Stanford's sports scandal - Printable Version
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Stanford's sports scandal - Robbie - 01-18-2016
For those of you not familiar with the greatest sports scandal associated with Stanford, here's a good summary:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/962845.html
Fortunately, it's not the same Stanford as Leland or his heirs. The story is not new; what is new is that Allen Stanford has given interviews protesting his innocence. He has over a century remaining on his sentence.
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - BostonCard - 01-18-2016
Scandal in cricket? That is as unbelievable as suggesting there is scandal in FIFA. If you start typing "India cricket scandal", google helpfully tries to autcomplete with a year to narrow it down. There's "India cricket scandal 2013", "India cricket scandal 2014", and "India cricket scandal 2010", and for good measure ""India cricket scandal match fixing".
The rise and fall of Windies cricket has been interesting. By any measure, the West Indies should have been a cricket asterisk (akin to having a successful NFL team in North Dakota). However, from 1980 to 1995, the West Indies cricket side did not lose a single test series. And then, it all collapsed.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2015/10/dire-babylon
Quote:Statistics highlight how dramatic the West Indies decline has been. Between March 1976 and March 1995, the West Indies won 71 and lost only 20 Test matches against the other eight Test-playing nations (excluding Zimbabwe, which did not gain Test status until 1992). Since June 2000 the side has won 14 and lost 78 Tests against the same opponents. The fall has been almost as marked in ODI cricket, where the West Indies have won 72 games and lost 161 against the traditional top eight sides since June 2000. Only Twenty20 cricket has provided any solace: the West Indies won the World T20 in 2012 and have consistently played vibrant cricket in the format.
BC
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - fullmetal - 01-18-2016
Match-fixing in tennis continues as well: http://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/35319202
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - kuz - 01-18-2016
(01-18-2016, 12:03 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:Scandal in cricket? That is as unbelievable as suggesting there is scandal in FIFA. If you start typing "India cricket scandal", google helpfully tries to autcomplete with a year to narrow it down. There's "India cricket scandal 2013", "India cricket scandal 2014", and "India cricket scandal 2010", and for good measure ""India cricket scandal match fixing".I think the comparisons of West Indies cricket to a successful North Dakota NFL team are extremely unfair to the West Indies. They were great in the 70s and 80s due to an incredible battery of fast bowlers, which is unsurprising due to physical reasons; fast bowlers need to be tall and strong (which is one of the reasons why India, despite its brobdingnagian population, tends to have mediocre fast bowlers - it's hard to battle genetics).
The rise and fall of Windies cricket has been interesting. By any measure, the West Indies should have been a cricket asterisk (akin to having a successful NFL team in North Dakota). However, from 1980 to 1995, the West Indies cricket side did not lose a single test series. And then, it all collapsed.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2015/10/dire-babylon
Quote:Statistics highlight how dramatic the West Indies decline has been. Between March 1976 and March 1995, the West Indies won 71 and lost only 20 Test matches against the other eight Test-playing nations (excluding Zimbabwe, which did not gain Test status until 1992). Since June 2000 the side has won 14 and lost 78 Tests against the same opponents. The fall has been almost as marked in ODI cricket, where the West Indies have won 72 games and lost 161 against the traditional top eight sides since June 2000. Only Twenty20 cricket has provided any solace: the West Indies won the World T20 in 2012 and have consistently played vibrant cricket in the format.
BC
Their decline is due to a couple of factors. The rise of popularity of sports like soccer in the region means that fewer kids are playing cricket than previously. The sport has also benefited in recent years from more detailed and advanced coaching, something that has been severely lacking in the West Indies. Finally, there's been brobdingnagian financial mismanagement and scandals involving the West Indies cricket board that have led to their best players refusing to play for the national team and instead participating in domestic Twenty-20 games in India and Australia for much higher pay. In the most recent test series between the West Indies and Australia, for example, they had several players who were instead playing in the Australian domestic league at the time because the pay was better. Unsurprisingly, the West Indies were completely outclassed in all three tests (with rain the only reason they didn't lose 3-0).
But yes, in recent years there have been a bunch of scandals in cricket. Pakistan, India, South Africa, and the West Indies are all major cricket playing countries that also have high levels of corruption, so it's not surprising that these seep into the cricketing world. In the last decade, the rise of Twenty-20 cricket has led to brobdingnagian amounts of revenue being available, especially in the Indian Premier League, which is about as corruptly run as you can get (aside from FIFA, of course).
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - Rally - 01-18-2016
Why am I not surprised there are knowledgeable cricket fans here.Â
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - indiancardinal - 01-18-2016
(01-18-2016, 01:56 PM)ferrari link Wrote:Why am I not surprised there are knowledgeable cricket fans here.Â
Quite a pleasant surprise :) Anybody actually play cricket at the Oval ( the Stanford Oval ie) on Sunday mornings? I am glad that we have one more stream to add to the abundance of OT topics on this board.
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - fullmetal - 01-18-2016
I learned about cricket mostly through the 2011 World Cup when a large contingent of my Indian coworkers lobbied successfully to get a live feed of World Cup matches streamed the cafeteria TV. I was impressed by their fanaticism--matched any that I've seen stateside for Euro soccer or college football.
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - Rally - 01-18-2016
Is anyone willing to post a "Cricket For Dummies"? Possibly in a new thread? After that . . . Curling!
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - fullmetal - 01-18-2016
So you all understand rowing already then? Great! :D
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - kuz - 01-18-2016
(01-18-2016, 01:56 PM)ferrari link Wrote:Why am I not surprised there are knowledgeable cricket fans here.Well I'm Australian so it's basically mandatory for me to be a brobdingnagian cricket fan...
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - fullmetal - 01-18-2016
(01-18-2016, 04:15 PM)kuz link Wrote:[quote author=ferrari link=topic=14423.msg153429#msg153429 date=1453150609]Well I'm Australian so it's basically mandatory for me to be a of exceedingly large proportions cricket fan...
Why am I not surprised there are knowledgeable cricket fans here.
[/quote]
Rugby too then, eh? What I don't get is Aussie rules...
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - Rally - 01-18-2016
(01-18-2016, 04:15 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:So you all understand rowing already then? Great! :D
Rowing is simple. You move your boat by pushing and pulling on unwieldy long things and go faster than the other guys. Just to make it politically correct you carry a much smaller, non-athletic person in the boat and let him/her call you names while you contemplate bashing him/her over the head with one or more of those long things. Did I leave out any fine point So?
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - Robbie - 01-18-2016
(01-18-2016, 02:45 PM)ferrari link Wrote:Is anyone willing to post a "Cricket For Dummies"? Possibly in a new thread? After that . . . Curling!
How's this? (And no mentions of Jaccard similarity...) (And mostly drawing my references from baseball. Purists beware.)
Two teams of eleven people. One team fields, one team bats. Two players from the batting team are on the field (wicket) at a time. They stand at either end of the wicket, near small wooden structures (confusingly, also called wickets.) In order to score the batter must hit the ball, and then the two batters simultaneously run from one end to another, changing places and scoring a run. They can continue to run back and forth scoring as many runs as they like. (Ok, there's a limit, but let's ignore that.) Scoring one or two runs on a single ball is typical. (Well, scoring 0 is most common. You never have to run.)
So the batter is trying to hit the ball where none of the fielders is standing, so that he can score. If he can hit it far enough he automatically scores four (the equivalent to a ground-rule double - out of the field on the ground) or six (a home run - out of the field in the air.)
There are, of course, a number of ways to get out. If any fielder catches a batted ball in the air. If the fielders get the ball to the end while the runners are running back and forth before the runner gets there. Both of these are very similar to their baseball equivalents. The most common non-baseball way is if the bowler (pitcher) manages to bowl (throw) a ball that the batter misses entirely and it hits his wicket. He's out. No three strikes - he's just gone. And closely related is if the batter does not hit the ball with his bat, but then it hits his leg, and in the opinion of the umpire it would have continued on and hit the wicket. This is known as "leg before wicket" or "lbw". (Cricket is very forward thinking and has sophisticated video replay, so these calls are very highly reliable.) There are other ways to get out, but they are less common.
Since you have eleven people on your team, but you need two players to bat at any time, after ten people are out your "innings" is over, and it's the other team's turn to bat. Most runs wins.
The next bit is where things really get screwy. Teams can bat for a long time. The classic form of the game has essentially unlimited time, and each team bats twice. These matches are scheduled for five days of six hours each day, and even then they often don't finish. These are known as test matches. (Clearly a game that was invented by people who had time on their hands.)
The more modern forms are shorter: "one day internationals" (ODI) limit each team to batting from 300 pitches. They get as many runs as they can within that limit, and then it's the other team's turn to bat. It's quicker than a test match, but still takes six hours or so.
And the shortest form (and the one that has driven cricket's current popularity) is called T20, or twenty-twenty. Each team gets 120 balls to hit (a set of six pitches is called an over, so it's twenty overs, hence the name T20.) This can be completed in about three hours or less, so it's very fan- and television-friendly. It also encourages aggressive batting.
(Allen Stanford sponsored a big money T20 tournament. $20MM for the winning team. Not chump change.)
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - kuz - 01-18-2016
(01-18-2016, 04:27 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:[quote author=kuz link=topic=14423.msg153471#msg153471 date=1453158953]Well I'm Australian so it's basically mandatory for me to be a of exceedingly large proportions cricket fan...
[quote author=ferrari link=topic=14423.msg153429#msg153429 date=1453150609]
Why am I not surprised there are knowledgeable cricket fans here.
[/quote]
Rugby too then, eh? What I don't get is Aussie rules...
[/quote]
Nope, I'm from Melbourne, so I'm definitely an Aussie Rules guy, not a rugby guy. (Basically, people from New South Wales and Queensland follow rugby league or rugby union, whereas the rest of the states follow Aussie Rules.)
Unfortunately the team that I follow in the AFL just had half its players banned for taking prohibited substances. Yikes!
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - Rally - 01-18-2016
(01-18-2016, 06:07 PM)Robbie link Wrote:[quote author=ferrari link=topic=14423.msg153447#msg153447 date=1453153548]
Is anyone willing to post a "Cricket For Dummies"? Possibly in a new thread? After that . . . Curling!
How's this? (And no mentions of Jaccard similarity...) (And mostly drawing my references from baseball. Purists beware.)
Two teams of eleven people. One team fields, one team bats. Two players from the batting team are on the field (wicket) at a time. They stand at either end of the wicket, near small wooden structures (confusingly, also called wickets.) In order to score the batter must hit the ball, and then the two batters simultaneously run from one end to another, changing places and scoring a run. They can continue to run back and forth scoring as many runs as they like. (Ok, there's a limit, but let's ignore that.) Scoring one or two runs on a single ball is typical. (Well, scoring 0 is most common. You never have to run.)
So the batter is trying to hit the ball where none of the fielders is standing, so that he can score. If he can hit it far enough he automatically scores four (the equivalent to a ground-rule double - out of the field on the ground) or six (a home run - out of the field in the air.)
There are, of course, a number of ways to get out. If any fielder catches a batted ball in the air. If the fielders get the ball to the end while the runners are running back and forth before the runner gets there. Both of these are very similar to their baseball equivalents. The most common non-baseball way is if the bowler (pitcher) manages to bowl (throw) a ball that the batter misses entirely and it hits his wicket. He's out. No three strikes - he's just gone. And closely related is if the batter does not hit the ball with his bat, but then it hits his leg, and in the opinion of the umpire it would have continued on and hit the wicket. This is known as "leg before wicket" or "lbw". (Cricket is very forward thinking and has sophisticated video replay, so these calls are very highly reliable.) There are other ways to get out, but they are less common.
Since you have eleven people on your team, but you need two players to bat at any time, after ten people are out your "innings" is over, and it's the other team's turn to bat. Most runs wins.
The next bit is where things really get screwy. Teams can bat for a long time. The classic form of the game has essentially unlimited time, and each team bats twice. These matches are scheduled for five days of six hours each day, and even then they often don't finish. These are known as test matches. (Clearly a game that was invented by people who had time on their hands.)
The more modern forms are shorter: "one day internationals" (ODI) limit each team to batting from 300 pitches. They get as many runs as they can within that limit, and then it's the other team's turn to bat. It's quicker than a test match, but still takes six hours or so.
And the shortest form (and the one that has driven cricket's current popularity) is called T20, or twenty-twenty. Each team gets 120 balls to hit (a set of six pitches is called an over, so it's twenty overs, hence the name T20.) This can be completed in about three hours or less, so it's very fan- and television-friendly. It also encourages aggressive batting.
(Allen Stanford sponsored a big money T20 tournament. $20MM for the winning team. Not chump change.)
[/quote]
Thank you very much. When is the 7th inning stretch? On Tuesday?
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - BostonCard - 01-18-2016
My comment wasn't really meant as a slight to the West Indies, who had some truly great teams a generation ago. What I meant to suggest is that the West Indies had some truly great teams in spite of their small population and relative lack of affluence/development, two factors that strongly correlate to international success in any sport. India may not have the wealth, but it has a large population; Australia doesn't have as large a population, but it is very wealthy. The West Indies is neither.
BC
Re: Stanford's sports scandal - Stymie - 01-19-2016
A real Englishman was one of my supervisors on one of my first real jobs. He explained cricket to me roughly as follows:
"CRICKET: As explained to a foreigner...
You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side thats been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay all out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!"
I actually played cricket for a local club in Scotland from 1981-1987, beginning with a winning "six" when first "in" and ending with a concussion when diving for a ball whilst playing "silly mid off" when last "out."
Don't ask me about Aussie Rules "football" even though I did attend the ANZAC Day match between Collingwood and Essenden at the MCG ~10 years ago when visiting Melbourne......