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FluterG

Listed below are comments made by FluterG between Sunday, 29th June 2008 and Friday, 12th September 2008.

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The most divisive and tasteless selection in cricket history 4:31pm on 12 Sep 2008 #145 writes a 462-word rant accusing us all of being talentless bankers...

...and *then* an hour later finally gets around to reading the source article that started the blog off! T20 fanatics, eh? I dunno. If it takes any amount of time, forget it. Still, it was good for a giggle on a wet Friday and I recommend it to all.
The most divisive and tasteless selection in cricket history 1:57pm on 10 Sep 2008 I don't think anyone begrudges players earning money, certainly not Aggers, so anyone labouring under the impression that the thrust of JA's blog is about that is mistaken. We all know that footballers, golfers and tennis players can earn big bucks, so why not cricketers?

No, the main issue here is that for around 56 million quid (nothing to a billionaire really) Stanford has:
1. Bought the England cricket team for one week every year for the next 5 years
2. Bought the naming rights for one of the EPL's divisions. (wonder what he'll call it?)
3. Bought the right to enter his own 'Stanford XI' in the EPL (no guarantee that they have to be cricketers either for all we know)
4. Effectively bought the right to be the sole sponsor of the EPL (he has the 'right to outbid' any other potential sponsor). This means he effectively owns it all. The ECB appears to have nothing left to sell.

What does that mean? It means that the ECB has sold the family silver, in the form of the EPL, to Mr Stanford. What does he get out of it? When you're the sole sponsor of a major premier league in any sport, it means all the commercials and merchandising and TV are advertising you and your product alongside the game. The only sources of revenue from the EPL will come from TV (Sky) and Stanford.

56 million also isn't much compared to the 400 million the IPL got just for selling their 8 franchises.

As Aggers points out, there may be other surprises in the Stanford deal but the ECB aren't saying. For all we know, every player will have to wear sequins, stetsons and have Stanford's smiling face emblazoned on the back of their sparkly sweaters.

And the ECB apparently signed the deal to prevent England's players from taking part in the IPL on the grounds they wouldn't need the IPL's money, a carrot instead of a stick. Alas, like certain biscuits, one carrot is never enough.
The most divisive and tasteless selection in cricket history 4:32pm on 09 Sep 2008 Tell us No.6, did you actually read the Telegraph article linked in the blog before you started foaming at the mouth with your pointless anti-Aggers rant or did you just dive straight in without grasping what exactly it is Stanford has purchased?
The most divisive and tasteless selection in cricket history 4:12pm on 09 Sep 2008 Money Vs The Spirit of Cricket. An interesting yet ghastly prospect, as is the notion of an American 'owning' the ECB, EPL, and England team whether it's a time-share or not.
Welcome to "proper" Test cricket 5:31pm on 13 Jul 2008 'T20 is what the people want.'

Is it really? No-one asked me! Just because a few tabloid rags bang on about it doesn't mean 'the people' want it. It only means that the tabloids believe talking about it will sell their chip-wrapping along with the breasts on page 3.

I reckon T20 is popular at county level because folks can get to it after work. A lot of people can't get to 4-day games or Test matches because of work, but the fact that Test matches still sell out with today's ticket prices is a pretty fair indication of what at least 30,000 people want, and that's a lot more relevant than any blogger's opinion.

Cricket, and Test matches in particular, on free-to-air TV would help a lot too, so No.13: the sooner Sky get bored the better.

Cricket doesn't need to be 'entertainment' for a bunch of ADD wannitnows from the 'me' generation. That's what football and computer games are for ;-)
Saturday at Lord's - still a special occasion 10:19am on 13 Jul 2008 Who's Celia Walden?
First day to the hosts 08:13am on 11 Jul 2008 Both Bell *and* Pietersen needed to perform in this Test, and rather than 'clinging to the crease fearful of taking risks' they got on with the job. Let's not get too carried away though, nothing in the commentary I heard seemed to suggest that the bowling was anything special and the wicket certainly wasn't bowler-friendly on Day 1. Considering Geoff Boycott's old mum could've scored a ton on that pitch (I'm sure he said so at least once!) it would have been disappointing to say the least if one of our batsmen hadn't. It's early days yet.
Flintoff casts shadow on England 12:09pm on 10 Jul 2008 "But I doubt it'll stop a load of folks saying "Here's my team against the saffers..." and listing players that haven't been selected either for the team or the squad and probably never will be."

I rest my case.
Flintoff casts shadow on England 5:13pm on 09 Jul 2008 sirviv asks: "As for the bowling, do the selectors really believe that Anderson, Sidebottom and Broad are up to the task of dismissing a far superior batting line up to NZ twice ?"

Well, yes, otherwise they wouldn't have been selected along with Panesar.

The selectors likely also believe that Vaughan, Strauss, Cook, Bell, Pietersen, and Collingwood, with a little assistance perhaps from Ambrose, will be able to score a lot of runs against the SA bowling attack in their turn.

But I doubt it'll stop a load of folks saying "Here's my team against the saffers..." and listing players that haven't been selected either for the team or the squad and probably never will be.

What I do find a tad disconcerting is the apparent level of 'hope' invested in a player who's been off sick for the best part of 18 months and hasn't played a test match since January last year (and wasn't doing particularly well with bat or ball back then). It's as though, in the absence of any truly great players in the team, we spectators are obliged to acribe fantastic powers to those that haven't actually been playing for the last year or more. Freddie will save us! I keep getting visions of El Cid being nailed to the saddle of his horse and riding out to rout the enemy in spite of his being dead already.

Mind you, if the weather continues like this, Flintoff's experience with small watercraft might come in handy at Lords.
Pietersen shows captaincy promise 11:24am on 29 Jun 2008 Nice analysis, The Darkness Is Calling.

I wonder if any in the Heirarchy That Matters takes note of such things, or indeed whether they conduct their own scrutiny of the records, averages, and performances?

Much ado was made about Strauss and his 'career saving' century in NZ, but Pietersen remained (and remains) a "great" batsman, even though the numbers clearly show he isn't. As NightRider said at #25, people are far too quick to bestow 'greatness' on players whose normal performance is mediocre at best, and only occasionally of International standard.

One measure of ability might be to ask "which of the England players would Australia have in their team?" Apart from Broad, because of his youth and sterling prospects, I'm not sure any of our lot would make it into the squad, much less the team.

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