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John Quiggin 
I had a look at the new tabloid-sized Courier Mail this moring and found it strangely seemed to fit perfectly with the usual, dumbed-down Murdoch Inc. content.
Had to laugh at the editorial (something about “serving the community”)…
Those of us in South East Queenslander can take our pick of the Murdoch-owned Courier Mail, the Murdoch-owned Australian or local papers like the Murdoch-owned Gold Coast Bulletin.
And you wonder why people vote Liberal / support the war / etc…
Well up here in Bundaberg we get the added choice of the utterly banal Newsmail. All the letters to the editor begin with – I’m not racist, but……….
What about this amazing cricket game yesterday between Australia and South Africa. Australia scores a world-record-breaking innings but holds the world record for only a few hours. South Africa beats their total with one ball to spare and wins the game and the series. Explanations?
Must have been a heck of a batting wicket. 872 runs scored in 100 overs.
Having seen a couple of highlights, it did look amazingly flat and slow, but the bowling on both sides really wasn’t up to much.
I haven’t seen any footage. Was it one of those grounds where they bring the rope in about halfway to the wicket to boost the number of boundaries?
The rope probably was ‘in’ and the bowling not great.
But I wonder if the driver was just that the South Africans had to get that score to win, took chances, and got it. I’d like to get DVD/video(s) of match and would pay.
The only scores that have even got close to those ones have been between minnows and medium rank teams. It must of been one heck of a spectacle for those in the stadium. Almost (but only almost) make me wish I had been there.
Just glad I am not a bowler though – very dispiriting.
It was a close game, as a lot of one day games are, but it was not a great game, let alone the greatest ever, as some are claiming.
The game is called ‘cricket’, not ‘batting’.
A good game of one day cricket is where there are two innings of real contest between bat and ball. Last night was a farce.
John, I just wanted to pick up on something that you said on the now flamed-into-oblivion Crooked Timber Zizek thread; you commented that you’d read so many bad papers claiming that Godel’s Impossibility Theorem meant that economic equilibrium was impossible that you were going to ignore them all until one of them won the Fields Medal.
It’s just that … isn’t it *true* that there are Goedelian arguments which establish that equilibrium is impossible in a model with perfect foresight? There’s a proof of this in von Neumann & Morgenstern, under the analysis of the Holmes/Moriarty problem. I know JvN didn’t actually win the Fields Medal but I bet he could have done if he’d wanted to.
I know you’re not a massive fan of game theory either, but I’d invite you to reconsider this one. I think I’ve plugged Barkley Rosser’s excellent paper on the vN/M “Holmes/Moriarty Problem” from Metroeconomica before several times on CT but here it is again:
http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb/MetroRevised%20LBS2.doc
Uncle Milton, Don’t be such a grump. Everyone likes exciting batting and a close finish. How on earth could you say it was a ‘farce’? Did you see it or or are you just exercising some on the old anti-Packer venom from the old World Series days? That’s all finished – we have all moved on. One day cricket is an enjoyable form of the game.
Or, sorry, old boy. Were you just about to get your slippers and hot water bottle and cocoa before heading off to your room to read Bleak House and then your copy of the St James? Make sure you don’t have a fall and let’s hope those roudy youngsters next door don’t stuff up your kip.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Harry,
I saw the Australian innings. What I saw was (a) a flat wicket (b) third rate bowling (b) a short boundary on one side of the flat wicket that let Ricky Ponting, in particular, lift the ball over the fence at will.
I didn’t see the South African innings, but it sounded much the same.
For the record, I like good one day cricket, and I like the innovations from WSC. But we didn’t get good one day cricket. We got a slog a thon.
Some of us not watching reruns of the cricket got a laugh from hearing John Howard commence his Bible reading at the Commonwealth Games Service in Sydney.
From the Book of Isiah: “Who has not believed what they have heard from us?”
I suspect the principle cause underlying 872 of 100 overs is 20/20. Batsmen have realised that you can average 10 an over if you slog from the get-go. I’m not sure anyone believed that kind of run-rate was sustainable at top international level before 20/20.
Now the psychological barrier has been broken, the side batting first starts out in a 50 over match as if it is a 20/20 match. Only if a few wickets fall quickly do they rein back. But on a slow wicket with mediocre bowling and a bit of luck, the latest match shows that you can bat for the entire 50 overs as if it is 20/20.
Once the Aussies posted 434, South Africa had absolutely nothing to lose by going out and playing 20/20 for 50 overs themselves. No-one would have held it against them if they lost by 300 runs provided they went down all guns blazing. As it was, they benefited from the same slow wicket, mediocre bowling, and luck that the Aussies did.
Look for more of this to come.
Newspoll today – a beautiful set of numbers.
Nuff said.
Hmm… Now Kim Beazley is exactly as popular as John Howard was in 1988. Does this mean in eight or so years time he’ll win and stay PM for 10+ years?
Harry et al.
A cricket match is won when you get the Opposition out twice!
to paraphrase the late grate Mr Spock it isn’t cricket Jim as we know it.
I wouldn’t take too much heart from those numbers: looks like it is just a downward blip from the negative publicity over Crean.
Although it is a bad sign indeed for Labor if something as trivial as Crean’s preselection can overwhelm the stench of AWB.
Regarding the one day game, I agree with Barry Richards who says it is becoming a slogfest and an unequal contest between bat and ball.
There need to be some rule changes that encourage the selection of good wicket taking bowlers. One possibility is that when a batting side loses a wicket it gets penalised, say, 10 runs.
Interesting thought – Australia would have ended up with negative 7 from one of the matches.
Bull Mark. Test cricket is also becoming a slogfest, and nothing has changed there, except the willingness of the batsman to slog.
Anyone who has played cricket knows that the main ingredient required in a batsman to score a lot of runs is simply the willingness to do so. If you play your shots whenever you can, you will score more at the wicket each time. You will also occasionally get out doing it, but you can also get out defending or leaving a ball. In the end, the batsman who go after it score more runs regardless of balls faced.
Look at India – they have 3 of the worlds most technically perfect batsman in Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman, but their most prolific scorer in the the last 5 years has been Virender Sehwag.
Donald Bradman was so feared by the English not because he would bat for days and days (he rarely did) but because he would absolutely spank them for the time that he was out there. He could hit any ball he wanted for 4 and chose to do so pretty regularly.
The only reason that one day cricket is mismatched between batting and bowling is that there are only 50 overs to bat in. The pitches and boundaries are no different to those in tests (to a first day pitch anyway).
Indian will win the World Cup.
No Doubt !!!!!