I'm "kicking off" with cricket because it's close to my heart and it has an Asian angle, but this thread is open to partisans of any sport.

Hashim Amla, South African cricketer, spent the past two days - 11 hours in the Indian sun - facing a hard leather ball heading for him at speeds sometimes exceeding 140km/h and bouncing more or less unpredictably before it got to him. I celebrate his feat, but he's a pussy according to Jim the Moron (yes, I'll take his deliberately provocative bait):


Jim the Moron wrote elsewhere:
Ice Hockey - A sport where men wear mattresses on their legs.

Cricket - A "sport" where pussies wear mattresses on their legs.

... demonstrating that a "sport" (sic) that besides physical and mental agility and endurance involves mind games and STYLE but provides little instant gratification does not even qualify as a sport in the eyes of Far Westerners (west of the UK, that is). In fact, they find it incomprehensible.

Thus, the biggest day of the American sporting calendar is Superbowl, played by all-American mattresses with helmets, watched solely by Americans, all over in under 2 hours and much of the excitement generated by the ads. God help them if they tried to play a real contact sport like rugby union against the outside world.

Seems to me that even on rare occasions when America plays its "own" sports - baseball, ice hockey, basketball - against other countries, it generally loses. This is what happens when one plays with oneself too much (actually, I blame the insular American media for this, but that's a subject for another post).

So, having now indulged in the rowdy one-eyed partisanship of any true sports fan in an attempt to get this ball rolling, I invite responses and will treat hooliganism with leniency in this thread.

But back to the cricket, where India and South Africa are vying for the top world ranking. Any Indian readers out there? What do you think of Smith's declaration? My own feeling is it was poorly done, neither attacking nor defensive, and coming after an unfathomably slow run rate. Smith's declarations have proved largely unsuccessful lately (in the series against England) and I believe expose a lack of killer instinct.

The few cricket matches I endured (under the hot Caribbean sun) featured a modicum of sporting activity punctuated by breaks for tea. Fortunately, an attribute available to spectators were bamboo-pole shelters where frosty Carib Lager and Heinekens could be had.

It's entertaining to imagine a ice hockey game (incidentally, a Canadian, not an American, sport) being interrupted for tea.

Jim the Moron wrote:
The few cricket matches I endured (under the hot Caribbean sun) featured a modicum of sporting activity punctuated by breaks for tea.

If that was a couple of decades ago, chances are you saw some of the greatest players, tea drinkers and pot smokers ever to take the field. I'm jealous. Pity you weren't converted, but kudos for making the effort.

PS, Moves are afoot to convert the Chinese. Some day we (several billion people) may have an India-China test match to relish.

Yep 3+ decades ago. Never got to see Sir Garfield Sobers play, though a few other presumably great players were pointed out to me that appeared to perhaps have indulged in the ganga.

My main problem with cricket isn't about the apparent difficulties of playing the sport: having faced up to a cricket ball in a bunch of informal matches with visiting Brits and others (Indians), I can certainly attest to the bone juddering impact of the ball when it strikes one's body. I have a scar over my left eyebrow to show for it.

Rather, the main problem with cricket is the sheer amount of time it takes. The longer version (tests) go over 5 days and even the shorter version, for a day. Apparently there is the new format called T20 (which I intended to write about a while ago; perhaps something will pop up before the third season of the IPL this year), which is far shorter and more in keeping with the football matches I favour (Note: don't call it Soccer when I am around).

As for ice hockey, (rather akin to American version of "football" -which is actually the Condom version of a sport the rest of us refer to as Rugby) it seems to me like a bunch of Michelin men pushing a little piece of cow poo around the ice; half the time I rather expect two of the contestants to start dancing on the ice. There is something incredibly feminine about the very notion of ice skating

So I am willing to take on Jim's point about "pussies" and the like. It could well be that cricketers are exactly that - but its not as if ice hockey is any more masculine.

Real men play football. Period.

CA

Well, well, 6 hours after my first post, India have collapsed to 233 all out and are following on. It's possible that Smith's declaration will look just fine in retrospect.

Another sport indigenous to the Old World - "Teenage matador triumphs killing six bulls in one day" -

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7018240.ece

We eagerly await an alternative headline - "Spanish bull gores six matadors in one day"

Chan Akya wrote:
There is something incredibly feminine about the very notion of ice skating

I hear that after the game hockey players put on women's clothing and hang around in bars. Or is that lumberjacks?


"I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wild flowers, I put on women's clothing, and hang around in bars" - The Lumberjack Song, Monty Python.

Luckily Michael is too busy driving around the USA to see this.

We read today that cricket is being considered as an Olympic sport in the near future. It should be said that the rumor that the dreaded mattress cartel is behind the effort is utterly without "foundation." We note that the quintessential European sports of tiddlywinks and hopscotch, devoid of reliance on mattresses for the well-being of participants, are also in the mix, putting the lie to those who would have you believe that all European sporting activity is pussified.

See what happens when Europeans abandon their mattresses? We get the luge, where "athletes" hurl themselves down slippery slopes in hopes of a medal. That these unfortunates might get their skulls laid open points out the need for the mattress cartel to step in. Demand mattresses, you lugers!