Media influence in Declarations

[uvelocity]

As some of you may have noticed one of the things that really pisses me off in Fantasy Land is the media having such a huge influence on things such as sport and politics. Captains are generally a bunch of clueless morons who should have no input in anything of even remote importance.

My main early memories of cricket come from the late 1990s, the whimsical declaration policies. Players in and out of the side. Back then it felt like more of an old boys network, with limited influence from the media - the management were weak enough to be taken in but the media was more interested in football most of the time anyway. In the last decade it seemed to me the media have increasingly trying to time the declarations, piling pressure on to captains they didn't like for whatever reason. Fortunately Ricky Ponting didn't seem to take much notice and now Michael Clarke seems to be similar in that regard.

What irritates me now is we seem to have evolved to the point where numpties on Cricketweb are trying to impose their nonsense onto the consciousness of millions. Their pinup boy Evil Budgie only has to pick his nose and strike gold and he'll be on the front page. Recently I've seen some total bollocks written about Declarations. An article I read in the last few days wrote how you can't judge a declaration on the result?!? We have posters (see the current SL v Australia match) presenting their declaration hatred as fact.

With CW's intellectual clout these days I'm increasingly worried about their influence on the game. I don't expect individuals to be impartial but there seem to be persistent themes. Declarations, Hating Australia whilst still kissing up to the Durham as they employ many of the not good enough cricketers in the UK. They are far too political.

[Cabinet96]