Rob Wood

Rob's Sports, Fitness & Science Blog

Entries Tagged as 'Cricket'

Cricket Fun Police

January 12th, 2007 · No Comments · Cricket, Spectators

Cricket Police

My wife and I went to watch Australian versus England in the first one day match of the current series, played at the MCG. We thought we were lucky to find some of the last remaining seats amongst the crowd on the bottom level, hoping to enjoy a few rays of sunshine. Mistakenly, we had sat in the old Bay 13 section, where all rowdy supporters are seated. The first thing we noticed as a large security and police presence. On the scoreboard they listed unacceptable behaviour, but I did not read it as it was such a long list! I soon found out some of what was on the list, as people around us, one by one, were kicked out the ground for breaking the rules. One of the biggest problems was throwing beach balls. At first I thought that they were being a bit heavy handed – what damage can a beach ball do? After my wife was covered with spilt beer and such five times from guys jumping up to hit the balls, I joined the anti-beach ball club. We also saw around us people who had brought in alcohol, were smoking, and even one guy threw a tennis ball at a player fielding on the boundary, hitting him in the back. All these people were promptly sent home. To finish it off, in the last overs someone ran onto the field, not quite with all his gear off, and would have found himself given a $6000 fine. An expensive day at the cricket. All in all we heard that over 100 people were ejected from the stadium. What about the cricket? Well, after the break we moved to the quieter upper level, and were actually able to watch some of the game. Australia won as expected.

Related Pages: Cricket, MCG

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Performance Enhanced Cricket

October 19th, 2006 · 1 Comment · Cricket, Sports Medicine

Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, Pakistan’s premier fast bowlers, were found recently to have the muscle building steroid Nandrolone in their system after a random drug test by the Pakistan Cricket Board. Cricket is not just a gentleman’s game anymore – it is serious business. No sport at the elite level is immune to drug controversy. This is not the first instance of drug taking in cricket, though it is probably the biggest and worst. There have been several cases of marijuana use being highlighted, though the biggest previous story concerned Shane Warne, one of the greatest players of all time, who was suspended for a year after his mum gave him a diuretic so that he could look good in front of the cameras. Let’s hope that if proven guilty that these Pakistani’s get the punishment they deserve. We don’t want the beautiful game of cricket being tainted with drugs like many other sports.

Related Pages: cricket, Shane Warne profile, doping in sports

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Becoming a member of the MCC

October 9th, 2006 · No Comments · AFL, Cricket, Spectators

My wife is expecting a baby in April next year, and one thought in my mind is whether to get he or she onto the waiting list for the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is an exclusive club – the waiting list is so long that it may take 20 years before you are offered a place. To get onto the waiting list, it currently costs a non-refundable $55. A lot can happen in 20 years. Once they offer you membership, if you don’t take it up you may forfeit your place. By then you may not even be interested in sport. If you do take up the offer of membership, it is going to cost you a small fortune to join and stay a member. The current entrance fee is $660.00 (which you pay in installments as you move through the various membership and age categories), and being a full member also cost $504 annually. If you are not at a stage to regularly go to matches or events at the ground, it is quite a bit to pay. In twenty years time, MCC membership will probably be very well sought after. My child can always so no, I see the $55 fee as a good price to pay to just give them the chance of membership.

Related Pages: Cricket, Aussie Rules, MCG

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Beach Cricket

September 8th, 2006 · No Comments · Cricket

In the upcoming Australian cricket summer there will be three beach cricket internationals – between Australia, England and the West Indies. The matches will be played in temporary beach stadiums, in Coolangata Queensland, Scarborough Western Australia and Maroubra New South Wales. Each team will comprise six players, including some of the greats of world cricket. It will be great to see these guys in action again, and having a bit of fun too.

Australia: Allan Border (c), Dean Jones, Mark Waugh, Kim Hughes, Damien Fleming, Jeff Thomson, Dennis Lillee.
West Indies: Courtney Walsh (c), Desmond Haynes, Richie Richardson, Phil Simmons, Jimmy Adams, Curtley Ambrose, Joel Garner.
England: Graham Gooch (c), Robin Smith, Allan Lamb, Graeme Hick, Mark Ramprakash, Adam Hollioake, Darren Gough.

The rules for these matches with be similar to those we are used to when visiting the beach with some mates. To make it more interesting and entertaining for the crowds, the games will be played on plastic matting to give the ball some bounce, and a special beach cricket ball will be used that is loaded on one side to increase swing.

Related Pages: About Cricket, Beach Cricket,

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Pakistan Spits Dummy

August 22nd, 2006 · No Comments · Cricket, Umpires & Referees

An interesting thing happened in a Test Match between England and Pakistan the other day. It was unfortunate for controversial Australian umpire Darrell Hair that he happened to be officiating on this day, however it seems like he just followed the rules as they are laid out. Originally, Pakistan were penalized five runs after the umpires noticed that the ball had been tampered with. Whether they did it or not, the Pakis should have just got on with the game. Instead, after the tea break they decided to have a ‘sit in’ and did not retake the field. After giving them adequate time to make it to the pitch, the umpires decided that Pakistan had forfeited the match with victory being awarded to England. As with all sports, the umpires are the sole adjudicators of the rules out on the pitch, and the umpires decisions should be final. It really doesn’t matter that people have paid to see a game – they have paid to watch a fair game of sport, and if the umpires declare that the game is not fair, and a team does not follow the rules and laws of the game, then they (and the supporters) will have to suffer the consequences. I don’t like how so much of the blame went to the umpire Darrell Hair (but not his co-umpire?). The blame should go to the Pakistan Cricket team for spitting the dummy and not playing ball.

Related Pages: Cricket

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Cricket Ticket Frenzy

June 1st, 2006 · No Comments · Cricket

I am sitting her writing this entry as I have plenty of time – I am waiting online to purchase tickets for next year’s cricket Test and one-day games between Australia and England. It is going to be a huge Ashes contest after the Poms unexpectantly beat us last year. The tickets were released today to those who had signed up early (which I did) though there is a long wait for web pages to load on the ticketing website. If there is going to be a sellout at the MCG I want to be there. They sold out for the soccer last week and I missed out on tickets for that.

After a few hours online I eventually got the tickets I was after. It was tempting to get some extra tickets to sell on ebay – already there are many there illegally selling for greatly inflated prices. Cricket Australia is trying hard to stop the sales, but I can’t see how they can, unless they can somehow find out the ticket numbers and cancel them. Maybe they should have had a ballot system like they did for the Olympic Games tickets. The current system disadvantaged those without internet, and those who did not have the time to sit around waiting for pages to load. Apparently the phone booking system was just as slow, and you were not able to go in and book the tickets in person. Lets hope they can sort it and and a fair system for all is worked out as the population and interest are just getting bigger while the ground sizes are not.

Related Pages: cricket, Olympic Games tickets

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