Cricket books

[sherb]

If Currie Cup B games from the sixties with teams that were selected from a playing pool less than the population of Tassie at the time can be first class I tend to think WSC can be as well. Some fairly interesting definitions of first class cricketers emerged in the early years of the Logan Cup in Zim as well.

And that's why "standard" can't enter into the definition of a first-class match. It's totally subjective.

It's the same with Tests. The SuperTests were of far higher standard (in terms of both players and quality) than many official Tests (both at the time and in general).

 

[big_e]

The standard of the matches doesn't enter into the definition of a first-class cricket match. So you can drop that aspect of your argument.

First-class cricket - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

For me, it's got nothing to do with me "growing up" with WSC. I lived in Tassie at the time, we didn't get the matches on TV and I was avidly following establishment cricket still.

Yes, the players knew at the time that the matches were treated as "rebel" by the ACB, but that's no excuse not to grant them f-c status now. Which CA could easily do, retrospectively.

It would hurt no-one to grant F-C and List A status to the appropriate matches and would fill a gaping hole in many players' career records.

I don't really understand why they should be FC matches, other than "just because". There is no compelling argument.

 

[Bombermania]

Found Sachin Tendulkars autobiography "Playing it my way" to be quite a uninspiring, boring read. Was really hoping it would give a great insight into his mind but it failed to do it for me. Glossed over controversial incidents like he didn't want to talk about it, which is what I wanted to read about rather than what movies he liked or what food he ate. Also the way it was written, seemed liked he was never wrong once in his life. I love Sachin, but would have liked to have read about times he made some mistakes, rather than just his success.

That's a common problem with autobiographies and seems to be worst with sports people than others and it has the effect of dumbing the book down.

 

[Gough]

That's a common problem with autobiographies and seems to be worst with sports people than others and it has the effect of dumbing the book down.

Depends on the ghost writer, Malcolm Knox did Cousins' autobiography and it showed.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

Depends on the ghost writer, Malcolm Knox did Cousins' autobiography and it showed.

It's like the book on Phil Carman. Apparently the collaboration between Carman and author went as far as Phil giving him a box containing photos, stories and contacts. The author wrote the rest, and made an absolute pig's breakfast of it. More mistakes than Joe Biden.

 

[Bareth Garry]

That's a common problem with autobiographies and seems to be worst with sports people than others and it has the effect of dumbing the book down.

Maybe because they write it too soon. Sachin was retired for two years when his book came out. If he puts another book in 10 years time I imagine there will be more stories and interesting insight because everyone he played with are also retired long enough to feel comfortable talking about on a more candid level.

Kevin Pietersen's book is the only one I have read from a sportsman who was recently retired that wasn't bland or playing safe to not offend people who were his team mates just a short while before. But that was the intention. He wanted to offend and air "his side of the story" after being sacked. Came across a very conceited guy and a bully to young players.

 

[Jane Doe]

Been reading a book called the unforgiven about the West Indian rebel tours of South Africa of the early 1980’s. A great read although it’s quite sad as to what’s happend to a few of them since the tours.

 

[Tonga Bob]

Apart from the usual array of biographies and colourful anecdote collections (see the Chappelli series or anything by Warwick Todd), one cricket book I really enjoyed is called Balham to Bollywood by Chris England, an English actor & park cricketer who lands a role in a Bollywood film set in colonial times involving a cricket match between the local villagers and a British colonial army team.

 

[Stan_Darsh72]

I enjoyed Gideon Haigh on Warne, gave it to an American bloke to read and he also enjoyed it as well.

 

[DaRick]

James Sutherland is responsible for that. He's the head of an environment where making money is the only priority, and whilst that is important in professional sport it's came at the expense of grassroots cricket.

He took over as CEO is in 2001 and the game was in a significantly worse state when he passed on the baton after the sandpaper tour, and not just because of the debacle that tour became - it was long trending in that direction.

It's fair enough to say the performance of the national team couldn't be sustained from that period, but they have drifted between good, very poor and everything in between, with a few highlights often papering over many cracks - 13/14 Ashes, 15 World Cup for instance. The consistency of performance has been nowhere what should be expected in this country.

And if you dig deeper into grassroots cricket it's in a really poor state. Participation rates are right down. I haven't been in Oz for a couple of years now but when I was last back I went to a couple of NSW Premier Cricket games and most of the guys playing first grade would have been no better than decent second graders back around the turn of the century.

Go even deeper into suburban and park cricket and many competitions are basically on life support. For example, The Moore Park and South Eastern Cricket Association in Sydney in 2017/18 had 22 teams in 3 grades after absorbing a handful of teams from Baulkham Hills and Castle Hill (which are about an hours drive away). The same competition in 2005/06 had 6 grades with anywhere between 6 and 10 teams that were entirely local teams (those Baulkham Hills and Castle Hill teams playing in their own competition, which is now defunct). This situation is repeated the country all over.

James Sutherland is a classic example of a CFO playing CEO. He was so focused on the bottom line that he failed to consider the implications of that approach going forward, never mind developing a strategy for keeping AUS on top (or close enough) over the long run.

Being solvent is important, but when it gets to the point where you're making support staff sleep on hotel room floors, then you're just penny pinching. Also, it's a shitty way to treat people, and makes them feel like they don't matter that much. Is treating people like that really going to bring out the best in them, and the team by extension?

AUS post-2007 is basically Man U post-SAF - a marquee side that has its moments but can't sustain runs of good form for long enough to even look like reestablishing a dominant side.