2 Divisions for Test Cricket

[Kriterion_BD]

Thanks Zimdoggy.

Kriterion please stop taking things so personally mate. Your just looking the fool here. Its obvious it doesnt require that much fitness as with the age long breaks after every play. The Jarryd Hayne story is a perfect example.

Same could be said about fast bowling where they aren't even sprinting full on. Even golf requires soms degree of fitness, and you have a caddy driving you around!

[eugene]

Tiddlywinks?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tchoukball

[Googly]

Calm down gentlemen, it's not good to see my cyber friends having hand bags at 40 paces.
All fitness is very different. For example I am currently drinking fit, borderline professional actually. Moto X is difficult to replicate. If you could magically make the fittest guys in the various sports good enough to handle a moto X bike they would last about 2-3 minutes, yet the top pros will do a 40 minute moto and then jump on another bike and do the next class, it's scarcely believable. Some guys have an operation that strips the coating off their forearm muscle and it helps prevent their fingers locking on the controls, true story. If a top moto xer gets his hand around your throat for any reason your life is over!!
I will Google Jarryd immediately.

For the record, in my humble opinion, cricket is the finest game in the world. For me it encapsulates qualities that are necessary to be successful in life. Front line batting is mentally the toughest thing in sport, nothing comes close to an opener walking out to do battle, especially coming off a bad run and fighting to retain a spot on the team. That's mental pressure that surpasses anything else in sport. There's also physical risk, you can't take too many head shots in a career before you get gun shy. I get goose bumps when I watch the top guys walk out with that 1000 yard stare. For the record, the guy with the best approach is Warner. He looks like, and I'm sure he is, a dick, but you can see he's as tough as they come. I liked Atherton and Smith as well. The best batsman to ever grace the game is Kumar, no one else in his league.
I admit to being slightly contemptuous of baseball because it seems to be a bastardised version of cricket. I guess people might say the same of American football as well, but it doesn't bother me, whereas the baseball gives me a slight twitch.

[foreignfield]

I got interested in baseball a bit after I read Chad Harbach's "The Art of Fielding" (a good read btw) and I tend to agree with the "a poor version of cricket" verdict, although it has its charms as there's a certain element of luck or chance in batting and a match is never over till its over, plus the statistical side of things is intrigueing as well. But cricket offers so much more variety and individuality in batting and bowling, and many more tactical subtleties. What makes it difficult to follow the sport if you are not a die-hard fan is the sheer amount of matches: imagine Zim playing 162 T20 matches almost on the trot ...

As for the tactical side of things in american football, it leaves me deeply unimpressed because it's all preconceived and implemented step by step (down per down) with the help of an enormous backroom staff. It is coaches playing chess with human beings. There is a good reason heaphones were banned in cricket. Aesthetically american football is about as appealing to me as synchronized swimming or the endless explosions and violence in action movies, but I won't deny there is a huge audience for it.

[eugene]

Indoor cricket for the olympics? http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/conte ... 77123.html

[Kriterion_BD]

I got interested in baseball a bit after I read Chad Harbach's "The Art of Fielding" (a good read btw) and I tend to agree with the "a poor version of cricket" verdict, although it has its charms as there's a certain element of luck or chance in batting and a match is never over till its over, plus the statistical side of things is intrigueing as well. But cricket offers so much more variety and individuality in batting and bowling, and many more tactical subtleties. What makes it difficult to follow the sport if you are not a die-hard fan is the sheer amount of matches: imagine Zim playing 162 T20 matches almost on the trot ...

As for the tactical side of things in american football, it leaves me deeply unimpressed because it's all preconceived and implemented step by step (down per down) with the help of an enormous backroom staff. It is coaches playing chess with human beings. There is a good reason heaphones were banned in cricket. Aesthetically american football is about as appealing to me as synchronized swimming or the endless explosions and violence in action movies, but I won't deny there is a huge audience for it.

Thats because american football is too complex for a single player to make all the decisions. But yes, you are right in that much of the success of the team is centered around the backroom staff and not the actual men on the field. Never thought about it that way. Maybe cricket is the king of all sports after all!

[eugene]

Except plays don't always go to plan and the payers on the field, notable the QB and WRs have to improvise. Plus the human chess pieces have to memorize these huge playbooks.