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Cricket

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:10 pm
by cprice12
I like to think of myself as a sports fanatic.

Hockey, baseball, football, soccer, tennis...and the college version of basketball. Love 'em all.

But I'm sorry, every once in a while when browsing the web I'll stumble across a Cricket game recap and it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. The cricket terms/plays/rules are like a completely different ridiculous language.
I've even tried to watch it online and it's a bitch to figure out. People say it's a lot like baseball, but the hell it is...its completely different.

Here's a blog recap of a cricket match/game/roundabout/googly or whatever the hell they call A GAME, that I just found.
Did anyone else catch it? An absolutely unbelievable day's cricket, full of googlys, snorters, and tea-tray bowling. Simply marvelous stuff.

South Africa really had the lads under the screws, but Freddie Flintoff really brought us back into the game late with some of the best and most aggressive pace bowling I've seen in quite a while.

What a menacing spell after tea! Simply cracking stuff... the Springboks were shitting themselves (proverbially of course: anything else would ruin the crisp brightness of their cricketing whites) as he rumbled in, over after over, with a will and a spirit that our pace attack hasn't seen in sometime. Consistently, Freddie was getting the ball in the blockhole and forcing the batsmen to nibble outside off-stump. As a fast-medium bowler, that's really the perfect area to aim at: a shade outside off-stump to the right-hander, and pitch it up so you catch 'em in two minds... do I sniff at it and cut it, or do I block it into the pitch.

Image

The South African nightwatchman Paul Harris did a smart job to kick off the morning, putting on 53 with McKenzie before lunch, although Sidebottom swung a nifty delivery in with his loose left-arm pace bowling and beat him for pace. He went after the ball and cuffed it to third slip where Cookie got his mitts 'round it. Lovely stuff.

From then on after lunch, it was all South Africa until Freddie's afternoon spell. Gorgeous stuff in the dying embers of the sunlight. The umps held off with their light meters, and Freddie got in full swing, pocketing four wickets (four!) before the close to leave the first innings right in the balance.

Anderson took a nice caught-and-bowled off Hashim Amla either side of Freddie's first brace of wickets, but it was that last hour-and-a-half when Flintoff really made the difference. He made short work of Kallis, McKenzie and the dangerous de Villiers before the day was done, and without that, we'd be buggered.

Good show by the lads today. Let's hope they can polish off the tail in the morning session and get right back out to the crease to bat well into Day 3 and beyond.

Come on lads, get it done over the next three days!
Dumbest sport ever.

Re: Cricket

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:27 pm
by KPFBlue
cprice12 wrote: Dumbest sport ever.

False, NBA is worse.

Re: Cricket

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:06 pm
by glen a richter
I work with a guy from Guyana who has enlightened me on the rules of cricket, and other than the fact that a game can last almost a whole week, it actually seems like a lot of fun.

PSAL, the governing body of New York City high school sports has introduced cricket recently and a couple schools actually have functioning teams.

Re: Cricket

Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:23 pm
by joosforjihad
Cole, Berglund and a 1st for Freddie Flintoff?

Re: Cricket

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 10:40 am
by dmiles2186
Rugby FTW.

Re: Cricket

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 1:53 pm
by cprice12
joosforjihad wrote:Cole, Berglund and a 1st for Freddie Flintoff?
I hear he has some of the best and most aggressive pace bowling anyone has seen in quite a while.

Re: Cricket

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:11 pm
by stinkdified
I've been working with a bunch of english guys down here in south america and they all tell me it is worthless (i've asked the same question out of curiosity). Yea, it can last a week, however there is apparently either another league or different game style where it can only last a day similar to baseball. lame.

Re: Cricket

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:29 pm
by cprice12
I'm not making this up...
After a controversial ending to a Cricket game...
New Zealand cricketer Warren Lees recounted the underarm incident on New Zealand's 20/20 current affairs show, on Thursday 17 February 2005. He said that after the affair there was a long silence in the dressing room, which was broken suddenly and unexpectedly by fellow player Mark Burgess smashing a teacup.
A teacup? Seriously?

Re: Cricket

Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 3:38 pm
by glen a richter
Why not a tea cup? It's a British game, after all.

Re: Cricket

Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 8:01 am
by abc789987
glen a richter wrote:Why not a tea cup? It's a British game, after all.
How often do coffee cups get smashed in American games?

Re: Cricket

Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 8:30 am
by cprice12
glen a richter wrote:Why not a tea cup? It's a British game, after all.
I just have a hard time picturing a pissed off athlete after a controversial loss, sipping tea with his pinky in the air, and then breaking the dainty teacup out of anger.

If he had smashed a beer bottle against the wall, that would be acceptable...but a pansy-ass teacup?

I guess it doesn't take much for British athletes to relieve frustration.