The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Chad]

[Chad]

Give me one current test player who could reproduce that Johannesburg innings.

It is a skill that has disappeared from the game (that fact that you find it boring is irrelevant)... the game as a whole has been diminished.

More entertaining (in the eyes of those with an attention deficiency) does not necessarily equate to better.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Chad]

That's an old quote (which I fully expected you to dig up) but unfortunately every single one of those mentioned has now retired... so answer the original question.

If you cannot, then you must concede, the skill has been lost and the game thus diminished.

[Wile E. Coyote]

I was rather looking forward to a bit of variety in the bowling.

[Chad]

I do believe the umpire has just given you out... leg before (just outside off stump, cutting back) without offering a shot.

Most unlike you old chap.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Thats most amusing. I was just thinking you had been hit over the pavillion. So was looking for something better.

[Mick Harper]

Chad won the exchange but meanwhile Wiley is winning the war.

[Mick Harper]

May I remind hon members that this is an AE forum not an old-codgers-remember forum. So here goes with a coupla AE points arising from the current test series. First off, the "A causes B just because A and B happen to be around together" fallacy.

England beat Australia easily at Cardiff so all commentators claimed that England were better than Australia (and then listed all the -- entirely rational -- reasons why that might be). Actually if Joe Root had been caught behind second ball, instead of going on to make 143, Australia would presumably have won easily. Nobody wrote five hundred words on Jammy England.

At Lords (I speak before the the fourth day) Australia will win easily largely because they won the toss. The truth is that the sides are sufficiently close in overall quality to mean that each test, and therefore the series as a whole, will be decided by such accidents. In other words, as usual, the truth is boring. It is much more exciting to talk of Dad's Army versus Young Lions or whatever it is (see above for entirely rational reasons).

[Mick Harper]

A fascinating post hoc causal-reversal was produced courtesy of the ever-estimable Bob Willis. Every commentator (and I mean every commentator) said that it was vital that groundsman prepare easy-paced wickets to "draw the sting from the Aussie quicks". Cardiff did just that so every commentator (and I mean every commentator) demanded the same again at Lords (and for all the test venues thereafter).

Bob Willis pointed out (only after the Lords debacle but even so his was a lone voice) that when the other side has a better fast attack the last thing you want is a featherbed because only really good fast bowlers will be effective on such a surface and the normal outcome will be a win for the side with the better fast bowlers in a grindathon.

To favour England, groundsmen should produce a green top, thereby favouring all quick bowlers, hence introducing a lottery element, which means that the weaker attack will win out some of the time.

[Chad]

[Chad]

By the way, this 2nd Ashes test demonstrates perfectly (almost as if I had arranged it) why we should lament the passing of Athertonian defensive skills.

[Boreades]

I thought we'd agreed that attack is the best form of defence?