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Originally Posted by Richard
Tell me, Jesse - is there ever an incredible amout of value in an article by anyone?
Honestly, how many articles make pages and pages of fascinating revelations that no-one else could possibly have thought of? A sum-total of zero, I'd say.
I find you and Sean (Fuller) too regularly criticise articles (the one that comes to mind before this on your part is that Dean Jones one after The First Test) for pointing-out stuff that's - to you and me and other people of this board's ilk - pretty obvious.
Fact is, to well-versed cricketing society there are few revelations, because we can all work-out stuff ourselves. You are already aware of most of the stuff that Simpson speaks. Many people (me, for instance) have learnt from the fact that this sort of thing is published.
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Holy crap, Richard - this one peeled my hair back!
To be honest, I actually reference a lot of articles here - and often introduce them as "here's an interesting article from ......... on ...........". The reason I was critical of this one was because Simpson was for the most part just re-touching on specific issues that had gotten a lot of press
just lately, and was re-iterating stuff that's been floating around with great regularity in the newspapers over the last few weeks - and tossing in some nonsense besides.
The Deano one
was pretty laughable, and I was far from the only person to have a chuckle about it - the thread ended up with people writing their own parody versions of it.
I guess maybe the (2) critical reactions I had to Simpson's and Jones's articles particularly stuck in your head, but I felt that in this case, it was Simpson hanging crap on things (or people) he didn't like, and/or rehashing specific things that he was coming in a little late on. And I'm a little tired of the panicky comments on how sick and injured our domesitc system is on the whole when we've been dominating world cricket for nigh on ten years and we just lost an away series very closely in which far more specific and direct issues relating to the current international side (and their opposition) were much more relevant.
I also think that the age problems he referenced are often caused by long periods of success at international level. Very promising and talented cricketers miss out because the side is very stable, and then, when an opening comes up, and these players waiting are making bags of runs (or taking wickets) at state level, it's understandable that the selectors would try these guys at the age of 26, 27, etc. I think you generally have a far higher turnover of really young guys coming through the side when you're far less successful.
Lastly, I don't think it made sense to make direct comparisons to this period to back in the mid-80's when he took over, and in this context, reference how similar now is to then, where we were in the middle of a losing streak, and having numerous players exhibit laziness, unwillingness to train, etc. Firstly, WTF does that have to do with what we're seeing right now in terms of the Australian cricket team? And secondly,
who's showing a lack of commitment or not appreciating the honor of playing Australia? It's as if players can't be outplayed by a decent opposition, or that they can't have horror tours - it's all a matter of laziness and forgetting your obligations to your country. I don't buy it.