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The Darkness Is Calling

Listed below are comments made by The Darkness Is Calling between Friday, 22nd August 2008 and Thursday, 19th March 2009.

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The problem with winner takes all 2:41pm on 19 Mar 2009 When I first read about the changes on teletext, I was quite astonished. Maybe because I've become accustomed to the points system, not that I follow F1 much at all these days because it is pretty boring and I've become disillusioned with it since way back when Damon Hill was treated with utter disrespect. I was immediately left wondering how previous titles would have been different, this excellent article answered that for me. But the fact that the new system would have changed who won in the past doesn't necessarily make it the best system. Had the system been in place back then, who knows if the individual race results would have stayed the same or drivers would have had a shift in mentality that might have affected some of the races.

Surely a better solution would be to increase the points for the winner? It would have basically the same effect, reward winning races, but not stop racing for places as well. I remember when Rugby Union was four points for a try and two for a conversion. They changed it to five for a try so that a converted try was worth more two penalties. I'd have gone a bit further, make a (unconverted) try worth seven points and therefore make a converted try worth three penalties. Of course the alternative is to award less kickable penalties or change the awarding system for penalties, but that's another story for a different sport.

A while back I tried to rate countries for achievements at the football World Cup. It is quite tricky to balance it with a meaningful points system. If you give 10 points for winning the World Cup, how many do you give for finishing Runners-Up? If someone wins a World Cup, how many Runners-Up finishes are equal or better? Point being (excuse the pun), perhaps the problem isn't with using a points system, just that you need to review it every now and again to make sure that it fairly reflects the importance of (in rugby) tries against penalties or (in F1) winning against finishing 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc.

I would say winning is the objective so should be worth more than double finishing 2nd. 2nd is not the be all and end all, so the gap between 2nd and 3rd should be less hefty. Something like

1st : 25 points
2nd : 11 points
3rd : 7 points
4th : 5 points
5th : 4 points
6th : 3 points
7th : 2 points
Other Cars : 1 point for finishing

As well as putting more emphasis on winning, it rewards reliability and drivers who put in consistent performances. In that points system, pretty much off the top of my head by the way so please consider that, this would equate roughly

Finishing 1st gains more points than finishing 2nd twice
Finishing 1st gains more points than finishing 3rd three times

Finishing 1st gains as many points as finishing 4th FIVE times
Finishing 2nd twice gains more points than finishing 3rd three times

If I had the time or inclination I might be fascinated to know how some previous Championships would have changed given such a points system. But it is primarily only for example purposes, not to be a "definitive" solution
An Antiguan day we won't forget 08:13am on 15 Feb 2009 I'm afraid this farce has to have been avoidable, as mentioned

"It was only the second time in Test history that a match was abandoned on the opening day. Back in 1998, the Jamaica Test lasted 10.1 overs"

Once you might let the board off with, second time should have resulted in forfeiture. I'd rather see some cricket, so would everyone including the specators, but how else do you deal with such unacceptable occurences? Like the Pakistan team refusing to return to the field of play, there should be and can only be one penalty - to forfeit the match.

TWICE this has happened in the same Test playing nation, not even a Test nation with non-cricketing influences come distractions that could be used as an excuse as there may be in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. Not a new nation finding it's feet and inexperienced, although one does have to question the board decisions regards the stadium itself and the financial situation.

At the very least the West Indies board should face a huge fine, but it begs serious questions and not too many months down the line from the West Indies hosting the World Cup which in itself was a little bit of a farce the way it was 'managed'. I'll stop short of blaming them for the Stanford farce, but it seems to be one too many incidents/issues in recent times
Bill Frindall (1939-2009) 08:23am on 31 Jan 2009 Bill was a legend, he may not have made 100 but it was as good a 69 as anyone has reached. First name in the all time statisticians XI.

My deepest felt condolences to family and friends, TMS will never be the same again. I'm sure, in fact I know, he'll be missed by cricket fans everywhere.

R.I.P
Who'd make your Ashes starting XI? 6:09pm on 23 Dec 2008 To highlight our poor form since (Ashes) 2005 :-

05/06 PAK 2-0 ENG
05/06 IND 1-1 ENG
2006 ENG 1-1 SRI
2006 ENG 2-0 PAK

One series win over Pakistan, looks ok up to that point bar the poor home draw against Sri Lanka

06/07 AUS 5-0 ENG
2007 ENG 3-0 WIN
2007 ENG 0-1 IND
07/08 SRI 1-0 ENG
07/08 NZE 1-2 ENG

Beat West Indies and New Zealand, but got beaten 3-0 (series) and 7-0 (Tests) by the top sides we did play

2008 ENG 2-0 NZE
2008 ENG 1-2 SAF
08/09 IND 1-0 ENG

Beat the kiwis at home, the consolation win against South Africa the first Test win over a decent side since Pakistan at home in 2006 ie two years

If you're happy beating the lowly ranked sides then England are the team for you. vs the sides we 'aspire' to be ranked above :

vs SAF/AUS/IND/PAK/SRI

Series : P9 W1 D1 L7 (Won 11.11%)
Tests : P30 W5 D11 L14 (Won 16.67%)

Pretty awful, yet pretty much the same names retained with the keeper the most scapegoated/changed. Of course against the West Indies and New Zealand we're world beaters :

vs NZE/WIN

Series : P3 W3 D0 L0 (Won 100.00%)
Tests : P10 W7 D2 L1 (Won 70.00%)

Note - our captain in the only credible series win since the Ashes in 2005 (over Pakistan) was Strauss. Better to give it to the players with over-inflated egos
Who'd make your Ashes starting XI? 5:52pm on 23 Dec 2008 I would make a few changes, far to many players sitting in the comfort zone, doing enough to sustain their average and paper over the cracks.

OUT

Cook - eight fifties in his last 21 innings since his last hundred I believe. No score higher than 76 and he drops too many catches. Fifties are ok if his opening partner scores 100, if he is out for a low score then you're looking at 100/2 or 100/3 which isn't great. Alternative is to drop him to no 3, but would that solve his problem?

Anderson & Harmison - too wayward, don't turn up often enough when it matters and neither offer enough with the bat. I quite like Anderson, but he needs to do a lot more than pick up the odd wicket or two. Harmison needs to be more consistent, not rely on a pitch suited to him

Panesar - hardly a young kid now, he's been around for quite some time. Not doing enough with the ball, incapable of doing enough with bat or in the field. Enough is enough, if he can't be England's most potent threat in India then he isn't much use.

Bell - I've given him more than enough time to pull his socks up. It's almost a shame he scored that 199, it saved his neck and he's done nothing since bar one score of 50.

So who to come in/remains?

1. Strauss - left-handed option, has done enough to stay in the side for now

2. BOPARA - did enough against India opening to be worth a shot. Can't think of too many knocking on the door to open which is either me getting old or the options getting smaller.

3. SHAH - due to the boys club selection policy his chances have been limited.

4 Pietersen - although I'm yet to be convinced he's anything but the next Botham and Flintoff of captaincy, he is our best batsman. We need a leader as well as a star batsman, give the captaincy to Strauss

5. Collingwood - stay of execution as he can bowl and has done just about enough. He's a battler, but he needs to contribute more - more often

6. Flintoff - not where I'd bat him ideally, but with the XI I have in mind I can't see how he can bat seven. MUST start taking more wickets, at least he did something with the bat - well, more than waft it at the ball, edge it or just look cumbersome

7. Prior - I would prefer Foster or Davies, but for now I think we need the batting. It worked with Jones, he played his part in the 2005 win.

8. Swann - I've opted for him over other options because he's an experienced county pro, can bat and is a better fielder than Monty.

9. KABIR ALI - did little wrong in his only test, he can bat and deserves better than he gets from England

10. SIDEBOTTOM - the world doesn't revolve around Ryan, but without him we look pretty awful bowling. No way would I go with Broad, sure he can bat, but has he taken enough wickets to merit selection? No.

11. S.JONES - ideally, if not then maybe give Amjad Khan a chance

Anyone wondering why I've changed FIVE players from those that played in India, or doubting it. We've done NOTHING much since that 06/07 Ashes disaster but beat the windies and the kiwis. The players have ridden those easy series and done just enough to produce passable returns. But when we played India, South Africa and then India again our only win was gained in a dead rubber ie the series was already lost.
Poland and Ukraine wait on Uefa report 12:45pm on 26 Sep 2008 What is the point in expanding it to 24 teams? The region is only around 50 teams so every other country would qualify. It can only be for ££££. The last tournament was fine, perhaps would have been better if the co-hosts hadn't been so ordinary, but expanding the number of teams to allow co-hosting is a stupid idea.

Even expanding to 20 teams would be a better move, if one has to be made. Four groups of five, each playing four games, and two from each group go through. There would be only eight extra games which wouldn't extend the tournament too much.

Perhaps to highlight this I should point out that the World Cup had 24 teams in the finals in 1994, before it expanded to 32 in 1998, and there are a lot more teams worldwide than in Europe. Maybe the strength is better, but there are still countries like Liechtenstein, San Marino, Albania, Luxembourg, Andorra, Scotland (just kidding), Iceland, Faroes etc at the bottom end of the scale.

And another way of pointing out the senseless nature of such a move is around 1 in 6 teams qualify for the World Cup, around 1 in 2 would qualify for the European Championship. Bigger does not necessarily mean better
Walcott and Capello stun Croatia 12:34pm on 11 Sep 2008 #306 Hickeyd2

Not "all the fans" are sensationalising over that performance, there are a few with feet on the ground and heads not in the clouds.

But it was England's 12th best away performance in competitive matches and equal 25th best overall (out of 244) against a side previously unbeaten at home. As with the man utd vs Liverpool match last season, it would have been more interesting but for the red card - both at 1-0, against the side trailing, and resulting in three goal margins of victory.
Walcott and Capello stun Croatia 12:31pm on 11 Sep 2008 I have to agree with Jimboo21 (#238) and the subsequent comments on that by ya_dafty (#253)

It was a good performance, you don't win 4-1 with bad performances. But at 1-0 at half time the game was evenly balanced and Croatia could have changed the result. The sending off was key, funnily enough three of the four goals followed that and the taking off of Petric.

Celebrate a good win, now England are the only team to win there (besides Croatia) in a competitive match and it puts England in a good position to qualify. But it is only 1/4 of the job done, assuming no slip ups then England still have to play Ukraine away and Croatia and Ukraine at home.

I've seen Wales get carried away with a win over Italy and lost home and away to Serbia, before (controversially) losing their play-off. Scotland beat France home and away and still didn't qualify for the Euros. So much work is still to be done.

As for the selections, you can't leave the best striker England has had since Shearer out of the squad and you leave him out of the team at your own risk. Gerrard gives his all for England, maybe not his supreme Liverpool best but then does fat frank turn it on Chelsea-style either? It was good to see Walcott retained ahead of Beckham and vindicate that decision, Beckham pings in so many crosses, corners and free-kicks he's bound to get an assist every now and again by the law of averages. What Walcott contributed overall was much greater. Let's just wait until England play 11 men for 90 mins before suggesting that a performance proves one player is definitely better than another.

And that's not saying my assessment of Walcott is contradicting that and based on one performance, Beckham's failings have been evident for years now. Every time he set a goal up his fans would say that proves his worth, the fact that it came in a draw or defeat and his failings were cracks papered over made no never mind. It doesn't have to be Walcott, he merely hammered home his opportunity/ies. It could just as easily be SWP, Bentley, Lennon or Gerrard on the right to offer more to the team that set-pieces and crosses (not even from the byline)

How can anyone judge Cappello on two qualifiers? One against Andorra which was nothing special and needed two goals from the sub in ten minutes to secure three points over a side ranked near 200 in the world, and the other based on a game of near two halves - one 1-0 up against 11 men, the other 3-1 against 10? That would be like suggesting SGE is a far better manager than fergie for doing the double over man utd. If England fail to qualify, especially after this win, then the fans will be calling for Capello's head. There's still a long way to go, including a trip to Ukraine, and only one automatic qualification place. There are some potentially nasty play-off opponents lurking in some of the groups :-

GP1 : Sweden, Denmark, Portugal
GP3 : Poland, Czech Republic
GP4 : Germany, Russia
GP5 : Turkey, Spain, Belgium
GP7 : France, Serbia, Romania
GP8 : Italy, Bulgaria
GP9 : Holland, Norway

Some nasty away trips even if not all of those should trouble England. Fingers crossed it won't come to a play-off
Can sorry South Africa fight back? 1:20pm on 27 Aug 2008 It's a shame for the series that South Africa capitulated without really testing England. That on top of a close encounter in the first ODI going England's way and South Africa now need to win the last three.

But don't write them off just yet, England have had things go kindly for them so far and it only takes a couple of Pietersen LBW type decisions to favour South Africa and they're more than good enough to turn the series around.
TMS changes explained 07:04am on 22 Aug 2008 I don't find too many of the commentators or the likes of Boycott, Tufnell etc annoying. I do have to agree with edthorpe about Coney and disagree with the Boycott bashing comments on here. He says it as it is, that annoys a lot of people and let's face it, anything negative he says is reflected in the way England play. Too many edge on the side of caution, he'll say "we were poor" and everyone knows he's not wrong.

I don't know why so many on here are complaining though, it isn't like mr smugness himself who presents C5 highlights is on TMS. And I would like TMS so much more if it wasn't like a game of musical chairs. I appreciate it must be hard on the voice, but can't they do half hour slots instead of constantly clock watching and announcing they're making way for the next while X makes a few comments and then X is off to be replaced by Y every 20 mins.

As for who adds comments alongside the commentators, the pundits if you like. Well a few can be annoying as per Coney, others are great like Tuffers who lighten up the place. Not sure there's a call for too many recently retired cricketers though, it's almost becoming very much like doctor who, where anyone who is anyone in that area (TV/cricket) wants to make a guest appearance. I get the feeling the invite list is anyone aggers bumps into at the ground

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