It is possible ...

[blamebrampton]

... that there is a god, and he or she really likes Alastair Cook. Being a lovely lad, Cook expressed sympathy to Beer, who had no-balled his potential first test wicket.

It's all a bit exciting today!

Comments

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

It is! And I did enjoy Australia's tail end efforts earlier - finally, some Australians playing proper cricket... though with the bowlers getting some of the highest scores today, one is left wondering why we bother having specialist batsmen...

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I was going to suggest they might be good at fielding, but they're not, really ...

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

No. The English, though, have been doing some beautiful fielding - I've noticed this a lot in the last couple of weeks...

(still, there's nothing I enjoy more in cricket than a tail that wags - invariably puts me on the side of whoever is batting, regardless of my normal cricketing affiliations)

[shu-shu-sleeps.livejournal.com]

Alistair Cook just seems like an all round lovely man. And poor Michael Beer - but he will get his first wicket and hopefully soon :) It has been exciting today hasn't it - just what I needed with the dizziness and not able to get out of bed and all.....

[bonfoi.livejournal.com]

One day, I'm going to go to a cricket match that someone will explain to me.

[wivern.livejournal.com]

Yes it was. I love it when the Ashes are in Aus so I can watch/listen at a reasonable time. *g* And a bonus when England is doing well.

[shocolate.livejournal.com]

Who could resist him??

[glorafin.livejournal.com]

I read about that incident and it puzzled me.

I thought that no-balls were purely left to the subjective appreciation of the umpires. But the BBC report says that TV technology was used to determine if it was a no-ball or not. Are there strict rules about what makes a no-ball? The distance to the wicket or the height of the bounce for instance?

Cheers

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

A no-ball ruling can be given for a lot of reasons and you are quite right that some of them are subjective, but the classic, clear-cut, no-questions-asked no ball is when the bowler's foot lands past the return crease. This was the case in this incident -- Beer's front foot was just too far forward.

The rule, though allows for bowling motions that don't put the heel down, and only land on the front part of the foot, which is why the umpire called for a review, because if the photograph had shown that the back of Beer's foot had been in line to be landing in the right place, it would have been good, even though he did not put the heel down.(If you watch the footage, he first went to check if he could see any heel mark on the ground.)

Standing behind the bowler, it wasn't possible to judge this line, while the photograph made it clear that his foot was, sadly, too far forward.

[glorafin.livejournal.com]

Of course! The footwork! I forgot all about it... We Europeans were cruelly hit when the BBC lost the rights to the cricket matches. It's been ages since I saw a test match, and my familiarity with the rules suffers as a result. Cheers.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

I suppose I could take an interest in dark haired men with sloe eyes ...

[jekni.livejournal.com]

And I have to say I'm supremely satisfied with the end result. Highest test score at the SCG indeed! Take that, you lot!!