I spent most of yesterday watching England beat Bangladesh in a One Day International, ODI, Cricket match at one of the most renowned cricket grounds in England; Trent Bridge, Nottingham. I was not altogether happy with the experience.
Many of you out there who know nothing of cricket will be aghast to learn that an ODI takes about 8 hours to complete. Many of the 7000 or so 'spectators' have a low attention span and an unclear idea of the sport anyway. So Sky Sport who manipulate the proceedings have to build up a sense of excitement and of things happening. Every time a wicket falls, a batsman is out or a 4 or a 6 is hit there is an ear splitting burst of music. You can't bring booze into the ground and bags are searched in a manner reminscent of airports. The hapless spectator can only acquire alcoholic products bought at the ground. Many of these drink loads of the overpriced cat's piss lager or even buy a bottle of white wine plonk for £15 with a silly wine glass shaped receptacle to slurp it from. Of course the wine is luke warm within half an hour and near boiling point as the brainwashed clone of humanity sucks the last drop from the bottle. In this booze soaked haze Jo Soap with his mates is convinced that he is having the time of his life. There's Mexican waves, giant rabbits, outlaws, bears what fun.
The usually brilliant Notts (you Notts!) scoreboard, under the control of Sky, flashes adverts and diversions for the stupefied masses. Some of these clones are wandering about attached to a big earphone on a string. I think Nat West, whoever he is, has something to do with it. There's the stench of fast food whereever you go.,
What about the players trying to have a sporting duel at the highest level? Although it was a foregone conclusion that England would win the radio commentators thought that some of our batsmen gave their wickets away. I can easily forgive the players for losing concentration in this lunatic assylum atmos.
Let's face it; for half the 'watchers' what was happening in the middle was an irrelevance.
If you want to learn about what true cricketing grit entails read the eponymously titled book by Duncan Hamilton about the greatest fast bowler of all time, Harold Larwood.
1 comment:
Sir
I'am shocked and disappointed by the highly unattractive picture you of one of our major products. Sky are a media company with the highest reputations and aspirations in the field of sport. Look what we have done for Premier League football.The infusion of so much cash has left the league with dripping with the most skilled footballers from all over the globe. Admittedly this has meant that many of the teams in the league struggle to field an English player and this has unfortunately to the demise of the England team whose players are either exhausted (having played so many games under the Sky brand)or simply reserves from Premier league teams (ie not good enough to get into the first team).
The Sky support of T20 cricket means that similar forces will become the norm. The extra cash can be used to attract a myriad of overseas players and the teams will play many more games to fill the Sky schedules. This in turn should have a profound effect on the form of the England cricket team much in the same manner as Sky had on the England football team.
As for your comments on the extra activities provided by Sky and its co-sponsors including Nat West, we are working to support the government (and cricket) in offering an alternative for the recently abandoned ASBO's. Now the anti-social elements of society will be allowed free access to all Sky T20 matches where they can enjoy the mind-numbing treatment, once only enjoyed by real cricket supporters. In this way anti-social behaviour can be both reduced and restricted to cricket grounds.
yours
R Murdoch.
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