Super Series Cricket
It is a slightly strange feature of work hours and the like that often cricket in Australia is more easily viewable on television than when it is England. And so it is with the Super Series, at least the one day games, which allows a nice two hour window before work.So far it's been quite exciting. Gilchrist seems happier batting as an opener in one-day games rather than in the middle in tests, and Australia made a good start. Flintoff's bowling looked a bit rusty. So good timing there. Now they're struggling a bit, but the commenters seem to think 250 would be a good score.
What most caught my attention however was that they are playing indoors. The BBC has an article about this, noting one major problem is the ball gets caught up in the lights when it is in the air. Jonty Rhodes other complaints seem a bit odd though:
Despite the guarantee of a full day's play under a roof where games cannot be rain-affected, he does not think indoor one-day internationals will ever catch on in other parts of the cricket world.
"There aren't that many facilities around, and rain is part of the game. If a game is called off because of rain or you have to have the run rate changed that's part of the lottery of one-day cricket, especially.
The lack of facilities, and their great cost, is surely the main reason, coupled with the fact that you play cricket in summer, when it doesn't tend to rain much. Rain, or the risk of it, might be part of the test game, but you can't really say that it is an integral part of the one-day game. The lottery of one-day cricket? That doesn't seem right to me.
Furthermore if cricket wants to be a more successful sport in revenue terms it needs to think of its paying customers. Clearly over the last ten years this has been increasingly the case, but one-day games ruined because of the rain, or players going off because it's a little bit dark hardly help.
posted by Matthew @ 10/05/2005 07:25:00 AM
Comments: 0
