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Dumbing down of cricket

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Dumbing down of cricket
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  • JCJ Offline
    JCJ Offline
    JC
    wrote on last edited by Duluth
    #1

    An interesting article from today's Times about how cricket is being simplified for the modern era. I guess it was a matter of time until the stately game was deemed to smart for its own good. Apparently "Mums and kids" are too stupid to be able to follow it.

    Elizabeth Ammon

    Catchy new jargon dismissed as dumbing down of cricket

    Catchy new jargon dismissed as dumbing down of cricket

    The language of cricket is being rewritten for a competition aimed at luring new fans to the game.

    Catchy new jargon dismissed as dumbing down of cricket
    Elizabeth Ammon
    No longer will a team be described as being 93 runs for three wickets from 10 overs. Instead it will be 75 runs from 60 balls for three outs. The competition, which will be played by eight new city-based teams set up by the England and Wales Cricket Board, announced last year it would be doing away with six-ball overs. The Hundred will feature 100-ball innings with blocks of ten balls bowled from alternate ends of the ground with the 100 balls counted down on a big screen.

    The ECB is hoping for a large new television audience as the BBC has the rights to show ten matches including the final live on their main terrestrial channels. Matches will be shown during prime evening slots.

    To try to appeal to a new audience they want commentators on BBC and Sky to move away from the traditional ways of describing the game.
    The tournament has been described as a gimmick by many existing cricket supporters who express concerns about a dumbing down and “Americanisation” of what is the country’s national summer sport.

    There was widespread criticism from cricket fans on social media yesterday who believe this change in vocabulary was turning the game into something more akin to rounders or baseball.

    Statisticians are unwilling to set up an entire new system for the competition, however, so while during the tournament wickets will be referred to as “outs” in the stadium and as part of the television and radio broadcasts, they will still need to be recorded as wickets by scorers and in online player databases. Although a number of radical ideas, such as removing LBW as a mode of dismissal on the grounds it was too complex, have been rejected, the ECB will continue to use focus groups to determine whether there are other aspects of the game that they want to simplify.

    Concepts already being used in Australia’s Big Bash competition such as “x-factor substitutions”, whereby a substitute can be brought into the team halfway through an innings, may also be considered.

    The tournament will hold the men’s and women’s matches on the same days at the same venues with live entertainment aimed at children and young people in between the two matches.

    There will be 68 matches played over five weeks in the school summer holidays with each team playing four home and four away matches before knockout games leading to a final at Lord’s on August 21.

    The Hundred, which was due to start last year but was postponed because of Covid-19, has suffered PR gaffes. After it was announced in 2018, the organisers originally said that the tournament was not aimed at existing cricket fans and that the game needed to be simplified and made shorter for “mums and kids”.

    MN5M 1 Reply Last reply
    0
  • MN5M Offline
    MN5M Offline
    MN5
    replied to JC on last edited by
    #2

    @jc said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    An interesting article from today's Times about how cricket is being simplified for the modern era. I guess it was a matter of time until the stately game was deemed to smart for its own good. Apparently "Mums and kids" are too stupid to be able to follow it.

    Elizabeth Ammon

    Catchy new jargon dismissed as dumbing down of cricket

    Catchy new jargon dismissed as dumbing down of cricket

    The language of cricket is being rewritten for a competition aimed at luring new fans to the game.

    Catchy new jargon dismissed as dumbing down of cricket
    Elizabeth Ammon
    No longer will a team be described as being 93 runs for three wickets from 10 overs. Instead it will be 75 runs from 60 balls for three outs. The competition, which will be played by eight new city-based teams set up by the England and Wales Cricket Board, announced last year it would be doing away with six-ball overs. The Hundred will feature 100-ball innings with blocks of ten balls bowled from alternate ends of the ground with the 100 balls counted down on a big screen.

    The ECB is hoping for a large new television audience as the BBC has the rights to show ten matches including the final live on their main terrestrial channels. Matches will be shown during prime evening slots.

    To try to appeal to a new audience they want commentators on BBC and Sky to move away from the traditional ways of describing the game.
    The tournament has been described as a gimmick by many existing cricket supporters who express concerns about a dumbing down and “Americanisation” of what is the country’s national summer sport.

    There was widespread criticism from cricket fans on social media yesterday who believe this change in vocabulary was turning the game into something more akin to rounders or baseball.

    Statisticians are unwilling to set up an entire new system for the competition, however, so while during the tournament wickets will be referred to as “outs” in the stadium and as part of the television and radio broadcasts, they will still need to be recorded as wickets by scorers and in online player databases. Although a number of radical ideas, such as removing LBW as a mode of dismissal on the grounds it was too complex, have been rejected, the ECB will continue to use focus groups to determine whether there are other aspects of the game that they want to simplify.

    Concepts already being used in Australia’s Big Bash competition such as “x-factor substitutions”, whereby a substitute can be brought into the team halfway through an innings, may also be considered.

    The tournament will hold the men’s and women’s matches on the same days at the same venues with live entertainment aimed at children and young people in between the two matches.

    There will be 68 matches played over five weeks in the school summer holidays with each team playing four home and four away matches before knockout games leading to a final at Lord’s on August 21.

    The Hundred, which was due to start last year but was postponed because of Covid-19, has suffered PR gaffes. After it was announced in 2018, the organisers originally said that the tournament was not aimed at existing cricket fans and that the game needed to be simplified and made shorter for “mums and kids”.

    Can you just save me the hassle of replying and move this to the Grumpy Old Man thread where it belongs ? Fucken hell.......I hope this idea goes the way of Cricket Max.

    JCJ 1 Reply Last reply
    5
  • sparkyS Offline
    sparkyS Offline
    sparky
    wrote on last edited by sparky
    #3

    What I don't get in all this is the ECB's obsession with chasing a potential new audience for Cricket ahead of the millions of fans who know and love the game.

    MN5M 1 Reply Last reply
    1
  • JCJ Offline
    JCJ Offline
    JC
    replied to MN5 on last edited by
    #4

    @mn5 If there was a cross-posting thingy I'd do that.

    1 Reply Last reply
    1
  • MN5M Offline
    MN5M Offline
    MN5
    replied to sparky on last edited by
    #5

    @sparky said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    What I don't get in all this is the ECB's obsession with chasing a potential new audience for Cricket ahead of the millions of fans who know and love the game.

    I’m no expert but I’d say over a billion Indians contribute a fair bit to a game that ain’t broke and doesn’t need fixing.

    ACT CrusaderA 1 Reply Last reply
    11
  • No QuarterN Offline
    No QuarterN Offline
    No Quarter
    wrote on last edited by
    #6

    Cricket is a great game because of its depth. You simplify it you lose nearly every die hard fan out there, exactly the type of fan you don't want to lose for fair weather fans that don't care enough about the game to even understand the simple concepts of wickets and overs.

    1 Reply Last reply
    2
  • pukunuiP Offline
    pukunuiP Offline
    pukunui
    wrote on last edited by
    #7

    Yuck. I hope they lose a shit load of cash on this stupid idea.

    1 Reply Last reply
    3
  • gt12G Offline
    gt12G Offline
    gt12
    wrote on last edited by
    #8

    Minutes are 60 seconds long, are we trying to make them 100 seconds now too?

    It's literally easier to count to six than 10 (ask my 2 year old son).

    It's literally easier to count to 50 than 100, ask my 2 year old son.

    How fucking ridiculous. Go broke you fluffybunnies.

    boobooB 1 Reply Last reply
    2
  • boobooB Offline
    boobooB Offline
    booboo
    replied to gt12 on last edited by
    #9

    @gt12 said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    Minutes are 60 seconds long, are we trying to make them 100 seconds now too?

    It's literally easier to count to six than 10 (ask my 2 year old son).

    It's literally easier to count to 50 than 100, ask my 2 year old son.

    How fucking ridiculous. Go broke you fluffybunnies.

    Decimal time - Wikipedia

    Decimal time - Wikipedia
    JCJ 1 Reply Last reply
    1
  • CrucialC Offline
    CrucialC Offline
    Crucial
    wrote on last edited by
    #10

    Cricket doesn’t need dumbing down. It already has David Warner.

    MN5M 1 Reply Last reply
    5
  • JCJ Offline
    JCJ Offline
    JC
    replied to booboo on last edited by
    #11

    @booboo said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    @gt12 said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    Minutes are 60 seconds long, are we trying to make them 100 seconds now too?

    It's literally easier to count to six than 10 (ask my 2 year old son).

    It's literally easier to count to 50 than 100, ask my 2 year old son.

    How fucking ridiculous. Go broke you fluffybunnies.

    Decimal time - Wikipedia

    Decimal time - Wikipedia

    Don’t... you...even...start @booboo .

    That’s crazy talk.

    1 Reply Last reply
    1
  • JKJ Offline
    JKJ Offline
    JK
    wrote on last edited by
    #12

    Rediculous

    1 Reply Last reply
    0
  • Dan54D Offline
    Dan54D Offline
    Dan54
    wrote on last edited by
    #13

    Well they doing it with rugby, hey it's all about finding a few new faces following it, and bugger everyone that already love the game!

    1 Reply Last reply
    2
  • MN5M Offline
    MN5M Offline
    MN5
    replied to Crucial on last edited by
    #14

    @crucial said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    Cricket doesn’t need dumbing down. It already has David Warner.

    I try and disregard his personality when he bats, he’s a fantastic player when on song and great to watch.

    1 Reply Last reply
    0
  • SnowyS Offline
    SnowyS Offline
    Snowy
    wrote on last edited by Snowy
    #15

    I was going to comment on this yesterday but I was actually speechless / typeless (new word).

    They are trying to decimalise cricket and yet they still use statute miles to drive. A measurement based on some Roman blokes "pace", which was in turn based on his foot. They could have used nautical miles which actually make sense, if they couldn't understand the metric system.

    Why does everything have to based on the lowest common denominator (I'm being polite I should just say fucking morons)? Should we stop playing chess because it is too hard and make everyone play checkers?

    I suspect most will exercise their right to not watch this shit.

    How many forms of "cricket", this isn't, really, do we need? What next a one ball game, for those that can only count that high?

    I seem to have found my voice about this. Extremely GOM. I'll stop now before I rupture something.

    CrucialC boobooB Chris B.C 3 Replies Last reply
    9
  • CrucialC Offline
    CrucialC Offline
    Crucial
    replied to Snowy on last edited by
    #16

    @snowy said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    I was going to comment on this yesterday but I was actually speechless / typeless (new word).

    They are trying to decimalise cricket and yet they still use statute miles to drive. A measurement based on some Roman blokes "pace", which was in turn based on his foot. They could have used nautical miles which actually make sense, if they couldn't understand the metric system.

    Why does everything have to based on the lowest common denominator (I'm being polite I should just say fucking morons)? Should we stop playing chess because it is too hard and make everyone play checkers?

    I suspect most will exercise their right to not watch this shit.

    How many forms of "cricket", this isn't really do we need? What next a one ball game, for those that can only count that high?

    I seem to have found my voice about this. Extremely GOM. I'll stop now before I rupture something.

    And using your analogy above they will end up in a similar stupid position of measuring fuel consumption in miles per gallon when you buy the fuel in litres.

    SnowyS 1 Reply Last reply
    2
  • SnowyS Offline
    SnowyS Offline
    Snowy
    replied to Crucial on last edited by
    #17

    @crucial said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    And using your analogy above they will end up in a similar stupid position of measuring fuel consumption in miles per gallon when you buy the fuel in litres.

    Has caused more than one aircraft accident / incident. I won't digress on that.

    I am interested in why "out", is so much easier to understand than wicket. Just the single syllable I guess. He's "out", "out" where? Lunch? Having a snooze? Concussed?

    Did chuckle at this:
    "a dumbing down and “Americanisation”

    Has some implication that one is related to the other.

    MN5M 1 Reply Last reply
    2
  • MN5M Offline
    MN5M Offline
    MN5
    replied to Snowy on last edited by
    #18

    @snowy said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    @crucial said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    And using your analogy above they will end up in a similar stupid position of measuring fuel consumption in miles per gallon when you buy the fuel in litres.

    Has caused more than one aircraft accident / incident. I won't digress on that.

    I am interested in why "out", is so much easier to understand than wicket. Just the single syllable I guess. He's "out", "out" where? Lunch? Having a snooze? Concussed?

    Did chuckle at this:
    "a dumbing down and “Americanisation”

    Has some implication that one is related to the other.

    The other team took a “wicket” and he got “out”.

    Both terms are equally used already !

    CrucialC SnowyS 2 Replies Last reply
    1
  • CrucialC Offline
    CrucialC Offline
    Crucial
    replied to MN5 on last edited by
    #19

    @mn5 said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    @snowy said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    @crucial said in Dumbing down of cricket:

    And using your analogy above they will end up in a similar stupid position of measuring fuel consumption in miles per gallon when you buy the fuel in litres.

    Has caused more than one aircraft accident / incident. I won't digress on that.

    I am interested in why "out", is so much easier to understand than wicket. Just the single syllable I guess. He's "out", "out" where? Lunch? Having a snooze? Concussed?

    Did chuckle at this:
    "a dumbing down and “Americanisation”

    Has some implication that one is related to the other.

    The other team took a “wicket” and he got “out”.

    Both terms are equally used already !

    Yeah. The player was run out, given out, adjudged out (although apparently LBW is too hard to understand)

    MN5M boobooB 2 Replies Last reply
    0
  • SnowyS Offline
    SnowyS Offline
    Snowy
    replied to MN5 on last edited by Snowy
    #20

    @mn5 Yes. Don't think you quite got the GOM gist there. They will be called "outs", which isn't actually a word, or wasn't, in cricket. They will still be recorded as wickets because the people who can count, and work with base 6, will be doing the scoring (fortunately) and are capable of dealing with two syllables.

    I really need my morning coffee before engaging in this.

    1 Reply Last reply
    3

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