Cricket

I think the extent to which youth has been corrupted is also exaggerated. Youth with no previous interest in cricket HAS been corrupted, which is a good thing. Gateway drug and all that. Not all will make the leap, but some is enough.

OK, I had to watch danica patrick get a milky top lip and bang on about how chocolate milk was good for you but still free cycling, not even paid for cricket.

OK, so I was wrong TMS is available worldwide via the website, but only for home games, which for now is fine.

Certainly hope so. I just worried that the powers that be are so concentrated on making cricket EXCITING that they forget that sometimes the opposite of boring can also be 'interesting'.

You mean like they do with television news?

Genie... bottle... bottle... genie... I fear

I think the extent to which youth has been corrupted is also exaggerated. Youth with no previous interest in cricket HAS been corrupted, which is a good thing. Gateway drug and all that. Not all will make the leap, but some is enough.

Absolutely. All the youths that I know who have even a passing interest in cricket completely prefer Test to Twenty20 (which is curiously boring unless it's one of those infrequent thrillers). I just think that cricket administrators have had their minds so addled by marketing concepts that they think that the reason people aren't going to cricket is because it's not modern and flash enough. Whereas actually most people I know find that is in fact a very good reason to go to the cricket.

Genie... bottle... bottle... genie... I fear.

Same here.

You go to cricket in order to spend a day drinkin' and chillin' in the sun while a sporting drama slowly plays itself out in the surreally distant, almost incidental background

I could phrase that even more poetically but you know what I mean etc etc.

the thwack of leather on willow, the spew of the drunken spectator

The crackle of plastic pint glasses underfoot

xposts

Twenty20 is boring for the same reason that one day games are boring - you are reducing cricket down to a batting game; bowling (or at least taking wickets) is not important in this form of the game, if you can simply contain your opponent's batting attack. In Test cricket you can't win unless you take all 20 wickets, so there is a wonderful balance at the heart of the game between needing to score runs and needing to defend your wicket. The narrative develops organically around that.

Obviously preaching to the converted, but that is basically why one day stuff has died a slow death and why Twenty20 may well go the same way. The danger is that the administrators will gut Test cricket chasing Twenty20 profits and then end up losing both because there won't be any players who want to play Test matches and no one paying to see Twenty20. Hopefully that is an extreme scenario...

Doesn't really matter what we think does it? It's up Indian media moguls now.

Also, while I know exactly why people talk about slower, gentler tempo of test matches xp, when you know a bit about cricket that ceases to be true and there's actually far more going on in a test and it becomes somehow faster. To my eyes nothing happens at all in the middle part of a one-day innings because all the subtler activity - field placings, the pitch, strategy of a bowler on a long stretch, etc - has been removed because it's not "exciting"

Agree with that totally Ismael, well put.

There is absolutely nothing happening in this Test, however.

its early days.

test matches shouldn't be over in 2/3 days

Judging by things thus far this one won't be over in 8 days though.

Bring on the dancing girls...

Bring on the dancing girls horses...

and there's actually far more going on in a test and it becomes somehow faster.

This is true. Although there are slow periods of play, but these are interesting because you sense the teams battling for momentum, often testing each other's patience.

I was sitting next to a chap once at Lord's who had this knack of snoozing off and then waking up just when things were about to happen, then drifting off again. Must have watched so much cricket he was psychically linked to the tempo of the game.

Cook gets his century.

lol nervous nineties

ravi just went 4-6-4(nearly c&b) who said nothing was happening?

dude, nothing the fuck is happening, the pitch is fucking RIP, the batsmen are filling their boots, the bowlers are completely uninspired

100 for ravi, 3rd in a row against the windies

Ravis is either gonna smash another 50 tonight or get out to a stupid shot.

England should have bowled first, would have at least given the game a modicum of excitement

Who'd be a bowler these days?

...and we might have learned something

bowling first would've been stupid and would've rightly have been criticised. England can(hopefully)put up a big score and put pressure on the WI and see how the pitch changes the last 3 days.

but what's the point in doing that?

It'll really annoy Chris Gayle

the point is you try to win the test match and win the series 2-0. Not fart about with nonsensical experiments just "to see what happens". Thank fuck youre neither an england captain/coach.

It's not an experiment! It's bowling first. And it's probably the best way to ensure an England win rather than a draw.

by watching the windies rattle up 500 on an "RIP pitch"

a mentally-shot WI against a hungry England bowling attack? no chance.

it's not a good pitch but the WI aren't exactly trying to get much life out of it

basically i want our bowlers to be genuinely challenged coz that's where the ashes is being lost & won

Bopara out. Here's KP who needs a score.

nope, it's jimmy as nighwatchmen to protect KP. Can he keep his run going etc.

should do on this pitch

;-)

fidel is now flying

jimmy edges and it drops short of the keeper. edwards is making the pitch look wild now

and there we go

You two are the Boycott and Agnew of ILX.

looks like no play today

You two are the Boycott and Agnew of ILX.

Jaggers and Pfunkboycs

tom d is much more boycottesque

Is Boycott too stubborn to admit that he's dead already?