Bit of a Link 0 rama going on here tonight with some ranting in between. But first here's some stuff from Richie Benaud on the subject of how long it takes you to become a good wrist spinner - http://livenews.com.au/articles/2008/10/16/Keep_faith_with_young_spinners_Richie_Benaud

Here's a load more Richie Benaud links - http://cricket-poll.com/richie/index.php?a=9995&b=12&seed=Richie+Benaud&page=blogs

I don't normally look at the stuff I've listed below here and get involved in all the comments flying around with regards to this stuff. But was really surprised that there empty seats at the Australia/India matches and how big a threat people perceive the 20/20 phenomenon to be to test cricket. This then led to the other article and the Sanfords series descriptions. It does seem that the world in all aspects opts for the lowest common denominator at the peril of the traditional.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/oct/29/cricket-australiacricketteam

http://blogs.cricinfo.com/surfer/archives/2008/10/england_selling.php

There's link on the 2nd link relating to Nasser Hussein and the SKY TV connection. It just seems that everything is prostituted and that everyone has their price and is so easily bought. I just hope I get to see at least one Test match this coming summer for real before 20/20 and money finally kill off all the longer forms of the game.

While I'm on the subject of how crap TV is these days just have a look at this - http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/reception.html I've been forced to give up my analogue TV and get a crap digital one and this ties in with my loathing of SKY TV as well. Why the F**K do I need 30 + channels in the first instance? I've got all that TV and I can't ever watch anything more than 30 minutes of cricket on the highlights programs when there's a major match on. The rest of the time it's just full of crap! Then I've been given the impression that I've got to have all this gear and a big tele with all this and that because it's so much more superior to analogue. Well back in the good old analogue days we had wall to wall cricket if I remember rightly with full coverage of test matches on BBC2 and all for the measley licence fee. The good thing was it never pixelated and you didn't have 30 odd pages of things that could go wrong with it like in the link I've posted here! You just moved the bloody ariel and it got better! Now you have to have degree in communication systems and it still aint gonna work because you've only got to watch the BBC news on analogue TV and watch their broadcasting with all their technology and skills and you'll still see their end of the deal (The digital capture end) pixelating and stopping and spluttering and completely screwing up. Man you just do not know how much I hate TV!