WORLD CUP SHOCK: England declared winner in 2-1 defeat to Italy Spud-faced footie ace Wayne Rooney may not face the chop – after England was declared the WINNER in its World Cup opening match against Italy. The quick-tempered, woodwork-bothering Liverpudlian's fate was said to be hanging in the balance after the Italians scored two goals to England's one on Saturday night. Even though he …
Cricket is amazing! And you are a traitor to Queen and Country if you disagree. Although I guess we have to exempt Scots and Northern Irish from this, and even Welsh. It's offcially the England and Wales Cricket Board - and yet somehow got shortened to ECB - which I suspect tells you all you need to know...
However, cricket has amazing moments of excitement. Sometimes you get long periods of it, where the tension ratchets upwards towards a conclusion. Take yesterday (in fact the whole match). A dull pitch should have led to a draw. Which it did. But England had two mini-collapses, to get pulses racing, followed by some exciting strokeplay to recover.
Sri Lanka were a bit more dull about accumulating their runs. They decided that batting competence might be a good idea... So didn't have mini-collapses. They lost wickets to good balls, and accumulated. Then on the last day they had to bat it out, and looked like they'd do so easily. Losing the odd wicket, as is to be expected. By tea, we thought it was all over. But then pressure, and good bowling, started to kick in. Good bowling, stubborn defensive batting, lots to watch. A wicket on the first ball of the last over, so it came down to five more balls and one wicket. And a deserved draw won, under lots of pressure.
And the thing about the dull bits, is they give you time to eat your picnic. You have brought a picnic haven't you? Well no worries. Lords will sell you an enormous hamper for 2 containing elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea and a mid-afternoon snack. So you'll need a few periods when you can take your eyes off the action to stuff your face. Not to mention a glass or two of something. And if play's really boring, you can listen to a bunch of old buffers talking about cake on Radio 4 long wave. Or read the paper and enjoy the sunshine.
Crikey Spartacus, the Lords Hamper is a bit outside of my range. I've only been twice as a punter, ticket £90, beer £5, burger+chips £12. I think I enjoyed it more when I worked there as a barman (New Members Bar, top left of pavilion, good view of the wicket from the bar).
PS: SL didn't deserve the draw, England did - they should have declared the night before, silly sentimentality to give Ballance the chance for a ton. They would have had 10 overs at them with the new ball that night, another 10 overs fresh the next morning with a newish ball, and 20 overs at the end of the day with a new ball instead of 10. Über-conservative.
Tom38,
You worked in the New Members Bar. So does that mean that the MCC are so stratified that even once you've reached the hallowed halls of the Pavillion, you've still got to wait another twenty years for someone to die, so you're allowed into a nicer members bit? I suppose this doesn't really surprise me, if true.
I seem to recall that the Lords enormo-hamper was only about £35. Which isn't terrible for an entire day's munchies for 2. Given the quality of the cake they produce. Also, I refuse to encourage them by buying the £90 tickets. That's ludicrous.
Myself I wouldn't dream of entering a cricket ground without appropriate picnic already on-hand. I like a bit of smoked salmon or ham and nice bread, a bottle of cava (Lords still allow it), boiled eggs, a couple of kinds of cake, pork pies, crisps, fruit juice, something salady (as an apology to healthy eating), all topped up with a few locally purchased beers and ice creams. Sport is good for you!
There's no way you can get through that lot in 7 hours, without a few slow bits.
As for the draw, I don't think England deserved it for the sometimes inept way we batted. Against an attack with little pace, on a flat track. The bowlers were nearly good enough to win it, despite the faults of the batting line-up. Something that's been happening for the last few years. Declaring earlier would have been a better move. But then captains used to do that, and people were awfully rude to them the times it went wrong.
I meant England deserved not to win, they only deserved the draw with such negative play. 360 in 100 overs means the opposition will play a bit more than 390 in 90 overs.
New Members Bar: The "New" refers to the bar not the members (who very much have not been described as "new" for several decades.
The pavilion at Lords is a weird stratified place. Members is where you go when you want to get a good view of the action, its on the top tier next to the big pavilion stand, but don't want to suffer the stuffiness of the Long Room or the crush that is the Bowler's Bar. When I worked there, it was also next to the media rooms, so you had Trueman, Blofeld, Johnners, Frindall et al having lunch up there, but sadly they are relocated to the other side of the ground now.
Slartibartfast interrupted his train of thought at this point as if sensing what was going through his mind."The game you know as cricket,'' he said, and his voice still seemed to be wandering lost in subterranean passages, "is just one of those curious freaks of racial memory which can keep images alive in the mind aeons after their true significance has been lost in the mists of time.
Of all the races on the Galaxy, only the English could possibly revive the memory of the most horrific wars ever to sunder the Universe and transform it into what I'm afraid is generally regarded as an incomprehensibly dull and pointless game.
"Rather fond of it myself,'' he added, "but in most people's eyes you have been inadvertently guilty of the most grotesque bad taste. Particularly the bit about the little red ball hitting the wicket, that's very nasty.''
"Um,'' said Arthur with a reflective frown to indicate that his cognitive synapses were coping with this as best as they could, "um.''
"And these,'' said Slartibartfast, slipping back into crypt guttural and indicating the group of Krikkit men who had now walked past them, "are the ones who started it all, and it will start tonight. Come, we will follow, and see why.''
(Douglas Adams: Life, The Universe, and Everything)
Here's to "joyless tubes, full of gristle, accompanied by yellow water with gas in it" (otherwise known as bangers and beer, I suppose)....
@Tom - Wow, you must be really dedicated to this football game if, in spite of it's dullness, you watch enough of it to claim that "It's natural state is dullness".
Or maybe, just maybe, you're not interested in it yourself, which is a completely different thing from it being dull.
@ James Micallef . Most football fans seem to find it dull too. I go to the pub for drinks and sometimes its full of people talking to each other and ignoring the football on the telly. One or two percent seem to actually enjoy and watch it and when the go OOOOh loudly the others turn and watch. The others just feel obliged to say they saw the game and how great the replays were.
"It's natural state is dullness, livened up by brief moments of skill/luck."
And if none of those highly paid professionals are able to achieve their single objective of putting a ball in a net after 2 hours of trying, they stand them in front of the goal and get them to try with no other players but the keeper. And *still* they can manage to not achieve that.
"Football may be dull, but at least its only 90 minutes of dull rather than 5 days."
Last time I checked, the World Cup was going to be dominating every bloody medium known to humanity for *thirty-two* days. Test Series cricket matches tend to be self-contained competitions; the same two teams might not play each other again for another six years. There's none of this "Group A", "Group B" with quarter-finals, semi-finals and whatnot, where it's not uncommon for two teams to play each other multiple times, before a disappointing final won on penalties brings the whole, pointless charade to an end.
At least you know that, when that Progress Bar of Zen reaches the end (after the blatant lie that is "One minute remaining..."), you know you've actually achieved something, even if that 'something' is merely "Installing an application".
All sports competitions, without exception, have an implied Great Big Reset Button, which is pressed at the end of every competition. So nothing is actually achieved. Mitchell & Webb explained it best.
"Nevilles commentary"
Was that the guy that said everything with the same rhythm and intonation no-matter what he said? The bloke that made me want to throw the remote into the TV? That one?
Mind you, it got me wondering if they would ever transmit multiple sound channels, one of the crowd, one of the commentators etc. (or a choice of commentators) then you could switch the wankers off and just watch the game but keep the crowd response. That would be nice.
And another thing, why don't you get closer pictures of the game whilst the ball is in play anymore? I used to watch football and you'd feel part of the game, now you might as well be watching someone play FIFA 2013 or something.
"Mind you, it got me wondering if they would ever transmit multiple sound channels, one of the crowd, one of the commentators etc. (or a choice of commentators) then you could switch the wankers off and just watch the game but keep the crowd response. That would be nice."
You can already do that. It's called muting the TV and putting the radio on. I often do it, especially when Henry is on the TV. Can't stand him after he cheated Ireland in the World Cup Qualifier.
Neville was also the one who quipped the referee was using the "invisible spray" to mark out where the wall should be and the ball should be placed. If you've seen the spray it's basically Gillette shaving foam.
"Muting the TV and putting the radio on" does not always work because the audio is often not in synch with the pictures. If the game is on the BBC you can do it, however.
This works on my Virgin Media thingy:
1. Press the red button;
2. Press OK
3. Press 1 for sound options
4. Press left or right arrow to change from BBC TV commentary to BBC radio commentary to no commentary.
Sadly this doesn't seem to work on ITV
"Neville was also the one who quipped the referee was using the "invisible spray" to mark out where the wall should be and the ball should be placed. If you've seen the spray it's basically Gillette shaving foam."
I'm waiting for them to introduce that for throw-ins too.. drives me mad watching the taker advance about 10 yards up the pitch each time and nothing ever said/done.
How did this become so accepted?
slow day today...
Football is all about cheating. Can you dive and pretend to be hurt? Even when the ref uses the shaving foam, they still move the ball and take the free kick from where they want. These 'professionals' should be banned for cheating, like Mr Lee was in the snooker fixing scandal. If there was real consequences then people wouldn't dare cheat. Still I blame the supporters. They accept the cheating and are willing to sub the wages of the players so game on.
Mind you, it got me wondering if they would ever transmit multiple sound channels, one of the crowd, one of the commentators etc. (or a choice of commentators) then you could switch the wankers off and just watch the game but keep the crowd response. That would be nice.
Lots of sports on sky these days gets transmitted in 5.1, with the commentary on the centre channel, crowd sounds on the other 4 - I just unplug the centre.
Shame this doesn't usually work with BBC or ITV.
Given that English wasn't devised by grammarians, but human beings, any software that could check grammar would come in hundreds of competing flavours that had flamewars on unrelated websites all over the WWW.
The Word grammar checker can't tell the difference between complete illiteracy and literary English, by the way.
Post Modern Masters of the Known Universe = Prime Ministers of Media Manipulated Perception ....... which in ITs Sub-Prime Phorms is Rabid and Rampant Bull in a Bare Bear Market ..... Dodgy Naked Emperor Play Space.
I Kid U Not. Wake up, Earthlings, and Smell the Stench …… and for your sakes, Spin a SMARTR Leading Tale or be always condemned to Follow Fools on Fanciful Follies and Conflicting Adventures and Seriously Austere Promotions which are nowhere near being a Brilliant SAP and Heavenly App.
diodesign,
Please can you use this in your headlines from now on? So for example, Hashtag Bollocks in New Advertising Deal would be a much more fun headline... Or maybe save that for the straplines? e.g.
Twitter in New Advertising Deal
Hashtag Bollocks and Mad Men Frolicks
Or something. Keep up the good work.
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