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Post by Tyler on Jun 10, 2009 19:31:01 GMT
He'll have fun here. Thats for sure facing the likes of David Lucas
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Post by lemonpiper on Jun 19, 2009 16:18:28 GMT
Is nobody watching the 20/20 cup at the moment? Still prefer test cricket but you get some exciting batting and there has been some wonderful fielding. With South Africa gone it's difficult to choose an eventual winner but Pakistan on their day are superb & Sri Lanka are just fantastic. West Indies have been doing well but their fielding has really let them down.
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Post by Tyler on Jun 20, 2009 21:27:17 GMT
I'm not watching it. It's pointless
Roll on the ashes
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Post by lemonpiper on Jun 21, 2009 13:43:09 GMT
Would have agreed Tyler but it's an established type of cricket now and it does have it's merits although I still prefer test cricket as it involves so much more in the way of tactics. But it was wonderful to watch Dilshan score 96 in the semi with some outstanding cricket shots but also some wonderful improvisation. In the field, the Sri Lankans are as good as it gets and, of course, their bowlers are world class. Still not sure Malinga's action is actually legal though!
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Post by hallmackem on Jun 21, 2009 13:52:21 GMT
His action is far more likely to be legal than that of one of his team mates!
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Post by lemonpiper on Jun 21, 2009 14:15:14 GMT
It obviously is legal as all the games authorities have looked at it and passed it but I always thought the rule was that a bowler had to let go of the ball with it straight above his shoulder?
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Post by Lukiebakercafc on Jun 21, 2009 18:03:10 GMT
As long as the arm is straight upon release (which Malinga's is) the action is legal. There is technically nothing wrong with his action, going by the guidelines but it is like no other and extremely difficult to bat against.
Completely disagree Tyler. I love Twenty20, fast paced, exciting and i can happily watch any two teams play it plus it does require a lot of skill and deserves to be seen as a form of Cricket in its own right, with its own tactics etc required. Yes i love Test and to a lesser extent, one-day Cricket but Twebty20 is superb and has made Cricket a more accessible, mainstream sport, so it is all good.
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Post by Dawsey on Jun 21, 2009 21:22:09 GMT
Completely disagree Tyler. I love Twenty20, fast paced, exciting and i can happily watch any two teams play it plus it does require a lot of skill and deserves to be seen as a form of Cricket in its own right, with its own tactics etc required. Yes i love Test and to a lesser extent, one-day Cricket but Twebty20 is superb and has made Cricket a more accessible, mainstream sport, so it is all good. It really isn't all good. Twenty20 is destroying the game. Test match grounds are now deserted, and kids coming through are too busy practising paddle sweeps instead of proper cricket shots like a cover drive. Twenty20 was designed to get people who wouldn't normally go to cricket matches to go out and watch their local side, and to provide cash boosts for the counties. It has done that brilliantly, but it should have been left at that. The internationals and IPL have pushed things too far, and is slowly killing proper cricket.
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Post by Tyler on Jun 22, 2009 18:22:17 GMT
Don't get me wrong i enjoy going to the Twenty20 but i dont see the need for copious tournaments
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Post by Dawsey on Jun 22, 2009 23:11:41 GMT
Funnily enough, despite my little rant, I had a cracking time at the County Ground tonight. Less than 48 hours before we get the chance to give some stick to the Aussies, we got a perfect warm-up tonight, courtesy of Andre Nel
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Post by Dawsey on Jun 23, 2009 22:49:58 GMT
I popped out to Hove to get the tickets for tomorrow earlier, thought I'd have a stroll around the ground whilst I was at it, and look at who I stumbled into! The weather also looks set to be HOT tomorrow, should be good.
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Post by Enya_NTFC on Jun 23, 2009 23:11:47 GMT
Looks nice there.
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Post by Tyler on Jun 29, 2009 17:28:21 GMT
Do you generally run into the players? From my experience, internationals or the more famous players tend to be arseholes of the first division
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Post by Dawsey on Jun 29, 2009 22:26:11 GMT
Do you generally run into the players? From my experience, internationals or the more famous players tend to be arseholes of the first division Well, we were hovering around on the pitch during lunch on the Wednesday, and the Aussies were all strolling about, signing autographs, having a chat and the like. Brett Lee was also loving the banter on the boundary late on Saturday - cracking chants of "Get your tits out for Brett Lee" and "Brett Lee's got a hard on" when some bird with rather a large chest had one too many, which he was loving
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Post by Tyler on Jun 30, 2009 18:40:31 GMT
Are the Aussies a generallynice bunch? They're up here in July for what should be an autograph fest. I just hope they aren't as twattish as the England players i've met
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Aber Wolf
Reserves Player
[M:0]
Listen to the Music of the Night
Posts: 314
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Post by Aber Wolf on Jun 30, 2009 22:45:14 GMT
Interesting blog from the telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/counties/5687572/The-old-rhythms-of-summer-have-gone-with-sad-demise-of-county-cricket.htmlIt is midsummer in England. Wimbledon is in full swing. The 'season' is going swimmingly, the Open is round the corner and there will soon be an Ashes Test series against Australia to feed hearts and minds. So, naturally, last weekend there was no county cricket to watch. The championship resumes on Tuesday, but an England XI, warming up for the first Test, which starts at Cardiff next Wednesday, are playing Warwickshire at Edgbaston, and England 'Lions', made up of those on the fringes, are meeting Worcestershire at New Road. The story of the week will be Michael Vaughan's retirement, and the fitness of Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen. Poor old county cricket. It's not much use turning to the England and Wales Cricket Board for a ringing endorsement of the longer game. So obsessed is it with Twenty20, which is perceived to be cricket's 'saviour', that championship fixtures are shoehorned into those spaces that are available once the one-day stuff has been pencilled in. No wonder spectators are puzzled. This summer, championship matches start on every day of the week but only one round begins on a Saturday. The old rhythms of the English summer have gone, never to return. If they had wanted to drive county cricket from the public imagination, the game's governors could hardly have done a more thorough job. Between May 11 and June 5, at a time when cricketers everywhere are moving steadily into some kind of form, there was no county cricket at all. True to form, on June 6, the one Saturday to be granted first-day status, the heavens opened, as if to mock those hardy souls pining for proper cricket. At least they did over lovely Queen's Park, Chesterfield, where muggins here had gone to watch Derbyshire play Gloucestershire. So it was off to Hove, to watch the first day of Sussex's match against Somerset. It was a lovely day. The sun was warm, there was a tang of the sea, the gulls swooped over the ground, and in the deckchairs at the top end, you could make out the light glinting off the waves. It was a blissful dream of summer: "Hearts at peace, under an English heaven." If the frame was lovely, so was the picture. Somerset batted all day against some decent Sussex bowling (and fielding). Marcus Trescothick, constructing his innings with infinite care, completed a very good century. The members' enclosure was well-filled, and the people who watched were well-informed. Here were real cricket followers, responsive to the game as it unfolded, session by session, and familiar with the players, past and present. One man proudly told his neighbour that he was off first thing in the morning to Liverpool, to add another ground to his list. Others traded memories of John Snow and Jim Parks. Nobody mentioned Maurice Tate, but the spirit of the ancients hung in the air. Hove is that sort of ground. As they read their papers and magazines, and noted their scorecards, they were fulfilling the age-old summer ritual. Unlike many of the people who attend Test matches, here were people with the game in their blood. It was slightly old-fashioned but there's a lot to be said for things that have been shaped by the passing of years. Many modern Test-attenders could not even tell you which counties the England players are attached to (not play for: no international cricketer plays for his county any more). It was good cricket, and the sun shone without interruption. I bought a book in excellent condition at the bookstall by the nets, and left at six o'clock feeling that I had enjoyed as rewarding a day's county cricket as I could remember for a long time. What conclusions should be drawn? Not everywhere is as glorious as Hove: that's one. Sussex are blessed three times over because they also play at Arundel and Horsham, grounds where, in the best of all possible worlds, county cricket would always be played, preferably in matches that begin on Saturdays, with all players (yes, even Test players) available for selection. The central contract system is a hodge-podge. Surely even the ECB can see that by offering them to marginal cases like Vaughan and Steve Harmison, as they did last autumn, they invite derision. It is in everybody's interests that the best cricketers play as often as possible for their counties. No eager young batsman or bowler grows up thinking: "When I'm older I'm going to sit out half the summer twiddling my thumbs. What a life!" On occasions one or two players may have to be rested but too many cricketers have grown up being pampered. If regular cricket was good enough for Fred Trueman and Brian Statham, or Graham Gooch, it is quite good enough for today's young men, many of whom are clearly not robust enough to sustain a Test career. They keep breaking down not because they play too much, but too little. With a bit of will there's plenty that could be done to strengthen county cricket. Ultimately, however, the most compelling orders will come from overseas. The Indian Premier League, it was reported last week, will eat deeper into September next year so the championship may start earlier to accommodate this confounded nuisance, possibly as early as the first week of April. There is also talk of clipping two fixtures from the schedule, making it a 14-match programme. So, every season the old-fashioned watcher feels a bit more disconnected. We are rapidly reaching the stage when the cricket season will be an endless round of Test matches (five in seven weeks this summer) and Twenty20 gimmickry, with a few county matches kept arthritically on show, like museum pieces. A combination of commercial forces and official neglect will do their worst, and we shall have lost something that was worth preserving. It is sad.
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Post by Dawsey on Jul 1, 2009 14:33:39 GMT
The only thing I disagree with in that article is being able to see the glint from the waves from the north end at Hove. If he can see the sea with all those towers blocks in the way, he has better eyesight than me!
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Post by Tyler on Jul 2, 2009 20:26:43 GMT
The system needs a complete overhaul.
We don't need a Twenty20 cup, A P20 league, and an EPL, all for one form of the game.
They should've cut out pro40, spread out the T20 and FPT games and made championship 5 games = more resting time, and more results in the longer form of the game and prospective internationals get used to 5 day tactics.
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Post by Dawsey on Jul 5, 2009 23:08:48 GMT
Anyone for Lord's?
;D
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Post by Desktop Hoggy on Jul 21, 2009 21:47:12 GMT
The system needs a complete overhaul. We don't need a Twenty20 cup, A P20 league, and an EPL, all for one form of the game. They should've cut out pro40, spread out the T20 and FPT games and made championship 5 games = more resting time, and more results in the longer form of the game and prospective internationals get used to 5 day tactics. The EPL has been scrapped due to the recession and Sir Allen Stanford getting arrested for financial irregularities. I like the idea of a Pro20 League being played once a week because the crowds are likely to sell out. Expecting the public to go to 2-3 games per week and straight from work/school is a big ask, commitment and financial wise. For the system shake-up: 3 tiered county championship, playing 10 games per season rather than 16. Spread the county games throughout the season, playing most of them just before a test series and during an ODI series. Invite Holland to play in the Friends Provident Trophy and have 3 groups of 7. Play these matches during a test series. Top 2 automatically through to the quarter finals, 3rd placed teams and best 4th place team play in a one off match to qualify for the 2 remaining quarter final places. Keep the Twenty20 cup format as it is but only play 5 group games instead of 10. Play the whole tournament in June. Pro20 League in the same format as the Pro40, matches once a week in the latter half of the season. Having 6 less county games will allow teams more preperation time and reduce the risk of burnout/injuries. If players like Ian Bell want to play more longer cricket then they can play in the 2nd XI.
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Post by Desktop Hoggy on Jul 22, 2009 17:18:59 GMT
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Post by Lukiebakercafc on Jul 22, 2009 17:26:49 GMT
It says the Twenty20 will be played throughout the season mainly on Thursday, Friday and weekends which is also good news. I think this is probably about the best solution they could have had imo, just tweaking rather than a complete restructuring and an extra T20 competition would have been detrimental to the sport as a whole.
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Post by Dawsey on Jul 27, 2009 22:42:09 GMT
Finals day here we come ;D
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Post by Lukiebakercafc on Jul 27, 2009 22:46:19 GMT
Same for us Dawsey - Durham hammered
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Post by Desktop Hoggy on Jul 27, 2009 22:55:51 GMT
So glad Durham aren't in finals day, they didn't deserve to finish 2nd in the group stage.
Heres hoping that Somerset beat Lancashire tomorrow, come on you Sabres!
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Post by Tyler on Jul 27, 2009 23:09:46 GMT
Dominic Cork here Wednesday. He'll most likely hammer us as per usual.
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Post by Desktop Hoggy on Aug 5, 2009 15:47:25 GMT
Time for some Pro40 with Hampshire and Yorkshire live on Sky Sports wooooooo
No brainer whos going to win this...............Hampshire
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Post by Desktop Hoggy on Aug 5, 2009 21:19:00 GMT
Absolutely gut wrenching as Hampshire win by 5 wickets on the final ball. In the closing stages the Hampshire fielders were sneaking in extra runs at every opportunity and Yorkshire spilt the ball on a few occasions, Andrew Gale dropping Dimi Mascheranas but he went out a few balls later.
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Post by Desktop Hoggy on Aug 14, 2009 15:06:51 GMT
Yorkshire finally register their 1st win of the season against Hampshire by an inns and 22 runs. The run of 20 county championship games without a win is finally broken
YORKSHIRE! YORKSHIRE! YORKSHIRE! YORKSHIRE! YORKSHIRE!
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Post by Lukiebakercafc on Aug 14, 2009 16:32:42 GMT
Kent bowl Northants out for just 90 in the 4th innings - I tell you what we are a shoo-in for promotion back to Division 1 now.
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