Why are sports more popular than literature?

Reader: Hercus

Ed, this is insightful. There is a fascinating connection between the popularity of literature in the past, and its successor in sports today. Sports, just like novels, are permeated with stories. Five-day test matches, grand slam tournaments, world cups, 90 minutes of football, entire seasons, playoffs, teams, players, careers, history, statistics, and even T20 matches, all abound with stories. They are all replete with exposition, character development, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. All feature antagonists and protagonists, villains and heroes. On-hand is a great media juggernaut to find and craft these stories for a ready audience. New characters, new seasons, new scenarios readily present themselves lest the audience grow weary. Why are sports more popular than literature? Because the audience is actually a part of the story. It's their team, their players, and a part of who they are, and they are helping write their own story. I know it is for me.

Reader: IanHosier

As I thought might happen when he was appointed, Amla appears to be swamped by the captaincy role. Captaining a cricket team is probably the most demanding leadership role in all sport - especially on the field. Of course, if you are the national captain, then it also brings a huge amount of additional tasks and duties - and very public exposure. He appears to be a naturally quiet and modest guy, who is most happy to get on with his own job (i.e. batting, in his case), and letting his excellence at that be his contribution to the team. The on, and off, field stresses of the captaincy role are draining him, and preventing him from doing his preferred thing (batting) well - which no doubt further drains him. All of that is compounded by the mess that SA Cricket generally is in, right now. The only solution is to relieve (him) of the role, as soon as is possible. That leaves the challenge of who to give it to, if the burden on AB can't be increased!

Reader: harshthakor

I would have placed both of Sunil Gavaskar's knocks on the top of the pedestal,arguably amongst the top 20-25 performances of all time. His 96 at Bangalore resembled a surgeon performing an operation on a patient considered incurable or a captain leading a ship on the verge of sinking.. I don't think even Bradman could have equalled that effort on a broken wicket which was turning square.. At the Oval when scoring 221 Gavaskar was revelation not commiting a single mistake and dispatching every bad ball to the boundary Dubious umpiring prevented his masterpiece from acheiving a famous win for India. In both these classic knocks Gavaskar blended the concentration of a monk with the technical precision of an architect. At Adelaide Viv Richards judgement of length when scoring 74 and 76 on a bouncy surface was impeccable and he exhibited some of the most glorious driving on the frontfoot. Surely they rank amongst the best fifties of all time.

Reader: johnthekiwi

Well done England even if Cook had a shocker it must be heartening to him to know there are some guts and mettle in the side now that can make up for a rare bad performance by him. SA looked terrible. There are players clearly out of form, the ridiculous use of the best player in the world as a WK when preservation of his body and mind should be priority #1 and now the loss of the best bowler of the 21st century. I'm a big fan of SA and was really looking forward to a last rearguard stand by an aging team in India but they turned from Meg Ryan ca. Top Gun to Meg Ryan ca. now overnight it seemed. SL are coping (badly) with the loss of two stalwarts and now SA are being forced to do the same in the cold hard light of red ball cricket. It is going to be difficult for them to fight back but they do have a chance on the upcoming quicker decks if MM can be more of a handful than SF. I'm just not sure if they have enough hard men left to make that happen though (aside from MM).

Reader: Jose...P

This was a remarkable win by England, no doubt. The men behind the scene who didn't crave for the spotlight and quietly did their job in liberating the potential of the English players deserve pats on their backs. Are there still scope for improvement? It doesn't need a Perry Mason to tell you the areas for a rethink and/or action. Here's a short list.

1) Attempts to turn Hales into a Warner? Rethink. 2) The need for both Stokes AND Woakes in the XI? Rethink. 3) Firming up a three-some pace hunting unit - may be, Jimmy, Stuart & Finn. From the rest choose one by trial & error. 4) Search for a genuine spinner - SA batsmen softened up in India lost it in their heads to Moeen, which may not work against batsmen with no such phobia. 5) The need to give long-term security to Compton & Taylor - both of whom proved to be genuine test match calibre batsmen. These points came up in mind quickly. There could be more. Is there a need to gild the lily? Why not?

Reader: sushreyo96

Back in 1999, fresh out of U-19 cricket, Laxmi was looked at as a really exciting prospect. A steady medium-fast bowler (he was usually early 130s in speed) and a dashing lower-middle-order batsman, he seemed destined to fulfil India's quest for a seam-bowling allrounder in limited overs cricket. After 3 games, he was injured for a good part of his early career. That affected his bowling. When he returned, his bowling had lost much of its sting. His batting matured, but he seemed to lack the technique to score consistently against international standard bowling. However, his first-class contributions for Bengal over the last decade and a half have been nothing short of stellar. Often, he has pulled Bengal out of trouble with a big innings here, a few wickets there. He remains a promise unfulfilled, an all-rounder India could have but never had!

Reader: Shaggy076

Head is an incredible talent but like Maddinson has suffered from playing too many shots too early. He has them all and seems to be maturing with the Redback captaincy. But the comment about Maddinson compared to Head well this is one innings and 12 months ago Maddinson was the hero from one innings. Both have massive talent but need consistency. Personally I reckon we need to be careful with Ausralian selection and reward consistency over talent. Head this season has got his debut ton in all 3 formats all in match-winning innings as a South Aussie I want to see more of this before we get to see him in the Aussie colours. As for T20 World Cup I'd imagine you play 5 bats with preference one can bowl, a wk and 5 bowlers with a couple of those with batting talent potentially, Faulkner, Marsh can qualify on the bowling side. So in the best 11, only 5 off Warner, Smith, Finch, Maxwell, S Marsh, Head, Klinger, Bailey, Voges, Lynn, Maddinson, Khawaja can play, another 2 can make squad.