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  • I think those speed guns are a load of crap. Somehow the white ball goes faster - I bowled 83-84mph in the Test match, and 93mph in the one-dayers. It's crazy. I hadn't bowled a ball for ten days.
    Steve Harmison has his doubts about the pace at which he's been bowling

    Aug 28, 2008

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    Articles tagged as: commercialism

    Hugo Boss to sponsor English cricket

    By Will 2 years ago, mid-August, 17 Comments »

    We get all sorts of press releases at Cricinfo. Some are breaking news of a player’s injury; others are more PR-related (”Gloucestershire announce new chef - stop the press!”) and most are plain banal. This, however, takes the biscuit:

    Hugo Boss are to sponsor English cricket. According to the sickly email we received, Andrew Strauss said “The photo-shoot was a great experience and good fun, with all the boys really getting into it,” a statement bordering on the hilarious yet with a hint of the disturbing, too.

    I suppose it’s a good thing. Could you ever have imagined England cricketers being sponsored by anyone other than a tractor company, or Mrs Brabbleflop’s pork pies in Shrewsbury, in the 1990s? Although perhaps that’s just the point: with success (or at least an increase in popularity) comes commercialism, and hungry marketers desperate for a slice of your fame.

    I’ll leave the opinions of those pictured up to you. One final thought: is it significant that Strauss is pictured in the middle of the photo…?

    17 Comments »