Indeed, now that Warne and McGrath have retired, our attack is back to "pretty good", down from the "holy shit!" status it had for a while.

Let us together lament the decline of the Calypso Kings.

OMG - you really are talking Cricket!

yay! i know nothing about cricket but I'll listen in and see if I can learn anything.

Naw, they're not talking about Cricket, they're talking about the current state of international competition.
That's like going to see a war movie, and it turns out to be a UN debate on international strife.... Just ain't the same. :headshake

I'm vaguely thinking about the joke...."The U.S. didn't know what "rest of the world" meant."....

Cricket? The rest of the world plays a game called cricket?

Don't feel too lonely, Joe. MOST of the world does not play cricket. Its pretty much confined to the old British empire (plus Holland who got it via South Africa).

The point of test cricket is that in the height of summer, when it is 40 degrees (100F) outside, you get to spend the hottest part of five days inside sitting on the couch with your mates drinking beer and eating chips. And since many test trophies are decided not by a game but by a series of three, four, or five matches (in the past, sometimes six), this can mean almost a month of male idleness elevated to an art form.

Any further questions?

Does the game require any athletic talent?

Does baseball?

To play? Well, it certainly helps, as you leap and dive for a catch or chase down a ball racing away toward the boundary, or stand in blazing sun in heavy protective gear for a day and a half swinging a wooden club as hard as you can at a fast moving ball, without losing concentration.

To watch? Not now that we have the remote control. You'll need a beer fridge near the couch, though.

fuck the cricket

I'm sick of cricket, regardless of what country happens to be playing it!

Blasphemers!

And non believers

Now I know how the early missionaries must have felt

Cricket? .... Bollocks, more like.

I'll be the cricket. :D

Yes.