Having skimmed through the comments above a little, I’m in agreement with the rants that have been published completely. This isn’t a sport – it’s barely a past-time. How the hell can you have a ‘game’ (again loose term) that lasts for 5 days? Why? If you can’t get it over with in less than a few hours, it’s time you’ll never get back to do something more interesting….like sleep. Most of the people attending the ridiculous events spend half of their time asleep anyway, as the game is so tedious.

Many years ago, I found the source of the immense frustration I have with this game – English Cricketer Bob Willis and Commentator Richie Benaud. Bob, I’m sure, was a fantastic bloke and good at his ‘sport’, but why, even as a ‘fast bowler’ did he require an 18mile run-up? Walking back to his starting point took a good 2-3minutes of time. Then, he ran at a pelt (for the first 20 yards) before getting out of breath and taking another 2-3 minutes (well, it seemed like it!) to get to the crease where he would hurl the ball down with all his might. Then what happened was that the twit standing in the protective gear the other end patted the ball into the ground to the sounds of Richie Benaud stating ‘what a marvellous delivery that was….’. Why was it? Why didn’t the twit hit the darned thing? Why didn’t it hit the wicket? To cap all this, Bob now has to go and throw the damned ball another 5 times before giving it to some other idiot to have a go. Well, that is unless Bob’s made a misjudgement and now it’s a no-ball so he’s got to do it 6 more times.

What’s with the patting of the ground in front of the batsman with his bat? You don’t see the bowler doing this to ensure a smooth passage for his ball, do you? It’s simply there to make this tedious game last even longer.

To cap it all, I always thought sport was about winners and losers – a defined line between the two. In football, one side scores more than the other and someone wins. Unless they both score the same, then it’s a draw. Simple. Tennis – one bloke/woman gets more games than the other to win a set and more sets than the other to win the match. Simple stuff really. But with cricket, no, not that simple, is it? Of course not. Scoring more runs than the other team doesn’t mean winning by 2 runs, oh no, it means winning by 5 wickets. So how does that work again? To cap it all, one side can score 350 runs, the other 296 and yet it’s declared a draw because of the amount of wickets…per-lease. Now we have another incredible ‘rule’. It’s possible to win a game by a ‘method’ rather than scoring more than the other team (for the uninitiated, the ‘Duckworth Lewis method). This is a scientific calculation apparently. How can you win a game based on this type of scoring? If one side scores 150 and the other 75, then it chucks it down with rain, it’s match abandoned, simple yes?

How can a game stop for lunch and tea? Sure, stop halfway through to give the players a break, but not for an hour’s lunch and a 30minute tea break in the afternoon, that’s just plain daft.

Then there’s the weather. Footballers, rugby players, US Football, Aussie Rules etc all go out when it’s as muddy as can be and still manage to play their sport. Rain, hail and lightning don’t necessarily stop them. Tennis is a different proposition – playing on a wet court on grass can be dangerous, so they stop until it stops, fair enough. With cricket though, it’s the extreme again – one spot of rain and it’s covers on the wicket and everyone in for a warm by the fire, a cuppa and a cucumber sarnie. They even do this, if it LOOKS like it will rain, claiming ‘bad light’. Rubbish – bad light my foot. Do yourselves a favour, change the ball to a yellow one and carry on.

Ah yes, and the ‘complaints’ about the ‘different wicket’. Don’t know if they’d ever noticed (as they spend half their time at lunch or tea), but cricket is played in grass. The wicket they’re playing on, gets used for the ball to bounce ONCE and is cut, seemingly, with some form of hair clipper device to get rid of the grass and leave a thin layer on top of the mud. HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE CAN THERE BE??? Old Trafford, Headiingly and Lords are all cricket grounds with grass on them, so surely they must be the same??? Or am I simplifying this too much for their small brains to take in?

Finally, I think I’ve missed something somewhere. UK County cricket or the IPL league has a purpose – all the teams play each other in divisions and there’s a champ at the end. Bit like the English Premier Football League, but for cricket. But, why is there excitement over a ‘Test Match’?? England playing Sri Lanka, Australia playing New Zealand or Scotland facing Wales in a ‘Test Match’. Listen people, the clue is in the title – TEST – in other words, it’s a bloody friendly!! There’s nothing to play for, the winner has the satisfaction (if they ever find a winner through the Duckworth Lewis method!) of saying they beat the other team. There’s no trophy, no league title, no moving up the league, no relegation – nothing. it’s like England playing Malta at football – great to see a game, but no meaning whatsoever. SORT IT OUT CRICKET PEOPLE, THIS IS JUST STUPID!

Please, please, please, get someone to ban cricket altogether – drive it underground (literally) or preferably to another planet. Give them their own island where they can play this stupid, tedious and time-wasting past-time before we’re all bored to death!!

Phew. Rant over…

PS: I love all sports but i hate idiots like you. no offence to any football fans who does not hate cricket……its a beautiful game.

If you think G.B.Shaw is a fool, you will definitely tell people like Einstein, Edison, Shakespeare, Marlow, Stephen Hawking are also fools…!!!

Cricket is a total waste of time and money. People will never go to work, students will never go to school, colleges. All will sit infront of TV. Once while I went to a Hospital with my cousins accident case, the Doctor was infront of TV and reluctant to come to attend the bleeding patients. Unfortunately, we lost 5 young lives on that day. If that Doctor was ready to attend them on time, few of them might have been alive now.