Just grit your teeth. We libertarians have to accept what we don't like. It's what sets us apart fom the authoritarians who know what everyone should approve of.
India's emergence is a Very Good Thing in just about every way.
Brian, I'd have thought that, as a libertarian, you'd be happy to pay someone a reasonable price for a service that you evidently desire, and a tenner a month seems fairly reasonable. We subscribe to digital tv here in Australia because there is a lot of good sport on it plus our daughter likes the kids channels. We subscribe additionally to Setanta, which over here is only one channel, because it has the Six Nations (which I could have done without this year as it transpired). I'd prefer not to shell out $100+ a month for the whole package, but I'd like even less not to be able to stay up in the early hours watching my various teams get beat more often than not.
Interesting contrast between India's IPL explosion and China's Olympic Torch implosion.
Maybe it's a sign.
ADE
Good luck to them and I'm sure it will be a success.
But for me, 20/20 lacks the subtlety I seek from cricket. I shall ignore it.
I was following the first game on a newsticker, 158 off 73 balls made it seem like something worth watching. Now to decide what team to follow:
Shah Rukh Khan's team apparently got their fashion advice from him and McCullum's astounding play aside, I really can't justify supporting a team with such a horrible logo.
"Super Kings" is a dumb name and I'm afraid as entertaining as it would be to support a team named after booze, "Royal Challengers" just aren't doing it for me.
Calling your team "Mumbai Indians" seems kind of pointless when your opponents are ALL from India so that rules out that team.
So do I support the Rajasthan Royals for their stylish player-coach choice in Shane Warne? Or perhaps the Kings XI Punjab? Well the Kings XI supposedly have a great team ethos, intent on supporting community but the Rajasthan Royals refused to purchase an 'icon' player so they didn't have to blow loads of dosh on a superstar (although one could argue that if your star has the kind of impact that McCullum just had, it might be worth it).
Hmm.. I think it might have to be the Royals, they do after all have the only English player in the league at the moment.
Ok, since this whole thread is composed of people who are passionate about cricket, could someone please direct me to a website where an ignorant American can read a brief explanation of the game and its rules?
there are more cricket fans in India than there are people in Europe
(Without taking the time to check exact numbers ...)that would make somewhere north of a third of the population of India cricket "fans". Depends how you define "fan". Somebody who goes out of their way to watch matches every week, either live or on TV? Unlikely. Somebody who takes an interest only when the national side is doing well in a major tournament? More plausible.
Taking a statistically valid sample of one: my landlady in India complained about the amount of time her husband spent watching intra-Indian games on TV, only to come over all patriotic when I turned up to watch a test match against England. Cricket fan?
20/20 will hopefully just be another awful fad like Razor scooters or George Monbiot.
Laird I wouldn't bother if I were you. Cricket is an insidious method of mind control used on the Commonwealth citizenry. It's what the British used to keep us colonials sedated and not planning sedition.
The inability of Americans to comprehend cricket is a large part of what allowed you to break the imperial shackles.
Ben, you might be right but I'd still like to know something about the game. (After all, we read Marx not because we're marxists but so we can understand the arguments, right?) If I promise to wear my aluminum foil hat while I read, is that OK?
Ok, since this whole thread is composed of people who are passionate about cricket, could someone please direct me to a website where an ignorant American can read a brief explanation of the game and its rules?
There are no brief explanations. You can watch a one-day game where nothing ever happens. The players spend so much time standing around on the field allegedly playing that the color commentator never has a chance to say anything stupid.
Then, there are the week-long games, which are like the one-day games only they spend longer on one game than it took the Rockies to lose the last World Series. And the color commentator still doesn't have a chance to get in anything good.
It's actually kind of like the NFL, only without the choreographed violence, the steroids, or the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
On the other hand, cricket has better music. I mean, is this the best we can do?
(First link probably NSFW)
I think this explanation(Link) from the beeb is alright. To give you a bit more background about IPL: They play a new form of the game call Twenty20. The main problem that purists have with this is it takes only 3 hours to play rather than a week.
It means there is very little in it for the bowlers and the batsmen just belt it around with no fear. It sounds more exciting but big hits when there is nothing on the line are just boring.
20/20 will hopefully just be another awful fad like Razor scooters or George Monbiot.
Unlikely. 20/20 had been popular at club level for years before the ECB belatedly got off their high horses and starting asking 'real' cricket fans - which to me means club cricketers - what kind of cricket they'd like to see. The answer? 20/20.
India is rising .. and coming out new ideas.. like the IPL(Link) .. guess the other country will start following also