[size=6]Now who's the cheat, Matt Prior, foxsports.com.au users say during Australia-England international at SCG[/size]

England cricket legend Sir Ian Botham went berserk when Phillip Hughes claimed a catch that wasn't in the final Ashes Test at the SCG - but he has been silent after Matt Prior argued on Wednesday night that Mitchell Johnson had been clean bowled.

The England wicketkeeper caught a delivery from Michael Yardy after Johnson went for a big hit in the sixth one-day international at the SCG.

Johnson's back foot was firmly planted in the crease, but Prior appealed for a clean bowling after actually knocking the bails off himself.

As the replay hit the big screen, there was confusion among the commentators and fans booed.

But there was no confusion among foxsports.com.au users following our live blog of the match. You let blog author Sam Bruce know exactly what you thought of Prior.

"Hard to see how that cannot be called cheating," Dan wrote.



"Have you ever seen a bail fall off forwards when a batsmen is bowled?"

Bruce Lindsay was also angered.

"After just witnessing the Matt Prior appeal for bowled on tv I am dumbfounded how Ian Botham can call Shaun Marsh or whoever it was a cheat and not say a single word about this blatent act of trying to con the umpire," Bruce wrote.

"Botham and Prior, you are both cheats! Am I allowed to say that or do I need a press pass?"

Joel agreed: "That was one of the lower acts you will see in cricket. Matt Prior showed what little integrity he has."

Chris Wright got in on the act as well: "Does Beefy want to add anything to Matt Priors blatant cheating? Nope, didnt think so Beefy."

It is still not known whether Prior will have to answer to a match official for the appeal."

Botham was adamant during the Sydney Ashes Test that Hughes was a cheat.

England opener Alastair Cook had pushed a ball into the path of Hughes for what initially looked like a catch.

Hughes raised his hands and looked unsure, but later celebrated as teammates gathered around him.

Replays showed the ball had bounced, which prompted Botham to blurt on Sky Sports: "Terrible. Cheating. How much do you want it to bounce into your hands? He knows he hasn't caught it."

Hughes defended himself.

"If you saw the replay you could see I wasn't sure, and I even said to Alastair Cook I wasn't sure. People will look back on the incident and know I wasn't sure," Hughes said.

- with the Herald Sun
http://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/the-ashes/now-whos-the-cheat-matt-prior-foxsportscomau-users-say-during-australia-england-international-at-scg/story-e6frf3gl-1225999491570?from=public_rss

[size=7]Melbourne and Sydney given two T20 teams each[/size]

Melbourne and Sydney will each host two teams in next summer's new Big Bash League, and the Ryobi Cup will be pruned to squeeze the revamped Twenty20 competition into the calendar. Cricket Australia's board decided on Tuesday that Etihad Stadium in Melbourne's Docklands and Sydney's Homebush Stadium would join the six major Test grounds in headquartering Twenty20 teams, with Geelong's bid rejected.

However, although the limited-overs competition will suffer with the introduction of the Big Bash League, the board has for the time being kept its hands off the Sheffield Shield. The first-class tournament involves every team playing each other twice, culminating in a five-day final, and after Australia's Ashes failure it would have been a controversial move to cut any rounds or the decider from the Shield.

But if the Twenty20 competition expands beyond eight teams after next summer, something will have to give. Cricket Australia's chief executive James Sutherland said for the time being the full Shield schedule was safe, and there were other options if more calendar time was required to play all three competitions.

"It may well be that the Big Bash does expand and there are various options for us that can be considered as part of that process," Sutherland said. "There's absolutely no reason why the cricket season has to go for five and a half months or whatever it is. It can go for longer. We can play first-class matches in September in northern Australia or other parts of Australia if we want to extend the programme and ensure a full programme of one-day cricket or Shield cricket. There's a huge range of possibilities."

For now, the Ryobi Cup has been trimmed to eight rounds plus a final, instead of the existing ten. That will provide scope for the eight-team Big Bash League, which Cricket Australia could have used to grow the game in Victoria's major regional city of Geelong. However, a lack of floodlights at Geelong's Skilled Stadium, together with the desire to push into Melbourne's western suburbs, quashed that bid.

"They were all very close calls," said Mike McKenna, the Cricket Australia marketing manager in charge of the Big Bash League. "In terms of a lot of the measurements the venues were very even. The difference for us was the size of the market that we're going to be serving with two teams in Melbourne, the growth of those markets, particularly the very strong growth predicted in the west of Melbourne, and the team that will play out of Etihad Stadium will be serving that audience."

In New South Wales, the Kogarah Oval and Sydney Showgrounds were overlooked as the board opted for teams at the SCG and the ANZ Stadium at Homebush. The eight city-based teams will reveal their names and colours in the coming weeks, while private backers will also be sought for two new sides, with the existing state cricket associations each set to take charge of only one outfit.

The other major step will involve the distribution of players among the teams, and despite initially considering a national draft, Cricket Australia now believes free agency is a more likely scenario. Teams will be keen to secure their homegrown stars, but there is unlikely to be an IPL-style system in place where a handful of marquee talents are automatically tied to their local city.

And fans will be disappointed if they expect to see stars like Ricky Ponting and Shane Watson in the Big Bash League. There are no plans to introduce a window free of international cricket during which the tournament could be played, and next summer Australia are likely to be playing Test cricket during much of the time when the Twenty20 competition is run, in December and January.

"As we map out the Future Tours Programme ... it's pretty clear to me that there's unlikely to be really clear windows for Australian players to play the full period of the Big Bash League," Sutherland said. "There may be opportunities through the Big Bash League for them to play a week or two, or maybe the finals, but to my mind, looking at the schedule into the future, I think it's probably unlikely at this stage."

http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia/content/current/story/499901.html

So yeah Matt Prior's a cheating cunt.

Australian cricketers want changes in contract system

28 July 2011



Sydney, July 28 (IANS) Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) is planning to call for an overhaul of Cricket Australia (CA) central contract, which stands almost irrelevant after the selection of Nathan Lyon, Michael Beer and Trent Copeland from outside the 25-man contract list.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that ACA boss Paul Marsh is open to improvements but does not believe the existing model is broken.


'We've got to realise that under that same model, we dominated world cricket for most of the 15 years we have had it in place, so I'm not convinced that the model is the issue here,' Marsh was quoted as saying by the daily.


Six weeks ago the trio of Lyon, Beer and Copeland were not considered among the top-15 Test players in the country but that did not deter the selectors from picking them for the Test series in Sri Lanka.


'I read Andrew Hilditch's comments about wanting to have a look at the contract model and we are absolutely open to that, but it's incumbent on Cricket Australia and the selectors to come to us with what they think is a better model,' Marsh said.


'We've done all the numbers around the players that have played for Australia over the last decade and the average is over 30 players in any given year ... Perhaps playing a handful of games for Australia shouldn't qualify you for a contract, but if you play 30 one-day games for the year I absolutely think you should.'


http://cricket.yahoo.com/cricket/news/article?id=item/2.0/-/story/cricket.indiaabroad.com/australian-cricketers-want-changes-contract-system-20110728/

Unnatural selection: if he can hold the ball, then hell, give him a baggy green

Patrick Smith From: The Australian July 28, 2011

THE Australian cricket selectors have caught us short of our crease again. Even stumped Nathan Lyon, the young off-spinner who is now on the verge of Test cricket off the back of a successful stint in one-day cricket in Zimbabwe.

More surprised would have been Xavier Doherty and Jason Krejza. They had taken some comfort in the knowledge that they, at least, were contracted to Cricket Australia.

Andrew Hilditch runs the selection of Australian cricket squads. He took over just as one of the greatest teams in the sport's history was turning on the tide of age. Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden . . . these blokes would be at the core of any Australian team in any era.

Hilditch and co have needed to build a team in their absence. That was never going to be an easy task because the traditional and proven selection protocols were changing with the side. No longer is the Sheffield Shield the pass mark. Excellence is now judged in precocious under-age competitions and secondary international competition.

Thus when Lyon claimed the scalps of Sibanda, Meth, Chakabva, Ervine, Ontong, Utseya, Kuhn and van der Merwe bowling with Australia A in the just gone limited-overs series against Zimbabwe and South Africa A, he was a walk-up start to take on the Sri Lankans. You simply ignore form like that at your peril.

Yet a different, more rational style of selection would define the Zimbabwe tour as a filter, not a stepping stone. In a way where a bag of wickets or a swag of runs were the minimum expectation and the selectors would proceed on the basis that success was a sign merely of competence and not excellence. That explains the decision to ignore Jason Krejza but it does not support the promotion of Lyon.

The number of spinners tried since Warne then Stuart MacGill retired is in double figures. That points to the two most significant reasons why Australia's recent endeavours have been less than fruitful.

There are no capable coaches to explain to bowlers the correct methods to deliver the ball nor to ingrain in them the craft's culture and philosophy.

If there are such coaches they are not employed gainfully in Australia. Our fast bowlers run in like hurricanes and bowl like drips. And our spinners cannot bowl to sensible fields nor condemn a batsman to an over of defence. As for our batsmen, they arrive at the crease with loose, almost arrogant techniques that show no respect for opposition patience or cunning. Hence, half-formed ideas like Usman Khawaja are plonked into Test cricket as theories and not solutions.

There is an art, a sophistication to selection that ultimately denotes one person more qualified than another. It is not how many runs scored or wickets taken by a selector as a player that will determine a good one from the bad, rather the indefinable gift to see in others the special ability required to dominate as a batsman or a bowler.

You can call it a hunch. A feeling. The fact that Australia has promoted/demoted 11 spinners since Warne left points to none of the above. Selection is not merely rotation. What did selectors see in Doherty that told them he could be a success at Test level when he could not succeed at Sheffield Shield? What do they expect Krejza to show them now, three years -- but just one Test on -- since his debut in India in November 2008?

Selection is not taking a punt. That's for dummies like us in the public. We expect selectors to know more than us, have intuitive skills that spot a player making 20 and rate it a better, more promising performance than his teammate who makes 120.

If you keep selecting and dropping slow bowlers then it is a very public admission that you never trusted your judgment in the first place. What the hell, he could hold the ball in his fingers and raise his arm above the shoulder. Give him a baggy green.

Selection is about having the knowledge and the eye to spot talent but also mixed in equal parts with the patience to nurture it.

Hilditch's mob made a call on Simon Katich that at least made some strategic sense. The best batsmen were getting old and rejuvenation was required. There was more evidence that Katich could be replaced effectively (Phil Hughes) than either Ricky Ponting or Michael Hussey. So the selectors made the call.

But selectors have sought one spinner after another since Warne and MacGill disappeared. Did they really think Cameron White was better than Beau Casson? That Brad Hogg was better than both? That Bryce McGain was better than White and Steve Smith was better than the lot of them?

What was the measuring stick for Nathan Hauritz apart from injury? What was it that told them Michael Beer was better than Xavier Doherty? Do they even remember Dan Cullen?

It is not enough to blame the changed circumstances of playing cricket in Australia. No matter what form or grade of cricket is used to produce and judge bowlers and batsmen, the key is the state of a player's game when he reaches the next step. That is the responsibility of our coaches. They have failed their task patently and profoundly.

Couple that with selectors who think their job is no more sophisticated than promote and demote and it is little wonder that we play and miss time and again.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/unnatural-selection-if-he-can-hold-the-ball-then-hell-give-him-a-baggy-green/story-e6frg7mf-1226103022919

Proof we are selling out our baggy green

Malcolm Conn From: The Sunday Telegraph July 31, 2011

RUGBY union has the Wallabies, rugby league the Kangaroos and now cricket has the silver spoons.

This is Australia's Twenty- 20 squad, which left for Sri Lanka yesterday.

There are a multitude of players among the 13 who flew out of Brisbane unworthy of their Cricket Australia contracts in the wake of the Simon Katich sacking.

It continues to make a mockery of claims by administrators that Test cricket remains the most important form of the game.Besieged chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch uttered it again last week while announcing a Test squad that did not contain Australia's best performed player of the past three years, Katich.

Yet CA has slashed state contracts for those who play in the Test nursery of the Sheffield Shield to finance the expanded Twenty20 Big Bash.

And the selectors dumped Katich, 35, despite him being the second most prolific Test batsman in world cricket since being recalled midway through 2008. Yet a bunch of sloggers and short-game specialists who will never make a meaningful contribution to lifting Australia from fifth on the Test rankings have retained their contracts. What message does this send to the next generation?

That Twenty20 is the game if you want to make millions in the IPL, and if you can play one-day cricket as well you'll get a CA contract. Never mind if you have poor to modest first-class figures. Australian Cricketers' Association chief executive Paul Marsh defends the ranking of 25 players based on combining their worth across all three forms of the game. Test players receive a weighting of 1.25, one-day players 0.8 and Twenty20 players 0.2.

"Australia play an average of 30 one-day matches a year and those players deserve to be recognised," Marsh said.Likewise, CA's acting chief executive Michael Brown said the contract system attempted to achieve a balance.

"It strongly favours Test players," Brown said. Not so given Katich's record.

Non-Test players contracted ahead of Katich include:

David Hussey - will be 37 when the next World Cup comes around.

Cameron White - the Twenty20 captain, but was dumped from the one-day team.

Callum Ferguson - first-class average of just 35 with only six centuries.

Shaun Marsh - just six first-class centuries in 60 games but may yet play Test cricket.

Brett Lee - a great champion and great for the game but no longer a Test player.

John Hastings - a bit-part all-rounder.

Xavier Doherty - modest one-day spinner and poor fielder

Jason Krejza - ignored completely despite a contract.


http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/proof-we-are-selling-out-our-baggy-green/story-e6freyar-1226105185532

Brilliant piece of sportsmanship from Dhoni. Great to see.

I'd have to see it live before I can comment, but it sounds like a lot of idiotic play encapsulated into about 30 seconds worth of cricket.

Brilliant piece of sportsmanship from Dhoni. Great to see.

Nathan Bracken sues Cricket Australia over a knee injury

by: By LISA DAVIES Chief Court Reporter From: The Daily Telegraph October 12, 2011

FORMER Australian cricketer Nathan Bracken has launched legal action against the sport's governing body, claiming a knee injury he sustained during his career has robbed him of hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings.

The former fast bowler was not in court as the case was briefly mentioned yesterday.

Instead, his barrister Richard O'Keefe asked the case be adjourned because Cricket Australia had not complied with previous court orders to provide "medical records relating to the Plaintiff".

The body has now been given more to produce the documents, a registrar setting the next court date as November 30.

The civil proceedings in the Supreme Court are still in their infancy, today's court mention being only the second time the case has been in court.

The Daily Telegraph understands Bracken is suing Cricket Australia claiming 'professional negligence', arguing the sport's body failed in their duty of care to protect him from serious long-term damage resulting from injury during his career.

His persistent knee injury forced the left-arm swing bowler to retire in January, but a point of contention is expected to be his ability to compete on the gruelling TV show, Dancing with the Stars.

Cricket Australia has so far declined to comment.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nathan-bracken-sues-cricket-australia-over-a-knee-injury/story-e6freuy9-1226164691799

Cricket 'ruled by self-interest' as game is hampered by infighting between states

by: Peter Lalor From: The Australian October 13, 2011

THE authors of Australian cricket's governance review say that self-interest is "endemic" at board level as they consider introducing an independent commission to run the game.

The board review has also asked stakeholders whether players should be regarded as shareholders in the game and allowed a seat at board level.

David Crawford and Colin Carter were hired by Cricket Australia to conduct a governance review in February.

It was one of three reviews running concurrently. Don Argus filed the preliminary Australian Cricket review in August while a Financial Model Working Group is examining the economic structures of Australian cricket but has become bogged down by infighting among the states.

Crawford and Carter are due to report later this month, but have briefed the state boards on their work in recent times.

Crawford did the 1992 report that led to the formation of the AFL Commission and then the 2003 report that set up Football Federation Australia. Carter served on the AFL Commission for 15 years and is the president of the Geelong Football Club.

Cricket Australia has struggled to move with the times because of a board structure that sees the six states reluctant to agree to anything that might impact on their narrow domestic concerns.

This was highlighted when the Financial Model Review had to be revised after consultation with the states found that they would not proceed unless each received a guarantee they be no worse off under new funding arrangements.

And the states, who are the shareholders in Cricket Australia, will have a vote on whether any changes recommended by Carter and Crawford are adopted.

NSW, Victoria and South Australia have three votes each while the other states have a single vote.

Any proposals to have an independent commission has to be passed by a 75 per cent majority.

The Australian has learned that Crawford and Carter told the state boards recently that they were considering a number of issues when working to ascertain what set-up would best serve the game.

They asked "who owns cricket" and argued that a good governance structure has to have accountability, which means the board can be sacked by the state associations.

While it is acknowledged that players are "co-owners" of the game, it is unlikely they will be given a seat on any new board, nor is it certain they would want one.

The experience of players sitting on boards in the West Indies and South Africa has been unsatisfactory and short-lived as conflicts of interest make life difficult for the parties.

The Australian players may, however, wish to have an observer role at board level.

Crawford and Carter have been advocating a new board or commission whose members have a collection of skills that "adds up to more than the sum of its parts" and have asked the states which skills are most relevant.

The pair claim there is a "serious endemic of conflict of interest" and that the present structure where the shareholders own the company but the board manages it by delegating to management has led to a "lack of clarity".

The report may be handed to Cricket Australia after this month's annual general meeting and there is no decision yet as to whether it will be made public.

Current chairman Jack Clarke is due to hand his role over to former WA Test player Wally Edwards at that meeting. The states have agreed the chairman's job should continue to be a paid role.

Meanwhile, the financial review group is looking to move away from a pooling model that sees revenues accrued from international gate takings and divided between the states and national body to one that is grant-based.

The states can at least celebrate one financial windfall with the CA budget $5.9 million better off than expected, which has allowed a one-off payment of $500,000 to each state body this month.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/cricket-ruled-by-self-interest-as-game-is-hampered-by-infighting-between-states/story-e6frg7rx-1226165284860

Cricket writer Peter Roebuck dies

Andrew Stevenson
November 13, 2011 - 10:57AM

Cricket writer Peter Roebuck has died while covering the current tour of South Africa by the Australian Test team.

The acclaimed cricket writer Peter Roebuck has been found dead at a hotel in Newlands, South Africa.

Roebuck, a writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, was 55.

He played for the English county Somerset, made a home in Australia, and built a reputation as the best columnist on the sport.

He travelled widely with the Australian team, and was also a radio commentator for the ABCs.

It is believed he was spoken to by police earlier in the day.

Ian Fuge, managing editor, sport, at the Herald said Robeuck's death was ''a devastating blow to all at The Sydney Morning Herald both professionally and personally''.

''Peter was a wonderful writer who was the bard of summer for cricket-loving Australians,'' he said.

''He was also an extraordinary bloke who will be sorely missed.''


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket-writer-peter-roebuck-dies-20111113-1ndg0.html#ixzz1dXT9gCwM

Decline of cricket in this country is great news. Hopefully the public will lose interest and start going to watch the football.:cool:

Ky

Roebuck, confirmed suicide... i just don't know what to say, i was listening to the cricket on thursday night