Can ESPN please bring Women’s Cricket back?

Those with a more selective attention span can listen to the BBC Radio 5 commentary and then when something happens within a minute or two you can usually get a short video replay either on BBC-Sport-cricket or on U-Tube. Considering that the UK matches overlap much of the U.S. workday, I find this approach sucks up less bandwidth and increases the amount of work I can get done…that said, its a much more casual approach.

Ages ago (mid 90s) I lived about a block from Lords and still have fond memories of watching matches on TV with my window open so I could hear the crowd roar seconds before watching the out or lbw on TV…almost as good as being there and I had Geoffry Boycott’s instant analysis to boot.

Managed to go a few times too, but usually couldn’t spare the whole day except on a Sunday – as bad as England was at the time by Sunday it was usually a done deal.

The Internet has made it possible to watch other sports that have small US audiences, too. YouTube has hours and hours of championship snooker, three-cushion billiards, and the more arcane varieties of US pool, such as one-pocket. I haven’t yet worked out how to get live, real-time snooker, which I know is shown on the BBC, but that’s OK with me; the 2015 World Championship, held in May, was up on Youtube by some time in June. And because the US daily press doesn’t cover cue sports, I was in just as much suspense about the results as if I had been watching the matches in the Crucible.

@4
Mr. Boycott said any number of things which were outrageous or ridiculous, but I can’t recollect him ever using a profanity or being bleeped.

I don’t know why there was a lag – maybe it was just a live TV thing – but there was definitely a lag and as a result I never missed a play.

Sometimes I have imagined myself abroad, in Europe, when an important baseball game at home was playing. I have imagined myself in a lucky place where the American game was being shown for some reason, and I got to be in “the right place” to watch. Really, this is one of my recurrent imaginings. Don’t know what it says about me, or about games, or about summertime, or about imagining.

Re Healy,
given who his niece is, it is not surprising that he might support Women’s test cricket.
Perhaps he is human enough to suffer from some cognitive dissidence.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia/content/player/275486.html

Great pair of quotes from Selvey. He should be sacked. That last day of the lost Sri Lanka test — esp when Ali and Anderson were together, but Ali all day long — was a perfect example of what makes test cricket so thrilling. (And: all these people bemoaning how the England and Australia teams are incapable of digging in — none of them seem to remember Moeen’s innings last year. I think he’s going to get dropped, soon, despite being #3 in the batting averages, and that only because batting at 8 he has to make runs as fast as possible and get out before he loses his partners).

Healy. He talked about his niece with utter excitement. To be fair to him, as well, it was a single sentence, and the the tms piece he said that he thought families should be on tour, but that measures should be taken to ensure that the single guys spend plenty of time with the other guys (and maybe with their families). Derek Randall, apparently, pined for his wife throughout every tour (you can hear it in his Desert Island Discs) and, good as he was, I’ve heard at least 2 teammates say he’d have scored hundreds more runs if he’d had his family with him on tours.

@harry b

I can’t see Moin Ali getting dropped any time soon. He’s the most stylish batsman on both teams in this Ashes series, and his batting has been as consistent as anyone else’s despite, as you say, his need to make quick runs. His bowling is more a bit of variety, but he has picked up wickets and I can’t think of an out-and-out spinner in county cricket who is likely to replace him.

Finally a thread on here I can contribute to with some expert knowledge!

The problem with running womens’ games as a twofer in soccer is that most people simply do not want to sit in a football stadium for 4 hours — as evidenced by the audiences at the double-headers at the WWC in Canada, and on a local level, I’ve seen it fail with Doncaster Belles, who did it a few times last season with really limited success; they are having more luck with offering mens’ team season ticket holders access to a few womens’ games instead.

The FA has also now insisted, I think, that all WSL teams are affiliated with a mens’ team, in order to draw on their supporters. This has worked pretty well except for the fact that most top-flight womens’ teams don’t play at stadiums anywhere near the mens’ team stadium. Arsenal play up at Borehamwood, an hour’s tedious slog from the Emirates. Bristol play in the arse-end of Filton. Chelsea play in Staines. The teams with the best attendances this season? Man City, whose womens’ ground is right next door to the Etihad, and Notts County, who are the only top-flight team to play at the same ground as the men.

What appears to be working for the WSL now is a combination of a block-grant from the FA of £70k per team, 27 players on central FA contracts (£20.5k salary) for England, and the TV money brought in by BT Sport screening a dozen games over the course of the season. That’s allowing more and more teams to train full-time, raising professionalism and giving a lot of spectators a pleasant surprise when they tune into a game. The matches themselves also manage a very family-friendly atmosphere, with mixed seating and cheap tickets. It’s a virtuous circle, but it needs a gestalt from outside to pump the initial money in to make it viable.

My worry about Moeen is that people talk about him as if he is a bowler who bats, which he is clearly not. Warne commented that he would have him opening the batting in the UAE, and I’ve been thinking that much of this series — replace Lyth with Moeen, and Moeen with Adil. He has the flair of a Gower and the grit of a Tavare;

But… the absence of a really top flight spinner is a problem for them whenever they’re not playing in England, and Moeen is, as TJ says, unlikely to become that. Though — who knows, playing on a wicket that actually favours spin might help him (and he’s a good player of spin too).

I thought of running a thread last year on the wrist-bands affair. What was so nice about that was the way some of the crusty old conservative players talked about it — Ian Chappell, for example — I groaned at what I imagined he would say, but in fact he pointed out the hypocrisy of the rules (they honored WWI combatants in that very match), and said that Ali had made his point, because everyone was talking about it and something like “good on him”.

@18
After today’s collapse Moeen will be the least of the potential replacements. Lyth is toast for sure, he was on the hot seat anyway. I don’t think Butler is too secure either.

Don’t have much to add on the women’s cricket. I’ve not really watched, not for lack of interest, just bandwidth. Sorta the same as women’s FA, the WNBA or the LPGA – nothing wrong with any of them – but any sport needs something or someone that makes you want to watch. It may be my own ignorance, but I’ve not become aware of such an athlete that makes me want to tune in or makes me think “can’t miss it.”

Men’s sports suffer this too. Look at the ratings for mens tennis, PGA golf ex-majors, formula one….all need an icon to draw the eyeballs.

@ harryb

Ian Chappell is probably one of the most decent commentators out there, his image as a tough and possibly unpleasant opponent outweighed by some of his very progressive opinions on issues such as Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and his involvement in recognition for Aboriginal cricketers.

Igor Belanov @17
I’m not sure that the takeover of women’s football by men’s football teams is on net a bad thing. One thing it does mean is more professional support staff and more financial stability. If you ask the elite women’s players themselves, I doubt if they would agree with you.

But what women’s football badly needs is professional referees. Refereeing is difficult and error prone at all levels, but the referee’s in the women’s game are a joke.