Last night while watching the World Twenty20 an ad came on promoting the return of the Ryobi cup on Fox Sports. The ad brought back childhood memories of sitting on the lounge room floor watching domestic one day cricket, back in the good old days when it was still shown on free to air TV. Then I had a thought…
Just when it looked like all the crazy talk had died down, the Olympics showed up and a couple of ridiculously quick Jamaicans started to appear in the cricketing headlines again. Usain Bolt and Johan Blake are both phenomenal athletes, no one will disagree on that but are they cricketers? I mean genuine, worthy of a spot in a top flight team, cricketers. Logic says no. Media fueled marketing madness says yes.
On Monday Cricket Australia announced both the ODI and T20 squads that will head to the UAE in a little over a month for three ODIs and three T20s against Pakistan, but before those games the tour will kick off with an ODI against Afghanistan.
Last year the Decision Review System (DRS) was mandatory… for all of about four months. The ICC then, in their infinite wisdom, reverted back to their previous stance where the use of DRS had to be agreed upon by both competing sides. Complete and utter madness.
After threats of a potential strike – which I honestly don’t think would have ever eventuated – CA and the ACA sorted out a new MOU agreement and the National Selection Panel revealed their 17 man contract list, down from the 25 of previous years. On the whole there aren’t a lot of surprises, but lets take a closer look.
Ellyse Perry is a freak, and I mean that in the absolute nicest way possible. She has been representing Australia on the international stage in both cricket and football for more than 5 years, and she’s still only 21.
If you were watching the international T20 last night you no doubt witnessed Dave Warner’s spectacular switch hit disposal of the Indian bowling into the depths of ANZ stadium. You probably also then heard the debate amongst the commentators over whether or not it is “fair”. The discussion on the matter has continued today, not sure why though…
There is absolutely nothing wrong with innovation in Cricket, without innovation we would not even have one day cricket, nor would we have Twenty20 cricket – in fact we would be without many of the things that make the game what it is today. But there is a difference between innovation and unnecessary change.
Was going to try and summarise this into a tweet, but was never going to fit my reasoning into 140 characters.
Twenty20 is all the rage in the cricketing world. The popularity of the shortest form of the game has exploded in recent years, thanks mostly to its faster, more action-packed style and the shorter game time. The ‘length’ of test matches and even traditional 50-over one-day games does still put off many people, but T20 which is all over and done within three hours is perhaps more accessible to the masses.