[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by selfdrive

The Aussies were so cheesed off by the stump mics that they started talking about brands competing with the sponsors of the series. All of it only points to the entire group as a pack of hoodlums. The cricket matches involving them look more like a street fight in a dark alley.

I thought the ambush marketing was quite clever, to be honest.

But leaving the stump mics on all the time and even turning the volume up a little will take the behaviour of all teams out of the dark alley by shining a spotlight on it and ensuring transparent punishment for it for everyone easily found guilty - IF this is seen to be something that needs to be stopped, including the ambush marketing. I have a feeling that this isn't the case. The cricketers themselves will not complain for too long about it as long as their pay packages are not affected.

After all, outside the field DRS now takes precedence over on the field umpires, so can this off the field monitoring of on the field behaviour.

[libranof1987]

Look what we have here:

The batting troika of Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Shikhar Dhawan along with pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah were selected for the A+ category, which will ensure them annual contracts worth Rs seven crore each

Why Rohit?! Don't like Dhawan particularly either but he's got performances to back it up.

Dhoni and Ashwin have been bracketed in the A category along with Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Wridhhiman Saha. These seven players would be eligible for a contract of Rs five crore.

Very strangely:

While paceman Mohammed Shami's name has been withheld on allegations of domestic violence and adultery by his wife,

And sadly,

Among the women, World Cup stars Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana have been kept in the top bracket, under which the annual contract is worth Rs 50 lakh.

Not so much equality here.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/63204263.cms

[hemanth.anand]

I would swap Pujara with Nohit, and probably Ashwin with Dhawan and play him in more matches.
Thankfully they didn't include Pandya in A+.

7 crore and 50 lakhs!!

[Sawyer]

Another hilarious - though not intended to be so - quote from the SA coach on the latest sledging story:
"Gibson chose to focus on the undefined line and called for clarity. "I wasn't there. I can't categorically speak for another person. There's this thing and I have seen it recently now about the line. They are saying they didn't cross the line, but where is the line, who sets the line, where did the line come from? When you are saying you didn't cross the line but we didn't cross the line, you went very close to the line whose line is it?"

Really tying himself into knots with respect to the so called "Line".

Turn on the stump mics, even give the sledges sub titles for replays of these, and let all of us decide!

[Chetan_Rao]

The man may not be eloquent, but surely makes a good point. Who decides how far is too far? That argument can be done to death until the sun goes out.

It has to be the match officials, because it's obvious that players cannot be trusted to behave themselves at all times, and it's becoming fashionable to skirt the 'line' as precariously as possible nowadays.

Docking match fees probably worked in the days when players needed it to make a living, modern day cricketers can cover it with pocket change.Time to hand out some bans, and I don't mean token one-match thingies.

All that's assuming the powers-that-be think these incidents are actually bad for the game. Someone is bound to make the 'entertainment' argument.

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

Another hilarious - though not intended to be so - quote from the SA coach on the latest sledging story:

He may not be able to articulate it well, but he makes a very valid point. What I find more hilarious are the attempts of Tim Paine to paint someone with a tar brush while wearing overalls himself.

The Aussies keep harping about the line. Who the hell decided this line? The Aussies themselves? Or the ICC? Or someone else? It is just an imaginary line drawn by the Aussies that they can try and stretch according to their whims and fancies. They can invoke as many female relatives of opposing players but no one dare say a word about their female relatives/ partners. They can sledge anyone about their dietary or exercise regime but opposing players dare not speak about their use or abuse of substances. Everything else is brushed away as the Aussie way of playing. In a way they are the USA of the cricket world. They will sit on a stockpile of sledges and bad behaviour but will not let others have any of their own. Well, just a comparison

I was trying to say something similar in my earlier post about the sledging and which sledge is worse than another.

[Sawyer]

I am pretty sure there is a significant promotion aspect to this. As is also borne out by the WWF style promotions of upcoming cricket series and matches on TV by whoever is trying to recover the money paid for the rights, by setting up these using military similes and metaphors in the promotions.

It is akin to the breaking of traffic lights or one way rules in our cities. If there is the genuine will to stop this, it can be done in a week or even less. And if the will is lacking, no amount of campaigns and lectures will do more than scratch the surface.

[selfdrive]

Here is some more weighing in on the topic

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/...n-line-control

[Sawyer]

She usually writes sensible stuff, including this part that I go in completely the opposite direction with:

"There were debates over whether stump mikes should be turned down to prevent exchanges between adult men reaching the ears of children."

Much of this happens during test matches that children are rarely in the room to watch, so that little reason to not keep the mics turned up all the time isn't there.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

....

Much of this happens during test matches that children are rarely in the room to watch...

It's isn't just about the children, it's also about common decency.

During the recent India-SA series, the stump mics picked up some really crude language in Hindi. Not inter-team confrontations, just team talk. I remember one particular exchange from the second test between two Indian batsmen that won't get past the profanity rules here.

Now I'm nobody to censor people from using foul language, but it gets cringe-worthy when my cricket-loving better half looks at me with a 'is that how men usually talk?' look on her face.

I'm a huge proponent of making sportsmen behave themselves, but I'd rather not stick microphones in their faces or within earshot the entire time. Nobody needs to hear what they'll do to the opposition's backside by batting the day out, broadcast on live TV.

[Sawyer]

The idea isn't to hear what they will say, it is to get them to shut up, and identify with admissible evidence the ones that do not.

And as to the entertainment argument, that will be made, and it is BS; who is to say the either the matches with NZ in India last season or the ones with England just now are not entertaining?

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

The idea isn't to hear what they will say, it is to get them to shut up, and identify with admissible evidence the ones that do not.

Don't disagree, but....

All that's assuming the powers-that-be think these incidents are actually bad for the game. Someone is bound to make the 'entertainment' argument.

[Sawyer]

More on the subject, again in an article by an Australian journalist in the SMH:

"On India’s tour of Australia three years ago, a visiting journalist one day asked David Warner, with a note of mild exasperation: ‘‘What and where is this line you keep talking about?’’
It was a good question then, even better now. As apprehended by the rest of the cricket world, the answer is that the line is not fixed, but floats a millimetre ahead of wherever Australia chooses to stop. If, in the meantime, opponents have been goaded into tumbling over it, so much the better. To wit, Durban."

Not many Australians that are forward thinking support this nonsense, and this is more evidence of that.

And more on the specific incident: it is said that for over an hour on the field that day, de Kock was being goaded over his surname in an all too obvious way. And he finally responded in an equally obvious way that I need not elaborate, to Warner, bringing his wife into the conversation. Warner may not have liked it, it may have been gross or indecent, but even so, I'd say that he earned whatever was said. What goes around, comes around. Or, as you sow...

There is however no doubt that there is now more interest in the series. Which is why I keep thinking WWF or the old Mohammed Ali prefight talk whenever this comes up.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

....

7 crore and 50 lakhs!!

The new commercial on Star Sports themed 'We're no longer the last option, we're now first choice' is in extremely poor taste in this context.

Empty lip service and an absolute travesty.

[Sawyer]

What is a good basis for deciding this? Surely no one is saying that in this instance they should be paid the same. Entertainers are paid based on how many they entertain and how well they do so, which decides the how many.

As an example, the women tennis players are on a good ground to demand the same - I suspect that their matches draw the same number of spectators whether live or on TV. I would say that much the same applies to women's athletics. In the case of India, the ladies badminton players have made their case for equal pay. Have the cricketers?