England Cricket 2021

[Spymaster]

Clearly out; the catch was completed before the contact with DBD.

That doesn’t matter though. If the fielder completes a catch and steps over the rope it’s a 6, isn’t it. The question is whether 2 fielders in contact is the same as one. I don’t reckon there’s a law for it but sensibly, I think it should be out. The catcher’s done the job and not gone over.

 

[kabbes]

That doesn’t matter though. If the fielder completes a catch and steps over the rope it’s a 6, isn’t it. The question is whether 2 fielders in contact is the same as one. I don’t reckon there’s a law for it but sensibly, I think it should be out. The catcher’s done the job and not gone over.

I guess there is a principle at work, though. If you say it’s okay for a person that is over the rope to be touching the one catching the ball then you leave open the possibility of some kind of coordinated action involving somebody over the rope assisting a catcher that is inside the rope. Probably easier just to say that two people in contact effectively become one body.

 

[brogdale]

That doesn’t matter though. If the fielder completes a catch and steps over the rope it’s a 6, isn’t it. The question is whether 2 fielders in contact is the same as one. I don’t reckon there’s a law for it but sensibly, I think it should be out. The catcher’s done the job and not gone over.

Yeah, like you, I don't know the actual rules applying in this (if any) but I really can't see any logic to the notion that one player touching/outside the boundary coming into contact with another whilst in the act of catching confers any advantage?

 

[kabbes]

It’s hard to discuss it without the need for hypothetical examples that can all be criticised for being unrealistic. But “unrealistic” things do occasionally happen and people can get creative at finding advantages. The hypotheticals we could come up with might never happen but that didn’t mean someone won’t come up with something else to do instead. And the hypotheticals can help you understand what principles you are and are not willing to endorse.

For example, how about a fielder outside the rope lifting one inside so that he can catch a ball and then the catcher dropping back inside the rope? If it’s okay in general to be in contact with somebody outside the rope, why would that be not okay?

 

[brogdale]

It’s hard to discuss it without the need for hypothetical examples that can all be criticised for being unrealistic. But “unrealistic” things do occasionally happen and people can get creative at finding advantages. The hypotheticals we could come up with might never happen but that didn’t mean someone won’t come up with something else to do instead. And the hypotheticals can help you understand what principles you are and are not willing to endorse.

For example, how about a fielder outside the rope lifting one inside so that he can catch a ball and then the catcher dropping back inside the rope? If it’s okay in general to be in contact with somebody outside the rope, why would that be not okay?

Would be a potentially very entertaining addition to the white ball game!

 

[kabbes]

Would be a potentially very entertaining addition to the white ball game!

Maybe you’re right and we should be encouraging it instead of banning it! Maybe we could have a fielder offering themself as a kind of platform to extend the field, with another fielder clambering up them to catch a ball. The floor is lava! As long as you don’t touch the floor, you’re safe!

 

[brogdale]

Maybe you’re right and we should be encouraging it instead of banning it! Maybe we could have a fielder offering themself as a kind of platform to extend the field, with another fielder clambering up them to catch a ball. The floor is lava! As long as you don’t touch the floor, you’re safe!

After Jordan Cox's amazing 'assist'; no doubt we'll see a few more attempts at parrying the six back into the field of play.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

the radio commentary yesterday came up with law 19.5.1 -

 

[brogdale]

the radio commentary yesterday came up with law 19.5.1 -

View attachment 289237

That last point is very clear; they were clearly wrong not to give him out.

 

[brogdale]

Anyway...this is the catch of the night/season...

 

[strung out]

That last point is very clear; they were clearly wrong not to give him out.

Unless you deem the fielder sliding in to be attempting to assist in the fielding of the ball.

 

[brogdale]

Unless you deem the fielder sliding in to be attempting to assist in the fielding of the ball.

by very nearly breaking his tip/fib and knocking him off balance, like?

 

[strung out]

by very nearly breaking his tip/fib and knocking him off balance, like?

He was clearly trying to field the ball himself, therefore assisting in the fielding of the ball, regardless of how well/usefully he was doing that.

 

[brogdale]

He was clearly trying to field the ball himself, therefore assisting in the fielding of the ball, regardless of how well/usefully he was doing that.

Attempting (& then aborting) to field the ball is quite different to "assisting [another player] in the fielding of the ball", isn't it?

 

[kabbes]

Reminds me of the arguments about offside in football — “if you aren’t interfering with play, what are you doing on the pitch?”

 

[planetgeli]

He clearly wasn't trying to assist the catch. Should have been given out.

 

[GarveyLives]

India have forfeited so the series is technically a draw. Not sure that seems a more satisfactory outcome tbh.

I assumed that India would have forfeited the match but apparently there's some uncertainty about that.

Sets a dangerous precedent if a side claims not to be able to field a team and doesn't forfeit the match...

The whole thing is very dodgy. I don't think anyone seriously believes this bullshit about Covid. None of the pundits on Sky anyway. Virat's probably with his stylist now prepping his beard for the IPL.

£30m quid this costing the ECB apparently

And now ...

England accused of ‘making excuses’ after pulling out of Pakistan tour

meanwhile ...

'I'm going to Pakistan tomorrow': Chris Gayle lifts Pakistani fans' spirits

 

[a_chap]

And your point is...?

 

[RileyOBlimey]

There’s political capital to be grabbed from blowing up the England cricket team. The West Indies haven’t raped the subcontinent over the centuries and are not likely to be a target.

 

[planetgeli]

There’s political capital to be grabbed from blowing up the England cricket team. The West Indies haven’t raped the subcontinent over the centuries and are not likely to be a target.

That didn't quite work out for the Sri Lankans who got attacked in 2009 did it?

 

[Spymaster]

Catching balls without gloves.

INSANE!

 

[RileyOBlimey]

That didn't quite work out for the Sri Lankans who got attacked in 2009 did it?

Sri Lanka and West Indies are likely not perceived the same by the nutjobs.

Petcha get yer blood pressure meds at the ready…‘Batters’: Laws of cricket to be amended to use gender neutral terms

 

[RileyOBlimey]

A hilarious tantrum published in the Torygraph by the odious Heffer for you….

“No part of the history of the great game of cricket is any longer sacrosanct. In the interests of what the MCC calls reinforcing "cricket’s status as an inclusive game for all", the ancient term ‘batsman’ is to be replaced in the laws (of which MCC is supposedly ‘custodian’) by the revolting word ‘batter’.

It is not just that this noun is more usually associated with the stuff fish is fried in, or with which one makes Yorkshire pudding – or, worse, that the verb has associations with horrible people who beat their wives and children, driving them to refuges for their own protection. One wouldn’t expect MCC’s tin ear to pick that up. It is that women have happily played organised cricket since Victorian times and have, having embraced a game begun by men, accepted its terminology quite willingly, and without apparent harm.

If any woman felt upset about her gender being compromised or ignored (though I was under the impression that we were all supposed to be ‘fluid’ these days) then no one would object to the use of the specific noun ‘batswoman’ in women’s cricket. Oddly, in the theatre, the people we used to call ‘actresses’ are now often called ‘actors’, without being forced to undergo gender reassignment, and something similar can happily apply to cricket.

MCC has admitted women members for over 20 years and may well be keen to shed its alleged image of being populated entirely by elderly men huffing and puffing about the good old days. Well, such people have as much of a right to exist as anyone else; and MCC might seek to impose its new groupthink on them and indeed the rest of us, but it will be a struggle. There will be legions of cricket lovers of both genders through whose lips the abomination ‘batter’ will never pass so long as we live.

There is a more sinister point here. Just as MCC has lately prostituted itself by pretending, for purely financial reasons, that The Hundred is really cricket, it now seeks to show how in tune it is with the modern world by adopting this revolting word where a perfectly serviceable and universally understood one had long existed. This, too, we must imagine, is to keep its masters at the England and Wales Cricket Board happy, and because the MCC Committee is under the mistaken belief that this degree of ultra-woke grandstanding impresses people and entices them into cricket. That is rubbish: cricket has never prevented anyone from watching or playing it, and, I repeat, women have done so for well over a century and a half. Also, as if we needed a lesson in where the obsession with money takes cricket, we need simply recall the non-event of the Old Trafford Test. It is as if the game is becoming entirely unmanageable, and it increasingly gives the impression it is run by idiots.

Also, there has been much debate in MCC in recent months about the increasing autocracy of the clique that runs it, with a move to having only ‘approved’ people being able to be nominated for the committee. As an MCC member myself, I was not consulted – and nor were hardly any of the other 18,000 of us.

It just confirms that there is no pretence of democracy in the club, and that the views of the mass membership are of no account to those who run it in accordance with the bizarre, anti-traditionalist mindset of the ECB. It calls into question MCC’s right to act as steward of the laws, when it can arbitrarily alter them in this way.

All great sports are about traditions: destroy them and you destroy the game. Changing a word may be a small matter to those outside the game, but to those of us who love cricket it is a sign of something sinister and self-destructive. There will be toadying conformists who love what has happened, and doubtless commentators will be ordered never to utter the word ‘batsman’ again.

They will be vastly outnumbered by those who have had enough of bean-counters trifling with our sport in this way, for few cricket lovers enjoy seeing our game – and it really does belong to us all, a true definition of inclusivity – being treated with this measure of contempt.”

 

[kabbes]

That makes me want to call them batters even more

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

It's like he hasn't noticed that the word "actor" doesn't contain the word "man".

 

[paulhackett]

In fairness to him some of what he says is correct. “MCC has lately prostituted itself by pretending, for purely financial reasons, that..” rings true. As does “the increasing autocracy of the clique that runs it, with a move to having only ‘approved’ people being able to be nominated for the committee.” although it’s a surprise if he’s only just noticed as MCC members have been aware of this for years. There's even a book about it by Charles Sale and Matthew Engel ffs.

On the game as a whole “it increasingly gives the impression it is run by idiots.” Atherton said something about the ICC being nothing more than an events company this week.

His main point about batters is utter bollocks. The game has changed. Tradition is still there. It’s just he doesn’t like this change. He’s an idiot.

 

[RileyOBlimey]

Moeen calls it a day for tests: England’s Moeen Ali to retire from Test cricket and focus on white-ball format

A real shame he didn’t get the 3000 runs and 300 wickets.

 

[brogdale]

Moeen calls it a day for tests: England’s Moeen Ali to retire from Test cricket and focus on white-ball format

A real shame he didn’t get the 3000 runs and 300 wickets.

200 wickets?

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

He's had a really odd sort of career hasn't he, being shoved around the team and expected to perform all sorts of different jobs depending on the circumstances. Hardly surprising if he was inconsistent given that (although on the flipside I think there were times when he was indulged in producing 'a few nice shots then out' sorts of innings in a way that someone like James Vince hasn't been) but he produced a lot of important contributions. Always seems like a really good person as well.

 

[planetgeli]

Only Anderson and Broad have taken more 4th innings wickets for England than Moeen, and they've played far more matches. His strike rate in the 4th innings is waaaay better than anyone - and I mean from any country. A wicket every 39 balls. Nobody else is in the thirties.

I loved him and like many I didn't feel he was ever really given a fair crack or a settled place.