Just to take your mind off our playing strategy of score a goal, sit back, let in an equaliser and praise the defence. Watching IPL cricket and this exciting, colourful, fast moving game and comparing it to our bland, sleepy old offering. I’m wondering what the future cricket is and whether our slow moving, backward looking supertanker of a county can respond to the changes that will inevitably happen.
I like the IPL and watch a lot of it but not sure this year it's as good as it used to be. Instead of home and away games, everything is played at the same four grounds. Expanding to ten teams drags it out more and makes squad strength a bit thiner with more teams around. Dew factor plays too much of a part as well with the chasing team usually winning whatever they are set.
I've watched a lot of it so far and think exactly the opposite. Take away the hype (and the crowds who are great) and it's been really disappointing. It's ridiculously regularly taking over four hours to complete what is a 40 over game in total - making it comfortably the slowest and slowest moving form of the game, now and ever. There's been a mass musical chairs of players creating no sense of loyalty, continuity or belonging. The standard of fielding on the whole has been poor, batting technique exposed and, above all, almost every game determined by the toss. Win the toss, field, win the game. It's just one mass advertising campaign with the 'cricket' as incidental. Imho there is nothing at all wrong with the English County T20 Blast (2.5 hours) as shown by the big and vibrant crowds that regularly turn up to Headingley despite a poorly performing team. Even more so if the mass investment and marketing that went into the awful, little Englander 'Hundred' mallarkey had been put into the Blast.
Good point about 20:20. The comparison I’m making is with the 4 day county game in near empty grounds and the 5 day tests which seems to be all the ECB is interested in.
I'd argue the ECB have put much more priority on smash bang wallop cricket, hence why we're so poor at test level at present.
My grandson came to see me yesterday with one of those VR masks. It was unbelievable. All the kids are playing computer games all the time and this is the competition for leisure time. I don’t want to be either a promoter or an apologist for the IPL and I’ve spent many a happy day in Headingley, Scarborough and many other grounds in the country with a newspaper crossword, even if the ground was 10% full of old giffers like me. The question is what is the future of this game of ours.
I prefer our T20 to the IPL. No neutral grounds, they get through the overs quicker, we don't have games having to be played under lights every day because they don't start until it is dark and players show loyalty to counties by playing for them for years. Take for example KKK who Eoin Morgan captained to the final last year. They get shut of him and despite two new teams added to the bloated tournament he didn't get another team. South Africa have just had to beat Bangladesh without half their team. New Zealand beat Netherlands at Seddon Park with pretty much the whole team missing due to the IPL. CSK reached the final last year but are ageing and boring. The team they put out yesterday only had two guys in their late twenties. Eight were in their 30s and they even played Dhoni in his 40s.
I suspect the future of the game will be dictated by greed, avarice and vanity. Though if we look a decent amount into the future, maybe climate change will make it unplayable at certain times of year in certain continents.
I'm sure it won't be long until the introduction of 'climate lockdowns', which will push the VR headsets, which will get everyone hooked up to the digital world even more so. What did Elon Musk say again about the not-so-distant future and virtual reality, something like it will be indistinguishable from true reality? Scary. And Musk should know, he's a key driver in the digital game.
The state of the world scares me. Not for myself, but for the future. For people, the planet. It's other inhabitants. I nearly created a thread yesterday about the IPCC report on climate change and the disaster we're facing. It's as grim as the dreadful activities in Ukraine, but for whatever reason, the collective planet are tinkering around the edges and just can't do whats needed (not to mention the epic scale of corporate greenwashing where so many emissions and aspects of destruction are completely ignored, or they cleanse their conscience by "offsetting"). And when you see whats needed to cap rises to 1.5, even 2.0, it's just not going to happen. We can't even be kind to our fellow man, let alone align as a planet and act for our collective futures and maybe existence. I've gone on a tangent there, largely because of your comment about Elon Musk and his activities. Our thirst for technology, change, growth and advancement is precisely what got us into this mess. We almost need to go backwards in many areas to correct the damage we've inflicted, not forwards. Anyway..... cricket...... ;-)
Reality will always win out. Television, talking movies, even radio, people still.want live experiences. Went to the art gallery, seeing a picture in reality is totally different to on a computer screen .
Tell that to the kids who for their whole lives have been subjected to the normalisation of burying heads in a device. I'm 35, I still remember pre-internet days when people had to be more creative with their time. I worry about the mental capabilities of future generations who are increasingly reliant on tech doing everything for them. I totally agree with you Helen, a piece of art in the flesh, reading a book (not a kindle), speaking face-to-face, breathing fresh air, being out in and appreciating nature.. these are all things that should be promoted as key to the human experience, not a sideshow to heads in phones. Edit: and more lockdowns, be they viral or 'climate lockdowns' will prevent all that and further drive the VR/digital narrative.
Next season when we are playing Cambridge Helen, come down early and go the Fitzwilliam Museum. Wonderful pictures and artifacts. I’m going to the Hockney exhibition on Saturday.
Dont understand the moaning about IPL/Big Bash/the 100 etc etc.. Look at the attendance of test cricket.. even the windies/england test were poorly attended.. especially compared with tourniments like the about. To say its a drain on the game is wrong.. its the only thing keeping people attending cricket, so should be celebrated and embraced for me.
