Friday
The following item is for sale. One bucket of whitewash. This has recently been obtained by the English cricket team at a knockdown price during their tour of Australia.
The English cricket team wishes to sell this precious prize of English achievement in auction as quickly as possible. However, only purchasers of a more unpopular standing may need apply. They are therefore awaiting bids for this most useful of items.
Please note: only politicians or journalists may apply.
It's only cricket. I can understand the emotion and why people get worked up about football or rugby, for example. But cricket? Or tennis? Who cares?
There's something fundamentally flawed with a game that can go on for 5 days and still be drawn.
I'll now batten down the hatches in expectation of a flamewar form the Wisden fraternity.
Posted by Patrick at January 5, 2007 10:30 AM
I'd certainly extend the "Who cares?" to football and rugger. Dullsville.
We should be doers not watchers.
Posted by Mark at January 5, 2007 10:37 AM
Patrick, I am tempted to smash your comment over the boundary for a six, but decided to let the ball flick pass my bat for a bye, take strike again and wait for the next pie-chucker delivery from the Nursery End.
Seriously, some sports may bore people, and it is amazing how passionate some people get in saying that sport X is boring or great. A lot of rugby matches, or football matches, etc, are dull as hell, while others are mesmerising. Cricket is the same. The fact that some matches ends in draws may bother some people, but why? Does a game have to result in a resolution?
Posted by Johnathan Pearce at January 5, 2007 11:31 AM
How about we agree that all sports are boring?:-O
Close, but not quite. How about watching other people doing any sport is boring? I quite enjoy doing certain sports.
Posted by MarkE at January 5, 2007 12:09 PM
Still not right.
Playing sport is interesting, not boring, for those interested. Watching sport is also interesting, not boring, for those interested.
But: endless argument about whether sport in general or a particular sport in particular is interesting or boring?
That is truly boring.
Posted by Brian Micklethwait at January 5, 2007 12:22 PM
As for the cricket, I wrote a big bit on my blog about this before the final game, the basic message being that England are really not that bad, but that Warne really is that good. Link.
Posted by Brian Micklethwait at January 5, 2007 01:19 PM
Getting this back on topic, how about giving the whitewash to the odious Zimbabwe Cricket Council?
Posted by Ted Schuerzinger at January 5, 2007 01:33 PM
Sports is like sex.
Watching can be interesting, even exciting, for some particularly nice matchups. But for the rest, ugh: BORING!
And like sex, while watching can be entertaining, participating in sports is so much more fun.
Posted by tomWright at January 5, 2007 05:45 PM
Warne is gone. How I will miss him. In my old age I am going to bore my grandchildren endlessly talking about how he could play.
Posted by Michael Jennings at January 5, 2007 09:41 PM
Michael : Re Warne's playing : did you mean On or Off the Field? From all accounts he was equally adept at both.
Posted by Zoe Brain at January 6, 2007 11:15 PM
Only sport I'm interested right now in is the one where we copy Odai Hussein's tactics used against the Iraqi national soccer team, whereupon if the team returning in disgrace from a match ...
A missed penalty kick could bring a humiliating head-shaving at the Stadium of the People, team members said. Sometimes players were forced to play "matches" in which they would kick concrete balls around the prison yard in 130-degree heat.
Worth sending the England team out for a few months in the Nullarbor Plain with some concrete cricket balls and no pads, anyone?
Posted by Julian Taylor at January 6, 2007 11:42 PM
