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Big 3 killing cricket stone dead

Flem274*

123/5
The Golden Age of cricket had only 2 teams and no one seemed to mind back then, or even now - "I wish the Golden Age of cricket had 4 Test teams" is not something you hear very often.

Point being, spectators like quality cricket and a close brutal contest, and that's what matters. Therefore, it makes sense to me to have 3 Divisions where the top and bottom teams from each division get promoted and demoted. The cricket within the divsions will be more closely fought and therefore sharper because the teams will be about even, and winning will matter more.

You could easily run the experiment with T20 cricket, fine tune it, and then try ODI's and Test cricket if the system works and the fans are interested.
im too derisive to even reply to this atm

no one seemed to mind back then because only two countries cared you muppet. go back to the ATG thread hole and jerk off over some aussie/english **** from 1850.
 

Skyliner

International 12th Man
Are there any other sports where 2 nations ram their old rivalry down everyone else's throat?
 

Skyliner

International 12th Man
You should get on your knees and thank us for allowing you to witness such a glorious contest.
5 nil wasn't much of contest.....it did Flintoffs head in. According to Nasser Hussain during the tour he had three or four warnings for inappropriate behaviour and binge drinking, including arriving hungover for a training session. ...And he was the captain!

And then 5 nil wasn't much of a contest, England players abandoning the tour in droves, mid tour retirements....another shambles....

But I think the old rivals always like to think they are one and two in the world and having a glorious contest, despite what the ICC rankings and the reality might be.
 

TNT

Banned
5 nil wasn't much of contest.....it did Flintoffs head in. According to Nasser Hussain during the tour he had three or four warnings for inappropriate behaviour and binge drinking, including arriving hungover for a training session. ...And he was the captain!

And then 5 nil wasn't much of a contest, England players abandoning the tour in droves, mid tour retirements....another shambles....

But I think the old rivals always like to think they are one and two in the world and having a glorious contest, despite what the ICC rankings and the reality might be.
Minnows don't have the understanding of cricket to appreciate the ashes, it would be like the peasants having a fox hunt.
 

TheJediBrah

Request Your Custom Title Now!
I'd like to see the ICC become an entity concerned with advancing a meaningful test championship, and committed to protecting windows for full test nations home seasons, and committed to preserving and promoting test cricket in its current form, and protecting the weaker nations who need the most assistance.
Yeah that'd be great. It might even last a couple of years too before going completely bankrupt and world cricket imploding.

Too bad we live in the real world.
 

Red

The normal awards that everyone else has
im too derisive to even reply to this atm

no one seemed to mind back then because only two countries cared you muppet. go back to the ATG thread hole and jerk off over some aussie/english **** from 1850.
Got your period?
 

Gob

International Coach
Another Ashes series. There's one of these every year, always 5 tests.
It's just selfishness on the part of England and Australia. South Africa are the number one side in world cricket and they only ever get 3 test series's in Australia - apparently due to ICC guidelines. Who is the ICC? India / England / Australia. So you have a side which over the years has had the likes of Steyn, Kallis, Smith, Morkel being treated like a second rate nation. Is it any wonder test audiences are declining in SA?
England were an uncompetitive rabble between 1989 and 2005, but the glut of tests against Australia they were still allowed to play over this period allowed their players to steal a march on every other nation apart from Australia, and eventually get back to parity (temporarily) with Australia. Meanwhile if a side like NZ shows that they are an uncompetitive rabble, their series get degraded to 2 tests and they get pilloried. Their last tour to Australia was tied at 1-1, so they never to get to play a decider. They never get a chance to go through that and get anywhere near parity with the kind of experience that English players get.

The selfish big 3 concentrate on their icon series's, and everyone else can go to hell. The big 3 should be pouring money into the Windies game via ICC, and gutless Australia and England should have fought the good fight on behalf of smaller nations, instead of meekly capitulating to India. India sue a bankrupt Windies for USD 54 million and their Big 3 partners say nothing. Moral cowardice. This is despite in being well known that India just scheduled another tour by Sri Lanka and suffered no material loss. Do the Big 3 want Windies cricket to die completely? The **** Forrel series is already totally devalued, why not keep putting the boot in.

The IPL season cuts right across the back end of the NZ international season and right through the Windies season. NZ have players turning up for test cricket virtually the night before a match starts, while all the better Windies players are lost to the IPL. No wonder the Windies are being humiliated on a regular basis.All very well to blame their board, but their board has issues to deal with that England and Australia are insulated and protected from by their suck-up relationship with India. Is this acceptable, that international cricket is reduced to a B Grade product? Why not have the IPL in July, right in the heart of the English summer, or November - right when Australia are beginning their home test programme. Then let's see the 'franchise before country' shenanigans that erupt. But right now it's countries in the Big 3 family looking down their noses at NZ and Windies players and saying "oh, they are poor, no wonder they choose the IPL". No, they have the IPL driven right through their home summers like a stake.

Australia and England have ensured themselves advantages that other nations don't have, they play many more tests, they have their home seasons protected, they have carved up the pie in conjunction with India. How is this different to cheating, to rorting the commonwealth of cricket playing nations? Where is the level playing field that allows the 'smaller' nations to compete? Rather than recieve the assistance they need, the 'smaller' nations actually have the deck increasingly stacked against them.

What other commonwealth sport does this happen in? The likes of Scotland and Ireland have never beaten the All Blacks; should NZ brush them? Australia are crap at rugby; should NZ refuse to play them for a decade?

Is the cricketing community a family or is just the Big 3 and everyone else be damned? 2 tests for a good NZ side that drew with England last time they were in NZ, so that Australia and England can play yet another 5 test series? What a damned disgrace.
Well this is poop.
 

Spark

Global Moderator
5 nil wasn't much of contest.....it did Flintoffs head in. According to Nasser Hussain during the tour he had three or four warnings for inappropriate behaviour and binge drinking, including arriving hungover for a training session. ...And he was the captain!

And then 5 nil wasn't much of a contest, England players abandoning the tour in droves, mid tour retirements....another shambles....

But I think the old rivals always like to think they are one and two in the world and having a glorious contest, despite what the ICC rankings and the reality might be.
Well **** we should just ignore 150 years of history because some computer spits out some rankings. Clearly more important.
 

watson

Banned
im too derisive to even reply to this atm

no one seemed to mind back then because only two countries cared you muppet. go back to the ATG thread hole and jerk off over some aussie/english **** from 1850.
Alright. What about Andrew Dick, John Dicker, Thomas Box, and John Boning? Will they do?
 
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Skyliner

International 12th Man
I would like to apologise to the Board of Cricket Control for India, Cricket Australia, and the England and Wales Cricket Board.
Thanks for your humanitarianism and wise rule over our cricketing family.
 

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
snopes.com: Muscles to Smile and Frown

The saying's age is not its only mystery; there's no real agreement as to how many muscles have to be worked in the face to produce a smile or a frown. And, given that even what constitutes a smile is up for grabs (some avow the muscles around the eyes get involved; others discount that and look only to those necessary to lift the corners of the mouth), it's possible this is one of those questions for which there will never be a definitive answer. The saying's age is not its only mystery; there's no real agreement as to how many muscles have to be worked in the face to produce a smile or a frown. And, given that even what constitutes a smile is up for grabs (some avow the muscles around the eyes get involved; others discount that and look only to those necessary to lift the corners of the mouth), it's possible this is one of those questions for which there will never be a definitive answer.
 

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