You know what really grinds my cricketing gears?

[Richard]

Minnows
No good. Probably will never be any good. Dire up cricket IMO. The game has got by just fine for over a century as an international sport with as few as two teams playing it. The nations where it has an organic following and generates some enthusiasm amongst the public have already gained test status. Zimbabwe and Bangers are embarrassments as test nations (although Zimbabwe have shown they can do alright at Twenty20, I also suspect they'd hold their own against Australia in paper-rocks-scissors which would be almost as relevant to their status as a test nation), and the gap between those two and the next rung is bigger than the gap between them and the other 8 test nations.

Was that ironic?

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Huh wtf?

Not the brightest bloke eh Tozz?

 

[Matt79]

^^ Not really. Its just crap watching teams that are no-where near good enough get spanked by ridiculous margins. And I've previously said, I don't think any of the associate nations are any genuine prospect of becoming a test, or hell even an ODI standard nation in the lifetimes of anyone on this website...

 

[Richard]

That's interesting, TBH - it's a view I share, but is mostly one written-off by those who watch the 1 game Bangladesh win every 3 years and say "see, you're just a curmadgeon".

And I'd always thought that, to an extent, you were among the camp who curmadgeonised me.

 

[Matt79]

Bangers are the one minnow, albeit a minnow prematurely accorded Test status, I think have some shot of becoming a worthy international competitor. That said, I'm thinking it would be realistic to expect them to attain such a status in about 25 years...

If Zimbabwe was run differently, they'd have a shot at the same status, but that's just a hypothetical.

The rest are further away from Zimbabwe/Bangladesh than those two are from the weaker "big 8" teams...

 

[aaron53]

How people don't know much about it or they don't like coz they base it off Test cricket and only like Twenty20. I like Tests better than ODI's and Twenty20.

 

[andruid]

Fair enough, they shouldn't spend their time researching a whole heap of stuff about nations we'll see once every four years.

Well they damn well shouldn't pretend to know. Is it so Hard to just come out and admit I ndon't know how many ODI 50s, wickets, wins and so forth a team of player has scored instead of cooking up numbers

 

[Richard]

Yes, frankly. Commentators aren't paid to say "I don't really know much about X".

 

[Prince EWS]

Yes, frankly. Commentators aren't paid to say "I don't really know much about X".

They aren't paid to just flat-out lie either.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

That's interesting, TBH - it's a view I share, but is mostly one written-off by those who watch the 1 game Bangladesh win every 3 years and say "see, you're just a curmadgeon".

And I'd always thought that, to an extent, you were among the camp who curmadgeonised me.

Bangladesh won 3 games in the World Cup alone...

 

[Richard]

I obviously meant games against ODI-class sides, and yes, they won 2 in the World Cup, but that's been an exception so far and until it becomes something more than an exception, they're not ODI-class.

 

[Richard]

They aren't paid to just flat-out lie either.

No, of course not, but many people won't realise - producers included - that they are doing so. Heck, sometimes even they won't realise.

If something's blatantly obviously wrong obviously they'd not say it, but I'd think "well I don't really know much about X" sounds worse than saying something that sounds fairly convincing to the masses who are mostly as ineducated as yourself on the subject, and is only known to be wrong by close followers of said variety.

 

[steds]

Mark Ramprakash.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Commentators referring to 20/20 as T20.

I mean, how ****ing lazy do you want to be? You're actually paid to speak about cricket. Next time one of these feckers criticises some lazy fielding I hope someone points out that they can't even be arsed to enunciate "Twen" when describing a cricketing format.

 

[Adamc]

Heard it referred to as TT a few days ago.

 

[Matt79]

Yeah, it really cuts out those boring middle syllables where the word is just boringly consolidating itself in a predictable fashion. There's no future in that kind of stuff - people like big quick syllables in quick succession, being said by the top speakers in a way that lets them come down after a day's work with a couple of wine coolers.

 

[iamdavid]

When people pinch all the new balls from training

 

[Jamee999]

Commentators referring to 20/20 as T20.

I mean, how ****ing lazy do you want to be? You're actually paid to speak about cricket. Next time one of these feckers criticises some lazy fielding I hope someone points out that they can't even be arsed to enunciate "Twen" when describing a cricketing format.

It's officially called the "World T20 Cup", isn't it?

 

[BoyBrumby]

It's officially called the "World T20 Cup", isn't it?

Have to admit I didn't know that, but it clearly sucks, so my point still stands.

Anyway I thought the 20/20 name came from the obvious pun on 20/20 vision?

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Yeah, it really cuts out those boring middle syllables where the word is just boringly consolidating itself in a predictable fashion. There's no future in that kind of stuff - people like big quick syllables in quick succession, being said by the top speakers in a way that lets them come down after a day's work with a couple of wine coolers.