The Cottars Down Under in 2007 ?

[Joe]

The Cottars down under? There's a good possibility.

Take a look at this website. It appears to be an Australian music booking agency site. They have The Cottars listed as March to April 2007.

That ferret of mine brought me back some interesting things from Australia!

[HWI]

Thanks for the info, Joe.

Now get that ferret to work and see what else he can come up with.

Keith.

[Joe]

admin said:

Thanks for the info, Joe.

Now get that ferret to work and see what else he can come up with.

Keith.

Hi Keith,
Maybe my ferret can follow the Australian cricket side home and recover the Ashes for England! Is it true that Lord's Cricket Ground keep some sort of symbolic urn?

England have a good chance of winning the fifth test though. Strauss and the lads need to get more centuries under their belts! Come on England!

I do understand cricket somewhat...it's almost like baseball with two home plates!

[HWI]

joe said:

Is it true that Lord's Cricket Ground keep some sort of symbolic urn?

It's amazing how threads can go off-topic.

Hi Joe,

Yes, regardless of who wins an Ashes test series, The Ashes themselves never leave our shores. The name "The Ashes" predates the event itself. It became popularised when in 1882, Australia beat England for the first time IN ENGLAND. A story ran in The Times newspaper that this was "the ashes of English cricket". Two years later, the return match took place in Australia (we won) and, after the match, the English team were presented with a small urn, reputed to contain the "Ashes" of the bails from the game.

This series is one of the most fiercely contested competitions in sport today and, at one stage, the rivalry between the two contries almost resulted in the breaking off of diplomatic relations. There have been reports during this series that, in Australia, because so many are watching it live on TV (and taking into account the time difference), absenteeism from work can be as much as 40%.

For those who do not understand what bails are, I will try and explain. The wicket (or base) are three wooden stakes stuck in the ground. They each have a groove in the top and, placed across the gaps, there are two other pieces which rest in the grooves. These two pieces are "the bails".

The significance of the bails is as follows:

A short distance in front of the wicket at each end, there is a line drawn on the ground. This is the "popping crease". During play, the batsman must have at least one foot behind the crease to be safe. A batsman can be out if the bowler manages to hit the wicket with the ball - contact of the ball with the wicket only needs to be hard enough for the bails to fall off.

If the ball gets past the batsman, but misses the wicket, there is a wicket keeper whose job it is to catch the ball. If he does, and the batsman is out of his crease (or his foot is inside the crease but not in contact with the ground), the wicket keeper can "stump" him by making contact with the wicket by the ball hard enough to knock the bails off.

If the batsman (there are two of them - one at each end) is making a run but has not reached the crease and made contact with the ground, either with a foot or the bat, the wicket keeper, or any of the fielders, can run him out by hitting the wicket with the ball hard enough to knock the bails off. These must be the bails of the wicket he is running towards.

If, during play, the batsman hits the wicket with his bat, foot, or body hard enough to dislodge the bails, he is out.

If the batsman turns round and takes the bails off, he is out.

If the batsman turns around and manages to catch the bails whilst they are in the air, he can put them back on the stumps and he is not out.

As for the likeness between cricket and baseball, there is actually none. In the UK, there is a game played mainly by young schoolgirls called Rounders. As I understand it, baseball was developed from that game. Besides this, there is one thing that can not be denied. Baseball is a great game - fast moving and very exciting.

Going back to the Ashes. It is possible here to paraphrase the words of one of our great football managers - Bill Shankly - when he was talking about football. But, using it here will give an impression of what cricket means to the UK and many commonwealth countries. "People think it is a matter of life and death. It isn't. It's far more important than that."

Keith.

[Richard]

Hello Joe and Keith!

If Australia lose the Ashes and don't win them back before 2007, I'm sure the Cottars will cheer the Australian cricket team up! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

That's another wayward thread back on course!

Best Wishes from London,

Richard

[gareth]

Well, if you guys are talking cricket, I know a bit about that game as well - and naturally, being a Dutch-Australian citizen, I know where my preferences go.

First of all, Richard, if the Australians lose the Ashes now, I don't think they can win them back before 2007 - so there is no if!

Then, it has been rumoured that Americans don't understand the game of cricket at all. They can't understand how a game can dawdle on for 5 days and still end in a draw. Take the American Football Game - a guaranteed result with a few hours.... Point is, real life is much more like cricket than like football. A cricket match can seem to go on for long periods without any major changes - and there can be periods of sudden, dramatic change .... A game of American Football is non-stop action for just a sort period of time. Certainly not what life is all about. (For similar reasons, in athletics I much rather prefer to watch the marathon than the 100 metre sprint. I think the 100 metre sprint is boring.)

Anyway, I don't know of any other sport where a 5-day match can end in a draw as well as in a tie. And draws and ties in cricket are quite different. When a soccer match ends in 2-2, it is usually called a draw. In cricketing terms, it would have been classified as a tie ....

The story of the Ashes as I know it is, that after the colonial Australian team beat the English for the first time on their own soil, an English newspaper carried an obituary about the death of English cricket, referring to the bails having been cremated and the ashes put in an urn and taken to Australia ....

Finally, the Americans have their own game of Football - and so do the Australians (their version is called "Australian Rules"). Australian Rules was developed for the benefit of .... Australian cricket. In the 19th century, they were looking for ways to keep the cricketers fit during the off-season (the Australian winter). They devised the running game of Australian Rules to keep fit. Even today, there are people who excel in both sports. They have to make a choice, and most of them opt for cricket, as this has more international exposure.

Cheers,

Gerrit

[Joe]

richnorri said:

Hello Joe and Keith!

If Australia lose the Ashes and don't win them back before 2007, I'm sure the Cottars will cheer the Australian cricket team up! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

That's another wayward thread back on course!

Hi all,

Thanks Richard...I think this thread drifted off course and went into the Pacific Ocean!

Keith, sorry about drifting off-topic...blame the ferret! Thanks for the info. about cricket! I'll want to print it out. I didn't realize that the batsman had so many ways to get out.

Hello Gerrit, the story of the Ashes is a very good one...something most Americans know nothing about...let alone cricket. You're correct about American Football; five seconds of action in one or two minutes. Soccer is much more exciting. My knowledge of cricket is marginal at best; mostly from what I read in books and websites...I saw a match a few years ago on TV though. Hey, Australia have a good chance of winning this test too.

BTW, I put the link on the first post of this thread...it went missing. We are on The Cottars board if you forgot! But I'll place it here too. NewSouthFolk Agency has signed The Cottars to perform in Australia in the first half of 2007.

[HWI]

Hi Joe,

And guess what Richard? This thread is still currently on/off topic.

A batsman can be out more ways than that. In fact, he can be out before he was even in. This one is because when the previous batsman has been got out, the next batsman has two minutes to reach his crease. If he is not there in that time, he can be declared out by the umpire.

As with baseball, if he plays the ball and the bowler, or any of the fielders catch the ball before it touches the ground, he is out.

Then there is LBW - Leg Before Wicket. This requires an appeal from the bowler etc., which the do by shouting "owzat" (how's that). This is where the ball hits the batsman (mostly on the protective pads he wears on the lower legs) and the umpire decides that, had it not been obstructed, it would have hit the wicket.

Apart from that, there's a string of rule violations for which the umpire would give him out. For instance, if the batsman plays the ball, putting it in the air, and he then catches the ball. He has effectively tampered with the ball and is out.

Cricket can also be very amusing. There was once an occasion where the ball became lodged between the batsman's leg and his pad. In that situation, he is allowed to attempt to score runs. And, on this occasion, it ended up with him running between the wickets with fielders chasing him trying to get the ball back. One thing he cannot do is remove the ball himself. If he does, he has tampered with the ball.

Then the batsman can score runs without moving from his crease. These runs are known as "Extras" and would normally come from a "No Ball", which is when the bowler's foot is entirely outside the crease when he bowls the ball. Or there is a "Bye", which would normally be when the delivery is too wide off the wicket. For either of those, one run is added to the batsman's score. If he can play the ball, he can also score runs off it. If an umpire declares a "No Ball" and the batsman plays it, reaching the boundary on the ground (he gets four runs for that, plus one for the no ball, making five). If the ball doesn't touch the ground until after it has crossed the boundary, he gets six, plus one for the no ball, making seven.

So, you see, it's quite a simple game really.

Keith.

p.s. Now back to the Cottars.