International Cricket

[butchersapron]

So "the spirit of the game" means to let batsman cheat?

What cheating?

 

[butchersapron]

I think broad should have walked - do you? Explicitly to spymaster but all others posters too.

 

[planetgeli]

So "the spirit of the game" means to let batsman cheat?

Funny, don’t remember saying that. And it’s highly unusual, nay unheard of, for you to start twisting anyone’s words for the sake of a pointless barney is it Spy? So I’ll imagine you are correct, and that Ashwin never stopped in his delivery stride, and I’ll bid you good day sir because I’ve had a good one and I’m fucked if I can be bothered getting into a pointless spat with you or anyone. I have beer to drink and spliff to smoke.

And Broad should have walked.

 

[a_chap]

Cricket is a game for Gentlemen. Gentlemen don't cheat.

Getting caught, say, five yards out of your crease is not "cheating" it's simply a "mistake". The miscreant takes the penalty and everyone moves on.

Walking (or not walking) is, IMHO, one of the tings that makes Cricket a proper sport.

 

[Spymaster]

I think broad should have walked - do you? Explicitly to spymaster but all others posters too.

Totally.

 

[Spymaster]

I have beer to drink and spliff to smoke.

I'm grumpy cos I haven't.

 

[planetgeli]

I'm grumpy cos I haven't.

Genuinely sorry to hear that and if you fancy driving 220 miles I’ll skin up for you with pleasure.

 

[Spymaster]

Genuinely sorry to hear that and if you fancy driving 220 miles I’ll skin up for you with pleasure.

Cheers but I'm trying to lose a few pounds before the season starts. I'm off the booze and hash makes me eat the fridge contents, so that's out too. Bored as fuck.

 

[Spymaster]

What cheating?

Ok, stictly speaking it's not cheating but surely it's no less against the "spirit of the game" than the bowler whipping the bails off? Unless you're going to allow batsmen to back up to wherever they like there has to be some kind of deterrent and I disagree that the entertainment is all about runs scored in T20 or any other format. Seeing batsmen get Mankaded can be as entertaining as watching them knock boundaries so just make it an accepted part of the game. It could be the new 10th dismissal method.

 

[planetgeli]

Oh noes. The sportsman Ravi Ashwin just lost another game of cricket (sort of cricket anyway) on the last ball. Gutted.

(Maybe he missed a Mankad? I'm sure his analysts will help him).

 

[paulhackett]

World Cup squads have some interesting omissions? Pant out of India squad. Amir out of Pakistan squad. Hazlewood out of Australia squad (Smith and Warner in), Pollard and Narine out of WI squad, Archer out of England squad.. and er Hales is erm..

Alex Hales is apparently serving a 21 day ban for recreational drug use, having also, apparently, stepped down from cricket before Easter for 'personal reasons'.

 

[paulhackett]

And now he's been stepped down by the ECB from all international cricket. Apparently, the ban is for coke.

 

[rekil]

 

[paulhackett]

Ireland West Indies ODI is on live on BBC iplayer/ red button.. Ireland getting a tonking. Hopefully whole series is on the beeb.

 

[GarveyLives]

This is a thought-provoking piece by the the Sports Journalists' Association' current sports columnist of the year:

"The loaded language of Archer's sceptics is that of the affronted nativist - the same objections you hear about asylum seekers being assigned council houses or ‘benefit tourists’ claiming free healthcare ..."

England have always had foreign-born cricketers - so why would Jofra Archer have any effect on the team's 'culture'?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yeah I've been pretty queasy about recent stuff about Archer. I was surprised his various rivals for a spot were allowed to comment on it at all in the press, tbh. It's a no-brainer, though. As long as he stays fit, he'll be in the squad and in the team for the first match. At the expense of Plunkett, probably, or perhaps Willey.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Archer's first full audition today, in a 50-over match against top opposition. Great start... He'll be in for the Ashes too, I reckon. Speed, control, movement - that'll work.

2-2-0-1 Garner-esque

 

[sankara]

In case you didn’t already assume that Jonathan Agnew is a complete bellend
Put the smartphone down Aggers old chap. This spat really isn’t cricket | Barney Ronay

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Both Archer and Wood left out again, and without them the England seam bowling attack looks pretty ordinary, tbh. Hopefully they're both being rested cos they're the two seamers who are already in the final squad. Bit concerned that Woakes is a shadow of what he was a couple of years ago.

 

[Casual Observer]

In case you didn’t already assume that Jonathan Agnew is a complete bellend
Put the smartphone down Aggers old chap. This spat really isn’t cricket | Barney Ronay

I read about that a couple of days ago. The tweet with Agnew saying "I'm SO angry" was particularly funny given that he'd already called the other bloke a cunt in three separate tweets before that.

 

[Pink Panther]

I read about that a couple of days ago. The tweet with Agnew saying "I'm SO angry" was particularly funny given that he'd already called the other bloke a cunt in three separate tweets before that.

Aggers does come across as especially pompous and self important. I've often found Jonathan Liew's articles a bit on the smug side too.

I think a few of the South African players who've represented England have provoked considerable antipathy among the English press, ex-players union and supporters, especially Kevin Pietersen. But thanks to the legacy of apartheid you can probably get away with a few snide comments about white South Africans without getting called out for being racist or politically incorrect. As for Gary Balance I'm not sure Zimbabwe were even participating in international cricket at the time of his England call up.

There's often a fine line concerning the motivation for players eligible for more than one country to choose one country over another, or for the stronger nations to seek to assimilate promising younger dual national players into their squad as soon as possible. The issue with Archer seems to be that he was about halfway through a period of qualifying for England by residence and the ECB seems to have suddenly relaxed its qualifying rules to conveniently rush him into its squad for this year's World Cup and Ashes. Not remotely the player's fault in any way of course. If he's arrived in England a few years earlier and qualified under the old rule I think it would have attracted less attention. Presumably there will be other players qualifying for England a few years earlier notably Conor McKerr, a South African fast bowler who like Archer has a British parent. McKerr contributed impressively towards the end of Surrey's Championship success last summer and was originally due to qualify for the 2023 English season when he will be aged 25.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I've had a long-standing concern with England poaching players tbh. Various South Africans, whose main motivation has been to seek more money by playing here, but also Chris Jordan, who came here on a cricket scholarship from a private school, which had specifically scouted the Caribbean for talent.

Archer does have a British dad at least, and as a long-standing British passport holder, he'd be qualified for British teams in other sports without a residency requirement - think Owen Hargreaves, for instance, whose inclusion in the England football team caused little to no comment. And the bollocks about 'team spirit' of recent months has stunk to high heaven. Agnew can piss off. It is an ugly truth in many ways that the residence rules have been changed specifically to get Archer in, but they are England's rules to change - all they've done is move into line with ICC rules.

 

[Idaho]

All nations do it. Ireland and Scotland frequently include players in various teams on the basis that their grandmother once drank a pint of Guinness, etc.

I think with England there is a bit of colonial blowback both from little Englanders thinking we should be able to field a team of John bull purity, by other countries not wanting their talent scalped. As well as a disdain for sportspeople making commercial decisions about playing for England to have a better paid career.

Personally I hold the first of these as ridiculous, while being fairly sympathetic to the second point, and also sympathetic to sportspeople wanting a long and lucrative career - despite them being contradictory.

 

[Pink Panther]

I've had a long-standing concern with England poaching players tbh. Various South Africans, whose main motivation has been to seek more money by playing here, but also Chris Jordan, who came here on a cricket scholarship from a private school, which had specifically scouted the Caribbean for talent.

I'm fairly sure Jordan has a British mother. Initially he just seemed to be on a passport of convenience to play county cricket. He made his Surrey debut in 2007 and when he left in 2012 he was nowhere near the England squads, then a spectacular start at Sussex suddenly got him selected.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm not a fan of what the IPL has done to cricket in general, but it and the other t20 leagues have at least given players from poorer test countries alternative incomes without switching allegiances. There are big problems with the imbalances in world cricket - the West Indian test players who beat England recently will have been paid approximately 10 per cent of the money of the players they beat. I don't quite know how to fix that as at the moment it's only getting worse - players for three countries earn a fortune playing international cricket, while for all other countries the money (while not nothing - think £100k a year-ish with match fees) is much less. One idea might be for all players in both sides in any given test series to get the same match fees.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm fairly sure Jordan has a British mother. Initially he just seemed to be on a passport of convenience to play county cricket. He made his Surrey debut in 2007 and when he left in 2012 he was nowhere near the England squads, then a spectacular start at Sussex suddenly got him selected.

He came here as a teenager. I'm absolutely not questioning him playing for England. But he was poached - nakedly so. In this case by Dulwich College, who sent Bill Athey iirc out to the Caribbean to find someone to give a scholarship to.

 

[Idaho]

There are big problems with the imbalances in world cricket - the West Indian test players who beat England recently will have been paid approximately 10 per cent of the money of the players they beat.

Because these England players can fill at least 10 times as many stadiums and get way more than 10 times as many eyeballs watching them on TV.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Because these England players can fill at least 10 times as many stadiums and get way more than 10 times as many eyeballs watching them on TV.

Nope. Because the people they can get watching them are richer than the people other teams can get watching them.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

These things are relative, mind. It's not so long ago that England was the only place in the world with fully professional non-internationals, and even internationals weren't paid much. That's why Packer happened.

 

[Idaho]

Nope. Because the people they can get watching them are richer than the people other teams can get watching them.

That too, but to a much lesser extent. How many people out of the 4 million population in the west indies follow cricket any more?