Whispers, Opinions, and Gossip at Six and Out
eat Cricket, drink Cricket, sleep Cricket
Need we say we’re an intelligent bunch? Let alone the active participation and general friendliness (and cleanliness, FWIW) on the blog, the depth of knowledge, accuracy of critical analysis, and passion for the game shown by the people here is absolutely astounding.
Lots of things happen– and get said– over a month, and we should all know who said what,
More interesting tidbits on Papua New Guinea:
Biplob Kishore Deb shared:
There is an interesting thing about Papua New Guinea. The U-19 world cup squad of Papua New Guinea includes two brothers- Captain Colin Amini and Charles Amini. Their elder bother, Chris captained U-19 and the senior team of Papua New Guinea. Grandfather Brian and father Charles also captained Papua New Guinea senior team. Their mother, Kune, also led the women’s team of Papua New Guinea. I do not know if there is any such cricket family in the world.
There has been one Papua New Guinea-born Test cricketer too that I can think of. The Papua New Guinea-born Aussie-Welshman who played for England - Geraint Jones.
The funda behind IPL is still unclear to many folks, especially with regards to player values. Baseer tries to unravel the threads for us:
Sachin, Sourav, Dravid, Yuvraj and Sehwag were considered ‘icon’ players which meant they stood to earn 115% of the highest earning player in their team. Since all teams had a budget of $5m to spend from, the teams with an icon player were ‘restricted’ in what they could pay to an individual player.
For instance, if Mumbai bought player X for $1m, they would have to pay Sachin $1.15m which meant they would be spending $2.15 m on just two players. Since Chennai did not have an ‘icon’ player, they were happy to go to great lengths to buy Dhoni. A bid of $1.5 m meant that no team with an ‘icon’ player could buy him and Dhoni is in demand because each team wants to have Indian stars to draw the Indian crowds.
Laxman was bought for $375,000. He was an ‘icon’ player but selflessly withdrew that status so that Hyderabad had greater purchasing power. This meant they were able to make a $1.35 m bid for Symonds which would not have been possible had Laxman been an ‘icon’.
On the other hand, had the Sachins and Yuvrajs not been labelled ‘icons’, they might have come with an even higher price tag like Dhoni did. Them being ‘icons’ meant that they were restricted to their cities which meant their cities didn’t have to have to try to secure them. Their value would only depend on the price of the (next) highest prized player in their team which in turn would have dropped because of the presence of an icon. I hope I haven’t caused any confusion!
D: No, Baseer, you have, in fact, cleared our confusion!
Basically, the player price tags have been for business reasons rather than a reflection of the ‘true value’ of the cricketer as it would have been in an ideal world.
It was a revelation to everybody that sledging, which come to be regarded as normal in present-day cricket, clearly violates Law No. 42.
Still, everybody is kinda divided over it.
I found Betfair Kid’s argument well balanced and to the point.
It’s hard to say ‘ban sledging’ when it is done so often, but if it is unlawful then something definitely needs to be done about it. Distracting the batsman in any way should not be allowed, though I’m sure players would argue that there are sledgers on both teams, so what is the difference?
The ICC should clampdown on it if the problem is persisting, it will only get worse. The Australian’s need to be told as well, whether they like it or not. Them saying it is ‘natural’ will only lead to them pushing the boundaries and trying it more.
John’s say on Ishant:
Thankfully, Ishant’s rise came at a time when Indian pacemen are falling over themselves to make the team. Ishant is one of two genuinely good right arm pacers, who have to fight three genuinely good left armers to constitute the three-pronged attack. None of the pacers can afford to take it easy.
Off-season, unfortuantely, remains the most controversial topic on Six and Out. But I’m going to bow to The Atheist’s opinion for now:
I don’t think an entire off-season would be popular. We have grown used to cricket all year around now. However, as Unkie pointed out, if that cricket was less intensively scheduled, then there is still room to remove some of strain from key players, whilst still sating our appetites.
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