Breakaway Indian League - Lara, Warne, McGrath?

[Richard]

In your opinion maybe.

Which I quite clearly stated...

 

[Richard]

Richard.. BCCI has been crap for ages. There have been shameful incidents in the past and horrendous administrators.

Maybe, but I know little or nothing of such things. The first time I remember real complaints were in the Dalmiya era.

 

[Pratters]

It is not a maybe. It is a 100% fact. The Dalmiya era had a lot of positives and was excellent in many ways in fact. BCCI has faced many worse phases.

The corrupt aspects of the BCCI historically, just look at the Lala Amarnath incident. From wikipedia:

De Mello courted controversy later in his career (in 1951, reviewing his time as the BCCI President, The Times of India called him a 'dictator'). His tenure as the President of BCCI ended with a defeat to J. C. Mukherjee, the President of the Cricket Association of Bengal, by 12 votes to 5, in the Board meeting held at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi on 1951-08-05. He had not been in good terms with the Bengal association for some time. When in 1949, De Mello came up with serious allegations against the Indian captain Lala Amarnath, the 'Bengal lobby' had strongly supported Amarnath. [6]. Amarnath threatened to sue the board for one lakh rupees but the matter had then been settled with Amarnath tendering a qualified apology to the board. De Mello made another attempt at the presidency in 1952 but withdrew on finding that his chances were slim.

Then, there was Vizzy of course. I am on a dialup for the next 1-2 weeks.. else I could provide you links going deeper. Can't for the moment.

Let me link you to two pieces you should read.

Indian cricket's sorry state.

Vijay Merchant on the problems facing Indian cricket. It is scary how not much has improved in almost 50 years.

The number of people who play cricket in India, the amount of money cricket has in India, India should have a cricket team which is at least 10-15 times better than all the other countries combined. That we aren't any where near that shows immediately how much cricket is lacking structurally in the country.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Warne is only playing at Hampshire to honour his contract and also because he enjoys it heaps I suspect. He's not doing it for the money, he's damn well-off as it is and anyways as soon as he finishes he will slot right into the commentary box or any other role he chooses here. His popularity can't be underestimated. Furthermore, it's not ungraceful for a player to quietly finish his career in county cricket or any other domestic arena, far from it.

This however is tacky to the extreme. I want my lasting memories of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath to be them walking off the SCG, not this rubbish. Obviously if they're offered millions of dollars for doing barley anything, they'll go. Who wouldn't? All I'm saying is it's a shame, a real shame (although as has been said, none of the reports are substantiated yet).

So basically it's all just down to your irrational loathing of Twenty20. Playing half-arsed in a number of dead rubbers, not being able to bowl so many overs because you're a bit past your best, playing in front of one man and his dog - much better eh. What a pathetic argument.

 

[silentstriker]

Maybe, but I know little or nothing of such things. The first time I remember real complaints were in the Dalmiya era.

As Pratyush said, it's not 'maybe'. Not a single person outside the BCCI would say otherwise.

 

[pasag]

So basically it's all just down to your irrational loathing of Twenty20. Playing half-arsed in a number of dead rubbers, not being able to bowl so many overs because you're a bit past your best, playing in front of one man and his dog - much better eh. What a pathetic argument.

Haha, try not to be a complete wanker whenever anyone has a different viewpoint to you. Quite frankly you're full of **** and most of your 'arguments' consist of 'that post is such rubbish I won't even reply', which tells me that quite frankly you can't reply and have nothing really to say on the matter. I've seen it time and time again with you, you can't argue a point and instead resort to either insults or calling the actual post and poster pathetic instead of addressing the actual points themselves.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Any cricket run by a TV company will invariably be less proper and more worthless than that run by a Cricket Board, however poor.

IIRC Lillee says that WSC was the highest standard of cricket he played. He rates his (IIRC) 51 wickets in it on a par with his test scalps. I mean there's no doubt that Packer was motivated by his own agenda, but there were also some signifcant long-term attendant benefits to the game because of WSC too; players being paid a decent wage not the least of them.

It's not. It's a perception of fact. A TV company cannot run a cricket competition of any note, because the sole concern will be attracting viewers, not the good of the game.

See above answer. Moreover, "attracting viewers" & "the good of the game" aren't mutually exclusive either. What's wrong with the sport being an attractive product people actually want to watch?

Warne is only playing at Hampshire to honour his contract and also because he enjoys it heaps I suspect. He's not doing it for the money, he's damn well-off as it is and anyways as soon as he finishes he will slot right into the commentary box or any other role he chooses here. His popularity can't be underestimated. Furthermore, it's not ungraceful for a player to quietly finish his career in county cricket or any other domestic arena, far from it.

This however is tacky to the extreme. I want my lasting memories of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath to be them walking off the SCG, not this rubbish. Obviously if they're offered millions of dollars for doing barley anything, they'll go. Who wouldn't? All I'm saying is it's a shame, a real shame (although as has been said, none of the reports are substantiated yet).

Not too sure I agree there. In golf & tennis the "seniors" tours both attract significant crowds. If there's still a market for blokes like Warne & McGrath to ply their trade I say good on them. I personally reckon a lot of folk would love to see another round of (say) Warne v Cullinan or Alderman v Gooch.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Haha, try not to be a complete wanker whenever anyone has a different viewpoint to you. Quite frankly you're full of **** and most of your 'arguments' consist of 'that post is such rubbish I won't even reply', which tells me that quite frankly you can't reply and have nothing really to say on the matter. I've seen it time and time again with you, you can't argue a point and instead resort to either insults or calling the actual post pathetic instead of addressing the actual points themselves.

So I'm right then.

You have to remember that I've often got better things to do than spend time on posts that are virtually 100% wrong. With some of them it's like trying to prove 2 + 2 does not actually equal 5 - If something is fundamentally bollocks I'm not likely to waste time on it.

 

[pasag]

So I'm right then.

You have to remember that I've often got better things to do than spend time on posts that are virtually 100% wrong. With some of them it's like trying to prove 2 + 2 does not actually equal 5 - If something is fundamentally bollocks I'm not likely to waste time on it.

Nah, I don't think that's the case really. I think you can't reply to posts and often have no idea what you're talking about, but have firmly entrenched opinions on the matter, so you'll say stuff like you don't have the time or will to argue (with added abuse), but in reality you couldn't back it up even if you wanted to.

And just for the record, the fact that it's a 20/20 tournament has no impact on my opinion here. You just stupidly assumed that. It'd be the same for any form of silly breakaway gimmick. I didn't even think about the fact it was 20/20, the amount of overs really made no difference at all to the opinion in my post that you quoted.

 

[Richard]

IIRC Lillee says that WSC was the highest standard of cricket he played. He rates his (IIRC) 51 wickets in it on a par with his test scalps. I mean there's no doubt that Packer was motivated by his own agenda, but there were also some signifcant long-term attendant benefits to the game because of WSC too; players being paid a decent wage not the least of them.

As I've said 100s of times - I couldn't care less whether Lillee thinks it was the highest standard he ever played in, that has most to do with the fact that the selected players were the creme-de-la-creme and facing each other with no intervention. Added to the fact that he probably enjoyed being paid everso slightly (note ironic tone - understatement) more than he was previously.

There were indeed some long-term benefits of C9 televising cricket, but there were none from WSC. Everything that happened because of the breakaway would have happened anyway, and without the short-term disasters that it caused.

Moreover, "attracting viewers" & "the good of the game" aren't mutually exclusive either. What's wrong with the sport being an attractive product people actually want to watch?

Attracting viewers isn't simply about the quality of the game, and with domestic cricket that's all that really matters. You're never going to get massive viewers for Karnatka vs Baroda, any more than you are for Somerset vs Kent.

 

[Richard]

As Pratyush said, it's not 'maybe'. Not a single person outside the BCCI would say otherwise.

It is not a maybe. It is a 100% fact. The Dalmiya era had a lot of positives and was excellent in many ways in fact. BCCI has faced many worse phases.

The corrupt aspects of the BCCI historically, just look at the Lala Amarnath incident. From wikipedia:

De Mello courted controversy later in his career (in 1951, reviewing his time as the BCCI President, The Times of India called him a 'dictator'). His tenure as the President of BCCI ended with a defeat to J. C. Mukherjee, the President of the Cricket Association of Bengal, by 12 votes to 5, in the Board meeting held at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi on 1951-08-05. He had not been in good terms with the Bengal association for some time. When in 1949, De Mello came up with serious allegations against the Indian captain Lala Amarnath, the 'Bengal lobby' had strongly supported Amarnath. [6]. Amarnath threatened to sue the board for one lakh rupees but the matter had then been settled with Amarnath tendering a qualified apology to the board. De Mello made another attempt at the presidency in 1952 but withdrew on finding that his chances were slim.

Then, there was Vizzy of course. I am on a dialup for the next 1-2 weeks.. else I could provide you links going deeper. Can't for the moment.

Let me link you to two pieces you should read.

Indian cricket's sorry state.

Vijay Merchant on the problems facing Indian cricket. It is scary how not much has improved in almost 50 years.

The number of people who play cricket in India, the amount of money cricket has in India, India should have a cricket team which is at least 10-15 times better than all the other countries combined. That we aren't any where near that shows immediately how much cricket is lacking structurally in the country.

Just for clarification, the "maybe" wasn't a "maybe there have been, maybe there haven't", it was a "that's as maybe". That's all fascinating-sounding stuff which I had not previously heard about and it'll give me a good read when I have a look around it.

 

[Pratters]

Cheers mate..

 

[BoyBrumby]

As I've said 100s of times - I couldn't care less whether Lillee thinks it was the highest standard he ever played in, that has most to do with the fact that the selected players were the creme-de-la-creme and facing each other with no intervention. Added to the fact that he probably enjoyed being paid everso slightly (note ironic tone - understatement) more than he was previously.

So you have the best players playing against the best players. & that's bad because...?

There were indeed some long-term benefits of C9 televising cricket, but there were none from WSC. Everything that happened because of the breakaway would have happened anyway, and without the short-term disasters that it caused.

Yeah. There's no way of checking that is there? What is beyond doubt tho is that without WSC Channel 9 wouldn't have got cricket; it needed someone like Packer to kick the door in.

Attracting viewers isn't simply about the quality of the game, and with domestic cricket that's all that really matters. You're never going to get massive viewers for Karnatka vs Baroda, any more than you are for Somerset vs Kent.

Despite the fact that 20/20 has had the biggest domestic crowds since the 50s? If the product is good people will watch it; if people don't watch it (either live or on telly) then the sport dies.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Nah, I don't think that's the case really. I think you can't reply to posts and often have no idea what you're talking about, but have firmly entrenched opinions on the matter, so you'll say stuff like you don't have the time or will to argue (with added abuse), but in reality you couldn't back it up even if you wanted to.

And just for the record, the fact that it's a 20/20 tournament has no impact on my opinion here. You just stupidly assumed that. It'd be the same for any form of silly breakaway gimmick. I didn't even think about the fact it was 20/20, the amount of overs really made no difference at all to the opinion in my post that you quoted.

You obviously seem to think me not checking threads very often is me being unable to reply to stuff. Pretty ridiculous really given most people can argue endlessly over just about anything. As for Twenty20 having no impact, righto...

 

[LA ICE-E]

I don't think it's a bad idea if they can get this thing big and cricket does do something domestic that becomes something like the NBA or NFL. But is it really a break away league? 'Cause they were saying that they didn't want to be like that but instead work with the BCCI.

 

[Richard]

So you have the best players playing against the best players. & that's bad because...?

Because it's elitist beyond the bounds of decency. 50-odd players are the only ones who have the right to play? Yeah, right.

Why not go further? Why not just have the 2 best teams you can muster and stuff everything below that?

Yeah. There's no way of checking that is there? What is beyond doubt tho is that without WSC Channel 9 wouldn't have got cricket; it needed someone like Packer to kick the door in.

If The ACB had won the battle against Packer - which was perfectly conceivable after the first WSC season - 9 could quite conceivably still have got the rights as the broadcasting World changed and the bigger the $$$$$ figure on the cheque, the better the chance.

Despite the fact that 20/20 has had the biggest domestic crowds since the 50s? If the product is good people will watch it; if people don't watch it (either live or on telly) then the sport dies.

Not true. Domestic cricket has been unwatched for most living memory (and Twenty20, like the domestic one-day game, will very possibly end-up going that way) and Tests have survived.

 

[silentstriker]

Because it's elitist beyond the bounds of decency. 50-odd players are the only ones who have the right to play? Yeah, right.

Wait, what? How many players are in the top level FC cricket in Australia?

And the plans are for expansion to about 20 teams.

 

[Richard]

Haha, WTF? There were three teams involved in World Series Cricket. Three. With no plans to expand or anything.

 

[silentstriker]

Haha, WTF? There were three teams involved in World Series Cricket. Three. With no plans to expand or anything.

Ah, I am speaking of the current new league.

 

[LA ICE-E]

Wait, what? How many players are in the top level FC cricket in Australia?

And the plans are for expansion to about 20 teams.

So is it going to be anything like the NBA? not a bad thing imo, they should try to get it sanctioned by the BCCI though otherwise the under contracted players wouldn't be able to play. It would be like how the MLB got the Wold Baseball Classic sanctioned by the IBAF while they organized the whole thing.