ICC World Twenty 20 - West Indies - 2010

doremi wrote:

Zat wrote:Anyone who agrees that makes sense is an arrogant f*ck. There's supposed to be some benefit of hosting a major tournament FOR THE COUNTRY THAT HOSTS IT.

Oh come on, it makes perfect sense as far as the money is concerned. The broadcasters are richer, the WICB are richer, the ICC are richer. It doesn't really matter to the BCCI any way.

It doesn't make it right, but it makes sense.

So as long as it's OK for India, then stuff the rest of the world? What a load of bollocks....

tac wrote:Yet the bloody French wouldn't change the 110 yeard heats from Sunday for Liddel . . . bastards . . .

Hey, at least the poms changed the marathon distance

So back to the question of the significance of 20/20 cricket post the "world cup"

It's been a slow process becoming absorbed in any 20/20 professional cricket (not so bad to play mind you). I've seen a bundle of county 20/20s- moderately entertaining but too many cheap runs & wickets and being county cricket it's all ultimately meaningless. Moving on to international cricket- there was the first world cup.Great for India but an England team sporting the likes of Maddy, Snape & Schofield made it hard to take seriously. Then there was the whole Stanford thing which couldn't have been anymore distasteful and whorey if it was played in Boy George's porn dungeon.

IPL 1 & 2 came and went but without terrestrial coverage and England players a big meh to that. International 2020 cricket continued to occure in 1 or 2 match pockets with no context or meaning.

Then came the second world cup and the Netherlands beating the current world champs was embarassing but absolutely fantastic. That was then almost trumped by the massively bonkers Pakistan winning the tournament. Jolly good tourney all in all.

With the worm starting to turn I saw a big chunk of IPL 3 and yes it was commercially grotesque and generally dubious on a number of different levels. But full-ish stadiums and lots of bombast and suddenly it all had meaning. OK junk food it was, but often more Burger King than KFC. I watched bundles of it and was entertained in a way I had never been watching Middlesex & Surrey go through the motions on chilly summer evenings.

So on to this world cup. England getting beat and nearly eliminated by Duckworth Lewis showed up the shortcomings of the game an I was fairly indifferent to it before Aus-Pak in the semis. F*ck me that game meant something - Pakistan so nearly grabbed a big chunk of salvation that their team so desperately needed. The Aussies aren't known for their sentimentality though and what Hussey did was semi-legendary. The sheer emotion on his face when he hit the winning six said it all. Sniff all you like at small easily marketable pallet 2020 provides but meaning comes from the emotion people invest in something ultimately.

Of course the cherry on the top was seeing England brutalise a battery of 90 mph Aussie pacemen and that is something I have never seen before.

All in all 20/20 is meaningful and it's not half bad.

That post is so sage, the Dalai Lama endorses it.

doremi wrote:That post is so sage, the Dalai Lama endorses it.

Did I?

I must have been farking pissed.

So the Yarps get out of gaol after a dismal Windies batting display.

Anyway, England won - so everyone else can just fark off.

Thread closed.

Basil wrote:Thread closed.

Just 1 last thing to say.

Ponting suggests having best-of-three finals for T20 tournaments

Disappointed with Australia's loss in the summit clash of the Twenty20 World Cup, Test and ODI captain Ricky Ponting said the finals of such tournaments should be a best-of-three affair.

Australia won every match except for the all-important final in the just-concluded World Cup and Ponting said given the short format, the title should not be decided by just one summit showdown.

"I've always been of the belief in Twenty20 tournaments there should be a best-of-three finals. We know with the game, it can hinge on one over here and there," Ponting told Fox Sports.

"They dominated the competition all the way through ... I was disappointed for the boys; no doubt they were the best team right through the tournament but they stumbled at the last hurdle," he added.

Ponting said despite the crushing loss in the finals to Ashes rivals England, the Aussies should be happy about their campaign.

"They should be proud of the way they conducted themselves."

Newly-appointed T20 captain Michael Clarke has become insecure about his place in the team due to a string of poor performances in the World Cup but Ponting backed him.

"I don't know what he had to say about himself, but everything I've been reading is very positive about him and how he's led the team," Ponting, who has retired from T20 cricket, said.

"I notice the coach (Tim Nielsen) made some positive comments and every time I have seen Michael in a leadership role he has done exceptionally well. So there are some really good signs there for the future of Australian cricket," he said.

Watching from home, Ponting said he felt like being a part of the Australian T20 team but his body is just not ready to take the workload.

"Of course you would like to be there, but I made the decision I made for all the right reasons. I was finding it increasingly difficult to play all three formats of the game the way I wanted to," he said.

It's a pretty common-sense position. As discussed earlier, you could still have the three games on 1 day if you wanted . . .

I'm sure he'd have said that even if Aus had won the final.

skully wrote:So the Yarps get out of gaol after a dismal Windies batting display.

Best thing about this being that it now appears in the scorecard at the side of this forum instead of that other game that has been there most of the week.

.

Ponting told Fox Sports.
I was disappointed for the boys; no doubt they were the best team right through the tournament

Lolage.

What a f*cking sook Ponting is.

Yes, and in other breaking news, the Titanic has hit an iceberg in the Atlantic and sunk.

Pools closed.

Smerkles once again coming to the rescue of a thread by adding something incomprehensible.

This thread is a dead.

Another good cliche is "flogging a dead horse".

DJ_Smerk wrote:This thread is a dead duck.


Another good cliche is "flogging a dead horse".

I told you smerky was duck-buttered, skull . . .

What about a buttered bun?

Do you want someone to butter you bun?

Not anatomically possible, acc to the UD.

Or indeed, 18th c subcultural sources.

So, what has been the feedback from the United States regarding the T20 matches between the snoozers & the Lankans? Are Americans embracing this thrilling new sport? Was there a big crowd? 50,000?