Saturday mumblings

Ashes thoughts
I see Shane Warne has been quite critical of the English decision not to play the first Ashes test at Lords... Have to agree with him - this is supposed to be the greatest (traditional) cricket rivalry and you've got two sides playing in Wales?

I think the IPL - and to a lesser degree the SA vs. Aussie series - has shown just how important marketing is for cricket. As much as the purists would love things like the "Ashes brand" to try and carry on as is, the reality is that cricket needs to place marketing ahead of all else at the moment...

... I reead somewhere that the English didn't want to play the first match at Lords because the atmosphere was basically so hyped-up that it benefitted the touring sides.

To me that is really negative marketing for the game - If that were in South Africa or Australia the home marketing teams would be urging fans to come down in their droves to make sure that the home side "defied history"... and the fans would get into it and they would cheer every single wicket and run.

To me it doesn't make any sense and pushes cricket backward rather than forward.

West Indies
I see the West Indies once again collapsed in spectacular fashion yesterday to give a big win to the English.

Don't think you can read too much into this performance, simply because that is what the West Indies do - they simply switch-off when the tide is against them and decide to come back to the next test match and try again.

It would be nice to see them give the Poms a bit of a working over before the Ashes though!