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Cricket videos on Youtube
By Will last year, mid-May, 5 Comments »
As has been well discussed, Youtube is the tardis of online video, and there is an awful lot of tripe there as a result. But in between the mundane crap there are some priceless and rare gems, and one particular user was a guaranteed supplier of the better material. Cougarcricket was his name. He is now in the past, either missing in action or dead. Or, more likely, banned by Percy and pals in their blind and insatiable corporate greed to run the planet their own way. Soon, we’ll all have golf courses under the sea (or whatever Ian Chappell’s recent brilliant quote was). What the ICC have failed to realise is the internet is not a Zimbabwe, or any other cricket board; with it being essentially an ungovernable medium, people are continuing to upload whatever they like, as they should do.
So we need a replacement to Mr Cougar, and / or a list of the latest and greatest cricket clips. Your nominations, please.
5 Comments »That was the World Cup that wasn’t
By Will last year, at the end of April, 19 Comments »
You can come out now, it’s safe. The interminable has finally been put back into hybernation for another blissful four years, while the ICC scratch their chins and wonder how they can make it even worse. They really will struggle to produce anything quite so flawed and farcical as the 2007 World Cup which has been strung out over the past 47 days, like a terminal patient on a life support machine.
I’m so glad it ended as it did, too. There was a hope (or fear, depending on the levels of cynicism germinating inside you) that the final would sweep all the controversy of the tournament under one, big, happy carpet. But it didn’t. It ended in complete, incomparable farce. No one person was at fault for the last rites, when Australia’s celebrations were cut short - forcing them back into the dark of night to bowl another few overs. True, Aleem Dar ought not to have officiated in such a rigid manner and shown some semblance of logic - Sri Lanka were not going to win the game. Everyone knew that. But that is Dar’s way, and it is uncomfortable criticising umpires’ roles. They have a thankless task at the best of times and are first in the firing line.
Who’s fault was it, then? Anyone watching from afar - even if knowledgeable of cricket eccentricities - would have found it quite astonishingly bizarre that a side could be allowed off for bad light, seemingly handing the win to the opposition, only for both sides to be forced back onto the field. In pitch blackness. Cricket simply does not help itself half the time. Today should have showcased the best players in the world, demonstrating what a remarkable sport cricket is. Instead, the sport was reduced to an embarrassing pantomime.
Was the Cup doomed from the start? Is it the flawed idea of cricket having a World Cup, full stop? After all, one-day cricket remains the cheap, frilly cousin of Tests, so how can it be described by some as the sport’s greatest event? It palpably is not. It is a frenetic exercise to embezzle as much money into the pockets of the ICC and the organisers as is feasibly possible, at the expense of everyone - especially the developing countries and the locals hosting the tournament.
Call me cynical, and you will, but covering a tournament so closely has inevitable consequences. Australia are the best one-day side in the world, and probably the best in history too. But we have learned little else from this drab event other than the ICC are even more greedy than we first suspected, and Australia’s opponents - Sri Lanka apart - aren’t even close to chasing their coat tails.
19 Comments »Ireland beat Bangladesh
By Scott last year, mid-April, 4 Comments »
With all the moaning about how the 2007 World Cup is a bit of a farce, it has to be said that it’s greatest defenders are the actual players. There’s been some great cricket played, and not least by those of whom the least have been expected. Bangladesh have had some great moments but it was their turn to be the shock losers as Ireland dominated last night for another upset victory.
It is hard to remember now, but no one except Bob Simpson gave Sri Lanka much of a chance in 1996, Kenya surprised everyone by making the semi-finals in 2003 and in 2007 we’ve had the rise of Ireland and Bangladesh. The World Cup is becoming a platform for new nations to make their mark on the cricketing world.
And while the ICC gets a justified bucketing for its blunders, it must be given credit also for the way that it has given new nations the opportunity to show us what they have got. Hopefully, looking forward to the 2011 tournament, Ireland and Bangladesh will be able to consolidate their progress, and maybe a new nation will come on board and dazzle us from no-where.
4 Comments »ICC cops it again
By Scott last year, mid-April, 2 Comments »
The ICC cops another serve, this time from Ian Chappell. When everyone except people on your payroll are telling you that you are doing a lousy job, then you are doing a lousy job.
Speed is always at great pains to spread the gospel that cricket is in good shape. However, you start to wonder if working in Dubai, where a ski resort is plonked in the middle of the desert and a hotel built in the ocean, hasn’t affected his grip on reality.
As if the litany of disasters at the World Cup isn’t evidence enough of a game in need of a re-think, there have been numerous other warning signals in the lead up to the tournament.
In the recent past there was the appalling handling of Zimbabwe’s predicament, the first ever forfeit of a Test match and the two prestigious one-day tournaments have been played within six months of each other.
Then there is the preposterous dilution of standards that has occurred under this regime. To have a match anointed as “official” appears to require nothing more than an assurance there are more than eleven registered cricketers in both countries participating in the match. This has led to a plethora of one-sided matches in both forms of the game.
And we haven’t even mentioned corruption, which the England captain thinks is still prevalent in the game or the mind numbing mess that now constitutes the laws of cricket.
Thank goodness Ian Chappell never tells ME what sort of job I am doing!
2 Comments »Travelling in style with the ICC
By Will last year, mid-April, 3 Comments »
What does the hard-working ICC official travel in from game to game? A brand spanking new BMW of course. Here’s one of nineteen, imported specially for the World Cup (spotted on Flickr).
I suppose they’ve struck a sponsorship deal with them or something. Not a bad way to travel around the islands if you’re into luxurious German vehicles, dripping with leder. Incidentally the photographer has a few other photos worth looking at. It’s always much more interesting seeing photos from the fans themselves, inside the grounds. It gives a more human perspective to what’s actually going on, and they’re not bound by the laws of commercial interest, worrying what their photo editors will want etc.
3 Comments »Calypso cacophony will out
By Will last year, at the start of April, 3 Comments »
Happy Easter all, if that’s your bag - and what an Easter it has been so far, with Bangladesh tripping up South Africa and the very welcome news that the World Cup’s Local Organising Committee (loc) have retracted their ruling to ban trumpets and drums from the grounds.
Here’s what everyone’s favourite ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Chris Dehring, humbly admitted (that is his full title by the way):
“The world has already seen the spectacle of fans from all over the world
dancing and savouring the unique environment in which this event is
being held and CWC is just seeking to enhance that even further for
the remaining matches,” Dehring added. “It’s amazing the things that
people can creatively make music from and we want to encourage that.”
How gracious of them to u-turn so spectacularly, with just three weeks to go. From what little coverage I followed of Bangladesh’s match against South Africa, the turnaround does seem to have had an effect on attracting the locals, instruments and all. But it’s too little, too late. And as for their moral u-turn - after all, these drums and trumpets were, until yesterday, dangerous and anti-social instruments of death - it’s another example of the hypocrisy and ignorance which has tainted this tournament.
Photo courtesy of Ryan
3 Comments »What troubles you about the ICC’s running of the game?
By Will last year, at the start of April, 11 Comments »
I was chatting to someone tonight about the ICC and their hopelessness. He, a cricket supporter of some 30+ years, told me that the ICC have ruined the game he once loved. I’m not quite there yet, but I have certainly fallen out of love with it and, moreover, I am worried for its future. Cricket is less about the players, less about the theatre on the field, and much, much more about money. The ICC’s greed is the game’s principle problem and it shows no sign of abating whatsoever.
What saddens me most is their stance that everything they do is for the greater good of the sport. And those who disagree are not only wrong, but idiotic (and need silencing). This is a billion-dollar organisation who hand out peanuts to the likes of Ireland and Kenya, and millions ($9m this year) to Zimbabwe. A company who steadfastly deny accusations of ambush marketing, yet continue to ban non-ICC-affiliated merchandise, drinks and so on from the grounds. Salesmen (peanuts, drinks, gimmicks - whatever) in the Caribbean are being charged obscene amounts for entry into the grounds and can hardly break even. When did all this happen, and who the hell is going to stop it? Using this farcical World Cup as a perfect example, surely it would have been in the ICC’s interest to make it a success, and not for its accountants but for enhancing their own image. Instead, they have ruined a tournament; ignored a prime opportunity to regenerate interest in one of cricket’s oldest, most passionate territories; left a vast public questioning their every move - and will leave with egg on their faces.
What troubles you about the ICC? Are you as enchanted with this sport as you once were as a kid? Are you (perish the thought) in support of what they do? Do you even care? I’d be fascinated to hear your opinion.
11 Comments »Ruining it for the locals
By Will last year, at the start of April, 7 Comments »
What a World Cup is has been so far, a tournament memorable for all the wrong reasons. The gestapo-like restrictions have been mentioned before, but such incredulity needs regular airing.
Vaneisa Baksh writes:
On my bookshelf there are three or four unused tickets that will serve as my pretty World Cup souvenirs. As much as I love the game and want to support it, I couldn’t subject myself to absurd restrictions that tried to masquerade under a security umbrella.
West Indians sensed early that this World Cup cared little for their company, their culture, and ignored the realities of life in this part of the world. So they are staying away from all the grand stadia their governments have spent so much of their money to prepare. It just hasn’t been enough about West Indians; can you blame them?
It is, very nearly, a complete disaster. The only hope for the locals is if, by some strange twist of fate, West Indies make the final. They won’t, though, and the public will stay at home. That feeling of revitalisation - a spring hope that the region would be injected with cricket fever - a few weeks ago has dribbled away. This is largely due to, but not solely restricted to, the ICC’s blind greed, their suffocating marketing tactics and a complete lack of interest, or knowledge, of Caribbean culture. They have distanced the very people that should be instrumental (in every sense of the word) to the tournament’s success. That is quite some feat.
Mike King says:
Locals, alienated by the prices and culture of this global event with its Alcatraz-like policies, have stayed away from even those games featuring the home side.
Long queues for tickets and expensive food have resulted in short tempers, paltry crowds and complaints at every turn.
Prior to the tournament, organisers were boasting of sell-out grounds and marketed the event as the best World Cup ever. To say they got it wrong is an under-statement of gigantic proportions.
The ICC cannot be blamed for the cricket on show - and perhaps that, more than the event’s planning, has affected the region’s apathy. West Indies have, as we all suspected but wished wouldn’t happen, been caught short and exposed. But this tournament has been in planning for over five years. Why, then, has it been such a shambles and who will be called to account?
7 Comments »Wither, World Cup
By Will last year, at the start of April, 7 Comments »
Superb rant from Patrick Kidd
Is anyone else as angry as I am about the World Cup? It has been building for a while but spilt over this evening while watching West Indies make a pig’s ear of their run chase against Sri Lanka, who were watched by hardly any spectators in a brand new but not fully complete stadium that is covered with more sponsors’ logos than a Formula One car, commentated on by the biggest collection of vapid “talent” since Celebrity Big Brother, and yet again a World Cup match, the 30th of this unending tournament, is heading for a dull finish. I make it 27 dull games out of 30 and coming after the least competitive Ashes series for 80-odd years, it is capping off a thoroughly miserable winter.
Couldn’t agree more with it all. Cricket is more a business than a game these days, and it’s the ICC’s insufferable greed which is killing it.
7 Comments »Video highlights of Sri Lanka v South Africa
By Will last year, at the end of March, 2 Comments »
Video highlights of Malinga’s four-in-four and the most exciting match of this year’s World Cup to date. Eat that, ICC.
Click here if you can’t see it above.
2 Comments »Who will rid me of this turbulant lawyer?
By Scott last year, at the end of March, 12 Comments »
The ICC has stepped in to prohibit cricket clips of the World Cup being available online via YouTube. Andrew Miller skewers this incredible piece of stupidity here. I’m just left gasping at how ICC’s powerbrokers have managed to get themselves so ‘out of touch’ that they thought this was a good idea.
Short of actually prohibiting broadcasting of the games, they could not have made a worse decision. Imagine an attempt by ICC to prohibit cricket blogs or newspaper coverage or forums and you have an idea of how stupid this is. Does Malcolm Speed know how to turn on his PC?
12 Comments »Sport’s glorious futility
By Will last year, at the end of March, 4 Comments »
No, there is little to be gained by cancelling. Indeed, surely the whole point of sport is to act as a necessary counterpoint to the grim realities of life. We know that death is a part of life because we see it, in one form or another, every day. Like drugs and alcohol, sport provides an escape from the routine absurdity of everyday existence - and thankfully without any of the side effects.
It gives us the chance to experience the best that life has to offer, usually without serious consequences. We win, we lose, and then we go home and get on with life.
We submit to sport’s arcane rules and regulations and rituals. We recognise that we will need to show courage and skill, and we train hard for the event knowing that we are undertaking an ultimately futile task. It is this futility that explains sport’s universal appeal, that and the desire to satisfy a basic human urge to play.
Sport loses its appeal when it is invested with fake importance. This is why English football engenders scant respect: the managers who snarl and spit at players and officials from the sidelines; the players who confuse competitiveness with sometimes vicious intent; and the supporters who cannot cope with the fact that in sport there must nearly always be a loser.
They have all clearly forgotten that Bill Shankly had his tongue firmly planted in his Scottish cheek when he said that football was more important than life or death.
Sport is not more important. And it won’t help to bring Woolmer back, but it might help us to cope.
One of the most insightful, and certainly the most reasoned and balanced article that I’ve read so far on the Woolmer murder and why cricket must go on. But it also re-enforces the often forgotten notion that cricket is a game. Predictably, it’s by Atherton, and it’s a superb read.
4 Comments »World Cup videos banned from YouTube
By Will last year, at the end of March, 11 Comments »
The ICC have ordered YouTube, the video sharing website owned by Google, to remove all footage of the World Cup. ICC Development and Global Cricket Corporation are claiming copyright infringement, although just what constitutes an infringement isn’t clear.
Presumably, no one can film their own clips at the grounds and share them with friends and family, which is a fair sad state of affairs. Also, has there ever been a more sinister sounding organisation than Global Cricket Corporation?
11 Comments »Sunblock? Rumblock
By Will last year, at the end of March, 1 Comment »
Last week I wrote about the Trinidadians’ clever use of a zip-lock bag to sneak in contraband (contrabanned, more like), which the authorities in the Caribbean prohibit. That was clever, but not nearly as ingenious as the use of a bottle of sunblock!
I love the expression on that bloke’s face, behind, raising his glass of rum. Well done, Trinis! (thanks Ryan)
1 Comment »Ambush marketing, West Indian style
By Will last year, mid-March, 1 Comment »
On similar lines to my previous post comes a cracking post from Adam Mountford, a BBC producer. He had earlier reported that many Bajans were put off visiting the grounds due to the stringent rules imposed on them, so he tracked down Chris de Caires, chairman of the Barbados organising committee.
De Caires told me he wanted to make sure that people knew they were visiting the Kensington Oval in Barbados, not the Kennington Oval in London. But he also told me one story which proves that the need to keep corporate interests happy is still on his mind.
The ICC will go to great lengths to stop “ambush marketing” - the practice whereby companies would hijack the World Cup to promote products which are rivals to the official sponsors of the event. Before the warm-up matches at the 3Ws Oval he had to go round all the toilets putting tape over any brand names on the bathroom furniture. Unfortunately one of the cleaning staff had obviously missed the brief about the dangers of ambush marketing.
She happened to be cleaning one night when she noticed lots of tape in the toilets and decided to remove it all so the toilets were properly cleaned.
Perhaps she has the right idea.
Reminds me of a funny situation in Nairobi last month at the Gymkhana. A guest was invited to hand out the Man-of-the-Match awards at a particular game, but he had to make a short speech beforehand. “What do I say? What does one do at these events?” he asked an ICC representative who told him he needs to mention the sponsors. All of them. And with the lack of funds made available to Kenya, there were two or three. It sounded so forced I couldn’t help chuckle at the banality and falseness of it all.
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