Unpopular Cricket Opinions

May 5, 2016
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As a cricketing contest, The Ashes are overrated and oversimplify test cricket for Australians.

The Pakistan series in the UAE now seems like it never happened.


Agree entirely. Remove 2005 from the equation, and who can think of a genuinely riveting contest either way?

In my opinion over the last 20 years the best cricket Australia has played in terms of overall standard from both teams has been with India and South Africa, by some distance. Heck, in that time the West Indies have had as many captivating series against Australia as England have. If it weren’t a 3 match series against a low profile opponent the Sri Lanka series of 03(?) where the hosts led every first innings and Australia somehow won 3-0 on the back of Damien Martin against a formidable home attack was even right up there.

The ashes ftl
 
Last nights BBL coverage on SEN the female commentator was educating the two male colleagues on the evolution of and introduction of gender neutral terms in cricket. It came about when they were discussing 3rd man. She said "3rd". The others questioned her, and she retorted that just remove "man" from the equation. The lexicon is evolving and changing. Other examples were batter and fielder. However she acknowledged that in the UK female commentators still used 3rd man, fieldsmen and batsman etc.


Another one, when experts argue that messers s waugh, warne, healy worked so we can bring in players with limited shield experience/games into the test arena. How about all those who came and went with equal or similar lack of experience?
 

corbies

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Last nights BBL coverage on SEN the female commentator was educating the two male colleagues on the evolution of and introduction of gender neutral terms in cricket. It came about when they were discussing 3rd man. She said "3rd". The others questioned her, and she retorted that just remove "man" from the equation. The lexicon is evolving and changing. Other examples were batter and fielder. However she acknowledged that in the UK female commentators still used 3rd man, fieldsmen and batsman etc.


Another one, when experts argue that messers s waugh, warne, healy worked so we can bring in players with limited shield experience/games into the test arena. How about all those who came and went with equal or similar lack of experience?
What's the opinion?
 
Feb 6, 2013
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Last nights BBL coverage on SEN the female commentator was educating the two male colleagues on the evolution of and introduction of gender neutral terms in cricket. It came about when they were discussing 3rd man. She said "3rd". The others questioned her, and she retorted that just remove "man" from the equation. The lexicon is evolving and changing. Other examples were batter and fielder. However she acknowledged that in the UK female commentators still used 3rd man, fieldsmen and batsman etc.


Another one, when experts argue that messers s waugh, warne, healy worked so we can bring in players with limited shield experience/games into the test arena. How about all those who came and went with equal or similar lack of experience?
When is the lexicon going to get around to removing the man from woman?
 

strewthcobber

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My unpopular opinion is I quite like the gender neutral terms, batter, bowler etc and think the sport will be better off for the change.

That it pisses off some, and reveals a fair bit about those some, is just an added bonus

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
 
Feb 6, 2013
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My unpopular opinion is I quite like the gender neutral terms, batter, bowler etc and think the sport will be better off for the change.

That it pisses off some, and reveals a fair bit about those some, is just an added bonus

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
Arbitrarily mangling language with no real structure or convention, and then acting like anyone who is anything from annoyed to unenthusiastic is just trojan horsing their virulent misogyny is an asinine position to hold.

I don't disagree with it in principle, but the fact its strongest proponents always seem to value the fact it "triggers" people, Trump style, and divert to calling the other side sexist, makes me question whether it was ever meant to be a constructive initiative in the first place.

EDIT: Post is too strong as a response to your post, more a general scream into the void than directed at you cobber.
 
Last edited:

Oaktree

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Jan 5, 2014
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My unpopular opinion is I quite like the gender neutral terms, batter, bowler etc and think the sport will be better off for the change.

That it pisses off some, and reveals a fair bit about those some, is just an added bonus

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
The gender neutral terms have merit, however the term batter absolutely sucks.

If we can think of a suitable replacement, I am all for the gender neutrality. The same applies for fielding positions and anything else male centric.

It may be a case of finding practical sounding terms for women's cricket than the male terms being problematic and in need of change.
 

big_e

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Arbitrarily mangling language with no real structure or convention, and then acting like anyone who is anything from annoyed to unenthusiastic is just trojan horsing their virulent misogyny is an asinine position to hold.

I don't disagree with it in principle, but the fact its strongest proponents always seem to value the fact it "triggers" people, Trump style, and divert to calling the other side sexist, makes me question whether it was ever meant to be a constructive initiative in the first place.

EDIT: Post is too strong as a response to your post, more a general scream into the void than directed at you cobber.
It would be ridiculous to call a fielding position in a women's sport "third man". And if you don't think so, imagine if it was called "third woman" in the men's game - it's nuts. So the easiest solution is to drop the gender and just call it "third" in the women's game. Then you are left with a fielding position being called different names depending on who is playing it, which also doesn't make sense. So either come up with a different name altogether - which I don't like - or you just call it "third" for everyone. It sounds silly on it's own, but frankly a lot of fielding positions sound silly.

For batter - batswoman is unwieldy so the logical thing is to say batter when it's a woman. And again, why call it something different for the men, so let's call them batter as well. (Also, the person bowling is called a bowler, so why wouldn't the person batting be a batter?)

I'll leave the gender wars stuff aside, that's not my bag.
 
Feb 6, 2013
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It would be ridiculous to call a fielding position in a women's sport "third man". And if you don't think so, imagine if it was called "third woman" in the men's game - it's nuts. So the easiest solution is to drop the gender and just call it "third" in the women's game. Then you are left with a fielding position being called different names depending on who is playing it, which also doesn't make sense. So either come up with a different name altogether - which I don't like - or you just call it "third" for everyone. It sounds silly on it's own, but frankly a lot of fielding positions sound silly.

For batter - batswoman is unwieldy so the logical thing is to say batter when it's a woman. And again, why call it something different for the men, so let's call them batter as well. (Also, the person bowling is called a bowler, so why wouldn't the person batting be a batter?)

I'll leave the gender wars stuff aside, that's not my bag.
The problem is that man is historically (archaically really) the default term for a person, with woman used when specifying that someone is female. However while now women are now as prominent in society as men the 'man as default unless otherwise important' is outdated, the entire language is structured around that convention, so violating it just sounds odd to ears conditioned to accept that convention.

Now, there is an argument that this represents inherent sexism in the language, and I really don't have a problem with trying to address that, my gripe is with people trying to equate feeling like it sounds weird to dance around the convention with people feeling like women are inferior. While that is of course the case in some cases, I think in general it's more like the reaction one has when hearing a disconcordant note in a piece of music. Even if one knows nothing about language or music I think one can subconsciously notice a convention not being followed.
 

Caesar

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Language evolves, and gender-neutral terms are just a reflection of the times. I'll probably always call it a batsman, but I am sure in my lifetime the common nomenclature will become batter. C'est la vie.

I don't really understand why people get bent out of shape about language changing. I can't say I've ever thought the heritage of cricket has suffered by the fact that nobody calls a googly a bosie any more.
 
Language evolves, and gender-neutral terms are just a reflection of the times. I'll probably always call it a batsman, but I am sure in my lifetime the common nomenclature will become batter. C'est la vie.

I don't really understand why people get bent out of shape about language changing. I can't say I've ever thought the heritage of cricket has suffered by the fact that nobody calls a googly a bosie any more.

tenor.png


;)
 
May 5, 2016
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Language evolves, and gender-neutral terms are just a reflection of the times. I'll probably always call it a batsman, but I am sure in my lifetime the common nomenclature will become batter. C'est la vie.

I don't really understand why people get bent out of shape about language changing. I can't say I've ever thought the heritage of cricket has suffered by the fact that nobody calls a googly a bosie any more.

On the flip side, no one ever got bent out of shape when it was still called a bosie either. Barely anyone knows who bosenquet is so no one is going to care now. This is a little different as the proposed change is being mooted on the pretence of offence.
 
Oh by the way, during commentary the female (i dont know who it is, but guessing Lisa Sthalekar or Mel Jones) said this batter etc thing was driven by the players, and the media are coming around to it now.

She also instructed her colleagues that if they do say "batsman" don't stop and correct themselves, just let it go and move on, and next time try to use "batter"
 
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