1st Test; Australia v Pakistan @ The Gabba November 21-25

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May 5, 2016
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Last summer the most popular team on the planet started the last day in Perth 5-125 with an improbably but still outside chance of winning the test, at a world class venue in a city that is - I think - bigger than Brisbane, and drew 10k.
 

prophetic1

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Unfortunately India pay the bills in test cricket now, just look at our matches against Pakistan.

Terrible crowds, terrible ratings.. we NEED to play India and England or CA will go broke
They need to play quality teams too, don't they? Otherwise there's little value in playing with themselves..... in the sense they need to compete or it all eventualy folds,,,,im sure they might enjoy playing with themselves, none the less competing against us and others is an avenue they use to acquire a degree of socio/economic credit/note in their role as the sub continental parvenu...........Hence we can afford to apply a little energy to at least not appear as though we bend over with such joy...
 
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Has it been lost on everyone that this crowd was bigger than the one in Gilchrist’s debut against the same opposition 20 years ago?
This isn’t exactly an out of the blue occurrence
Not super invested in comparing, but population increase has to be taken into account when comparing crowd sizes. The population of the whole of Queensland was about 3.5 million as of 2000 census data, as of 2018 its 5 million with 2.5 million in Brisbane metropolitan area.
 

deanc

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In the past 100 years, how many times has the MCG gotten 6k crowds for a game? You keep changing the goal posts.

Small crowds can also happen in the AFL at the MCG, when you combine poor scheduling against a team with a small supporter base.
The Hawks v GWS Mothers Day match this year (at the G) was played in front of just 13k. Embarrassing turn out as a Hawks member but really, Mothers Day on a cold Sunday afternoon, what did the AFL expect?

My niece was there and said it's the only match she's attended where she could hear the players talking to each other on the ground...
 

StingBitten

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This is not the place for it, but I heard we're hosting India here next year.

Why? We played them last year and tend to host them once every 4 years.

We should be due to play the Saffas.
 

deanc

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This is not the place for it, but I heard we're hosting India here next year.

Why? We played them last year and tend to host them once every 4 years.

We should be due to play the Saffas.

I understand it's part of new scheduling related to the ICC World Championship system...
 
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Kappa

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They need to play quality teams too, don't they? Otherwise there's little value in playing with themselves..... in the sense they need to compete or it all eventualy folds,,,,im sure they might enjoy playing with themselves, none the less competing against us and others is an avenue they use to acquire a degree of socio/economic credit/note in their role as the sub continental parvenu...........Hence we can afford to apply a little energy to at least not appear as though we bend over with such joy...

India have 1.3 billion people, they could play Canada and still rake in huge amounts of cash.
 

prophetic1

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India have 1.3 billion people, they could play Canada and still rake in huge amounts of cash.
you missed the point its not about cash as far as they are concerned not when playing us and others its about cudos and prestige....in the parlance of social behaviour its about social climbing in a nationalistic sense. They are an emerging massive populace they need to be achieving in all manner of avenues..they cant let go of that...and if they tried they may still make fortunes within their own borders but they then loose much much more. so yes you quite missed the line and length.
 

Doodlesweaver

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For a long time with Sharma the pervading view was that he was perpetually unlucky and beat the bat a lot where others would draw the edge. That turned to ‘well maybe there’s a bit more to it than bad luck’ but maybe now looking back, the original view was the correct one
He was always seemingly the first quick picked for the dead Indian wickets and the first dropped overseas when he would have thrived too so that might have had an impact
Heard a funny interview with him when he bounced England out in England, I think it was first test 3 years ago or so? When asked about bowling bouncers, he said, 'I didn't want to, I wanted to bowl properly but the captain told me I had to, and if the captain says so you have to do it, so I bowled bouncers' or something along those lines, and he still didn't look happy about it, even though he'd taken a five for and pretty much helped win the match for India.

Dhoni confirmed that he'd made him bowl bouncers and that Ishant was not happy about it. :D

I think he's a very good bowler even if he is forced to bowl 'improperly' from time to time.
 

eltrain

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It’ll be interesting to compare the crowds at the upcoming Adelaide test with Brisbane’s. You wouldn’t think there’d be any less than 20k there on Friday and 30k on both Saturday and Sunday. Day/night test though so not apples v apples.

Agree with the point about Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney having the more rusted on Test fans. Does seem a lot more common for people to make a point of going to at least one day of those tests year in, year out.

Don’t agree that Brisbane’s crowds would be replicated if the same game was played at the same time at the MCG. You’d probably have a lot of punters taking leave to go and watch the first couple of days at least. Crowds wouldn’t be anything like the Boxing Day Test, but assuming good weather you could have 30-40k rock up on the first three days.
 
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It’ll be interesting to compare the crowds at the upcoming Adelaide test with Brisbane’s. You wouldn’t think there’d be any less than 20k there on Friday and 30k on both Saturday and Sunday. Day/night test though so not apples v apples.

Agree with the point about Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney having the more rusted on Test fans. Does seem a lot more common for people to make a point of going to at least one day of those tests year in, year out.

Don’t agree that Brisbane’s crowds would be replicated if the same game was played at the same time at the MCG. You’d probably have a lot of punters taking leave to go and watch the first couple of days at least. Crowds wouldn’t be anything like the Boxing Day Test, but assuming good weather you could have 30-40k rock up on the first three days.


shouldn't really matter who gets what test at what time of year as brisbane only hosts one test a year.

as little as a decade ago brisbane would get the test match and 2 odi's from the tri series every year.

it seems the crowds are now bigger at the brisbane heats home games than the gabba test - and they host 7 BBL games a summer.

brisbane may well find themselves hosting the aust v afghanistan test next summer.
 

toml

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No one wants to watch a Day test against Pakistan and absolutely no one will turn up for a test against Afghanistan here (except for me). Give Manuka or Blundstone the Afghanistan test rather than making them play in front on an 1/4 full Gabba.

Brisbane will comfortably get 20-30k for the first 3 days of a day/night tests against India. Easy.
 
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Topkent

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I don't really get the criticism of Starc, but do remember Mitchell Johnson being something of a whipping boy until he turned into a veritable demon bowler @ 32yo. His Test record is superficially similar to Starc's.
Johnson absoloutelt destroyed India and South Africa in a couple innings and has some absoloutely filthy days aswell. Starc doesn't have the same highs, he just cashes in on the tail.
 

Topkent

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Why would anyone wanna go and watch it? Pakistan are ******* s**t and the game was over after day 2?
 

Borisdog

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What I fail to understand is why aren't teams forced to bowl their 90 overs, and if you are short, you are docked runs in your innings

The first thing that needs to happen is the Umpires enforce drinks breaks and police the whole “I need gloves, my pads are itchy, someone moved in the fourth tier of the stand, I got hit on the thigh pad and now I’m mortally wounded type stuff.

It’s not all the bowling sides’ fault champ. In fact I’d go as far as to say they’re the lesser contributors in the current environment. How about batsmen being ready when the bowler reaches the top of their mark. It shouldn’t come as a shock that they got there, they do it 6 times each over.

Disclaimer - I’m an ex fast bowler.
 
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In a test in Adelaide in 1961 West Indies bowled 114 overs in a day. And they were eight ball overs. Being able to bowl 90 overs in a day should be a piece of piss. Start penalising sides by taking away runs and slow over rates will soon stop.

100% agree. I think people want action and seeing the game being held up for no reason whatsoever throughout the day should be unacceptable. How would a footy crowd be if the moment someone copped a bump the game was stopped while physios swarmed the ground to provide massages, bottles of water, taping up sore fingers, etc. Plus the annoying number of times batsmen feel the need to change gloves, etc. And please, don't get me started on the committee meetings trying to decide if they will review a decision, and when they do, the exhaustive process of the 3rd umpire watching the same footage over, and over, and over again, only to come up with what was obvious about 30 seconds beforehead.

The Labuschagne DRS is what it should be used for. He nicked the ball onto the pad but was given out. He knew it was wrong straight away and called for the review. All these discussions in the hope that maybe the umpire got it wrong just gives me the sh*ts. GET ON WITH THE DAMNED GAME!!!!! I think if they did a time and motion study of how much time was actually spent playing the game (a bowler running in to bowl to a batsman), it would be around 10%.
 
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The first thing that needs to happen is the Umpires enforce drinks breaks and police the whole “I need gloves, my pads are itchy, someone moved in the fourth tier of the stand, I got hit on the thigh pad and now I’m mortally wounded type stuff.

It’s not all the bowling sides’ fault champ. In fact I’d go as far as to say they’re the lesser contributors in the current environment. How about batsmen being ready when the bowler reaches the top of their mark. It shouldn’t come as a shock that they got there, they do it 6 times each over.

Disclaimer - I’m an ex fast bowler.

Can only agree. It's so annoying to reach the top of your mark only to find a batsman not ready to face up, and the number of times you are stopped in the run up because the batsman isn't quite ready. Annoying.
 

omarlittle1

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Looking back on Smith's dismissal, it seems as though he was trying to rush everything to try and cash in on the party.

All he had to do was slow it all down and bat himself in. He'll be livid with such a lapse of judgment. I'm hoping he destroys Adelaide.
 
It’ll be interesting to compare the crowds at the upcoming Adelaide test with Brisbane’s. You wouldn’t think there’d be any less than 20k there on Friday and 30k on both Saturday and Sunday. Day/night test though so not apples v apples.

Agree with the point about Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney having the more rusted on Test fans. Does seem a lot more common for people to make a point of going to at least one day of those tests year in, year out.

Don’t agree that Brisbane’s crowds would be replicated if the same game was played at the same time at the MCG. You’d probably have a lot of punters taking leave to go and watch the first couple of days at least. Crowds wouldn’t be anything like the Boxing Day Test, but assuming good weather you could have 30-40k rock up on the first three days.
Adelaide members will turn up and get on it even if we're playing an Uzbeki underage XI.
 

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