World Cup Open Thread

I’m happy to be visiting my wife’s family in Port Elizabeth and therefore getting plenty of World Cup coverage. The US is pretty much a cricket wasteland.

The NZ / SA match yesterday was spectacularly exciting if marred by very poor fielding by both sides but especially the Proteas. This is a match South Africa had won, if not for their inexplicable failure to capitalize on wickets all but handed to them.

Local flavor: My mother-in-law is in possession of a handgun registered to her late husband, which must be dealt with in some way as part of the estate. The gun is all but useless for home protection – it is a very small, cheap .22 she says is from the Spanish Civil War, a story which demands further investigation – and is no longer legal. The mechanics of registering a handgun in SA don’t warrant the effort, so it’s really a question of disposal. Yesterday, the local police came by to check with her to see what she had decided to do with it. It was very much a courtesy call rather than a looming arrest. They happened to show up at about the 39th over of NZ’s innings, and they were very nice fellows, so we invited them in to see the rest of the match. Tea and biscuits were consumed by all.

Well, we could judge by hubris; the Australia cricket team has a clear advantage there – way out in front :-(. Go the black caps. Always happy to see the Australian cricket team taken down a peg.

I went to see Australia vs England with my English brother in law. I don’t know why I bothered; England are pathetic. Since then, ho hum, not more cricket? I guess I’ll watch the final, while working on my laptop

Val, dunno about elsewhere but women’s cricket is very popular in Australia. My current boss is both a passionate feminist (woe betide we underlings should something upsetting to the sisterhood ever be heard from our lips) and an even more passionate cricketer, both as player and follower.

On the Saffer/Unzud match – SA were definitely the better team on the night, but they choked at one or two critical moments. They have a long history at so doing.

As an Aussie, assuming we get past India (no gimme on the only slow turning pitch in Australia, the SCG) then I look forward to giving our overly civilised parochial presumptuous younger cousins from the Land of the Short Crushed Vowel a cricketing lesson. I reckon they have a side made for flat drop-in pitches on tiny rugby grounds (some of those McCullum sixes at Eden Park would have been outfield catches elsewhere). Australian bounce, Australian sun and the vast spaces of the MCG will be a different story.

I agree that Australia should probably have the upper hand against New Zealand, but I would be disappointed if they played for the championship. It’s bad enough that the four semi-final spots ended up going to the four favorites to win the tournament. I wanted upsets!

That being said, the last two games look to be very exciting. Here’s hoping the (insufferable) Australians lose in heart-breaking fashion.

Layman wrote:

The US is pretty much a cricket wasteland.

Given the nature of cricket, I would have thought that the description is more aptly applied to pretty much anywhere that many people feel passionate about the game (I hesitate to call it a sport).

Don’t give up, Marcel. As an USan, I came late to the game. You can do it, too!

If they’re anything like me, that’s because what people have to say about the ICC’s treatment of the associates should not be written on a family blog.

CB does it for Rugby,

The problem with the Associate teams comes largely with the format of the World Cup. The system for 2011 and 2015 has involved two groups of seven teams, which has meant that the Associate teams get six opportunities to be hammered (bar Ireland, who are competitive). This has led to too many dead matches and the format as a whole has meant that the competition has drifted on too long, only getting interesting in the last week.

A set up involving two more Associate teams would be more sensible, with 16 teams playing in four groups, with three games each in the first round. Not too many one sided matches per team, and the opportunity for a ‘lesser’ country to go through to the next round (as Ireland did in 2007). This would also allow the tournament to become more competitive at an earlier stage.

Ireland should really be given Test status now. They have done better in World Cups than Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe or Bangladesh did before they achieved Test ranking, and it would stop them draining players to England.

@Val

I’m not sure why you think that association football doesn’t involve invading someone else’s space, given that tackling is an essential part of the game and you are free to knock someone over as long as you’re playing the ball.

There’s no ‘invasion’ involved in cricket, but bowling a ball at another person at 90 mph could be construed as quite violent, as could a batsman smashing the ball towards a fielder situated a metre away from him.

This blog is turning into the place for all-purpose trolling on New Zealand topics? First on the other thread we had someone trying to drag it into a discussion of long ago cultural practices of different ethnic groups for some reason, and now here – horror of horrors!!! – someone is saying that you shouldn’t mix honey and marmite! At least no-one is dissing Weetbix (yet).

———-

SCENE: EDMUND HILLARY and TENZING NORGAY are climbing Mount Everest in a heavy blizzard. Both are played by ~10 year old actors

TENZING (in a despairing tone): “[some incomprehensible gibberish]”
HILLARY: “Where I come from Sherpa Tenzing, there’s no such word as [repeats same incomprehensible gibberish]”

Regarding Edmund Hillary… “it’s no wonder the sherpa was tensing”

Yes, I naturally support India, and probably will if they beat Australia.

Wait, why? Wouldn’t you “naturally” support England?

The thing about the Associates is that the answer is completely obvious (basically, what Igor Belanov said @18), but eq

Oops.

The thing about the Associates is that the answer is completely obvious (basically, what Igor Belanov said @18), but equally obviously, it’s not going to be implemented because they can’t risk India* going out in the group stages (as happened in 2007). It’s a complete travesty, but after the recent ICC stitch-up, it’s even more impossible to think of any equitable solution that actually has a chance of being implemented.

*Other big audience countries like England and Australia too, of course, but in terms of TV audiences it’s basically India, with everyone else a distant second.

Dr Ngo @23,

I’m apparently a lot younger than you, but since I was then and am now a Canberra resident I also watched Marita Koch run that 400. Even played soccer on the main Bruce pitch a couple of times, back when Canberra were in the National League and had their 2nd/3rd/4th teams (basically mid-teen development squads) in the local ACT Competition.

Anyway, tell me what you really think about netball :) . I know personally that one MAJOR frustration coaching Girl’s Basketball in Australia is having seriously talented kids almost always deciding to play netball when they reach the either/or point. And I know from conversations with AIS Basketball coaches that this frustration was shared at higher levels than I ever reached. The likes of Lauren Jackson and Penny Taylor as exemplars stemmed the tide a bit for a while, but now the Trans-Tasman NetBall League has become established Women’s Basketball in Australia is fading back to semi-minority status.

I will say I do find Women’s soccer very enjoyable to watch. A different level of athleticism and power to the guys, but tactically very similar and someone like me who played at a low level can appreciate what’s going on. (And I do sometimes wonder if that’s why a lot of people prefer Women’s tennis to Men’s; they can relate it to their own playing experience.)

dr ngo is right, exactly, about the comparison between the long and short forms of the game. In fact I think I prefer T20 to the 50 over version now — neither has any of the nuance or suspense of the red ball version, and T20 is more exciting. Nothing can compare with a test match.

But… Now we have T2o, how long can baseball survive? It’s like baseball, but without any of the boring bits, and with loads of extra interesting bits thrown in.

harry b@32: T20 has no chance whatsoever of supplanting baseball (except perhaps in Oz or somewhere else it’s been recently grafted). First, baseball has its own traditions and nuances which have been preserved in the modern game, by and large; it’s still a sport Babe Ruth would recognize and probably excel at. Second, the comparison between baseball and cricket is inherently unsound, as I learned when I (like every other expat Yank) tried to make it. The hurling of ball and striking with bat, the running between wickets or around bases, the fielding and throwing are comparable skills BUT the underlying strategy and approach of each game is so radically different as to render all comparisons meaningless. In baseball, the batter is the spearpoint of the attack and the pitcher leads the defense; a batter can fail two of three times and lead the league! In cricket, the bowler leads the “attack” and a batter must needs defend (albeit less in T20 and other modern versions); to run up a century implies *not* making an out in literally scores of deliveries, dozens of overs, rather than being thankful for getting one hit a game. (Dimaggio’s record – one of the greatest in American sports – of getting a hit [= at least one hit] in 56 consecutive games could be matched by almost the meanest batsman in organized cricket.)

By contrast, I could not avoid making comparisons between (American) football and Rugby, both codes; despite their differences, they illuminate each other. Aussie rules is a bit too Aussie – or too Irish, some say – to be a useful comparison with anything else, though a wonderful sport in its own right.

Mike Marqusee, Anyone But England

I’ll check it out, but he seems to have gotten the wrong country there. The “anyone but” team is definitely one of the teams playing right now. And for what it’s worth, England were my second team for several years, not least because I got back into cricket in my 20s through the Guardian sport pages (well, “pages”). I still always root for them in the Ashes.

Or not. Australia batted well at the end of their innings, and the Indian batting doesn’t seem to be up to the challenge of chasing 329…

Following up on Val@19: an interesting distinction, but I propose a somewhat more articulated alternative:

1) “Separate space” sports, in which there is literally no physical contact between competitors: gymnastics, swimming, most athletics, tennis, golf, bowls/bowling, skiing, figure skating, archery, shooting, etc.

2) “Contact” sports, in which athletes sometimes occupy the same space but are (variously) restricted in how much physical contact is permitted – basketball and netball, baseball, cricket, distance running (on a track, but not in lanes – elbows flying!), soccer, field hockey, speed skating.

3) “Collision” sports (hat tip to Woody Hayes for the term), in which a major component is physically moving someone else or stopping their movement: AFL, rugby, American football, ice hockey.

4) “Damage” sports, in which the original/ostensible purpose is to physically harm the opponent and (in many cases) cause him/her to be unable to continue: boxing, wrestling, martial arts, etc. [My wife is indirectly responsible for this category, since she’ll watch American football, involving large men crashing into each other at speed, but not boxing, since injury is {as she sees it} incidental to the former, but integral to the latter.]

I omit from this (rough-draft) list sports that involve major non-human elements, such as motor sports and animal sports (e.g., horse racing). Most of these appear to fall under category 2, where the animals/vehicles occupy the same space but are supposed to limit contact. Fencing is also an anomaly (in terms of this list), in that it’s virtually non-contact in terms of separate spaces, but rooted in the “harm your opponent” tradition of #4.

These categories do not map directly on to the danger (likelihood/severity of injury) of these sports. Motor sports are perhaps the most dangerous, but, as noted above, a cricket ball or baseball hurtling at one’s head at 90mph or above (say 150kph) can do considerable damage, up to death, despite the absence of “collision” conditions. And skiing (individual separate space) is surely more dangerous than basketball or speed skating . . .

Historically, the argument has always been that women, as the supposedly frailer sex, should not engage in any more contact than is necessary, and should certainly avoid collisions. This argument has been eroded over the years, and is not directly germane to this categorization, except insofar as it helps to explain which kinds of sports women are most likely to be exposed to and receive training for.

Roller Derby – nice point, engels – was always the outlier (outlaw?) among women’s sports, in that it definitely fell/falls into my category #3, a “collision” sport. As such it used to have a kind of freakish appeal, both to women who liked to imagine deliberately banging into people (how unladylike! how refreshing!) and from men who liked watching them do it (catfight!), but was something that fell well outside the run of “normal” sporting activity. Men also competed, but as a male collision sport it had many competitors for attention, which has also happened to a considerable extent with women’s sports, including involvement in many martial-arts forms.

The recent movie Whip It is a pleasant romp through contemporary Roller Derby, but doesn’t quite capture its more lurid past, IMHO.

Presumably because the Antipodes are quite pleasant this time of year – certainly more so than Northern Europe – and they wanted to show southern hospitality to those less fortunate. Throw another shrimp on the barbie!

Then I reckon you’ll lose your money, floopmeister. NZ were damned lucky to beat SA in conditions that strongly favoured them. Australia crushed India on the most subcontinental ground in the country. My pick is that at the MCG Australia will not merly win – they’ll win handsomely.

The fake Kane Williamson tweets about launching an expedition to the pitch on the MCG speak to NZs greatest fear – that they have won easily on small grounds. The ‘G is a touch bigger.
NZ seem to get a good team together once a generation, and this is that team. The fairytale here would be dirty Dan somehow involved in a big finish. (I’m not supposed to think that – please delete the metadata on this comment.)
Carl Hiaasen’s most recent novel features parallel Floridian and Bahamian scumbag property developer plots and at one point the Bahamian goons break in and threaten some of the good guys with a “cricket mallet”. Two cultures separated by a common language.

mmm…
Seems I’m not banned it just doesn’t like the links. I just wanted to put out that in official ODIs Australia have won their last 10 matches at the MCG. (The Guardian seems to think it is 7 from 8 but not based on the Statistics from ESPN Cricinfo).

Curiously their last loss was against NZ in 2009, and this was the last time that they played NZ there. Overall NZ win less than 1 in 2 away from home (but 3 from 5 at home).

So the stats aren’t really in NZs favour. They have a chance, but not a big one.

Another error to correct – the match wasn’t rain effected (wrong score sheet), but it was a dead match from Australia’s point of view (some players rested) and a live match from Sri Lanka’s point of view.

Netball is basketball gutted and distorted by folk who feared (wrongly) that women were too frail to play proper basketball, so they outlawed every natural tendency in the game and left a travesty, which (sadly) substitutes for the real thing in certain quarters of the former Empire.

Opinion noted.

I grew up watching AFL, Union and Netty on the weekends. In my late teens early twenties I played mixed netball, there is nothing frail about it at all. My opinion is that you don’t know what the f*** you’re talking about.

I saw the oldest world record still extant (a highly dubious 400m by Marita Koch, Canberra 1985)

Isn’t Jarmila Kratochvílová’s 800 m in Munich in 1983 the oldest world record? Last time I checked only one person since has run within a second of the record. I believe she only ran the 800 that day because of leg cramps that kept her from running the 400. Kratochvílová also held the 400 record before Koch. They are the only two women to run under 48 seconds in the event

Well, that was a disappointing final. Derrida Decider nailed it.

One might not like them much – in part because they always want to win and so often do – but Australia’s cricket is awesome, often beautiful (as with the Glenn Maxwell run out. That made the game for me.)

And (as I remember 1985 through the mists of time) some enormous javelin throws in the last days of the old implement, before they changed it so it wouldn’t go so far – for the protection of other athletes and spectators!

Atticus Dogsbody @ 56

I wish we could get a mixed CT netball team together and get Dr ngo to play. My netball days are really over, but I think I could manage a game just to see the look on Dr ngo’s face when he realises what a fast game netball really is.

@ 65
Well I’m not much younger (coy for professional reasons rather than vanity) and I’ve got bung knees (partly from playing netball) so age isn’t much of a reason here.

As regards being pointless, the point of netball is exactly the same as most other team sports – to get more points (goals) than the opposing team.

@67
You win all the points