What if?...

[Cabinet96]

All the electronic evidence is declared inadmissable, the NotW hacks are arrested for illegally accessing the voicemails of Butt, Aamer & Asif, who're awarded punitive damages for defamation and restored to the Pakistan national team. Giles Clarke is broken by the experience, announces henceforth he wishes to be known as "Gillian" and changes gender.

What if - Zaheer Khan & Sehwag had been fit for the whole of the Indian tour of England?

Sehwag would struggled Zaheer might have made a difference.

What if Alastair Cook hadn't scored his century against Pakistan at the oval and had got dropped for the ashes.

 

[Furball]

Sehwag would have become the first opener to register 2 king pairs in a series.

 

[BoyBrumby]

What if Alastair Cook hadn't scored his century against Pakistan at the oval and had got dropped for the ashes.

Cook is dropped for the 4th test and replaced by Michael Carberry. Carberry scores a dogged 50 whilst playing and missing a lot and tours Australia in the winter.

Carberry bags a pair at the Gabba and Trott is stranded on 150* in the second innings as he runs out of partners. Australia knock off the 78 required to win. Carberry fails again in Adelaide and Perth and Australia and Australia have regained the urn by the Boxing Day test.

Strauss & Flower resign in high dudgeon to be replaced by Rory Hamilton-Brown & the ghost of Gubby Allen.

What if- Phil Neville had chosen cricket?

 

[benchmark00]

Brumbeh is pretty much the owner of this thread - y'all just posting in it.

 

[marc71178]

What if- Phil Neville had chosen cricket?

We'd have got past the group stages in 2000.

 

[benchmark00]

What if MacGilla Gorilla debuted before fat **** Warne?

 

[benchmark00]

What if MacGilla Gorilla debuted before fat **** Warne?

We'd be sitting here picking MacGill in our ATG teams ahead of Warne and Murali.

 

[morgieb]

What if Australia A had won the 1994/95 World Series Cup?

 

[flibbertyjibber]

What if Martin Bicknell had been been used as 3rd seamer for a decade alongside Gough and Caddick instead of being discarded as being to slow throughout his career?

 

[wpdavid]

What if Martin Bicknell had been been used as 3rd seamer for a decade alongside Gough and Caddick instead of being discarded as being to slow throughout his career?

Dominic Cork and Matthew Hoggard would be widely regarded as the finest English bowlers never to play test cricket.


What if Alan Border had been sacked after the 1986/87 Ashes?

 

[zaremba]

Find me one piece of UK legislation which backs up your point plz.

Benchy's right about this. Under section 195 of the Equality Act 2010 sporting associations are entitled to discriminate on grounds of nationality, place of birth or length of residence in selecting players to represent a country in sport.

 

[Furball]

Benchy's right about this. Under section 195 of the Equality Act 2010 sporting associations are entitled to discriminate on grounds of nationality, place of birth or length of residence in selecting players to represent a country in sport.

If you were to deny a UK citizen from representing the UK on the grounds of their place of birth I reckon it would be fairly easy to challenge that legally. Because it's discriminatory. Same for any country - Usman Khawaja being a good example. If he was denied the opportunity to play for Australia because he is brown, the world would be up in arms. Doing so because he was born in Pakistan is equally discriminatory, as Khawaja can't help where he was born equally as much as he can't choose his skin colour.

Besides, the "country of birth" thing is completely nonsense anyway, and would be a ****ing stupid rule to have in place since quite a few countries (of which the UK is one) do not give out citizenship due to where you were born. Being born in the UK doesn't make you British.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

I think this could be court fodder actually. I think a rule that would make it technically impossible to qualify - for example 15 years of residence - couldn't be defended under the Equality Act, but if, say, Jacques Kallis decided to buy a house in England tomorrow, moving there and saying he'd be eligible, that wouldn't stand up.

But I may have too much faith in lawyers applying common sense occasionally...

I'll leave the Border conundrum for Brumby to create a scenario, most likely involving Steve Waugh getting a side role in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Andrew Hilditch getting a second Ramprakash-style recall to captain the side to four more years of mediocrity.

 

[zaremba]

If you were to deny a UK citizen from representing the UK on the grounds of their place of birth I reckon it would be fairly easy to challenge that legally. Because it's discriminatory.

Of course it's discriminatory. So is any system of deciding who qualifies to play for your country (other than a free-for-all). But only certain kinds of discrimination are unlawful. The legislation which defines and prohibits discrimination is the Equality Act. And as I've said this Act contains a specific exclusion expressly permitting discrimination on the grounds of nationality and place of birth when selecting national sporting teams. However discrimination on those grounds is unlawful in most other contexts, and it would also be unlawful to refuse to pick a player because of his skin colour.

 

[zaremba]

I think this could be court fodder actually. I think a rule that would make it technically impossible to qualify - for example 15 years of residence - couldn't be defended under the Equality Act

A claim under the Equality Act would be certain to fail IMO for the reason I've given.

 

[pskov]

Being born in the UK doesn't make you British.

Eh... only technically.

You are automatically a British citizen if you are born in the UK and at least one of your parents is either a British citizen or a legal resident.

Essentially, the only people excluded are those born of mothers in the country on holiday/business, in asylum centres awaiting deportation or foreign nationals in jail. So I guess not everyone born here is automatically a citizen, but 99.99% of people are.

edit: I guess that children of illegal immigrants don't qualify automatically either, but then I'm not sure how they would know this if you applied for a passport.

 

[benchmark00]

Of course it's discriminatory. So is any system of deciding who qualifies to play for your country (other than a free-for-all). But only certain kinds of discrimination are unlawful. The legislation which defines and prohibits discrimination is the Equality Act. And as I've said this Act contains a specific exclusion expressly permitting discrimination on the grounds of nationality and place of birth when selecting national sporting teams. However discrimination on those grounds is unlawful in most other contexts, and it would also be unlawful to refuse to pick a player because of his skin colour.

Key point bolded.

 

[Debris]

Dominic Cork and Matthew Hoggard would be widely regarded as the finest English bowlers never to play test cricket.


What if Alan Border had been sacked after the 1986/87 Ashes?

Australia would have lost to the Zimbabwe Under 12 girls team.

What if Bruce Reid never got injured?

 

[Burgey]

Australia would have lost to the Zimbabwe Under 12 girls team.

What if Bruce Reid never got injured?

He'd have been our best bowler of the mid-late 80s and early 90s, and we may have won in the West indies in 1991.

What if Bradman had been erroneously given out caught by Ikin in the first Test in Brisbane in 1946-47?

 

[benchmark00]

He would have referred it using the technology of the time, which was a flip of the bat - hills meant he was out and flats meant he was not out.

What if Burgey wasn't such a ****?