Five things I don't get about cricket

[Athlai]

Bradman thought you should be able to get an lbw if the ball pitched outside leg, which is all very well for the best batsman who ever lived to say - the reality is that a balance has to be struck between bat and ball - if the balance moves too far in favour of the batman I dare say that idea might come back into vogue again, but I hope not for the reason Furball gives

#jokerdeservesachance

 

[Daemon]

I actually think OS has put the case across for leg byes really well. One of those rare occasions where someone's put a point across that's made me reconsider my previous beliefs on a matter.

Look what you've done Dan

 

[TheJediBrah]

Not from that angle.

Right arm over drifting onto your pads is a freebie because you can help it anywhere onto the legside and if you miss you won't be out. Different game with someone spearingi it in at the stumps from round the wicket, that angle alone makes it much harder to hit.

Nah not really. Unless they're swinging it away significantly it's just as easy if not easier from the angle.

edit: didn't realise this was in relation to the pitching outside leg rule of lbws. Which is, of course, a very good and sensible rule.

 

[Burgey]

I dont think that's true. Most cricketers would love to have a bowler bowling at their pads.

Nah there's a bit of a natural blind spot at play from that angle, and it's genuinely not as easy from that angle as a bloke coming over the wicket, which is why as a left hander I used to love it when right arm bowlers bowled around the wicket to me - the angle into the pads is an easier one to score off and it takes away the angle for an edge to slip.

 

[Dan]

Nah there's a bit of a natural blind spot at play from that angle, and it's genuinely not as easy from that angle as a bloke coming over the wicket, which is why as a left hander I used to love it when right arm bowlers bowled around the wicket to me - the angle into the pads is an easier one to score off and it takes away the angle for an edge to slip.

Yeah, indeed. I've had right arm quicks (generally bowling inswing) come around the wicket to me a lot this season and it takes out almost every form of dismissal they've got. Makes no sense unless you've given up and are looking for a catch at one of your three short midwickets (#Vaas), or you're bowling mirror images of Starc yorkers. Which nobody does.

If you're bowling from that left arm over angle to the right hander (or right arm over to the leftie), starting a bit outside leg and getting it to jag off the deck back across the face is a) hard to play and b) pretty likely to get a thick edge at some point. Plus, if you pitch it up further, on leg stump, and straighten it back down the line, LBW is on the cards.

 

[Red]

Well, with only two behind square, I'd be happy to have a right armer bowl around the wicket at my pads all day if he wants...

 

[andruid]

well, with only two behind square, i'd be happy to have a right armer bowl around the wicket at my pads all day if he wants...

it is forbidden!

 

[neville cardus]

Because its a stupid, moronic and entirely arbitrary distinction.

You don't exactly put the "moderate" in "moderator," do you? I've marked this phenomenon before: that those who delight in policing the utterances of others are never quite so diligent about their own.

You've abjectly

"Abjectly," forsooth!

failed to makr any case of why a batsman's intent matters at all;

I've made the case, alright. You just haven't spotted it. But it's implicit in everything I've said. If the batsman does not intend an outcome -- if, in fact, he intends a different outcome -- then that outcome is the product of error (or, as Fred points out, at the very most of luck), and the batsman can no take no credit for it. Sports try wherever possible to punish mistakes and reward merit. The legbye does the opposite.

you've assumed you are correct, refused to defend your viewpoint as anything other than self-evident, and been insufferably condescending in doing so.

Oh, don't be such a wimp! If strong views, robustly expressed, are so offensive to you, then you shouldn't be frequenting forums at all, less still moderating them.

The game is about defending your wicket, and then scoring runs. If you have successfully defended your wicket and are capable of scorijg a run following that - irrespective of what thr ball hit or did not hit (your argument would also ban byes,

It most certainly would not.

because the battimg team did nothing to deserve them)

The reward element is only one half of my argument. The other, adverted repeatedly, is the element of error, which in the case of legbyes is rewarded rather than punished.

Byes are quite different: the outcome of an error perpetrated by the fielding team, as represented by the wicketkeeper, and duly punished. This seems trite.

then you should have a right to take that run. The only moderations, lest you get pedantic then shout my clarification dowj for pedantry,

The only one shouting, Dan, is your good self. There's a shrill and querulous tone in everything you've written here. And you set yourself up for a terrible fall when you throw around words like "stupid," "moronic," "abject" and "insufferable."

is disallowing in the case of pad play (since neither the bowler, hamstrung by the LBW law, nor batsman, through disallowed leg byes, is rewarded for cynical, awful, aesthetically displeasing cricket without the symmetry of the game being impacted), or in the case of unintentional obstruction.

I've read this sentence several times now, and I still can't fathom what you're trying to say. Why don't you fix yourself a nice cup of tea, take a long bath and a deep breath, remind yourself that it's only cricket we're discussing, and try to frame this argument in a polite and measured way. I promise I'll reciprocate.

You're the one trying to change the laws of cricket. The onus is on you to demonstrate why.

I've been doing that from the start. If I hadn't put forward an argument, you wouldn't have been able to spend three paragraphs responding to it.

"I don't like it and I'm important because I nicknamed myself after an important cricketing figure" is not an argument for change.

Yeah, dude. Seriously. Run that bath.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Lol Neville my man

 

[neville cardus]

Because its a stupid, moronic and entirely arbitrary distinction.

You don't exactly put the "moderate" in "moderator," do you? I've marked this phenomenon before: that those who delight in policing the utterances of others are never quite so stringent about their own.

You've abjectly

"Abjectly," forsooth!

failed to makr any case of why a batsman's intent matters at all;

I've made the case, alright. You just haven't spotted it. But it's implicit in everything I've said. If the batsman does not intend an outcome -- if, in fact, he intends a quite different outcome -- then that outcome is the product of error (or, as Fred points out, at the very most of luck), and the batting team can no take no credit for it. Sports try, wherever possible, to punish mistakes while rewarding merit. The legbye does the opposite.

you've assumed you are correct, refused to defend your viewpoint as anything other than self-evident, and been insufferably condescending in doing so.

Oh, don't be such a wimp. If strong views, robustly expressed, are so offensive to you, then you shouldn't be frequenting forums at all, less still moderating them.

The game is about defending your wicket, and then scoring runs. If you have successfully defended your wicket and are capable of scorijg a run following that - irrespective of what thr ball hit or did not hit (your argument would also ban byes,

It most certainly would not.

because the battimg team did nothing to deserve them)

The reward element is only one half of my argument. The other, adverted repeatedly, is the element of error, which in the case of legbyes is rewarded rather than punished.

Byes are quite different: the outcome of a mistake by the fielding team, as represented by the wicketkeeper, and duly punished. This seems trite.

then you should have a right to take that run. The only moderations, lest you get pedantic then shout my clarification dowj for pedantry,

You're the only one shouting here, Dan. There's a shrill and querulous tone in everything you've written. And you set yourself up for a terrible fall when you throw around words like "stupid," "moronic," "abject" and "insufferable."

is disallowing in the case of pad play (since neither the bowler, hamstrung by the LBW law, nor batsman, through disallowed leg byes, is rewarded for cynical, awful, aesthetically displeasing cricket without the symmetry of the game being impacted), or in the case of unintentional obstruction.

I've read this sentence several times now, and I still can't fathom what you're trying to say. Why don't you fix yourself a nice cup of tea, take a long bath and a deep breath, remind yourself that it's only cricket we're discussing, and try to frame this argument in a polite and measured way? I promise I'll reciprocate.

You're the one trying to change the laws of cricket. The onus is on you to demonstrate why.

I've been doing that from the start. If I hadn't put forward an argument, you wouldn't have been able to spend three paragraphs responding to it.

"I don't like it and I'm important because I nicknamed myself after an important cricketing figure" is not an argument for change.

Yeah, dude. Seriously. Run that bath.

 

[neville cardus]

'Pologies for the duplicate posting. The first one didn't show up initially, and the second one refuses deletion. A task for our anxious moderator?

 

[honestbharani]

It's what happens when u get Angry Dan...

 

[neville cardus]

He's right about my handle, though. It's always felt slightly ridiculous. How does one change these things?

 

[Marius]

He's right about my handle, though. It's always felt slightly ridiculous. How does one change these things?

Sometimes it helps being an unimaginative git and just use your RL first name as your username.

 

[fredfertang]

He's right about my handle, though. It's always felt slightly ridiculous. How does one change these things?

Just ask James, although he's away on safari at the moment - puts you on the same continent for once

 

[neville cardus]

Thanks.

 

[Marius]

Thanks.

I think you should change your username to CLR James.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Change it to Firdose Moonda.

 

[neville cardus]

I think you should change your username to CLR James.

Nah. His politics are too far to my right.

 

[neville cardus]

Change it to Firdose Moonda.

You're aware, then, of my wee Twitter spat with her? ;-)