Falling out of love with Cricket...

TBH, India or should I say the BCCI are doing their best to make me fall out of love with cricket and their team of recent times has been as abhorrent as anyone has been in the history of the game IMO. It doesn't help. I must admit I've stopped reading about it as much, but then I've stopped reading as much full stop. I still watch the Tests, ODIs are so f*cking meaningless and I dip in and out of T20s as they're a bit clownish. In all, I've not been looking forward to many series -from an England perspective I thought of mismatches against NZ and SA[the other way] and hence wasn't that keen, the India series isn't even a series so I couldn't be f*cked either way with it. I suppose I'm looking forward to the Aus/SA clashes as they're similar teams with similar ambitions so it should be OK. It's doubtful they'll be able to doctor the pitches to cause as skewed a result as most series can.

I've not fallen out of love with cricket, but certainly some of the romance has disappeared . . . but that's mainly due to the media obsession with showing things "warts 'n' all" and constantly brewing faux controversies.

I boxed and played rugby, never had time for cricket much due to busy summers on the farm, but have always found it the most aesthetically pleasing of sports . . . if I could be a world-class sportsman, I'd rather be a cricketer than anything else . . .

tac wrote:
if I could be a world-class sportsman, I'd rather be a cricketer than anything else . . .

Totally agree.

Brass Monkey wrote:

tac wrote:
if I could be a world-class sportsman, I'd rather be a cricketer than anything else . . .

Totally agree.

In terms of career longevity, it would be the best.

taipan wrote:
In terms of career longevity, it would be the best.

Not sure. I read about this bog-snorkeller who'd been doing it for 30+ years and was a 58 year old champion.

Brass Monkey wrote:

taipan wrote:
In terms of career longevity, it would be the best.

Not sure. I read about this bog-snorkeller who'd been doing it for 30+ years and was a 58 year old champion.

Leave the Irish out of this.

tac wrote:I've not fallen out of love with cricket, but certainly some of the romance has disappeared . . . but that's mainly due to the media obsession with showing things "warts 'n' all" and constantly brewing faux controversies.

I boxed and played rugby, never had time for cricket much due to busy summers on the farm, but have always found it the most aesthetically pleasing of sports . . . if I could be a world-class sportsman, I'd rather be a cricketer than anything else . . .

That's really the crux of the matter.
Microscopic "evaluations" of every single aspect of player, umpire and game.
That and the rabid political jostlings and pronouncements of a few which create fractured relationships -
all brought about by the pseudo-power hungry who milk it off the wallets of others.

Brass Monkey wrote:

taipan wrote:
In terms of career longevity, it would be the best.

Not sure. I read about this bog-snorkeller who'd been doing it for 30+ years and was a 58 year old champion.

Depends where he was doing his bog snorkelling I suppose!

I read that the Lewisham High Street bogs are among the worst whilst those up in Escossia are the sweetest smelling through being least used ( clumps of heather allegedly making better absorbants).

Lever could testify ...

Cricket has replaced football as my favourite sport over the course of the last decade.

I've very much fallen out of love with the latter - I've been to 3 games of football over the course of the last couple of weekends and got very little from the games themselves. It's the social aspect that keeps drawing me back to that I suppose . . . "we're only here for the beer" as we sang whilst watching my mate's side Whitby go down 2-0 in freezing, misty conditions at Boston on Saturday. The fact that we went on the train and could take full advantage of the opportunity to sample some fine Bateman's ales was the undoubted highlight.

Cricket meanwhile - I'm quite happy to sit there and watch that on my own for the sheer love of the sport if I have to.

Yes, there's big issues with the game at the moment that may spoil that enjoyment to an increasing degree over the next few years, but falling out of love with both watching and playing the great game?

Nah, not me.

Well I'm still as hopelessly caught up with the playing of cricket as I ever was. Even after eight consecutive full seasons of fairly unsuccessful cricket I'm still fascinated by all the mental nooks and technical crannies of the game and captaincy only increases that fascination.

International cricket is a sorry old mess in my weighty opinion. First off I see negligible amounts anyway not having sky (thanks ECB) and then you've got really disillusioning stuff like Stanford,Zimbabwe and the ICC in general. Then more practically there's the weaker sides just getting weaker which makes half of international cricket of no great consequence and the 2020 overkill (I'm finding it interesting to play but it's getting dreary to watch). On top of it all team England aren't pulling up any trees and there's something about Peter Moores, Giles Clarke and David Collier which makes me fear the future and integrity of the 3 lions. County cricket still needs to be smashed about with a huge mallet (same as it ever was...). Maybe it's all going to leave me behind in the end. I'm honestly finding it difficult to motivate myself to post here such is the flawed nature of professional cricket these days.

The game's still great though- if you don't like international cricket it does exist in other forms. Hey you can come and play for my team if you like:

http://www.newbarbarianweasels.org.uk/

Tom Pagan - "Pagan Man" or "Tommy" or "TP"

Batsman: Right handed lower order/Occasional opener. Bowling: Medium-slow pacer/Leg Spin. Fielding: Steady as she goes/Wicket-Keeper.

Tenacious Tommy has fought many a Weasel battle through the years; sharing vital partnerships to rescue the team from the annals of doom. An ace defender at the crease. Improved bowling in 2007 allied to tidy keeping behind the stumps make Paganman a vital Weasel component. Elected NBWCC skipper for 2008 and handled things well - 2009 promises much.

You'll end up on the Indian tour at this rate. As bait.

I fell out of love with the general 'atmosphere of the game' after the India Australia Test at Sydney. In retrospect it crystallized what I must have been feeling for a while - quntish cricketers, 'new and improved' fans of the game, and perhaps too much cricket - all magnified by the 24/7 media coverage and the internet.

I still love the game, though. But there is a changed nuance to it. I have a feeling I'd rather watch a decently played village game - a few beers, slow and lazy afternoons in the shade, whites - than watch a Test.

furriner wrote:I fell out of love with the general 'atmosphere of the game' after the India Australia Test at Sydney. In retrospect it crystallized what I must have been feeling for a while - quntish cricketers, 'new and improved' fans of the game, and perhaps too much cricket - all magnified by the 24/7 media coverage and the internet.

I still love the game, though. But there is a changed nuance to it. I have a feeling I'd rather watch a decently played village game - a few beers, slow and lazy afternoons in the shade, whites - than watch a Test.

Aye... something like that.

It's the general BS moaning about every decision from players & fans etc. I'm sure it went on before but there was no media to highlight it as much.

Maybe the fact my team has played mostly dross for the past few years after such great cricket between 2003-5 that hasn't got me intrigued as much. Although I don't know why that should be the case. We played the worst cricket in our history in the mid-late 80's and I was glued to the game then.

I still love cricket.

I can't stand a lot of the BS associated with it, in no particular order...

• The BCCI
  
• The hype about t20
  
• Ricky Ponting being captain of Australia and lauded as a hero of the game
  
• The lingering after taste of the 'Monkey' affair
  
• The proliferation of ODI series that are only there for the sake of money, not to prove which side is better
  
• Buckaroo and horace
  
• The Zimbabwe debacle - a corrupt regime and a cricket team that would struggle in Wagga grade cricket
  
• Bangladesh continuing to have Test status
  
• The ineffectiveness of the ICC
  
• That a bowler can reach the highest level of the game with a suspect bowling action
  
• Or to expand, that some top flight bowlers do actually chuck
  
• The forthcoming shitfight over the 2011 WC, because if trends continue, it's entirely possible that many teams will, by then, refuse to tour Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka on 'safety' grounds. All it'll take is a flood in Bagladesh and the whole thing will be scuppered
  

But I can still flick on to a game on the teev, or see a match in progress on a local oval, and watch the theatre unfold. A few weeks back I had set up for a gig at a party in a local club's rooms, and wandered out to the oval, where a local game was in the closing stages. It looked like the bowling team had it comfortably wrapped up, when one bloke went berserk, hitting 4,6,4,4 in successive deliveries. I knew none of the players, but watched, enthralled as the finish approached. The fielder on the boundary had a bit of a chat about the game, and it was a magic moment. Not too many other sports that can draw me in like that. I love the game.

Well said, Zoggy.

Cheers skulls. Something I didn't mention that I love about the game is sitting in a pub, over a few bevvies and talking mounds of gobshite about the game for hours...

Something I didn't mention that I love about the game is sitting in a pub, over a few bevvies and talking mounds of gobshite about the game for hours...

You're certainly an expert in that.

I'm watching for cyclones...

Sage...

Zat wrote:Cheers skulls. Something I didn't mention that I love about the game is sitting in a pub, over a few bevvies and talking mounds of gobshite about the game for hours...

As opposed to sitting over your PC, over a few bevvies and talking mounds of gobshite about the game for hours?

Zat wrote:Cheers skulls. Something I didn't mention that I love about the game is sitting in a pub, over a few bevvies and talking mounds of gobshite about the game for hours...

You're Tony Greig, go on admit it.

NWRT

I haven't been following domestic cricket as much over the last couple of years. In 2005 I could have reeled off the first-chocie XI of each state, plus the reserves.

At the moment I'm struggling to name one player from South Australia.

It doesn't help that South Australia are usless and that I've just been to the work Christmas party, but the point still stands.

More importantly, I doubt I could ever fall out of love with cricket. A Test Match is a suitable metaphor for cricket in general. There are times when the match lulls and you don't have a chance to give it your full attention. There are entire days when you wonder what the point is. The next day mightn't be any better except for one moment when you remember why you love the sport.

The more you put into something the more you get out of it. I'm a patient man and cricket rewards the patient man. If you're unlucky you might go a couple of years without getting passionate about the game, but some day it will hit again and then you'll thank your deity (or sheer chance) that you were introduced to cricket - the greatest sport of all.

Heretics.

Good to know I'm not alone in my thoughts about the game at the moment. I guess I will always love the game, but it's whether I fully regain my interest or not is the question.

Even when there has been nothing happening in the game of any real note I've always been up for talking about it anytime anywhere, like I used to on shall we say "forums of the past." But right now I can't be bothered.

Cricket itself isn't doing itself any favours right now and hasn't been for a few years, but the world in general feels like it is also in a funny phase right now anyway.