mcc - load of bollocks!

[//\/\/]

so the mcc are meeting to discuss whether kevin pietersen's left-handed six-hitting is, or isn't, cricket. what a load of bollocks! if he's go the nerve and skill to risk shots like that, never mind execute them, then he should be praised for making the game more enjoyable. so a few old bowlers are moaning - screw them - cricket needs entertainers and original-thinking more than ever - especially the one-day game.

[BeautifulBurnout]

Well, the old duffers over their glasses of Pimms and cucumber sandwiches came to the right decision and gave the switch-hit the green light today.

Unlike bowlers, a batsman does not have to notify the umpires and opposing team if they opt to reverse their batting style.
However, the shot raises a number of questions for umpires, including the lbw and leg-side no-ball laws....zzZZZZzzzzz....zzZZZZZzzzzz...

Sorry, I dozed off there when they got boring about the rules.











And before any of you blokey-bloke-blokes ((c) Bill Bailey) start complaining about me taking the piss, I used to play cricket when I was at school, so I understand the rules really... well...most of em anyway.

[//\/\/]

sense prevails; i take it all back!

[big screen satellite]

Pietersen is a showman - but he is also offering himself open to being bowled more readily, i bet he does this again and fucks it up at leas once... so yes its good for the game, and fuck the bowlers - and the right decision has been made imo

its all about entertainment in the long run

[chuck]

6 balls.

7 runs.

load of cobblers.

it's not like the Black Craps are a shadow of a team. they've been woeful.

[chuck]

And now - an incident to rival the infamous "Under Arm" delivery by the dirty, cheating, snivelling, crybaby Australian Chappell brothers.

Elliot impeded! Sidebottom dives and tackles! Collingwood: "Captain Cock"

"the spirit of cricket" tarnished. mutter, mutter, mutter...

England in moral turpitude. Huzzah!!

Priceless moment of the day - lipreading the NZ players celebrate the overthrow on the final delivery and the winning runs.

"You fuck, chunts chitting" (make up the sentence yourself)

And now Collingwood banned for 4 ODIs because England bowled their overs too slowly.

Oh the morality of it all - the arcanity - the pointlessness.

2-1. Roll on Lords.

[den]

None of this makes any sense to me, but it sounds completely awesome.

[IsiliRunite]

Originally Posted by den

None of this makes any sense to me, but it sounds completely awesome.

Can someone get me a video tutorial of cricket? I have to many Indian and Pakistani friends to know almost nothing about it.

[chuck]

um. no video tutorial is going to help you get your head around cricket.

get some of these pakistani or indian friends to find you a one day match to watch together - and bug the shit out of them about all the finer points. then when you're OK with that - have a crack at a test match.

better form of the game imho - but that's coz I'm an old git.

For a very long and complicated description try this article from cricinfo

Or for something more relaxed - and very in keeping with the "spirit of cricket" thing.

http://www.coudal.com/writing.php

--------

You know the big tent at the east end of the county fairgrounds? Next to the show barn? Imagine it’s an oval filled with 90,000 Pakistanis who love to watch pie-eating—who love pie-eating more than soccer—even though it seems to the rest of us that eating pie would be a fairly unpleasant reminder of British Colonialism.

OK. Got it.

The area where the table is, where the pie-eaters sit, is called “the pitch.” At either end of the pitch is a line marking “the crease.” Now, let’s say that inside one of these creases, your pies are cooling on top of three sticks, which are called “stumps.” This contraption is called a “wicket” and there’s a man attempting to knock the wicket over by throwing a ball at it.

Is he the other pie-eater, trying to ruin my pies?

No, the other pie-eater is on your team, and he’s standing in front of his own wicket of pies at the other end of the pitch.

There are teams? That’s weird. You don’t usually see that in competitive pie-eating.

Right. So the guy from the other team is called a “bowler” and he’s trying to knock your pies down before you can eat them. He throws with an overhand motion, releasing the ball before he steps into the crease, usually bouncing the ball on the ground to make it harder for the pie-eater to pick up. To protect your pies, you have a bat, and when he throws the ball, you swing the bat and try to swat the ball away. If you hit it, you and the other pie-eater switch places and then you can eat one of his pies.

And I suppose he eats one of my pies.

Correct. And after you eat one, you switch places again, eat a pie, switch places, eat a pie, and so on until the other team throws the ball back into the pitch.

Do a lot of people get sick?

Sick? Why?

All that eating and running and eating and running. It seems like nausea would be a hazard.

Well, no. Not really. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Sorry.

That’s OK. But if you miss the ball with the bat, and the bowler knocks over your pies, you’re out, and another pie-eater from your team takes your place. You can also be called out if the other team catches your ball on the fly, or if the ball hits your body and the umpire rules that it otherwise would have knocked over your wicket. This is called “LBP,” or “Leg Before Pies.”

I see.

After ten of your players are out, your “innings” are over, and then it’s the other team’s turn.

And whoever eats the most pies wins?

Sort of. This is one way in which cricket is different from pie-eating. Pie-eating, as you know, is pretty much all about the pies—how much pie you eat, how fast you can eat it, that sort of thing. In cricket, you’re trying to score “runs” and you can do that by consuming pies, but also by hitting the ball across designated boundaries.

OK, I think I understand.

Great. Now all you need to do is imagine that there are no pies, and that the whole thing goes on for five days.

Wait a minute. No pies? No pies at all?

Well, I suppose you could bring a pie if you wanted—you know, for the other guys—but the point is that the presence of pie won’t have any bearing on the outcome of the match.

What about all the stuff you said about the pie-eaters switching places and eating each other’s pies?

Nope. They just run back and forth between the creases, switching places. And they’re called “batsmen.” There are no pies. You’re really going to have to get that through your head.

So what’s the point?

The point? I don’t think the rules say anything specifically about a point to it. Why?

Because the point of eating pie is self-evident: free pie. I don’t see the point of hitting a ball with a bat and switching places with another guy.

You might as well ask what’s the point of any sport?

Well?

Oh. You’re one of those.

What? Who’s one of those?

You are.

Who are they?

Them. You.

Who?

All of you. You always have to bring reason into everything.

So?

Reasons are spoilers. Nasty things. Most people learn soccer or baseball or cricket when they’re children. That’s so they don’t ask why all the time. If you expect there to be a “point” to a cricket match or a painting or a short essay written during Wednesday night’s rerun of Law & Order, you’ll be frequently disappointed.

Sorry.

That’s OK. How about a game of Hearts?

Fine. You’ll have to teach me.

It’s easy. You know how in the Sixties you had the British Invasion? You had The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, and The Who.

OK.

The Rolling Stones are trump. And Ray Davies is worth 13 points.

So I want Ray Davies.

No you don’t. That’s the thing.

Interesting…

[BeautifulBurnout]

Awesome post

I still like the old explanation though - the one you can find on souvenir tea-towels:

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.
Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out, and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out.
When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side thats been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out.
Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.
There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.
When both sides have been in and all the men have out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!