Cricket

umpires are fucking useless. this test series is boring enough without the umpires prolonging it.

these pitches are killing cricket as it is, the last thing you need is the utterly disgraceful umpires contributing with wrong decisions. Now the tv referral umpires are getting it wrong. Cricket is dying.

WI fans cant even be arsed turning up to games. Sure they will all file in tomorrow to witness the series win, but its doubtful they will be there the next series they play at home, but they will be there for the 20/20s. But if there is nothing in pitches for the bowlers. noone should bother turning up. Test cricket sort yourself out before all we have left are 20/20 matches.

That's a bit melodramatic but OH FFS NOT AGAIN

there is nothing wrong with the referral system, its the assholes working it and the asshole umpires in the middle getting blatant decisions wrong. Decisions so blatant that they should be SACKED as umpires.

These umpires are the worst i've ever seen.

lol Swann gave Hinds ye olde send-offe

there is nothing wrong with the referral system

I think there IS something wrong with the referral system - the myth of complete objectivity, a myth that has been given substance by the confidence commentators have in tv replays and their own judgement.

It would be nice if you could get rid of the bad, sometimes terrible decisions that on field umpires make, but what you lose is greater than what you gain. You lose the connection from the top level of the game to the grass roots of the game, you lose the idea that the umpire's judgement is final (which has the useful idea inherent in it that although we all make mistakes and only God can be said to be completely objective, you have to gesture towards objectivity for the purpose of the game), you lose the connection between the game and the fans (as described above), it undermines the confidence of the umpire who may be tempted (subconsciously of course) NOT to make a borderline decision knowing the players will appeal and therefore the pressure is taken off him (something of the sort seemed to be going on in Bowden's mind yesterday - although clearly that's just guesswork), furthermore it retards the progress of the game and takes it off the field of play, and finally it takes away from the idea that it's JUST A FUCKING GAME and that these absurd convolutions of justice that we are going for are completely misplaced on the sports field and belong only to courts of law.

All good points, but I think a referral system isn't a bad idea for important international games, where a bad decision is recorded for posterity on television cameras, and thus where it makes sense to overturn a blatantly bad call. The issue of how far you go in this overturning is a niggly one and I don't think it'll be solved soon.

Anderson must have accidentally left a black cat in his oven before bowling in this innings.

thank heavens for karma!

I wonder if bob willis will go postal now on sky

Prior is a worse wicket keeper than Geraint Jones isn't he?

Worse than latter-day Geraint for sure. Better than early-day Geraint, however. Jones improved as a keeper to a quite remarkable extent.

Prior shouldn't be in this team. But clearly they just want a batsman who can keep a bit. They don't want to pick the best wicket-keeper.

The English wkt-keeper debate has been going on long before the last ashes, and we still have it.

Prior hasn't dropped many since his recall (except for the really important one this morning) :(

heh i doubt hes caught many though either this series

oh wow what a catch from strauss

(the ball after anderson dropped him)

Gayle out. now back to the defending to waste time

the WI should declare knowing england will have to bat like a 20/20 match , get bowled out cheap and nearly a day to knock off a handful of runs and win 2-0

of course that might happen anyway even if the WI bat til tomorrow or lunch

now collingwood drops one :(

ban 20/20 cricket!

lololololol i could sense blood pressures rising there

jeez i thought the umpire wasn't even gonna give that out.

on cue

beefy says you dont have to appeal, the umpire gives it out if he knows it's out. I think Broad woulda turned into dennis lilley if that hadn't been given

get a quick 250, bowl windies out for 50.

^^^this

aww no its a referral

England 30-3 at close all out 90

What you think dar is gonna give?

there has to be conclusive evidence the original decision is wrong. But he got it wrong last time with zero evidence. So who knows what he will give.

ahh its out.
Now for the england collapse to look forward to ;)

FIRST-INNINGS LEAD, WE WIN WOOOOOOOOO

moral victory claims lj

we should throw the bat about, if we lose 2 wickets then they need to reign it in and be more controlled. But with shah as likely to get out normal test cricket wise he may as well be told to play like a 20/20. Cook can stay firm at the other end while strauss and then shah go for it. If we only lose 1 wkt tonight KP can have a real slog tomorrow

Open with Shah and KP :D

naw dont want kp ran out...

i think strauss and cook will see off the swinging ball that you get with the new ball. 5 overs or so then crack on. And hopefully put away the bad ball if you get one. S
trauss and KP are the main guys though. They both have to score big and quickly. Lose 1 or both and england wont get a good enough score quickly enough.

at the moment its not even about hitting sixes. If you can get some quick singles or run 3 instead of 2 etc and get a boundary every over the score could mount up to allow later batsmen to hit sixes every ball if they wish

wi referring a not out for catch behind

i assume this cant be given out but who knows what dar decides.

he doesnt hear the noise btw

he has to have conclusive evidence to overturn it

(he def hit it btw)

but i still dont think you can overturn it with tv pictures. as the law is supposed to be

and not out

dar could hear the noise but couldnt see a deflection. *sigh* they need hotspot.

also Strauss isn't a walker. Do you think that's cheating if you don't walk?

Not walking is dubious but it isn't cheating IMO