Looking forward to it and England are many people’s favourites. Probably rightly so. Not sure why we’re playing Australia so close to the start though.
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I’m very excited as my new avatar indicates….. I think any one of 6 teams can win and I expect 500 to be breached at least once. Fantastic batting, skilful bowling, big crowds supporting India, Pakistan and England.
I just wish the ECB, Sky and BBC could sort out a quality highlights package going out every night at 7 on BBC2. It will never happen but this golden summer needs to be accessible to all. Bugger the Hundred….
ECB have nothing to do with it, Dave. It is an ICC tournament, and they sold the worldwide TV rights to Star (India), who are the host broadcaster. Sky bought the UK broadcasting rights from them, and any FTA broadcaster wanting a highlights deal would also go through them.
Yep, the Hundred. What’s that all about? Isn’t T20 short enough for you?
If you Twitter follow this lady for all the anti Hundred chat you need. https://twitter.com/AnnieChave?s=17
We will win the World Cup and The Ashes 3-0.
Can’t wait.
Let me just file that post, Uncle.
Please do!
England just been beaten by the Aussies in their last friendly before the cup. Maybe not a bad thing.
I agree. The lower order need more batting to get us over the odd match where those higher up fail.
Looking forward to Afghanistan taking a couple of top 6 scalps in the next few weeks as well!
Will be interesting. I think we can all agree though that 50 over cricket is not the pinnacle. In which other sports is the World Cup not a true measure of best team in the world. I can offer ice hockey where the annual World Championships takes place during the Stanley Cup play offs meaning players from the best teams in US and Canada can’t play. They did come to an agreement to allow NHL players to play in last 2 Olympics (all 4 golds won by Canada), but that will not be the case next time.
Test match cricket is the pinnacle of the sport and will always be so…but we have to pander to those with a shorter attention span to keep the sport alive unfortunately.
Should be a cracking tournament. Fancy NZ as an outside bet. Going to the ENG SL game at Headingley.
I like the new format as well with everyone playing each other.
Allows for some nice giant killing opportunities.
Shame good teams like Ireland are not there. They should try to grow the game.
More of a Test Match fan personally, so looking forward more to The Ashes than this tournament – shame it’s rather been shoehorned into August and September to accommodate the world cup when the series should be the centrepiece of the season.
World cup wise, you have to say this is the best opportunity England have had/will have for a considerable time with a strong team and home advantage. Just hope the injuries which suddenly seem to have cropped up this last few days are nothing major, and also that the bowlers are given something to work with to make it an even contest, rather than the batting dominating throughout and the whole thing just turning into a slogfest.
I get annoyed that the Ashes seems to be the be all and end all to some. It is a series between the 4th and 5th best teams in the world currently (out of 7, arguably 8 decent teams)
I can’t think of any other long lasting Test cricket competition to compete with it.
Well no, but the World Cup is more important. The TCCB (or whatever they are called these days) are pretty appalling with scheduling.
Traditional rivalry. Simples
I love the game in all formats, and this grew from watching it on TV and playing at school, in the garden and so on. I fear for the popularity of the game when it is watched by so few – I wonder how many kids could name, say, more than one current England player?
Good article in the Graun yesterday – worth clicking through for the photo at the top if nothing else!
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/24/fear-and-loathing-in-english-crickets-fraying-heartland?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Mini Paws (aged 7) has recently started ‘all stars’ at a local cricket club. There must be about 30 five to eight year olds running around and (sort of) playing cricket, every Friday night. She’s also signed up to the after school cricket club, where there are 10 kids in her age category. She doesn’t know many players in the England team, but she enjoys playing (and that’s the main thing). From my perspective there’s a lot of kids playing around our way.
Great! With these things it often only takes one or two inspirational people at a club who have a bit of vision and enthusiasm to get a groundswell happening.
World Cup will be a cracker comp I reckon. NZ and the Windies are playing as well as the big guns. Good that it looks fairly even
Dave Podmore’s World of Cricket.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b007rkg1
Pretty good game today…..well played Pakistan.
Does anyone know why some teams have played two games while some, India , haven’t played any?
A cynic writes: Because that’s what India want and they run the ICC.
Nail/head. They just fancied a nice long rest.
India was originally supposed to play their first World Cup match on 2nd June, but the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) asked the ICC to change their schedule, on the basis that an Indian judicial committee had recommended that Indian players should have at least 15 days rest between major competitions. The IPL was due to finish on 19th May, so the earliest they were prepared to play in the World Cup was 3rd June.
In the end, the IPL was brought forward due to the Indian elections, and it finished on 12th May. But it seems that the BCCI kind of “forgot” to remind the ICC that they could now start the World Cup on the original date.
Indias controlling body insisted they have extra time off because of the IPL……
I’ve watched 3 games so far. The game against Pakistan yesterday was very exciting. Many congrats to the winning Pakistan team.
However…..Virtually every TV advert throughout the day was for betting companies enticing you to place bets ( and probably lose money ).
I was appalled by this. Is there no regulation for this type of advertising?
I have read somewhere that Italy have banned it outright.
I wish we could follow suit.
If you want to put a smile on your face in these difficult times find the Channel 4 highlights 11.55 pm tonight or BBC online and check out the Afghan and Sri Lankan supporters going crazy in Cardiff. Only cricket. …
Kohli
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/i-m-sorry-on-behalf-of-the-crowd-kohli-calls-for-end-to-smith-boos-20190608-p51vvq.html?btis
The rubber hits the road for us tomorrow with Australia v West Indies.
Carlos Braithwaite sounds like an impressive bloke. I love his comment re batsmen who can or can’t handle the bouncer “people who can’t swim don’t drown”.
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/no-one-likes-a-ball-145km-h-at-your-head-windies-ready-to-bounce-20190604-p51u5k.html
oh dear. I’m getting flashbacks to the seventies
Dude, this is the Afterword. The seventies never ended. It’s Scarfolk with HTML.
LOL
We live in a world of goldfish memory and far too many opinions. At 48-4. the BBC was claiming the Windies could be dark horses for the cup (no pun intended). now the Aussies will score nearly 300 and promptly be installed as favourites. Not every batting collapse or century necessarily means anything outside the context of one game (or part of one game). Too much opinion, nonsense on Twitter etc!
Nice recovery. Those Windies quicks were quick but the seventies crew were relentless all day and there were more of em.
Its just been fantastic to watch / listen to. I agree with @Dai the need for a quick soundbite among commentators doesn’t suit cricket, things change over a game very quickly.
“Contradiction alert” I am however going to state now that something isn’t right with England. Just a hunch but whether it’s Archer, facing spin early, pressure or something else we don’t know about yet, somethings up. Bangladesh on Sunday is suddenly a huge game….
Well that was better. Let’s hope the fielding improves and i can be proved conclusively wrong. .. again
Woo fucking hoo. Great win to the Aussies.
I’ve been at the game today and a mate commented that the Windies bowlers seemed to have run out of steam towards the end of the Aussies’ innings. As mentioned above, the 70s version never seemed to struggle with fatigue.
A great result for the Aussies given where they were early doors.
Their immobility also apparent when fielding.
That’s because they get fielding tips from Chris Gayle…
Very entertaining India v Aus match at the Oval yesterday. Mrs Slug is of Indian heritage and a big cricket fan , so she was well chuffed. Hard to see beyond India for the title for me; England may be on form but India are relentless and if they can beat a strong Aus side, they can beat anyone.
All been a bit underwhelming so far… Not sure the format of mostly one game a day produces much in terms of momentum. The weather hasn’t help.
Still, I’m watching today. Ah, the unmistakable technique of Lasith Malinga. He seems to have been around forever.
Think the Aussies are going to amass quite a total here.