Cricket thread (stylo posting alone)

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some recent matches i watched

New Zealand 264-9 defeats Netherlands 146, 2nd ODI, 4/2/2022
Highlights

OK but this scoreline lies about how the match went really. New Zealand are the top ranked ODI side in the world, while Netherlands are #14 and not even a full member of the ICC (international cricket council). Yet for a second there it looked like Netherlands had NZ utterly on the ropes. Look at the fall of wicket:
1-22 (4.1 ov)
2-25 (5.2 ov)
3-30 ! (7.5 ov)
4-31 !! (8.3 ov)
5-32 :bangbang: :bangbang: (9.4 ov)
6-89 :open_mouth:
7-179 :frowning:

At the end of the day, only a brilliant 140* by captain Latham managed to right the ship for the NZ innings. Unfortunately once they got above 210 it was unlikely NED would ever match their score.

Still, between scoring 200+ on NZ in the last match, and taking them to 32-5 in this match, I hope more cricketing nations start to pay attention to the Netherlands.

Australia 210 defeated by Pakistan 214/1, 3rd ODI, 4/2/2022
Highlights

Okay so basically Babar Azam is 27 years old, captain of Pakistan, and he is an ODI god. The series has gone like this:

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Azam’s scores have gone like this:

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Yeah, that’s just since the beginning of March. In 8 innings across all formats he has 6 fifties, 3 centuries, and 1 almost-200. If you add his last ODI before that (a 158 against England in July 2021) he has 3 centuries in his last 4 ODIs.

In the last match, which Pak won with 9 wickets and 12 overs in hand, Babar made sweet spot contact with the ball for 101 pitches in a row

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Definition of locked in. He has 16 ODI hundreds in 84 matches - 2nd alltime for Pakistanis - the #1 spot has 20 hundreds in 244 matches. Did I mention he’s 27?

ICC Women’s World Cup Final, Australia 356/5 defeats England 285
This one just ended so no highlights yet but it’s worth searching youtube.

356 is not like a… normal score to get in a one-day international. It’s kind of an absurd score, led by Alyssa Healy’s 170 not out. Watched this one live just marveling at the batting clinic on display, the bowlers were swearing at each other, the fielders, the ground… Healy did this shot that was like, she falls on her stomach while also hitting the ball over her shoulder to the boundary for 4 runs. She did it like 5 times through the course of the innings. She also kept dancing like 2 feet backwards right before the bowler delivered the ball, as if to say, “Here’s the wicket now hit it!” They did not hit it. By the end she just seemed like she was taking risks for the hell of it, like when you score 70 on the CPU in Madden so you just start running Shotgun All Streaks and blitzing every play.

I didn’t watch England bat, it looks like Nat Sciver had a really valiant 148* in the run chase, but you’re basically never going to catch up to a score like 356. (unless you’re Babar Azam, see: 2nd ODI above)

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P.S. am really loving the fact that ESPN+ carries so many cricket matches, between IPL, Team India, New Zealand, and ICC events… pretty good stuff round the clock. Worth a look if you already have it, if not, it’s $7 a month.

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let’s take a moment to remember the finest slow bowler of his decade, a.j. raffles
0-The Amateur Cracksman.avi_snapshot_06.54_2022.04.03_12.04.07

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why was he on craggy island

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the 1800s, the last time an englishman was the finest anything

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this guy is 36 years old. wont see that in baseball

csk finally learns how to bat, wins game. who knew

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movie rules & is shorter than a test match, big recommendation

another thing to watch is the Bodyline miniseries, a dramatisation about the 1932/33 Ashes (Eng. vs Aus.) tour where the poms figured the only way to stop the Don was to play the man (bowl aiming for the batsman rather than the wicket) so that they’d either nick the ball defending themselves for an easy catch, or retire hurt. drove a wedge between the two countries, affecting trade and diplomatic relations. it’s not on Netflix tho

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two more cricket movie options

83 – is on netflix. an only somewhat shmaltzy biopic/docudrama style movie on the 1983 world cup winning Indian cricket team, who were massive underdogs and not expected to win a single match.

i thought it was a solid 3 star type of movie, it does come off kind of like a connection of real-life anecdotes with the tenuous through line of the tournament, but worth watching for how spot on they got the casting. pretty much every character is exactly how they were IRL and they sometimes even got the cricketers’ sons to play them, etc. uncanny resemblances, they even had them train in cricket for 6 months to perfectly match the players’ actual bowling and batting motions

it’s also decently funny and charming

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and since the west indies are some of the main antagonists of 83…

Fire in Babylon

can watch on youtube (part 1 + part 2). tells the story of how the West Indies cricket team, uniting disparate island nations in the 60’s in the wake of british colonialism, came together to develop a powerhouse that lifted the black pride movement in the islands, went unbeaten in Tests for 15 years straight, and just basically showed the world “slaves whipping the asses of masters” in the ‘gentlemanly sport’.

as a british letterboxd review says: “These men had a grudge and not just a cricket grudge. They wanted revenge for history and i don’t think the English realised it - in fact i know we didn’t.”

good to pair with the book on the same topic by famous Marxist author CLR James, Beyond a Boundary, dissecting anti-colonialism, black power and social movements in West Indies cricket

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played a cricket video gaem

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new cricket 22 post
https://selectbutton.net/t/games-you-played-today-ver-1-22474487139/12334/1748

addendum: fuck joe root. i’m just now hearing about azeem rafiq’s allegations of racism against yorkshire and root’s halfass defense looks pretty shit

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alternate take on Joe Root’s time as england’s captain + social justice
(just announced that ben stokes will be his replacement)

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reading about T Natarajan, fast bowler who came out of a tiny village in Tamil Nadu, thru the Tamil Nadu Premier League, then the state team, then Indian Premier League… he only played with a tennis ball until age 20, initially only dreamed of playing for the state, but ended up getting called up for the India team in their series in Australia last year… contributed greatly with the ball and India ended up winning the series

a pretty inspiring life story

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R Ashwin is India’s best spin bowler currently… getting a kick out of his youtube channel which is sort of a “behind the music” of cricket. some great anecdotes in this one about India’s history-making test match series win against Australia in Sydney (Jan’21)

[Ashwin and Vihari at bat, day 5 of a close match, taking their scheduled water break]
[teammate Shardul Thakur runs out from the dressing room. pants, out of breath]
Ash: what did they say man? spit it out!
Shardul: Coach told me to tell you all sorts of stuff [panting]
Ash: Yes please tell us…
Shardul: I’m not going to say any of it. You guys are already doing a great job. So, please continue.

Pujara really took a beating in that innings

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enjoyed this website which writes up analytics of test cricket and english county cricket

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lol

really into this idea of ‘false shot percentage’ i.e. the percent of time a batter plays a shot they didn’t mean to play.
“runs per not-in-control shot” are a very interesting assessment of how different batters take their risks in an innings

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i went researching some guy i got out in my cricket 22 save, and i stumbled upon a very interesting piece of sports labor law

The Bosman ruling in 1995 declared that, in accordance with the EC Treaty regarding freedom of movement for workers, no resident of the European Union should be restricted from working in another part of the EU on the grounds of their nationality. For example, a German football team could not be prevented from signing a Greek player, because both nations are members of the EU.

Maroš Kolpak was a Slovak handball player. At that time, Slovakia was not an EU member, but did have an Association Agreement with the EU.

Kolpak was ejected by his club in 2000 because they had filled their quota of two non-EU players. Kolpak challenged the German Handball Association, claiming that Rule 15, by treating him differently from German citizens, placed an illegal restriction on his freedom of movement as a worker. The German Handball Association held that equality of treatment did not apply to non-EU citizens.

The case was referred to the European Court of Justice. The Court ruled in favour of Kolpak.

Cricket

In practice, the decision allowed English county cricket clubs to employ the services of a multitude of overseas cricketers, especially from South Africa. Prior to the Kolpak ruling ECB rules had limited each county to one overseas (non-EU) professional.

There were no other Test cricket nations within the EU, which explains why it was Kolpak, not Bosman, which has had the significant impact on English county cricket. The largest group of countries with an association agreement with the EU is the ACP Group of States, which includes South Africa, Zimbabwe, and many of the nations that supply the West Indies cricket team.

The English and Wales Cricket Board ruled that a player must not have represented their own country for over twelve months in order to qualify for Kolpak status, but after South African Jacques Rudolph signed for Yorkshire, they admitted that this rule was unenforceable.

In an effort to combat the influx of Kolpak players, the ECB linked central payments to the number of English qualified players – every game a Kolpak player played instead of an English qualified player, a county received £1,100 less from the ECB. … However, counties chose to continue to sign foreign players, rather than maximise their handout from the ECB.

The influx reached a peak in 2008 when, during a match between Northants and Leicestershire, half the players on the field were from non-EU countries.

… After the UK withdrew from the European Union at the end of 2020, the Kolpak ruling ceased to have any effect there.

Kolpak ruling - Wikipedia

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stokesy playing first class matches like it’s t20!

there’s actually some interesting analytics i saw on the impact of t20 on test/first class batting, tl;dr it’s depressed averages. let me find the link

On the decline of Test Batting being driven by T20 – Red Ball Data

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this article is kind of wild – you see a guy score 63 off 49 balls in a T20 and you’re disappointed by his “conservative approach”. 128 strike rate is middle of the pack now! harder to find a clearer snapshot of how T20 has changed the game

“I’d like to see one more gear,” Bishop noted on ESPNcricinfo’s T20 Time:Out. "The traditional anchor doesn’t sit well with me. It’s just a personal thing, and I could be totally wrong. The guys I think anchor an innings well are Jos Buttler, below that a KL Rahul…guys who can go at maybe 120-125 and then tee off towards the back end and end with something over 140, maybe even 150. "

can’t say that he’s wrong really, that is kind of the best sort of innings in T20.

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Ukraine, though torn by war, is making a pitch for Associate membership of the ICC (espncricinfo.com)

As much as these are first-hand accounts of war, there is underlying context about how cricket now spreads around the world. These days cricket goes where the subcontinental migrant/refugee/expat takes it with them, a piece of home, some emotional luggage, whether that be to Germany, UAE, Oman, Norway, Hong Kong or any country where cricket is now a formal, recognised sport.

And largely this unintended evangelism - a by-product really - goes unsung and unacknowledged. Very often, in countries where these people end up playing for national sides, it is derided and seen as harmful, as if their playing cricket in and for a country they are not necessarily citizens of is a stain on them and on cricket. This is a central tension in Associate-world cricket: expat player bad, home-grown good. It’s far too reductive in a world where identity has never been more fluid or transient and a passport a wholly inadequate means to define or capture it. Using that kind of binary to understand anything is misplaced.

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Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh test match day 1 just started if the homies want something to put on in the background

it will be on for… the next 8 hours… and the next four days after that lol

oshada fernando out the gate hitting 4s, already at 10 off 9 balls

cc @scratchmonkey

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