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Cricket's not boring. This is boring

I went to Waitrose this morning and bought a jar of limited edition Marmite made with the yeast from Marston's Traditional beer, the official beer of the England Cricket Team.

whatwhat wrote:

sebster wrote:

btw I read Hauritz had a shocker the other night. Is naming him as the only spinner in the Australian ashes side really that clever? Especially when apparently the pitches are looking like they will turn now.

Thing is, we don't have anyone else. We tried a 38 year old in South Africa, and he got hit for 150 in 18 overs and didn't take a wicket, it was absolutely brutal. Hauritz probably isn't test standard, but the rest of the Australian spinners aren't even up to domestic standard (most state teams aren't picking spinners because they're not good enough). The guy batting at number six right now for Australia, Marcus North, isn't there because he's the sixth best batsman (he isn't), he's there because he's a pretty good batsman and can bowl useful offspin that's unlikely to get punished.

So much for replacing shane warne then. So Australia have got one spinner bellow standard and England have Swann, Panasar and Rashid to choose from. So that's definitely england ahead where spinners are concerned. Then you have flintoff who got six sixes and nine fours last night for lancashire, proving he's not as unfit as everyone makes out.
...now if only we could recall marcus trescothick back from cloud cuckoo land we'd have this series in the bag.

I was originally a pretty big rap for Panasar, but he's not really taken that step to being a really top level spinner. I liked the look of Rashid, though I've only seem him in limited overs. Swann is proabably destined to be useful. I think you've got to keep a line of seperation between recognising an area of strength and assuming it will be decisive. The English spinners, while pretty reasonable, don't contain any Harbajan level threats. I expect the series will be decided by the ability of the quicks to take wickets with the new ball, and then grind out wickets with disciplined old ball bowling.

Then if you look at the batting you have to give Australia an upper hand, though with a couple of reservations. Hughes remains somewhat unknown, and has succeeded in spite of a very poor technique, Hussey hasn't batted well for a while now, and Ponting isn't the player he was. But on the other hand the England batting has only one out and out class player in Pieterson, and while a few others are solid there is a lack of depth.

Theres mainly three types of games.

One day matches, which is the most popular and take...one day.
Test matches...which take three to four days depending on how close it comes.
And twenty twenty games which take two to three hours.

edit: just re-read your question, sorry. In a test match theres a 40 minute break for lunch and a 20 minute break for tea with a few drinks breaks (bout three minutes) in between.

Just to clarify, test matches go for up to five days. If the innings of both sides haven't been completed by then the game is a draw and no-one is declared a winner. Most tests these days finish with a result (unless there's a lot of rain) with a sizable number ending on the fourth day. Some tests end in three days, but these are rare. The odd test gets finished inside two days, but this usually gets a lot of people fired.

Each day there are three two hour sessions. That is, you play for two hours, then take a 40 minute lunch break. Then you play for two hours before taking a twenty minute tea break. Then you play for two more hours before play is ended for the day, then come back and do it again for the next four days. So in total you can play 30 hours in a single match. Each day you'll see around 550 to 600 balls bowled, for somewhere between 250 and 300 runs.

sebster wrote:Then if you look at the batting you have to give Australia an upper hand, though with a couple of reservations. Hughes remains somewhat unknown, and has succeeded in spite of a very poor technique, Hussey hasn't batted well for a while now, and Ponting isn't the player he was. But on the other hand the England batting has only one out and out class player in Pieterson, and while a few others are solid there is a lack of depth.

Only one? What about Strauss, think you missed him somewhere.

+ add flintoff on form to pieterson and we have a much better power play line up than yours.

And as i mentioned if only trescothik would play I'd have another to add... but that's just me dreaming.

To wory is bopara, he hasn't cemented his place at all.

sebster wrote:Just to clarify, test matches go for up to five days.

oops, yep you're right of course.

whatwhat wrote:Only one? What about Strauss, think you missed him somewhere.

+ add flintoff on form to pieterson and we have a much better power play line up than yours.

Strauss is a quality player, as is Cook, but there's a level above that where guys like Pieterson and Ponting stand. These are guys are capable of dominating series on a regular basis. They're the guys that the other side is afraid of. The players that get the opposition fieldsmen thinking 'cannot drop this guy or we're stuffed'.

If I were Indian, I'm sure I'd enjoy it.

As things currently stand, the only watchable British sport I can think of is Rugby.

Great, thanks for letting us know.

sebster wrote:

whatwhat wrote:Only one? What about Strauss, think you missed him somewhere.

+ add flintoff on form to pieterson and we have a much better power play line up than yours.

Strauss is a quality player, as is Cook, but there's a level above that where guys like Pieterson and Ponting stand. These are guys are capable of dominating series on a regular basis. They're the guys that the other side is afraid of. The players that get the opposition fieldsmen thinking 'cannot drop this guy or we're stuffed'.

Ponting isn't the batsmen he used to be and england have dealt with better batsmen recently well enough, chanderpaul for example.

whatwhat wrote:Ponting isn't the batsmen he used to be and england have dealt with better batsmen recently well enough, chanderpaul for example.

No, Ponting isn't. That's one of the big things in England's favour.

While Chanderpaul is a quality player, I wouldn't take too much out of the WI tour. There's only so far one class player can go when the rest of the team is mediocre and or uninterested.