Wednesday 23 November 2016

Fixtures out tomorrow!

My boss will be pleased on Friday.

She has been asking me to get some holidays in for next year for a few weeks, but I've been holding off booking the majority as I want to tie into some cricket. No surprise there eh?

So when I see when and where the games are, I can plan my days away accordingly. There's a few things I hope to do to celebrate fifty years as a Derbyshire fan and an early season game, to have a look at our new recruits is high on the list. I'd love to pull in the Chesterfield Festival too, at least for some of the game - always assuming we get a game on in 2017.

The announcement always makes you feel the season is approaching, albeit not as quickly as we would like. At least the thought of some balmy (as opposed to barmy) days in the sun takes the edge of the penetrating cold right now. I just took the dog out looking like I was setting out to emulate Captain Scott...

There's little else happening on the cricket front. England will undoubtedly struggle to handle India from here on, especially with Kohli finding his best form and our batsmen showing an alarming tendency to collapse like a pack of cards. We need batsmen other than Joe Root to score heavily to go into the next Test anything other than two down.

Meanwhile in Australia, the home side has picked a very young squad to try to halt a losing streak against South Africa, but I fancy the visitors to take a third victory after the most ludicrous ball-tampering case in my memory.

I'm not sure how you can prevent people from eating sweets or gum and I'm unsure how much difference the application of mildly sugared saliva makes to a ball, compared to ordinary saliva or sweat. Or for that matter vaseline, which has been used in the past, along with myriad other things, both innocent and dubious.

Expect the Saffers to come out with guns blazing, in support of their captain, a good man.

Great game cricket, but a lot of silly devils are in charge of it at times.

4 comments:

  1. Roy of the Falcons23 November 2016 at 22:19

    Ball Tampering or Ball Deflating.

    One of the other sports I follow is NFL or American Football. They have currently been dragged through a ball deflation scandal involving their star quarterback, Tom Brady. The scandal lasted for 18 months, in typical American style, as it was dragged through various courts but the players four match supention and bar from any NFL facilities was upheld. Lawyers and journalists apart there was not any winners until the young replacement quarterback took to the field leading the team to three wins in the four games.
    Let's just hope cricket gets nowhere near this but when you are talking maxi million dollar player salaries the stakes are high. Let's cricket gets nowhere near those salaries as well.

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  2. Anyone else get the feeling that the imminent deal for non-domestic strike bowler may have hit a stumbling block or two? :(

    Gareth

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  3. Not me mate. These things and their announcement can be delayed for any number of reasons. The deal could be sealed and an announcement pending the right time from the player's perspective, especially if a Kolpak deal is likely.
    Patience...

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  4. Still don't like the championship revamp in that we only play Worcester, Leicester, Sussex and Gloucester once and everyone else twice! Cant see how that will be fair by the end of the season as there are bound to be a few sides that get the better end of the stick than others.
    Can you imagine the Premier League saying to one team you only have to play Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool once but to another you play those twice!! Doesn't make sense
    However I do like the way it is split into more obvious blocks for the three tournaments - will help people follow more easily (and players know what mode they are in) I suspect

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