I've seen Australia play a few games i have family in Brisbane and Adelaide while on vacation there we got to see them play it was pretty amazing, it's not that big here in the states but neither was soccer/football which is strange since almost everyone grows up playing or at least a lot of kids do. My friends and I just got some ICC World Twenty20 Tickets we cant wait to see Australia play against some of the best teams in the world.

All I want to know is if this sport has any cheerleaders?

Proud Member Of The "Nuke-Them-Till-They-Glow" School Of Foreign Policy

I guessed Sri Lanka. I guessed wrong - and really should've known better. The Aussie cricketers are far and away the world's best with their third consecutive World Cup victory, finishing unbeaten in 29 consecutive World Cup matches. A truly fantastic performance!

I was one of the four who put their money on Sri Lanka to take the trophy. Their bowlers are simply too damn good and the New Zealand batters have consistently shown their lack of backbone to stand tall in the really big matches (not that our bowlers had any grit).

Four World Cup semi-finals, four losses. Ranked third in the world, we've made par. And that's all.

Bring on the rugby.

We sucked. Sri Lanka deserves to be in the final, and we should hang our heads in shame. What a gutless performance.

And, it's right that Fleming has stepped down as captain. His form's been off for quite some time and when it came down to the game where we really needed him, he failed miserably.

See you again in four years.

I knew they'd buckle. Wimps.

What a way to go out: nine wicket defeat & South Africa got all the runs by the 20th over.

They were booed off the field. Good riddance.

But let's not forget about that little practice game against Aussie on Saturday morning

It looks like some revenge over Sri Lanka in the Semis, and then a cakewalk over Australia in the final!

KASSless against Sri Lanka, lost. Semi-KASS against S. Africa this morning, won. Through to semi-finals.

I love cricket myself (thanks Glenn for teaching me) and I want NZ to win real bad man. "watch out audience it's another sixer"

NZ KASSes West Indies!

I'm presuming that most of the Seppos won't have a Cricket Channel?

Cheers, Peter Cresswell

Really, Peter, you'd have to be a bit desperate...

Ross noted that "Since the World Cup is taking place in the Caribbean, it's a good opportunity for people in neighboring time zones to tune in and have a good, long look."

And thanks to Cricinfo3D, a new development in computer/sporting technology, you can even enjoy it in the comfort of your own computer chair. Have a look.

The next game that you can enjoy using this technology (which I believe was developed in New Zealand) is in about ten hours or so, at 13:30 GMT.

'Tune in' at www.cricinfo.com/3d

Cheers, Peter Cresswell

"In fact, dammit, I hereby denounce everybody."

Haven't you already done that twice this morning?

Cheers, Peter Cresswell

* * * *

'NOT PC.'
**Setting Brushfires In People's Minds**

ORGANON ARCHITECTURE
**Integrating Architecture With Your Site**

...I *love* being denounced

You can't do that. You and Heaps were separated at birth, no? Just look at your photos!!

Personally I'm disgusted at those appeasing treasonists Winefield and Elliot who've capitulated to the Phyllisovian fatwa by pretending to think that baseball requires skill after all. I hereby denounce them. In fact, dammit, I hereby denounce everybody.

Linz

> I'm a tennis fan myself

I'm never speaking to you again. I withdraw my moral sanction. Which was never more than highly tentative in the first place.

One schism!! I'm a tennis fan myself .

Jim

I think we should have a schism about sports preferences. The hell with whether you vote for Republicans or Democrats, this is important stuff.

Baseball, rugby, American football and cricket are all very fine games. I watch them all and enjoy them all.

But, good-natured chain-pulling aside, when it comes down to the sheer variety of bat shots possible, the variation in bowling speeds (from slow, flighty spin to 160kmh yorkers), to the fact that you're completely surrounded by 11 fielders on an oval ground, that you have a batting partner to deal with (and try not to get out), the possible methods of dismissal (10), the variability of pitch/weather conditions caused by the length of matches, the mental calculations that a captain has to perform as he analyses overs versus run rates versus time-constrained win, loss, draw scenarios... well, I've watched enough baseball--and played enough softball--in my time to know that all of the above takes place in that game, but at a lower level of variability and frequency. And that's what I like about baseball: it's simplicity and immediacy. But we're talking about chess versus checkers, aren't we?

The longest form of cricket--the test match--can last, and often does, five days. Can anyone imagine watching a 100 inning baseball game played over five days? No. And for the same reason that chess games are enthralling for hours on end but checkers aren't.

Since the World Cup is taking place in the Caribbean, it's a good opportunity for people in neighboring time zones to tune in and have a good, long look.

NB: no, I'm not one of those people that think baseball is about one type of pitch to one possible bat shot and a quick scoot around the bases. It's a wonderful game and very exciting, and it requires tactics and lightening fast decision-making, but, to coin a phrase: it's just not cricket, old chap.

> is this another case of the classic 'Ugly American' ...

Robert, I think you missed the fact that my posts were intended as humor, every one of them top to bottom. The dead give-away (outside of my deliberately over the top statements) should have been my original post when the very first thing I said is I know **absolutely nothing** about cricket.

So just to be clear-- I've never watched a game, don't understand the rules, and have absolutely no opinion about the game, its athleticism, its macho-ness etc.

I was just havin' fun wit youse cricket dudes

"you were watching England. What the fuck do you expect? They haven't been any good at anything since before Winston Churchill was PM."

Robert, need I remind you that officially speaking, we still own you?

That goes for the rest of you colonials as well. Now back to the harvesting of raw goods, all of you!

"There is *also a short interval between innings*."

And in every college and NBL game I've attended there have been breaks in play every 5 minutes to allow TV stations covering the event to show ads without missing anything. Basketball also has a half-time break and the basketball players have a reserves bench.

But for all that, I will acknowledge the skill and athletism required to play basketball well I've seen basketball played live and at the highest level and I don't deny that speed, agility and stamina are required. It was one of the things I was determined to see and experience while I was in America.

Can you say the same of your last visit to a cricket playing nation? Or is this another case of the classic 'Ugly American' who believes that because he was raised in the world's richest that he has nothing more to learn or experience?

Basketball, baseball and American football do require skill, stamina and strength to play well. But no more, in totality, that is required to play cricket well. I know because I've played the game seriously and know how taxing it is to bat and field all day in 120 degree F temperatures. But I don't expect you to acknowledge that.

You've already demonstrated your militant ignorance of the sport. The fact is, you were talking out your arse when intimating that there is no physicality in cricket. And when contradicted you then went on to berate machismo, as if forcing your way up & past the bodies of the defenders to slam dunk the basketball is effeminate.

This has gone beyond good hearted ribbing Phil because you've refused to acknowledge the flaws in your own favourite game.

To listen to you would be to believe that basketball is the greatest and most athletic game on the planet. That it is the pinnable of every hope Rand held for man when she invented objectivism.

And yet for all your 'Wikipedia-based scholarship' (and having Wikipedia and scholarship in the same sentance probably twists the meaning of the latter beyond its breaking point) you've missed the most important difference between cricket and any other sport in the world.

And it's this: whilst cricket is a team sport, when the batter takes his gaurd and turns to face the bowler, he is on his own. He can literally live or die by his own skill because he faces the bowler and his ten supporting fielders alone. No one from his own side can intercede. One man against eleven in an arena, his wits his only ally.

You have to do your own thinking in cricket. There are no time-outs when the action heats up, the coach is 100 yards away and all his whiteboard strategies don't mean shit. As soon as the bowler hits his delivery stride you've got 1/10th of a second to counter his move or you're out of the game. That's cricket. And because wits are the key, this sport is not dominated by a player with a particular body-type.

Two more things, cricket has never tolerated the level of racism that American sports have done in the past. There was never the equivalent of a 'Negro Baseball League' in cricket. And when a team did refuse to pick or play people with dark-skin they were banned from international competition.

And unlike pro US basketball and baseball, international competition is the pinnacle of the sport. Unlike the 'World Series' the World Cup of Cricket is hottly contested by nations from all parts of the globe. Even America had a go, but were slain both by their own ineptitude on the field and incompetence and nepotism off it.

No true cricketer would ever turn down the opportunity to wear his nation's colours. Every national team that turns out is that country's dream team. And if they loose -- as the USA did in recent international baseball and basketball tournaments-- then there isn't any pissing and moaning about how they would've won if their top players weren't too busy getting a pedicure.

PS I find it ironic that an American is complaining about something taking forever to complete. This is the same nation that has raised slow-cooking barbecue to an art form -- and a worthy one it is.

"...there is no skill level required to play baseball."

Round bat, round ball, and a great deal of assembly required.

The single toughest moment in all of sports happens thousands of times a day, all summer long.

There simply can be no serious question about this.

In basketball, the players need incredible stamina. They are constantly running, end to end.

However, I just saw this in the Wikipedia article about snoozer (I mean cricket): "Typically, two innings matches are played *over three to five days* with at least six hours of cricket being played each day. One innings matches are usually played over one day for six hours or more. There are *formal intervals on each day for lunch and tea*, and *shorter breaks for drinks*, where necessary. There is *also a short interval between innings*." [emphasis added]

Shouldn't there be cots to sleep on as well?

Isn't that sort of *brutal pace* way too taxing, not to mention INHUMANE?

Wow. I'm exhausted just hearing about it.

you don't spend half your time in the que for the stadium bathroom like most Yanks who come to the game do. Face it Phil, Americans who come to the game and drink Budweiser all day don't actually like sport, they just like to pee a lot.

> advertising the piss-weak beer you Yanks make.

Yes. You certainly need strong beer to allow your judgment to lapse so much that you consider the cricket game you are watching to be athletically challenging. Urp.

MLB teams play several games against the same opponent in each city while they are on the road. Which gives a lie to the idea that cricket takes longer than Baseball to play.  Add up the time the home side spends playing the visiting side in a 5 day period...

A test match lasts 5 days because the the wear and tear on the pitch is allowed to come into play. Batting & bowling conditions on the first two days is entirely different to those on the third, forth and fifth days. Different types of bowlers come into their own as the pitch ages, but the eleven players selected at the beginning cannot be changed, even if injured.

This is why I'm dubious about Mr Gagnon's claim to have mastered the art of batting in three days. A real cricket ball can be made to curve in the air just like a baseball, in addition it can be made to change direction after it strikes the pitch. Had he been playing bowlers with such skills on a real pitch then he would have come to understand that despite the cricket bat being flat (as opposed to round) and wider then a baseball bat, the skill level required to hit the ball sufficiently well to make a significant score (50 runs or more) is similar to that required in baseball.

The length of the game adds drama & tension, as does the ever present threat of being hit by the faster bowlers.  Yes, there are games that drag on and are boring as batshit. But that happens in every sport including the American ones:

Basketball: Xmas '05: Houston Rockets surrender to the Utah Jazz the second Sean McGrady leaves the game so that he can make it to the hospital in time to see is son get born.
Baseball: Any KC Royales game you care to mention.
NFL: KC Chiefs vs the Bengals last season.

I've got photographs of the Chiefs QB in the process of throwing the first of a series of god-awful passes that got intercepted by the Bengals and led to a TD. If that QB hadn't been knocked unconscious during one of the many sacks he suffered in that first quarter, the Arrowhead Stadium scorers may have had to run out and extend the Bengal's side of the scoreboard by a few extra digits.
The most exciting thing in that game was the half-time entertainment and the thunderstorm that nearly drowned the few remaining spectators in the third quarter.

And lastly, if you add up the time taken for TV commercial breaks, a single NBA or NFL or MLB game takes nearly 5 weeks to play anyhow. At least in cricket (so far) the TV company doesn't stop the game to play 30 minutes worth of commercials advertising the piss-weak beer you Yanks make.

I’m coming in late to this one, and it seems most of the good points have been made. However, there is one other significant difference between baseball and cricket: endurance. Baseball batters face but a handful of deliveries until they’re struck out or walked. A top class cricketer will face hundreds. Brian Lara once reached 400 (not out), having been at the crease for 773 minutes and faced 582 balls - in a single match!

Beat that you gum-chewin' backy-spittin' Yanks...

I'm in on this SOLOC basketball tournament.

Kelly

... at SOLOC 5 sorted.

> And who was bowling at you? Phil Coates?

Don't ever play me one on one in basketball, dude. In a game to 11, I'll probably beat you 11-2.

including pocket billiards no doubt...

"...and merely a couple days to become proficient at cricket"

And who was bowling at you? Phil Coates?

> a 99 mph ball bowled at Jeremy's head by Joel Garner. This was perfectly legal thing for Joel to do by the way, Jeremy should have moved faster. [Robert W]

This is a proof of "macho", I suppose? That the Brits (short for Brit Commonwealth) do something which is not permitted in baseball with a -less- hard ball, could kill someone, and even OUR homegrown thugs - American hockey players - would shrink at doing.

....Whooops! I forgot! The thuggish, brain-dead sport of hockey was invented in freakin' CANADA. A Commonwealth country. That explains it.

--a civilized, sensitive, fair-minded American
--who is also athletic and good-looking
--and a master of several ball sports (don't go there)

Well, if my intention was to poke cricket die-hards in the testicles with a sharp stick....thereby showing more accuracy than most players whiffing at hitting a ball with a bat....I seem to have succeeded!

Got Linz to display more mock outrage than he has recently Lithe??

Well, now we have a brave--some might say foolish--assertion with which to deal.

John, let's have it: why is baseball a game of higher skill?

No generalities, thank you--specifics.

Lindsay, would you please stop calling Americans "Yanks!" I was raised on a hatred of Yankees fed to me in my morning bowl of grits, and everytime you call one of us that, I have a horrible flashback of Sherman burning Atlanta.

Kelly

No water here...just lots and lots of booze.

Next thing you'll be telling me there's water in New Orleans.

"Batting with a cricket bat requires technique, thought, and mental and physical agility and litheness: attributes well beyond the reach of dumb Yanks."

Having played both baseball and cricket extensively, I can honestly say that baseball requires far more skill. It took me years to master my baseball skills...and merely a couple days to become proficient at cricket. No doubt, cricket IS fun...but it certainly isn't as demanding as baseball. Not even close.

"I've played in games where we've had to call an ambulance for a batsman hit in the temple with a cricket ball (a perfectly legal pitch) and I myself have had a rib, a toe and a finger broken playing the game. And in the case of the rib, I was playing the following week with my rib strapped."

...there are ladies, and Americans present

Damn, Linz! You haven't lost a step .

Jim

Cricket was around before all the pussy sports you name in your analysis. It's a sport played with a ball harder than a baseball and the 'pitcher' is allowed to hit the batter with it. Fielders catch this ball without gloves and if the batter smacks the ball out of the stadium, he gets to face the pitcher's wrath the very next ball.

Non physical? I saw Jeremy Coney get his forearm broken by a 99 mph ball bowled at Jeremy's head by Joel Garner. This was perfectly legal thing for Joel to do by the way, Jeremy should have moved faster.

I've played in games where we've had to call an ambulance for a batsman hit in the temple with a cricket ball (a perfectly legal pitch) and I myself have had a rib, a toe and a finger broken playing the game. And in the case of the rib, I was playing the following week with my rib strapped.

And as for your report on the last game of cricket you saw, you were watching England. What the fuck do you expect? They haven't been any good at anything since before Winston Churchill was PM.

It's a "fake sport": One played by nations lacking the skill level to play baseball --

There I would have to agree with you, since there is no skill level required to play baseball. All one does with a baseball bat is execute a crude and brutish horizontal swing in the oft-forlorn hope that bat may connect with ball and give the batter an opportunity to waddle around the field and demonstrate what an overweight, steroid-laden lumbering grunting ox he is. Batting with a cricket bat requires technique, thought, and mental and physical agility and litheness: attributes well beyond the reach of dumb Yanks. Gad, we Brits and Brits-descended should have recolonised you barbarian oafs long since. Anyone who doesn't grasp that baseball is a bigger threat to Western Civilisation than Islamo-Fascism, Enviro-Fascism, neo-Marxism, Rap-crap, Diana Hsieh and the Brandens combined has no understanding of the role of philosophy in sport, and is immoral.

Linz the Lithe

You could be watching ping-pong . I still think it's amazing that Argentinians would crowd the venue for a top chess match when I was a kid. I'm a chess enthusiast, but I can't see that happening in the U.S. to the same degree. Vive la difference!

Jim

[this space intentionally left blank]

Kelly, you ask a number of vital questions worthy of serious Objectivist discussion.

Let me take them in order (based on extensive research -- meaning no knowledge whatsoever):

1. "Is cricket a real sport that people really follow?"

No, to the first. Yes, to the second. It's a "fake sport": One played by nations lacking the skill level to play baseball -- namely the athletically inept countries of the British Commonwealth. One day a few years back, some Brits and Aussies were trying ito play baseball. They were having a lot of trouble mastering the baseball bat (too heavy, requires coordination, hitting themselves in the head often...etc.) Finally in frustration one player making a particularly uncoordinated wild swing, hit the ground with the baseball bat managing to split it lengthwise into vertical staves.

They decided to continue forever batting with this awkward, stupid, useless piece of wood. And, as the Brits do, make a really bad idea into a "tradition".

Since the Brits and the countries they colonized are this clumsy and athletically challenged, the likelihood is that they would injure themselves. So they decided to put shin guards on, a full suit of armor being too expensive at the time. Also, not fully grasping the rules of baseball, they have bastardized them in a number of ways . . . including the heart-warming tradition of strangling the losing coach. And, not being as physically strong throwers as American players and unable to throw the ball in the air more than 10 or 15 feet, when they pitch the ball, they have to let it bounce on the ground to get sufficient distance before it reaches its target.

Also, since the "athletes" (using the term loosely) are less fit than American professionals, when running they don't attempt to round three bases and return home, but are only able to run a shorter distance in a straight line.

Before puking their guts out.

2. "I sort of thought it was like croquet - a sport that had died out."

Well, it has died out in any sane part of the world.

Croquet requires greater skill and physical stamina, as does bird-watching or tea-brewing...two more really tiring sports which originated in the tepid United Kingdom.

3. "How did the sport get its name?"

You didn't ask this, but since it's a good question I'll answer it. The game is so lame and boring and so non-physical, that the silence in many stadiums during long, tepid stretches is such that you can often hear crickets chirping.

That's if the snoring doesn't drown them out.

But calling a game "snoozer" was thought to be somewhat disrespectful.

...I understand your ignorance/confusion. I really do

Below you'll find a map of the cricket playing nations. Orange indicates the countries where cricket is either the major summer sport or the major sport, period.

The population of those countries--and only those where it's the major sport--adds up to 1.5 billion, or 25% of the world's population.

Cricket is a major world sport--ranking in the top five--and it's flourishing.

Is cricket a real sport that people really follow?

Does the earth rotate on its axis? Do bears poo in the wood? Is Barbara Branden a witch?

I sort of thought it was like croquet - a sport that had died out.

Assuredly not. Au contraire. While Coach Woolmer is a notable exception, it's the benighted believers of such a view who are routinely being found asphyxiated. We cricket-lovers are a zealous breed. Beware! Heh, heh!

Linzifer Shane Bond Danger

Is cricket a real sport that people really follow? I sort of thought it was like croquet - a sport that had died out. How seriously is it taken?

Kelly

I didn't include Ireland or Bangladesh as I don't think they have any serious chance, although the may both beat England