Category: the Rant Board
I was watching the news today when i heard a report concerning the over paid and frankly pitiful, england cricket team being frightened to leave their hotel in Zimbabawe.Such blatant cowardice is ridiculous! when the Black Watch some of whom are only 18-19 or younger! Are dealing with suicide bombers, rocket attacks and daily threats from all sides...It doesnt take much to see that england's cricket team of cowards should rightly be ashamed to show their faces, when these courageous young men {most of them Scots} are fighting for their lives in Iraq!.
Zimbabwe is misspelt, Goblin. a few corrections to the above: first, the england cricket team are not pitiful. On the contrary, we are currently ranked second in the world behind Australia and won all our test matches this ssummer. second, the hotel you saw was in Johannesburg, not Zimbabwe as you claim (England do not fly out until tomorrow morning). Thirdly, your reference to snivelling little cowards is really very distasteful. The england players did not leave their hotel because they were having a meeting with the chief executive of the Professional Cricketers Association, Richard Bevan, about playing arrangements now the unjustified ban on media accreditation has been lifted by the Zimbabwean government. Additionally, there are serious concerns about the players' safety because President Robert Mugabe is also the president of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, and because it is likely that there will be protests against the Zimbabwean regime at the matches. These protests could erupt into violence, which could either endanger the players and/or media, or alternatively cause the zimbabwean government to take repressive measures as they have a propensity to do, which might impact players' families etc. Frankly I find it incredible and deeply worrying that a man with doubtless a considerable experience of life such as yourself makes stupid comparisons between the england cricket team and the Black Watch. The Black Watch are soldiers, paid to fight, kill and face danger; the england cricket team are players paid to bowl, bat and field. I think everyone on the zone is clear about your views concerning the Black Watch, and I garee they're doing an admirable job. To compare them with England in Zimbabwe, however, is misplaced and wrong.
Once again (this is becoming a habit) I agree completely LL. Goblin seems to forget in all his postings about his beloved Black Watch that they are SOLDIERS in the ARMY. No matter how wrong or terrible the war in Iraq may be and how wrong you believe it to be that they are sent out there, they have been trained to fight for this country in a war and it is their chosen career. Cricketers are trained to play cricket....Frey.
Alex
I would have to take the side of LL and Freya. How can you compare the two. I'm sure the Blackwatch would do a less than admirable job at playing cricket and I would feel at least a little bit safer leaving my hotel with an AK-47 and a rocket launcher, not to mention some hand grandades, night vision gorgles and 15 of my mates armed in a similar fashion than a kricket bat. Those are things that are so drastically different that there is no point in even beginning to compare the two and I think you're putting the kricket team down unnecessarily. It is sad, yes, that the England government can't take a stand on this and order them not to part take in the Zimbabwe tournaments as a proetest to the way that people of Zimbabwe are treated (despite the official claims that there is enough crops for everyone thousands of people are starving to death every Day and Mugabi is holding the food in government strongholds until ellection approaches and is planning to distribute it then as an added incentive for those who "vote the right way" according to BBC report I saw two days ago).
Zimbabwe is no better, probably actually worse, than Iraq uesd to be, from a humanitarian perspective, and the fact that the rest of the world now just stands by and watches, I think, is just yet another prove that oil was the incentive to the Iraq invasion, not conerns about the citizens of Iraq or a nobel reason such as "restoring democracy" i.e. inforcing the American way of life, in the middle east.
cheers
-B
Absolutely right, wildebrew, from first to last. I would put my disagreement with the comparison Goblin makes more strongly than you do, in that I find itt somewhat distasteful for someone to compare an army with a sports team and add insult to injury by describing the players who, after all, are precluded from getting involved in politics by the rules of their profession and who go where the england and Wales cricket board send them, as snivelling cowards. The British government, I agree, should have forbidden them to go, but that hasn't been done, the English cricket authorities are legally bound on pain of bankruptcy to press ahead with the tour and there is no support in the cricketing world for a unilateral boycott on the part of England, so let's just go there, play the matches and hope that those people amongst the poor repressed population of Zimbabwe who can either get to the ground and watch the games, or follow them on the ZBC, will enjoy the temporary distraction that some quality international cricket can offer them. The tour is going ahead, pure and simple, and it is time we got behind the players.
In addition to what I say above, I want to emphasise that cricket is a game that many Zimbabweans love and avidly follow. their team has been through turmoil due to the corrupt machinations of Rober Mugabe, Peter Chingoca and the other ZCU chronies. Cricket is political in Zimbabwe and everyone but the International Cricket Committee can see that, but despite losing half their players Zimbabwe have a talented young side and I do hope that once the vial tyrant Mugabe is removed we shall see Zimbabwe develop into the force that, a few years ago, they promised to be. The Mugabe regime has meant that for six months, home supporters in Zimbabwe have been starved of international cricket. I didn't agree with this tour, but I think that whatever nationality we may be, and whether we follow cricket or not, all we can do now is hope that some good will come of it; and for what it's worth, of course I want England to win all four matches, but I hope that Zimbabwe perform to the full extent of their ability and show their home fans what they can do. Cricket is the only way out of poverty at the moment in zimbabwe unless you want to join Mugabe's chronies, so if we inspire a few young kids of whatever colour to start playing then so much the better. I am slso confident that the journalists who are allowed into Zimbabwe, and who will be living inside the Mugabe regime, will be ready to report whatever shameful practices of the government they see once they have left, and maybe that will convince the rest of southern Africa that Mugabe is a madman rather than a hero.
Hahahahahahahahaha Gobby no-one agrees with you!! (Childish, moi??) Frey.
That's hardly surprising after the latest act in the Dr Goblin and Mr Hyde drama. see the grandparents, religion, fury running riot topic. I see also that Talk Sport radio have decided not to provide commentary on the matches from Zimbabwe even though they have radio rights due to fears of trouble for journalists. I presume we add the Talk sport commentary team as well as Sky Sports to the list of snivelling cowards, Goblin? Contrast them with those brave boys on Soni TV who are covering the tour.....oh sorry, I forgot, the Soni boys are covering the tour from the safety of their studios in South asia! Well, that leaves us with no alternative: get the black watch in there with a radio transmitter to provide us with commentary, as the rest of us are obviously too scared! I hope I've made my point that your post, Goblin, was ridiculous and well wide of the mark.
Finally goblin learned to shut his fucking mouth since he means less then the shit I just took.
Blindguy, when you're trying to make a comparison in english, you use than rather than then. So it should bee: he means less than the shit I just took although even then it doesn't make a great deal of sense. Incidentally, zimbabwe made 195 all out off 49.3 overs, Elton Chigumbura top scorer with 52, and england's Darren Gough proving to be the most successful bowler with three wickets. england left out simon Jones, gareth Batty and Matt Prior from their final eleven.
England have beaten Zimbabwe by five wickets, Ian Bell top-scoring with 75 on his debut, and captain michael Vaughan making 56. Kevin Pieterson also impressed on debut with 27 not out out off 46 balls. More importantly, reports seem to suggest that the Harare Sports Club was full, and the crowd very good-natured and hospitable, getting behind the young Zimbabwe side. Meanwhile, president Robert Mugabe stayed in Bulawayo some 270 miles from Harare. So maybe, just maybe, the tour is having the effect I really wanted it to have, that is to say, providing a diversiion for schoolchildren, and the honest folk of Zimbabwe who otherwise have so much to bear from their tyrannical government.
What does all that mean? I know nothing about cricket.
Blindguy approximately half that post was about the mechanics of the rules of cricket. The rest of it was merely making general observations on how the tour is affecting the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans, so I wouldn't imagine that an understanding of the rules of the game is a prerequisite to the comprehension of the sentiments expressed on that subject. If you want to verse yourself in the laws of the game, they are available from several sources, suffice to say for the moment that it is a truly wonderful sport. not to everyone's taste I grant you, but here in Britain it's the sport with the second highest participation rate after football.
Where does rugby rate in england?
Rugby is third, and of course england are the world champions.
Agreed with Jared's first post.......
cr quit bringing up old as dirt shit ok
CR seriously by bringing up all these topics it would appear that you want to start some kind of vendetta against Alex. Give it up will ya, it's getting very tiresome.
no vendeta here, just calling it as I see it thanks