i’m afraid if you put a team of whities up against a team of brownies, this sort of thing is absolutely natural.
international cricket should be done like it is in the playground, which is of course, from where it originated in the first place- pool the best players, pick a bunch of captains, and then let the captains pick their teams. i believe that’s what is about to happen in india, and if it does then it is very positive in the fourth eye of hoff. and it’s a fucking scandal that the english board are not going to allow the best 11 in england to take part in what they know is going to be the start of what could reignite the game of cricket which has become an archaic merry-go-round of predictable australian victories, thinly veiled racism, and domestic competitons which when compared to their soccer equivilent in england, contrast like the two halves of a cricket ball wasim akram’s just had by himself in a dark alleyway for 90 seconds. . Isn’t that suprising when one considers that the English Cricket is controlled by a collective, collectively more conservatively constricted in their foresight than dennis thatcher in his gimp mask.
I believe the european champion’s league in football will evolve into a full-scale european-wide league, furnished with the best european players, fed from domestic leagues. The teams already exist, the money exists, and the infrstructures exist, and soon the demand will exist, if it doesn’t already- from t.v. fans, live fans board rooms, and the players themselves. Only conservative forces are inhibiting it’s realisation, for they have interests, financial and sentimental, to protect. An analagous development is certain for world cricket, which is restricted to a small number of top international teams spread accross the globe. When the top players are concentrated together in the same league, the revenune and interest naturally rockets. The current system of english summers and australian winters geographically isolates the biggest suource of revenue and fan interest in the world. Asia. That’s the difference. Like brazil loses its best players to european leagues, i believe the white cricketing world is going to lose it’s best to the leagues in the browner part of the world. and the mcc is not going to let that happen without a few stomach ulcers and possibly a stroke on its’ part, and as much destructive resistance as it’s artritic hips can muster.
I think the indian experiment is something that will develop into a new league- based in asia. A host of asian locations the the 4 major countries, plus sharjah and dubai. good living in the gulf states. popstar fame and fortune. try telling kevin pietersen ‘no’. The money is just to big to ignore, and headingly on a wet Wednesday with yorkshire vs. Lincolnshire afternoon doesn’t shift, say, 250,000 tickets, 100,000 samosas and half a million cups of chai, as it might in bombay, if Tendulkar was batting. For lincolnshire. Three years short of his 50th birthday. David Gower could still sell out a stadium if he wanted to play there. He’s got an enormous fan base. They think he’s like the queen and princess diana rolled into one.
They say they are kicking racism out of football, but they lie. Premier League Football is kicking racism out of its fans. How many 16 year old arsenal fans think thierry henry is ‘a coon’, or ‘a nigger’? Less than the number he wears on his back. Cricket can follow it’s lead.
Let the roof of perpetual international cricket drawn along national lines collapse upon the racism that it incubates in fans and players alike.
Cricket for peace.
And it all started with colourful pajamas.
rabbitollah exclusive *mister khan tries sport writing*
prompted by the following dialogue
x-Where did you get this ‘confidence’ from in the first place?
y-the confidence comes from those special religious incense sticks that he burns constantly….
z-.they’d be the same ones the indian cricket team is burning before they go out to bat.
y- well they need something to deal with the revolting name calling that the Australian team seems to think is mandatory…
Danny Minisrty...
,
5 months ago
Won’t work
The new Indian league is basically 20/20
which is like having a football game where everyone just takes turns at penalty shoot outs
Test Matches will never die.
kathleen
,
5 months ago
I played cricket at high school for 5 years (Catholic School Girls) and Indoor… (possible why I swear and hock logies so much) but for no reason at all I wish to state here that the game is a world farce… Australia are a bunch of yobbo tossers who get paid to be fat and nasty and there is absolutely no challenge in it…
Rememeber the day of the Alan Borders and Merv Hughs, the West Indies Benson and Hedges one day series… we used to stay up all night on the edge of our seats watching the white ball being flogged all over the night stadium…
The worst thing that has happened to this game is Australia preening their players in the Australian Institute for Sport…
We are playing against countries that should be investing that money into sanitation and easing of poverty (with the exception of Brittain of course, they and New Zealand have no excuse for their state ha)...
Anyway, don’t watch the crap anymore cause I get sick of the lack of sportmanship and competition…
Gregory John O..., 5 months ago
Good Ideas. Not trying to give Cricket and Cricket players any more credit than they deserve, which is about as much as Lawn Blowlers deserve; but to make it interesting why not make it Tipperdy Run, and Six and Out and the batsman has to go get the ball. I recon it would make it alot more interesting. If a spectator catches the ball, you are out. The fans should get Oranges at drinks. Just an Idea.
mister khan, 5 months ago
the fact is that the money that is involved, like the money in the indian film industry, is really quite unbelievable compared to what the equivilent industries in England , Australia, South Africa. A few individuals had the wealth to instigate the sharjah tournaments in a country that didn’t even fucking play cricket. what do you think kevin pietersen thinks when he reads some half-dick half-back for spurs makes more in a season than he would playing tests up to retirement. But shah rukh khan ,the king of indian acting, earns as much as tom cruise. tendulkar’s deal with pepsi a few years ago was multi-million.
end of the day it doesn’t matter which format they choose (indian people love the short formats).
incidentally their politcians love test series as a tool for diplomatic leverage
...but the final say will be with the players themselves.
mister khan in reply to Danny Minisrty of bad spelling’s comment, 5 months ago
the fact is that the money that is involved, like the money in the indian film industry, is really quite unbelievable compared to what the equivilent industries in England , Australia, South Africa. A few individuals had the wealth to instigate the sharjah tournaments in a country that didn’t even fucking play cricket. what do you think kevin pietersen thinks when he reads some half-dick half-back for spurs makes more in a season than he would playing tests up to retirement. But shah rukh khan ,the king of indian acting, earns as much as tom cruise. tendulkar’s deal with pepsi a few years ago was multi-million.
end of the day it doesn’t matter which format they choose (indian people love the short formats).
incidentally their politcians love test series as a tool for diplomatic leverage
...but the final say will be with the players themselves.
Danny Minisrty...
,
5 months ago
I don’t think the players like 20/20 that much
They will always choose their test committments over the shorter version.
Ange, 5 months ago
all i know about cricket is paul kellys, bradman song.
read part of this to my partner dave & he agreed tho mister khan.
Lawford, 5 months ago
Denis Thatcher’s got a gimp mask? I didn’t know that.
It’s just a bloody game. 2 groups of men chasing a leather ball filled with air or rat droppings around a green field in pursuit of what? Egos & wealth.
About time some of these emerging wealthy nations started buying respectability by purchasing sportsmen to put them at the top of the tree. Shows just how loyal these so called heroes are when they swap side for the almighty $$$ Can’t wait for the new Chinese Presidents 11 to emerge.
But of course international sport is very important to a countries culture.
Shit. You can’t even get to become an Australian unless you know who Sir Don is. What they don’t want you to know though is what sort of person he really was.
I think India should buy the whole World Series and play all matches on home turf. That’s that wonderful internationally renowned and recognized World Series Baseball I’m referring to of course.
Jabberwocky67, 5 months ago
crikey – the rabbitollah is channelling mr khan and mummified….
matey – doncha know she is a rb fiend…sign of the cross etc etc