Off Topic Cricket 2019
- Thread starter Stroller
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Not a bad day for Stokes. Top scorer, a run-out, a sensational catch, and a couple of wickets to wrap it all up.
He'll be on a hat-trick in the next game.
He'll be on a hat-trick in the next game.
I think they were rated third in the world. Morgan said they enjoy being favourites and it looks like it.
Confident win to start, thought it might close but in the end comfortably won, like the look of archer & stokes had a magnificent game.
Just looked up the competition format, it’s quite good but a very long tournament. Play all 9 other teams, top 4 to semi finals. 6 or 7 wins sees you through? So plenty of leeway for an embarrassment against Afghanistan.
Archer is an absolute natural. Mark Wood complained that he has to bust a gut to bowl 93mph, whilst Archer doesn't even seem to be trying. He can handle a bat, too. A must for the Ashes.
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Just seen the replay of the one that hit the stumps but didn’t knock the bails off and went for four byes. Buttler was a mile off it - it kept low and was hard but he was absolutely nowhere near.
Not sure where to put this, but here will do.
Just back from walking the dog. We walk past a Catholic secondary school about 500 yards from my house most nights. It’s in the middle of a residential area and has a lovely playing field surrounded by trees, about three football pitches big. But it only ever has one pitch marked out in winter, used to have a rugby pitch as well but that disappeared a few years ago. No running track or cricket square in the summer, it’s just a rather nice big green space. Out of school hours you can walk into it without having to climb over a fence or anything, just through the school gates.
On a lovely evening like tonight it struck me that a few years ago, or at least when I was young, that field would have had a few kids on it playing cricket, inspired by the first day of the World Cup. I have never seen a spontaneous cricket match going on there. In fact, in nearly ten years of living here, I have only seen the odd group of at most three lads kicking a ball about, and that less than half a dozen times. Very rarely seen any sport going on during school hours. But in the summer they have those ‘football courses’ where mums dump their little kids for a break.
I can remember taking an hour and a half to get home from primary school (about 400 yards) because we were playing football (with a tennis ball) first in the playground then in the street. Does anyone see this happening now? All kids sport seems to be in organised clubs, not just for fun, with parents and coaches pushing them to excel. Good coaching is brilliant, but I worry that there is nothing spontaneous, just for the joy.
Then I remembered what I saw in Delhi when I worked there for a couple of weeks, seven or eight years ago. In daylight hours almost every bit of open ground had a cricket game going on - just kids and blokes in their civvies, not organised or formal, makeshift stumps. Parks had dozens of games going on.
I’ve come over all nostalgic.
Just back from walking the dog. We walk past a Catholic secondary school about 500 yards from my house most nights. It’s in the middle of a residential area and has a lovely playing field surrounded by trees, about three football pitches big. But it only ever has one pitch marked out in winter, used to have a rugby pitch as well but that disappeared a few years ago. No running track or cricket square in the summer, it’s just a rather nice big green space. Out of school hours you can walk into it without having to climb over a fence or anything, just through the school gates.
On a lovely evening like tonight it struck me that a few years ago, or at least when I was young, that field would have had a few kids on it playing cricket, inspired by the first day of the World Cup. I have never seen a spontaneous cricket match going on there. In fact, in nearly ten years of living here, I have only seen the odd group of at most three lads kicking a ball about, and that less than half a dozen times. Very rarely seen any sport going on during school hours. But in the summer they have those ‘football courses’ where mums dump their little kids for a break.
I can remember taking an hour and a half to get home from primary school (about 400 yards) because we were playing football (with a tennis ball) first in the playground then in the street. Does anyone see this happening now? All kids sport seems to be in organised clubs, not just for fun, with parents and coaches pushing them to excel. Good coaching is brilliant, but I worry that there is nothing spontaneous, just for the joy.
Then I remembered what I saw in Delhi when I worked there for a couple of weeks, seven or eight years ago. In daylight hours almost every bit of open ground had a cricket game going on - just kids and blokes in their civvies, not organised or formal, makeshift stumps. Parks had dozens of games going on.
I’ve come over all nostalgic.
Jumpers for goalposts eh?
Kids playing out just doesn't seem to happen now. Like others on here, I'm sure, when I was a kid we'd go round knocking on friends' doors trying to round up people for a game down the park. Having said that, this didn't stop in childhood for me. In the early eighties, when I and my pals were in our late twenties or early thirties, we'd go to the pub on a summer Sunday lunchtime, and when it closed at 2pm (or more like 3 by the time we'd supped up) we'd head to the Scrubs for a game of cricket. We had all the gear, stumps pads etc., and would have a full-scale drunken cricket match (my wife was the scorer - in a proper scorebook). The game would conclude at 7pm, when the pub re-opened. I think this was how the old Sunday League started, to waste a bit of time while the pubs were shut.
Where I lived we used to play football, cricket and other games on the street corner. You hardly ever saw a car in those days, my road had about 8 to 10 car owners for the 70 odd houses. Now in those roads every inch is used for parking and traffic is the problem.
We had goal and cricket stumps chalked on the wall and played out every evening, often by the light of the street lights until we were called in. Cricket games sometimes lasted for days, a good yorker always hit the bloody kerb and the house at square leg often took a direct hit which would result in us disappearing at great pace. There was that spontaneity that was of the era.
Now parents don't allow kids that freedom for many reasons added to the rise of the Internet turning teenagers into screen zombies and they're missing out on a great way to socialise, exercise and develop personally...
Agree with all that soop, and how times have changed, hardly see kids playing cricket or football at parks now, we used to get home from school & go straight to park & play either game or as you say in the road, too much now on iPads or phones, me grandchildren are the same but we limit them when they stay at ours, can’t blame the parents too much with what’s going on with knife killings & drugs these days, sad really.
Understood lads, but where I live there are plenty of unsupervised kids out and about at all hours. They are just hanging around glued to their phones, rather than playing impromptu sport. I walked past 4 14 odd year old lads on a canal yesterday. Two of them were overweight and they were listening to music from a Bluetooth speaker. There are many more distractions nowadays but it’s an initiative and attitude thing as well.
Sb, in the overall perspective, we here in Oz mirror your life experiences over there regarding impulsive games of cricket and the general take on todays youngsters.
We are the same age and like others our age, we can only shake our heads and wonder why the younger folk aren't out there playing nowadays.
Very disheartening.
They don't know what they are missing out on!
Problem is, they'd probably need to have a safety vest on and have witches hats, traffic patrol around the boundaries.
Love this nostalgia thingy........
When I was growing up we would have 20 a side football matches in Wormholt Park winter and summer with jumpers for goalposts. We'd also have kick abouts in the street just stopping for the odd car that would pass by. Seem to recall the local council built a small hut in the Park to store sports equipment like cricket stumps, poles for goal posts etc and had a supervisor during the summer holidays to organise various sports to keep us out of mischief.......
No such thing these days as kids don't do sport unless it's totally sanitised in a closed environment.........and they call it progress......
Oh BTW Pakistan are 35-2 against the WIindies........
When I was growing up we would have 20 a side football matches in Wormholt Park winter and summer with jumpers for goalposts. We'd also have kick abouts in the street just stopping for the odd car that would pass by. Seem to recall the local council built a small hut in the Park to store sports equipment like cricket stumps, poles for goal posts etc and had a supervisor during the summer holidays to organise various sports to keep us out of mischief.......
No such thing these days as kids don't do sport unless it's totally sanitised in a closed environment.........and they call it progress......
Oh BTW Pakistan are 35-2 against the WIindies........
We get a fair few kids in my local park playing football - surprisingly no cricket, although we do have a local cricket club. The kids all wear Barcelona, Real, Man U/Citeh, Liverpool, Scum shirts with a few Celtic & Rangers and the odd Morton top.
There are about 6 matches on every Saturday and Sunday through the local clubs at all age groups, which tend to draw a fair amount of people, with younger kids spontaneously having kick:abouts around them.
My son used to go down a lot with his pals, but he now goes out busking.
When the weathers good, the park is rammed, though the older kids tend to go to the local beach, get pissed on Buckie and cause mayhem (filming themselves on their phones, of course).
There are about 6 matches on every Saturday and Sunday through the local clubs at all age groups, which tend to draw a fair amount of people, with younger kids spontaneously having kick:abouts around them.
My son used to go down a lot with his pals, but he now goes out busking.
When the weathers good, the park is rammed, though the older kids tend to go to the local beach, get pissed on Buckie and cause mayhem (filming themselves on their phones, of course).