Death of a Blogger

It was sad indeed to find out that Australian journalist Amy Sanders, who blogged on Amy S Talks Cricket, is no more. Her friend Kate has put up a moving eulogy on the site, and several other members of the cricket blogging community have similarly expressed their condolences.

Coincidentally, I first chanced upon her blog last March, a little while after having put up this piece on the predicament of the female cricket fan. I must admit I was not the most regular visitor to her site, mainly because I've been drowned in the surfeit of cricket blogs out there.(This is partly the reason I haven't added to the blogroll on the right, despite reading a great many. I simply prefer to use the links on other blogs.) Nevertheless, in her posts I saw a kindred spirit, one who professed unconditional and unabashed support for a team from overseas. Her South African loyalties and resentment of the Aussies added a compelling edge to the blog.

Her posts were certainly witty and insightful, but I was completely amazed by the effort and enthusiasm which went into the blog. Even if numbers may not mean much in the overall scheme of things, the fact that her output has totalled six hundred posts in around four months tells a story of its own. I can only dream of summoning up such levels of passion towards blogging. More than a few people must have wondered about the absence of her posts during the ashes series, and the reason has been a saddening one for the blogging community.

Amy's demise had me reflecting on the reasons why we blog. While I could go on about the encouragement and feeling of solidarity we get from being part of a wider community (as described here by Samir Chopra), the one common thread that runs through the lot of us is the love for the game. A random blog-crawl on any given day does much to reaffirm one's faith in the future of cricket following.

Keep on blogging in the free world, as Neil Young might say. I know I've resolved to, and I have a feeling Amy would have agreed.