If SIddle gets picked playing T20 I expect him to wear the uniform with the KFC logo on it

Yep he has successfully negotiated his contract so he doens’t have to do it and Cricket Australia created a bad precedent allowing that

Professional sports and sponsorship is intrinsically link as it pays the bills and pays al large proportion of the revenue of the association You can’t have players picking and choosing.

What happen if it isn’t just one person with an objection but 4-5 players refusing due to personal beliefs. It would have been untenable situation.

Banning alcohol promotion in sport is certainly a debateable social topic however if you strongly believe that, then you shouldn’t choose to work in company that requires you to promote alcohol use or grit your teeth and support that on your job and then advocatie change in laws in your spare time.

VB paid the Australian Cricket team large amounts of money in return for them to promote it.

It’s an obligation of every Australian cricket player to promote any sponsors by wearing a standard uniform and he is exempt from the obligation due to personal beliefs.

Personal belief should not exempt employees from doing their jobs and part of jobs of professional cricketers is actually supporting the sponsors of your company

VB accepted his exemption from the sponsors and so I guess that is OK as all parties got their wish granted.

However if VB decided to play hardball and say no every player must wear that uniform. I would have supported that stance.

Brian Booth did the correct thing and chose a different career that doesn’t require conflict with your personal values.

It’s another thing to chose to work in a profession that is sponsored by company that are against your own personal values and then refuse to do your job in promoting the sponsors.

If you have a personal values and beliefs, don’t pick professions and careers that require you to conflict with your beliefs.

If you have a strong political/religious/social/personal beliefs and values. Don’t pick a career that conflicts with your values.

If you a catholic and are against contraception but you want to be a pharmacist. Either run your own pharmacy that don’t stock contraception or find another profession

If you are ant- abortion and you find it unethical to even refer a patient to another doctor who may be pro abortion then don’t be a doctor (at least in some states where an anti-abortion doctor must refer the patient to another doctor).

IF you are vegetarian than don’t work as a butcher

If you are pro prohibition of alcohol don’t work in a pub

If you are so anti-alcohol that you find it unethical to even wear promotion of alcohol, then don’t work in any company that is funded and sponsored by alcoholic company.

My views is that religious belief shouldn’t be treated any differently to any political bleiefs an individual haves.

Now if Fawad Ahmed gets exemption from promoting alcohol. Let’s just hope that if any individual in the future says that are against alcohol for any personal reason at all, they will get an exemption as well and this opens a can of worms.

Personally I wouldn’t have granted that exemption and say that if you personal belief conflicts with alcohol promotion then find another career that doesn’t have alcohol sponsorship.

You got it all wrong Ben. There is no weather changing technology under disposal to advantage England. That’s just silly science fiction nonsense.

Your previous article about how “Even God is against us winning back Ashes” is a more accurate summation on what is happening.

There is a secret alliance between the English cricket team and God

The fact that Queen Elizabeth is the head of the Church of England and the fact that 26 Archbishops and Bishops from the Church of England are sitting members of the House Of Lords (lack of separation between church and states) brings up evidence to this claim that there is a secret collusion between God and England.

I’ll add that the situation where England was in the second innings was that realistically there was only two results that could happen. Draw or England win. Really an Australian win was a long shot 5% chance at best to bowl out a team in 44 overs.

England team engineered that scenario to force Australia to open up the game for England to win with very little risk of an England defeat.

I think Cook perhaps gets too much criticism this test match

The fact of the matter Cook played his hand perfectly this test ever since Australia made the big score in the first innings. He knew that Clarke was desperate to win, so stonewall, take up time and make it difficult for Clarke to force a result which led him to make a sporting declaration which allowed England to nearly snatch a victory.

Cook “”But at the beginning of the day we knew we had to make it as difficult as we could for Australia to push home what they were trying to do. We knew they were going to push for the win, and the harder we made it the easier it would’ve been for us to win, and that was proven.”

Essentially the more time England take, the more generous the declaration Clarke has to make to try and win and Clarke was sucker punch. To me it shows that he read the situation and predicted Clarke mentality and nearly won the match for England.

This was the equivalent in soccer where one team is sitting back and defending the goal which force the other team to commit more and more men to try and score the winner, this leads to increase gaps in the back and one fast break from a counter attack and the defending team snatch and grab and win the game.

Sure it isn’t attacking cricket but it’s a legitimate tactic and it very nearly worked if it wasn’t for bad light. I mean I prefer teams to be proactive and play attacking cricket. However I see it as a subjective preference rather than an obligation. The goal of the game is to win and there are many ways to skin a cat.

Really if England won the game today it would be another occasion where England won the “important moments” which was the common element that link the entire series.

Also don’t forget the last time New Zealand played against Australia
1-1 at HOME

At least England defeated them at home even if they struggled away from home

Sangakarra view of sledging matches my personal opinion.

“The public perception of sledging is to go out there and abuse someone in obscene language, questioning their parentage or sexual preferences. That kind of abuse does not belong on the field of play. Sledging, as coined and pioneered by the Australians, is a measured comment designed to get a reaction out of a player. It could be any reaction: a bit of anger, a show of arrogance, a comment, a shake of the head, or a slump of the shoulders. They could be saying something as simple as: Let’s leave a big gap there because he can’t score through there.’ Even if you are mentally strong and understand they are baiting you, it can still work in the mind. You might be keen to hit the ball through the gap; you might be keen to avoid it. Either way a seed has been sown.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/135846.html

My view of sledging is this

making witty banter, joking with the opposition, pointing out real or imaginary flaws in the opponent techniques etc. ASking mind game question is find such as accusing a player of selfish batsman to try to encourage the player to become wreckless to get them out. Apparently Ian Healy joked to Athers once that he was playing for the red ink (not out) and Athers was incensed and tried to run down the pitch and slogged the next delivery but got stumped and he realised he was successfully psyched out by Healy. I find that acceptable sledging.

They are all fine but I draw the line when you go out and abuse the opposition and start swearing at them like a drunken sailor. I never particularly liked that about the Australian team.

Damien Martyn seems to speak highly out of Clarke here.
http://www.espn.co.uk/cricket/sport/video_audio/218777.html

Ronan

I talk to a fair amount of cricket fan really put off by sledging of hte team and sometimes backed the opposition because they thought the team was bunch of uncivilised thugs.

I don’t quite agree with that but there are people who have been offended by the cricket team sledging in Australia.

According to the ICC Code of Conduct

Level 1 offence
Using language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or insulting during an International Match.

Level 2 offence
Using language or gesture(s) that is seriously obscene, seriously
offensive or of a seriously insulting nature to another Player, Player
Support Personnel, Umpire, Match Referee or any other third person
during an International Match.

I think it’s fair to say that Australian Cricket Team push the boundaries of this rules at time (by the way insults about race, religion is considered a level 3 and level 4 offence so this rule covers basic sledging not just one involving race and religion).

Sledging is considered an inappropriate way of undermining an opponent to win the game.

Whether this is better or worst than time wasting is neither here or there. Australia culturally don’t consider sledging to be unsporting despite it against the ICC rules but other countries do.

Melanotan II is a bit different to Melatonin. Melatonin is an over a counter supplement to help people go to sleep

Melanotan II is a drug that hasn’t been approved by any government beyond clinical trials

It is used as a drug for skin tanning without sun exposure and for erectile dysfunction. drug company are hoping it could be used to prevent skin cancer (due to theoretical mechanism of action) but there is no evidence so far.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanotan_II

Correction Smith has two half centuries so he is in front of those four batsman I mention

If we judge this Ashes series in isolation than yes Watson is neither performing better or worst compared to other Australian batsman such as Khawaja, Smith, Hughes, Warner etc. After all only one half century for all of those players

You could even argue that due to Watson economical bowling that puts him above all of those struggling batsman who are purely specialist batsman and hence Watson shouldn’t be blame for the series defeat and it’s unfair to scapegoat watson.

However the issue is that this isn’t one series in isolation but over a period of two years.

Chris you mention before that if you identify your best talent and back them until they prove they aren’t good enough. Well Watson is one of those players where the selectors had backed hoping that eventually he will come good and well we are reaching the stage that it’s time for Watson to show his worth or get punted from the side especially when you look at the fact that unlike the other four players I mention Watson is 32 years old and is an experience player. He can no longer rely on “potential”. At least with the four other batsman, they have age on their side and they could potentially developed if supported by selectors. Watson on the other hand due to his age, there should be a double standard and higher expectation of him compared to other players

The thing is Chris. Watson isn’t delivering with the bat and he is only showing his worth as a bowler not by taking wickets but by being economical to ensure that the bowler stay fresh.

Well we might as well play 5 specialist bowlers and drop Watson then. Especially when guys like Starc has shown more form with the bat over the last two years than Watson has.

If Watson is only worth his spot due to his bowling. We might as well play Faulkner who is much better bowler at first class level and although his first class batting is mcuh less than Watson surely can’t do much worst

Hell if being economical that matters. Might as well pick Trent Copeland as the 5th bowler. Copeland has proven to be economical bowler as well and also has a first class century.

Really you were arguing 50/50 decision rather than clearly incorrect decision (none of the umpire calls are clearly incorrect decisions)

Agar stumping is a clear 50/50 decision that went Australia way. I’ve seen those given out stumping before.

I agree that it all evens out.
Statistically it supports that stance as well

Aggregate batting average
1st Jan 2000 to 24 Nov 2009 – 31.97
24 Nov 2009 to current day – 32.10

Virtually no difference in batting average

More bowler friendly era in Test Cricket seems pretty good to me and it produces more exciting cricket matches. It may balance out all the advantages batsman have these days

In the 90’s only 3 batsman average 50. This went up to about 20 batsman in the 00’s.

Overall batting average from 29 in the 90’s to about 32 in the 00’s

In any case the aggregate batting average from the 24th november 2009 which is when DRS started onwards is 32.19 which is basically consistent with the batting average of the 00’s. NO evidence so far of DRS affecting batting averages.

I also remember Mark Taylor in the past complaint that DRS will increase batting average and now I’m hearing that DRS decreases batting averages

Bush Penguin was infamous for publicly saying “Read my lips: no run outs”

Although I’ve been to Kingston (the seaside town in SA with the big lobster) before
Which works much better
Reagan Kingston

Especially considering that Kingston is also in Jamaica as well

Mine is Reagan Victor ( Victor Harbor)

Not to sure that Victor works as a last name though.