Playing in partnerships

After an enforced hiatus, my badminton group started playing again last week. Kind critics would describe the standard of play as “mixed”, and the atmosphere is more one of a good-natured thrash around than anything particularly serious. I’d rank myself as one of the better players but because we mostly play doubles (and now the newly invented “triples” rules too) it tends to even itself out.

Playing with the same people over a long period of time means that even at our casual level you can appreciate people’s different strengths and weaknesses – don’t give that guy the opportunity to smash; she can’t return from the back of the court but will get to anything you drop short; if you give him the opportunity to smash, make sure he has loads of time because he’ll overthink it and hit into the net… and so on.

More interesting than your opponent is your partnership with your doubles partner. With some people I can discuss tactics, and we manage to play accordingly; but some people all the talk between points just doesn’t stick – neither my partner nor I manage to stick to our plan. With some players it is pointless to discuss tactics. This can be good or bad – one guy knows his way around the court so well that you can just play around him, or if you make a move he will play around you, with no planning needed. Another player seems intent on returning to the dead centre of the court making it very difficult to locate yourself in a complementary position.

On the face of it I might expect the quality of the partnership to be based on a combination of badminton skill and how easily you have a rapport with that person off the court, but neither of those things seem to predict who I gel with on the court and who I don’t. I’m sure there is a lesson there…

Selly Park Cricket Club

My long-awaited (by me) cricket debut for Selly Park Cricket Club is hopefully almost here. Technically it’s not my cricketing debut as I have played twice before, once for my Dad’s 60th birthday match and once as an 11th hour call-up to make up the numbers. On neither occasion did I excel (or score a run, or take a catch, or bowl).

I umpired last weekend which is actually a really good way of getting up close to a game and seeing how it works in the real world rather than on TV. I had two appeals for LBW and gave them both out straight away, and was really hoping for an appeal that I could turn down so I don’t get a reputation as a trigger-happy umpire.

Also, the new Selly Park CC blog is here, it’s a bit content-light at the moment but that will change as the season progresses. We currently have two teams and would like to get enough players to field a third.

Pointless cricket matches

Cricket is the best sport ever. Fact.

This is in spite of the ICC’s quest to make as many games as one-sided, irrelevant, and poorly attended as possible.

Some one-sided games are an inevitable consequence of only having a small pool of high quality countries whilst also trying to expand that pool. But what else is it that makes games one-sided? I think that a massive first innings total makes the game more likely to be uncompetitive. With a flat track and rules skewed in favour of the batsmen, a score of 350 is perfectly possible. This then creates enormous pressure on the team batting second, and a couple of slices of bad luck will quickly put the game beyond them. If they were chasing 230, then it is still possible to recover from set backs and a tight finish could still occur. The cricket authorities seem to think that runs cause games to be exciting. They don’t, it is wickets that cause excitement, and if pitches and rules were altered to reflect this fact then a lot more games would be interesting.

If it wasn’t for England’s couldn’t-be-scripted white-knuckle roller coaster of a qualifying stage in the current World Cup, then a lot of those mismatched games in the overly-long group stage would be irrelevant. A 7-match ODI series between Australia and England straight after The Ashes? Irrelevant. Hosting the West Indies just months after England had toured the Caribbean? An entire tour, irrelevant. The World Cup needs to be shorter and punchier, and ODI tours need to be shorter, and maybe scheduled before the test matches.

And finally, the sight on television of a 90% empty stadium for an important game between two good teams is one of the most depressing sights in cricket. If a match is held between two good international teams in a country that likes cricket and it isn’t sold out… you have done something very wrong. Wrong pricing, wrong scheduling, wrong promotion. If you have loads of empty seats you might as well just give tickets away or price them at a pittance – people will buy beer and pies and little radios and you will make some money. Empty seats make a game look and feel pointless. Why would no-one be watching if it was an important match?

Match fixing – and why sport matters

Great test cricket is magic, there is no other word for it. A great test compared to, say, a great football match is equivalent to reading a great novel versus watching a great film. The film may be more intense (or not), but the slow burn of reading a book will make the memory stay with you clearly for a long time.

The topsy-turvy England-Pakistan match at Lords yesterday prompted this in the TMS inbox:

From Brian Webb in Birmingham, TMS inbox: “What a wonderful, wonderful end to the summer. Do the players know what it means to us – who work in factories, offices, shops, banks, drive cars, taxis & lorries – when they play like this and win? For a short time, it means everything.”

An imperious batting display from Trott and Broad, and then some almighty bowling from the England bowlers must have made every England cricket fan’s heart sing.  I really can’t overstate how much cricket is more than just sport to cricket fans – it is part of the fabric of summer, life, and England (to the English).

And now this, from the News of the World:

THE News of the World has smashed a multi-million pound cricket match-fixing ring which RIGGED the current Lord’s Test between England and Pakistan.

In the most sensational sporting scandal ever, bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif delivered THREE blatant no-balls to order.

Three no-balls will certainly not affect the outcome of this game but seriously – What… The… F***?

Thousands – millions – of people will be feeling utter, utter disappointment that they can’t trust what they see on the pitch as being a proper contest.  A very few people should be feeling utter, utter shame, and hopefully will be in court soon.