Honest to God, I am not playing cricket this summer purely as protest against the national side.

Thats logical. The format seems retarded though.

But maybe if you play well enough youll get into the NT.:lol:

Has modern master Tendulkar eclipsed The Don?

Simon Barnes From: The Times October 19, 2010

HAS Sachin Tendulkar overtaken Don Bradman as the greatest batsman in cricket history?
And while we're on the subject, how would any of the legendary figures of the sporting past get on if they could be beamed up into the unforgiving modern arena?

There is more than a parlour game in this - but let us look at Tendulkar first.

Last week, with murderous certainty, he scored the sixth double century of his Test career and followed it with a calm, unbeaten 50 to take India to a 2-0 win in its far-too-brief Test series against Australia.

Tendulkar is now 37. He has been playing for India since he was 16, he has scored 49 Test centuries and 46 in one-day internationals, one of them the format's only double, which he scored this year. He is the unquestioned modern master. But would you promote him to the master of all time and space?

Bradman traditionally holds that place, with 29 centuries in 52 matches and that untouchable average of 99.94, compared with Tendulkar's 56.96.

But would Bradman be the same if he was facing modern bowling?

While the best bowlers were probably as good as modern players, the worst were a good deal worse. No easy pickings now. How would Bradman have coped in a helmet? With assaults on the body? Or would consistent targeting at head and body have upset him too much?

We begin to stray into such questions as whether a 21st-century Mozart would have been a rock star and whether Shakespeare would have gone to Hollywood. But the real question is not about great players, but about the game itself.

Cricket is a different game now - almost unrecognisable, in fact. Bradman was admirably suited to the cricket of his time, but he would face different things today: fitter bowlers, much better fielders, a far more aggressive atmosphere, greater research on weaknesses, more coherent battle plans, higher stakes, big financial considerations, intense media following, television; an altogether different kind of stardom.

We can extend this into other sports.

How would George Best have fared in the modern game? His control over the football would have been as good, but the most memorable part of his game, the dribble, the beating of one opponent after the next, is not a skill much asked for in the modern game.

Modern defenders are too quick, too savvy, too well coached to be beaten on a serial basis. Modern attacking players are more inclined to stick and move - to beat one man, pass and run into space. No doubt Best had the savvy to play like this, but he would have had to play a different game, because the game has changed. Would he have been exceptional in a modern game that is much less suitable for the expression of individuality?

The technology of all sports has changed; the more technological the sport, the greater the changes. So how would Jim Clark have fared in modern Formula One? His bravery and his mechanical adroitness would matter a good deal less. Could he have made himself one of the modern-day button-pressing astronauts, instead of being the greatest ever boy-racer?

These questions cannot be entirely laughed off.

The notion of Bradman in a helmet playing the Bradscoop over the wicketkeeper's head to win the Twenty20 final for Australia is to some an abomination - almost a blasphemy.

Sports change. The talents required to excel at them must, of necessity, change with them - talents to do with mind and personality and attitude as much as with physical co-ordination.

It is too easy to say that a successful mindset inevitably leads to success in any era.

We must at least entertain the possibility that in different eras, Bradman, Best and Clark would have been lesser figures.

The Times


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/has-modern-master-tendulkar-eclipsed-the-don/story-e6frg7t6-1225940394482

No, just No.

For Chrissake.

Pitches are flatter now than they were in Bradmans era.
Bradman played on Uncovered wickets

If Bradman was batting now, I have no doubt He'd probably average MORE than 99.94. These articles are just stupid.

Sorry I haven't spent much time in this thread - but the Redbacks just depress the shit out of me so much that I have to stop myself going over the road to buy a flagon to erase their shitness from my mind with its rough, rough badness.

I remember when the Vics were like that. There's some decent young players in the SA side isn't there? Give it a few years and you'll be right. If Dan Cullen or Cullen Bailey had matured like they were sposed to, you'd be laughing.

So the two Vic Bowlers took all the wickets, and Cam White hit the important runs. FMD just pick the Victorian side for the Australian side. We'd dominate any other country with ease tbh.

So the two Vic Bowlers took all the wickets, and Cam White hit the important runs. FMD just pick the Victorian side for the Australian side. We'd dominate any other country with ease tbh.

*Cough* Michael Clarke *cough*

If you want a successfull state side, look no further than NSW :p
Jaques, Haddin, Hughes, Khawaja, Smith, Lee, Clark, [size=1]and the rest, whome we don't care about[/size]

Don't forget Shane Watson plays for us now as well:lol:

*Cough* Michael Clarke *cough*

If you want a successfull state side, look no further than NSW :p
Jaques, Haddin, Hughes, Khawaja, Smith, Lee, Clark, [size=1]and the rest, whome we don't care about[/size]

What about Bollinger Vaughn?

If it wasn't for Cam White, Clarke's innings would have been slow and wasted the total away to about 250, on what was a 300+ surface.:p

As for being a succesful side, how is being Back to Back reigning Sheffield Shield champions treating you...

oh...oh wait, No...

No that's someone else..

Who is that again?

That's only because what would be NSW's First XI is to busy playing for Australia:lol:

Ohh, right. That would exaplin why Australia have dropped so suddenly in the rankings..

Key thing being most of the NSW contingent have performed well during that period:lol:

Fall of United, and Aussie cricket, is inevitable

Simon Barnes From: The Times October 23, 2010

HAVE you ever had one of those master-of-the-universe moments? You must have done. They are a universal experience.

Those moments when you know you've got everything right, you are in control and everything is perfect. But a master-of-the-universe moment doesn't last. There is always a decline. This happens with everything that humans create; things that are designed to last, things that are supposed to be for all time, something that you can't believe will ever stop lasting.

Things such as the British Empire, the fossil-fuel economy, new Labour, country pubs, the Beatles. You find the process is mirrored in sport. There is no logical reason why a successful team should not go on for ever. You create a tradition of excellence and every time an ageing warrior falls, there are brilliant youngsters fighting to take his place.

This can happen for years, with one generation after another. But it doesn't last forever and you're never more dangerous than when it's stopped lasting and you don't realise it.

I suppose the Australia cricket team realises it now.

We in England have observed what is happening with the Australians, but we are not going to say anything. Still less rush to any conclusions. England begins the first warm-up match of the Ashes tour on Bonfire Night and the first Test is on November 25.

Australia went through a couple of decades of more or less unbroken excellence. Player succeeded player, but they all had the same swagger and self-certainty, the same easy confidence in the road ahead - a succession of bullying, helmeted, purposefully stubbled, gum-chewing batsmen and a stream of bowlers of bewildering individual brilliance.

Australia may well summon up the bellicosity it traditionally reserves for the Poms and win back the Ashes. That won't disguise its decline. The signs were first perceptible in 2005. Perhaps the decline began on the first day of the second Test at Edgbaston, when England, smirkingly put in to bat by Australia captain Ricky Ponting, responded by scoring 407 runs in a day. It continued with Ponting's tantrum at Trent Bridge, when he was run out by the unforgettable Gary Pratt. Certainly the decline was in full swing last summer as England won again.

A club should, in theory, be able to last longer than any national team because they can buy players from all around the world. In football, the structure of the game is built around the premise of keeping power in the hands of the powerful.

Manchester United built one side after another, discarding players ruthlessly, acquiring new ones voraciously, changing with the times to keep its unchanging position at the summit of the English game. Every time people such as me postulated a decline, Alex Ferguson produced another great team.

But now the decline is clear for all to see. It has been staring us in the face every day of the week. United has become a selling club. It sold Cristiano Ronaldo, it sold Carlos Tevez and now it must sell Wayne Rooney. The striker has said he has to go for one reason: because the club is in decline. He could have chosen to stay and slow the decline; he prefers to move and help with the ascent of a rival - in other words, to hasten United's decline.

If United seeks a role model, it can look 45km west. Liverpool was once the unquestioned master of England and Europe. No one could ever see it replaced as the natural champion of football. And now look at it.

What causes a decline? You can put the Australia decline down to the loss of Warne. Or the flawed captaincy of Ponting. Or the failure of the Australian system to find new players. Or the fading interest in cricket in Australia. Or international finance - the rise of India as an economic force and the consequent shifting of cricket's power centre.

Historians can argue as the decline continues. What's the reason for the decline of United? The departure of Ronaldo? The ageing of Ferguson? The debt incurred by the Glazer family?

Perhaps the real cause of the decline was United's success. It grew so desirable that it became the target of billionaire chancers.

The reality is that every great institution declines in the end.

Again, you can choose your reason: that ultimate failure is the natural state of fallen humanity, that it is the chastisement of hubris, that the bastards always grind you down in the end.

Sport reveals a truth: that however good something is, something always spoils it.

You can blame whomever or whatever you like - God, the ageing process, mortality itself. And you would be right.

But the ultimate cause is always there right at the beginning. That is because decline is an ineluctable aspect of greatness.

The Times
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/fall-of-united-and-aussie-cricket-is-inevitable/story-e6frg7t6-1225942458293