**Official** New Zealand in England

[_Ed_]

BTW, don't you work at BSport? Do you know if they're available in Taranaki? Cheers.

Yup, 97.2FM. It's the Friday night racing show at the moment.

 

[Jamee999]

Hello,

I would prefer if you would not refer to me by my real name on these forums, or name your first born after me. While I am touched and somewhat honoured, I'd really prefer if you didn't.

If you need to refer to me, please call me one of the following:

• Drizzle Crizzle
• Das Corkmeister
• Corky's Revenge
• Denzel
• DJ C0rk
• 59'er

As for what you might call your child, may I suggest Andrew?

Thank you.

Oh man

Best gimmick account ever, imo.

 

[Flem274*]

Yup, 97.2FM. It's the Friday night racing show at the moment.

Cheers.

 

[Days of Grace]

Hi everyone, I thought I'd put down what I think NZ's best 11 would be (injury free)

Ryder
How
Fulton
Taylor
Styris
Maccullum
Oram
Elliot
Mills
Vettori
Southee

Elliot batting a bit low there. I'm yet to be convinced he can hit sixes, he should be in at no.6 or 7 at the latest.

If you are going to bat him that low you might as well replace him with a better bowler, i.e. Patel or Franklin

McCullum should be and will be preserved as the opener for the foreseeable future. The partnership with Ryder looks gun. I haven't been as excited about a NZ opening partnership since Astle/Spearman

Ryder
McCullum (wk)
How
Taylor
Styris
Elliott
Oram (swap with Elliott if we lose the 4th wicket after the 35th over)
Franklin
Mills (show enough ability and hitting power to be ahead of Vettori now)
Vettori
Southee

Patel to come in for Elliott/Frankin/Southee if conditions suit.

Gun side. No room for a good batsman like Fulton means it must be good.

 

[Flem274*]

Hope DC sticks around tbh.

 

[Flem274*]

Elliot batting a bit low there. I'm yet to be convinced he can hit sixes, he should be in at no.6 or 7 at the latest.

If you are going to bat him that low you might as well replace him with a better bowler, i.e. Patel.

McCullum should be and will be preserved as the opener for the foreseeable future. The partnership with Ryder looks gun. I haven't been as excited about a NZ opening partnership since Astle/Spearman

Ryder
McCullum (wk)
How
Taylor
Styris
Elliott
Oram (swap with Elliott if we lose the 4th wicket after the 35th over)
Franklin
Mills (show enough ability and hitting power to be ahead of Vettori now)
Vettori
Southee

Patel to come in for Elliott/Frankin/Southee if conditions suit.

Gun side. No room for Fulton means it must be good.

*snigger snigger*

Good team though. I'd change it slightly however

Ryder/How
McCullum
How/Ryder
Taylor
Styris/Fulton
Oram
Elliott/Styris
Franklin
Vettori
Mills
Southee

Undecided on a few possies.

 

[Son Of Coco]

The thing when making these decisions is the positioning of the officials when the tackle is made. A lot of times a tackle looks fine from a lot of angles but not so from one of the other cameras around the ground. The speed of the game now means that more often than not a ref or lino won't be in a good position to see a possibly critical dive.

And as far as exaggeration goes, most good divers can do it in a way where it looks 100% convincing so you can't give it on a perception of whether he made a meal of it or not. Then again you'll get the odd dive like:

That's one of the best. I've seen some absolute pearlers given penalties though. It's almost as if a penalty for diving isn't given until someone establishes a reputation and the ref is informed of it.

 

[Perm]

Hope DC sticks around tbh.

Too late for that, he's definitely going on that sabbatical.

 

[Richard]

Hello,

I would prefer if you would not refer to me by my real name on these forums, or name your first born after me. While I am touched and somewhat honoured, I'd really prefer if you didn't.

If you need to refer to me, please call me one of the following:

• Drizzle Crizzle
• Das Corkmeister
• Corky's Revenge
• Denzel
• DJ C0rk
• 59'er

As for what you might call your child, may I suggest Andrew?

Thank you.

This is madness. Pure insanity.

Wonder who was behind it. Swervy again maybe?

 

[silentstriker]

It would be interesting to see if more Americans thought like you? I am just glad most cricket fans do not

American sports are the most professionally run and best administered in the world, along with being some of the most profitable and successful. There is a hundred time less BS in a year than there is in one day of cricket. I only wish cricket were run like that. It's all about the game, and its all about winning.

Yeah that's fair enough.

I guess though that since simulation/diving IS actually outlawed, its similar to what SilentStriker wants. Yet it still happens, which is more to the point we are trying to make. Even if you make laws/rules regarding everything, if they're possible to be manipulated in otehr sports they will be. And we don't want that to occur with cricket.

I don't know anything about soccer - what's the disincentive? In football, if you are injured, you have to go off for at least one play minimum. What if they make it in soccer that if you fall to the ground and act injured, you must go off the field for five minutes. If the ref thinks you dived, you should be kicked out of the game. Would that lessen the problem?

Even if you make laws/rules regarding everything, if they're possible to be manipulated in otehr sports they will be. And we don't want that to occur with cricket.

It already happens. Or do you not think people slow down the overrates on the fifth day if they think they may lose? Or pretend to catch a ball when it hit the ground? Or try to get away with ball tampering all the time? Or eat mints for some reverse? People always have, and always will, push the rules as far as they can and manipulate them as much as possible already.

The only difference is that in cricket we pretend they don't.

 

[Richard]

It already happens. Or do you not think people slow down the overrates on the fifth day if they think they may lose? Or pretend to catch a ball when it hit the ground? Or try to get away with ball tampering all the time? Or eat mints for some reverse? People always have, and always will, push the rules as far as they can and manipulate them as much as possible already.

The only difference is that in cricket we pretend they don't.

Easy solutions for all of them. Loosen the silly laws that make ball-"tampering" such a massive crime (mints, and a million other things that get a better ball-shine, can't ever be banned nor should anyone be stupid enough to try), introduce massive penalties for slow over-rates (and introduce measures to make-up lost time to stop loss of overs costing results - been in favour of this for years).

Most means of poor sportsmanship can either be outlawed by good lawmaking, made into useless tactics by amending game rules, or be shown-up to be people making a fuss about nothing (the way some Australians have about mint-sucking). It's very difficult to get something that's insoluble.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Das Corkmeister, this is madness!

 

[Richard]

Hmm, maybe it was B***ich or Dw**r.

 

[silentstriker]

Easy solutions for all of them. Loosen the silly laws that make ball-"tampering" such a massive crime (mints, and a million other things that get a better ball-shine, can't ever be banned nor should anyone be stupid enough to try), introduce massive penalties for slow over-rates (and introduce measures to make-up lost time to stop loss of overs costing results - been in favour of this for years).

Most means of poor sportsmanship can either be outlawed by good lawmaking, made into useless tactics by amending game rules, or be shown-up to be people making a fuss about nothing (the way some Australians have about mint-sucking)..

My point exactly. Either legalize it, make it illegal, or shut the hell up about it. Don't bring sportsmanship into any of it.

 

[GIMH]

Doesn't change the fact that the length of it is over the top. Ban him for one match or whatever and it'll have the exact same impact, but four makes little sense to me.

Yeah, AWTA, was on my hols til this morning and bumming round in the lodge yesterday afternoon whilst the babies took a nap. Had no internet, no teletext, just sky news, and all they kept saying was Colly was banned and KP was to be the skipper...had no idea why til later in the night when I stuck the telly on after having a few end of holiday beers. Well when I heard the reason, my missus got a rant that would have been at home in the grinds my gears thread...was going off on one about all sorts of cricketers tbh, and how everyone in the world hates the English...beer, tis a strange thing, nonetheless, four-games is crazy, as Rich said though, he will only miss two proper ODIs, we could probably get away with sticking me in the side against Scotland, we will miss him in the T20 though where he is a valuable all-rounder.

 

[GIMH]

This is madness. Pure insanity.

Wonder who was behind it. Swervy again maybe?

LOL, I know how you feel Richard seems as my hero followed me to CW recently, tbf that was just to wish me a happy birthday. I was going to predict that this was steds' work, but he doesn't seem to have been around

 

[GIMH]

SS, diving in football is supposed to be punished with a yellow card. IMO it should be a straight red, usually a player dives to try and earn a penalty, or at least a free-kick in a goalscoring position. I fail to see how cheating to earn a goal is any different to hauling a player down to prevent one, which does carry a straight red. Outright cheating should of course be regulated against and really, in football the only comparison you can give to this scenario is playing on when the opposition are a player down through injury - but it is very similar as there are things within the rules which could cause outrage.

A couple of comparative scenarios then - Paolo di Canio once caught the ball when he had an empty net to head it into because the keeper was on the floor injured, he earned plaudits worldwide.

On the other hand, a convention is often for a team to put the ball out for a throw-in when there is a player down injured and the opposition to then return the ball upon the resumption of play (this convention has actually changed a little recently due to the ascent of diving within the game). Anyway, in 99 Arsenal were playing Sheff United in an FA Cup game, Sheff U put the ball out for a throw due to an injury, Arsenal did not return the ball and scored. Steve Bruce, the Sheff U manager wanted to take his team off IIRC, it was highly controversial, and I guess the reactions at the time were similar to those that I have read on here in the wake of yesterday's run-out.

Arsenal apologised, citing that Kanu (the scorer I think) was unaware of this convention, and replayed the match, this was pretty much unprecedented.

It is unfair to suggest that football doesn't have a spirit of the game, there is a lot of cheating that goes on but there are also many acts of true sportsmanship. The di Canio one stands out, but there was the time Robbie Fowler tried to persuade the referee not to give him a penalty because he felt he hadn't been fouled, the time Yeovil allowed the opposition to score from the kick-off because of an accidental goal scored from a drop-ball, I could continue. I am sure followers of other sports can find similar examples.

As cricket fans, we may think we have a game with a higher level of sportsmanship, we probably do (hence the phrase "it's just not cricket") but we have seen as many ugly incidents as fans of other sports, and the reason some non-cricket fans see it as an elitist, upper-class game is because they believe that we, as cricket fans, look down our noses as these cheaty sports. The truth is that most sports fans want to see games played hard but fair. I must say that I am a passionate supporter of my two favourite teams in sports, that's Tranmere Rovers (football) and of course the England Cricket team and I do have a win-at-all-costs mentality as a supporter. I'd never want to see my teams cheat their way to victory though so I find myself conflicted by where I stand on this whole issue. I see where SS is coming from but at the same time the spirit of cricket is important.

I am rambling so will stop now...

 

[Jono]

But when no one respects your victory (and I mean no one), and its seen as bull**** and will always be tainted and remembered as rubbish, there's no pride in victory at all.

Forget the spirirt of the game and honour system for a second. If teams play to win for the accolades, and hence the fans cheer them on for the same reasons, and these accolades aren't given (forget money for a second, that's a separate issue), then there's no benefit in victory at all.

If it's a bad decision which helps your team win, you accept it though you're not particularly proud of it (unless you're Scaly Piscine or something). But when your team cheats to win, and your team is WIDELY criticised, the 'win at all costs' mentality makes no sense, particularly as a fan. You're not playing so you don't get any money (unless we're talking gambling here), and all you have is personal pride in your team. But when the win is tainted, you gain nothing!

 

[GIMH]

Hmm, well I did say I was conflicted, as in not sure how I'd feel. I started to ramble, let my try and put this better.

My mentality is win at all costs, I hate losing and want victory so so much. At the same time, I hate cheats, spit venom at players whom I see cheating when at the game, or at the TV. As a Tranmere fan, can't really recall any dodgy tactics that have helped us win much (we don't win much!) and as such it is hard to say how I would feel about it. As an England fan, we lost on Wednesday, so again, I don't know how I would have felt, and as I did not see the game live, I never really got the chance to think "if we win this, it'll be tainted" it had happened and we'd been beaten.

When the Aussies were going mad about our use of substitute fielders during the Ashes, I had a chat with a bloke at the bar I worked at. The spirit of cricket and all that, my feeling then was that it was a little cheeky, but that we were pushing boundaries to our own end, and that when "the" incident happened, Simon Jones really was injured so it was a non-issue. But I didn't really mind that we weren't playing totally fair. It's not the same, but I am just trying to contextualise.

Honestly, I don't know how I would feel but I can't ever see myself saying "I hope we lose now".

I disagree, though, with this:

But when your team cheats to win, and your team is WIDELY criticised, the 'win at all costs' mentality makes no sense, particularly as a fan. You're not playing so you don't get any money (unless we're talking gambling here), and all you have is personal pride in your team. But when the win is tainted, you gain nothing!

For me, it's much more than personal pride, I guess this is more in the footy. Before I had kids Tranmere were literally my life, I did home and away, every game, doing crazy things like going to places like Gillingham and Colchester to watch 0-0 draws, so it wasn't a matter of pride, it meant as much to me as any of the players, I dare say more than some of them (especially with the dross served up in 05/06). It's not as simple as being proud, it becomes me, and to lose hurts so badly that I would probably rather take a tainted victory that makes me embarassed.

I guess my conclusion here (and I am aware that I have rambled again) is that I would rather my teams did play fair, and I would be ashamed if they didn't, but that I would still take the victory at the end of it. Does that make me unsportsmanlike? Maybe, but I put it down to being a middle child. They always say middle children are the most competitive...

 

[Jono]

For me, it's much more than personal pride, I guess this is more in the footy. Before I had kids Tranmere were literally my life, I did home and away, every game, doing crazy things like going to places like Gillingham and Colchester to watch 0-0 draws, so it wasn't a matter of pride, it meant as much to me as any of the players, I dare say more than some of them (especially with the dross served up in 05/06). It's not as simple as being proud, it becomes me, and to lose hurts so badly that I would probably rather take a tainted victory that makes me embarassed.

What do you do with that victory though? Why are you so happy that they won, above everything else? Do you just sit on the couch and smile? Because you sure as hell can't praise the team, nor can you brag about it to other individuals because they don't rate the victory won iota.

All you get is a W in the win column, or a premiership that will forever be talked about as one gained by cheating.