
Is the Game of Cricket a Model for Surviving the 21st Century? - jaybol
http://www.good.is/post/is-the-game-of-cricket-a-model-for-surviving-the-21st-century/
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dheerosaur
People ask me how I go through the pain of watching Test cricket. My answer to
them has always been "You don't get the point, do you?". People just don't
understand how beautiful some things are. Some tastes are acquired. I
understand that T20 gives instant gratification and I don't escape the lure of
it. For me, T20 is like a one night stand and Tests are like long-term
relations. I did not want to hurt all the T20 fans by comparing them with
masturbation and making-love.

I feel that there is no relativity in good taste. I listen to Vivaldi, my
friend listens to Bryan Adams and my younger brother listens to Justin Bieber.

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robryan
One of the problems with T20 though is that you see a very different game than
in longer forms. The same contest between bat and ball isn't there, there is
no real reason to play defensively and even good balls will get hit out of
luck because the batsman is swinging at everything.

This is still a big problem in cricket, the old fans like seeing a draw out
contest which shows all the skills of cricket, although in order to interest
younger and new crowds T20 is the way to go.

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ankimal
The advances in the sport have been tremendous. But all of those advances were
made for a reason, to package the sport better and reach a wider audience.
Unfortunately, thats where cricket has not progressed. A handful of countries
take the sport seriously and even from those, the sport is extremely popular
(a religion in some) in the Indian sub-continent.

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NZ_Matt
I disagree. Initially players and fans were skeptical and didn't treat T20 too
seriously. However opinions changed and these days most players and fans take
it very seriously. T20 is without doubt the fastest and most entertaining
format, recently there has been a lot of talk about what can be done to save
ODIs from dieing. Here in New Zealand T20 has a huge tv audience and pulls
great crowd attendances while ODI support has continued to dwindle. Has this
not been the case in every country? perhaps with the exception of England.

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desigooner
I've attended a few T20 IPL games past year while being in India .. it's
anything but boring and slow... the atmosphere certainly beats some of the
sports events I've been to around here (including games at Fenway park where
for some reason most people just come in to drink and make merry and not give
a crap to what's going on field until the very last inning or so) ..

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VarunGupta
The diversification of the game in terms of different formats have offered
different sections of demographics (most on the basis of age) a nice way to
admire and enjoy the game.

It has also adopted from corporates and other sports the ways to popularize
and distribute the game. Indian Premier League is a fantastic example of how
the authorities adopted the proven model of English Premier League football
(soccer) and took the game of cricket to the new level of entertainment.

There have been concerns raised by people about dilution of glory of good and
old cricket by the introduction of new formats. I disagree with that. Here
measure-the-response is at play. Most of the Test matches (5 day format) is
witnessed by crowds as low as 10% of total seating capacity of stadia. And as
the younger generations are coming into mainstream of consumers, it was highly
pertinent to introduce something that they can identify with.

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aquarin
I found myself that playing Combat Arms is a model of doing business in the
real word.

\- It is a competition between people that are not equal in resources (some
have XP guns, some have unfair guns like m32) and skills.

\- There are always people that will cheat and the authority (CA) can't stop
them (after each fix they appear 2-3h again). So, just be calm and avoid
combat with people that probably cheat.

\- Whatever you do, there are always better players then you, but if you are
persistent you can achieve some success.

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Xurinos
What does it mean that I discarded Combat Arms once I tried out Modern Warfare
2? If I were to take a stab at this analogy, I would suggest that better
businessmen change the nature of the game in order to achieve greater success
or break new ground.

But maybe there is something different going on here. CA is free to play while
MW2 costs $60 for the game and $300 for a system; we learn from this that you
will find less shady people in the system when the system comes with a price
tag.

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jonhendry
It's a bit early to tell, isn't it?

In 1910 you could have written: Is the Austro-Hungarian Empire a model for
surviving the 20th century?

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arethuza
What is really weird about cricket is the number of people who prefer to
listen to it on the radio rather than watching it on TV!

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dheerosaur
Just curious. Where are you from?

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arethuza
Scotland, where cricket is a strange and foreign game ;-)

