the centerpiece stadium of both the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games. The open-air stadium is also one of the world’s most famous cricket venues, with the well-attended Boxing Day Test match commencing on Boxing Day (26 December) each year. Throughout the winter, it serves as the home of Australian rules football, with at least one game (though usually more) held there each round. The stadium fills to capacity for the AFL Grand Final in late September.

The MCG, often referred to by locals as “The G”, has also hosted other major events, including International Rules between the Australian Football League and Gaelic Athletic Association, international Rugby union, State of Origin rugby league, FIFA World Cup qualifiers and International Friendly matches, serves as the finish line for the Melbourne Marathon and also major rock concerts.

A fully packed MCG could hold 100,000 people within the white lines.

Until the 1970s, more than 120,000 people sometimes crammed into the venue – the record crowd standing at around 130,000 for a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade in 1959, followed by 121,696 for the 1970 VFL Grand Final. Redevelopments have now limited the maximum seating capacity to just over 100,000. This makes it the tenth largest stadium in the world.

The MCG is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register and was included on the Australian National Heritage List on 26 December 2005. On 30 January 2009, the MCG was named as one of the seven wonders of the sporting world.It is referred to within Victoria as the “Spiritual Home of Australian Sport”.

2. The Oval Cricket Ground

The Brit Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval. In past years it was officially named as the ‘Fosters Oval’, ‘AMP Oval’, and, presently, as the ‘Brit Insurance Oval’ (or ‘Brit Oval’) due to commercial sponsorship deals.

The Oval is the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club, and also traditionally hosts the final Test match of each English summer season in late August or early September. The Oval was the first ground in the United Kingdom and second in the world (after the Melbourne Cricket Ground) to host Test cricket.

3. Sydney Cricket Ground

The Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) is a sports stadium in Sydney in Australia. It is used for Australian football, Test cricket, One Day International cricket, some rugby league and rugby union matches and is the home ground for the New South Wales Blues cricket team and the Sydney Swans of the Australian Football League. It is owned and operated by the SCG Trust that also manages the Sydney Football Stadium located next door.

4. Old Trafford Cricket Ground

Old Trafford Cricket Ground, usually referred to as Old Trafford, is a cricket ground situated on Talbot Road in Old Trafford. It has been the home of Lancashire County Cricket Club since its foundation in 1864, having been the ground of Manchester Cricket Club from 1857. International Test matches have been played there since 1884.

5. Lord’s Cricket Ground

Lord’s Cricket Ground (generally known as Lord’s) is a cricket venue in St John’s Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the European Cricket Council (ECC) and, until August 2005, the International Cricket Council (ICC). Lord’s is widely referred to as the “home of cricket” and is home to the world’s oldest sporting museum.

Lord’s today is not on its original site, being the third of three grounds that Lord established between 1787 and 1814. His first ground, now referred to as Lord’s Old Ground, was where Dorset Square now stands. His second ground, Lord’s Middle Ground, was used from 1811 to 1813 before being abandoned to make way for the construction through its outfield of the Regent’s Canal. The present Lord’s ground is about 250 yards (230 m) north-west of the site of the Middle Ground. A major redevelopment has been proposed for Lord’s which would increase capacity by another 10,000 as well as adding apartments and an ice rink.

6. Adelaide Oval

Adelaide Oval is a sports ground in Adelaide, South Australia. It is located in the parklands between the city centre and North Adelaide and has a history which dates back to the 1870s. It is considered to be one of the most picturesque Test cricket grounds in Australia, if not the world. The oval is managed by the South Australian Cricket Association (SACA), and the long-serving curator Les Burdett retired in 2010. The oval currently has a seating capacity of approximately 32,000–34,000 spectators; the maximum crowd at a cricket game was 50,962 (during the Bodyline test 1932) and the maximum crowd was 62,543 (at the 1965 SANFL Grand Final between Port Adelaide and Sturt).

7. Sahara Park Newlands

Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town is a South African cricket ground. It’s the home of the Cape Cobras, who play in the SuperSport Series, MTN Domestic Championship and Standard Bank Pro20 competitions. It is also a venue for Test matches. Newlands is regarded as one of the most beautiful cricket grounds in the world, being overlooked by Table Mountain and Devil’s Peak. It is close to Newlands Stadium, which is a rugby union and football venue.

The ground hosted its first Test match in March 1889 when England defeated South Africa by an innings and 202 runs. As of June, 2006, there have been 40 Test matches played at the ground of which South Africa has won 13, their opponents 19 and 8 which ended in a draw. The last team besides Australia to beat South Africa there was New Zealand, in 1961.

The first One Day International played at the ground was in December 1992 when South Africa beat India by 6 wickets. As of June, 2006, there have been 28 One-day Internationals played at the ground including five in the 2003 Cricket World Cup. South Africa has won 19 of its games there, and the opposition 3 (the West Indies being the most recent opposition victor in 2002).

Over the past five years numerous changes have been made to the ground. This has slightly taken away from its former splendor. Large portions of the grass embankments have been replaced by pavilions increasing the seating capacity to 25,000.

Newlands is one of the few cricket grounds in South Africa that tends to favour spinners. Most grounds tend to favour pacemen or batsmen, but the Western Cape has had a history of having very good spinners, a recent example being Paul Adams.

8. Queen’s Park Oval

Queen’s Park Oval, in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, is currently the largest capacity cricket ground in the West Indies and has hosted more Test matches than any other ground in the Caribbean. It also hosted a number of matches in the 2007 Cricket World Cup. It is privately owned by the Queen’s Park Cricket Club and has seating for about 25,000. The Trinidad and Tobago cricket team play most of their home matches at the ground. The cricket field has also been used to host several domestic and international football matches.

In February 2010 American Singer-songwriter Beyonce Knowles was supposed to be performing at the Oval to a sold out show, however due to phenomenal demand for tickets the venue was changed to the Queen’s Park Savannah.

Besides the main cricket stadium, the facility includes a Gym, indoor and outdoor cricket practice nets, two squash courts and two outdoor tennis courts.

The ground is considered one of the most picturiques venues in the world of cricket, featuring the view Trinidad’s Northern Range.

9. Eden Gardens

Eden Gardens (Bengali: ইডেন গার্ডেন্স) is a cricket ground in Kolkata, India. It is the home of the Bengal cricket team and the Indian Premier League’s Kolkata Knight Riders, as well as being a Test and One Day International ground. It is the largest cricket stadium in India considering seating capacity.

10. Feroz Shah Kotla

The Feroz Shah Kotla (Hindi: फ़िरोज़ शाह कोटला, Punjabi: ਫ਼ਿਰੋਜ਼ ਸ਼ਾਹ ਕੋਟਲਾ, Urdu: فروز شاہ کوٹلا) or Kotla (Hindi: कोटला, Punjabi: ਕੋਟਲਾ, Urdu: کوٹلا) was originally a fortress built by Sultan Ferozshah Tughlaq to house his version of Delhi city called Ferozabad. A pristine polished sandstone pillar from the 3rd century B.C. rises from the palace’s crumbling remains, one of many pillars left by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka; it was moved from Ambala, Punjab and re-erected in its current location in 1356.

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Top Historical Places in India

India is 7th largest country located in south asia and 2nd largest country by population. India is consisting of 29 states and four major religions Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. This post contains Historical Places of India.

Taj Mahal

Pushkar Lake
jodhpur jaswant
Jama Masjid Delhi
Jaipur Amber Fort
India Gate
India Gadi Sagar Temple
Fatehpur Sikri
Delhi Humayun Tomb

Science's Top 10 Most Beautiful Physics Experiments

1. Double-slit electron diffraction

The French physicist Louis de Broglie proposed in 1924 that electrons and other discrete bits of matter, which until then had been conceived only as material particles, also have wave properties such as wavelength and frequency. Later (1927) the wave nature of electrons was experimentally established by C.J. Davisson and L.H. Germer in New York and by G.P. Thomson in Aberdeen, Scot.

To explain the idea, to others and themselves, physicists often used a thought experiment, in which Young's double-slit demonstration is repeated with a beam of electrons instead of light. Obeying the laws of quantum mechanics, the stream of particles would split in two, and the smaller streams would interfere with each other, leaving the same kind of light- and dark-striped pattern as was cast by light. Particles would act like waves. According to an accompanying article in Physics World, by the magazine's editor, Peter Rodgers, it wasn't until 1961 that someone (Claus Jönsson of Tübingen) carried out the experiment in the real world.

2. Galileo's experiment on falling objects

In the late 1500's, everyone knew that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones. After all, Aristotle had said so. That an ancient Greek scholar still held such sway was a sign of how far science had declined during the dark ages.

Galileo Galilei, who held a chair in mathematics at the University of Pisa, was impudent enough to question the common knowledge. The story has become part of the folklore of science: he is reputed to have dropped two different weights from the town's Leaning Tower showing that they landed at the same time. His challenges to Aristotle may have cost Galileo his job, but he had demonstrated the importance of taking nature, not human authority, as the final arbiter in matters of science.
3. Millikan's oil-drop experiment

Oil-drop experiment was the first direct and compelling measurement of the electric charge of a single electron. It was performed originally in 1909 by the American physicist Robert A. Millikan. Using a perfume atomizer, he sprayed tiny drops of oil into a transparent chamber. At the top and bottom were metal plates hooked to a battery, making one positive (red in animation) and the other negative (blue in animation). Since each droplet picked up a slight charge of static electricity as it traveled through the air, the speed of its motion could be controlled by altering the voltage on the plates. When the space between the metal plates is ionized by radiation (e.g., X rays), electrons from the air attach themselves to oil droplets, causing them to acquire a negative charge. Millikan observed one drop after another, varying the voltage and noting the effect. After many repetitions he concluded that charge could only assume certain fixed values. The smallest of these portions was none other than the charge of a single electron.
4. Newton's decomposition of sunlight with a prism

Isaac Newton was born the year Galileo died. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1665, then holed up at home for a couple of years waiting out the plague. He had no trouble keeping himself occupied.

The common wisdom held that white light is the purest form (Aristotle again) and that colored light must therefore have been altered somehow. To test this hypothesis, Newton shined a beam of sunlight through a glass prism and showed that it decomposed into a spectrum cast on the wall. People already knew about rainbows, of course, but they were considered to be little more than pretty aberrations. Actually, Newton concluded, it was these colors — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet and the gradations in between — that were fundamental. What seemed simple on the surface, a beam of white light, was, if one looked deeper, beautifully complex.

5. Young's light-interference experiment

Newton wasn't always right. Through various arguments, he had moved the scientific mainstream toward the conviction that light consists exclusively of particles rather than waves. In 1803, Thomas Young, an English physician and physicist, put the idea to a test. He cut a hole in a window shutter, covered it with a thick piece of paper punctured with a tiny pinhole and used a mirror to divert the thin beam that came shining through. Then he took "a slip of a card, about one-thirtieth of an inch in breadth" and held it edgewise in the path of the beam, dividing it in two. The result was a shadow of alternating light and dark bands — a phenomenon that could be explained if the two beams were interacting like waves. Bright bands appeared where two crests overlapped, reinforcing each other; dark bands marked where a crest lined up with a trough, neutralizing each other.

The demonstration was often repeated over the years using a card with two holes to divide the beam. These so-called double-slit experiments became the standard for determining wavelike motion — a fact that was to become especially important a century later when quantum theory began.

6. Cavendish's torsion-bar experiment

The experiment was performed in 1797–98 by the English scientist Henry Cavendish. He followed a method prescribed and used apparatus built by his countryman, the geologist John Michell, who had died in 1793. The apparatus employed was a torsion balance, essentially a stretched wire supporting spherical weights. Attraction between pairs of weights caused the wire to twist slightly, which thus allowed the first calculation of the value of the gravitational constant G. The experiment was popularly known as weighing the Earth because determination of G permitted calculation of the Earth's mass.

7. Eratosthenes' measurement of the Earth's circumference

At Syene (now Aswan), some 800 km (500 miles) southeast of Alexandria in Egypt, the Sun's rays fall vertically at noon at the summer solstice. Eratosthenes, who was born in c. 276 BC, noted that at Alexandria, at the same date and time, sunlight fell at an angle of about 7° from the vertical. He correctly assumed the Sun's distance to be very great; its rays therefore are practically parallel when they reach the Earth. Given estimates of the distance between the two cities, he was able to calculate the circumference of the Earth. The exact length of the units (stadia) he used is doubtful, and the accuracy of his result is therefore uncertain; it may have varied by 0.5 to 17 percent from the value accepted by modern astronomers.
8. Galileo's experiments with rolling balls down inclined planes

Galileo continued to refine his ideas about objects in motion. He took a board 12 cubits long and half a cubit wide (about 20 feet by 10 inches) and cut a groove, as straight and smooth as possible, down the center. He inclined the plane and rolled brass balls down it, timing their descent with a water clock — a large vessel that emptied through a thin tube into a glass. After each run he would weigh the water that had flowed out — his measurement of elapsed time — and compare it with the distance the ball had traveled.

Aristotle would have predicted that the velocity of a rolling ball was constant: double its time in transit and you would double the distance it traversed. Galileo was able to show that the distance is actually proportional to the square of the time: Double it and the ball would go four times as far. The reason is that it is being constantly accelerated by gravity.

9. Rutherford's discovery of the nucleus

When Ernest Rutherford was experimenting with radioactivity at the University of Manchester in 1911, atoms were generally believed to consist of large mushy blobs of positive electrical charge with electrons embedded inside — the "plum pudding" model. But when he and his assistants fired tiny positively charged projectiles, called alpha particles, at a thin foil of gold, they were surprised that a tiny percentage of them came bouncing back. It was as though bullets had ricocheted off Jell-O. Rutherford calculated that actually atoms were not so mushy after all. Most of the mass must be concentrated in a tiny core, now called the nucleus, with the electrons hovering around it. With amendments from quantum theory, this image of the atom persists today.

10. Foucault's pendulum

Last year when scientists mounted a pendulum above the South Pole and watched it swing, they were replicating a celebrated demonstration performed in Paris in 1851. Using a steel wire 220 feet long, the French scientist Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault suspended a 62-pound iron ball from the dome of the Panthéon and set it in motion, rocking back and forth. To mark its progress he attached a stylus to the ball and placed a ring of damp sand on the floor below.

The audience watched in awe as the pendulum inexplicably appeared to rotate, leaving a slightly different trace with each swing. Actually it was the floor of the Panthéon that was slowly moving, and Foucault had shown, more convincingly than ever, that the earth revolves on its axis. At the latitude of Paris, the pendulum's path would complete a full clockwise rotation every 30 hours; on the Southern Hemisphere it would rotate counterclockwise, and on the Equator it wouldn't revolve at all. At the South Pole, as the modern-day scientists confirmed, the period of rotation is 24 hours.

Top 10 Best MotoGP Riders

1. Valentino Rossi

Who could ever match the skills of Valentino Rossi being the best motorcycle racer of all time? There is no other driver that could ever make his record of winning over nine world championships ever since riding in the 125cc group with an Aprilia RS125 in 1997 and up until 2009, winning his ninth title using the Yamaha YZR-M1 for Fiat Yamaha.

2. Jorge Lorenzo

Currently a rider for the Yamaha Factory Team, Jorge Lorenzo Guerrero has achieved his fulfillment of being a motorcycle racer when he became the 250cc World Champion in 2006 and 2007 with the Aprilia RSW 250, also being the MotoGP World Champion in 2010 thanks to the Yamaha YZR-M1.

3. Dani Pedrosa

Even though he was too small for his size, only standing at 5 feet, 2 inches tall, and weighing only 112.4 lbs, Daniel “Dani” Pedrosa Ramal, who was born in September 29, 1985, is a world champion in the 250cc Grands Prix, even being the youngest to win the prestigious title. He is more than meets the eye, even being world champion for two consecutive years in 2004 and 2005, while driving his Honda RSW250.

4. Casey Stoner

Being named as Australian of the Year can be amazing, especially if you are as young as you can be. Casey Stoner, who was born in 1985, had done so much in winning the MotoGP World Champion in 2007 and his second world championship in 2011, under Ducati Corse and Repsol Honda, respectively. His Ducati GP7 and the Honda RC212V had done wonders for him.

5. Michael Doohan

Michael “Mick” Doohan is a professional Australian racer that has been a Grand Prix motorcycle road racing World Champion taking the first rank for five consecutive years from 1994 to 1998, driving a 500cc NSR500 under team Repsol Honda.

6. Andrea Dovizioso

Italians are known to have the passion for speed, which makes sense why Andrea Dovizioso is also in the pursuit of winning in the MotoGP. He started the career in 15 September 2007 when he mentioned that he would be stepping up for the higher class, including his old team. He has been consistent in placing fourth and fifth in most races, which made him a credible racer.

7. Ben Spies

With a unique riding style, even noticed with the elbows protruding outward, Ben Spies, who is also known as “Elbowz”, is a racer that began his career in professional motorcycling in the dawn of the new millennium. He was burning in the AMA Superbike series where he drove his Suzuki GSXR-1000 in winning the race in 2006, kept his title twice in 2007, once in 2008, and kept it again in World Superbike in 2009.

8. Nicky Hayden

The Kentucky Kid Nicky Hayden started his MotoGP career in 2003, racing for the Honda-HRC with his Honda RC211V, which gave him the world championship in 2006. This success was rooted back with the family that has been in motorsports, even having the same racing number, 69, as his father had in the old days.

9. Marco Simoncelli

It could be sad that he just passed away on 23 October because of the accident in the Malaysian Grand Prix on the Sepang International Circuit. However, Marco Simoncelli has been hailed as one of the best in his group who competed in the Road Racing World Championship for 10 years from 2002 until the moment he left. One of his most noted feats is when he won first place under 250cc with the Gilera RSA 250 while racing for Metis Gilera in 2008.

10. Randy de Puniet

When de Puniet started his career with the Honda RS125R, he became the French champion in 1998, even before he began his journey in MotoGP in 2006. In 2001, he has moved a level higher in the 250cc World Championship with the Aprilia RSV250 until he ended his career season finishing eighth on his fifth year with the Aprilia. He later expanded his vision for the MotoGP where he joined the Kawasaki Racing Team in 2006, Team LCR in 2008, and will continue his race with Pramac Racing riding the Ducati Desmosedici GP11.

Top 10 Best WWE Wrestlers in 2011

1. Edge

The Master Manipulator, the Ultimate Opportunist, the Rated-R Superstar and 11 time World Champion has been so far the most successful wrestler of 2011. and why is that because he has defended his world title successfully at Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber and most importantly on the grandest stage of them all, The Wrestlemania.

2. Alberto Del Rio

This man has reached to the top in no time. Making his debut in the mid 2010, the essence of excellence quickly made himself as the prime contender for the World Heavyweight Championship. And in 2011 he gathered great success after he won the biggest Royal Rumble match in the history and main evented Wrestlemania.

3. The Miz

He is the Miz… and he is awesome. And why not because he successfully defended the WWE championship against dangerous Randy Orton at Royal Rumble and against John Cena at Wrestlemania.

4. Randy Orton

The viper Randy Orton without a doubt is the most dangerous competitor present in the WWE. This 8 pack predator has taken out the whole member of Nexus single handedly and leveled CM punk with a thunderous RKO at the big stage , Wrestlemania.

5. Wade Barrett

The winner of the NXT season 1, the founder of the NEXUS and the leader of the CORRE. Wade Barrett met with great success this year winning the Intercontinental title and taking on the largest athlete in the world, The Big Show.

6. John Cena

He may have lost the Royal Rumble match, but he still manages to make his way to the main event at Wrestlemania after he outlasted 5 man in the unforgiving steel of Elimination Chamber. He also stood toe to toe against the people’s champ The Rock.

7. John Morrison

Undoubtedly the most gifted athlete in WWE. John Morrison has always been at the spot light for his high flying moves. He showed great athleticism in Royal Rumble, fought in the cage of Elimination Chamber like a Spider Man and booked his rightful place at Wrestlemania with his spinning action maneuvers.

8. CM Punk

The leader of the Straight-edge Society has played his cards very well. He successfully took over the leadership of the powerful Nexus and showed great resilience in Royal Rumble match and Elimination Chamber. And in the last taking on the WWE Viper Randy Orton and incapacitating him weeks after weeks.

9. Sheamus

The Irish born hard hitting heavyweight and 2 time WWE champion had a pretty impressive year so far. He captured the United States title and delivered some heavy blows to Daniel Bryan.

10. Dolph Ziggler

With the help of his valet Vickie Guerrero Doplh Ziggler captured the World Heavyweight Championship and also found his place at Wrestlemania.