What’s going on? Chucking us a bone before the usual Ashes humiliation?
I know it’s not test cricket (I stayed awake for a kickoff) but that was a rare treat.
I listened to the game over the net… that was a wild opening for Australia. I was kinda shocked when they lost seven wickets over what, 19 balls?
My impression is that they don’t take the first match, a Twenty20 game, very seriously, and didn’t approach the game properly. I think perhaps they didn’t care one way or another, and maybe throwing a bone. I think we’ll see a much different attitude and performance during the NatWest series at the very least… it’s still a long way to the Tests.
But of course Twenty20 is gaining huge popularity…
— Alan
I certainly don’t expect that to be indicative of their test form and for a while they came out all guns blazing before it all went pear shaped for them(I came in a 30-something for 5 and they were all out in the time it took me to drink a pint).
I don’t pretend to be a cricket fan at all, but I am hooked on Twenty20. I don’t know who came up with the idea of making cricket exciting, but it works for me.
Needless to say, as with watching that bloke score the fastest 200 a couple of years back, all the cricket fans I know missed it. In the time it took me to text one of them and try and persuade him to join us for a beer, it was all over.
I suspect Flintoff might be in for a rough time come a proper game, he gave one of their bowlers a bit of a working over.
I think England hit two at least.
I agree on the excitement factor, it makes cricket more exciting and frankly I think it opens the game up to a younger audience - you know, the kind that can’t afford to follow one game for FIVE DAYS (unless you’re playing Bangladesh and it’s two days and a morning session hehe).
A 2 1/2 hour game is perfect length and pretty much follows other sports. Plus, you market the popularity of cricket in the eastern hemisphere (and the Caribbean) into a small timeframe that everyone can enjoy. I was shocked to learn that Twenty20 is supremely popular in countries that have been traditionally great at cricket like India and Pakistan as that is their number one sport, but should be more ingrained to traditional cricket. Not the case.
— Alan
I agree on the excitement factor, it makes cricket more exciting and frankly I think it opens the game up to a younger audience - you know, the kind that can’t afford to follow one game for FIVE DAYS (unless you’re playing Bangladesh and it’s two days and a morning session hehe).
I presume kids must still play it in schools somewhere and I guess it’s similar to when I were a wee nipper. In which case Twenty20 is a format that you can immediately identify with. We played matches over a couple of hours on limited overs and, being kids, generally tried to slog the ball all over the place.
I did enjoy bits that I hadn’t noticed before like giving the batsmen a free hit on a no ball. Watching the guy winding himself up to just belt the thing with no chance of being out is just entertaining.
If the weather’s good I still think I could enjoy going to a “proper” test match, but I just can’t muster the enthusiasm to try and watch it on TV, though we did make an exception for that 200, it was 2am and we were drunk as lords but that was pretty good, but again they’d pretty much already won the game and the guy was just going for it. Fortunately (and like baseball that BBC has started to cover) it does lend itself quite well to radio.
Cricket and baseball are perfectly great to just to listen to, even Test cricket - the perfect kind of thing that you can let drone on in the background that’s not music, yet can be interesting to concentrate on in any part of the game. Test cricket of course cause it lasts so friggin’ long - but Twenty20 is just pure excitement.
I didn’t know that about No-balls either… in regular cricket they do this for… just wides?
— Alan
I think it’s just for no balls, they still give a run for a wide. I’ve no idea if it’s a regular cricket thing, I suspect it’s twenty20 only.
I live just down the road from the Bristol ground, next time a Twenty20 comes up I’m definitely going to try go see it.
[edit] Glos CC site, has some more info on the rules: http://www.gloscricket.co.uk/cricket/twenty20.asp £12 a ticket? Bargain.
Australia loses again, this time a 50-overs one-dayer against county-side Somerset - rather spectacularly too. If Australia’s bowling is this bad in the upcoming NatWest games and the Tests, England has more than a chance.
— Alan
I missed this totally, but it strikes me that the Aussies have either timed this perfectly and are just covering up, or it’s all going to go pear shaped for them.
There’s a while for it to go yet and they are sneaky buggers.
You can pretty much blame Martin Crowe for Twenty20 - going back a few years he launched a variant called Cricket Max which was played by our domestic teams (he’s the director of cricket for our pay TV channel, hence the motivation).
The Aussies beat NZ when they played the first international a couple of months ago, but didn’t really seem to enjoy the format all that much - our guys, on the other hand…
Good God those are ugly uniforms.
— Alan
It was a homage to the 80’s and the infamous underarm - the Aussie’s even wore their canary yellow uniforms, although really it was only Kasper who got into the spirit of the event.
As for the uniforms, blame these guys, www.beigebrigade.co.nz
Not a very good week for Australia.
— Alan
Ain’t it grand?
:p
Sure makes it a lot more interesting to be sure…
Twenty20 cup starts this week in earnest as well and goes strong for a couple of weeks.
— Alan
Doesn’t change the fact that you shag sheep dude :(
So of course Bangladesh gets absolutely hammered by England on Tuesday… next up is England vs. Australia again in another NatWest ODI…
Twenty20 cup day! Leicestershire I suppose are favorites… Surrey seems to not be in great form. Essex and Sussex have the best run-rates in the national divisions and probably can flourish for Twenty20 this year…
— Alan
Twenty20 cup day! Leicestershire I suppose are favorites…
I have absolutely no idea and getting hold of tickets is suprisingly difficult. I’m an unashamed recent convert back to the world of cricket. I vaguely followed and played it as a kid but lost interest years ago. Watching some twenty20 highlights at the end of last season started to rekindle my interest and the last couple of games I’ve caught have just started to hook me in good and proper.
The Middlesex-Surrey game Thursday was quite good, I thought the Lions were gonna lose it despite their record innings but it turned around in the mid-overs…
Well Australia finally won, rather convincingly against England by 57 runs I think, after starting out 6-3 in something like 7-9 overs, which is just amazing. Finally the Australian bowling performs to expectations.
— Alan