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The Ashes 2015

Wilf said:
In their years of success I admired the Aussie 'play hard' approach, give or take some of the sledging extremes. To see them reduced to the childish shit of pretending to tie their laces in Ben Stokes batting crease is a sign of how their 'mind games' have declined in line with their cricket. I don't normally know enough about the players to have really strong feelings about particular teams, but that little stunt left me delighted they've lost.
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Yep really pathetic stuff
 
Who did Starc do a sshh sign to when he bowled them? As if telling him to shut up? And all that glaring at batsmen the Aussie bowlers do when they take a wicket looks ridiculous. It's stuff like that and reading that article butchers posted that makes this win all the more sweeter.
 
It's tied to my debit card. Mrs Frank is home tomorrow so maybe she'll buy me a ticket for my birthday or something. Provided I don't make her come to the match with me I'm sure she won't mind.
 
SpookyFrank said:
It's tied to my debit card. Mrs Frank is home tomorrow so maybe she'll buy me a ticket for my birthday or something. Provided I don't make her come to the match with me I'm sure she won't mind.
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Urb meet up maybe if I do go? If only to console ourselves with an hour of cricket and no refund :p

If I go I'll be on me tod. I'll aim for the booze free zone that way there's 0% chance of bumping into my arsehole ex who introduced me to the game :D
 
Lehmann's still mithering about the pitch. It was doing some odd stuff and a bit slow but that's Cardiff for you. He's not going to get an Adelaide belter or a Perth trampoline because it's not being played in Australia. Silly man.
 
I booked tickets for the odi in Southampton. First time I have ever seen England play live. Hopefully it will be an entertaining but failed attempt by Australia to make up for an ashes whitewash.
 
JTG said:
Lehmann's still mithering about the pitch. It was doing some odd stuff and a bit slow but that's Cardiff for you. He's not going to get an Adelaide belter or a Perth trampoline because it's not being played in Australia. Silly man.
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After all his years in the game, it's suddenly a revelation that different pitches play differently and some teams adapt plans accordingly, while others make a balls of it.
 
JTG said:
Lehmann's still mithering about the pitch. It was doing some odd stuff and a bit slow but that's Cardiff for you. He's not going to get an Adelaide belter or a Perth trampoline because it's not being played in Australia. Silly man.
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Nothing if not gracious. :D

I'm surprised tbh that they haven't gone on about the ball. Cheating using a Duke. He let slip in an interview about how well they did in WI. Give up, mate, you don't win the Ashes in the West Indies. And those pitches were deathly dead.

I'm not happy about dead pitches generally, but it wasn't the pitch that caused Aus to miss their lines and lengths. I'm guessing this was purely for public consumption. Privately they won't be blaming the pitch.
 
Interesting article about the effect moving to Sky has had on viewing figures.

In 2009 there were 14 occasions on which Sky’s live Ashes coverage made the top 30 weekly ratings for non-terrestrial stations. The figures, of between 670,000 and 1.1m viewers, were healthy too. Yet in 2013 only two sessions attracted more than 650,000 viewers and made Barb’s top 30. We may only have had one Test, but the 2015 series is not bucking the trend. That is not a reflection of Sky’s excellent coverage, rather simple economics – more people watch stuff when it is free – and the slow unshackling of the public’s devotion to the sport.

It is hardly encouraging either that fewer adults also appear to be playing cricket. The first Sport England Active People survey, conducted between October 2006 and October 2007, found 380,000 people aged 16 or over played at least once a month during the season. In the most recent survey, published last month, that figure had fallen to 259,200 – a decline of 32%. Other team sports’ participation levels are declining too, including football and rugby union, but cricket’s have fallen harder.
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I remember during the last televised ashes series, I had people who never watched crockery before ask me questions about it. I recall avowed sport haters on this board say that they had got into it. Then the ecb traded in all of that for the fast buck and squandered it.
 
redsquirrel said:
Interesting article about the effect moving to Sky has had on viewing figures.
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Boycott was sounding off about sky on twitter yesterday.

Reckoned more people watch the highlights on 5 than live on sky and that the 05 victory would never had had the impact nationally on the profile of cricket if it had been shown on sky.

Eta he just tweeted 1.2m watched highlights on 5 on Saturday.
 
In the highly scientifically selected group 'people I've talked to in the last week' two or three have said they watched in 2005 and haven't since. That series was perfect really in terms of getting people into cricket and they blew it completely.
 
Monkeygrinder's Organ said:
In the highly scientifically selected group 'people I've talked to in the last week' two or three have said they watched in 2005 and haven't since. That series was perfect really in terms of getting people into cricket and they blew it completely.
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It was definitely the series that got me paying more attention.

To be fair, as you allude to the cricket itself helped get people into that one, but I haven't watched a lot since then. Still follow it and listen to TMS, but very rarely actually see any of it.
 
Lord Camomile said:
It was definitely the series that got me paying more attention.

To be fair, as you allude to the cricket itself helped get people into that one, but I haven't watched a lot since then. Still follow it and listen to TMS, but very rarely actually see any of it.
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Yeah I think that's quite common now.

One thing is that I think the way people watch test cricket in particular means it suffers more than some other sports for not being free-to-air. With something like football people will go out of their way to find a screen, even if it's on Sky. Pop down the pub for a couple of hours then go about their day. With cricket I don't think many people are able to sit and watch the full five days, it's more a case of catching a bit of play here and there when they can a lot of the time. Especially for someone who's not a huge fan but might be getting in to it. So if you reduce the opportunities for that you miss out on hooking in more casual viewers who might in time turn into regular fans.
 
Idaho said:
I remember during the last televised ashes series, I had people who never watched crockery before ask me questions about it. I recall avowed sport haters on this board say that they had got into it. Then the ecb traded in all of that for the fast buck and squandered it.
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Worst aspect is kids. The 10-year-olds who fell in love with the game in 2005, watching it on free-to-air tv.

I was that 10-year-old in 1981 watching Botham and Willis at Headingley. It's sad to see those two (and Gower) now on Sky, taking part in the process that is killing the game.
 
Monkeygrinder's Organ said:
Yeah I think that's quite common now.

One thing is that I think the way people watch test cricket in particular means it suffers more than some other sports for not being free-to-air. With something like football people will go out of their way to find a screen, even if it's on Sky. Pop down the pub for a couple of hours then go about their day. With cricket I don't think many people are able to sit and watch the full five days, it's more a case of catching a bit of play here and there when they can a lot of the time. Especially for someone who's not a huge fan but might be getting in to it. So if you reduce the opportunities for that you miss out on hooking in more casual viewers who might in time turn into regular fans.
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I would plan it and treat myself to a session here and there. But I think many people will tune in as and when they hear that something special is developing.

tbh this stuff is really simple to quantify. Taking t20 as the example, in Aus, with half the population, viewing figures on free-to-air coverage are two to three times higher than they are here. So something like six times more people per 1000 tuning in. Moving any sport behind a paywall reduces viewing figures by more than half, and also changes the demographic of the viewers so that there are fewer kids watching, cos kids aren't the ones paying for it.
 
Well done England,first blood to the home team is a huge shot in the arm.Next test is sure to be a different look for Australia,if i had my way i would bring in both Marshes for Rodgers and Watson,make Steve Smith captain and tell Clarke to shut the fuck up and score.Also Haddin better look over his shoulder as his standards have dropped and there are a few wikkies here to take his place
 
I'd agree with all the points about the move to sky being disastrous for cricket as a spectator sport (which will have a knock on effect in terms of playing the game). However it's not a bbc v sky thing. Channel 4 had already shown the format could be improved and modernised, using technology particularly - but still free to air. They even managed to incorporate the ad breaks without too much disruption. To my mind they went a bit too far with the technical analysis stuff (Simon whatsisface) and Mark Nicholas was irritating as fuck, but they really moved it on from the bbc.
 
Wilf said:
I'd agree with all the points about the move to sky being disastrous for cricket as a spectator sport (which will have a knock on effect in terms of playing the game)..
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Which has already had knock-on effects. Participation is down.

I heard some sobering thoughts from a cricket coach commentating on a t20 game recently. She coaches kids in city areas, and they're keen to play, but whenever she mentions a player - Root or Cook, say - the kids have often never heard of them and certainly never seen them play. That's the consequence of putting a sport behind a paywall. Kids literally see nothing and know nothing about what goes on.
 
Haddin supposedly out for Lord's. 'Personal reasons' or somesuch
 
I'm far less likely to catch the cricket now it's subscription. I do defer to TMS when I remember there's something going on but it doesn't usually enter my consciousness to check as I'm not a sporty sort by nature.
 
I'm another person who got into cricket in 2005. I'd never really paid it much attention before and I loved it. My attention has waxed and waned since but I've got back into it in the last few years. I do agree with bringing at least some of it back to terrestrial TV, it can be done on the red button or even just streamed online with ad breaks between overs. Imagine if the fantastic test and even more fantastic odi series against NZ had been on free TV? I think that really would've caught the attention of the public and got more kids taking up the game. The thought of less than half a million people seeing such hard fought, exciting cricket played with the up most of sportsmanship kinda irks me, it's a colossal waste really.
 
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