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Cannon82

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A culture of "win at all costs" was what Steve Waugh created, Australian cricket always had a culture of competitiveness, Waugh united his team under the guise of the rest of the cricketing world being the enemy. Perfectly possible to be a ruthless, brilliant cricket side without needing Waugh's baggy green jingoism.

Clearly Waugh placed a high value on winning. As for the rest of your statement, wat are you on about? Other lifelong failures such as Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, etc utilized the "us vs them" mentality to galvanize a group of players. There's nothing wrong with it. Others tried to replicate it and failed. In either case, that isn't the reason Australian Cricket is in the state it's currently in. I'd suggest cutting back on the rampant speculation. Occam's Razor, yes?

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the reason for lack of quality is down to a dwindling talent pool combined with enshrining lack of competitiveness at grass roots level. Who would have thought that teaching kids that everyone deserves a go and everyone deserves a medal wouldn't be conducive to producing elite talent? It must come as a tremendous surprise that making a short hit and giggle format the flagship of the game has resulted in a significant number of cricketers having no patience, no technique, no footwork and no inclination to do anything about it. Blaming what Steve Waugh did 20 years ago is one of the longest bows I've seen drawn on here for quite some time, and I've read many of your posts. It's not rocket science - we are less active, less people are playing cricket and less people are playing competitively.
 
I heard the other day that since Marcus Harris' debut in 2011, no-one had scored more domestic first class runs than him over that time. He averages 35 - and that was only boosted by his last 2 shield innings.

WA have an opening batsman (Wells) who averages 24 from 54 first class games and got picked again despite making 46 runs from 4 innings so far this year. And Will Bosisto averages less than 20 from 18 matches and has got a game this week after making bugger all in his previous game.

20 years ago these guys wouldn't have been given any more than about 5 games before being turfed for not scoring enough.

Meanwhile there's blokes scoring hundreds in first grade and they simply don't get a look in.

Geez was this a reverse mockers or what - bloke bats through the day and makes his highest first class score!
 

saj_21

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Clearly Waugh placed a high value on winning. As for the rest of your statement, wat are you on about? Other lifelong failures such as Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, etc utilized the "us vs them" mentality to galvanize a group of players. There's nothing wrong with it. Others tried to replicate it and failed. In either case, that isn't the reason Australian Cricket is in the state it's currently in. I'd suggest cutting back on the rampant speculation. Occam's Razor, yes?

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the reason for lack of quality is down to a dwindling talent pool combined with enshrining lack of competitiveness at grass roots level. Who would have thought that teaching kids that everyone deserves a go and everyone deserves a medal wouldn't be conducive to producing elite talent? It must come as a tremendous surprise that making a short hit and giggle format the flagship of the game has resulted in a significant number of cricketers having no patience, no technique, no footwork and no inclination to do anything about it. Blaming what Steve Waugh did 20 years ago is one of the longest bows I've seen drawn on here for quite some time, and I've read many of your posts. It's not rocket science - we are less active, less people are playing cricket and less people are playing competitively.

100% agree about the grass root level, it must be having some impact. 20 years ago when I was playing under 12s b grade and opened the batting each week. I was never premoted to a grade and the best kids in A grade batted and bowled first each week.

Now I would imagine there is no a or b grade the levels are probably called some non offensive colour and the number 11 opens every second week.
 
Australian cricket is becoming less about performance than it ever was.

Increased emphasis on pathways has seen highly talented players who haven't performed consistently getting preferential treatment to players performing week in and week out, these pathways also have less of an emphasis on declaration based cricket.... which is what Test cricket is.

Mental strength ie. the ability to concentrate & execute skills has always been more important in cricket than the range of skills you can execute.

It's a game of intangibles.
 

Marc_Remillard

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Clearly Waugh placed a high value on winning. As for the rest of your statement, wat are you on about? Other lifelong failures such as Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, etc utilized the "us vs them" mentality to galvanize a group of players. There's nothing wrong with it. Others tried to replicate it and failed. In either case, that isn't the reason Australian Cricket is in the state it's currently in. I'd suggest cutting back on the rampant speculation. Occam's Razor, yes?

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the reason for lack of quality is down to a dwindling talent pool combined with enshrining lack of competitiveness at grass roots level. Who would have thought that teaching kids that everyone deserves a go and everyone deserves a medal wouldn't be conducive to producing elite talent? It must come as a tremendous surprise that making a short hit and giggle format the flagship of the game has resulted in a significant number of cricketers having no patience, no technique, no footwork and no inclination to do anything about it. Blaming what Steve Waugh did 20 years ago is one of the longest bows I've seen drawn on here for quite some time, and I've read many of your posts. It's not rocket science - we are less active, less people are playing cricket and less people are playing competitively.

I can't stand 20/20 cricket and not just for these reasons but it's interesting that it's an Aussie only issue and not replicated everywhere 20/20 is played
 

Cannon82

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I can't stand 20/20 cricket and not just for these reasons but it's interesting that it's an Aussie only issue and not replicated everywhere 20/20 is played

West Indies. The original and the best for completely falling off a cliff edge.
 

Cannon82

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I didn't realise 20/20 existed when they fell off the cliff

I didn't say it was the cause, be all and end all. What point are you trying to make?

T20 is a contributing factor to the Test standard declining. West Indies are the poster child for this because the vast majority of their players appear to be happy to jog around the world attempting to doink every second ball out of the part and bowl 6 different kinds of slower ball every over. They're a dangerous and inconsistent T20 side and a completely useless Test side.

If you're going to play semantics, why is Australia the only nation negatively impacted by T20, or are you thinking that's what I was implying?
 

Marc_Remillard

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I didn't say it was the cause, be all and end all. What point are you trying to make?

T20 is a contributing factor to the Test standard declining. West Indies are the poster child for this because the vast majority of their players appear to be happy to jog around the world attempting to doink every second ball out of the part and bowl 6 different kinds of slower ball every over. They're a dangerous and inconsistent T20 side and a completely useless Test side.

If you're going to play semantics, why is Australia the only nation negatively impacted by T20, or are you thinking that's what I was implying?

What point are you trying to make? We were discussing the effect of 20/20 on the standard of first class cricket, I made the comment that it's strange that Australia has been greatly affected but not other countries. I was pretty much agreeing with you then you made the comment about the West Indies being the best example of the effect of 20/20 cricket.

But the West Indies started their decline after 1995 and by 2000 they had well and truly fallen off the cliff. 20/20 started in 2003 so I have nfi what it has to do with their decline. I really have no idea why you're being such a dick
 

Cannon82

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What point are you trying to make? We were discussing the effect of 20/20 on the standard of first class cricket, I made the comment that it's strange that Australia has been greatly affected but not other countries. I was pretty much agreeing with you then you made the comment about the West Indies being the best example of the effect of 20/20 cricket.

But the West Indies started their decline after 1995 and by 2000 they had well and truly fallen off the cliff. 20/20 started in 2003 so I have nfi what it has to do with their decline. I really have no idea why you're being such a dick

The post you quoted wasn't just about T20. There's no single reason for the why we (or any other nation) have gone from top tier to mediocre. Will always be a number of factors in a decline this drastic otherwise it would be a relatively easy fix.

Your last couple of replies read to me as quite sarcastic, hence my adventure into dickish territory.
 

Marc_Remillard

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The post you quoted wasn't just about T20. There's no single reason for the why we (or any other nation) have gone from top tier to mediocre. Will always be a number of factors in a decline this drastic otherwise it would be a relatively easy fix.

Your last couple of replies read to me as quite sarcastic, hence my adventure into dickish territory.

My post was regarding 20/20, you replied to me with something completely irrelevant which I pointed out. You the following up with a condescending post.

You need to have a nice hot cup of tea and calm down champ

Regardless, it's a boring discussion , my last post on this particular topic of arguing when the West Indies fell off a cliff...
 
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saj_21

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The Windies decline was pre 20/20 but the fact they remain in doldrums is because their cricket board can’t match the pay packets of T20 tournaments around the world.
 

saj_21

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Good bowling performance, batsmen are still a worry. 2-95 to 9-204.
 
Amazing how quiet it got after we actually won a game. Still plenty of concern but the media and us seem to be taking a short break from shitting on Cricket Australia after a win
 
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Amazing how quiet it got after we actually won a game. Still plenty of concern but the media and us seem to be taking a short break from shitting on Cricket Australia after a win
Some people don't bother talking about things unless they can s**t on them ... take the Draft thread as an example.

Still a few concerns, we still can't bat a full 50 overs for example, and we still can't get someone to carry on with a start, but a really good bowling performance highlighted their biggest issue as well ... Their tail starts really early, last time I saw Steyn bat in Aus, he came in at 10/11, last night he came in at 8
 
The problem for the Windies is financial and has been for 20 years. The federation has no money and the national governments don’t care. Moreover, they have seen way more bang for their buck funding other sports - see Jamaica and athletics.

Until the federation can compete with IPL contracts it won’t get anywhere.
 

Cannon82

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Win one game and everything is rosy again? Please. We have a diabolical team. Bowling is okay, batting is deplorable.
 
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