The Cricket Thread

[Duppy Conqueror 1,451]

Haha you're easy to wind up

I find it a bit odd that the likes of KP, Trott, Prior - all South Africa born find a place in the English lineup. I'd argue they aren't good enough for the S. Africa side, but that's my opinion. I do find it a bit unfair though that England should take away players from Ireland for example (Ed Joyce, Eoin Morgan). Think of how much more competitive a minnow like Ireland would be if they had the quality of Morgan to call upon.

You met Gavaskar? Was he snooty?

well there is 3 of you Indians and only me left to fend you off...i had no choice but to fix my bayonet.

England team is really britain that has had predominantly English players and more for traditions sake has just kept the England tag...the welsh have contributed the most out of the "other" countries for several decades..well apart from South Africa.

as for them..i wish we had a more grown up in the English system players. it is not as bad as it was in the past tho with Allan Lamb,Derek Pringle,Robin Smith,(being south african).Chris Lewis and i think Phillip DeFreitas(sic?) and McCague back in those days were foreign too, tho McCague was shit. then there`s Nasser Hussain and Graeme Hick.

with the South African players back then tho that was a very tricky political situation. maybe most of those would have played for South Africa if their white politician and i guess in general the population hadn`t been such horrible racist cunts.

now i may not be entirely happy like i said earlier about having ,shall we just agree on "questionable" nationallity issues.tho bear in mind that they all do qualify to play for England legally.

am pretty sure actually even Marcel Desailly and Jimmy Floyd Hasslebaink qualified to play for England (before they were capped elsewhere)

England or even Britain as a whole is a very small country in size really..i know some folks around the world think of us as still some super power..but we a tiny island really for what we "achieved" in the past. the country nonetheless is a small country with a world renowned education system that has been in place for what 200 years..not sure how long exactly..anyway every year big numbers of greatly qualified young people have come out of our education system and gone into the workplace to see that there hasn`t been enough jobs for all the people who have become qualified and the promise of greater financial fortune has lured them to other countries for atleast the last century.

basically not so much now but certainly in the past we have not had a great pool of talent to pick from..in the 80`s we had alot of what,nobody could argue with was proper English (and Welsh) but they went on a rebel tour of South Africa when the Springboks were banned from international sports and those players got banned for a while so we had to take desperate action to try and field an international rate team.

these people who moved from England usually to South Africa,New Zealand,Australia,Rhodesia etc.. have had children. some of them have turned into cricketers..in south africa..the whole racism problem that has been bad on them in the past shifted and the new "problem" of the fact that they have a greater pool of players to pick from means that some have fallen through the gaps. the players we have today.

i`m not sure how much they rated Trott, the form he`s shown since making his Ashes debut in the decider,he has been sensational really. but he may never have got that chance to show that with South Africa. he is what 29/30 already and they have a strong upper-middle order as always anyway. as for KP he is in many ways their Fabregas. they had no idea how good he was a batter till he left for England at 20 years of age and even then it wasn`t really till he was 22 that he kicked on..when playing his team in Natal he would be a rarely used bowler who could swing the bat coming in from 6-8 in the order for the odd 20-30 ,the odd 40 but nothing to write home about. i think it`s fair to say that we have helped him become a better player than he was likely to be back there..who knows tho.. Prior..i`d say would get in the South Africa team now but Boucher has been a much better gloveman than him...not so long ago i doubt if Prior was in the top 5 glovemen in England. he was entirely fast tracked because he offered better batting than the others and they as it turned out rightly thought that his glove work issues could be ironed out.

Ed Joyce and Eoin Morgan. they decent one dayers Morgan, aint bad in tests so far but i`m not a huge fan really..think he`ll end up being a stop gap for a year maybe two but i`m not sold on him yet as a long term Test player.

we have lost players to other countries to tho..erm... Andrew Symonds is a brummie.

ah the celebrity cricketers thing..well what it was my grandfather was a member of Glamorgan cricket club,my grans sister in law ( widow of my grans brother who was a hawke hurricane fighter pilot in WWII) was a millionaire and on the board at Gloucestershire and my dad was a Surrey member..so between the 3 during the summer holidays if we weren`t off to watch England in the Euro`s or World Cup a few tests,back and fore all those grounds staying at whoever for a few days,watch some cricket..then off to somebody else to see someone else. i managed to get to meet a lot of players over the years because well..my gaurdians especially my auntie Elsie had a bit of clout at Gloucestershire back then and because she was never able to have children due to her hubby dying shortly after WWII had ended..i was a bit of her "blue eyed boy" so got kinda spoilt in that regard..also i was quite fucked up as a kid and was in and out of hospitals so you know what it`s like..all good PR to have a lil knock around with the sickly kid nephew of a board member..

reminds me i met Courtney Walsh at Gloucester too... lots of English players etc..

anyway onto to Gavaskar,blimey i mentioned i met your cricket god and took you on that long winded tour..well it was sometime in about the mid-80`s i was only about 8 or 9 at the time and it was in some sort of testimonal,invitation type thing..i can`t think exactly what..anyway there was this game it was a one dayer i think and it must have been the break between innings,i had watched Gavasker a lot as a kid on the tele..but you know Helmets and Caps and all that.,me being 8 or 9 i wasn`t entirely familier with his actually unmasked face..i had asked her if i could go on the field in my wheelchair(wasn`t paralysed just a weak sickly kid with other stuff.) was a bit of a huddle around me,players making a fuss with me..etc..then somebody starts spinning me around..and we stop my Auntie E goes "tadaah..surprise." i had zero shyness as a kid..i just turned around asked him " who are you ?" he motioned like he was shot in the heart ..and then smiled and said my name is Sunil Gavasker. what is your name Sir..he asked me about how i was feeling and all that and was despite his reputation of being a bit of a hard to handle personality at times he was amazing to me,really made me feel special and said he was gonna try and get a good score for me,he ended up scoring a 50 then went shortly afterwards. waved to me as he went off and i haven`t seen him since..loved and left by Sunil Gavasker.

blimey i`ve done a Tolstoi novel in a post...haha.

better save the some of my other stories for another day..i`m knackered now. hope i haven`t made many typos..

[Duppy Conqueror 1,451]

No, we're just better.

must be the Cricket equivalent of Ali`s roper dope then..because you`ve had the shit smacked at out of you so far..

if England bat out tomorrow i think that is the key..i know India got a dangerous batting line-up but i think the last say 5 sessions should be enough to bowl them out which could mean India get set a target of say 560. after tomorrow and first session on Monday..Strauss can be a bit too cautious with declarations i think in general,but he seems to have got better than that in the games so far this summer.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

if England bat out tomorrow i think that is the key..i know India got a dangerous batting line-up but i think the last say 5 sessions should be enough to bowl them out which could mean India get set a target of say 560. after tomorrow and first session on Monday..Strauss can be a bit too cautious with declarations i think in general,but he seems to have got better than that in the games so far this summer.

Haha don't be so sure.

We're experts in playing out for draws. Especially with the likes of Dravid & Laxman around

[Duppy Conqueror 1,451]

Haha don't be so sure.

We're experts in playing out for draws. Especially with the likes of Dravid & Laxman around

i balls it up mate..somehow i thought it was friday night..then someone on another site said something about going to their mothers tomorrow for sunday dinner. i looked at the time and it was 2 minutes to midnight Saturday night..grrrrrrr.. i don`t drink anyway but well it`s balls up my prediction now that we only have 2 day`s left not 3...still a chance of England winning but probably a draw now..

2-1 Eng was my series prediction anyway..i think we`ll win it but you guys will hold onto the number 1 spot..i so want it tho,England have never been number 1 during my life time.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

No, we're just better.

Broad says otherwise.

[Madmax 9,219]

Broad says otherwise.

#1 in the official Test rankings

Reigning World Champions

Come back when you've won something

[Madmax 9,219]

well there is 3 of you Indians and only me left to fend you off...i had no choice but to fix my bayonet.

England team is really britain that has had predominantly English players and more for traditions sake has just kept the England tag...the welsh have contributed the most out of the "other" countries for several decades..well apart from South Africa.

as for them..i wish we had a more grown up in the English system players. it is not as bad as it was in the past tho with Allan Lamb,Derek Pringle,Robin Smith,(being south african).Chris Lewis and i think Phillip DeFreitas(sic?) and McCague back in those days were foreign too, tho McCague was shit. then there`s Nasser Hussain and Graeme Hick.

with the South African players back then tho that was a very tricky political situation. maybe most of those would have played for South Africa if their white politician and i guess in general the population hadn`t been such horrible racist cunts.

now i may not be entirely happy like i said earlier about having ,shall we just agree on "questionable" nationallity issues.tho bear in mind that they all do qualify to play for England legally.

am pretty sure actually even Marcel Desailly and Jimmy Floyd Hasslebaink qualified to play for England (before they were capped elsewhere)

England or even Britain as a whole is a very small country in size really..i know some folks around the world think of us as still some super power..but we a tiny island really for what we "achieved" in the past. the country nonetheless is a small country with a world renowned education system that has been in place for what 200 years..not sure how long exactly..anyway every year big numbers of greatly qualified young people have come out of our education system and gone into the workplace to see that there hasn`t been enough jobs for all the people who have become qualified and the promise of greater financial fortune has lured them to other countries for atleast the last century.

basically not so much now but certainly in the past we have not had a great pool of talent to pick from..in the 80`s we had alot of what,nobody could argue with was proper English (and Welsh) but they went on a rebel tour of South Africa when the Springboks were banned from international sports and those players got banned for a while so we had to take desperate action to try and field an international rate team.

these people who moved from England usually to South Africa,New Zealand,Australia,Rhodesia etc.. have had children. some of them have turned into cricketers..in south africa..the whole racism problem that has been bad on them in the past shifted and the new "problem" of the fact that they have a greater pool of players to pick from means that some have fallen through the gaps. the players we have today.

i`m not sure how much they rated Trott, the form he`s shown since making his Ashes debut in the decider,he has been sensational really. but he may never have got that chance to show that with South Africa. he is what 29/30 already and they have a strong upper-middle order as always anyway. as for KP he is in many ways their Fabregas. they had no idea how good he was a batter till he left for England at 20 years of age and even then it wasn`t really till he was 22 that he kicked on..when playing his team in Natal he would be a rarely used bowler who could swing the bat coming in from 6-8 in the order for the odd 20-30 ,the odd 40 but nothing to write home about. i think it`s fair to say that we have helped him become a better player than he was likely to be back there..who knows tho.. Prior..i`d say would get in the South Africa team now but Boucher has been a much better gloveman than him...not so long ago i doubt if Prior was in the top 5 glovemen in England. he was entirely fast tracked because he offered better batting than the others and they as it turned out rightly thought that his glove work issues could be ironed out.

Ed Joyce and Eoin Morgan. they decent one dayers Morgan, aint bad in tests so far but i`m not a huge fan really..think he`ll end up being a stop gap for a year maybe two but i`m not sold on him yet as a long term Test player.

we have lost players to other countries to tho..erm... Andrew Symonds is a brummie.

ah the celebrity cricketers thing..well what it was my grandfather was a member of Glamorgan cricket club,my grans sister in law ( widow of my grans brother who was a hawke hurricane fighter pilot in WWII) was a millionaire and on the board at Gloucestershire and my dad was a Surrey member..so between the 3 during the summer holidays if we weren`t off to watch England in the Euro`s or World Cup a few tests,back and fore all those grounds staying at whoever for a few days,watch some cricket..then off to somebody else to see someone else. i managed to get to meet a lot of players over the years because well..my gaurdians especially my auntie Elsie had a bit of clout at Gloucestershire back then and because she was never able to have children due to her hubby dying shortly after WWII had ended..i was a bit of her "blue eyed boy" so got kinda spoilt in that regard..also i was quite fucked up as a kid and was in and out of hospitals so you know what it`s like..all good PR to have a lil knock around with the sickly kid nephew of a board member..

reminds me i met Courtney Walsh at Gloucester too... lots of English players etc..

anyway onto to Gavaskar,blimey i mentioned i met your cricket god and took you on that long winded tour..well it was sometime in about the mid-80`s i was only about 8 or 9 at the time and it was in some sort of testimonal,invitation type thing..i can`t think exactly what..anyway there was this game it was a one dayer i think and it must have been the break between innings,i had watched Gavasker a lot as a kid on the tele..but you know Helmets and Caps and all that.,me being 8 or 9 i wasn`t entirely familier with his actually unmasked face..i had asked her if i could go on the field in my wheelchair(wasn`t paralysed just a weak sickly kid with other stuff.) was a bit of a huddle around me,players making a fuss with me..etc..then somebody starts spinning me around..and we stop my Auntie E goes "tadaah..surprise." i had zero shyness as a kid..i just turned around asked him " who are you ?" he motioned like he was shot in the heart ..and then smiled and said my name is Sunil Gavasker. what is your name Sir..he asked me about how i was feeling and all that and was despite his reputation of being a bit of a hard to handle personality at times he was amazing to me,really made me feel special and said he was gonna try and get a good score for me,he ended up scoring a 50 then went shortly afterwards. waved to me as he went off and i haven`t seen him since..loved and left by Sunil Gavasker.

blimey i`ve done a Tolstoi novel in a post...haha.

better save the some of my other stories for another day..i`m knackered now. hope i haven`t made many typos..

Blimey mate that's quite a read Thanks for the reply though and I apologize if I came across as a bit rude, was just having a laugh and trying to wind you guys up.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

England have thrown this away. Matt Prior come on my son, get us out of this shit

[LDN Blue 7,903]

England have thrown this away. Matt Prior come on my son, get us out of this shit

Typical India. We'll waste 3 days doing fuck all, then pull our socks up

I just hope it's not too late! Despite this good session, England still have a healthy lead, and your bowling attack is to be feared on this pitch. If Ishant can do this to you, nothing can stop Anderson & Broad doing likewise.

That being said, it's Sachin's time now!

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Seems like both sides have brought their A-Game for only one of the innings... otherwise we could have had a real classic!

[Duppy Conqueror 1,451]

Blimey mate that's quite a read Thanks for the reply though and I apologize if I came across as a bit rude, was just having a laugh and trying to wind you guys up.

ha..until recently i was a social worker (for 11 years) in the mental health field..anyway, we would always have to write reports up everyday after we had worked with each of the folks on our our books. mine became a thing infamous in the area because of the length of them..the reports others would write up on average would be about 4 lines long...mine? 3 pages. i never used to finish work on time because of it ,i just can`t help myself sometimes tho, the hands and mind just start running wild.

no worries mate,just the whole nationality thing i feel strong about,not just on a sporting level but in society in general. i believe that everyone has the right to live wherever they want and become a national of that country aslong as they understand that the country isn`t there to serve them alone but they have to serve the country in some positive way too,which can come in many forms.. i know the world doesn`t work like that,but i think it should.

anyway lets get back to the cricket hey..two wonderful proud nations going head to head ,with good feelings between both sets of supporters. this is cricket after all..not football..this is a gentlemans sport, not a lads.

banter is good tho but perhaps we should keep it to actually what is going on during the games.

England having a wobble...everytime i leave the screen for a bit throughout the test so far..England have lost a wicket..i`ve got my munchies now by my side i just hope i don`t want a pee anytime soon.

[Duppy Conqueror 1,451]

Seems like both sides have brought their A-Game for only one of the innings... otherwise we could have had a real classic!

i thought you was joking around when you mentioned Prior earlier on, because we were no wickets down when i turned over to the Chelsea game.

this still could be a real classic mate..if Eoin,Matty and the tail can wag for another say 100-120. leaving say India batting for an hour tonight then 3 sessions tomorrow to get around 400.

is why i love Test cricket..all the twists and turns,the lulls in play to relax, then the sudden strikes. just when you think it`s just bumbling to a result one way... Boom! it goes in another direction.

[Madmax 9,219]

Dhoni missed a big trick by not giving Ishant a bowl straight after lunch. The lad's bowled his heart out but credit to Prior and Broad, they've batted very well. Prior's batting has come along, last time we toured in 2007 he was the butt of jokes among us Indians because we viewed him as someone who yapped a lot behind the wicket without having any particularly outstanding quality cricketing-wise.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Dhoni missed a big trick by not giving Ishant a bowl straight after lunch. The lad's bowled his heart out but credit to Prior and Broad, they've batted very well. Prior's batting has come along, last time we toured in 2007 he was the butt of jokes among us Indians because we viewed him as someone who yapped a lot behind the wicket without having any particularly outstanding quality cricketing-wise.

I agree. Not understanding why he's using himself & Raina to try and slow down this partnership when they're getting licked. I think England are leaving this declaration late though (what's new there?). I don't see us coming out & doing anything but seeing out a draw..

[warnie_666 1,081]

Typical India. We'll waste 3 days doing fuck all, then pull our socks up

I just hope it's not too late! Despite this good session, England still have a healthy lead, and your bowling attack is to be feared on this pitch. If Ishant can do this to you, nothing can stop Anderson & Broad doing likewise.

That being said, it's Sachin's time now!

Well, considering we only have to be content with 3 genuine bowlers, I wouldnt complain much. Had Zaheer been fit, we would have nailed them.

India has played this test virtually with 10 men. I would be happy with a draw.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Well, considering we only have to be content with 3 genuine bowlers, I wouldnt complain much. Had Zaheer been fit, we would have nailed them.

India has played this test virtually with 10 men. I would be happy with a draw.

*9 (with Ghambir off to hospital)

And, I think that was a mistake in itself.

Why was Raina played ahead of Yuvraj? The reasoning behind that made no sense to me. Yuvraj is more or less an all rounder now. His bowling, spin & variation has improved so much over the last year.

Thank heavens they've declared now. Though Sachin can't bat till 7^th now because of the rule about him not being on the field long enough. We better bat sensibly, that being said, even Ghambir can't open!!

[warnie_666 1,081]

Well Played Prior, coming in at 65/5 and scoring a century. But again cant quite help but think that was against 3 bolowers. If I was English I wouldnt wet my knickers yet.

And now, Sachin cant bat untill No.7 and Gautam Gambhir is out to get an Xray. Things not going India's way in this test.

A Draw for us is as good as a win considering the problems we have had

[LDN Blue 7,903]

A Draw for us is as good as a win considering the problems we have had

Yup.

I wouldn't send Dravid to open though. I'd like to see Raina open with Mukund.