Random note on cricket

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by Tiassa, Jul 12, 2008.

  1. Vkothii Banned Banned

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    Unfortunately, the only other Antipodean sporting term I know for it is: "run like a bastard".
     
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  3. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    I always buggered up running like buggery..too buggered.

    i've got a real bastard leggie though.
     
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry about the absence - life called.

    Anyway:
    American pro baseball recruits world wide, and pays millions per year for skilled batsmen. It's a part time job, too - you'd have summers off, if you were Kiwi or Aussie playing in the US Major Leagues.
    There was no more variiety visible in the videos linked here than in a baseball game. The various options of a baseball batter (bunt, choking up on the bat, moving in the box, changing the swing plane as a matter of approach rather than reaction, etc) are more varied than the brief video examples here.

    Impressions: the width of the bat and the smaller throw target, the fielders' lack of gloves, coupled with the choice of whether or not to run on a ball put in play and the lack of a penalty for not hitting the ball, put the batsman in even more of a position of controlling cricket than the pitcher in baseball.

    hmmm. I don't regard myself as a "hard core" baseball fan, but I would question that. Baseball has a bunch of rules apparently deliberately designed to prevent it from resembling cricket - such as the rule that a bunt foul on the third strike is an out, failure to attempt to hit a zone pitch counts as a strike, three strikes and you're out, you have to gain a base on a ball put in play or you are out, a ball hurled into the dirt is no strike (the conditions of the field, ball, etc, are more standardized throughout the game), etc. Baseball also omits, again apparently by design, rules that seem crucial in establishing cricket's normal play - such as the rule against straightening one's arm in bowling (why in hell? ), or wearing gloves in the field. So there appears to be a definite difference in approach - in judgment as to what constitutes a well-arranged game.

    The balance between hurler and hitter, for example, is much more even in baseball, and weighted to the hurler's side if any. And this balance has been consciously, deliberately maintained through various adjustments (height of the mound, bounce of the ball, official strike zone, etc). This seems to me likely to be important to the hardcore baseball fan.
    That is not visible in the video clips - if you wanted to hit the guy like that, why would you bounce the ball ? Any professional baseball pitcher can hit a batter at will - and will use that threat to advantage.

    Of course, there is a penalty - you put the guy on base. Which is perhaps the more critical apparent difference - in baseball, there is a tradeoff, a cost/ benefit, for everything under reasonable control. There is no free or low-risk decision - everything you do counts and is counted.

    These changes - taken as moving from cricket to baseball - seem to have increased the role of the umpire, which is a major factor in a baseball game; corresponding to the conditions of the pitch, maybe ?
     
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  7. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    ummm a fast bowler can hit a guy under the chin, into his rib cage ect at a speed of 160kmh+

    glen mcgrath used to bowl over 180kmh

    as for cricketers playing baseball they CANT, doesnt matter if its part time because international cricket teams play all year round. When its winter here they are playing in the sub contanat or kicking englands ass. Thats even if they could be bothered playing such a usless sport, not everyone actually GIVES a toss about the US
     
  8. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Cricket in America

    Source: Time
    Link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1821658,00.html
    Title: "Cricket, Texas-Style", by Bobby Ghosh
    Date: July 10, 2008

    Allen Stanford is a Texas billionaire attempting to raise cricket's profile in the United States ... by reviving the game's waning popularity in the Caribbean:

    Time also presents a photo gallery from Stanford's Caribbean 20/20 game.
     
  9. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    oh and iceaura, for your interest sake there was an aution of players for the new IPL (indian 20/20 legue) and the players were being offered MILLIONS to play

    andrew simons was offered 1.35 million USD to play in the league and its not even there full time position. They dont NEED to play for the US basball leages, they make a fortune anyway. For starters with the sponorship deals they do anyway.
     
  10. Vkothii Banned Banned

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    Perhaps the finer points of the wicket (pitch) are being lost on our baseball-loving commenters.

    Asguard has tried, but seriously, you need to try bowling a ball down a patch of grass (that's been mowed, rolled, treated with various horticultural treatments, various deities invoked, etc), to see how a cricket ball (with a bloody great seam in it) interacts with the ground.

    Why cricketing commentators talk about "pace", "bounce", and "lift", and what "spin" is. Why they say things like: "there's a bit of seam there", or: "the wicket is showing a bit of pace", and other such impenetrable stuff.
     
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    That's not rocket science,or hard to imagine in abstract - all baseball players have fielded hard hit ground balls, for example.

    It's a variable deliberately excluded from baseball pitching, because it would damage the game. The pitcher/batter confrontation in baseball is supposed to be skill against skill in a standardized situation, unmediated by randomizing factors such as dirt clods or cracks. In cricket the increasing "shagginess" of the ball is a feature, a complexity. In baseball it is excluded as much as possible, and in serious professional games noticeably scuffed or damaged balls are replaced immediately during play. Many cricket features are consciously, deliberately, purposefully excluded from baseball, because they are undesirable from a baseball player's or fan's pov.

    I pointed out that there is at least one general theme of these decisions, namely the balance of the game between hurl and hit. Field belongs in there as well. Cricket seems heavily controlled by the batsman, with the bowler a distant second, fielding yet further down, running hardly registering. Baseball is more evenly balanced, and overbalanced toward the pitcher if anything (the opposite direction), with fielding the key factor in many games as well as baserunning ability.

    So they are different games, possibly with different foundations of enjoyment ?

    But that's just the cream. According to you fairly ordinary cricket players should be able to tear up a baseball diamond - and the money is good.
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2008
  12. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    Iceaura,
    I'm definitely not trying to denigrate baseball here at all, like I've said it's a brilliant game. It is definitely the logical sport to use as a comparison model for explaining the appeal of cricket( no pun intended[cricket afficianadoes only]).
    And, again, fans who appreciate the tactics, nuances, bravery, skills and drama of baseball, would surely appreciate cricket for the very same reasons.

    A delivery in cricket which does not pitch ( bounce) is considered a rank delivery which deserves to be punished and usually is. This is considered a free hit, the batsman having a full sight of the flight of the ball and compared to a ball rearing up off the pitch seems like a slow motion delivery.
    The idea that a pitcher could hit a batter at will seems strange; to a cricketer, it's like you've got a bat, hit the fuckin' thing.


    Here's a little link to show some of the vaguaries of a pitching ball.
    This is spin bowling by the master.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UHT3UIjwvE

    The idea that the choice of shots are the same is a little naive, baseball batters have a 90% field of angle to hit into, cricketers have 360%.
    Baseballers have a designated hitting zone ( anything else is a foul ball) and essentially a cross bat swing or bunt( with few variations in between). Cricketers have a selection of drives, pulls, hooks, cuts, glides etc to utilize.

    I still say cricket is chess and anything else is checkers ( although I'll grant you that baseball would be more like backgammon.)

    The skill in hitting a baseball with a cylindically faced bat with accuracy is an extraordinary feat of timing.
    Similarly, the footwork, reflexes and timing required in hitting a cricket ball with accuracy are also extraordinary.

    The skills in both games are probably equal. I still think the level of intricacy and intrigue involved in cricket are manyfold that of baseball.
     
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    A baseball batter can use the full 360, for much the same purpose as a fair share of the cricket hits - defending the strike zone, etc. It's just harder to actually do that.

    The baseball batter does not have the same control, and is more often frustrated by the pitcher, but the variety of things attempted is much larger than two.
    It is much easier to hit the ball, then. Trying to hit a beanball in a major league game could easily earn you a trip to the hospital. Not to mention the strike counted against you - every decision counts, in baseball.

    Here is where evidence is lacking. So far, nothing much here seems any more complex than an equivalent span of baseball - say a four game series. Less, actually. Are you aware of, for comparison, the various strategies, etc, in baseball ? Cutoffs, various baserunning, hitting with men on, substitutions and switches, etc? Does cricket have, for example, rules like the infield fly rule in baseball ?
    But they seem to be quite different nuances and tactics, and a different narrative in the drama. The one sport seems almost designed to not be the other, to avoid its major features and find its drama elsewhere. So this comparison is interesting:
    Another comparison is to poker.

    And why is the throwing motion of the bowler restricted ?
     
  14. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    I've been avoiding trying to go into the rules of cricket the ten different ways to be dismissed( given out) or the huge variety of umpiring signals, don't even get me started on the leg before wicket rule, it would do your head in,.. let alone the nuances.
    It would fill volumes, honestly.

    I thought the variations I was describing, the genuine variations in deliveries, the length of the game, the variable nature of the pitch etc. were giving you an idea that it is a game of infinite variables, I mean even the wear caused by the bowlers footmarks over the course of the game come into huge consideration. Apparently you are unwilling to accept that a game exists which has more intricacy than baseball. You can carry on believing that but it would be like trying to say pool has more intricacy than snooker ( oh-oh! can o' worms).

    I can't see how you can possibly believe the hitting range in baseball is greater than 90 degrees ( I meant degrees, not percent BTW)

    Every decision counts in cricket too, including which deliveries are best not to play at.

    The bowling action, it's just one of the rules.
    Why is a ball hit outside the confines of the diamond a foul hit, just a rule, same difference.

    I've played baseball, I get it.
    I think cricket will remain a mystery to you.

    Cricket is superb game of skill, tactics and intellect, there's no question about it.
     
  15. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    there arnt that many ways to be given out my friend and its not really that hard to explaine

    if your caught on the full your out (same as baseball)

    if a fielder hits the stumps when your out of your crease your run out (though if the keeper does it directly off the bowling its called stumped, this only makes a difference because the bowler gets credit for this kind of out)

    if the ball hits the stumps and knocks the bails (the little things sitting on top of the stumps) off then your out bowled

    the last one is LBW (leg before wicket), if the ball hits the batsmen anywhere on his body (except the gloves which are concidered part of the bat) and if the umpire judges that if he wasnt there the ball would DEFINITLY hit the stumps then he is out LBW

    the bowler gets credit for getting a person out bowled, LBW, sumped and caught. A run out is concidered a team out.

    see spud, easy
     
  16. Steve100 O͓͍̯̬̯̙͈̟̥̳̩͒̆̿ͬ̑̀̓̿͋ͬ ̙̳ͅ ̫̪̳͔O Valued Senior Member

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    There is actually 10 ways to be out.
    The main one you missed is when the batsman hits off his own bails.
     
  17. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    i forgot about that your right, wasnt going into the bowler getting the non striker out because its complicated

    so whats the other 3 i forgot?
     
  18. Spud Emperor solanaceous common tater Registered Senior Member

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    Handled the ball, I've seen this given a couple of times at test level. Pakistan were the perpetrators of this ungentlemanly appeal against Aus. Once they appealed, the umpire was obliged to raise his finger.
    Hit the ball twice.
    Timed out, never seen either of these last two.
    The new batsman has a trhee minute period to take strike from the fall of the last wicket.
     
  19. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    of course, i should have rembered the first two. its why if the ball is heading to the stumps after being blocked you use your foot ONLY to stop it because anything else will mean your out
     
  20. thedevilsreject Registered Senior Abuser Registered Senior Member

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    You are fucking joking here aren't you?

    Any bowler cannot just go and bowl 160kph, that is the equivelent of any bowler being able to routinly go and bowl a 100 mile per hour ball any time he wants. In fact less than 5 bowlers have broken 100 mph and that is barely breaking the barrier. To say that Glenn (he's a bowler from your own country at least spell his name right) McGrath has bowled over 180 Kph (over 110 MPH) is uttely laughable.
     
  21. Vkothii Banned Banned

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    I think there used to be a "90 mph" sort of bowling barrier (like the 4-minute mile). But it was broken a long time back (by some English dude I think). That's 90 x 1.6 = 144 kph.

    I'm pretty sure the 90mph limit has been exceeded, quite a few times. 180kph is "only" 112mph.
     
  22. thedevilsreject Registered Senior Abuser Registered Senior Member

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    A) The 90mph limit gets broken pretty often

    B) 100mph (160.9 Kph) has only been broken by Shoaib Akhtar that I know of, there is controversy as to whether Brett Lee did.

    C) 180 Kph never has, i doubt ever will be broken, and Glenn McGrath certainly hasn't got it.
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    All of those are either: 1) also present, equivalently or more, in baseball, or 2) not -from a baseball fans pov - intricacies in the game, but noise interfering with a legitimate matching of skill and performance.

    I mentioned the increasing "shagginess" of the ball, as a clear example. Baseball banned the "infinite variables" and "intricacy" of damaged and scuffed and doctored baseballs on purpose, because that kind of intricacy and variation interferes with the matching of skill and performance, in the baseball fan's pov.

    It's not that I refuse to recognize the extra variables of things like a deteriorating field and ball, it's that I don't think you can compare them directly with the intricacies built into the play of the game in, say, baseball. From a regular baseball fan's pov, you are comparing noise with signal.
    Because "foul balls" in baseball are part of the game, involved in the tactics and strategies, influence the outcome, are executed on purpose sometimes, etc.
    By the descriptions of the game so far, that is not so. Certainly not as in baseball, where (for example) the batter and pitcher both face immediate numerical limits and penalties.
    Your arguments for cricket are oddly chosen for someone who "gets" what a baseball fan "gets".
    No argument. But its attractions are very different from baseball's, apparently.
    A baseball hit foul is not squarely hit in opposition to the aims of the pitcher - there's a logic behind the rule, derived from the competition and performance requirements of the game. It's a coherent aesthetic, if you will. The balance of pitching and batting fits in there, and so forth. Is there a similar logic behind the restrictions on the bowling motion ?

    Synopsis of new stuff I have learned, that seems important, to me: Cricket is intrinsically a long game - the changes in the pitch, working out of the odds in the tactics, etc, take place over several hours of play and not otherwise. In this way it does in one match some things that take baseball several games to accomplish. Cricket is "unbalanced" from a baseball pov - the action is in the batter's control, good hitting in cricket beats good hurling and fielding by a lot. And so forth.
     

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