a Yank needs help re football

Originally posted by Favs
You're right about the R.L. "up north" dyl. However, don't you guys put more money per person into sport than any other country in the world? Particularly at grass roots level.
Even though I hate the National Lottery over here for giving everyone false hope of riches, I can agree that it has had a definite and positive effect on sport.

St Nick. Cricket is just like baseball, without all the really complicated stats and figures!

I wouldn't be surprised.

You're right about the grass roots. The reason we do so well in cricket (which is not boring once you get into it, Santa!) is because every kid plays it in his backyard. That leads to a lot of depth come selection time.


National lottery?

Originally posted by dyl
I wouldn't be surprised.

You're right about the grass roots. The reason we do so well in cricket (which is not boring once you get into it, Santa!) is because every kid plays it in his backyard. That leads to a lot of depth come selection time.


National lottery?

A government sanctioned way of getting more and more money from the poor. Basically you pay a pound, choose six numbers, and if they come up you win a percentage of the prize fund. At the beginning there were people winning £20 Million for a single jackpot, but it's more like £5Mill these days.

They do do a lot for "good causes", but it' all controlled by the powers that be, so it's just like hidden taxes.

Still - I wouldn't mind £5 Million in the bank, so I presume that's why well over half the population "play" it twice a week.

Reiterating your point about cricket, over here everyone plays football in the playground, which I suppose it the reason why it's so popular over here. Plus, we're all skint and/or tight fisted, and it costs less to play footy than cricket. We used to play with a tennis ball when we were 7-8 yrs old!
You did give us Harry Kewell, though......

Originally posted by Favs
Cricket is just like baseball, without all the really complicated stats and figures!

How dare you sir!🙂 Cricket is chess on a field, it is the sport of the intellectual. It is a constant triple battle beteern the captains and their tactics, the pitch and it's state of decay and finally between batsman and bowler. Each of these enhances the game on an ever changing basis. There are also a number of similarities to actual chess-like tactics. For example, you can play for a draw when a win is nigh on impossible, or you can use a sacrifice (telling your bowler to pitch several balls into a tempting position to encourage a batsman to hit to a certain empty space and get easy runs, then after a few balls you place a fielder in that space and the batsmen gets caught) and others. It is intense both physically and mentally and requires great concentration and knowedge of minutiae, which is why it may seem boring to those not in the know.

Baseball however is a simple game in comparison, the tactics of which are learnable in the time it takes for Shoab Aktar to take your head off with a bouncer. 🙂

Originally posted by Starrman
How dare you sir!🙂 Cricket is chess on a field, it is the sport of the intellectual. It is a constant triple battle beteern the captains and their tactics, the pitch and it's state of decay and finally between batsman and bowler. Each of these enhances the game on an ever changing basis. There are also a number of similarities to actual chess-like tac ...[text shortened]... ch are learnable in the time it takes for Shoab Aktar to take your head off with a bouncer. 🙂

Whoa there! Starrman. I'm a fan of cricket......see my previous post about skiving school to watch test matches when I was a teenager.

You have to agree that the stats they publish for Baseball are mind boggling in there magnitude.
Anyway, I suppose it's what you grow up with.