leicsmac

Yeah, as others have said, think this is way off imo. There have been no more horrible teams than in past tournaments, the pitches have given something for the bowlers rather than just the batters, and the success of the US team can only boost the profile of the sport there. Much better than the TV-revenue centric India/Oz/England closed shop the 50 over WC has been of late.

And anyone heard from the Uyghurs recently? But yup, exactly.

Fortunately for them, H2H will count more than GD here.

Have a little faith

Is it me or is Matterface a little more bearable as a commentator this time round? I mean, it's like the difference between botulinium and arsenic, but small gains and all that...

And funnily enough I share social media space with folks who think that Putin was entirely justified in his current actions in Ukraine and won't hear a word against China, because "stick it to the USA/West" or somesuch. Guys, when there's a bully in the playground, following another bully isn't the flex you think it is.

And savvy use of social media manipulation and bots from around the world, to boot.

If Big Sam hadn't been caught with his fingers in the till and got the same results Southgate has got over the last the tournaments, the majority of the fanbase would be worshipping the ground he walks on.

.... Farage and those like him simply cannot comprehend the idea of a global problem with global consequences that needs a global solution, can they? How can someone think that such problems will stop at borders just because we've put them on paper?

Yeah, this. Also, you'd have thought that the ICC would invoke a larger sanction than booting their captain for a couple of matches if they do as it would be so flagrant.

Possibly so, but given their rather large social media reach and the influence those who think like him have had on policymaking in both the US and parts of Europe, it's worth at least taking the ideology seriously, I reckon.

I guess it comes down to whether a person thinks pettiness should be answered with like pettiness. There is a lot of that goes on in football, tbf.

It's a double edged sword, yes. But that doesn't mean that strong principles aren't sometimes necessary to stop a great deal of harm.

... and we had the choice of a bigger swing to the left in the UK in both 2017 and 2019. It didn't happen. The reasons for that are extensive, but also irrelevant - the only thing that matters is that it was rejected. Don't get me wrong, there are a few issues where harm reduction is massively on the clock and so change needs to be fast and therefore often radical. It's just that such attempts fail in application far more often than they succeed and we end up back at square one anyway. Incremental works much more often, but then as you say there's issues with that too. If what you say about the "technocratic centre" is true, then it may be that we're all fvcked no matter what. Believe me, I share your stance, particularly on the two issues you've highlighted above. I just don't see a legit way to hurry things along that offers any guarantee of working in terms of gaining the power to apply it.

As much as I agree with not half arsing this most important issue (indeed, the most important of the lot), from what I can tell it still gets the UK to net zero emissions by 2050 which was the agreed target to stop the nastiest of the consequences anyway. Of course, sooner is better though and I hope the Lib Dems and Greens can hold their feet to the fire further on this. Foreign policy whereby the UK assists everywhere else to ensure everyone is playing ball is going to be critical too.

And to add to this, principles without the power to actually apply them to make the world a better place are as much use as a fart in a hurricane anyway. "Thoughts and prayers" all over again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1335nj316lo Really don't think that tech related manipulation is taken seriously enough, given the level of sophistication it is rising to take.

Well, that removes NRR from the equation. Just the results matter now.

Rashid has had a pretty damn good white ball career tbh. Been often underrated but more often than not played his part in one dayers.

Yeah, that's all fair too. I still remember the dogs abuse Kelly Marie Tran got through very little fault of her own, but then that also goes back as far as Jake Lloyd and likely further. It's a difficult issue - you can't stifle legit criticism of characterisation and writing where needed, but then you have to also call out and sort out what is often blatant bigotry of many different types disguised as criticism. And that's often bloody difficult to parse between the two, for a lot of reasons.

... and such criticism of the writing is perfectly legit criticism. However I would hazard a guess that a fair bit of the review bombing falls under the former rather than the latter of my assumptions above and it needs to be talked about.

Same teams as the 50 over World Cup final, same result imo.

I'll be honest, I think he has a fair bit of low charisma, given the attention he gets from media and a core of voters alike. It just makes the shared ideology espoused by him and them all the more threatening, because it's (at least sometimes) slickly delivered and well packaged.

I've heard conflicting reports. The critics think it's pretty decent, certain elements of the fanbase are review bombing it because they can't handle a black lady in a lead Star Wars role, others have more legit criticism.

Netravalkar is going to be dining out on that one for the rest of his life.