Sri Lanka cricket officially becomes the BCCI's biatch

There's wrong on both sides though.

While SL should guard the sanctity of test cricket, England was rather expediently looking in SL's direction. I doubt they were altruistic in their motives. They needed a filler to replace the Zims.

Yes, England needed a replacement for the Zims to which Sri Lanka agreed.

How very dare those 2 countries organise a test series when there is IPL to be played!

Ban India!

Farking joke this - paying another board a ludicrous amount of money to stave it from collapse??? apprently just so a so called domestic tourney can take place.

Test cricket is farked if this is the trend set!

And all over a 20:20 supposed domestic tourney!

Fact : India don't give a flying f**k about the welfare of worldwide cricket in general.
Fact : The sham of the BCCI "helping" poorer Cricket Boards is a load of old bollocks - they know it, the world knows it ... but it sounds nice.
Fact : This "help" (pardon while I puke) they offer is done specifically to secure subi/WIndies votes at the ICC.
Fact : Should the WIndies benefit from the Stanford circuses (very likely), along with NZ (hopefully) and should Zimbabwe stay banned indefinitely - the BCCI might just find itself f**ked and boxed into a corner.

The hope is that Stanford - for all his bravisimo - (he is more amenable about slotting his funded tourneys into the set test structure) sees enough mileage in the forthcoming bing-bang-bosh in Antigua next month to underwrite lucrative T20 tournaments here in the UK in the future.

Given the choice, one guess where the internationals would rather play ... Lords or Chennai?!

Merlin wrote:Fact : India don't give a flying f**k about the welfare of worldwide cricket in general.
Fact : The sham of the BCCI "helping" poorer Cricket Boards is a load of old bollocks - they know it, the world knows it ... but it sounds nice.
Fact : This "help" (pardon while I puke) they offer is done specifically to secure subi/WIndies votes at the ICC.
Fact : Should the WIndies benefit from the Stanford circuses (very likely), along with NZ (hopefully) and should Zimbabwe stay banned indefinitely - the BCCI might just find itself f**ked and boxed into a corner.

The hope is that Stanford - for all his bravisimo - (he is more amenable about slotting his funded tourneys into the set test structure) sees enough mileage in the forthcoming bing-bang-bosh in Antigua next month to underwrite lucrative T20 tournaments here in the UK in the future.

Given the choice, one guess where the internationals would rather play ... Lords or Chennai?!

Thank you, come again.

BTW Merlo, what happened to your writing style? Not drinking as much? Or outsourced your id?

Combination of both furrie!
Rest assured, however, the verve will return after England kicks arse both next month and next year !

Anyway - the Monkey that is Brass is a most capable substitute for dishing it ....

I don't know why anyone's in the least bit surprised about this. It was on the cards, giant style.

Don't get why anybody would blame the BCCI, they're greedy self-serving qunts - what're they doing here? Being greedy and serving themselves.

SL? Well, think about it - they've been f*cked for a few years now money-wise - they're safeguarding their future the most obvious way they can, give brain to the chiefs of cricket.

If anything, the ECB should be blamed. Morality obviously has no place in cricket 2008, they should've been prepared to stick to their guns without the recompense of some team replacing Zimbabwe.

If they're that bothered, get an amalgamation of players from around the world, call it a 'World XI' and give it unofficial Test status.

BM, does tht mean England won't have any test cricket prior to the Ashes?

Brass Monkey wrote:I don't know why anyone's in the least bit surprised about this. It was on the cards, giant style.

Don't get why anybody would blame the BCCI, they're greedy self-serving qunts - what're they doing here? Being greedy and serving themselves.

SL? Well, think about it - they've been f*cked for a few years now money-wise - they're safeguarding their future the most obvious way they can, give brain to the chiefs of cricket.

If anything, the ECB should be blamed. Morality obviously has no place in cricket 2008, they should've been prepared to stick to their guns without the recompense of some team replacing Zimbabwe.

If they're that bothered, get an amalgamation of players from around the world, call it a 'World XI' and give it unofficial Test status.

Not surprised in the slightest... but Ban India anyway

tac wrote:BM, does tht mean England won't have any test cricket prior to the Ashes?

Very doubtful. TBH, I'm sure the ECB are more worried about the money than whether our boys will hit the ground running in the Ashes. The bonus is that the Windies tour will only give them a couple of months off at most.

Can't wait to see some England v England 'A' fixtures instead

JKLever wrote:Can't wait to see some England v England 'A' fixtures instead

Unless they can get a circus mob of players to congregate, why not? Apart from the full squad wouldn't try. And that the England 'A' team wouldn't be made up of the next best XI players in the country.

Just let them play CC. Especially the likes of Harmison.

Morality? Really?

doremi wrote:Morality? Really?

Can't particularly see what else could be involved, can you?

Sense isn't there, surely?

What with the fact we're losing money through gate receipts and the FPT, the fact our win/loss records could've been boosted with ease, not to mention it's a proper warm up for our team's biggest clash.