Cricket: Random Discussion Thread

[Ortho]

Bowl 'em out, Pakistan!

The summer's cricket has been almost totally without interest. Need something to happen.

[Badminton]

Originally Posted by exec771

Btw how many dedicated cricket channels you guys have?

We get 7 sports channels on tv out of which 3 are dedicated cricket channels. It's insane how obssesed the country is with a single game.

Originally Posted by EmpireUK

0. There's usually a match on every day at this time of year but it's just on any of the soprts channels. We don't even have a channel dedicated to football though.

Football just dominates over here, several teams have their own channel, Cricket is much smaller and probably 3rd-5th in popularity, although thanks to sky, there is a lot of decent coverage.

Horse Racing/ Rugby/ Motorsport being more popular

Originally Posted by TeamTrousers

Broad charged


About time this happened, let's hope they actually ban him; he really is a total dick, and a ban will focus his mind much more sharply fining him his match fee. Fines are useless when it's a guy who already earns a comfortable 6-figure sum a year. As useful as he is with the ball, he acts like a complete bell-end far too often when things don't go his way, and then he resembles nothing more than a spoilt five-year-old kid.

Even though a ban would mean his absence from the Oval Test, which I shall be attending, I still think it's best to actually ban him. A suspended sentence, which the match referees hand out far too often, isn't really enough either; he actually has to miss a game to realise that his behaviour falls far below the standard expected far too often. We don't want cricket to become like football, thanks — I've already been turned off watching football by boredom and the lack of respect for others exhibited by the so-called star players, and I don't want to end up feeling the same way about cricket.

Well said.

I too might be at the Oval

I'm also surprised at how good of a commentator/ pundit Shane Warne is, most of the sky team is good, Ian Botham running on reputation however.

[EmpireUK]

Originally Posted by Badminton

Football just dominates over here, several teams have their own channel, Cricket is much smaller and probably 3rd-5th in popularity, although thanks to sky, there is a lot of decent coverage.

Horse Racing/ Rugby/ Motorsport being more popular

I'd say cricket is a pretty firm 2nd. It's very rare for England not to sell out. Rugby Union Internationals get big crowds but both codes are somewhat limited to just 1/2 the country.

[CopTHIS]

Yeah, totally agree about Broad. He acts like such a spoilt brat he should have gotten a one match ban. He also keep appealing without looking at the umpire, despite being told not to do it on more than one occasion. Saying that, I don't like the ICC trying to clamp down on sledging etc so don't want bans dished out lightly for guys getting a bit frisky. It's just that Broad is plain annoying and it doesn't even make for good TV. If he was just giving verbals to a batsman who was giving it back then I'd support him.

[CopTHIS]

Originally Posted by EmpireUK

I'd say cricket is a pretty firm 2nd. It's very rare for England not to sell out. Rugby Union Internationals get big crowds but both codes are somewhat limited to just 1/2 the country.

I'd put it at #2 also but all sports are so far behind football it's insane. Can you imagine England winning the footbal world cup after seeing the reaction to the rugby wc win and the 2005 ashes?

[EmpireUK]

Originally Posted by CopTHIS

Yeah, totally agree about Broad. He acts like such a spoilt brat he should have gotten a one match ban. He also keep appealing without looking at the umpire, despite being told not to do it on more than one occasion. Saying that, I don't like the ICC trying to clamp down on sledging etc so don't want bans dished out lightly for guys getting a bit frisky. It's just that Broad is plain annoying and it doesn't even make for good TV. If he was just giving verbals to a batsman who was giving it back then I'd support him.

What makes it worse is that his dad is a ICC match official. You'd think he of all people would be able to make sure he stops.

[CopTHIS]

Originally Posted by EmpireUK

What makes it worse is that his dad is a ICC match official. You'd think he of all people would be able to make sure he stops.

Yeah. This is also another example of why I like the best players for the teams I follow to be a bit ugly. Maybe Broad wouldn't be such a prat if he didn't have chicks all over him all the time and sponsors trying to push cash into his pockets.

[Badminton]

Originally Posted by TeamTrousers

Don't know what people feel the solution for the Sheffield Shield might be ashley, not too sure of the setup you have over there, but I think they really need to slash the number of English counties. There are simply too many spaces in too many teams, allowing relatively mediocre players to play first class cricket.

Here's how I would promote excellence in performance......


If there were, say, ten counties, or regions, there would be a greater competition for places in the first class game, which would lead to a higher standard of cricket, which would be more watchable. Also because of less counties there would not need to be so much central funding to subsidise the counties just to enable them to stay afloat. Many of the counties aren't really financially viable organisations any more, and would go under anyway without the money from the ECB which it gets from Sky for broadcasting England matches.

You could then go back to a single division championship, with home and away fixtures against nine other teams, for an 18 game season. Also scrap stupid batting and bowling points, which don't achieve anything. Getting points for achieving arbitrary scores is so dependent on the pitch and the conditions, for instance, almost every team batting at Taunton always gets all the batting points, because it's usually good weather and the pitch is as flat as a pancake.

We should also scrap the stupid 40 over competition, whatever it's called this season, and replace it with the standard 50 over format.

Also, schedule the competitions so you play the 4 day cricket season, preferably when the weather is likely to be at its best, and get used to excelling at that, then have the hit and giggle stuff in separate blocks at the beginning and end of the season; start with the 50 over competition in late April/early May, get that out the way, and finish with the T20 in late August and early September. Too often now there is a 4-day game, then a trip up the motorway to a 1-dayer the next day, then back to 4-day and so on. How on earth are players supposed to get into the right frame of mind for a first class game when they're playing slog-and-run the day before, or vice versa?

I also think the T20 competition has grown to too many games, and also afaik they are always in the same geographical groups, so for instance, Kent never play Durham, or Essex never play Yorkshire. With ten teams, you draw two random groups of five, round robin home and away, top team in each group goes straight to a final.


They also need to start ignoring the idiotic Kolpak ruling and enforce a minimum number of English players in the team, preferably ten out of each starting XI, but definitely at least nine.

Also they need to get cricket back into schools, but I haven't yet got a plan for funding that though

Great post, not sure how i missed this.

IIRC they reduced the 50over game to 40overs on the hopes of a shorter game generating more interest for the audience. Although to be fair, im not sure how many people actually go to watch cricket, or go to get smashed.

T20 appears to have confused the ECB, although 20 over cricket is nothing new, at a professional level it really caught on, and the ECB must've thought "we've cracked it"! now it's a real headache as their really not sure what to do with it.

I disagree with you on the Kolpak rule, a foreign cricketer at least needs a chance of making a living.

I only left School recently (sort of, forget how fast time flies) anyway, unless you're at Boarding School or a traditional grammar school, aside from 2 games of kwik-cricket a term, you just wont play decent cricket in school.
Theres not enough interest these days, and everyone will claim to play Rugby in the hopes of impressing a girl.
Health and safety is also ****ing pathetic, and not worth the hassle for teachers (on using proper equipment).

Originally Posted by ashley12

barring a shane warne 99 game cheat, we lose this almost all the time. Will post my thoughts on domestic cricket when i get home, its a solid topic imo.

Also, slowly beginning to love steve smith

....

[Badminton]

Originally Posted by EmpireUK

I'd say cricket is a pretty firm 2nd. It's very rare for England not to sell out. Rugby Union Internationals get big crowds but both codes are somewhat limited to just 1/2 the country.

Was talking about Cricket as a whole, not international games

[CopTHIS]

Originally Posted by Badminton

Was talking about Cricket as a whole, not international games

I guess it depends how you judge it but cricket is largely based on international matches, whereas football and rugby are not (well football def not and rugby less so). England may play 40 days or thereabouts of international cricket in a summer, compared to something like 9 x 2 hours in rugby.

[Badminton]

Ok Cricket probably edges Rugby, but it's behind Horse Racing, not sure about motorsport.

[ashley12]

Originally Posted by Badminton

I'm also surprised at how good of a commentator/ pundit Shane Warne is, most of the sky team is good, Ian Botham running on reputation however.

Shane Warne is probably the one sportsperson in the world I would most like to have half a dozen beers with. The bloke swings from complete legend, to complete imbicile at times, and his entire life-story is/would/does make a fascinating read. From the hookers to the bribery with Salim Malik, the ciggie during a test, what an absolute legend. Childhood hero growing up along with Mark Waugh, and shaking his hand and getting his autograph when I was 11 at a local Test was probably my favourite sportsperson meeting of all time.

He does a lot of work for channel 9 over here during Test Match coverage. He is a bit more clued to the modern generation then the older commentators, such as Lawry, Chappell, Greig and Benaud, a bit more appealing then O'Donnell and Taylor, and just smarter then the more recent retirees doing 9 commentary, such as Slater and Healy. Only Foxtels Brenden Julien IMO is as good.

About an in depth look at the local Australian game, anyway, Im sick and stuck at home so here goes...

Australia's main domestic scene is mainly based around the 6 states (New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania). There was a small flirting with including the Australian Captial Territory (ACT) but that ended after a few years in the domestic 50 over comp.

These states play in 3 local competitions, the Sheffield Shield, which is a double round robin of 4 day games, with a 5 day final. Each state is generally allowed one player per game from overseas to play (In WA, my state, recent overseas players for the 4-day comp include Murray Goodwin and Sean Ervine, both Zimbabwean internationals) In a nutshell, the tournament is great in terms of developing local players for the Test game. However, because of the greater focus on the shorter versions of the game, this tournament is getting overlooked sadly. Talks of reducing the games are always around, and its a shame, because the long term effects of having this competitions is far outweighed by the costs (Australia is a big country) and the lack of social interest. I really dont want this to happen because of the history of the Sheffield Shield, and I already to an extent hate the commercialism attached to it (The competition went a number of years around 8 years ago of being called the Pura Milk Cup, which pissed of the traditionals, since then, its reverted back to the Shield, but Weet-Bix sponsorships and player names and numbers have adorned the creams as far as I have seen...

The next competition that came around in the 70's was obviously the limited overs comp. When I started paying attention properly, around 97 or so when I was 9ish, it was a single round robin competition, with a knockout for the top 4. It expanded around 2000 to a double round robin with a final between 1 and 2. The problem with this competition as well as the Shield, is that it is mixed together during the season. While I guess this saves costs (Queensland travel to WA for a 4 day game Sun-Wed and a Friday night D/N one day match) it obviously effects the players having to adjust to the varying competitions. This competition is also losing relevance to the sporting public for the same reasons that 50 over cricket is losing relevance, that being the 20/20 comp.

The Big Bash is has been running for around 5 years now and has expanded from 2 pools of 3, one home game each and a final, to a single round robin with finals series of two games (2 v 3 for the right to play 1). Many discussions have been had to expand the competition, but I think it is okay for now. Its run in one block for around 5 weeks or so. Its good in general, and some big stars come over to play it like a mini IPL, such as Vettori for Qld, Chris Gayle for WA and Pollard for SA.

My main issue isnt the structure of the competitions in Australia. The unfortunate fact is, with the growing global nature of sport, and the fact that I have access to all these 20/20 games in the IPL, English 20/20 and the various World 20's that have been held in recent times, is that domestic sport is fast becoming irrelevant. As such, the top dogs are going to over-hype the Big Bash (The only non-top level cricket that gets any crowds or real media attention) This is going to kill the domestic game the same way the 50-over comp nearly killed the Shield for a while...

How to combat this, well, I dont really know. I think provided that Cricket Australia is keeping money aside to run the Shield at a loss thats okay. But unfortuantely, I can see them reducing the competition which would suck balls. They are going to overload, and kill as a novelty 20/20, and after that Im not sure exactly where cricket is going to go in some of the smaller cricketing areas such as New Zealand and Australia, where the sporting market is so over-satured with somewhat bandwagon fans jumping from one train to the next. Its was footy for a while when the Sydney Swans and Brisbane teams did well, soccer/football when we made the last 16 of the World Cup and when my team signed Robbie Fowler, our attendence for the first game, usually an average of 9k, was 16k. Aussies generally love a bandwagon, and its going to be tought to see how we can jump back on cricket.

The Ashes will certainly help. It will get big crowds for almost all the matches, but its just such a shame the next time when say, New Zealand and Bangladesh tour we just arent going to really give a ****...

[Badminton]

Thanks,

So you don't have league tables?
It's knock-out format only, or you also have a running league?

Love the "big bash" naming, only Aus could do that.

[ashley12]

Sheffield Shield is a double round robin league (10 matches per team) 4 day comp. The final is contested by the top 2 teams with the number 1 team being at home over 5 days like a Test. However, if the match ends in a draw, the 1 team wins, so the home team sets up a road of a pitch, makes 700 and wins the Shield.

50 over Cup (Ford Ranger Cup) is the same, with the top two teams having a final. The match itself is more exciting for obvious reasons in that a lot less draws happen in the 50 over comp then the 4 day games...

The KFC Big Bash (lol sponsorships) is a single round robin. So Leagues and finals are run in all competitions, which seems the be the Australian way, a league then a finals series. It happens in out footy, rugby league and union, and the soccer/football. Its always more important to win the Grand Final then the league before the finals..

[CopTHIS]

Nice post about Aussie cricket - but I saw you mentioned commentators without mentioning Ian Smith, he's a legend! FWIW two of the smartest commentors/experts imo are Dermot Reeve (not seen since getting banned or something for being stoned on air, damn shame) and Simon Hughes.