Is it cricket?

[sandywinder]

madrigalman said:

I don't want to diss cycling as if its the only sport not worth watching due to widespread drug usage. I'd include weightlifting as well due to widespread steroid abuse. The facts admitted by drug testers themselves is that the masking agents mean the weightlifters are always one step in front of the testing capabilities.

Its all very sad.. best stick to watching snooker, darts and football. All good wholesome working class sports where several pints of beer are the preferred drug of choice

I remember many snooker players were caught out using 'beta blockers' and other drugs at one time.

[sandywinder]

madrigalman said:

I'm 100 per cent positive that using various scientific tests it can easily be proven.

One of them would take all of 10 seconds.

In that case why have we not been told? Surely it would be in the interests of the ICC, who presumably have the ball, to defend their umpires and justify their actions?

Methinks something smells here and it ain't Peterson's cricket box.

[Nathan deGargoyle]

sandywinder said:

madrigalman said:

I don't want to diss cycling as if its the only sport not worth watching due to widespread drug usage. I'd include weightlifting as well due to widespread steroid abuse. The facts admitted by drug testers themselves is that the masking agents mean the weightlifters are always one step in front of the testing capabilities.

Its all very sad.. best stick to watching snooker, darts and football. All good wholesome working class sports where several pints of beer are the preferred drug of choice

I remember many snooker players were caught out using 'beta blockers' and other drugs at one time.

And Big Bill Werbeniuk would get through more lager before and during a match than most of us could drink in a week!

[Daz Madrigal]

<< remember many snooker players were caught out using 'beta blockers' >

err just the one, Sandy.

Moreover it was prescribed by his doctor. I'd keep quiet because Gus is talking more sense than you are

[sandywinder]

madrigalman said:

<< remember many snooker players were caught out using 'beta blockers' >

err just the one, Sandy.

Moreover it was prescribed by his doctor. I'd keep quiet because Gus is talking more sense than you are

You really know how to hit a man hard, don't you?

Would you believe they also use beta blockers in CROQUET?

www.wcfcroquet.org/FAQ/faqhome.htm

[purple joggers]

sandywinder said:

If there is evidence to show they have cheated then it is up to Hair and the other umpire to provide it - not for the Pakistanis to prove they didn't.

For once I agree with you, Sandy. But it only goes to show that we are out of touch with the way of the modern world; we might as well be sitting atop Rivington Pike.

[purple joggers]

madrigalman said:

.. best stick to watching snooker, darts and football. All good wholesome working class sports where several pints of beer are the preferred drug of choice

When I (not long ago) used to play darts regularly in a team, neither I nor 5-6 other members of the squad of 14-15 ever drank before or during a league match. Since the team at a match comprised 8 players, some games we'd almost be a tee-total team. We took our sport seriously!

I used to find playing against opponents who had had several pints of beer very frustrating. Despite not being able to focus on the board, first they'd somehow score 160 or 180, then next go they'd lurch unbalanced over the oche as they threw, occasionally falling to the floor, while their darts would mostly miss the board completely. Then they'd get loudly verbally abusive and violent when the scorekeeper chalked them as scoring zero. Real dopes!

[gus2]

I really am not into sports, and please go lightly with the ribald comments, lady members could well be offended. Why mimi at the very mention of balls girds her loins for battle.
The only sport that I will watch is ladies mud wrestling, well it is something to do on a rainy afternoon.

gus

[E.D. Wivens]

minty said:

sandywinder said:

If there is evidence to show they have cheated then it is up to Hair and the other umpire to provide it - not for the Pakistanis to prove they didn't.

For once I agree with you, Sandy. But it only goes to show that we are out of touch with the way of the modern world; we might as well be sitting atop Rivington Pike.

I’m not sure this is anything to do with the way of the modern world, PJ. The complete opposite, in fact, I’d have thought. The people running a game have made a decision: I should think that there is more chance of that happening now than there was in the past.

I would find it a bit tedious* if every time a striker was ruled off-side in a football match, it was incumbent upon the linesman to prove that he was.


*Come to think of it, I often find football a bit tedious, anyway, but that’s not the point.

[purple joggers]

wivens said:

minty said:

For once I agree with you, Sandy. But it only goes to show that we are out of touch with the way of the modern world; we might as well be sitting atop Rivington Pike.

I’m not sure this is anything to do with the way of the modern world, PJ. The complete opposite, in fact, I’d have thought. The people running a game have made a decision: I should think that there is more chance of that happening now than there was in the past.

I would find it a bit tedious* if every time a striker was ruled off-side in a football match, it was incumbent upon the linesman to prove that he was.


*Come to think of it, I often find football a bit tedious, anyway, but that’s not the point.

I wasn't so much meaning sport, rather increasingly how people have to nowadays prove their innocence, not the authorities prove them guilty.

In sport I accept the referee's instantaneous decision when there's action going on, and am against things like video replays to see if the ball did cross the goal line in a football match.
But in this cricket case, it wasn't a matter of a quick decision in the middle of action, and it wasn't a matter of a foul or bit of cheating going on in the middle of action. I don't see why the umpire couldn't have publically presented the ball.

[ever bemused]

probably for the same reasons that people don't always present themselves publically here...

they don't have to

until they do something that makes their fellows call them to account.

[Daz Madrigal]

Ultimately the point is 'would an umpire risk his reputation and career by making a jumped up claim?'. Its not comparable to whether someone dives or is offside in football because he has the evidence in his hand and - shut up, Gus! - the ball is in front of his eyes.

We ought to trust him but ideally you'd like them to stop being 'old farts' - as most old cricketers are - and just present the evidence for public view. Why they can't do that is a complete mystery. I suppose they'd say its against the code of the game etc..

[Daz Madrigal]

Mathildes very quiet..I thought she was rabid cricket fan?

[Melon salad on the side]

madrigalman said:

I suppose they'd say its against the code of the game etc..

Surely codes of honour mean nothing in this day and age. That's half the trouble.

[sandywinder]

madrigalman said:

Ultimately the point is 'would an umpire risk his reputation and career by making a jumped up claim?'. Its not comparable to whether someone dives or is offside in football because he has the evidence in his hand and - shut up, Gus! - the ball is in front of his eyes.

We ought to trust him but ideally you'd like them to stop being 'old farts' - as most old cricketers are - and just present the evidence for public view. Why they can't do that is a complete mystery. I suppose they'd say its against the code of the game etc..

No one is saying that Hair genuinely did not suspect the Pakistanis were cheating. But that was all it was.

It is not like calling someone out LBW or a similar game decision.

For that no proof is or ever has been mandatory.

But an accusation of deliberate cheating should, I would have thought.

You are not just damaging his batting average but his reputation.

I still say where is the evidence to prove their guilt?

I think it is fairly obvious that they haven't got any.