23 September 2019

I Don’t Like Cricket - I Love It!

| John Hargreaves
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Until recently, I was bored witless with cricket having spent my whole childhood, adolescence and junior adulthood, rapt in its glory.

The one day games were exciting, the Windies were amazing and the Poms were there for the slaughter. The Indians, Sri Lankans and Pakistanis were there to make the numbers up. South Africa was Un-PC.

Then for some reason it just got boring. Australia was on top and vanquished almost everyone (except the Windies) and it was just one big yawn. Couldn’t wait for the footy season to start (Go the Pies!)

Then a couple of things happened which breathed life into the game. The sub-continent woke up and became giant killers. How good was it to get a kick in the pants from the minnows?

But also the standard of Australian cricket actually went down to the others. A commentator on the wireless was saying that just recently and I have to agree with him. But he was saying it as though it was a bad thing. Not me!

I enjoyed the last two tests for the closeness of the result, for the intensity of the players, of the variety of bowling and the stroke play of the batsmen. The reason the Tests were exciting was because both teams were about the same quality. Nothing wrong with that.

The Aussie fast bowlers were chucking (?) them down at around 135 – 148 kph. Yeah? Well Brett Lee and Jeff Thomson, Michael Holding et al, and John Snow whirled them down a bit faster than that! So did Alan Donald. Mitch Johnson was the only bowler to approach that of those guys.

He’s more like a Glenn McGrath or a Dennis Lillee than an express bowler.

Seeing the emergence of young batsmen getting hundreds in Adelaide and Brisbane was tops for me too. Go Davy Warner. Such aggression and such flair. Go Captain Smithy, get on with it Watto. Shame keepers have to bat cos Haddin is the best keeper in the world and battling for his place cos he is in a trough with the bat and there are young guys circling.

Bring on the Poms, I’m back in the fan club!

Maybe soon, they’ll be as good as the Aussie Women’s cricket team?

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the quality of cricket in respect to fielding has taken a whoop with the likes of AB devilliers (from another planet) , warner, steven smith etc.
But the fact that the teams are only winning matches at their home turf makes me sick.
those subcontinent minions can just win at their home turf !
Also aussies, england , kiwis etc are not capable of playing on those spinning tracks in sub continents !
those times are gone where one used to go in their oppostion’s backyard and beat them up there only.

Be interesting to see how Kohli goes, now that he’s the Captain.
Would he be able to Captain his team, rile the Aussies, and bat as well as he does, all at once.

I have tickets for PM’s XI, the big bash final, and all the world cup matches being played at Manuka. To have a test here would be bliss.

watto23 said :

Apparently in 2016/17 there are 7 tests scheduled in Australia. Hopefully we get one in Canberra, the crowds at Manuka would be no worse than Adelaide and Brisbane tests this year. Test cricket is like fine wine, the subtleties are intriguing, each day can be exciting and game changing, there really is nothing else like it in the world. I do like T20 cricket and thinks its the ideal form of cricket to expand the game, the game is ideal for media and internet, interviewing players on the field should never be done in test cricket, but in T20 its ideal, its unique, even the Americans think we are crazy doing it!

T20 cricket will be OK until a spectator is killed by a ball that has been hit into the stands.
Test cricket is marginally less boring than a 0 – 0 soccer match.

Apparently in 2016/17 there are 7 tests scheduled in Australia. Hopefully we get one in Canberra, the crowds at Manuka would be no worse than Adelaide and Brisbane tests this year. Test cricket is like fine wine, the subtleties are intriguing, each day can be exciting and game changing, there really is nothing else like it in the world. I do like T20 cricket and thinks its the ideal form of cricket to expand the game, the game is ideal for media and internet, interviewing players on the field should never be done in test cricket, but in T20 its ideal, its unique, even the Americans think we are crazy doing it!

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