Cricket Thread

[ancoats]

It's a question of ever shortening attention spans, clicks for instant gratification, @ancoats — in short, they are a reflection of the way society has changed. In football, I will never, ever accept that the final of a major competition like the FA Cup, let alone a World Cup, should be decided by a penalty shootout. I just do not accept it. But people seem to lap it up. It's great on the telly, you get close-ups of people's faces in the crowd, you get the mask of grief on a player's face when he's just missed, etc., etc., etc. In short — showbiz. By the same token, I intensely dislike the Super Over, and would have much preferred England to have won the WC some other way.
Cricket in its classic form is an almost unique sport. You take five days out of your life, in the test form, to follow the ebb and flow of a single match. Even the Tour de France, which has to be the most gruelling endurance sport that humans have devised for themselves (I don't include high-altitude mountaineering or polar exploration in that judgment, of course) is in fact a series of one-day matches, or less, with a cumulative effect. But a single match that takes place over the best part of a week??! The rest of the world, and especially the Yanks, simply don't understand it.
About twenty years ago, I wrote a short piece on cricket to try to explain the fascination of it to French colleagues. We were all due to teach a piece on the Ashes by the excellent David Runciman, originally published in the London Review of Books, which I'd chosen for this particular class (it was in the wake of the astounding 2005 series). I hesitate to post it on here, because there's a bunch of people on this thread who know a whole lot more about cricket than I do (and there are one or two inaccuracies in it, in fact).

Sadly it is unfixable (Test Cricket) You are Spot on about how society has changed, We live in a technical world where one click of a button you find what you're looking for in an instant, There is so much going on in the world of sports and you jump from one thing to another and your mind is soaking it up

People want instant sports and finishes and move on to something else, Kids and youth today don't turn off until they drop, Society has changed and Overloaded the brain with quick fixes, I went out for the day last week Playing Golf and on buses and trams young mothers and their Kids on iPhones and Tablets, One Woman and a buggy and a 2 year if that on a tablet with headphones on,

Look us Old farts are just like what we were when we were Kids, We never understood the older generation's lifestyle of Pipe and Slippers sitting in the armchair listening to the radio

 

[KS55]

It's a question of ever shortening attention spans, clicks for instant gratification, @ancoats — in short, they are a reflection of the way society has changed. In football, I will never, ever accept that the final of a major competition like the FA Cup, let alone a World Cup, should be decided by a penalty shootout. I just do not accept it. But people seem to lap it up. It's great on the telly, you get close-ups of people's faces in the crowd, you get the mask of grief on a player's face when he's just missed, etc., etc., etc. In short — showbiz. By the same token, I intensely dislike the Super Over, and would have much preferred England to have won the WC some other way.
Cricket in its classic form is an almost unique sport. You take five days out of your life, in the test form, to follow the ebb and flow of a single match. Even the Tour de France, which has to be the most gruelling endurance sport that humans have devised for themselves (I don't include high-altitude mountaineering or polar exploration in that judgment, of course) is in fact a series of one-day matches, or less, with a cumulative effect. But a single match that takes place over the best part of a week??! The rest of the world, and especially the Yanks, simply don't understand it.
About twenty years ago, I wrote a short piece on cricket to try to explain the fascination of it to French colleagues. We were all due to teach a piece on the Ashes by the excellent David Runciman, originally published in the London Review of Books, which I'd chosen for this particular class (it was in the wake of the astounding 2005 series). I hesitate to post it on here, because there's a bunch of people on this thread who know a whole lot more about cricket than I do (and there are one or two inaccuracies in it, in fact).

You also have to accept that tests had become boring. Not all, but too many. India prepared dull pitches cos they hated to lose and the crowds deserted. England had become very negative before bazball. Thus the white ball game was an antidote. Both India and England have tried to overcome their probs and tests have definitely improved when those teams are involved.

 

[AliBobbyJ]

Test Match is all very well but I've got Lancs v Kent live on youtube right now, thinking back to Jack Bond's catch to dismiss Asif at Lord's in the Gillette final.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

 

[KS55]

I remember when Ronnie started potting left handed. People said it was cheating. He indignantly responded that he had spent hours and hours perfecting the skill which he saw as 100% legit.
So too, ambidextrous bowling is a brilliant accomplishment.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

I remember when Ronnie started potting left handed. People said it was cheating. He indignantly responded that he had spent hours and hours perfecting the skill which he saw as 100% legit.
So too, ambidextrous bowling is a brilliant accomplishment.

I’d be lucky to pitch it on the wicket using my right hand!

Good job Mark Wood can though!

 

[Wretched Vengeance]

Those stumps have taken a kicking.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

You also have to accept that tests had become boring. Not all, but too many. India prepared dull pitches cos they hated to lose and the crowds deserted. England had become very negative before bazball. Thus the white ball game was an antidote. Both India and England have tried to overcome their probs and tests have definitely improved when those teams are involved.

Oh I do accept it. Indeed I sat through excruciatingly boring tests which could have turned me right off the game. One, I shall never forget, because it was Ken Barrington against Pakistan, at Trent Bridge. Barrington took what seemed to be several thousand years to get his fifty. Aeons went by. The crowd was comatose. The most exciting thing going on was the increasingly sarcastic banter being called out by the Nottingham faithful to what was (not) happening out in the centre.
But my point is that any form of cricket can be boring in different ways. The little that I've watched it, I actually find T20 incredibly boring. Yes, there is “busyness”. Oceans of “busyness”. But, for me, it is “full of sound and fury, signifying… nothing”. And that merely bores me.
I know. I'm alone in that.

 

[Kippax Street 1880]

Oh I do accept it. Indeed I sat through excruciatingly boring tests which could have turned me right off the game. One, I shall never forget, because it was Ken Barrington against Pakistan, at Trent Bridge. Barrington took what seemed to be several thousand years to get his fifty. Aeons went by. The crowd was comatose. The most exciting thing going on was the increasingly sarcastic banter being called out by the Nottingham faithful to what was (not) happening out in the centre.
But my point is that any form of cricket can be boring in different ways. The little that I've watched it, I actually find T20 incredibly boring. Yes, there is “busyness”. Oceans of “busyness”. But, for me, it is “full of sound and fury, signifying… nothing”. And that merely bores me.
I know. I'm alone in that.

T20 on pitches that favour the bowler is a fucking awful watch in my opinion. We want to see boundaries not people scuffing medium pacers for singles and finishing on 127/8. They should play them all on strips of concrete.

On the other hand, Test matches where the pitch is too flat are mind-numbingly boring. A lot depends on conditions in cricket. You get a good pitch you usually get a good game.

 

[KS55]

Oh I do accept it. Indeed I sat through excruciatingly boring tests which could have turned me right off the game. One, I shall never forget, because it was Ken Barrington against Pakistan, at Trent Bridge. Barrington took what seemed to be several thousand years to get his fifty. Aeons went by. The crowd was comatose. The most exciting thing going on was the increasingly sarcastic banter being called out by the Nottingham faithful to what was (not) happening out in the centre.
But my point is that any form of cricket can be boring in different ways. The little that I've watched it, I actually find T20 incredibly boring. Yes, there is “busyness”. Oceans of “busyness”. But, for me, it is “full of sound and fury, signifying… nothing”. And that merely bores me.
I know. I'm alone in that.

Boycott 103 in six hours was pretty bad. He was dropped for the next test.