Cricket

It wasn’t prepared by Americans…

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My understanding is that the equipment to facilitate the pitches was shipped from Adelaide, but they were grown and prepped in the US using local soil

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I think it add to the to the spectacle having a ground with slow outfield a slow wicket etc. So long it isn’t dangerous. It was probably a similar wicket when they played in the US in the 1800s :grinning:. Pretty low scoring affair.

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To the purist, yes, but given this tournament was designed to help break cricket in the US, it’s not what they would have wanted.

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Agree with you @Radiohead . I often reflect on history of what could have been. Its the one that got away (ie with US and Canada playing, then Japan might have played too). Anyway baseball is a pretty good sport.

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I haven’t gotten into it really, I understand the basics, but not the nuances, tactics, finer points etc, which i think is needed to truly appreciate and understand a sport.

I have the same problem with Aussie Rules football too.

I think a lot of that comes from not having grown up with either.

Should Melbourne be playing rugby union or league? I wonder why they decided to invent a new game.

On the other hand, surely the cricket players in nsw/qld needed a sport as well to play in the winter. They had cricket fields up north, why didn’t we play afl in the early days?

Then there is soccer why wasn’t our sport in winter soccer?

I am a league fan as well @Radiohead can’t get into afl or soccer even union.

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League was a breakaway from union so that it could be professional. Union was always an amateur sport until about the mid 90s.

Because we found better sports to play! :grin:

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I did play baseball and tee ball as a kid. Always preferred cricket that was our neighbourhood kids sport. To me have stumps and bowling a bowl is better than pitching. At least when you hit the stumps you are out. Baseball could have stumps instead. But then they would need a cricket bat, then they may as well play cricket.

What they need to do is get some baseball batters to play in T20, they probably couldn’t bowl. Imagine if they a couple of star baseball players , playing for US T20 now then people would watch! They could play the tournament in the off season for baseball. A couple of training sessions, put the cricket ground in Florida for the winter. It would be too expensive probably.

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I think batting in baseball is a lot different to cricket. You need footwork in cricket, be able to read the ball out of the hand and be able to cut, pull, hook, drive, sweep and block.

Baseball (to me) isn’t much more than just swinging at the ball, occasionally they’ll just bunt it if they want to get the first base.

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True. Alan Border was a good baseball player. So it might not be that impossible.

if they want to crack into the US market, that is probably what they need to do. This is how baseball started, they borrowed some cricket players. Baseball was never meant to take over in the early days.

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Australia are through to the Super Eight round of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, with an easy nine wicket win over Namibia in Antigua. Australia sent Namibia in and bowled the latter out for 72 in 17 overs, with player of the match Adam Zampa taking 4/12 (also becoming the first Australian man to take 100 wickets in T20 internationals). In reply, the Aussies reached the target in the 6th over with only the loss of David Warner’s wicket for 20.

Australia’s final group game is against Scotland at St Lucia this Saturday night local time (Sunday 10.30am AEST).

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I’ve tried to watch baseball but to me it’s less exciting than cricket. A large part of it is of course what you’re conditioned to (cricket for us, baseball for them) and so there’s confirmation bias at work here.

I have been enjoying the lower scoring games as it’s refreshing from the type of T20 cricket that’s usually on offer. Record low scores are about as rare as record low temperatures these days. But my point as @Laoma identified is that the USA sports public expect fast action and high scores; as usual The Simpsons say it best:

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This^ Baseball is the only sport that I still can’t watch. I’ve tried a few times and I just can’t.

Looks like Nepal are putting on a good fight against South Africa. 0 for 31 chasing 116 in the 6th over.

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Nepal were in a good position at 2/85, but lost five late wickets (including a runout on the last ball of the innings) to lose by one run.

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Was an exciting finish felt like an old school 80s one dayer, once the chase was above 1 a ball there was extra pressure.

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Well another good match, the Australians are chasing 181 which Scotland made. They are 2-36 after 6 overs. If Scotland win England are out.

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I heard Australia have rested three players, apparently Hazlewood made some taunts about England missing out, so I wonder what’s going on here…

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