Black Wednesday: English Home Tests - Now Exclusive to SKY

[Richard]

I think its Pakistan and WI in 2006, India in 2007 and Aus in 2008.

Can't be West Indies at home again in 2006 - just had them.

 

[a massive zebra]

Why don't you all do the sensible thing - quit bitching and buy Sky.

 

[Richard]

Nah, I have the utmost sympathy for the many people for whom it is simply totally unviable.
And I've always realised the dangers of such a substantial cut in casual audience - any sane person would.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Why don't you all do the sensible thing - quit bitching and buy Sky.

Why don't you realise there's a world where people can't afford to buy everything they want? To get Sports, you need to pay a minimum of £28pm, which is £336pa. That's a significant amount of money...

 

[PY]

Why don't you all do the sensible thing - quit bitching and buy Sky.

The cheque is in the post then?

 

[Langeveldt]

The sane thing to do would be to boycott all home tests and ODI's..

 

[Scaly piscine]

The ECB are gonna lose a lot overall in ticket sales, replica shirts etc., sponsorship deals and advertising in 2006-2009 and that's before any boycott. It's a no-win situation for cricket in this country tho as we know where the lack of money would hit hardest and we know any money made in the short term will go into a certain bunch of cretins' inflated pension scheme.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Now how will that look if South Africa win this series 3-1 or something?
I can't actually remember who are touring in 2006 - I just hope it's someone with a big reputation.
About time Pakistan toured, now I think about it.

http://uk.cricinfo.com/db/FORTHCOMING/FORTHCOMING_TOURS_ENG.html

All englands forthcoming tours home and away till 2011.

2006 is Sri Lanka in May and then Pakistan in July

 

[Richard]

Well that's a bit of compensation.
Probably the two most watchable teams.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

2005/06 Nov AWAY v Pakistan
2005/06 Feb AWAY v India
2006 May HOME v Sri Lanka
2006 Jul HOME v Pakistan

4 test series in a row vs Asian teams home and away. I guess we better get use to playing spinners

 

[Richard]

Won't matter unless we get some turning surfaces.
Except Murali, of course.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Won't matter unless we get some turning surfaces.
Except Murali, of course.

and his totally legal 'other one'

 

[Richard]

Well - it presumably will be by then, anyway.

 

[chris.hinton]

The Sky Deal has saved English cricket. But i dont think that they should have bothed becasue Cricket is falling apart (National team is papering over the cracks) Having no money in English cricket will make it go part time and we will have 6Tiers (Youth,Club,Minor,First Class and national teams) and bulid the game up with more empersis on Club Cricket and the NationalTeam

 

[Langeveldt]

Yeah, I told my dad today how cricket is basically an elitist sport still played by private school country types like me, with no exposure in the inner cities and less wealthy areas and that the banishing of all cricket to sky will only make this more apparent.. Yet still he likes to listen to all that "Playground to test arena" bullsh*t the ECB keep feeding us and thinking cricket is in good hands here for years to come.. I guess ignorance is bliss

 

[chris.hinton]

It is for the Elite... Look how many State School kids make it into England team? or There parents are not got highly paid jobs? At Least football is differnet..... Cricket is a Costly sport until that changes we will have more coming though the system then we are

 

[Langeveldt]

It is for the Elite... Look how many State School kids make it into England team? or There parents are not got highly paid jobs? At Least football is differnet..... Cricket is a Costly sport until that changes we will have more coming though the system then we are

Our fixture list is unbelievable at college, my top performances, and the biggest wins of the season in 2004 were 80 and 4-12, both made against different state run colleges with about six times the pupil size of our typical private school competitors.. Oh, and they put out their 1st XI's against our 2nds and 3rds and we maul them every time..
It's depressing, and a very very apparent problem..

 

[Neil Pickup]

I wonder how much money will filter down to club junior sections? I don't hold out much hope that I'll be getting many more toys to play with next summer.

 

[Jono]

It is for the Elite... Look how many State School kids make it into England team? or There parents are not got highly paid jobs? At Least football is differnet..... Cricket is a Costly sport until that changes we will have more coming though the system then we are

That is true, but why isn't that the case in Australia? Every school plays it, state and private. We have AFL in Victoria and around Australia, and Rugby in NSW, Queensland and other states as well. Yet cricket remains as popular as ever.

 

[Richard Rash]

That is true, but why isn't that the case in Australia? Every school plays it, state and private. We have AFL in Victoria and around Australia, and Rugby in NSW, Queensland and other states as well. Yet cricket remains as popular as ever.

Same in NZ. The game is thriving over here and the cricket has been on our version of sky for about 7 or 8 years. All sport on in NZ is only on sky actually including our national game of Rugby which hasn't seemed to have been damaged from not being on free to air t.v.