h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, the London Times on the Web says no, here is the link:

http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Times/frontpage.html?2603642

Sounds like British cricket is in trouble. The kids prefer tennis (sheesh) or something with bigger individual heroes rather than team efforts. Too bad, I've really enjoyed learning about cricket in the "Rules of Cricket" discussion (I know, should be "Laws of Cricket", one of the things I learned).

Steve K.

I guess that the article implies that playing cricket was cool at one point. Not sure that in the UK it has been cool to be a cricket player for a long time.
I mean football (soccer) has always been a popular sport to play, the rules are easy and you don't need much in the way of equipment to get a game going - two jumpers and a tin can, in the extreme.
Cricket on the otherhand requires a bit more preparation than that.

I think having a successful team helps. Cricket is very popular at the moment in Australia due mainly to the success of the team (and partly to do with media coverage, especially tv)however this is only at a national level. At a state level you could quite safely fire a gun and not even go close to hitting a spectator.

Yup, nothing succeeds like success. I'm not a golf fan, but I think I read somewhere that Tiger Wood single-handedly started a golfing surge in younger folks (at the expense of tennis - the nearby excellent tennis courts are now a ghost town, evidently like some cricket fields - wickets? - in the UK). And yeah, its definitely a media thing - even I have seen Tiger's golf trick (bouncing a ball on the face of a club, including between his legs, then hitting it out of sight in midair) about a million times.

But I don't follow the Times logic that football (soccer) has bigger individual personalities. I don't know the names of the footballers, but why would they be bigger as individuals than Lara? My "Bluffer's Guide to Cricket" states flatly not to bluff about Lara, everybody knows everything about him. Seems about like baseball, with homer hitters Sosa and McGuire getting all the press, generally while their teams are losing. So why is football any different than cricket?

BTW, the same book describes each national team's style. UK: "Always ready to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Play without conviction or self-assurance". Australia: "Tough, uncomprising, joyless ... go to bat like Ned Kelly entering a bank".

I don't know how much tv coverage cricket gets in the UK but there is no doubt football is the number one sport over there and the media coverage is at saturation level> They also have at least a few superstars at each club and internationals from countries we haven't even heard of playing there, whereas Lara is only one person and is not even English. He also doesn't seem to be as good as he once was.

As for the definition of Australian cricket its certainly an accurate description of Steve Waugh the captain, and they say captains mould teams after their own personality.

Joyless might be a bit harsh but no arguement from me about tough and uncompomising, although they would be the first team to go into the other dressing room and share a beer after the days play. Of course, this is much easier to do when you are winning all the time..........

I always find cricket a weird thing. I don't want to watch it, but end up spending the day glued to the T.V. (bit like Quantum Leap in that respect, thank god it's only half an hour long).

I don't think most of the British public like cricket because it takes too long. One day cricket is OK 'cause it's faster and balls aren't wasted. But proper matches seem to take forever and when BBC2 broadcasted the whole match live, I think most people turned off.

Playing cricket is also a lot harder. Somebody before me wrote something similar - having to have the proper equipment. You also have to practice for longer to be able to play properly. I rememeber spending ages as a child trying to learn how to bowl - still cant do it.

Also I think it annoys people that we are so bad at a sport, we were meant to have invented, that they just stop trying to play or to watch because it is so embarrasing

Personally Cricket hasn't had enough of an impact on my life to say whether it is cool or not.

I went to my first proper cricket match in 1956. There was a howling gale and a seagull pinched one of my sandwiches. It certainly wasn't cool then (nothing much was - this was the fifties!) and I don't think it ever has been since, even when we were winning(that's Essex or England). Because the equipment is expensive it tends to be a class thing in England (unless your family came from the West Indies or the Indian sub-continent when it has sometimes been a religion)
It's a fairly cheap pleasant day out if it doesn't rain and you still meet very nice men (and latterly women) who also enjoy it and may buy you a drink if "your" side wins.
"Coarse" cricket was invented mostly as a way of passing the time without doing very much in the sunshine until the pubs opened. Maybe one reason for cricket's decline in England is that the pubs are now open all day?

I think the demise of cricket may be down to the size of area needed in order to play it properly. 99% of schools cannot aford the sort of investment in order to have a team :. its darned difficult for the other 1% to get a local match etc.
Even in the rural area of my English schooling the cricket pitch was a bind - putting the soccer, hockey and athletics areas out of commission...and this only happened one summer because of a wholesale revolt by the pupils. (Which in typically English fashion involved hiding the crease roller ).
However, cricket is not totally uncool - I watched a very high standard of cricket for free in Handsworth Park (NE Birmingham) on more than one summer afternoon whilst I was there (about 5 years ago)...and village cricket thrives in the Caistor area as a largely social sport.

In reply to 'is cricket cool?' I have to say that it is not. Nor will it ever really be. Cricket is a cult, of which only a few know the rules, and even fewer the patience to watch. I am told by former players that the enjoyment comes from the few seconds of terror before you are hit with the high-velocity ball of rock, the merriment of your friend's resemblance to the Michelin man in the padding, and the obligatory lemonade and buns afterwards. This is enough to ensure its popularity, but it will forever retain its label of upper-class. Even the phrase, 'not quite cricket' embodies the gentlemanly image of the sport. Soccer for plebs, rugby and cricket for toffs.

Sorry to be so generalistic, but that's the way it is. And would cricket fans really like it if lager louts frequented their games? I think not. But then I'm not a fan of either...

Cricket can still be thought of as cool. During the world cup last summer the t.v room in my college at university was often packed for the matches that were on. When you consider that this was the middle of the summer exam period you can see that cricket can still be hugely popular (or a usefull way of avoiding revision).
I like cricket and I can think of very few things better than spending a lazy sunday afternoon listening to "test match special" on the radio. You don't have to spend much money to have a decent game, all you need is a bat, a tennis ball, an upturned bin and one slightly over enthusiastic fielder. Its a great way to spend an afternoon when it is too hot to play football!.

It is very good as a "company" sport, as people of widely differing physical abilities can still have a reasonably competitive game without the fittest having to carry the rest (literally or metaphorically ).

Its even better as a pub sport. We have an annual front bar vs back bar game which involves drinking and playing at the same time

LOL ... drinking and playing at the same time, kind of gives new meaning to "six and out" (hitting the ball into the water trap, Wandrin' Star., I think?). So you have to catch and bat one-handed?

My university had a "beer-bike race" competition between the residential colleges, it involved a serious relay bike race, with a team member required to chug a pint can of beer before the next rider could leave. The techniques for chugging were highly developed (and practiced), involving, among other things, a small hole at the bottom of the can covered by a finger (the cans were filled from a pitcher, I recall) which was uncovered when the pint went up. This let air in while the beer was sucked out. A good time was several seconds.

Ah yes the famous shotgun technique. Something i have never mastered to be honest.......

The batsmen usually put their beer safely behind the stumps and the fielders usually (but not always) put their drinks down when the bowler is running in.

When Godfrey Evans (a famous England wicket-keeper and "agricultural" batsman) played in beer matches ,his beer stood behind the wicket if he was keeping and in _front_ if he was batting. In these matches - half day usually - the losing team buys the beer for the rest of the evening.
Alix, lager louts have certainly been at one day matches for the last five years and I remember a test at Headingley in the early sixties when I sat in the Australian supporters' end by mistake that was extremely raucous.I didn't have to buy any beer though, which, as I was a student at the time, was a very good thing indeed.

Tha aussie equivalent of lager louts have been going to the one dayers for years which is why i usually watch it in the pub on tv.

Two years ago (i think when England toured) the first day of the Sydney test was on new years day so you can imagine what state some of the crowd was in before the gates had even opened !!! I notice this year they didn't start until 2nd Jan

I thought this whole year (not just cricket) started on Jan 2.
One of the things that makes watching cricket preferable to other spectator sports is that you can sit with a drink in your hand

and without freezing off some rather vital parts of the anatomy

Well...I don't know about the rest of you...I am glad to see some lovers of the game in here...but I developed a love for the game when my brother started to use me as a convenient target for his bowling practice I like to go on a lazy afternoon to watch Sunday League...good company,good beer,and generally a good game As with all games, my local team,Northants, have had their share of ups and downs...I knew Lambie quite well at one time(and the team has deff suffered since his departure ) We did have the wonderful Curtly Ambrose with us for a few years and I will never forget going to a *friendly* Sunday game when he was pitched against Lara Curtly walked onto the pitch like a god,and it was more reminiscent of the show down at a boxing match then a quiet game of cricket You could feel the animosity at the back of the stands LOL...and it made for great cricket Cricket IS still cool...but you need to make the effort to actually go to a live match to really understand the attraction!
Sorry...what a long post LOL...oh...and there is ALWAYS fun when the WI's are playing
shazzPR

I don't think they had much fun when they were in NZ recently, when they lost almost every game, but they certainly seemed to have fun when they were world champs.

There was a memorable ad they did in Australia for , i think, Bicardi rum, where they ended up having a real party and the agency just filmed around it and cut out the bits they couldn't use.