LUDUS EST CELARE LUDUM

There is a Latin saying: "ars est celare artem" - it is art to hide art. In other words, great art is so skillfully made that your average pleb does not understand the skill needed to make it. The same, loosely, applies to sport: it is sport to hide sport.

Pundits, punters and plebs have compared the BBL to the WWE. Fair enough. It is not precisely apples for apples, but it is at least apples for plums. The distinction is that WWE labels itself "sports entertainment" whereas the BBL labels itself as cricket, ostensibly anyway. Everyone knows what they are getting with the wrasslin' - a razzamatazz affair they accept is fake, but which they also know operates on a different level to general sport (and, for the record, has a greater percentage of injury than the Australian National Fast Bowling Group Unit Panel). The crickin' is still cricket, just about. If the punters suddenly thought the BBL was fake, and not just bells, whistles, wanker ground announcers and allegedly fake shenanigans, and was actually dead set fake, or "cricket entertainment" they would be through the turnstiles without a pass-out as quick as you can say Mike and the McKennas.

Gideon?

OK, I'm making this up, but then again ...

HERE'S a scenario. Entirely fictional. There's a very great cricketer. Let's call him Wayne Shorne. He's making a comeback, being paid a king's ransom to play in a domestic T20 tournament called the Big Cash League representing a franchise called, say, the Melbourne ...

Comments

[The Don has risen]

Shane Warne is Skull Murphy? Sorry that's before WWE

M0nty will be livid we have to read The OZ. Not even Gideon writing there will tempt me.

[Russ]

With respect to Gideon because I'm sure he is reading. Whenever he speaks about T20 and the BBL he comes across as an elitist decrying the fake fandom of people who he doesn't believe might actually like T20 for the cricket, even if it is cricket with a sharper and more focused risk/reward. It is quite sad seeing a writer with such solid historical knowledge and business background talk such complete shit.

[Cameron]

I applaud Mr. Haigh's elitism.

[Tony Tea]

I don't watch much Bubble, but nor do I have much of a problem with T20 per se. I just like Test cricket a lot more, and there is a legitimate debate to be had about how much T20 erodes Test cricket (or improves it).

For Gideon, Baumy, and the other high-brow hacks, T20 is manna from Heaven for criticism, what with it's circus-like nature. Roll up, roll up, see the dancing pandas. Plenty of ink to dip your poison pen into. But they appear to be competing with each other to come up with the best sledges.

I would also question whether Gideon dislikes the Bubble as much as he asserts, or whether his criticism is as octane-charged as Warnie's Sunday special.

[Russ]

Gideon is consistent in his dislike of T20 and Mike and the McKennas. Which he is allowed to be. Some of the criticisms just aren't grounded in reality though. That might not be unusual for the cricket media, but as Jonathan Howcroft wrote today, cricket needs better than sledges.

[lou]

I don't think T20 is as awful as our Gid does. I'd watch the BBL, or at least the Scorchies, at work if I could get Sky to work properly.

Someone has misplaced the Sky card, the ****er!

[Cameron]

I'd watch T20 if I could be bothered following crickets half-arsed schedule.

Cricket can go and get fucked. Thank fuck the NFL play-offs are on, giving me some meaningful sport to watch. Not some 'tournament' dreamed up by m)ntyesque, PC, fucking-bean-counting cunts.

I do enough day-dreaming of driving my SS dager through the Bill Pulver's of the world whist at work. Fuck that in my spare time.

[Russ]

The BBL has a straight-forward schedule. It is on every f***ing day. The ODIs are on Friday and Sunday because they are the highest rating days. I note with interest that a) the Stars want their players released for the semis and b) James Hopes wants ODIs to be less meaningless, as in say world cup qualification. He obviously missed the memo that they are (rankings-wise anyway). Either that or he actually wants to face off against Hong Kong, Ireland and Canada. Might want to run that past Stakeholders.

The BBL is meaningful enough, and at least in theory they play the games in rounds, except for a handful of times when for unknown reasons they don't. It mystifies me why they don't play a weekend round (Fri-Sat-Sun) and a mid-week round (4 games Tue-Wed), so that there is some structure and certainty to when they are playing, and the chance for TV to produce narrative round-up panel shows. The Stars played consecutive home games Sunday then Tuesday this week. I'm amazed they got 13k for the Tuesday game.

What cricket really needs are entrepreneurs. Everything is half-arsed and done for short-term profit because CA pull the purse strings. They'd have had a more interesting competition if they'd created licenses, dumped a pile of cash on them, and let the teams name and colour themselves. Still, the crowd figures aren't bad, and contrary to claims otherwise, the Renegades and Stars are reasonably well defined. Fans of the former don't like Warne, Eddie and people like them. Sydney teams on the other hand...

[The Don has risen]

I had the misfortune of having to take the boys to the big Bash last night.

It was awful.

Music is dreadful and on all the time. Two tossers want to 'interview ' people all the time and say go sixers. Announcer is always saying your sydanee sixers.

They have a sri chucker who opens at one end.

If you like cow-corner sixes then you might like it but I found it boring.

give me the western Sydney Wanderers anytime.

[Russ]

Yes Don, but what did your boys think of it?

(And leaving the extraneous parts aside, did you not enjoy Hales innings, or Rohrer's touch?)

[The Don has risen]

one boy did but the other prefer the WSWs as well.

I have never liked tonking but prefer cricket strokes.

A cver drive is much better to enjoy than a hoik to midwicket.

By the way the three Melbourne quicks were significantly quicker then those for Sydney. no-one was fast although.

The "music' and 'interviewers' are very very irritating.

[Tony Tea]

Bubble Bites Back:

Haters; we’re all haters. That is, anyone who has a harsh word to say about the Big Bash League, which has actually been newsworthy for the last week thanks to a few tantrums, the descent of the greatest cricketer of his generation into something that looked a lot like self-parody. And it’s true. There has been a fair bit of criticism of the BBL this season, partly because, amazingly, the mainstream media, and I think the majority of cricket fans, still tend to regard international cricket as the biggest deal in town – which it actually is, both culturally and commercially. So it’s a matter of perspective: the BBL is interpreted firstly in light of its disruption of the preparations of Michael Clarke’s Test team. That may be unfair. But so is life.

I’m bound to say, though, that some of the apologetics for the BBL seem to be missing the point, or involved in another debate altogether. I’ll be taking up two today: Jonathan Howcroft’s for Back Page Lead, and Mark Hayes in the Herald Sun.

[Russ]

Yes, a brilliant riposte from Gideon, made only more brilliant by professing "what me hater?" after saying "I hate the BBL" on a cricinfo podcast the previous day.

Someone has to take his blog off him. It is like an experiment to prove that it is the medium, not the writer that matters.

[m0nty]

Ah, so that's the burning sensation in my ears. Bit harsh there Cam?

I actually read the Oz a fair bit. Mostly because it's fun to feel superior.

I don't care much at all about the Bublé, though it's always heartwarming to see Melbourne teams on top of a ladder and Sydney teams on the bottom. Hmm, Bublé... so that would make Packer the Chairman of the Board, from whom the Canadian stole all his arrangements? And Mike of the aforementioned original McKennas was Canadian as well. Serendipitous, if not precipitous.

[Tony Tea]

That Cam is a dreadful human being.

[lou]

I couldn't be bothered reading all of Gid's response. I stopped a paragraph or so after this. "I write for a broadsheet newspaper with a paywall. Sometimes it feels like I have all the opinion in the world and nobody to talk to about it."

Poor Gideon, his life must be so difficult.

I read Howcroft's BPL and I agreed with most of it. The fans I can forgive but the journos chould be provide more insight than they do. Generalised whinging about everything isn't the same thing.

[lou]

That's 'could' or maybe 'should' but definitely not 'would'.

[The Don has risen]

Another thing on this awful game. how can the umpires hear anything?

Vb drinkers like the Big Bash

We Heineken drinkers prefer the traditional game in a condescending way!

[M. Patard]

Gideon is pretty spot on, though I didn't read it all. There's just so much you can say about the BBL, or anything modern for that matter, without really getting to the causes of our disintegration.

Both sides are just skirting around the real issues, which these are but mere symptoms.

A commercialised culture, atomised communities, bereft of unifying ideals, consuming the emptiness of existence. Everyone's got a label, their favourite jeans, beers, shirts, their uniforms, signifiers of Facebook and Google+ "community". All just data to be mined. For marketing purposes: and who would disagree with that?

I'm a Test man, I'm a one dayer, I'm into T20. Who cares? Multinationals care. Makes no difference otherwise, never judge lest yea be judged. Why there's even a market for dissaffected reactionaries just waiting to be tapped, labeled, and sold to.

[Big Ramifications]

So Gideon Haigh ganks yet another one of my comments on AGB and it becomes the basis for his column in The Australian the next day?

[M. Patard]

Certainly looks like it Rammers. Well done. Your thoughts are now famous.

What was the other comment/s he ganked?

[M. Patard]

I can't believe Don hasn't cracked a joke about Gideon, Bibles, and Hotel rooms.

[M. Patard]

Maybe fuse Gideon with The Hague.

[Tony Tea]

Coincidentally, when I clicked on Gideon's blog this morning ABC774 was playing Rocky Raccoon: "fell back in his room, only to find Gideon's bible." Spook. Ee.

[Tony Tea]

Biggus Rambo, it is entirely possible that two people came up with that thought simultaneously and without covalent ganking. Speaking of which: BBL Headed Boobies + BBL BBL Toil and Trouble = gankment.

[Big Ramifications]

If Gideon's column was posted at a certain popular link forum that I frequent, this picture would have appeared within minutes, along with the text "/obligatory".

/obligatory

[M. Patard]

I don't get it, dammit!

Explain yourself Biggie.

[Big Ramifications]

Hey Pat, explained here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvTNyKIGXiI, 0:30s, safe for work.

[M. Patard]

Roflmao, brilliant!

[M. Patard]

Awww shit. I feel for that man, I really do.

Been there so many times.

Except, it's usually at 3am or thereabouts after 10 or more beers posting blog comments. You know, the other side of that is shit from heaven raining abuse, don't you?

[The Don has risen]

one more thing about the game I 'saw'.

the fielding was not all that flash. I thought this bash stuff made for very good fielding?

[Big Ramifications]

Don, your comment reminded me of one I made here three months ago that I had completely">http://aftergrogblog.blogs.com/cricket/2012/09/zero-to-zero.html?cid=6a00d8341cb34453ef017c322b2c51970b#comment-6a00d8341cb34453ef017c322b2c51970b">completely forgotten about.

I caught a bit of the Bangers-Paki T20 last night [I feel dirty]. Anyone see the Bangladesh dropped catches?

There were 2 dropped catches and 1 non-attempt of a catch that were incredibly suss.

A soft, dollied lob straight to the mid off fielder and he barely gets a finger on it? Fucking right.

[Big Ramifications]

....I had completely forgotten about.