Cricket

Sidebottom is only bowling at 80-81 mph. No use in these conditions. Dont think he'll be playing next match.

Oh, come on

Nash gets a bad decision in the referral. Harper cocks up again. Holding is furious. Why dont they let the 3rd umpire see the predictive view so that they can judge if its going over the stumps? Crazy.

a lynch mob has just gone to the match referees room. I assume they want Harper removed and propably an end to the experiment.
Sarwan just carrying on as normal btw.

tbh i thought it was out until we saw hawkeye. So im not sure you can blame harper when he cant see the predictive path. However what athers says is that he has to be sure it was out to overule and i dont see how they can do that without hawkeye, so therefore it shouldve been not out.

Harper has a five-for btw in referrals in this innings.
Sarwan reaches 150 and isnt gonna get out today.

As I understood it, the point of the referral is only to see if the umpire's decision was crazy. And only to overrule if it was. Like a judicial review in law - the court doesn't replace the government's decision with its own, it just looks at whether the decision was irrational.

Using it to second-guess the guy on the spot is no good.

I'd rather the 3rd umpire was given hawkeye, hotspot,snickometer and given a role as important as the 2 on the field. Use technology properly.

sarwan not out at the end of the day. close to his double ton.
WI 398-5 at close of play.

so west indies to make 800 and bowl england out?

Would you push on to a really high score, or declare tonight and have a few overs at the openers?

wi will bat on to make sure they cant lose then go into the last test with a similar pitch so again thy cant lose and win the series

It's a pity they're using this ploy of pitches being batter friendly to ensure they dont lose because the trend could end up killing cricket with bore draws while 20/20 draws in more.

everywhere does it.

Sri Lanka 1st Innings
644 for 7 (155.2 overs)

Sri Lanka 2nd Innings
144 for 5 (31.0 overs)

Pakistan 1st Innings
765 for 6 (248.5 overs)

exactly what i was meaning

it's a trend I dont like. Luckily it shouldn't happen here due to the weather and groundsmen who take pride in their pitches for being good pitches that can still produce a result. Kudos to the NZ groundsman last year who didn't buckle under the pressure from cricketing authorities.

Saying on the radio that these are the only two matches ever where a side has scored 600 then conceded a lead

and a declaration. will england collapse(again)under pressure and go 2-0 down?

What's your thoughts on this?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A48093069

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/02032009/58/study-belgians-invented-cricket.html

lol o rly

Shah out. Bopara for the next test then? Harmison and Khan in for sidey and shah? Gotta go with 5 bowlers and sidey aint fit, shouldnt have played this match. Jimmy not done any better either tbh. Both those guys rely on swinging conditions otherwise they dont do well.

if they do go with bopara hes gotta be at 5 and kp at 3 colly at 4. Shah isnt a no3 either so if hes picked play him at 5. But bopara scored the ton while shah hasnt looked at ease at all. Hes vulnerable and always looking like he will get out.
So shah will probably still play at 3...

No doubt louis will say shah needs a run etc you cant drop him, but why pick a guy who isnt scoring in a couple of matches in place of a guy who scored a ton in 1?
Shah isnt a no3. If he plays its gotta be at 5, and bopara has a ton there so i say go with him.
Whoever plays @ 3 in the ashes is whoever scores the most runs in the county season early on. Rule noone in or out.

ps nothing against shah, but Bopara took his chance.

They can't drop Shah. Well, if they did, it would be ludicrously unfair. It's seemingly counter-intuitive to drop someone after a ton but I'd rather see Shah in there than Bopara. I still think England can prosper with a 4-man attack, though, as long as they're the right 4 men. Khan in for Sidebottom would be the obvious. Anderson's position dependent on the wicket. Rashid or Panesar should really get a game if there's obviously going to be little help for the seamers. We'll see.

Aha, xposts, you anticipate me. Well, Shah got a good 50 in one game before being unfortunately run out, and then gave his wicket away in the second innings, rightfully looking for quick runs. In this game, he's been done by the spinner, which is odd as he's a good player of spin, but you can't drop someone on that basis IMO. Bopara took his chance, but it was probably the easiest chance he'll ever have. Tired bowlers, flat deck, almost no opposition.

but shah failed twice on a flat deck plus didnt make a century in the previous match. Bopara did. You cant drop a guy who made a century. That's far more unfair than dropping shah.

Neither should bat at 3. They're 5s

But Shah has finally been given a chance to prove himself in Tests after a long apprenticeship in the shorter form, prolonged county form, 12th man duties galore...you can't take it away from him after two matches in which the batsmen weren't the problem. Bopara's time will come, and Shah will rebound from this. It's good to have competition, but dropping the senior player will probably show Shah that England aren't serious about giving him a run in the side.

I'd maybe hope to think England will find a way of playing both of them, maybe by dropping Pietersen lolz

Cook finally gets a century! Hurrah for Cook! 3000 test runs too

roll on the ashes

okay wtf?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7920260.stm

Cricket gets interesting shocka!

Seriously fucked up. Bye bye Pakistan cricket.

Indeed.

No doubt they're blaming the Indians or the Sri Lankans or everyone else for this on the streets of Lahore or Karachi or wherever

It's pretty clear this is a home grown job, I would think, and I doubt even the Pakistani government will try to deny that.

Don't seem to be:
http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINSP50360020090303

A senior Pakistani official said the raid bore the hallmarks of the same militants who attacked India's financial capital Mumbai in November. India and the United States blamed the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba for the three-day assault on Mumbai.

Bye bye Pakistan cricket.

― Queueing For Latchstrings (Tom D.), Tuesday, March 3, 2009 7:57 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

yuh byebye any home series for tres longtemps. iirc aussies were whinging about going there way before this happened, so who knows whentf they'll go back now.

Don't actually see anyone wanting to tour Pakistan for a very very long time, and I can't see India and Sri Lanka being too keen on having Pakistan tour in their countries either

hi tom d i wasnt suggesting any particular country should be more worried about going, i'm just recalling how we made a big deal of it.

should be more worried than australia

more than fuck

Goodbye Pakistan Cricket Team, Hello United Arab Emirates Cricket Team!

jesus fucking christ

xp Quite a few Pakistani players have played in Dubai for a while, haven't they. Expect loads more defections to the IPL as well.

Considering that Pakistan looks like they'll be playing all their "home" games there (and Toronto) for the next ten years, they might as well do it.

Oh, and expect a slight change of arrangements for the 2011 World Cup.

OH AND FORGET ABOUT THE CHAMPIONS TROPHY

Thinking that some cricketers might be getting cold feet about playing in the IPL too now

not to devalue the lives of the policemen, but just imagine the response/state of play if they'd actually wiped out a few cricketers

Esp. if it's proved that the authorities knew about the attack in advance