OT Another world cup

[Andy_Faber]

Presumably the second of those was the ‘overthrow’ boundary off Stokes’ bat. If you genuinely understood that you might be better than the umpires. Some, not New Zealanders but including Simon Taufel, are now arguing that should have been five, not six, because the ball was thrown in before the batsmen crossed.

All irrelevant now...thank God!

Being a REAL pedant/general saddo, I got out the scorebooks from my now defunct old works team (actually my dads RIP that I played for), which were scored by a number of folk over the years inc me and my two sis's, but one fellah used to REALLY go to town with notes in the margins etc. I knew we had such incidents, which were easy to find, I just looked for 5s and 7s. His notes indicate that when an overthrow went to the boundary, the score given was four plus all runs completed plus the run attempted when the overthrow commenced. This shows that Erasmus and Dharmasena were consistent with 70s era Notts Derbys Border League umpiring which is good enough for me

[ramAnag]

Being a REAL pedant/general saddo, I got out the scorebooks from my now defunct old works team (actually my dads RIP that I played for), which were scored by a number of folk over the years inc me and my two sis's, but one fellah used to REALLY go to town with notes in the margins etc. I knew we had such incidents, which were easy to find, I just looked for 5s and 7s. His notes indicate that when an overthrow went to the boundary, the score given was four plus all runs completed plus the run attempted when the overthrow commenced. This shows that Erasmus and Dharmasena were consistent with 70s era Notts Derbys Border League umpiring which is good enough for me

Me too!

[Geoff Parkstone]

Interestingly if a 5 had been awarded, leaving 4 off 2, we would perhaps have won in the 50th not on count back. Logic being Stokes played safe for 2 singles with runouts knowing that he would at least get to a superover and maybe one of the runouts might be bungled, but he could live with 2 singles and associated runouts.

A 5 would have led him to maybe go for a boundary and a natural win (or loss) of each of the last two balls.

[Andy_Faber]

I don't dispute that we are a mongrel race with Normans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Romans (not Romanis thankfully), Jutes etc all contributing to our "essential Englishness", but that had been broadly unchanged since around 1100 and the hybrid we see today emerged from that mix and reigned supreme on the global stage for a considerable period of time.

Interestingly the next major wave of non invasive (but invitational) immigration did not begin until the 20th century and that is only beginning to impact our way of life - be it Caribbean, South Asian, East European etc - its too early to tell whether this will be a positive or a negative impact. Much depends on the degree that we do integrate rather than factionalise. I'd say the jury is still out on whether your "Brit of 2140" will be an upgrade on the "Brit of 1940", but unquestionably the arrival of the latest wave of voluntary / economic immigrant has coincided with a significant reduction in our influence and relevance on the global stage.

Being a mongrel nation is nothing unique to the UK - the Americans are probably bigger, and certainly more recently formed, mongrels and are maybe now dominating the world stage after a period of isolationism, before themselves quite possibly receding as a new mongrel nation will emerge such as China India or Brazil. No dominance lasts forever on any stage: who would have bet that in 1992, when the premier league was formed, that 27 years later Liverpool would have not won a single championship, given their dominance in the 27 preceding years.

Well put GP, thought provoking stuff

[Geoff Parkstone]

I think it is important to distinguish racism from islamophobia at this juncture, as one can see where this is headed. Islam is not a race - I know white brown black followers of Islam, and equally white, brown and black that do not follow Islam. Islam is a religion and not a race. So lets not confuse the two and throw inflammatory "racist" suggestions around to those who are Islamaphobic.

Let us instead deal with Islam as a different religion, not a skin tone issue.

Religious bigotry is the by-word of modern society, and indeed going back into history - consider the jews vs jesus squabble, the crusades, catholicism vs protestantism since the time of Luther. The list is endless. Disagreeing over beliefs is a primary characteristic of human existence. My God is better than yours. This is why I believe religion is the root of all evil.

The following extract from a website may exemplify what I mean "....the Quran posits an enormous qualitative distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims that is hard to miss. Believers are loved by God, whereas infidels are hated to the extent that they are tortured for eternity (3:32, 4:56) merely for not believing. Muslims are told not to take unbelievers as friends (3:28) and to shun them (3:118). Those outside the circle are called “helpers of evil” (25:55), “wicked” (4:160), “fond of lies” (5:42) and compared to the worst of animals (8:55, 7:176, 7:179). Muslims are told to be merciful to each other, but ruthless to those outside of the faith (48:29). Violence is also sanctioned against those who are obstinate against Islamic rule (8:12-13, 9:5)."

No doubt there are some who would discredit this analysis, others that would believe it implicitly, and those like me that actually do not know the depth of the truths therein. I simply read it and note that, if the quotes are true, and other religions preach similar intolerance, this explains a lot. I do not use Islam here for any bias, but simply to exemplify the point of religious intolerances.

Doubtless the christian holy book may also have bad things to say about non believers, I don't know, I've not read it and equally appalling behaviour has been inspired or condoned by it. But what is important is that all religions seems to fight for supremacy and the high ground not by preaching peaceful or pleasant, loving thoughts but by seeking to eradicate others. Very much stick, not so much carrot.

So at their core, all religions detest one another for being "wrong". People on the other hand can, by and large, chose to be a fundamentalist believer (eg ISIS et al) an adherent or a casual observer of the positive elements within their chosen religion. Or have none at all.

What it boils down to is that those who occupy the extremes of fundamentalism destroy the credibility of whichever religion they follow - think KKK and bible belt US christianity, the aforementioned ISIS, the extreme Zionists, the religions hatred and slaughter as part of the Indian partition. Its not just religions, but the absence of any religious belief is equally destructive in its extreme - Hitler and Pol Pot leap to mind.

As with most things, religions in moderation are fine, but like obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction etc, when its taken to an extreme it becomes destructive or self destructive.

Its easy to become anti Islam, but let those that do first cast out the mote in their own eye (or whatever the biblical expression is) and dont tar everyone with the same brush. Focus on bringing down the extremes, under whatever name/cause etc, but dont play the "racism card" against an issue that isn't even one of race.

[ramAnag]

I think it is important to distinguish racism from islamophobia at this juncture, as one can see where this is headed. Islam is not a race - I know white brown black followers of Islam, and equally white, brown and black that do not follow Islam. Islam is a religion and not a race. So lets not confuse the two and throw inflammatory "racist" suggestions around to those who are Islamaphobic.

Let us instead deal with Islam as a different religion, not a skin tone issue.

Religious bigotry is the by-word of modern society, and indeed going back into history - consider the jews vs jesus squabble, the crusades, catholicism vs protestantism since the time of Luther. The list is endless. Disagreeing over beliefs is a primary characteristic of human existence. My God is better than yours. This is why I believe religion is the root of all evil.

The following extract from a website may exemplify what I mean "....the Quran posits an enormous qualitative distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims that is hard to miss. Believers are loved by God, whereas infidels are hated to the extent that they are tortured for eternity (3:32, 4:56) merely for not believing. Muslims are told not to take unbelievers as friends (3:28) and to shun them (3:118). Those outside the circle are called “helpers of evil” (25:55), “wicked” (4:160), “fond of lies” (5:42) and compared to the worst of animals (8:55, 7:176, 7:179). Muslims are told to be merciful to each other, but ruthless to those outside of the faith (48:29). Violence is also sanctioned against those who are obstinate against Islamic rule (8:12-13, 9:5)."

No doubt there are some who would discredit this analysis, others that would believe it implicitly, and those like me that actually do not know the depth of the truths therein. I simply read it and note that, if the quotes are true, and other religions preach similar intolerance, this explains a lot. I do not use Islam here for any bias, but simply to exemplify the point of religious intolerances.

Doubtless the christian holy book may also have bad things to say about non believers, I don't know, I've not read it and equally appalling behaviour has been inspired or condoned by it. But what is important is that all religions seems to fight for supremacy and the high ground not by preaching peaceful or pleasant, loving thoughts but by seeking to eradicate others. Very much stick, not so much carrot.

So at their core, all religions detest one another for being "wrong". People on the other hand can, by and large, chose to be a fundamentalist believer (eg ISIS et al) an adherent or a casual observer of the positive elements within their chosen religion. Or have none at all.

What it boils down to is that those who occupy the extremes of fundamentalism destroy the credibility of whichever religion they follow - think KKK and bible belt US christianity, the aforementioned ISIS, the extreme Zionists, the religions hatred and slaughter as part of the Indian partition. Its not just religions, but the absence of any religious belief is equally destructive in its extreme - Hitler and Pol Pot leap to mind.

As with most things, religions in moderation are fine, but like obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction etc, when its taken to an extreme it becomes destructive or self destructive.

Its easy to become anti Islam, but let those that do first cast out the mote in their own eye (or whatever the biblical expression is) and dont tar everyone with the same brush. Focus on bringing down the extremes, under whatever name/cause etc, but dont play the "racism card" against an issue that isn't even one of race.

Blimey...and to think this started as a cricket thread.

Agree with much of that GP, though I think you’re on a higher intellectual level than some of the, shall we say...lowest common denominators...who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) be able (or bothered) to actually differentiate between racism and islamophobia and would just regard anyone of Asian appearance as a ‘...kin Paki’ or something similar, so the ‘racist suggestion’ almost certainly stands.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Blimey...and to think this started as a cricket thread.

Agree with much of that GP, though I think you’re on a higher intellectual level than some of the, shall we say...lowest common denominators...who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) be able (or bothered) to actually differentiate between racism and islamophobia and would just regard anyone of Asian appearance as a ‘...kin Paki’ or something similar, so the ‘racist suggestion’ almost certainly stands.

I did consider making it OT OT !!

[AdiSalisbury]

In other news, we won the cricket world cup, fully deserved and Aussies are still crying! Kiwi's have been dignified in defeat. Great result.

[Geoff Parkstone]

And the Indians are crying, Tendulkar doesn't think it should be done on boundaries but rather a second superover. That may be so but that wasn't the rule at the time. And what if the second superover is then drawn....

Just glad it wasn't decided on wickets lost, which may have been more sensible, but by which we'd have lost 😳

[Andy_Faber]

Just glad it wasn't decided on wickets lost, which may have been more sensible, but by which we'd have lost 😳

As a matter of interest gp and whoever, did you only watch it because it was free to air?