Two Tier Cricket, in the news

Here we are, some years later, and two out of three WTC champs have gone teams outside the big three.

The big brains at the ICC have decided that this isn't really what they intended from this format. So inevitably two tier Test cricket is again on the agenda. A "working group" has been formed.

Lots of corporate speak in that article. I decided to post a helpful table of translations.

Pundit	Corpo Jargon Quote	Translation into English
Richard Thompson ECB Chairman	"There has to be a sense that common sense needs to play out here."	"Playing anyone other than India and Australia is stupid of us."
	"The World Test Championship could work better than it does."	"Can't have the freeloaders winning the thing, can we?"
	"What you do need is a schedule that makes a lot more sense than it currently does."	"Why spend valuable match days playing minnows when we could be making bank playing the Ashes twice a year?"
Todd Greenberg CA CEO	"The real challenge here is what role do we [the big three] all play."	"Why spend valuable match days playing minnows when we could be making bank playing the Ashes twice a year?"
	"It's incumbent on all of cricket to help."	"F*ck 'em, and the devil take the hindmost."
	"...everyone's got a very open mind to this because they know that we're going to need some level of change in order to extract value."	"Those guys know who calls the shots, and it ain't them. Bring me some more caviar and champers."

Photo retro: 2023-12-21 - SA vs India at Boland Park

This was the third of three ODIs. India had batted first and put up a good 296. Photo was taken from the south western grass bank near the score board. I wouldn't swear to who was batting there but it was near the start when there was still hope, so likely de Zorzi and one of Reeza Hendricks or Aiden Markram.

Hope didn't last and India went on to take the game by 78 runs and the series 2-1. Both teams moved to Newlands next to start the Test.

More memorable for me was solo parenting three small kids through the event. The daytime temp hit 38C, and dropped sharply at sundown. One child lost a tooth midway through the first innings. Two got in trouble with security for sneaking out to fetch a ball hit too far (yes, this is thing one can do at Boland Park). I spent most of the second innings queueing to buy pizza (maybe not a bad thing given the RSA collapse), and overall spent way too much on confectionary and bottled water and way too little on beer.

As you can tell from the horrendous focal length the pic was taken with my smart phone at the time. It was a Samsung A73.