The only teams that stand out as above average are: Purdue, Challengers, United, Wildcats, Muslim Gym! All the rest should be bundled up against league B. Sorry Pak, you have too many controversies that I now doubt if you play fairly in all your games.
--------- Tango said... Sadiq, I love you man, but you really annoy me sometimes when you intentionally/unintentionally misinterpret my statements. Let me make one thing clear: I am not accusing Owen Gray of anything. -------
Wasnt really trying to say you were.. was sort of using the reply to your post to respond to more than just you :-) ie it had been mentioned upthread by a couple others about "biased" and "bought", and was responding to all those things as well, in one post, it wasnt aimed at you per se, sorry :-)
-------- 2. He didn’t travel with Pak Gymkhana. Fine, does it really make a difference? Pak Gymkhana has a history of starting fights in the middle of the ground. And most of the times, they’ve gotten away with it. As you yourself pointed out, this team has been involved in numerous such incidents before. The only time they got penalized was last week (correct me if I’m wrong here), when they picked up a fight against Muslim Gymkhana, a team who’s equally close to the President as them. These guys should have been suspended the first times they started a fight, not the fourth TIME. Don’t you think it’s possible that the umpire might have been intimidated by the Pak Gymkhana players for the various reasons cited above? I sure as hell would. ---------
I suppose this is the crux of the disagreement - I dont think Owen would be intimidated by anyone. The one thing anyone who has been umpired by him has said is that he's pretty tough on the field, and keeps control of proceedings pretty well (note, he almost threw Rashid out of the game a few weeks ago etc). Maybe he just has a different standard of playable conditions, maybe he just tilts towards batsmen (ie if a batsman says "I cannot see the ball", he believes him and feels the game cannot continue etc)? He is a qualified umpire, but he is so new to our league.. he may not even have been aware of the 20-over rule (which is exclusive to our league, after all), I dont know. I mean, I understand he said that the league would decide the result etc, when he called off the game. Anyway. I just doubt he'd be scared, is all (heck, I doubt very much if he knows which team is close to which person - he probably doesnt even know who the President of the league *is* without asking Marghoob-bhai :-) IMHO there are other possible explanations than "bought", "biased" or "scared", and was just trying to offer a few more options.
--------- Tango said: Now, obviously there are a few umpires, like you, who won’t get intimidated by such hoodlums. Maybe that’s why they don’t let you umpire Pak Gymkhana games anymore. Sadiq, when was the last time you umpired a Pak Gymkhana game? -------
Sheesh. Go for the jugular, why dont you? :-) This is why Id hate to get on your bad side, Tango :-)
BTW, for what its worth... I *was* supposed to umpire PakGym vs AAA last Saturday... but they heard on Friday night that AAA had decided to give a walkover, and so I was moved over to the Jolly Rovers vs CCI game (2 umpires for playoff game etc). And Marghoob-bhai actually did ask me if I was available for PakGym/MUCC if Owen wasnt... but I have friends in town, and had dinner plans with them Sunday evening, and so figured a Milwaukee game would make me miss dinner and declined. (This is probably why I have so much sympathy for Owen being in the eye of the storm this week... there, but for the Grace of God, go I :-) Anyway. This is probably because Iam the last best truly scary threat left in the league to frighten people into behaving properly (just as you are on the blog)... "If you dont behave properly, if you deviate from the straight-and-narrow-path, we'll make *him* umpire your games, and you'll have to suffer all sorts of crappy decisions! So youd better behave yourselves!" ("jab baccha raat ko rota hai, to maa kehti hai so ja, so ja, nahin to c8w umpire ban kar aa jayega")
----- Tango said: When you put all these things together, I can quiet confidently point out the guilty party. -----
But once again, every incident is independent, no? Should prior convictions affect how a current case is looked at, in judging guilt or innocence in this regard? :-) And note, Iam not saying PakGym is in any way innocent.. they did appeal for badlight,they brought it up, they said they couldnt see the ball etc. But the final decision (and thus a large part of the responsibility) must rest on the umpire who made the decision to call off the game, is all.
---------- look into your soul said... i am with c8w ( throw the teams out of the playoff ) but why wait next year put the investigation team and do it this year and if they find them guilty give the chance to next two teams which is phoenix & royals. --------
I think any rules that are set in place, need to be set in place before a season begins. I dont think you ever can or should ever move goalposts in the middle of the contest (which is the main reason why I didnt agree with the "reschedule" from a couple weeks ago... it should all be set in stone *before* the season, and then it can be done, but IMHO *nothing* should be changed during a season). We need to set rules in advance, and let everyone know exactly what draconian penalties will be imposed if these sorts of things happen... and *then* if they go ahead and do it anyway, the harshest penalties should be imposed so everyone knows the league is serious in dealing with it.
Also, I dont really agree with the idea that Royals and Phoenix should benefit from other people screwing up ahead of them - neither Royals nor Phoenix, good teams though they are, won enough games to make the playoffs this year, so they shouldnt make the playoffs. Simple enough. Even next year (if we have new rules) Id have the same policy - if you matchfix, youre out of the playoffs.. but that doesnt mean #9 gets in, IMHO. If neccessary, give the QF guys a walkover. (Or, heck, push up 2 teams from the Div2 playoffs like we used to in the old days). But in a 17-team league, #9 and #10 dont really need to be making playoffs IMHO.
--------- Ramsundar Lakshminarayanan said... Had brought this up with Sridher recently in a casual conversation and the issue seems to be the # of grounds available for scheduling games. Now in Div 2, we don't play about a dozen teams. If Div 2 is split into 2 and 3, then we need to add a dozen games, atleast per team in Div 3. The biggest stumbling block seems to be the availability of grounds. I don't see Div 3 happening unless we get more grounds. -------
See, I dont think grounds are a problem anymore - we do have a fair few now, IMHO. There are some weekends when not all grounds at WP are used, a few weekends I believe Heritage has been empty. We have Hammond, which is Chicagoland, really - that ground is there, but is only ever used on one day (for the home 30/30 game), only used other times in "emergencies".
The other thing is, 30/30 is played in lots of the country nowadays. And almost everywhere else in the country, when they play 30/30 (which would be our Div3)... honestly, they play 2 games a day during summers! That is, the first game starts at like 8am, and is over by 12:30 or so - there is only a 5-minute changeover. The next game usually starts at like 1:30 and is over by 6ish - and, of course, in summer light lasts till 7:30 or 8:00 in most places, so even with some overrun 2 games are very easy to fit in (well, except in Milwaukee, where it supposedly gets dark by 5:50 ;-)
Thats the *idea* of 30/30 to start with - most people want to play it because it means less travelling, games lasting only half a day (so you have more time with family) etc - people play 30/30 because they want to play cricket, but dont want to committ entire days to it due to family reasons. We are probably the only 30/30 league in the country that starts games at 10, and sometimes 11 :-)
I suggested this a year or two ago - building castles in the air at the time. That year, we had exactly 51 teams spread over the league. Go to 3 divisions - 17 teams each. Go back to 16-game seasons as we always used to have (start the season one week early, and take away one "bye week" - everyone has like 2 bye weeks, plus 3 longweekends etc anyway... anyway we lose a couple games a year for rain, PakGym this year lost 4! 16 game season may mean you actually get to play 13 or 14 times a year). Then, with everyone playing everyone, give trophies for regular season champions too.. the consistency should matter most. Also playoffs, of course - but 8-team playofs, lasting 3 weekends only, should be relatively easy and quick to achieve (late Sept to early Oct timeframe).
And grounds-wise, honestly, it shouldnt be that hard. If neccessary (and it may not even be neccesary), the 30/30 can be done with 2-a-day on certain grounds (Dee Park, Hammond, Woodridge, South Barrington etc). If there is a true desire to make those big changes, Iam sure the scheduling can probably be worked out by the schedulign committee.
Just a thought: I have an idea of modifying playoff structure since I only think only four or five teams are elite teams in entire league.
#1. Division one should have 6 teams qualifying for the playoffs not 8. The next 2 joins the playoff into division 2.
#2. The top two division 1 teams will get bye and the next four will play to qualify for semi's. The semi-final and finals will be on a best of three series. Let the best team win the division.
#3. Div 2 will a have a knockout playoff system with 22 teams. Top 12 of div 2 and #7-16 from div I. Top 10 of the 22 will move to division 1 next yaer with the rest staying in division 2.
This may sound ridiculous to many of the pretenders in div 1 teams who think they are part of an elite league when in fact they are not, but, this provides competition at best to save the spot not only in div 1 but to those in div 2 to push themselves.
But this year, Div 2 has only 26 teams, as opposed to 28 or 30 we have had before. That certainly has dented our "utilization" this year. 3 teams I can recollect - MDS, Suburban and Deccan Blues.
The availability of grounds based on current utilization (along with with changes to 30/30 start time as you suggested) may not be enough to accomodate a new division with 17 teams each playing each other (that's atleast 125 games or so, right? ). Keep in mind, we need umpires for those games as well.
Anyone knows whwn this weeks playoff schedule will be out. I need to know what day i am coming out. Sorry guys can't blog from work anymore. FU*****ing tecnology..Everything for sports is now blocked. Don't know how i was able to get in this evening. Shekhs call me so i can know where you guys will play. i may stop by with a few cold ones and some cutters..
2 division II games are being played on Saturday, the Giants/QCKings and Peoria/Jaguars at WP. And the other two games evanston/advancers and IIT/cci are being played on sunday at WP also.
I don't know anything about the Div I playoff dates and venues. I am assuming they will be split over WP as well this weekend and maybe even HP.
--------- Ramsundar Lakshminarayanan said... Sadiq, Teams have to be penalized in such a way they pay for their mistakes. Never mind the current NRR imbroglio (not suggesting it to dismiss it now), I do believe that the punishments meted out recently (with player suspensions) were very, very lenient - contrary to what you feel. -------
Ram - if you read what I wrote often in the past about this, Ive always said that "most people in the league" think this is a decently-strong punishment. Because I really believe that to be true.
Ive ended up talking to a lot of people about this - met bunches of people at a couple night games the last week or two, and this was *the* hot-button topic for a while, obviously. And before the decision most people said "they should be banned for the whole season, including the playoffs". Well, they were. And most seem to be pretty happy with the fact that the punishments were strong - in fact, both Pak and Muslim apparently feel the punishment is too harsh, and both would actually like to appeal it :-)
I specifically havent said much of my own personal views, because I have come to realize that Iam too much of a radical in too many ways, and hold extreme views :-) Iam pretty old-fashioned in a lot of respects with regard to cricket - I *like* white clothes and red ball, I prefer test matches, I believe there should be a certain spirit to the game and all that oldfashioned nonsense :-) Whats important in terms of punishments etc is what the majority of the league players believe and want, obviously. And if most are satisfied, then it must surely be a good decision.
As for me personally...I remember two years ago, the Deccan Blues/Shiraz imbroglio. I heard about Nafees's involvement on Saturday evening - now Ive met Nafees, he's a decent guy usually, he used to hang out at my old restaurant-of-choice (Daata Durbar), so I had met him a couple times outside WP too. What I heard that day was that Nafees, the bowler at the time of the incident, jumped on the umpire Shiraz from behind, wrapped his legs around his waist, and had pummeled him with his fists. I remember meeting Tariq post-playoff-game-umpiring on Sunday, a day later... and I remember saying to him, the guy IMHO should be banned for life. You assault an umpire like that...you should never ever play in our league again, period. (I told you, Iam often too radical about things :-) Luckily management wasnt quite as carried away by emotions and waited a few days to investigate and decide :-)
That was my opinion in the heat of the weekend, I moderated my views a bit... in the end Nafees was banned for a year, which I felt was still a little mild (Id have gone 2 or 3 years still, though no longer "life"). In the end, however, Nafees apologized profusely the next year, did voluntary umpiring etc, and ended up serving... all of 4 games! I thought it was an awfully light punishment for a heinous act... but nobody in the rest of the league seemed upset by how little of a punishment it really was. After all, Deccan Blues had had to give up the playoff game the altercation happened in, most felt that was a pretty big punishment by itself.
Anyway. As you say, for the fighting a couple weeks ago... I havent seen the DVD, I dont know the details as well as the disciplinary committee does. And, as I said above, most of the league seems relatively satisfied at the severity of the punishments, which is more relevant than satisfying a radical like me :-) If you want my purely personal opinion... yeah, Id have had suspensions for those involved, and the best case for those who actually fought would have been for one calendar year (ie, if the fight was September 3rd, you can play your next game September 4th next year, and not a day before).
To me, its like this. Hassan from PakGym (who is another very nice guy, BTW, a guy I like a lot).. I have heard he was involved in the fight (again, I dont know how much, I havent seen the DVD), and the disciplinary committee says he was too, and so they suspended him for 1 game. And what happened? The game he had to miss, AAA gave PakGym a walkover. So, for being somewhat involved in a fight, he got to sit at home and collect 4 points on Saturday, before playing at Milaukee on Sunday. Again, I dont know how involved Hassan was in the fight, I wasnt there, I havent seen the DVD... but if he was involved, and the league has felt he was involved enough to issue a punishment... what kind of price has been paid? Not much of one, IMHO. And that surely cant be the right result.
Rup said... Anyone knows whwn this weeks playoff schedule will be out. I need to know what day i am coming out. Sorry guys can't blog from work anymore. FU*****ing tecnology..
Rup, That's funny :) lol....I will be also there, it's a party time for us man!!! I'll bring our stuff
Can they at least post the play off schedule up. by week for now will do Samir I will out at WP on Sunday. Hope to see you and some of the other bloggers there.
where are my Challengers buddies. Are you guys playing this week end. If you guys don't make it to the Finals then Shekhs & Tushar has to re-imbursed me all expense for my playoffs visits. This can be very expensive!!!!!
Rup, Thanks for the support maan.. I think we are playing this weekend.. I'll stop by even if we are not playing, so party is on regardless.. regarding the reimbursement, we'll work something out. :-)
Appu, I didnt expect India to go this far...nor Pakistan. Seems like they both kicked some a$%. I never thought the sub-continent teams will do this good in 20-20. No more misreads...
If you look at the teams which got eliminated - SA, England etc. ....have powerful and solid hitters all the way till #8. SA lost one game and are out, England was not in the rhythm at all..
Now its open - any of the 4 teams can win....
people say - "Cricket is a funny game", How about 20-20?
Good point. I didn't pick India, but I had a reason. I wasn't sure our bowling was good enough to defend any scores. That was the only reason. Since the bowling has proved to not only be up to the mark, but superior, they have done well. As you can see, my caveat held. I don't like predicting against Big Blue!!!
I'd love to see an India vs Pak final. What a cracker!
Just read abt management's decision to remove the blog link for MCC website ... I am sorry to say but this is one of the worst decisions ever taken by them ..
Information is power. I see that the decision is simple. This blog is bringing a lot of heat on them. People are able to communicate with one another and point out negatives.
Now taking this blog out is a great way to silence people as they must fear that Bloggers may rise up against the league in the next upcoming election.
225 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 225 of 225The only teams that stand out as above average are:
Purdue, Challengers, United, Wildcats, Muslim Gym! All the rest should be bundled up against league B. Sorry Pak, you have too many controversies that I now doubt if you play fairly in all your games.
Shekhs Sir,
Where are you playing this weekend ?? Nothing is on the website so far ..
---------
Tango said...
Sadiq,
I love you man, but you really annoy me sometimes when you intentionally/unintentionally misinterpret my statements.
Let me make one thing clear: I am not accusing Owen Gray of anything.
-------
Wasnt really trying to say you were.. was sort of using the reply to your post to respond to more than just you :-) ie it had been mentioned upthread by a couple others about "biased" and "bought", and was responding to all those things as well, in one post, it wasnt aimed at you per se, sorry :-)
--------
2. He didn’t travel with Pak Gymkhana. Fine, does it really make a difference? Pak Gymkhana has a history of starting fights in the middle of the ground. And most of the times, they’ve gotten away with it.
As you yourself pointed out, this team has been involved in numerous such incidents before. The only time they got penalized was last week (correct me if I’m wrong here), when they picked up a fight against Muslim Gymkhana, a team who’s equally close to the President as them. These guys should have been suspended the first times they started a fight, not the fourth TIME.
Don’t you think it’s possible that the umpire might have been intimidated by the Pak Gymkhana players for the various reasons cited above? I sure as hell would.
---------
I suppose this is the crux of the disagreement - I dont think Owen would be intimidated by anyone. The one thing anyone who has been umpired by him has said is that he's pretty tough on the field, and keeps control of proceedings pretty well (note, he almost threw Rashid out of the game a few weeks ago etc). Maybe he just has a different standard of playable conditions, maybe he just tilts towards batsmen (ie if a batsman says "I cannot see the ball", he believes him and feels the game cannot continue etc)? He is a qualified umpire, but he is so new to our league.. he may not even have been aware of the 20-over rule (which is exclusive to our league, after all), I dont know. I mean, I understand he said that the league would decide the result etc, when he called off the game. Anyway. I just doubt he'd be scared, is all (heck, I doubt very much if he knows which team is close to which person - he probably doesnt even know who the President of the league *is* without asking Marghoob-bhai :-) IMHO there are other possible explanations than "bought", "biased" or "scared", and was just trying to offer a few more options.
---------
Tango said:
Now, obviously there are a few umpires, like you, who won’t get intimidated by such hoodlums. Maybe that’s why they don’t let you umpire Pak Gymkhana games anymore. Sadiq, when was the last time you umpired a Pak Gymkhana game?
-------
Sheesh. Go for the jugular, why dont you? :-) This is why Id hate to get on your bad side, Tango :-)
BTW, for what its worth... I *was* supposed to umpire PakGym vs AAA last Saturday... but they heard on Friday night that AAA had decided to give a walkover, and so I was moved over to the Jolly Rovers vs CCI game (2 umpires for playoff game etc). And Marghoob-bhai actually did ask me if I was available for PakGym/MUCC if Owen wasnt... but I have friends in town, and had dinner plans with them Sunday evening, and so figured a Milwaukee game would make me miss dinner and declined. (This is probably why I have so much sympathy for Owen being in the eye of the storm this week... there, but for the Grace of God, go I :-) Anyway. This is probably because Iam the last best truly scary threat left in the league to frighten people into behaving properly (just as you are on the blog)... "If you dont behave properly, if you deviate from the straight-and-narrow-path, we'll make *him* umpire your games, and you'll have to suffer all sorts of crappy decisions! So youd better behave yourselves!" ("jab baccha raat ko rota hai, to maa kehti hai so ja, so ja, nahin to c8w umpire ban kar aa jayega")
-----
Tango said:
When you put all these things together, I can quiet confidently point out the guilty party.
-----
But once again, every incident is independent, no? Should prior convictions affect how a current case is looked at, in judging guilt or innocence in this regard? :-) And note, Iam not saying PakGym is in any way innocent.. they did appeal for badlight,they brought it up, they said they couldnt see the ball etc. But the final decision (and thus a large part of the responsibility) must rest on the umpire who made the decision to call off the game, is all.
c8w
----------
look into your soul said...
i am with c8w ( throw the teams out of the playoff ) but why wait next year put the investigation team and do it this year and if they find them guilty give the chance to next two teams which is phoenix & royals.
--------
I think any rules that are set in place, need to be set in place before a season begins. I dont think you ever can or should ever move goalposts in the middle of the contest (which is the main reason why I didnt agree with the "reschedule" from a couple weeks ago... it should all be set in stone *before* the season, and then it can be done, but IMHO *nothing* should be changed during a season). We need to set rules in advance, and let everyone know exactly what draconian penalties will be imposed if these sorts of things happen... and *then* if they go ahead and do it anyway, the harshest penalties should be imposed so everyone knows the league is serious in dealing with it.
Also, I dont really agree with the idea that Royals and Phoenix should benefit from other people screwing up ahead of them - neither Royals nor Phoenix, good teams though they are, won enough games to make the playoffs this year, so they shouldnt make the playoffs. Simple enough. Even next year (if we have new rules) Id have the same policy - if you matchfix, youre out of the playoffs.. but that doesnt mean #9 gets in, IMHO. If neccessary, give the QF guys a walkover. (Or, heck, push up 2 teams from the Div2 playoffs like we used to in the old days). But in a 17-team league, #9 and #10 dont really need to be making playoffs IMHO.
c8w
Appu,
We dont know when and where yet...
But there is gonna be a playoff game this weekend for sure...so much for weekend plans.....
---------
Ramsundar Lakshminarayanan said...
Had brought this up with Sridher recently in a casual conversation and the issue seems to be the # of grounds available for scheduling games.
Now in Div 2, we don't play about a dozen teams. If Div 2 is split into 2 and 3, then we need to add a dozen games, atleast per team in Div 3. The biggest stumbling block seems to be the availability of grounds.
I don't see Div 3 happening unless we get more grounds.
-------
See, I dont think grounds are a problem anymore - we do have a fair few now, IMHO. There are some weekends when not all grounds at WP are used, a few weekends I believe Heritage has been empty. We have Hammond, which is Chicagoland, really - that ground is there, but is only ever used on one day (for the home 30/30 game), only used other times in "emergencies".
The other thing is, 30/30 is played in lots of the country nowadays. And almost everywhere else in the country, when they play 30/30 (which would be our Div3)... honestly, they play 2 games a day during summers! That is, the first game starts at like 8am, and is over by 12:30 or so - there is only a 5-minute changeover. The next game usually starts at like 1:30 and is over by 6ish - and, of course, in summer light lasts till 7:30 or 8:00 in most places, so even with some overrun 2 games are very easy to fit in (well, except in Milwaukee, where it supposedly gets dark by 5:50 ;-)
Thats the *idea* of 30/30 to start with - most people want to play it because it means less travelling, games lasting only half a day (so you have more time with family) etc - people play 30/30 because they want to play cricket, but dont want to committ entire days to it due to family reasons. We are probably the only 30/30 league in the country that starts games at 10, and sometimes 11 :-)
I suggested this a year or two ago - building castles in the air at the time. That year, we had exactly 51 teams spread over the league. Go to 3 divisions - 17 teams each. Go back to 16-game seasons as we always used to have (start the season one week early, and take away one "bye week" - everyone has like 2 bye weeks, plus 3 longweekends etc anyway... anyway we lose a couple games a year for rain, PakGym this year lost 4! 16 game season may mean you actually get to play 13 or 14 times a year). Then, with everyone playing everyone, give trophies for regular season champions too.. the consistency should matter most. Also playoffs, of course - but 8-team playofs, lasting 3 weekends only, should be relatively easy and quick to achieve (late Sept to early Oct timeframe).
And grounds-wise, honestly, it shouldnt be that hard. If neccessary (and it may not even be neccesary), the 30/30 can be done with 2-a-day on certain grounds (Dee Park, Hammond, Woodridge, South Barrington etc). If there is a true desire to make those big changes, Iam sure the scheduling can probably be worked out by the schedulign committee.
c8w
Just a thought:
I have an idea of modifying playoff structure since I only think only four or five teams are elite teams in entire league.
#1.
Division one should have 6 teams qualifying for the playoffs not 8. The next 2 joins the playoff into division 2.
#2.
The top two division 1 teams will get bye and the next four will play to qualify for semi's. The semi-final and finals will be on a best of three series. Let the best team win the division.
#3.
Div 2 will a have a knockout playoff system with 22 teams. Top 12 of div 2 and #7-16 from div I. Top 10 of the 22 will move to division 1 next yaer with the rest staying in division 2.
This may sound ridiculous to many of the pretenders in div 1 teams who think they are part of an elite league when in fact they are not, but, this provides competition at best to save the spot not only in div 1 but to those in div 2 to push themselves.
Remember the goal: build a competitive league!
P L A Y - B A L L
Correction: #1 should read next 10 not next 2
Sadiq,
Your point noted.
But this year, Div 2 has only 26 teams, as opposed to 28 or 30 we have had before. That certainly has dented our "utilization" this year. 3 teams I can recollect - MDS, Suburban and Deccan Blues.
The availability of grounds based on current utilization (along with with changes to 30/30 start time as you suggested) may not be enough to accomodate a new division with 17 teams each playing each other (that's atleast 125 games or so, right? ). Keep in mind, we need umpires for those games as well.
Anyone knows whwn this weeks playoff schedule will be out.
I need to know what day i am coming out.
Sorry guys can't blog from work anymore.
FU*****ing tecnology..Everything for sports is now blocked. Don't know how i was able to get in this evening.
Shekhs call me so i can know where you guys will play. i may stop by with a few cold ones and some cutters..
rup,
2 division II games are being played on Saturday, the Giants/QCKings and Peoria/Jaguars at WP. And the other two games evanston/advancers and IIT/cci are being played on sunday at WP also.
I don't know anything about the Div I playoff dates and venues. I am assuming they will be split over WP as well this weekend and maybe even HP.
---------
Ramsundar Lakshminarayanan said...
Sadiq,
Teams have to be penalized in such a way they pay for their mistakes.
Never mind the current NRR imbroglio (not suggesting it to dismiss it now), I do believe that the punishments meted out recently (with player suspensions) were very, very lenient - contrary to what you feel.
-------
Ram - if you read what I wrote often in the past about this, Ive always said that "most people in the league" think this is a decently-strong punishment. Because I really believe that to be true.
Ive ended up talking to a lot of people about this - met bunches of people at a couple night games the last week or two, and this was *the* hot-button topic for a while, obviously. And before the decision most people said "they should be banned for the whole season, including the playoffs". Well, they were. And most seem to be pretty happy with the fact that the punishments were strong - in fact, both Pak and Muslim apparently feel the punishment is too harsh, and both would actually like to appeal it :-)
I specifically havent said much of my own personal views, because I have come to realize that Iam too much of a radical in too many ways, and hold extreme views :-) Iam pretty old-fashioned in a lot of respects with regard to cricket - I *like* white clothes and red ball, I prefer test matches, I believe there should be a certain spirit to the game and all that oldfashioned nonsense :-) Whats important in terms of punishments etc is what the majority of the league players believe and want, obviously. And if most are satisfied, then it must surely be a good decision.
As for me personally...I remember two years ago, the Deccan Blues/Shiraz imbroglio. I heard about Nafees's involvement on Saturday evening - now Ive met Nafees, he's a decent guy usually, he used to hang out at my old restaurant-of-choice (Daata Durbar), so I had met him a couple times outside WP too. What I heard that day was that Nafees, the bowler at the time of the incident, jumped on the umpire Shiraz from behind, wrapped his legs around his waist, and had pummeled him with his fists. I remember meeting Tariq post-playoff-game-umpiring on Sunday, a day later... and I remember saying to him, the guy IMHO should be banned for life. You assault an umpire like that...you should never ever play in our league again, period. (I told you, Iam often too radical about things :-) Luckily management wasnt quite as carried away by emotions and waited a few days to investigate and decide :-)
That was my opinion in the heat of the weekend, I moderated my views a bit... in the end Nafees was banned for a year, which I felt was still a little mild (Id have gone 2 or 3 years still, though no longer "life"). In the end, however, Nafees apologized profusely the next year, did voluntary umpiring etc, and ended up serving... all of 4 games! I thought it was an awfully light punishment for a heinous act... but nobody in the rest of the league seemed upset by how little of a punishment it really was. After all, Deccan Blues had had to give up the playoff game the altercation happened in, most felt that was a pretty big punishment by itself.
Anyway. As you say, for the fighting a couple weeks ago... I havent seen the DVD, I dont know the details as well as the disciplinary committee does. And, as I said above, most of the league seems relatively satisfied at the severity of the punishments, which is more relevant than satisfying a radical like me :-) If you want my purely personal opinion... yeah, Id have had suspensions for those involved, and the best case for those who actually fought would have been for one calendar year (ie, if the fight was September 3rd, you can play your next game September 4th next year, and not a day before).
To me, its like this. Hassan from PakGym (who is another very nice guy, BTW, a guy I like a lot).. I have heard he was involved in the fight (again, I dont know how much, I havent seen the DVD), and the disciplinary committee says he was too, and so they suspended him for 1 game. And what happened? The game he had to miss, AAA gave PakGym a walkover. So, for being somewhat involved in a fight, he got to sit at home and collect 4 points on Saturday, before playing at Milaukee on Sunday. Again, I dont know how involved Hassan was in the fight, I wasnt there, I havent seen the DVD... but if he was involved, and the league has felt he was involved enough to issue a punishment... what kind of price has been paid? Not much of one, IMHO. And that surely cant be the right result.
c8w
Sadiq,
Did you get my email on your midwest account regarding NRR?
Secondly, what got into you today? Why are you so defiant?
YAWN
Rup said...
Anyone knows whwn this weeks playoff schedule will be out.
I need to know what day i am coming out.
Sorry guys can't blog from work anymore.
FU*****ing tecnology..
Rup,
That's funny :) lol....I will be also there, it's a party time for us man!!! I'll bring our stuff
Sadiq,
What's wrong with you? :) Looks like you're hitting more sixes than Yuvraj :)
Can they at least post the play off schedule up. by week for now will do
Samir I will out at WP on Sunday.
Hope to see you and some of the other bloggers there.
where are my Challengers buddies.
Are you guys playing this week end.
If you guys don't make it to the Finals then Shekhs & Tushar has to re-imbursed me all expense for my playoffs visits.
This can be very expensive!!!!!
Rup,
Thanks for the support maan..
I think we are playing this weekend..
I'll stop by even if we are not playing, so party is on regardless..
regarding the reimbursement, we'll work something out. :-)
We'll be glad to have you there..
Ok..shekhs.
We will negotiate..
See you Sunday.
Got to go.
gr8 win by India ! though feel sorry for SA as they are out of tourney by losing just one match ...
Aditya ... dont remember if you expected India to go so far in the 20-20 world cup ...
Appu,
I didnt expect India to go this far...nor Pakistan.
Seems like they both kicked some a$%.
I never thought the sub-continent teams will do this good in 20-20.
No more misreads...
If you look at the teams which got eliminated - SA, England etc. ....have powerful and solid hitters all the way till #8.
SA lost one game and are out, England was not in the rhythm at all..
Now its open - any of the 4 teams can win....
people say - "Cricket is a funny game", How about 20-20?
Appu,
Good point. I didn't pick India, but I had a reason. I wasn't sure our bowling was good enough to defend any scores. That was the only reason. Since the bowling has proved to not only be up to the mark, but superior, they have done well. As you can see, my caveat held. I don't like predicting against Big Blue!!!
I'd love to see an India vs Pak final. What a cracker!
Just read abt management's decision to remove the blog link for MCC website ... I am sorry to say but this is one of the worst decisions ever taken by them ..
Information is power. I see that the decision is simple. This blog is bringing a lot of heat on them. People are able to communicate with one another and point out negatives.
Now taking this blog out is a great way to silence people as they must fear that Bloggers may rise up against the league in the next upcoming election.
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