worlds greatest athelete announces retirement

[goodsamaritan]

Chezlaw, the world does not reveolve around again only played in former British colonies

[Karak567]

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skinny John Daly?

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That was EXACTLY my thought when I first saw the picture

[blinden84]

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skinny John Daly?

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That was EXACTLY my thought when I first saw the picture

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Ditto, so I thought it was a joke.

Well, I still think it's a joke, but I thought it was a funny joke.

[esad]

Geez, even Brian Lara is greater then this guy in cricket. He's not even the greatest in his sport.

[MicroBob]

Okay, here's my understanding of cricket which I'm sure is going to be WAY WAY off:


When I was in England almost 20 years ago I watched a cricket match on TV and thought it was really interesting.

I had no idea what the hell was going on most of the time but learned a little bit from the girl I was seeing who I think knew the basics.

The 'bowler' gets to have a running start and the throw comes into the batter on one bounce.
He has a big paddle thing that looks like a fraternity paddle and they would sometimes just do a half check-swing to put the ball into play.
Only two bases that you run back and forth passing your teammate to score runs. And they aren't terribly far apart.


Hit it to the wall and you get 4 runs. Over the wall (like a home-run) is 6 runs.

As long as you aren't put out you keep batting.
Scoring 100 runs in a single at-bat is pretty good I believe.
If you only score 10 runs in your at-bat then you suck.

The ball is smaller and harder I believe than a baseball and the defense doesn't get to wear gloves.
So they cup their hands and just try to get a piece of any line-drive and deflect it up into the air so that one of their teammates can come diving in to make a catch.

Recording an out like that is a big event and they jump up and down like they scored a touchdown or something.
Also pretty impressive if the batter misses and the ball knockes over the wicket for the equivilent of a strike-out.


Scoring a run is no big deal. Less of a big deal I believe than making a free-throw in basketball or kicking an extra-point in football.

They score like 200-300 runs in an inning I think and a match can last multiple days.

It looks pretty freaking weird to me but I kind of liked it and would probably enjoy attending a match in person (preferrably with someone who could explain it a bit better).

[sixfour]

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It looks pretty freaking weird to me but I kind of liked it and would probably enjoy attending a match in person (preferrably with someone who could explain it a bit better).

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Not overly far off. A good start is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...t_and_baseball

Although cricket will obv never take off in the States because the whole concept of playing for five days and it still being a draw is somewhat alien.

You can't really compare Warne or Lara and say who's better either, same way you couldn't compare Clemens to Bonds. Although IMO Lara isn't even the best batsman of his generation, and Warne's arguably the best spinner ever.

[MyTurn2Raise]

world's greatest what?

didn't Lance Armstrong retire last year?

[chezlaw]

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Chezlaw, the world does not reveolve around again only played in former British colonies

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Maybe not but there are more cricket fans than there are US American ... erm, USAmericans erm ... ah yes than there are US Americans.

It certainly doesn't revolve around an english game played in only one former colony [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

chez

[chezlaw]

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You can't really compare Warne or Lara and say who's better either, same way you couldn't compare Clemens to Bonds. Although IMO Lara isn't even the best batsman of his generation, and Warne's arguably the best spinner ever.


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Absolutly, not only is he the best spinner ever (freakishly good) but he is a half-decent batsmen and a superb slip-fielder as well - one of the best some say though its hard to compare.

chez

[AJW]

World’s greatest sportsman maybe Athlete never he was always a little plump and never said no to a drink.
To OP you don’t think it close with Muralitharan then lots of Asians seem to think he is unfairly overlooked by the media?