Unpopular Opinions you have (non-football)

[brahj]

Anyway, I have an opinion that seems to be quickly moving into the vast minority. And it's non-football so it can go here.

I'm still an unabashed hater of Twenty20 cricket, in all forms. I have tried to like it and get into it, I really have. But I just can't.

I hear you. I've always argued to my friends that Cricket is supposed to be boring, there aren't supposed to be lights in the stumps, or fireworks on the boundary etc. It's a gentleman's game that in my opinion should be played for an entire day minimum. Tests are where it's at.

 

[Gough]

Mike Coward made the point that one day cricket has had fifty years to develop some sort of lore, and had largely failed to do so. When I sit at a Test match, I'm part of something that has been going on for nearly one hundred, and fifty years, and has a rich tradition, and culture. No amount of zinger bails can replicate that.

 

[Doss]

It just really grates for me that there will grow up an entire generation of kids who think that a game of cricket that goes longer than four hours is too long.

There's no subtlety in T20. It's just crash, bash, boof, hoof. One of the joys of Test cricket is watching two titans of the game go hammer and tongs for half a day or more. Think of battles like Warne v Pietersen, McGrath v Lara, Ambrose v Border...you get the idea. You don't get that in T20...T20 would consist of Lara playing two outrageous shots followed by trying to scoop a middle stump yorker and inevitably missing and being bowled.

I guess I'm a purist, I like settling in to watch a battle with the subtexts of smaller battles within the bigger, broader one...and T20 just doesn't allow for that and never will.

 

[Gough]

It transcends anything. It doesn't matter who you sleep with, vote for, or worship, you can talk about the day Merv hit Courtney Walsh over the Vic's last ball before tea, and nothing else matters.

 

[Doss]

It transcends anything. It doesn't matter who you sleep with, vote for, or worship, you can talk about the day Merv hit Courtney Walsh over the Vic's last ball before tea, and nothing else matters.

Yep. I can still remember where I was watching when Warne took his 300th wicket by bowling Kallis in Sydney in 1998, in the midst of wrecking the Proteas and winning the game for us.

I sure as hell couldn't tell you where I was when Travis Head hit five 6s (I have no idea if he even has, I'm just using poetic licence) in an over. For me it's just one forgettable game after another.

Sadly, I fear the non-event that the series against the Windies was, combined with the fact you had T20 bubbling at the same time, might prove to be a very telling moment in the pendulum swing towards the shorter form of the game at the expense of Tests.

 

[Off The Couch]

It's like most things now - No one wants to have to wait for a result - they want an immediate outcome. Test crowds were dropping substantially and something had to be done as it (cricket) could of died all together. In a time where money comes before everything the demise of the test will continue IMO - Donald Bradman would be turning in his grave

 

[Xtreme]

Sadly, I fear the non-event that the series against the Windies was, combined with the fact you had T20 bubbling at the same time, might prove to be a very telling moment in the pendulum swing towards the shorter form of the game at the expense of Tests.

It already is swinging that way, I mean CA are scheduling BBL, giving it priority over the shield and domestic 50 over comp.

 

[Doss]

It already is swinging that way, I mean CA are scheduling BBL, giving it priority over the shield and domestic 50 over comp.

Oh, definitely. The swing that way has been appreciable for a while.

I just suspect that this summer has accelerated it at the rate of knots.

 

[Gough]

My old man, and I still talk about going to Sydney for Warnie's first Test, and sagely agreeing that he'd be no good. Cricket was one of the few things we could talk about without fighting for a long time.

 

[edgie]

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing during Warne's last test, running errands with my older brother for his band organising a gig, we visited like 4 households collecting equipment and all had the test on.

 

[Gough]

I was coming down off e the morning he announced his retirement.

 

[Quivorir]

I remember I wasn't watching the cricket, nor was I caring.

 

[Doss]

I remember I wasn't watching the cricket, nor was I caring.

With opinions that edgy I almost had you mistaken you for someone else!

 

[Plugger35]

My old man, and I still talk about going to Sydney for Warnie's first Test, and sagely agreeing that he'd be no good. Cricket was one of the few things we could talk about without fighting for a long time.

Warne got hammered in his first test, I think he had figures like 0/150 or something and I remember thinking he'd never make it as a test spinner either.

It wasn't until the West Indies series about a year later where he bowled Australia to victory that he established himself in the team and people realised he was going to be something special.

 

[Freofalcon]

Warne got hammered in his first test, I think he had figures like 0/150 or something and I remember thinking he'd never make it as a test spinner either.

It wasn't until the West Indies series about a year later where he bowled Australia to victory that he established himself in the team and people realised he was going to be something special.

Ravi Shastri took a real liking to him.

Warnies first tour of Sri Lanka finally cemented his place in the side.

 

[edgie]

With opinions that edgy I almost had you mistaken you for someone else!

Excuse moi?

 

[Hudu Gurusingha]

The NBL makes me cringe

 

[placebo]

It just really grates for me that there will grow up an entire generation of kids who think that a game of cricket that goes longer than four hours is too long.

There's no subtlety in T20. It's just crash, bash, boof, hoof. One of the joys of Test cricket is watching two titans of the game go hammer and tongs for half a day or more. Think of battles like Warne v Pietersen, McGrath v Lara, Ambrose v Border...you get the idea. You don't get that in T20...T20 would consist of Lara playing two outrageous shots followed by trying to scoop a middle stump yorker and inevitably missing and being bowled.

I guess I'm a purist, I like settling in to watch a battle with the subtexts of smaller battles within the bigger, broader one...and T20 just doesn't allow for that and never will.

Couldn't agree more. I'll always remember the amazing Adelaide test in the 2006/07 Ashes. There's not a single T20 game I'll ever remember the same way. It's a shallow form of the game.

 

[Marklar_33]

Couldn't agree more. I'll always remember the amazing Adelaide test in the 2006/07 Ashes. There's not a single T20 game I'll ever remember the same way. It's a shallow form of the game.

Yep. I can watch BBL, and hope it succeeds. It's better TV than most other things, but T20 Internationals I just cannot cop. I went to bed bored at 0/62 off 6 overs in the chase. There's only so much slogging I can take!

 

[Plugger35]

Yep. I can watch BBL, and hope it succeeds. It's better TV than most other things, but T20 Internationals I just cannot cop. I went to bed bored at 0/62 off 6 overs in the chase. There's only so much slogging I can take!

It doesn't help that the T20 Internationals have the Ch9 muppets commentating, the commentators on Ch10 for the BBL are heaps better.

 

[the_interloper]

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing during Warne's last test, running errands with my older brother for his band organising a gig, we visited like 4 households collecting equipment and all had the test on.

I smoked a bowl and watched every day of that test.

 

[edgie]

I smoked a bowl and watched every day of that test.

Did some skinny mulleted kid in an AC/DC shirt turn up to borrow a head unit?

 

[edgie]

I don't watch a lot of TV.

I mean, I do watch television, things like sport, movies, documentaries, rage, game shows, late night telemarketing when too drunk to know better, but actual TV shows. In a time when it seems everybody knows every tidbit from Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones, True Detective, Seinfeld and other sitcom reruns, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and whatever else has a cult like following (is almost everybody a cult though?), I just can't be overly bothered to sit down and dedicatedly watch TV.

 

[DaVillaBlues]

Shane Warne is a pig of a human being (not just with his cricket behaviour, charity scam, sleazy philandering and disgraceful and ignorant abuse of Adam Goodes on twitter etc)

The fact he is regarded as a national sporting icon/hero makes me sick.

 

[edgie]

Maybe he is regarded as a sporting icon because in an international sport, he is the best ever at what he does?

Compared to say, AFL players like Wayne Carey or Leigh Matthews, Warne is both an angel and a more accomplished sportsperson.