49 questions on a Tuesday – part 3

1. If TV commentators are so appalling that they ruin the majesty of Test cricket what is the best method of voicing this for effecting change?

2. If a touring team’s only long-form match ahead of the First Test is abandoned due to unsafe pitch conditions, for parity, shouldn’t all Shield games also be suspended?

3. Is it possible for J Carlisle to make a fresh start?

4. How will J Hird distance himself from the latest Unsafe Workplace charges against Essendon?

5. Given relative degrees of difficulty, why wasn’t K Williamson awarded Man of the Match for the Gabba Test?

6. Why is cricket scheduled in Brisbane during their wet season?

7. Who reliably answers questions about track conditions at Flemington?

8. How could the Spring Carnival be better organised and run?

9. How could Test cricket be better organised and run?

10. How could a Rugby World Cup be better organised and run?

11. What happens next when you win a World Cup and nothing in your life appreciably changes?

12. Are there still sentient humans who see women as in any way inferior to men?

13. Why the fixate on employing former players in the roles of analysts?

14. If a cricket season is a story, why will almost all of a 3-Test series be over before the month of December even starts?

15. If sporting bodies such as Cricket Australia and the AFL employ their own media, how can the public be expected to trust anything they say?

16. Where is the line between news and propaganda?

17. When money and influence controls free access to information, how do we understand our true place in the world?

18. If the same message is repeated frequently enough, does it become truth?

19. If a story rates highly (clicks, TV rating points, circulation), does this correlate to the quality of the story?

20. If a sport rates highly (attendances, TV viewers), does this correlate to the quality of the sport?

21. Who decides what a quality story is?

22. Who decides what a quality sport is?

23. If Test cricket cannot draw a crowd, does it really have a future?

24. If experts say that Test cricket is wonderful, does this make it wonderful?

25. Why is any one person considered an expert, and who decided that they were one?

26. What proportion of a Test crowd is composed of former players and hangers-on?

27. If a ragged patch of dirt is surrounded by attractive grandstands, does this make it a ground suitable for cricket?

28. Should records set playing cricket with a new pink ball be kept separate from records set playing cricket with a traditional red ball?

29. Why does NSW have such an ongoing over-representation in the Australian team?

30. When ageing mates who fail to grow up stage a T20 cricket game in New York, is the concept deemed a success if attended predominantly by Indian expats?

31. If a sport rates highly (attendances, TV viewers), does this correlate to the quality of the sport?

32. How do we measure the value of a sport (any sport)?

33. How do we measure the value of a life coloured a with sporting context?

34. How do we measure the value of our memories?

35. How do we measure the value of connectedness?

36. Why do we seem to follow the path to faster, louder, less subtle events and stories?

37. Why are our traditional sports being ever vandalised by attention-sapping accoutrements such as countdown clocks, booming voice-overs, non-analyses by hyped-up minor hometown celebrities?

38. How did the organisational authority of the ICC become concentrated in India, England and Australia?

39. Why are drinks allowed to be run out to fielders during cricket play?

40. Are there enough coaches in professional sport?

41. If you’re Australian and you throw a hard leather cricket ball at an unsuspecting opponent from 22 yards, are you enjoying a bit of competitive fire?

42. Are you having a bit of fun?

43. If you’re Indian and you throw a hard leather cricket ball at an unsuspecting opponent from 22 yards, are you bringing the game into disrepute?

44. If the unsuspecting opponent is English and reflexively fends the ball away from themselves, should they ever be ruled out “handled ball”?

45. Why does the Australian public still fail to warm to the Australian cricket team?

46. Why do so many Australians prefer New Zealand to win?

47. Is J Brayshaw still commentating?

48. Is M Slater still commentating?

49. Is the present Channel 9 hierarchy overseeing the death of the Golden Goose?

About David Wilson

David Wilson is a hydrologist, climate reporter and writer of fiction & observational stories. He writes under the name “E.regnans” at The Footy Almanac and has stories in several books. One of his stories was judged as a finalist in the Tasmanian Writers’ Prize 2021. He shares the care of two daughters and likes to walk around feeling generally amazed. Favourite tree: Eucalyptus regnans.

Comments

  1. Some wonderful questions ER. I refer in particular to question 16. Traditionally the former was reported, the latter was created. Unfortunately in these modern times, both are now created. News reporting is now commoditised; it is a product like washing powder or shampoo. It is no longer a profession. Who wins The Bachelorette is now news. The destruction of Palmyra is not because this won’t sell McDonalds anymore hamburgers. Propaganda is the big brother of news. It takes up the news and turns it into a truth.

  2. Mark 'Swish' Schwerdt says

    Re just about all of these great questions:

    Are we on a see-saw, with the balance moving from one side to the other around a point of equilibrium or are we on a slippery slide to the bottom?

    I can’t think of too many examples of the former, but perhaps it’s too early to tell.

  3. 4. The French Riviera is 16,422km away

    The rest are in the too-hard basket

  4. Q3 – “Fresh Start” is the name of Dr George O’Neil’s inspiring (largely voluntary) drug rehab clinic in Perth.
    Jake will kick 60+ goals for the Saints this coming season. The question is where will the lost little boy inside be when his footy career ends – 3 years removed from the structure and purpose of professional sport?
    Many of the other questions I don’t much care about – first world problems – get a life.
    I was musing the other day about what tips people over into mental illness and drug addiction? What are the protective factors and the tipping points? One of the most hopeful things is reading the stories of David (ER), Luke and Kate on this site – and how much simple, engaged fun you all have with your kids.
    We try to substitute money and trinkets for time – I know I did – and it never works.
    Life is a lottery, but you hold the winning tickets.
    Cricket, schmicket. Just the Kardashians in white.

  5. As always great questions.
    1. Bitching on twitter 2. But who would test the pink ball? 4.’I was just a menial employee’ 7. Get stuffed 12. Define sentient 15. They shouldn’t 16. There isn’t 17. With great difficulty 18. There is a consensus that taxation reform is needed 21 & 22. It is entirely subjective, which is the only option 23. Define crowd 25. Mrs Pert’s divorce lawyer 28. No. We do not separate records before the covering of pitches or when there were 8 ball overs or when there was a sectarian divide in Australian cricket or during the World Series Cricket days. 29. For the most part they produce the best players (& systems for developing elite talent in public schools should be replicated in other states) 30. The stock market went up after Warnie & Sachin rang the bell 34. Priceless – all we have 36. Challenge the proposition 37. Tradition is an artificial construct designed to reinforce existing power structures 38. $ 41. No 42. No 43. No 44. Of course 45. Speaking for myself I just wanna love a cricketer as much as I did AB – there are no ABs in this team and it’s not possible 46. Because they don’t play in the Ashes 47 & 48. Define commentating 49. No, they are just torturing it because they can

  6. Good questions Er.

    No. 29 reminds me of The Whitlams lyric “If she’s one in a million then there’s six more in New South Wales “

  7. Another one David
    Should all scoring records in cricket be listed as pre-rope and post rope? The shortening of boundaries, along with bats with a sweet spot the size of Manhattan, has seen scores and scoring rates go through the roof. Remember when 220 was par at the the MCG? How about when Adelaide oval was 50m long than what it plays now? Two and three are now fours and fours are now sixes. The rope does allow fielders to slide and save runs but I think the shorter boundaries have added 75-100 runs per day which is good for spectators and batsmen but no so good for bowlers. Plus bowlers have to place the ball within baseball type pitching zones in 50 over and 20/20 which is effectively a free hit.
    Cheers
    Tony

  8. Cheers all.
    PB – I think you’re right with the perspective. (kind words, too).
    I guess these question lists are a way of highlighting the noise that bounces around in just one small part of one small area of one small region of one small topic.
    Noise.

    Important to keep half an eye on this connectedness and the meaning. And when it slips, to wonder why. Change things. If you want to. Or if you can.

    So much room for opinion.
    And outrage.
    (Check out Robbo’s social media piece today http://www.footyalmanac.com.au/the-smd-selfie-of-mass-destruction/)

  9. Phillip Dimitriadis says

    4. Join the Russian Olympic Federation?

    18 The Power of this is a big worry. See Andrew Bolt et al .

    Thought-provoking as always ER. Great stuff.

  10. e.r.
    Your questions, and my subsequent attempts to answer them in my mind,
    had me drawing the conclusion that the human race is doomed.

  11. Luke Reynolds says

    Q6- Gabba Test should be mid December and the first Test of the Summer. November Tests are killing the format.

  12. Malcolm Ashwood says

    Superb OBP q 43 returned with a variation if a spin bowler with a bent arm been anglo-saxon would he have been allowed to keep bowling ( cough cough ) and ended up with 700 plus test wickets ?

  13. Does the straightening of the arm cause the problem?
    Who from CA authorised the moving of November out of Spring and into Summer?

    Q18 was answered by George Costanza in Seinfeld.

  14. Peter Flynn says

    OM-N-ER, As Chappy and I watch the genesis of storm cells and I do a crossword, we think a good 50th question might be:

    Does Cricket Australia prefer Gayle et al to be playing in the Big Bash rather than in the Test series?

    PF

  15. Peter Flynn says

    When will people realize that West Coast’s josh Kennedy doesn’t kick goals away from Subiaco and Docklands?

    When will people realize that Abbott and Credlin are an item?

    When will people realize that Border’s 98 and 100 equates to at least 1000 runs in today’s currency?

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