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Things baseball teaches us

American sport at the SCG - blasphemy or opportunity to learn?

Matt Cleary
Matt Cleary
27-Mar-2014
And so to Major League Baseball at the Sydney Cricket Ground the other night, and it was very, very, very good. Good? Really good, friend: great crowd, the joint looked a picture under lights, and the difference of the Grand Old Dame with a baseball diamond in it, actual Major League stars (not that you recognised them) doing their thing, the Members Stand decked out with baseball bunting, the Australian and American flags fluttering in the sou-easter… a magic night out in Sydney Town.
What can the ye-olde-yet-modern game of cricket learn from America's Pastime? Many things, among them, notably, these:
Tradition is good. And you'd think cricket would know that. And it does, to an extent. But in baseball they don't blaze advertising all over their uniforms. They play for the Yankees or White Sox or whoever, not for a telecom or car-maker or fizzy drink. And it's fans who drive it. They don't want anything but "their" team name on their "their" team's uniform. And the bigwigs are smart enough not mess with it, despite, no doubt, the rabid yearnings of muscular American capitalism. More money doesn't always equal better.
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It's not easy being a cricket pitch

Being spat upon and trodden on are the least of it, it turns out

James Marsh
24-Mar-2014
Pity the cricket pitch. Though more lovingly cultivated than the average bonsai tree by ground staff the world over, it must still endure its far share of maltreatment: the constant pounding of the fast bowler's size 13s clumping down monotonously on its wounded soil, with only a bucket of sawdust to soothe its abrasions; batsmen scratching and re-scratching their guard with impunity; and players from both sides running sheepishly across its torso when circumstances suit.
Last week a new abusive low was reached when during a 2nd XI match against Victoria at Melbourne's Toorak Park, South Australia's Dan Worrall took it upon himself to deface an adjoining wicket by embellishing the turf with a rudimentary etching of the more delicate parts of the male person. This anatomical artistic anarchy is, though, far from being the worst assault upon cricket's doughty surfaces.
Perhaps the worst instance of soil sabotage occurred when the Third Ashes Test at Headingley in 1975 had to be abandoned after supporters of George Davis - a convicted robber whose innocence they maintained - broke into the stadium, dug holes in the pitch and poured oil over one end of the wicket. This slick act of devastation essentially left groundsman George Cawthray over a barrel, and the resulting draw meant England had no chance of winning the four-Test series and thus retaining the sainted urn. Though as futile as it was destructive at the time, the protesters' actions did eventually see their aim achieved: in 2011, after decades of legal wrangling, Davis finally had his conviction overturned on appeal, more than 35 years after being found guilty, a length of time broadly similar to that seen in cricket's own review process when Rod Tucker is third umpire.
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Why England will win the World T20

Is there any cause for optimism for Broady and Co? Six irrefutable reasons say yes

Alex Bowden
20-Mar-2014
With one big hitter out due to broken relationships, another big hitter out due to a broken wrist, thanks to launching one especially big hit at a Barbados locker, a captain who has had a fourth or fifth injection to manage a knee condition (does no one keep count?) and after a seemingly endless string of defeats, is there any cause for optimism for the England World Twenty20 squad? Of course there is, because what is cricket all about if not taking the positives?
Momentum
England players seem incapable of discussing the T20 World Cup without stating that it's all about who has momentum. Cricketers are also pretty generous to themselves in how they feel momentum is generated. England may have lost a series against West Indies and then a warm-up match against the same opponents, but as far as they're concerned, they took momentum from the last match in the series, and warm-ups don't count, so they still have momentum. Conversely, West Indies think the dead rubber doesn't count, so they have taken enormous momentum from a series win and then a subsequent warm-up victory. The upshot is that pretty much every team at this World Cup is going to be arriving at it carrying extraordinary momentum. The resultant collision doesn't bear thinking about.
Unpredictability
T20 cricket is famously unpredictable. No sane person is predicting an England win, but pretty much every other team has been tipped by someone or other. If the format truly is unpredictable, that leaves only one possible winner.
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Cricket clubs that are West Indian pacemen

Eleven English club sides that are actually obscure Caribbean fast bowlers

Scott Oliver
14-Mar-2014
Seaton Carew (Durham) The first ever cricketer from Curação to play professionally, the freakishly quick yet preternaturally uncoordinated Carew averaged just 0.44 for Mizzle-on-the-Moors in the 1986 Slippery Whippet Pennine & District League (his batting average wasn't too shabby, either) but developed drinking and gambling addictions thought to have been caused by opening a pub, the Bounce and Carry, next door to a bookies.
Appleby Frodingham (Lincolnshire) Frodingham was famous for having two different bouncers: one that was unfailingly pulled for vast, towering sixes, another that was blatantly chucked from about 19 yards. He received a lifetime ban from the WICB for using a mobile-phone provider that wasn't their preferred business partner, and became a Yardie.
Bracebridge Heath (Lincolnshire) When Jamaicans diagnosed the normally mild-mannered yet beamer-prone tearaway Heath with suffering from "white line fever", little did they realise how literally that was the case, for his excursions trading barracuda in Baranquilla were a front for another Colombian export - one that wasn't coffee. When he was rumbled getting high on his own supply en route to 9 for 14 against Trinidad, the Carib Clarion ran with the simple headline: "Snorter!"
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