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Cricket stuff that doesn't deserve its own thread

chris.hinton

chris.hinton

International Captain
PCB have changed their domestic structure

They have added 3 new Competitions for 5 new "Champions" Teams to help bridge the gap between the Domestic game and International Cricket.

From the PCB Website

  • Mohsin Naqvi: The Champions tournaments are not just about bridging the gap between domestic and international cricket, they are about revolutionising and rejuvenating our entire cricketing ecosystem
  • PCB Chair: We are dedicated to identifying, nurturing and preparing our best talent to represent Pakistan on the global stage
  • “The Champions tournaments will offer our players a platform to experience the rigours and pressures of international cricket right here at home,” says Mohsin Naqvi
  • Season to run from September 2024 to August 2025; following the addition of three Champions events, number of matches in the eight men’s senior events will increase from 203 to 261
  • Amongst 261 matches in the eight men’s senior events include 131 first-class matches, 40 50-over matches and 90 T20 matches; last season, PCB organised 51 first-class matches, 55 50-over matches and 97 T20 matches
  • PCB to also organise around 13,000 development and pathway matches across all formats at the schools, colleges, universities, clubs, U15, 17 and U19 levels
  • Urdu version of release is attached here
Lahore, 5 August 2024: To bridge the gap between domestic and international cricket, provide a tougher, more competitive and high-pressure cricket playing environment, and create better and enhanced earning opportunities for its future stars, the Pakistan Cricket Board today announced the addition of three Champions tournaments as part of the PCB Men’s Domestic Cricket Season 2024-25.

The Champions One-Day Cup, Champions T20 Cup and Champions First-Class Cup will join the National T20 Cup, Quaid-e-Azam Trophy (regional first-class tournament), President’s Trophy (departmental first-class tournament), President’s Cup (departmental 50-over event), and HBL Pakistan Super League 2025 in the 2024-25 domestic cricket season, expected to run from 1 September 2024 to 5 August 2025.

With the addition of three Champions tournaments, the PCB will now organise a total of 261 matches across eight men’s senior tournaments. This includes 131 first-class matches in three events, 40 50-over matches in two events and 97 T20 matches in three events. In the 2023-24 season, the PCB had organised 203 matches in the six men’s senior tournaments, including 51 first-class matches in two tournaments, 55 50-over matches in two events and 97 T20 matches.

Salient features of the newly-introduced Champions tournaments are:

  • Five sides – Dolphins, Lions, Panthers, Stallions and Wolves - will compete in each Champions Cup event
  • Each Champions Cup event will be played in a double-league format
  • Around 150 of the country’s highest-performing domestic players from the past three years and centrally contracted players will be available for selection (more details to be shared in due course)
  • Each side will have a former Pakistan superstar as a mentor and potentially as an owner (mentor and owner names/details to be announced in due course)
  • Player support personnel of each side are expected to include: Head Coach (at least Level 3, minimum five years with a first-class side), batting/bowling/fielding coaches (minimum Level 3, three-year experience), Strength and Conditioning Coach, Physiotherapist, Analyst, Operations Manager, and Media/Digital Media Manager
  • Each side will be allocated a dedicated Regional High Performance Centre in Faisalabad (High Performance Centre Faisalabad), Karachi (Hanif Mohammad High Performance Centre), Lahore (National Cricket Academy), Multan (Inzamam-ul-Haq High Performance Centre), and Sialkot (High Performance Centre, Sialkot) for training and practice
  • Enhanced domestic contracts will be offered to 150 cricketers as: Category 1: 40 players, PKR550,000 per month; Category 2: 50 players, PKR400,000 per month; Category 3: 60 players, PKR250,000 per month. In the 2023-24 season, domestic contracts were offered as PKR300,000 for A+ Category, PKR200,000 for A Category, PKR185,000 for B Category, PKR170,000 for C Category, PKR150,000 for D Category, PKR100,000 for E Category, and PKR50,000 for F Category
  • In addition to the monthly retainers, players will receive improved match fees as follows: PKR200,000 for red-ball cricket, PKR125,000 for 50-over matches and PKR100,000 for T20 matches. In the 2023-24 season, match fees were PKR80,000 and PKR40,000 for red and white-ball cricket, respectively
  • Each side will have a Corporate Sponsor and Media Partner. Other revenue streams will include broadcast and live-streaming rights, event title sponsorship, ground branding rights and ticket sales/merchandise
The Champions One-Day Cup will serve as the season opener of the PCB Men’s Domestic Cricket Season 2024-25 when the 21-match tournament is played from 1-29 September. Curtains will fall on the PCB Men’s Domestic Cricket Season 2024-25 with the Champions First-Class Cup, which will be held from 28 May to 5 August.

In addition to the eight men’s senior tournaments in the period from August 2024 to September 2025, the PCB will also organise 11 development/pathway tournaments which will be separate to the three Pakistan Shaheens and one Pakistan U19 away series.

This potentially means, the budding and upcoming youngsters are expected to get around 13,000 matches at the schools, colleges, universities, clubs, U15, U17, U19, Regional Inter-District Senior and Challenge League Senior levels across all formats to test their skills, impress their coaches and selectors with their performances, make themselves available for selection in the regional, departmental, franchise and Champions sides and, in the meantime, continue to walk up the ladder in pursuit of their dreams.

Tentative dates of the eight men’s senior tournaments in the PCB Men’s Domestic Cricket Season 2024-25 are (schedules, formats and other details will be announced closer to time):

  • Champions One-Day Cup: 1-29 September (five teams, 21 matches) (new event)
  • President’s Cup (50-over): 3-15 October (nine teams, 19 matches) (seven teams, 24 matches in 2023-24)
  • Quaid-e-Azam Trophy: 20 October-18 December (18 teams, 73 matches) (eight teams, 29 matches in 2023-24)
  • Champions T20 Cup: 21 December -2 January (five teams, 21 matches) (new event)
  • President’s Trophy (first-class): 6 January-7 March (nine teams, 37 matches) (seven teams, 22 matches in 2023-24)
  • National T20 Cup: 13-21 March (18 teams, 35 matches) (18 teams, 63 matches in 2023-24)
  • Pakistan Super League 2025: 10 April-25 May (six teams, 34 matches) (six teams, 34 matches in 2023-24)
  • Champions First-Class Cup: 28 May-5 August (five teams, 21 matches) (new event)
PCB Chair Mohsin Naqvi:

“Our current standings - sixth in Tests, fourth in ODIs and seventh in T20Is - do not reflect the true potential and legacy of Pakistan cricket. To restore our rightful place at the top of world cricket, we must innovate and strategically enhance, expand and strengthen our domestic structure. The introduction of the three Champions tournaments is a bold step in this direction.
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Starfighter

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Just watching Eng vs NZ highlights, and noticed Tufnell's habit of tossing the ball from one hand to another during his run. Must surely have contributed to his inconsistency.

Also Caddick clearly had the 'wobble seamer' figured out by 1999, deliberately using it to go against his usual outswing, but another exponent was Ronnie Irani. Or as Wasim Akram called it 'going across the seam', though that's not quite right. Also, Wasim Akram was commentating an England vs New Zealand test match, with Dermot Reeve. What an odd combo.
 
Nintendo

Nintendo

Cricketer Of The Year
Starfighter said:
Just watching Eng vs NZ highlights, and noticed Tufnell's habit of tossing the ball from one hand to another during his run. Must surely have contributed to his inconsistency.

Also Caddick clearly had the 'wobble seamer' figured out by 1999, deliberately using it to go against his usual outswing, but another exponent was Ronnie Irani. Or as Wasim Akram called it 'going across the seam', though that's not quite right. Also, Wasim Akram was commentating an England vs New Zealand test match, with Dermot Reeve. What an odd combo.
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Isn't the whole thing with "wobble seam" that it becomes replicable around 2015 and everyone starting using/teaching other bowlers how to use it?
 
Starfighter

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Nintendo said:
Isn't the whole thing with "wobble seam" that it becomes replicable around 2015 and everyone starting using/teaching other bowlers how to use it?
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If reinventing the wheel counts as innovation, then yes. When you see Tapash Baisya and Paul Wilson doing it in a 'replicable' manner, it's probably not that special. The more you look the more, and earlier, you see it.

Heck, I actually worked it out myself years before I heard anyone talk about it, simply from watching.
 
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TheJediBrah

TheJediBrah

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Starfighter said:
Just watching Eng vs NZ highlights, and noticed Tufnell's habit of tossing the ball from one hand to another during his run. Must surely have contributed to his inconsistency.

Also Caddick clearly had the 'wobble seamer' figured out by 1999, deliberately using it to go against his usual outswing, but another exponent was Ronnie Irani. Or as Wasim Akram called it 'going across the seam', though that's not quite right. Also, Wasim Akram was commentating an England vs New Zealand test match, with Dermot Reeve. What an odd combo.
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**** I wish I had this kind of free time
 
Burgey

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Article behind a paywall so quoting it in full here. Quite a yarn.

‘Shameful’: Fox Sports executive’s secret abusive Twitter account revealed
Exclusive: It was an open secret that Foxtel's head of cricket had a pseudonymous Twitter account which was used to attack colleagues, rivals and athletes, and to post ***ist and racist content.


A Fox Sports executive ran a secret social media account that attacked current and former colleagues, rivals, journalists, athletes and political figures, and posted crass, ***ist and racist content.

Foxtel’s general manager of Fox Cricket Matthew Weiss used an X account, with the handle @RealRagingBull, to call Australian sports and media industry figures names including “toothless ice head”, “spastic” and “mediawhore”. The account also requested women start OnlyFans accounts and compared multiple Black women’s appearance to Chewbacca.

Crikey understands that it was an open secret among some Fox Sports staff that Weiss was behind the account. Weiss deleted the account in 2021, but remains in a high-profile position in spite of the companies’ policies around social media use.

Foxtel declined to answer questions about when the company first became aware of the account but gave a statement saying Foxtel does not “condone racist, ***ist, or abusive behaviour in our workplace”. Weiss did not respond to inquiries by email, phone and LinkedIn, but did delete his personal Instagram account hours after being contacted by Crikey.


Weiss has worked for Fox Sports and Foxtel since 2011 according to his LinkedIn, and has headed up the company’s cricket programming since 2017.

In 2014, Weiss started an X, formerly Twitter, account called @RealRagingBull, originally as a parody of former rugby league player Gorden Tallis. While some people tweeted at the account as if it was Tallis, it soon became an anonymous account for Weiss to post freely until it was deleted in 2021. Tallis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Multiple sources in the Australian cricket media, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity due to fear of speaking out in a close-knit industry, told Crikey that it was Weiss who started and operated the account. The account was registered to Weiss’ work email address and shared content from inside the Fox Sports offices. At one point a Fox Sports colleague replied to a post from the account by using Weiss’ name. The account also tweeted content in line with Weiss’ biography and with social media posts on other accounts.

As well as posting content relating to his employment at Fox Sports, Weiss used the account to post vitriolic and offensive messages aimed at many other individuals in the Australian sporting media.

The @RealRagingBull account repeatedly targeted current and former Fox Sports employees. Fox Sports commentator Andrew Voss was taunted with questions about whether he had been sacked (“you still work at Fox or got the Rissole ?”) and criticism of his game calling.

The account also abused former Fox Sports commentator Simon Hill shortly after the company laid him off by ridiculing his new job, calling him an “oxygen thief”, saying he dressed like a “homeless man” and more.

Other prominent cricket figures were also in the firing line. The Fox Sports cricket lead repeatedly criticised Australian men’s cricket coach Justin Langer, telling him to “stick to yoga” when Langer weighed in to the cricket broadcast rights dispute. He sarcastically called Shane Watson a “great leader” for playing in the Indian Premier League rather than the Big Bash, and called the Marsh cricketing family a “whole generation of spastics”. Weiss also repeatedly replied to a tweet from news.com.au sharing an article about cricketer Michael Clarke’s former wife Kyly Clarke, calling her “such a tool” and adding “Without Him You Are No one”.


Weiss’ account also frequently attacked rival networks’ journalists including the ABC’s Jim Maxwell, The Australian’s Gideon Haigh, Rohan Connolly, Seven’s Tom Browne, Richard Hinds and others. When contacted by Crikey, Haigh called it “the behaviour of a rather sad little man”. Connolly said Weiss’ comments were “pretty gutless”.

Weiss repeatedly told AFLW players Tayla Harris and Georgie Parker, who was also a Hockeyroo, to “shut up” after they criticised Richmond over its 2020 groping scandal, and subsequently called Harris “irevevant” [sic] and Parker a “PC out of touch twit”.

Parker said that it was “shameful” that this abuse came from a high-level Fox Sports executive who is expected to create a safe work environment. “It is already a tough place for women in a very male dominated environment, and when you find out things like this it just forever makes you double guess what the suits above you (who are doing a majority of the hiring) are saying,” she told Crikey.

Outside of sport, the account waged a campaign against comedian Dave Hughes, tweeting abuse at him several times, as well as TV presenter Karl Stefanovic, television host and comedian Charlie Pickering, and journalist Osman Faruqi.

Pickering, who hadn’t seen Weiss’ tweets at him, said “I think if he’d had the guts to put his name to his work I might have noticed it.”

The @RealRagingBull weighed in on politics, too, jumping on a 2020 post questioning Scott Morrison’s approval rating to accuse then opposition leader Anthony Albanese of being a dork and having a lower approval rating than serial killer Ivan Milat.

Some of the account’s abuse was directed at companies and leagues, too. Weiss’ account tweeted critically multiple times about Telstra, which owns 35% of Foxtel, saying that he was cancelling his subscription because of their service and their advertisements. He also mocked the A-League’s viewership numbers while the soccer competition was still being broadcast on Fox Sports.

When not attacking others, Weiss’ account also frequently tweeted offensive content. He shared a photograph of a Fox Sports camera shot taken during a cricket match of a Black woman that appeared to compare her appearance with Chewbacca, captioning it “Great [to] see my cousin Sharonda Bacca at the cricket!!!”. Another post about having Chinese food included the hashtags #Remonchicken and #unrool, seemingly mocking a Chinese accent.


Weiss also tweeted at former *** worker and media personality Samantha X asking if she had any “hairy ladies” who might be keen to start an OnlyFans account with him.

The account argued against cricket star Chris Gayle getting banned after Gayle made inappropriate comments to reporter Mel McLaughlin, declaring “if Chris Gayle gets barred we are kidding…… Have [to] cancel every work christmas party ever.” He responded to X user @deathinvogue who complained that it was ***ist when sports television personality Jason Richardson called former Australian cricket captain Lisa Sthalekar “toots” by telling her to “lighten up shags”.

The revelations about Weiss come after Crikey broke the story of Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany giving a Nazi salute on set at Fox Sports. After initially denying that this happened, Delany then suggested that his pose was him comparing an A-League fan chant gesture to the Sieg Heil. This was later refuted by a video obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age which appeared to show him imitating a famous Nazi salute by former Socceroo Mark Bosnich, who was on set with Delany the time.

When horse trainer Mitchell Beer, who Weiss often tweeted back and forth with, posted about receiving some Twitter abuse, @RealRagingBull replied with advice.

“You’ll never stop it or police it…. It is out of control. Best bet … delete App.”
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Nintendo

Nintendo

Cricketer Of The Year
Dawid Malan has retired from international cricket. Not sure how he'll be rated in the pantheon of England white ball cricketers. His numbers are really good, but only really played when he was in his peak.
 
honestbharani

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
Nintendo said:
Biggest mistake was doing it on a secret alt IMO. Don't call the opposition leader a "dork" if your too scared to do so from your public account.
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I mean calling any politician names is like the easiest thing to do on social media anyways.

And in almost all cases, also the right thing to do. :p
 
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