Because Six Nations rugby is around the corner…
Playing Brighton today, Eze not in the squad and Olise on the bench. Last Tuesday was the 4th time those two have started a game together.
Fuck me.
And fuck Lewis “I was asleep on the floor while my teammates raped a girl” Dunk.
Good crop of SB ads brewing this year.
Worst SuperBowl ad ever.
Blue Cards
This has been on trial in grass roots football, and so is coming to the lower professional leagues starting with the 24/25 season.
Basically a blue card is a yellow card plus 10 minutes in the sin bin. It’s for those times when the rules do not allow a sending off, but a yellow just doesn’t seem like enough punishment. For example, when a player deliberately ends a fast break by the opposition with a cynical foul, but wasn’t denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity (as defined in the rule book).
It’s also an option as punishment for extreme dissent. Any combination of two yellow or blue cards = red.
I like it in principle. Can’t wait to see how the Premier League twists it into unequal lever of power to benefit the big six.
England and Wales are engaged in an absolute bum fight of a rugby match (live on Peacock right now). Lovers of smash-mouth football should tune in.
England survived having 2 players in the sin bin at the same time, losing only a net 2 points during that time. Wales scored right at half time to take a 5-14 lead. Second half about to start…
Have West Ham not been told that they’re allowed to mark the other side’s players?
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Makes me feel a little better about Palace losing 5-0 at Arsenal. 
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This is fantastic.
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Never seen a map of cricket fielding positions as comprehensive as this one.
In this example, the bowler is running in from 6 o’clock and the batsman is right-handed. If the batsman is left-handed, all the position names flip around the north/south axis. Once the bowler has completed an “over” of six deliveries, the whole thing rotates 180º like planets rotating around the sun, and a different bowler will start a new over coming in from the 12 o’clock position.
Because there are two batsmen - one facing the incoming delivery (the “striker”) and the other merely a runner (the “non-striker”) - it’s possible that one will be left-handed and one right-handed. In this scenario, if they score a single run by each running to the other end, the entire field has to flip on a pitch-by-pitch basis.
Of course, the fielders don’t actually run from one side to the other, they trade off with their counterpart on the other side. However, the “square leg” umpire - the one off to the side staring at the batsman’s backside - does have to leg it over to the other side when there is a lefty-righty change of batsman.
Realizing now that it was because of my ADHD, I used to place myself at one of the “short” or “silly” positions in front of the batsman. Anything deeper allowed me time to think, and that’s kryptonite to someone with ADHD. Also, I had quick hands (NTTAWWT), no arm and no speed.
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So that’s like 60 players on each side. How on earth do you play pickup games in the sandlot?
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11 players a side. Take out the bowler and wicket keeper, all you have left is 9 fielders to cover all that real estate.
Close-in fielders (the “sillies” like me or the slips) further expand the square yardage to be covered by outfielders.
So a defender can be in any one of those positions, but they’re not all covered at all times?
This is why they banned the shift
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I figured you had to be one if the sillies.
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Correct. In fact, like grocery store checkouts or the DMV, only 1 in 7 positions are covered at any time.
In reality, the reason for all of those names is for radio broadcasts. When setting the field you send the fielders out to a rough area and then fine tune it in/out, left/right. The use of all the adjectives helps the radio guys paint a picture in your mind. Sound familiar?
When they weren’t reducing themselves to puddles of laughter, that is.
People (like me) will still choose to watch the games while listening to the radio commentary. The only problem is syncing up the two. Sound familiar?
Thanks for this.
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An added aside: the two batsmen will work together to keep the scoreboard ticking over, but the scorer will also record how many runs were scored when each one was the striker. The obvious analogy here is RBI.
What makes it notable is that this is where we get the phrase “off your own bat” (and it’s “bat”, not “back”). For example, you’d hear from the radio booth: “…and as we break for tea, Limey and Hudson added 112 runs in 2 hours, with Hudson scoring 68 off his own bat.”
I hear the phrase often, and wonder if people know it’s from cricket.
I’d like to see the both of you run back and forth that many times.