Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

The ICC world cup has always been far too blooming long, but reducing it to 10 teams was a complete nonsense. The extraordinary length could easily be rectified by playing more than one match on some days.

although that might be commie talk mister

My thoughts on the claims that England players are thinking of pulling out of the Ashes if their families can't come with them are bordering on the unprintable. FFS you are paid a fortune for a few months swanning off round the world playing cricket. Suck it up and stop whining.

I haven't seen my family overseas for over 18 months and counting. It seems unlikely they'll be allowed into the country by Christmas, despite us all (Aussies and Brits) being fully vaccinated. At the last count there are over 40,000 Australians overseas waiting in the queue to come home, subject to strict quotas on arrivals that the government won't budge on.

It would be a total insult to the Australians stranded overseas, and the millions of us here who are ex-pats and have been effectively banned from seeing our families, if a bunch of players' families are allowed to jump the queue and come here ahead of them. This might be the final straw that tips me over to supporting Australia over England in the Ashes. Give the whiners a damn good thumping.

Any England player refusing to tour should be free to do so. And the ECB should tear up their central contract as a result. Can't be expected to be paid for work you refuse to do.

might just be an excuse. England will get an absolute pasting this winter unless they find some way of backing out

I guess they will all line up to be confined in a hotel for the next IPL tournament, while refusing those conditions from their actual employer. Id be sympathetic more to arguments about too much cricket and conditions is it was so blatantly obvious most players who can sign up for more money do so at every opportunity. You will have players refuse to go out for an Ashes tour due to the arrangements, but I bet a large portion will go to the BBL at the same time, and under the same conditions.

I have zero problem with a player pulling out of England matches if they are burned out, but like BFL, they should had back their central contract and earning from it for doing so.

Any player rested and going to the IPL should not be in the team now either.

Sad to hear of Chris Cairns' serious illness. Hope all goes well.

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Sad to hear of Chris Cairns' serious illness. Hope all goes well.

Best wishes to him.

Very young for such problems. But I have a feeling he got mixed in drugs at some point.

sussexpob wrote:

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Sad to hear of Chris Cairns' serious illness. Hope all goes well.

Best wishes to him.

Very young for such problems. But I have a feeling he got mixed in drugs at some point.

There were allegations of match fixing for which he was cleared of in court but don't recall any drug allegations.
I just remember him as a cheerful 9 year old kid playing cricket for his school team when dad Lance was professional at Whitbun.

westoelad wrote: There were allegations of match fixing for which he was cleared of in court but don't recall any drug allegations .

Cairns only got away with it because the ICCs own Anti-Corruption officer that Brendan McCullum approached whistleblowing to bungled the whole process. Rather than make an official report documenting then actioning against the allegations, he wrote down what McCullum said in his personal diary, then misplaced said diary and lost all of the evidence without ever documenting it in full in writing.

In court, said officer then couldn't remember the verbal conversation they with any clarity, saying he couldnt remember even if McCullum had directly and specifically mentioned match-fixing, but that his understanding and accusation of such against Cairns was clear even if reading between the lines. The defence then turned that against both to make it look like they were contradicting each other and lying, and that their words after that were contradictory. Even when 28 witnesses turned up to say McCullum was very specific with the fact Cairns had approached him to fix.

The judge also bizarrely told the jury to take Vincent's words with caution, as in his opinion Vincent had a lot to gain from passing blame to Cairns - ignoring the fact Vincent had only admitted match fixing when hearing about the case, and far from having anything to gain, had incriminated himself and got banned for life solely on the fact he wanted justice.

Cairns is about as innocent as OJ Simpson.

But yes, I was confusing the drugs for Vincent. It was Vincent at the trial who had talked about spiraling into depression, abusing alcohol and drugs after the fixing had taken place, and not Cairns himself.

England pull out of Pakistan now citing mental and physical burn out worries.

Unsurprisingly Vaughan agrees with that, after complaining about India running away for days since it happened.

well he will do

he talks out of his 'arris on a daily basis

Hard not to feel this is blatant hypocrisy by the ECB. They aren't even citing security.

Well done to the India women's team for halting Australia's march in ODI's.

In the second match of the series the other day, India had taken the final wicket and had won the game (so they thought) when one of the umpires said to check that delivery for it being waist-high. I twas judged to be a no-ball, so the batter is brought back and hits the winning runs from the last ball. Apparently the Indian team were shattered by the very controversial decision (looking at replays, the call could have gone either way), but got themselves up to claim a narrow win yesterday.

Aus' run of 26 victories in a row was halted. Their first loss in 3.5 years. It will be a long time until that record is challenged, imo.

Moeen retires from the test team. I think we can read that as dropped himself before being dropped.

Good luck to him. Worcester will be pleased....... unless he's too busy at the IPL, CPL, and England white ball cricket to play much for them, of course