http://www.cricinfo.com/ci-icc/content/current/story/410448.html
Dave Richardson and Adam Gilchrist would like to see I-A and I-AA Test Cricket (suck it, bowl and playoff divisions). The feel that people stopped watching the cornerstone of the game is that the games are no longer competitive enough, because there are too many bad teams playing not enough good teams. Ignoring the fact that the sport is biased towards India and England (and occsionally Austraila, except when they piss it away like at the 20/20 Worlds), I don't see how keeping the "bad" teams away from the "good" teams would improve the sport at all. If England wants to no longer play Zimbabwae that's fine, but how do you know you're not killing the sport in Zimbabwae because you're taking away showing those people what they could become?
I mean let's just look at what the two divisions would probably look like (these are based entirely on my assumptions, and Test Results as of May 18, 2009)
I-A:
1) Austrailia
2) South Africa
3) England
4) India
5) Whoever is currently hotter of Pakistan and Sri Lanka
I-AA
1) Whoever is cooler of Sri Lanka and Pakistan
2) The West Indies
3) New Zealand
4) Bangladesh
5) Zimbabwae
There are only 10 teams to choose from in the entire world, and instead of trying to level the playing field and expanding the oppertunities to more teams in the world, they would rather narrow it down and keep the teams they don't like out of their "good game". It's a disgrace and a joke and I hope it never comes to fruition.
Showing posts with label ICC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ICC. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Alright I'll say it, I'm a bad blogger, it's been exactly three weeks since my last post, and here we are in the middle of the international tournament of the year (since we're in a down year for the ODI tournaments) the ICC World Twenty20 Championship (..of the World). I want to mix things up a little, so lets try this in FAQ form.
Q: Who qualified for the tournament?
A: The top ten teams in the ICC's world rankings, plus the top two finishers from the Qualifying Tournament. However, because it is a corrupt political entity, Zimbabwae was forced out of the tournament. and was replaced by the third place finisher in the Qualifying Tournament. This is how they're ranked.
1) India
2) Pakistan
3) Austrailia
4) New Zealand
5) South Africa
6) Sri Lanka
7) England
8) Bangladesh
9) Ireland
10) Netherlands
11) West Indies
12) Scotland
Q: Wait, 12 teams, how do you set up a single elimination tournament that way?
A: You don't. Instead, they have four pool groups each consisting of one first tier, one second tier, and one third tier team. You go by ranking. So you get four groups that look like this:
1-8-9
2-7-10
3-6-11
4-5-12
Q: What have we missed so far?
A: So far you've missed the pool play I just mentioned.
Q: Any Suprises?
A: Austrailia went quietly into the night losing to the West Indies 172-169 (in a match where WI only sent 5 batsmen to the stumps), and losing to Sri Lanka 160-159 (this time only 6 Batsmen for SL). The Netherlands were elimnated in heartbreaking fashion when they were only able to put up 93 runs against Pakistan to allow England to move on to the Super Eight.
(and let it be stated here that I am glad for Bloggers autosave feature that allowed this to still be here when my computer shut down on me)
Q: Super Eight? What's that?
A: The Super Eight is the second round of the competition and it started today (South Africa 114-England 111, and New Zealand 198-Ireland 115 for those keeping track at home) It is two groups of four (the first and second place finishers from the four opening round pools. Each plays the other three in the pool, and the top two from each pool move onto the semi-finals.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: If you want to learn about cricket, 20/20 is probably the best way to do it, it's the shortest game, has the fasting pacing, and is the only version of the sport played at night. If you've gotten into the sport at all through this, first off that's nice, cause hey, I've accomplished something. Second, you might want to take the next step up, and learn about Net Run Rate, which is the first tie-breaking tool, and will save you a lot of confusion (if you're good at math). Finally, enjoy the games! They're in England, so you can have cricket with your breakfast (Game one Tomorrow starts at 6:30 EDT, and Game two starts at 7:30 PDT, so there are options for everyone.)
Q: Who qualified for the tournament?
A: The top ten teams in the ICC's world rankings, plus the top two finishers from the Qualifying Tournament. However, because it is a corrupt political entity, Zimbabwae was forced out of the tournament. and was replaced by the third place finisher in the Qualifying Tournament. This is how they're ranked.
1) India
2) Pakistan
3) Austrailia
4) New Zealand
5) South Africa
6) Sri Lanka
7) England
8) Bangladesh
9) Ireland
10) Netherlands
11) West Indies
12) Scotland
Q: Wait, 12 teams, how do you set up a single elimination tournament that way?
A: You don't. Instead, they have four pool groups each consisting of one first tier, one second tier, and one third tier team. You go by ranking. So you get four groups that look like this:
1-8-9
2-7-10
3-6-11
4-5-12
Q: What have we missed so far?
A: So far you've missed the pool play I just mentioned.
Q: Any Suprises?
A: Austrailia went quietly into the night losing to the West Indies 172-169 (in a match where WI only sent 5 batsmen to the stumps), and losing to Sri Lanka 160-159 (this time only 6 Batsmen for SL). The Netherlands were elimnated in heartbreaking fashion when they were only able to put up 93 runs against Pakistan to allow England to move on to the Super Eight.
(and let it be stated here that I am glad for Bloggers autosave feature that allowed this to still be here when my computer shut down on me)
Q: Super Eight? What's that?
A: The Super Eight is the second round of the competition and it started today (South Africa 114-England 111, and New Zealand 198-Ireland 115 for those keeping track at home) It is two groups of four (the first and second place finishers from the four opening round pools. Each plays the other three in the pool, and the top two from each pool move onto the semi-finals.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: If you want to learn about cricket, 20/20 is probably the best way to do it, it's the shortest game, has the fasting pacing, and is the only version of the sport played at night. If you've gotten into the sport at all through this, first off that's nice, cause hey, I've accomplished something. Second, you might want to take the next step up, and learn about Net Run Rate, which is the first tie-breaking tool, and will save you a lot of confusion (if you're good at math). Finally, enjoy the games! They're in England, so you can have cricket with your breakfast (Game one Tomorrow starts at 6:30 EDT, and Game two starts at 7:30 PDT, so there are options for everyone.)
Saturday, May 2, 2009
I'm Still Alive, and the happy Afghan story no one is telling.
*blows the dust off*
Sorry about that, school and work have gotten the better of me lately, I often come home, eat dinner and go to sleep, so a month has flown by since I wrote anything (and I left an embittered taste in all of your mouths anyways) I'm back, and just in time, because The Qualifying tournament for the 2011 ICC World Cup just finished (yeah, that's how it is in the cricket world, we get shit done two years in advance) It's a good thing too, since 2015 qualifying starts up this month!
Here's the basic lowdown:
*Ireland won the tournament (I would like to do a serach for a "Bowl Me: I'm Irish" pin, but I don't think I'd get what I want)
*Canada came in second, and qualified for the World Cup (which is an ODI tournament held every four years) along with Ireland, Kenya, and the Netherlands.
*Along with the four Qualifiers Soctland and Afghanistan were granted ODI status for four years (which means they can play ODI's against test nations, which is two steps below full test status)
That brings me to the other half of the title. For a nation that has been suffering through so much strife and turmoil, the media has been jumping at the chance to say "Look at this, they're getting on the right track." They tried their hardest to do so in Beijing, only to have a very unlucky Afghan contingent in the games. Here we are six months later, and everyone has decided to completely ignore that the cricket team has turned it around so much, they've been told they're one of the 25 best teams on the planet, and get to play with the big boys, and get extra funding from the ICC, and NO ONE SAYS A DAMN THING. It's a crying shame, I congratulate you Afghanistan, that was an impressive accomplishment, I know you can do great things, and now you have four years to prove it!
Sorry about that, school and work have gotten the better of me lately, I often come home, eat dinner and go to sleep, so a month has flown by since I wrote anything (and I left an embittered taste in all of your mouths anyways) I'm back, and just in time, because The Qualifying tournament for the 2011 ICC World Cup just finished (yeah, that's how it is in the cricket world, we get shit done two years in advance) It's a good thing too, since 2015 qualifying starts up this month!
Here's the basic lowdown:
*Ireland won the tournament (I would like to do a serach for a "Bowl Me: I'm Irish" pin, but I don't think I'd get what I want)
*Canada came in second, and qualified for the World Cup (which is an ODI tournament held every four years) along with Ireland, Kenya, and the Netherlands.
*Along with the four Qualifiers Soctland and Afghanistan were granted ODI status for four years (which means they can play ODI's against test nations, which is two steps below full test status)
That brings me to the other half of the title. For a nation that has been suffering through so much strife and turmoil, the media has been jumping at the chance to say "Look at this, they're getting on the right track." They tried their hardest to do so in Beijing, only to have a very unlucky Afghan contingent in the games. Here we are six months later, and everyone has decided to completely ignore that the cricket team has turned it around so much, they've been told they're one of the 25 best teams on the planet, and get to play with the big boys, and get extra funding from the ICC, and NO ONE SAYS A DAMN THING. It's a crying shame, I congratulate you Afghanistan, that was an impressive accomplishment, I know you can do great things, and now you have four years to prove it!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
There will be Cricket at a decent hour! (as long as you don't live on the west coast)
Well, since I picked up a nice reference (Thanks Schultzie!) I thought it might be a good idea to you know...write something, and just in the nick of time! We have cricket that doesn't start at 11 at night and go to 4 in the morning! Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the first Test (For this season) between The West Indies and England, at Kingston Jamica, will be starting this Wednesday the 4th of February, and go on as neccessary, ending no later than the 8th of February, each day will start at 15:00 GMT (which goes from 10-7 in the morning in the mainland US from east to west, 5 in the morning in Alaska, and 4 in the morning in Hawaii, but I don't think I have any Hawaiian readers) with these decent starting and ending times, I will do my best to get as much up to date information to you as possible, heck if it goes all the way to the 8th, maybe I'll do a live blog. For those who don't know England is one of the top teams in the world, and the West Indies have been up and coming lately, and battling for ground with New Zealand on the ICC rankings, so this should be a great match. And hey, maybe Brian Lara will be there.
Friday, January 2, 2009
The End of the Year, at the Beginning of the Year.
I promised you a year in review between Christmas and New Years, but got busy/sick, so there is no review until now. Clearly the country of the Year has to be Austrailia. They finished 2008 at the top of the ICC rankings for both Tests, and ODIs. There were a lot of exciting tournaments this year, including the Stanford 20/20 (which got me into Cricket in the first place) the Asian Cup for 20/20, Qualifying for the ICC 20/20 Tournament in 2010 (which saw both America and Canada move on) There have also been plenty of quality matches, including the New Zealand-West Indies Test series, the England-India test series to get over the Mumbai attacks. All in all, 2008 was a semi-exciting year for Cricket (the falling apart of Zimbabwae excluded) and we should look foward to many bright things in the future.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Test Cricket and ODI's
Since this site doubles as an explanation to the sport to people who have never even seen it before, it seems as though a proper explanation of the two types of cricket I have failed to mention so far goes in here.
ODI is short for One Day Interational, and is the most common version played on an international level. Unlike 20/20 which is one innings (yes the singular is plural, I've never tried to understand it either) with 20 overs (estinally overs are the baseball equivilent to an inning) ODI's have 2 innings usually 40 or 50 overs depending on the agreement between the two sides. From there, there's a coin filp (as there is in all forms of cricket) and winner decides to bat or bowl first. From there, it's standard cricket (which is complicated enough that it will probably get it's own post at some point).
Test Cricket, is simply put, what's killed any chance at all of cricket being a major sport in the west (with a notable exception I will cover next time). Test Cricket is the top level of Cricket in the world, unforuntately, one Test Cricket match can take up to 5 days to play. They only play during the day (20/20 is the only cricket that's played at night) and they stop in the middle of whatever they are doing once the sun goes down. It's required both teams wear entirely white during a test match, and since it istop level cricket, you actually need to show that you're able to play it, by winning your way up to the right, and being approved as a full member of the International Cricket Council of which there are currently only 10 members: England, Austrailia, New Zealand, The West Indies, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and Zimbabwae. (for those who are curious the United States and Canada are associate members, and can only play ODI's if they reach World Cricket League Division 1, but for which Canada has an exception to play until next year).
The major problem with test cricket is it's never ever going to translate for tv, they play for 8 hours at a time, with one 30 minute tea break during the match, and an hour lunch break. How would you take any commerical breaks for a show that almost never stops?
ODI is short for One Day Interational, and is the most common version played on an international level. Unlike 20/20 which is one innings (yes the singular is plural, I've never tried to understand it either) with 20 overs (estinally overs are the baseball equivilent to an inning) ODI's have 2 innings usually 40 or 50 overs depending on the agreement between the two sides. From there, there's a coin filp (as there is in all forms of cricket) and winner decides to bat or bowl first. From there, it's standard cricket (which is complicated enough that it will probably get it's own post at some point).
Test Cricket, is simply put, what's killed any chance at all of cricket being a major sport in the west (with a notable exception I will cover next time). Test Cricket is the top level of Cricket in the world, unforuntately, one Test Cricket match can take up to 5 days to play. They only play during the day (20/20 is the only cricket that's played at night) and they stop in the middle of whatever they are doing once the sun goes down. It's required both teams wear entirely white during a test match, and since it istop level cricket, you actually need to show that you're able to play it, by winning your way up to the right, and being approved as a full member of the International Cricket Council of which there are currently only 10 members: England, Austrailia, New Zealand, The West Indies, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and Zimbabwae. (for those who are curious the United States and Canada are associate members, and can only play ODI's if they reach World Cricket League Division 1, but for which Canada has an exception to play until next year).
The major problem with test cricket is it's never ever going to translate for tv, they play for 8 hours at a time, with one 30 minute tea break during the match, and an hour lunch break. How would you take any commerical breaks for a show that almost never stops?
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