The Cricket Couch Cricket Conversations. I started a new initiative on this blog way back in May 2. Cricket Conversations which involves email back and forth on a variety of topics with bloggers, writers, fans and journalists. The first of the Cricket Conversations was with Siddartha Vaidyanathan on Spirit of Cricket, the second with Gideon Haigh on Club Cricket and the third with Ahmer Naqvi on cricket fandom. What follows is the fourth installment of cricket conversations where I had email exchanges with Jarrod Kimber on why people feel the need to constantly worry whether Test cricket is dying or doing well , spread over a few weeks. On Wed, Jun 1, 2. Each game will be of 10 minutes duration, i. e 5 minutes to each player with 3 sec increment. No. of rounds will be decided at start of The tournament. Dated 17th Nov 2016. Hyderabad Team UNDER 16 PROBABLES 201617. The following Players have been selected. Cricket is a batandball game played between two teams of eleven players each on a cricket field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22yardlong pitch with a. Subash Jayaraman wrote I have been meaning to send this email to you for quite a while but your recent piece from England v Sri Lanka Test at Durham finally forced me to. You have written about it in your recent book Unauthorised biography of Test cricket and have spent a fair bit of column lengths at Cricinfo and CWB on the topic of Is Test cricket dying I am not so interested in actually finding out the answer to that question from you but why is it that people wonder about the mortality of Test cricket, as it seems, all the freakin time One of the fun things I do once you read what it is you will realize I dont do fun things is to type in Test Cricket dying in Google and look at the results. It generally yields upwards of six hundred thousand results and I like to go to random result pages and read the various times over the last century or more people have sounded out the alarm on the impending death of Test cricket. If I remember correctly, even in the first decade of 2. Test cricket because with the industrial revolution changing the lives of people dramatically, Test cricket was considered an anachronism and hence did not have a place in modern society. So, through this conversation, I want to shed light on the constant existential crisis that the writers and mouth pieces of Test cricket have felt over the years as to why that is. I mean its not like Test cricket survived through wars, corruption, match fixing, racism, sexism, classism, Packer, rebel tours or nothing. One of the funny ones was by Jack Fingleton, the former Aussie cricketer, after whom the scoreboard at Manuka Oval in Canberra is named. He wrote in 1. 96. Wisden that County cricket in England with its allure for the overseas cricketers would lead to the death of Test cricket. He felt that the international blood of other countries would be sucked dry by England in trying to keep alive the out moded, incongruous county cricket system. Lets give, as you wrote in Balls, the Woody Allen of Sports a spot on the couch and lets try to talk through the anxieties, self doubts and crises of confidence. We could start from the beginning or, start with the most recent T2. Domestic Leagues. ESPN Cricinfo provides the most comprehensive cricket coverage available including live ballbyball commentary, news, unparalleled statistics, quality editorial. The 36yearold Dhoni is now the 13th cricketer in the history of international cricket to complete a ton of 50s. Tabtight professional, free when you need it, VPN service. Following the Indian womens cricket teams stellar start to the 2017 Cricket World Cup, an inevitable question that has come up is whether they are better than. The Financial Express is an online Business and Financial Newspaper providing news from Stock Markets, Companies, Insurance, Automobiles and more through Mobile Apps. UTorrent 3 Tiny Footprint, Massive Power uTorrent 3 is the worlds most popular BitTorrent client. Check out the features that have. Your call. SubashOn Thu, Jun 2, 2. Jarrod Kimber wrote The Daily Mail recently started putting up a bunch of articles about how Albanians are a problem for Britain. Of course, before that it was Romanians. And before that, the Polish. During all that time it was also Muslims. And Gypsies. Not to forget black people. Poor people. Anyone not from Britain. Its obviously bullshit, the namescountriesethnicities of the people in these articles arent important. The point being at any time there is always something that you should fear. Something that you cant do anything about.   Something coming for what you love. You see the same patterns all over the world. If you love something, someone will be around to tell you its being ruined, ruining itself, or dying. Test Cricket is just one of those things. People are worried about it. People have always been worried about it. A poorly attended Test, which financially means quite little to crickets bottom line, is a sign of the apocalypse. Every poorly attended, or well attended, Test match is someones its hotcold today, that provesdisproves global warming. Yet, think about this, it is quite possible now that every single Test match has more coverage, more viewers, more people who follow it in every way than at any time in history.   There are also more Test Cricket fans than in any point in history. And more cricket fans of any kind in any point in history. So if Test Cricket is potentially bigger than ever before. And Cricket is bigger than ever before. Whats the problemOur Albanians are T2. Leagues. One of the funniest things about T2. They always pop back up, and its not like that is a sign of T2. All the blips are Test Cricket. But to think that T2. Although, to think they cant, or havent already helped is silly too. What is the Armageddon scenarioThat the IPL expands, or has two tournaments. That the Big Bash expands. And that England finally develops a league that isnt designed around county cricket fans, and can become bigger than the big bash and smaller than the IPL.   Even a scaled down version of this schedule could mean that December, January, April, May, July, and August are mostly taken up by non international cricket that makes more money. Test Cricket, and international cricket, becomes worth less World Cups and World T2. Test Cricket and bilateral series, outside of warm ups for major tournaments, disappear. The smaller nations either find a way to monetize their leagues, or have small leagues that feed players to the bigger sides. And hope for national glory once every four years. There are several reasons why this is tough to make happen, especially for Australia, India and England. International cricket in those places is big money. Indias next rights deal could mean that each international game they host is worth 2. USD. Maybe more. The Ashes makes big money as well, as does hosting India. And you also need to play other teams. Because viewers get bored of playing the same sides over and over again. So in order for T2. Mc. Donalds might talk about healthy options, they might offer salads, and they might have even tried to make their burgers healthier, but they still essentially sell burgers. How do we know an expanded T2. Australia or India will even make more money than international cricket, and we dont even know what one in England will look like. We know that the Ashes sells, we know that the Indian national team sells.   Neither, it would appear, are on a downward slope. Now that doesnt mean that T2. Tests, but everything effects Tests. Economy, growth, environment, politics, finance, TV, online, the truth is that while millions of Test Cricket fans exist, its a damn hard thing to kill. Even for planned Albanian blitz bash league. On Fri, 3 Jun 2. Subash Jayaraman wrote The other day Harsha Bhogle tweeted this Just saw some viewership numbers. Alarming decline in test viewers coupled with huge growth in T2. Obviously, it doesnt provide any context. Whether he was talking about Tests in 2. IPL or WT2. 0 and IPL combined, or for all T2. I guess he must have received a fair few pinging him with their support of Test cricket to which he responded, Expectedly, everyone replying how great test cricket is. But if you watched, as you say, the numbers wouldnt be grim in the first placeLets say the TV numbers are grim for Test cricket. What does that really meanI am willing to guess that people who tune in for any extended period of any Test is less than those that tune in for a T2. David Bumble Lloyd I take cricket seriously, but not myself Apparently people are more likely to buy if I sign them, he says. Flippin eck, theres no accounting for taste. And as he speaks, you are immediately transported to the sofa in front of your television, can of ale in hand, waiting in happy expectation for some of the most cheery catchphrases in sport. Start the car, flippin murdered em, time for a Root no one else has quite such a way with the English language as David Lloyd when he describes a cricket match to Skys audience. From the chirpy chirrup of Brian Johnston to the honeyed rumble of Michael Holding, cricket fans have been blessed over the years by the verbal quality of those who have delivered commentary. And Lloyd is at the heart of that rich vocal tradition. His observations, delivered in an Accrington lilt in which vowels are rolled around the mouth like a vintage claret, are never short of spice, never bereft of colour. My dad was a lay preacher, didnt say much, but he told me to be myself, he says. Thats what I am now. Though I admit every now and then the producers put their head in their hands Whats he done now Take Time for a Root said when Joe of that ilk came out to bat for England for the first time. Come on, somebody had to say it. So I did. Its not malice. Its mischief, double entendre. Thats what I am mischievous. As anyone who follows him on Twitter, endlessly provoking Indian cricket fans, will testify. Twitter Its an illness. Im addicted. Can you get medical help But I love it for the wind up. Its made for mischief. In a way, Lloyd could not be anything other than a fan of mischief. It is not just the end of pier accent that suggests he was born without a gloomy gene. There are the eyebrows, too. Most of us have brows that run parallel to our eyes. Lloyds go up vertically, at right angles. It gives him the impression of being continually startled, as if his life is one long whoopy cushion. Actually cricket is deadly serious for me. But you have to have enjoyment I take cricket seriously, but not myself. That has been the approach long adopted by the man universally known as Bumble due to his alleged facial similarity to characters in the childrens television series The Bumblies. Take his attitude to the Ashes. Few people have experienced the ancient rivalry from as many perspectives as Lloyd. As player, coach and commentator, he has closely observed the England Australia rivalry for more than four decades. And he has always managed to find a way to defuse tension with a laugh. Batting against the Aussies in Perth in 1. Bumble was struck by a fizzing delivery from Jeff Thomson directly in what he calls The Balkans. It immediately demonstrated that protective gear back then was about as effective as damp cardboard, his box shattered, a shard of plastic embedding itself in his groin. It is enough to make grown men wince at the very mention of it, but Lloyd has managed to turn it into a hilarious 2. Twenty five years later, Lloyd was England coach, in charge of a side about to face the finest Australian team of all time. People say to me what did you do as coach Did you pick the teamThat makes me laugh. If Id have gone to Michael Atherton and said do this, do that, hed have said Its nothing to do with you, Im the captain. Lloyds methods of preparation were, despite the jokes, far sighted. He was the first to employ physios, nutritionalists and fitness coaches in the England set up. We brought it up to date a little, he says of his regime. Mind, we got ridiculed for having six back up staff. Theres 1. 7 now. Theyll have a squad of 1. This fashion for over analysis worries Lloyd, a man whose attitude to the game is a simple one. Theres too much theory around, theyre vanishing up their own backsides. See the ball, hit it, theres the stumps aim at em. Thats all you need to know. He sees the urge to over complicate at work in the departure of Mickey Arthur, the Australian coach defenestrated soon after the visiting team arrived on these shores. Its Arthurs fault now, but if England win the Ashes whose fault is it then Theres too much emphasis put on the coach. Did a coach motivate Gary Sobers, Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Shane Warne No, a bit of talent helps. Australia are not as talented as England, simple as that. Man for man they arent. They can change their backroom as much as they like, they cant change that. Perhaps because he believes England hold all the cards in the forthcoming series, Lloyd cannot wait for the Ashes to begin. He cannot wait to see Kevin Pietersen, a player he describes as the best he has ever seen bat for England and Ive seen Cowdrey, May, Geoff Boycott, all of them. He cannot wait for the camaraderie of the Sky commentary box it works partly because we dont have a lot in common, I mean what use would I have for 2. And most of all he cannot wait to frame his words into the microphone. As a player and coach I was sensitive to criticism from the media, I admit. I read every bloomin word. It makes me laugh when players say I dont read a word of it because they always know when someone has a go at them. They all say, oh no, we watch the telly with the sound down, but what you said is out of order. Egos, you see. Ive not met a cricketer yet in 5. Which, you suspect, makes a man as addicted to mischief as Lloyd all the more likely to say something fruity over the next few weeks. The Ashes According To Bumble by David Lloyd is published by Harper Sport 1.