The cricket thread

Heartfeltdawn · June 2021

crunchman said:

Andy Zaltzmann on TMS:

This is the second time in 10 Tests England's opening stand has lasted more than 12 overs.

That dude spent longer wrestling his cagoul today than most of our opening stands in recent Tests.

guitars4you · June 2021

That negative draw IMO shows Root/Management don't have confidence in the batting line up to go after a fairly gettable target

Stuckfast · June 2021

Heartfeltdawn said:

Stuckfast said:

Hope the rain stays away, I'm making my debut for the Over 50s today!

Who are you playing and where? I was thinking about that for the future. Another six years to go...

East Yorkshire. We're unusual in fielding an over 50s team from one club, most of the others draw from a wide area and are thus much better than us.

It's a good laugh but it's a bit frustrating. As a batsman there is no pace to work with, and as a bowler you have to watch as your aged team-mates wave the ball past on its way to the boundary. Also there's a limit of five overs per bowler which is barely enough to get warmed up at my age.

It becomes a batsman's game really. Even I made it to 30 not out and had to retire, and I am most definitely a bowler.

pedalo · June 2021

It was a wonderful return to live spectating today. It was lovely weather and it went right down to the wire. The last Headingley game I was at was day four of that stokes innings so still got some luck in the tank!

Stuckfast · June 2021

What do we make of banning Ollie Robinson over offensive tweets he made ten years ago? Seems way harsh to punish him now for something he did when he was a teenager which no-one seems to have complained about at the time. He won't be the first person to act like a berk at that age.

scrumhalf · June 2021

I think that an equal problem is the ECB's failure to uncover these tweets before picking him. On the one hand you have something reprehensible done by a teenager, on the other you have a large number of grown adults who have failed in their job to protect players and the game.

Of course the brave keyboard warriors of social media have been at it, and with the same attention to detail as the ECB, by harassing Ollie Robinson of Kent, who's had nothing to do with this.

Heartfeltdawn · June 2021

guitars4you said:

That negative draw IMO shows Root/Management don't have confidence in the batting line up to go after a fairly gettable target

If they had confidence in the batting line up, we wouldn't have gone in with a 4 man attack.

We have a batting collective where a) individual confidence is low in some key players and b) we're missing some higher grade players. I have absolutely zero problem with them deciding to go for the draw because it gave the opportunity for Sibley and Crawley to try to find some form, an opportunity one of them took. that is worth more than going for a potential win here because the draw means it's a winner takes all Test next week.

Stuckfast said:
East Yorkshire. We're unusual in fielding an over 50s team from one club, most of the others draw from a wide area and are thus much better than us.

It's a good laugh but it's a bit frustrating. As a batsman there is no pace to work with, and as a bowler you have to watch as your aged team-mates wave the ball past on its way to the boundary. Also there's a limit of five overs per bowler which is barely enough to get warmed up at my age.

It becomes a batsman's game really. Even I made it to 30 not out and had to retire, and I am most definitely a bowler.

I applaud you for getting out there. If I can still move my knees at 50, I shall be surprised!

Stuckfast · June 2021

I never played at a high level but have turned out most weekends since I was a kid, apart from a break while I was at uni. I've been pretty lucky with injuries so far, the only thing that has kept me out for a whole season was a frozen shoulder which now seems fully recovered, touch wood. I still come off a stupidly long run and bowl the same (not very impressive) pace now as I did when I was twenty.

Having said that I'm stiff this morning but I'm pretty sure that is from batting a long time, which I rarely do!

Gassage · June 2021

Strange how the ECB have this zero tolerance policy, yet send teams regularly to Dubai, where women's and gay rights are non-existent.

It's almost as if human rights don't matter if there's money around.

earwighoney · June 2021

Gassage said:

Strange how the ECB have this zero tolerance policy, yet send teams regularly to Dubai, where women's and gay rights are non-existent.

It's almost as if human rights don't matter if there's money around.

Agree about Dubai. Same applies with FIFA, with the next World Cup in Qatar where migrant and LBGT rights are near enough non existent.

Back to the ECB, the issues with the black umpires doesn't really paint a very favourable picture for them as well, but it seems the ECB have a zero tolerance policy with racism unless it involves them, then they are all too happy to look the other way and make exceptions.

jpfamps · June 2021

I think it's typical of the modern social media-based "activism" to be honest.

It doesn't take much effort and minimal inconvenience to post self-righteous, and frequently spiteful, fulminations on social media, the main purpose of which it seems to me is to try make yourself look good and feel better.

Heartfeltdawn · June 2021

Stuckfast said:

What do we make of banning Ollie Robinson over offensive tweets he made ten years ago? Seems way harsh to punish him now for something he did when he was a teenager which no-one seems to have complained about at the time. He won't be the first person to act like a berk at that age.

scrumhalf said:

I think that an equal problem is the ECB's failure to uncover these tweets before picking him. On the one hand you have something reprehensible done by a teenager, on the other you have a large number of grown adults who have failed in their job to protect players and the game.

Of course the brave keyboard warriors of social media have been at it, and with the same attention to detail as the ECB, by harassing Ollie Robinson of Kent, who's had nothing to do with this.

The problem for the ECB isn't so much that Robinson is a big ol' racist. It's that you have a number of things happening that make up a far larger issue. You have the Azeem Rafiq case still in the pipeline against Yorkshire. Dawood and Holder are most unhappy with their case against the ECB. Michael Carberry's words about racism within county cricket from last year haven't gone away. It wasn't so long ago that you had the Alex Hepburn case involving Joe Clarke and Tom Kohler-Cadmore. English cricket has been under the microscope and rightly so. If they'd let the tweets come to light and then done nothing, it looks like they aren't really bothered by them, and right now no senior body wants that. Historic tweets have seen bans and fines in football. There's not really any new ground being broken here. It's also not long ago that we had Shannon Gabriel banned for muttering rather pathetic comments to Joe Root. If Gabriel had been let off with no ban, there would have been uproar.

A one-match ban makes the ECB look like they take it seriously and makes Robinson look like he's punished. A longer ban was unjustified, no ban gets bad headlines, and the ECB was never going to risk that with The Hundred launching this year.

The charge of hypocrisy as Gassage rightly points out regarding Dubai is one you could apply to any number of sports. Cricket, rugby sevens, football, F1 for some of the places it goes too.

Heartfeltdawn · June 2021

jpfamps said:

I think it's typical of the modern social media-based "activism" to be honest.

It doesn't take much effort and minimal inconvenience to post self-righteous, and frequently spiteful, fulminations on social media, the main purpose of which it seems to me is to try make yourself look good and feel better.

The same is also true of online racist abuse. Which one ultimately comes closest to breaking laws? SJWs are often boring tedious individuals and I've had more than my fair share of shit with them. But they don't exist in a racist vacuum.

Also: the folk booing England for taking a knee at the minute want politics out of sport. Looking forward to the same comments now that Dowden's waded in.

Stuckfast · June 2021

It cuts both ways though, doesn't it? The ECB are in effect Robinson's employer while he plays for England. Do they not have a duty of care by him? Could they not have supported him in this case and said: you know what, these were tweets made by a young man who was in a bad place in his life eight years ago, and it's petty and spiteful to bring them up now and ruin the most important day of his career?

As it is, it looks like they're making a cheap point while failing to tackle any of the structural issues that Michael Carberry was talking about. Why do counties where there are large numbers of people from Asian backgrounds playing amateur cricket fail to bring them through to professional level? Why is the MCC still allowed to exert such influence over the game? Why is club management and coaching still overwhelmingly white?

Heartfeltdawn · June 2021

Stuckfast said:

It cuts both ways though, doesn't it? The ECB are in effect Robinson's employer while he plays for England. Do they not have a duty of care by him? Could they not have supported him in this case and said: you know what, these were tweets made by a young man who was in a bad place in his life eight years ago, and it's petty and spiteful to bring them up now and ruin the most important day of his career?

As it is, it looks like they're making a cheap point while failing to tackle any of the structural issues that Michael Carberry was talking about. Why do counties where there are large numbers of people from Asian backgrounds playing amateur cricket fail to bring them through to professional level? Why is the MCC still allowed to exert such influence over the game? Why is club management and coaching still overwhelmingly white?

I'm not sure what the duty of care would be for someone employed now by the ECB over matters that occurred when they weren't employed by the ECB.

It is a cheap point, no question. So you have to look at why they're prepared to ban him for a Test.

https://i.imgur.com/3SMBVvw.png

So much of the ECB's future plans rides on this being a success, even more now we've lost so much spectator time and money during the pandemic. It should be remembered that Robinson's tweets weren't just racist but sexist as well. The marketing for the Hundred has been pushing women and children from the word go right down to consulting Mumsnet. it's debatable how far T100 can push the men's game forward but there is the potential for pushing the women's game forward a great deal.

So if an England cricketer ends up on the front pages for sexist tweets and your new flagship event going live in 44 days has been trying to draw women in from the very start, I don't think there's any way you can sit back and do nothing about that same cricketer.

As for all the other points... I don't disagree. Getting into the glass ceilings in cricket would be a very long thread in its own right.

Stuckfast · June 2021

A one-match ban is arguably quite a convenient punishment from the ECB's point of view. I suspect they were keen to look at both Robinson and Overton in this short series, and now they can. My guess is they've seen enough of Robinson to know they'll want him in the side against India and on the plane to Australia.

Gassage · June 2021

@Heartfeltdawn Re the 100 and sexism, I want to see sexism removed from the game completely, so let's see the men bowling at the women and vice versa.

jpfamps · June 2021

Heartfeltdawn said:

jpfamps said:

I think it's typical of the modern social media-based "activism" to be honest.

It doesn't take much effort and minimal inconvenience to post self-righteous, and frequently spiteful, fulminations on social media, the main purpose of which it seems to me is to try make yourself look good and feel better.

The same is also true of online racist abuse. Which one ultimately comes closest to breaking laws? SJWs are often boring tedious individuals and I've had more than my fair share of shit with them. But they don't exist in a racist vacuum.

Also: the folk booing England for taking a knee at the minute want politics out of sport. Looking forward to the same comments now that Dowden's waded in.

It's also a feature of organizations too; it's a lot easier to post something on the ECB twitter feed than do anything.

I actually think most of the commentary regarding Ollie Robinson from within cricket have been pretty sensible, although there were some fairly self-righteous journos on TMS at the tea interval yesterday who grated somewhat.

Personally, I think his comments were crass and thoughtless, he seems to be genuinely contrite, and will be missing out on a Test match he would have been selected for is appropriate punishment. I expect his card has been marked and any future misdemeanours in this area wouldl be dealt with more severly.

I am also of the view that being punished in perpetuity without opportunity of redemption for something you said as an 18 year-old would be harsh in the extreme; I also wonder how many 18 year old have enough insight to moderate any inappropriate content from their Twitter feeds incase they get selected for England 9 years later.

Fretwired · June 2021

Stuckfast said:

What do we make of banning Ollie Robinson over offensive tweets he made ten years ago? Seems way harsh to punish him now for something he did when he was a teenager which no-one seems to have complained about at the time. He won't be the first person to act like a berk at that age.

He was 18 years old and the Tweets are offensive - he was an adult. I think his career could be over - the ECB's problem will be with its sponsors which won't want Robinson in the England team, especially when England plays India or Pakistan. There are some choice Tweets about Robinson doing the rounds from people who will continue to hound him, the ECB, and their sponsors online.

The ECB has acted responsibly IMHO.

crunchman · June 2021

MCC having influence over the game is probably better than the ICC having complete control. The ICC would just reduce it to an all out money grab. To have the laws of the game independent of the ICC politicians is a good thing. The MCC has its issues, but they have appointed Sangakarra as their president, and have representation from all around the world on their World Cricket Committee - including Sangakarra, Kumar Dharmasena, Saurav Ganguly, Ramiz Raja and Ricky Skerrit (WICB president) as non-white members. Looking at the make up of the committee there seems to be representation from all the major nations.

Leaving the MCC aside, there are structural issues in English cricket. Some of the problems with not bringing Asian players through, and players of black Caribbean origin a generation ago, are not purely down to race though. A lot of those populations live in big cities with very poor playing facilities. I grew up down in Devon, and there were always village teams to play for. Even as an overweight 52 year old, I would be able to get a game from someone looking for 11 warm bodies. That's not nearly as easy in London where I live now. As teenagers, we used to go and use the nets at the local club during school holidays. It was only matting on concrete, but we used to spend hours in there. You have to pay a fortune to use nets in London.

In big cities those opportunities aren't there in the same way - whatever your racial origin. Look at the players in the England set up, and a lot of them are ex-public school, or come through at more rural counties like Somerset, or both. Buttler, Leach, Bess, and the Overtons have all come through at Somerset. It's the same in rugby as well. How many kids from big cities are in the England rugby set up? Most of them seem to be ex-public school or through the pipeline at Exeter Chiefs.

Reading some of the stuff about Dawood and Holder, and the Azeem Rafique situation at Yorkshire, there are definitely issues with racism in English cricket, but there are wider structural problems that need to be addressed as well.

Edit: this was in reply to @Stuckfast at 12:34. MIght not make sense reading it all with all the intervening posts in the last half hour.

Heartfeltdawn · June 2021

Fretwired said:

He was 18 years old and the Tweets are offensive - he was an adult. I think his career could be over - the ECB's problem will be with its sponsors which won't want Robinson in the England team, especially when England plays India or Pakistan. There are some choice Tweets about Robinson doing the rounds from people who will continue to hound him, the ECB, and their sponsors online.

The ECB has acted responsibly IMHO.

Shannon Gabriel's career didn't end with a ban for homophobic slurs.

Darren Lehmann's career as a coach didn't end despite his well publicised outburst against Sri Lanka.

Several Australians haven't seen their careers end for bloody huge levels of cheating.

So why would Robinson's career end now?

Heartfeltdawn · June 2021

Gassage said:

@Heartfeltdawn Re the 100 and sexism, I want to see sexism removed from the game completely, so let's see the men bowling at the women and vice versa.

The winner of each gender's final should have a playoff in a true battle of t'sexys. The winner gets a 24 carat gold lame Stuart Broad headband.

Heartfeltdawn · June 2021

jpfamps said:

It's also a feature of organizations too; it's a lot easier to post something on the ECB twitter feed than do anything.

I actually think most of the commentary regarding Ollie Robinson from within cricket have been pretty sensible, although there were some fairly self-righteous journos on TMS at the tea interval yesterday who grated somewhat.

Personally, I think his comments were crass and thoughtless, he seems to be genuinely contrite, and will be missing out on a Test match he would have been selected for is appropriate punishment. I expect his card has been marked and any future misdemeanours in this area wouldl be dealt with more severly.

I am also of the view that being punished in perpetuity without opportunity of redemption for something you said as an 18 year-old would be harsh in the extreme; I also wonder how many 18 year old have enough insight to moderate any inappropriate content from their Twitter feeds incase they get selected for England 9 years later.

Much of the cricket pundit train has been quite level on this, including some journalists who have been immensely critical of Yorkshire in the past and present over various matters. Again, we have to go back to the Shannon Gabriel incident. What he did was stupid but not clear evidence that he had some big huge problem with homosexuals. It was handled in the right way and there's been no issues since with him playing around the world (apart from him bowling shit for Gloucestershire for a spell). Talk of Robinson's career being over seem grossly premature in light of both Gabriel and Sandpapergate.

It'd be a fucking odd world for a guy's career to be over on the basis of some tweets when you have several former English players whose careers didn't end the minute they went to apartheid South Africa.

ECB reaction: like any other corporation/big business. Reputation management, nothing more.

jpfamps · June 2021

crunchman said:

MCC having influence over the game is probably better than the ICC having complete control. The ICC would just reduce it to an all out money grab. To have the laws of the game independent of the ICC politicians is a good thing. The MCC has its issues, but they have appointed Sangakarra as their president, and have representation from all around the world on their World Cricket Committee - including Sangakarra, Kumar Dharmasena, Saurav Ganguly, Ramiz Raja and Ricky Skerrit (WICB president) as non-white members. Looking at the make up of the committee there seems to be representation from all the major nations.

Leaving the MCC aside, there are structural issues in English cricket. Some of the problems with not bringing Asian players through, and players of black Caribbean origin a generation ago, are not purely down to race though. A lot of those populations live in big cities with very poor playing facilities. I grew up down in Devon, and there were always village teams to play for. Even as an overweight 52 year old, I would be able to get a game from someone looking for 11 warm bodies. That's not nearly as easy in London where I live now. As teenagers, we used to go and use the nets at the local club during school holidays. It was only matting on concrete, but we used to spend hours in there. You have to pay a fortune to use nets in London.

In big cities those opportunities aren't there in the same way - whatever your racial origin. Look at the players in the England set up, and a lot of them are ex-public school, or come through at more rural counties like Somerset, or both. Buttler, Leach, Bess, and the Overtons have all come through at Somerset. It's the same in rugby as well. How many kids from big cities are in the England rugby set up? Most of them seem to be ex-public school or through the pipeline at Exeter Chiefs.

Reading some of the stuff about Dawood and Holder, and the Azeem Rafique situation at Yorkshire, there are definitely issues with racism in English cricket, but there are wider structural problems that need to be addressed as well.

Edit: this was in reply to @Stuckfast at 12:34. MIght not make sense reading it all with all the intervening posts in the last half hour.

I think there is definitely a lack of facilities / interest in cricket in cities, although there also seem to be less teams in the South Cambridge league where I played from the mid 90's until about 8 years ago.

When I was at university we used to have an annual fixture again Haringey Cricket College, sadly now defunct. Keith Piper was playing for them in one fixture (we used to loose quite badly).

In the late 90s I use play cricket with some West Indian lads in North London. They were all around my age and were obviously massively into cricket, but few of their kids showed much if any interest.

Also the banks used to have amazing sport facilities, mainly in South London. I remember playng a game for Catford at Natwest's sport club and there 3rd pitch or 4th pitch. Most if not all of these have been sold off for development.

Virtually all the public schools now have extensive sport scholarship programmes, which they did not have in the 80's and 90's (Millfield being a rare exception), so they do tend to hoover up the most talented school boy players, the Vunipola brothers for example, who would not strike most people as your typical ex-public school types, and, when combined with exceptional facilities, results in a massive overreprsentation at international level.

Gassage · June 2021

Stuckfast said:

As it is, it looks like they're making a cheap point while failing to tackle any of the structural issues that Michael Carberry was talking about. Why do counties where there are large numbers of people from Asian backgrounds playing amateur cricket fail to bring them through to professional level? Why is the MCC still allowed to exert such influence over the game? Why is club management and coaching still overwhelmingly white?

1. Because MCC own the copyright of the laws of the game.
2. Because they offer continuity, tradition and balance without a vested financial interest in the game.
3. Because they also own the notional and esoteric rights to the spirit of the game
4. Because you need an independent adjudicator on many things within the sport who don't have a financial or political interest
5. Because largely, the playing side of MCC is more diverse than you'd believe and is run by passionate yet informed volunteers who generally know the game inside out.

earwighoney · June 2021

Heartfeltdawn said:

ECB reaction: like any other corporation/big business. Reputation management, nothing more.

Alex Hales didn't even get a slap on the wrist for being caught taking cocaine, only on the second time did he get a 3 week ban.

crunchman said:

Leaving the MCC aside, there are structural issues in English cricket. Some of the problems with not bringing Asian players through, and players of black Caribbean origin a generation ago, are not purely down to race though. A lot of those populations live in big cities with very poor playing facilities. I grew up down in Devon, and there were always village teams to play for. Even as an overweight 52 year old, I would be able to get a game from someone looking for 11 warm bodies. That's not nearly as easy in London where I live now. As teenagers, we used to go and use the nets at the local club during school holidays. It was only matting on concrete, but we used to spend hours in there. You have to pay a fortune to use nets in London.

In big cities those opportunities aren't there in the same way - whatever your racial origin. Look at the players in the England set up, and a lot of them are ex-public school, or come through at more rural counties like Somerset, or both. Buttler, Leach, Bess, and the Overtons have all come through at Somerset. It's the same in rugby as well. How many kids from big cities are in the England rugby set up? Most of them seem to be ex-public school or through the pipeline at Exeter Chiefs.

Reading some of the stuff about Dawood and Holder, and the Azeem Rafique situation at Yorkshire, there are definitely issues with racism in English cricket, but there are wider structural problems that need to be addressed as well.

I live in South London, and for a lot of the club cricket I've seen (my nephew plays for Cheam, I've seen other teams he's played against in the Surrey League) and I'd say well over 50% of all the players in all age groups are of an Asian origin (Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Afghan and so on), sometimes it's close to 80%.

A few players will get picked at youth level, eg U15's etc but the numbers are very low.

I've spoken to many who have said structural racism in club cricket and selection is clear and present and I've had a few conversations with Surrey League umpires who dropped a few pearls including 'there are too many brown players etc'

Fretwired · June 2021

Heartfeltdawn said:

Fretwired said:

He was 18 years old and the Tweets are offensive - he was an adult. I think his career could be over - the ECB's problem will be with its sponsors which won't want Robinson in the England team, especially when England plays India or Pakistan. There are some choice Tweets about Robinson doing the rounds from people who will continue to hound him, the ECB, and their sponsors online.

The ECB has acted responsibly IMHO.

Shannon Gabriel's career didn't end with a ban for homophobic slurs.

Darren Lehmann's career as a coach didn't end despite his well publicised outburst against Sri Lanka.

Several Australians haven't seen their careers end for bloody huge levels of cheating.

So why would Robinson's career end now?

There's a difference between muttering a homophobic slur to one player on a pitch and posting Tweets that can read by anyone.

In the age of social media, major brands are quick to distance themselves from controversy or anything that smacks of racism. The ECB needs sponsorship money. I suspect the prompt action by the ECB will be partly motivated by the need to be seen to take action and placate sponsors. They will also be aware that cricket is popular with the UK's Asian community. I have no idea how it will end but those saying it's a 'woke' overreaction are wide of the mark.

Robinson has a track record of controversy. He was sacked by Yorkshire because of his lifestyle.

Heartfeltdawn · June 2021

crunchman said:

In big cities those opportunities aren't there in the same way - whatever your racial origin. Look at the players in the England set up, and a lot of them are ex-public school, or come through at more rural counties like Somerset, or both. Buttler, Leach, Bess, and the Overtons have all come through at Somerset. It's the same in rugby as well. How many kids from big cities are in the England rugby set up? Most of them seem to be ex-public school or through the pipeline at Exeter Chiefs.

Somerset as a county have had the local public school connections for years. Trescothick was an icon to a lot of my peers in the West Country not just because he was bloody good and played in the same leagues and changed in the same shitholes as we did but because he came from a state school background and made it. The Somerset youth sides I played back then were pretty much 50-50 private versus state. For example, you had Luke Sutton (Millfield) opening with Sam 'yes I'm his brother' Trego (Wyvern Comprehensive). Millfield, Kings, Taunton School, they were the big three. You mention Leach coming through a more rural county. He's the only state educated dude in that list. He's absolutely succeeded against the odds given his background and his medical history.

Yesterday for England our entire top 6 were privately educated. When you look at recent years, privately educated batsmen are in much higher numbers than privately educated bowlers. Not hard to imagine why: the private school game allows for long games and longer innings. The annual Wisden schools reports don't tend to feature many comprehensives. This gem from recent years never fails to amuse me...

https://twitter.com/Amysterypenguin/status/1398215926638600192

Gassage · June 2021

Fretwired said:

There's a difference between muttering a homophobic slur to one player on a pitch and posting Tweets that can read by anyone.

Not really- but there is a huge difference between a 17 year old kid at school saying something and a grown adult saying it in an international match.

scrumhalf · June 2021

The problems of society in wider terms and the take-up of cricket amongst minorities, of whom I am one, cannot be laid at the door of an immature 18-year old who failed to foresee what might happen if he came to national prominence.

Any punishment should be commensurate with the person who offended. The person who offended was a callow youth. It's not as if he came off the field if play, grabbed Ian Ward's mic and said those things.

Problems need relevant solutions, not platitudes and sticking plasters.

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