It’s actually a “googly”. It’s a very hard delivery to play.
Its a ball that is disguised as something else. It looks like a leg spinner (ie a ball that will turn away from the batsman when it hits the ground) but in fact it turns towards him.
It’s a hard ball to bowl. Get yourself an orange and have a go…this is how…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sportacademy/hi/sa/cricket/skills/newsid_3207000/3207939.stm
If you can do this you’ll walk into the USA national side.
Riiiiiiiight, so that’s why we have our two best keepers (Howard and Friedel) playing in the EPL, and why Bobby Convey has been the target of numerous transfer attempts, and Brian McBride and Landon Donovan have both played in Europe in recent years as well as in MLS.
We may not be Brazil yet, but we’re a damn sight better than you think we are. To say that we’re not in the top 50 is ludicrous.
And as for rugby, let’s not ignore that the U.S. is still the reigning Olympic rugby champion.
American Goalkeepers are quite a phenomenon (you could have added Kasey Keller to your list - currently reserve keeper at my club). The only explanation i can offer is that US kids grow up palying games in which using the hands are important eg Basketball.
Also that Goal keeping is perhaps the football discipline that is easiest to “learn” rather than requiring natural aptitude. ie if you can find a 6’4" athletic lad you could teach him the basics, and with a little aptitude and application he would get to a good standard.
Spurs also had a very long look at Convey and came to the conclusion that he was pants. As did just about everyone else.
There was a time when top 30, possibly higher wouldn’t have been wrong for the USA but those times have gone. Here’s why:
The best USA teams basically relied on outstanding levels of fitness to make up for technical shortcomings. They were faster and stronger than some other nationalities and they played to a gameplan that made this work well for them.
That gap has closed. Football has speeded up and fitness levels are higher than ever. Not only that but the european players can run as fast and far as the Americans, but can do it with the ball, and get in a shot, cross etc at the end of it - the yanks can’t do this. Maybe one day they will be able to do it (I don’t underestimate the USA’s potential)
THis is the top 10.
1.Brazil
2 France
3 Spain
4 Argentina
5 Czech Republic
6 Netherlands
7 England
8 Mexico
9 Italy
10 USA
Look at Mexico - 8th in the world. Do you believe that? Does anyone believe that? Now remember what I said about only playing tiddlers - does it all make sense now?
With the exception of the USA and Mexico the other 8 teams would be in with a chance at the next world cup. Five of them have won it, and the other two have won the European Championship.
Show us your cups!
And really, why should we? After all, America wins the World Series every single year :rolleyes: .
Except when Canada wins it. :rolleyes:
Way to undermine my point Canada-boy 
. I wasn’t trying to slight Canadian victories in baseball… just emphasizing that a primarily American competion does not a world series make. And maybe we could be a little humbled by our failure in more international sports…or a little less full of ourselves, just a bit 
.
But thanks a lot for makomg me spell it out 
.
Well said.
Actually the Zims gave Sri Lanka a run (boom-tish!) for their money yesterday.
I’ll tell my mum.
We could probably use that, yeah. But at the same time I think it’s pretty silly when US teams get jumped on for losing international tournaments for sports we as a country really don’t care about.
The US cricket team lost? Most Americans don’t even know the rules, let alone that there was an international tournament, and we especially didn’t know that we had a team there!
I suppose if we were to put our minds to it, the US could field a fantastic mens rugby, soccer, or cricket team. But it’s off the public radar. We’re pretty happy with the sports we have.
“Humbled” is a poor choice of words, is all. 'Mildly surprised to learn that we were there to begin with" is better, I think.
Besides, the rest of the Universe considers your obession with cricket to be hideously bad form.
Exactly. OTOH, if it had been another blowout vs. Puerto Rico, it would have been downright astonishing 
Sure you weren’t. Face it, you hate Toronto.
World Series is just a corporate gimmicky title. People who get upset by it need to get the stick out of their butts. As for it being a primarily American competition is beyond the point, it’s not an international competition, but it is where the best players in the world play (except for Cubans, sometimes). Americans don’t get any pride out of winning it. Ask a Boston fan if he’s happy when New York wins the title, just because their both Americans. He’d look at you like you’d just sprouted three blue eyes out of your nose.
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And maybe we could be a little humbled by our failure in more international sports…or a little less full of ourselves, just a bit
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But why should we? Why should we be humbled because our cricket team - a game that I’m sure less than 15 million people in the US understand, much less play - was destroyed by one of the best cricket teams in the world? That makes no sense. We never claimed to be good at cricket. It would be like me going one on one with Kobe Bryant, and after me getting destroyed, having people saying maybe I should feel more humble. It’s bizarre.
The same goes for rugby or curling or buzkashi or whatever else.
We’re not arrogant about the stuff we’re not the best (or at least one of the best) at - soccer, cricket, ice hockey, long distance running, etc. Just the stuff we’re actually good at - baseball, basketball, American football, sprinting, swimming, etc.
Sigh You’re taking me way too seriously, Neurotik. Of course I know Americans don’t get any pride out of winning a primarily American competition. That’s why I was making a little* joke * about it being called a world series when it’s not, while at the same time dismissing a truely international competition as being beneath are notice.
And of course I’m not surprised we lost, after all:
See, we would have won handly, we just didn’t feeeeel like it . Not about one of those quaint foreign games.
I think it that attitude that the rest of the Universe considers bad form (not that I didn’t get you reference Johnny…did take me a few minutes :D)
I think you’re missing the point entirely.
“If we cared we could field a good team” is a tautology. Any nation that cared enough to expend the necessary resources to develop a proper program in any sport could field a creditable team in that sport. The point is that we suck at cricket, soccer, and rugby because, in the aggregate, we don’t care about cricket, soccer, or rugby.
I’d support a World Cup in Baseball, and I think there are are a bunch of countries that could field creditable teams. The Dominican Republic and Japan come to mind. But that’s about it. Nobody else cares. That’s why we won’t be a major force in international sports.
We don’t like their sports, and they don’t like ours.
I was quite surprised when I found out Britain has an American Football team.
That’s weird. The end result of posting a reply was the new post screen.
Yes, but I didn’t say “good” or “credible” or “proper.” I said “fantastic.”
Obviously I can’t produce a cite.
You were surprised? I’m stunned. Why do you have a squad and who do they play against? Seriously, what the hell? I thought that we were the only people who could conceivable care about this game, because we were the only ones who played it. Does anybody else have a team? Do they want to play?
That’s just a matter of degree, isn’t it? All I’m saying is that we could go as far as we wanted to, if we cared. But we don’t.
The same is true of anybody else, in any sport.
A bit of a hijack, but I doubt that is the case. Bermuda, for example, would be thrilled to field the world’s best cricket team, but they simply don’t have the manpower to do it. Bangladesh would love to do it too–they’re absolutely crazed about the sport–but they don’t have the money. Nepal is in the same boat. Even India, with the world’s second largest population, increasingly high media expectations, and more and more money flooding the sport with television rights and sponsorships, consistantly fails to reach the top of the cricket hierarchy. There’s not a nation in the world that “cares” about cricket more than India does, but that alone won’t do it: it takes the right players, the right coaches, and the right system. India doesn’t have those things–yet.
I hate to bash the USA Cricket Association again–nah, I take that back, I’ll bash them whenever I can–but they are the number one reason that American cricket isn’t as successful as it could be. Keep in mind that the US has many times more active players than Zimbabwe or Kenya, and is even close to New Zealand–all countries which are far ahead of the US in cricket. Before the ICC Champions Trophy I did a Lexis-Nexis survey of fifty major US newspapers. Know how many of them mentioned that the US was playing in it–for the first time in history? One. ESPN (which broadcasts in India!) never touched the story–there is not one reference to it on their website outside of their Reuters wire. Nobody even picked up the story in an “offbeat news” segment. When I lived in Los Angeles and played cricket for Victoria CC, I met many ex-pats from England, Australia, India, Pakistan, and the Carribean, many of whom were fans of cricket from back home. None (well, apart from the guys who actually played) had any idea that people played cricket in the US or that the US had a national cricket team at all. The USACA does a terrible job of promoting or advertising cricket in the US, to say nothing of its terrible job in administrating the game, and its borderline-illegal treatment of those persons whom its administration does not like.
With the ex-pats alone, the USA should be one of the top ten cricketing countries. I’ve seen the level of play in the top Los Angeles leagues, and, while it wasn’t as good as that of professional cricket in England, it was very good. With better administration and selection, the US should at the very least be dominating the ICC Trophy, and be knocking on the door of ODI status within ten years. It’s not going to happen, not because of the lack of will amongst cricket’s devotees in America–whose attachment to the game, considering the circumstances, outstripped anything I ever saw in England–but because of the mendacity of cricket’s powers that be. That, I feel, is a shame.
I assume they are somehow entitled to play within the American league (or whatever you call it) Or maybe they play in some obscure international league.
I doubt they have much following in the UK. I for one haven’t the slightest interest in the sport. (I have little interest in rugby either)
There name is London something.