Super Chess Grandmaster, Peter Svidler's love for Cricket

[Black Zero]

Peter Svidler is seven times Russian chess champion and runner up of World Cup 2015 (arguably the toughest chess tournament due to it's unforgiving format). Whenever his schedule permits, he also does commentary and is considered to be the best chess commentator.

Not many people know about his love for the game of Cricket. here is the background story how this love took roots.


While I was listening to him commenting couple of days back and was pleasantly surprised that he mentioned then on-going match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka

Time 3:32:00 300

as he supports England so he is not particularly pleased today:


As I follow both Chess and Cricket so I find it amusing.

 

[Swashbuckler]

When he was on ICC under the name Tendulkar everyone assumed it was Vishy, only that Vishy isn't a big cricket fan himself. You are spot on about Svidler, he lives and breathes cricket, especially the English team. He hates T20 and worships test cricket. Also he is an anglophile, prefers English to Russian, thinks Tolstoy is over rated and Russian literature is inferior to British literature, no wonder he adores the boring English cricket team !!! If I am not wrong I think he attended an Ashes test in 2015 and was supposed to be on Test Match Special with Jonathan Agnew but for some reason it couldn't go ahead. His obsession has drawn ire from from Bareev after the 2010 Chess Olympiad disappointment because Svidler apparently was spending more time watching cricket than training with his team members. Even during tournaments/commentary whenever he can catch a break he plays EA cricket.

 

[LastManstanding]

Does he know who Tendulkar is?

 

[Black Zero]

Does he know who Tendulkar is?

Yes
He also knows the names of current Zimbabwean players.
Not many cricket experts can claim this.

 

[TahirFan]

Roger Federer also loves cricket

Roger's mom is a South African from a cricket mad family many of them have played in South Africa's domestic league. Roger follows cricket passionately

When Roger was asked if he supported India he replied

"I support South Africa, and everybody knows that. The idea wasn’t to spark any fire and I’m sorry if it did that."