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Cricket will never make sense to me. That just seems like playing the game.
by kiddico 3mo ago
Cricket will never make sense to me. That just seems like playing the game.
- retsibsi 3mo agoIn context, it was a bit like taking advantage of a videogame exploit that others variously hadn't discovered, thought was forbidden, or assumed would not be used by tacit agreement.
- CamouflagedKiwi 3mo agoIt's pretty much completely not like playing the game, because the batting team can't meaningfully hit the ball.
- kiddico 3mo agoI know they're different, but in baseball the pitch is part of the game. Not being able to make good use of a pitch is a problem for the hitter, not the pitcher. Now that I think of it telling a baseball pitcher that he could throw a pitch, but not too difficult of one at certain times is hilarious.
- retsibsi 3mo agoThere's definitely an argument for just exploiting edge cases in the rules as hard as you can, seeing how the game evolves from there, and relying on the governing body to fix it if needed. (A la https://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub https://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub .) Cricket saw itself unironically as "the gentlemen's game", though, so this didn't really fit the culture.
- raisedbyninjas 3mo agoThis seems to describe automobile racing.
- fwip 3mo agoReally, any game that you're exploiting the rules, you should expect your opponents to get mad, and possibly your teammates and fans as well.
- retsibsi 3mo agoI understand this attitude, but I think the line between tactical progress and (the bad kind of) exploiting the rules can get very fuzzy. It's arguably more interesting to do whatever the game allows, even if it seems cheap, and find out the hard way whether there are ways to counter it. Sometimes there aren't, or the counter-tactics just leave you with a more boring game (usually fixable with rule changes). But sometimes you can uncover hidden depths this way, and the opposite approach can leave a game very tactically stagnant. (I'm of course not suggesting this was the Chappells' direct motive, or even that this incident realistically could have uncovered hidden depths in the game of cricket. But as a general philosophy I think 'playing to win' has some merit, even from a perspective that ultimately cares about the health of the game and not just about winning as a terminal goal.)
- ryandrake 3mo ago> There's definitely an argument for just exploiting edge cases in the rules as hard as you can, seeing how the game evolves from there, and relying on the governing body to fix it if needed. Sadly, a lot of people live their entire lives this way. Ignoring courtesy, norms, ethics, grace, walking right up to the very edge of the law and then smugly declaring “ha ha there is no rule saying I can’t do this!!” Like the annoying little brother who waves his hand a millimeter from your face saying “I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!” The fact that everything has to be written down or some people will exploit and take advantage is a human failing, not a feature.
- retsibsi 3mo ago
- berti 3mo agoAre you allowed to pitch the baseball along the ground, therefore making it impossible to properly hit with the bat? It's no different in cricket really.
- kiddico 3mo agoNo. That would be a foul. It's in the book though lol.
- berti 3mo agoYeah, that was the flaw at the time, it wasn't in the book and not thought to be needed in the book.
- FireBeyond 3mo agoIt was getting that way - it was in some of the books and this was the incident that lead to it being in all of the books, so to speak.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- gedy 3mo agoSure, but baseball has things like walking a batter so they can't hit. Not totally analogous here, but every sport has things like this.
- sejje 3mo agoIt's a gentleman's game. Like in golf, there are expectations of behavior. They didn't think they needed a rule. This was what made me certain they were wrong--the commentary of their own older brother, who's hugely respected: > As the ball was being bowled, Ian Chappell (elder brother of Greg and Trevor, and a former Australian captain), who was commentating on the match, was heard to call out "No, Greg, no, you can't do that"[10] in an instinctive reaction to the incident, and he remained critical in a later newspaper article on the incident.[11]
- kiddico 3mo agoI suppose my fundamental misunderstanding is that an underarm bowl just seems like the obvious defensive move, not unsportsmanlike. I said this in another comment and it seems relevant: "I know they're different, but in baseball the pitch is part of the game. Not being able to make good use of a pitch is a problem for the hitter, not the pitcher." I think my baseballed mind simply cannot warp itself to your gentlemanly ways lol
- srean 3mo agoAn under-armed ball is essentially un-hitable. The sporting thing to do is to give the batsman a chance to score but to defeat him using skill. There is no skill in bowling and underarm ball, the batsmen is not being defeated by skill. That said, never did I imagine that cricket would interest the HN audience.
- LastTrain 3mo agoI think it is the violation of centuries old conventions and gentlemen’s agreements that maybe should have been, in hindsight, codified, that has our attention piqued
- foldr 3mo agoIt's not inherently unhitable. Overarm bowling is a relatively recent development in the history of the sport (rather like overarm serves in tennis). But of course, in this case, the ball was simply rolled along the ground rather than being bowled on the usual understanding of the term.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- flymasterv 3mo agoThe problem here is that limited overs cricket has been modified from regular test cricket in a way that fundamentally alters the strategy and flow of the game to increase the action and decrease how long it takes to play. Because of those concessions to speed and entertainment, some rules that worked ok in test cricket break the game in limited overs. In this case, NZ was down to their “final over”, a concept that doesn’t exist in test cricket. Underarm bowling basically removes overs from the game and can guarantee a win for the bowlers, but in test cricket, would lead to a draw.
- dspillett 3mo ago> Cricket will never make sense to me Cricket is my analogy for life: a lot of standing around, interspersed by bouts of running back & forth often with people shouting at you, and a scoring system that seems almost as deliberately obtuse as Mornington Crescent (the true gentleman's game!).
- lelanthran 3mo ago> a scoring system that seems almost as deliberately obtuse I don't even watch cricket, but even I find the scoring to be as simple as every other sport - 1 pt for each run a player does (batters two at a time). When the score says "102 runs", that's exactly what it means.
- dspillett 3mo agoOK, so it isn't nearly as bad as I jokingly made out there (for a start I do understand the scoring for MC, though I don't have the inclination right now to explain it satisfactorily) but when are cricket scores ever a pair of simple run counts? Some current scores picked arbitrarily by a quick Google search: Test 3 of 3, end of day three: NZ 438 & 120/3 Eng 354 Test 1 of 2, end of day three: Sri Lanka 308 & 51/1 West Indies 626/9d Central Europe Cup (T20 4 of 6) Serbia 162/7 (20) Luxembourg 163/2 (13.1) That is hardly “York 1, Grimsby Town nil”.
- eszed 3mo agoIf that's a serious question, it's because as printed scores are also communicating the game situation. It could be as simple as End of day three: NZ 558 - Eng 354 That's factually accurate, but wouldn't tell you much about where the match actually stands. Breaking the runs totals by innings and showing wickets taken lets a reader infer a great deal more detail. I can't remember where I read it, but I recall a distinction being made between "open" games and "patterned" games. "Open" games, like football, have very few repetitive elements: action is continuous, and every possession is entirely different (eg, ball and players at different starting positions) than the next. Cricket has discontinuous action, and each passage of play begins in the same manner. "Open" games are difficult to notate, and not much about the game itself can be inferred from the scoreline alone; for instance, in your example, the Mariners might have dominated possession, had multiple shots turned away, and felt unlucky in defeat - or else the complete opposite! "Patterned" games are easier to notate, and more about them can be efficiently communicated, because there's much more shared state. Chess, the ultimate patterned game, can be written down in a more-or-less complete form for later study! [Edit: Please take this thread into the MC weeds! Lol. I want to see HN heads explode.)