Blog of Batman

PowerPlays, SuperSubs, FreeHits and other frills

I don’t care if this new “batters powerplay” has introduced a whole new dimension for the viewing public – “its just not cricket“. I dislike any form of powerplay, and I’m really pleased that much vaunted supersub disaster was dropped before too long. I don’t mind all of these gimmicks in Pro20 – like on-field microphones, heartrate monitors, free hits and the like. By all means, try out these things in domestic competetions, and let Pro20 be a playground – but please, please – don’t corrupt Test and ODI cricket.

Can you imagine tainting the other “purists’” sport – golf? Let’s make every golfer have to tee off with a 5-iron on at least one par 5. Or how about forcing the players to swap their putter with their playing partner – all in the interest of making it more interesting for the spectators. Or how about making the Formula One cars have to race towing a trailer, or a caravan? Imagine what that would do to spectator viewing interest. How about making the tennis players play one game per set with their “wrong” hand, or else make them tie their shoelaces together, or make them carry a backpack while playing? Imagine how much the spectators would enjoy that!

These suggestions are obviously very much tongue-in-cheek – yet cricket is actually implementing some of these steps. Come on cricket – how about going back to your roots – back to the original game. When two equally matched teams are competing, you won’t need tricks and illusions to make it attractive to the viewing public. By all means let Pro20 be your glitz and glamour spectator special, but please, please keep Test and ODI cricket pure!

Strength vs Strength

When cricket provide close encounters, as South Africa vs Australia has been this summer, or India vs Australia, or the classic Ashes – the whole world sits glued to the screen. Many of these games go down to the wire, and both teams have wins, and both have losses. Who needs Pro20 if we could have more 438 games?

But cricket becomes boring when for example Australia post 350-plus in their allocated 50 overs, and then watch Bangladesh, Zimbabwe or sometimes West Indies make no effort whatsoever to chase the score, but rather use this opportunity as 50 overs of batting practice, and end up with 140/7 after a most tedious afternoon.

Would it not be possible to have something like they do in other sports – for instance a premier league where the top eight teams of the ICC play against each other, and a B league – where perhaps the next eight teams will play each other. Every six months or year, the bottom premier team and the top B league team swap places, or at least have a playoff. Admittedly it would be difficult to implement with tours scheduled possibly years ahead, but nonetheless.

Again, no disrepect intended, but games against Bangladesh or Zimbabwe aren’t really worth watching. However a B-league with teams like Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland, Holland and Kenya might make for some interesting viewing – and I’d certainly rather watch South Africa play the top team of this league, than Zimbabwe on an off day (or year)!

World Cup training ground

In all of the other major sporting disciplines, players or teams need to earn enough points to qualify or be eligible to play in their premier events. In golf there are the four majors, in tennis – the four Grand Slams. Not so in cricket however! For some or other unfathomable reason – (unless its all about making the event as big as possible so as to maximise profits) – teams that are not good enough to play international cricket make up half of the field for the World Cup. If there are sixteen teams playing (four teams in four groups) there are 24 games before we get to the SuperSix round. Of these 24 games twelve are mismatches – like South Africa vs Holland, or Australia vs Bahamas. No wonder people lose interest way before the end of the tournament. They say it is all about “growing” the game and providing “lesser” nations with international experience. I’d love to be invited to play in The Masters at Augusta, or at Wimbledon – in the interest of “gaining experience”!

No, the World Cup is rather where the cream of the crop should come together to determine the best of the best – it isn’t a training ground. I would far rather see the tournament start with the top eight teams (ICC rankings as at a specified date) that regularly play international cricket, and then all of these teams play all other teams other for points. At the end the top four can go into a traditional knockout stage. Ireland, Kenya or the Seychelles have no place at a Cricket World Cup – with no disrespect intended to these countries. If my memory serves me correctly the first World Cup South Africa played in after re-admission was played along these lines – and was by far the most memorable for me. This last one in West Indies lasted about two months – and was about one month too long. Too many games were just insignificant!

IPL Pro20 and other pay-for-cricket options

I love my cricket, but in all honesty I didn’t watch one single game of the IPL – there were just too many games, I didn’t really identify with any of the teams and it all just smacked of $$$.

A lot of people I know feel the same – in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if the ONLY people that followed it would be the bookies, and the people dealing with the bookies.

I don’t like the fact that some bloke with more $$$ than sense can come in and “buy” world cricket. I was really pleased to read of the failure of the Stanford series.

I don’t like the fact that young up-and-coming cricketers (from all countries) have as their primary goal is to land a lucrative IPL contract, instead of aiming for the honour of representing their country. It would be a tragedy when IPL gets the first choice, and Test/ODI cricket gets the “leftovers”. I don’t have a problem if its the other way around however – Kevin Pieterson is a prime example – IPL can have him!

Pro20 has a place in world cricket, but it must remain a small place. One or two games can be played between two countries, ideally between a Test series and the ODI series. It should always be about having fun, entertaining crowds, and experimenting with new players. Pro20 must NEVER become bigger than Test or ODI cricket.

One upside is that ODI’s have become “bigger”, with higher run rates being chased, and higher scores achieved. But on the downside many of the purist strokes are becoming yesterdays news, making way for big, powerful blokes coming in with treetrunks in their hands, and “hacking” the ball to the boundary fence. I would hate to lose those classic shots, like Herschelle Gibbs’ lofted cover drive, or Sachin Tendulkar’s sublime wristplay as he flicks the ball off his pads. It would be a pity to lose all of that!

Technorati : cricket
Del.icio.us : cricket
Zooomr : cricket
Flickr : cricket

The beautiful blaze of the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, is caused when material thrown off the surface of the sun collides with the atmosphere of the Earth. Thus, by following events on the sun and the velocities of the gaseous matter being thrown off its surface, we can predict the appearance of the Northern Lights with a fair degree of accuracy – certainly enough to meet the needs of the average observer of the night sky. These predictions and observations are collectively referred to in the style of weather forecasting as ‘space weather’.

The aurorae appear over the Earth’s polar regions in what are known as the auroral ovals; in the northern hemisphere the auroral oval bulges that much further to the south, the stronger the solar wind is at any given moment. The oval normally extends over northern Finland and Scandinavia, the whole of Canada and the northern USA, Alaska and Siberia. In the event of a solar storm, it may reach as far south as the skies over central Europe. Because the oval does not extend symmetrically around the Earth’s rotational axis, each degree of the Earth’s longitude rotates deeper into the oval once every 24 hours; in the case of Finland this rotation means the best time for viewing the Northern Lights is around 10.30 in the evening (Standard Time). On the other hand, it is always worth bearing in mind that a solar storm can appear at any time of the day or night, and hunters of spectacular shows would therefore be well advised to concentrate on following the various types of forecasts and predictions which are published on the Internet.

The Northern Lights are constantly in motion because of the changing interaction between the solar wind and the earth’s magnetic field. The solar wind commonly generates up to 1000,000 megawatts of electricity in an auroral display and this can cause interference with power lines, radio and television broadcasts and satellite communications. By studying the auroras, scientists can learn more about the solar wind, how it affects the earth’s atmosphere and how the energy of the auroras might be exploited for useful purposes.

Technorati : alaska
Del.icio.us : alaska
Zooomr : alaska
Flickr : alaska

Three years after it was first proposed, preparations for an African ‘wall of trees’ to slow down the southwards spread of the Sahara desert are finally getting underway.

The ‘Great Green Wall’ will involve several stretches of trees from Mauritania in the west to Djibouti in the east, to protect the semi-arid savannah region of the Sahel – and its agricultural land – from desertification. But tree planting is a crucial part of the exercise. At the CEN-SAD meeting last month Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said: “This project consists in planting trees over a distance of 7,000 km from Dakar to Djibouti to constitute a 5 km wide green strip across the desert to stop any further progress of desertification process. With the regeneration of biodiversity, we plan to give our planet a new ‘green lung’ and contribute thus to the fight against climatic changes. Alongside of the Great Green Wall we are planning to build water capture basins…to enable farmers in rural areas to grow food all year long, develop fish farming and satisfy their nutritional needs and even export market garden produce.” Senegal has been chosen to provide technical leadership for the effort owning to its past successes in combating desertification.

Mariam Aladji Boni Diallo, the Benin-based president of the Cen-Sad summit organising committee, says she hopes the Green Wall will consist of more than just trees. Diallo told SciDev.Net that “reforestation, restoration of natural resources and the eventual development of fishing and livestock breeding” were priorities for the project. However, she said that funding for the project was still tentative.

The UNESCO-linked non-profit Observatory of the Sahara and the Sahel has prepared a report on the project, saying the labour-intensive project should be used to create employment but advising that payments be partly withheld for two years until the trees were established, and that payment be based on plant growth.

The Green Wall initiative was conceived and first proposed by Nigeria’s ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005. While the idea was met enthusiastically, the African nations have lacked funding to begin work on the project. In late 2007 however, the European Union pitched in with help in designing the plan. The EU has promised further support with implementation, as well.

Further Reading:

Link to Observatory of the Sahara and the Sahel Great Green Wall report

Africa’s Great Green Wall

ENN

Technorati : desert, environment, forest, green, senegal
Del.icio.us : desert, environment, forest, green, senegal
Zooomr : desert, environment, forest, green, senegal
Flickr : desert, environment, forest, green, senegal