[Off Topic] The Ashes Thread

[sooooo]

Today, at 11am BST, possibly the greatest sporting series in the world begins: The Ashes. I know we have a few english on the team and one ex-pat Aussie, so this thread is to discuss the events that will unfold over the next two months.

The first test match in the 5-game series begins today in a new stadium at Cardiff (technically we play as England and Wales, though the team is always referred to as England). The game lasts a maximum of five days and each team has two innings.

Follow the updates at the BBC website

[sooooo]

Team news: England pick two spinners (Swann and Panesar):

England

Strauss (capt)
Cook
Bopara
Pietersen
Collingwood
Prior (wkt)
Flintoff
Broad
Swann
Anderson
Panesar

Australia surprisingly (to me) leave out the star bowler of the last series Stuark Clark and instead pick Hilfenhaus and Hauritz. Never seen the latter two bowl, but they're probably rubbish.

Australia

Hughes
Katich
Ponting (capt)
Clarke
Hussey
North
Haddin (wkt)
Johnson
Siddle
Hauritz
Hilfenhaus

England win the toss and will bat first!

[Swiss Pauli]

Plenty of hubris (should that be bravado?) from sooooo this morning. Will be interesting to see his posts if England go into lunch 3 down

[ruff_hi]

The first test match in the 5-game series begins today in a new stadium at Cardiff (technically we play as England and Wales, though the team is always referred to as England).

Except when they tour Australia when the English team is known as the MCC (I'll leave sooooo to explain that one).

The game lasts a maximum of five days and each team has two innings.

You should try explaining cricket to Americans. 'you play a game that lasts for 5 days and might be a draw!!!. I always say that a single test match is like a 7 game series of baseball. What happens on day 1 can influence what happens on day 5.

[MyOtherCar]

Crikey, we gonna discuss cricket on this forum. That game completely eludes me as far as rules go. Nonetheless, I'll try and lurk this thread. Or maybe create another one about another obscure sport: fierljeppen

[Swiss Pauli]

50 up, 1 down. Enjoying some banter between Geoffrey and Aggers on TMS.

[ruff_hi]

I've found this writeup explaining cricket to Americans. It is pretty good.

http://static.cricinfo.com/db/ABOUT_CRICKET/EXPLANATION/CRICKET_EXPLAINED_AMERICAN.html

[regoarrarr]

As part of European culture week here at work (in Ohio / US), they had a cricket game that anyone could play. I sign up for anything competitive, so I was in. It was mostly Indians, with a few English and us dumb Americans that didn't know what they were doing.

It was a lot of fun. A few of the things that took me a bit of getting used to in comparison to baseball - the fact that if it's a bad bowl (pitch), that you don't just ignore it. In baseball, if you realize that you aren't going to be able to hit it, you just let it pass for a ball - in cricket, you have to make sure it doesn't knock down the wickets / pegs / whatever they're called. The other thing was the ability to hit in 360 degrees. All us Americans just hit the ball straight forward like a baseball - all the Indians and other people that knew what they were doing would hit it in all directions, which confused us at first.

But it was a lot of fun.

[MyOtherCar]

As part of European culture week here at work (in Ohio / US), they had a cricket game that anyone could play.

I take it that wasn't a five day match then.

[regoarrarr]

Heh. No - it lasted about an hour.

[ruff_hi]

courtesy of Dreylin ... a live radio coverage from the beeb ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/england/8138912.stm

or you can buy a streaming live package


http://www.tvnsports.com/members/signup.php for $20
http://www.willow.tv/EventMgmt/UserM...st.asp?eid=135 for $89 (I think this also includes highlights)

[sunrise089]

Cricket Question from reading Ruff's link:

If each team gets to bat twice, what makes a test last five days? If lots of outs were scored, couldn't it just last for a single day?

[ruff_hi]

At the moment, England are 5 wickets (outs) down (10 needed to end their innings). It looks like they will be all out (ie innings over) sometime mid tomorrow. That is 1 innings (of 4) in 1.5 days. That is what makes a test last 5 days.

There have been situations where test matches are over on the morning of the 3rd day when lots of wickets fall. 17 wickets fell in 1 day during the last Ashes series in England. There have also been situations where no wickets fell ... 0 out for 350 runs in a day ... a very long grind for the fielding team.

Another thing to note for Americans ... there is no concept of the batting team being on 'offense' and the fielding team being on 'defense' in Cricket. There are situations when the bowling (fielding) team is getting lots of wickets and they are on offense while the batting team is struggling (and on defense). In other situations, batting is easy and the batters are scoring runs everywhere (on offense) while the bowling team is trying to control / restrict the runs and is on defense.

[ruff_hi]

another fun part of cricket is the comments that the players share ... banter, sledging, what ever you call it.

Here is a classic ...

Ian Botham could always give as good as he got. When he came to the crease Aussie 'keeper Rod Marsh said cheerfully: 'How's your wife and my kids?' Botham is said to have replied: "The wife's fine. The kids are retarded."

more here ... http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/c...on=Popup&ino=1

[timmy827]

I've always had the description given by a couple of Aussies in Melbourne stuck in my head: "the details are different, but really it's just like your baseball; a boring game but a great excuse to drink in a stadium for hours on end."
I had just been in a rugby crazed NZ as the British & Irish Lions were on tour, which took up all the attention I could spare to learn foreign sports on that trip...