You can just pick it up with your hand and throw it into the goal
SAF, Giggs, Tendulkar
- Thread starter sammsky1
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Handball 
And yet something that inherently ludicrous is still a bigger global sport than Cricket. (technically, so is table tennis)
What makes India's veneration of Tendulkar inherently more worthy than Croatia's hero worship of....that guy on the other page who plays handball? I'll bet he's less chubby. And one of our Croatian posters can explain how picking up the ball with your hand and throwing it into the goal is really quite skilful and technical, somehow.
I mean American football's just throwing and catching. There's not even a goal to aim for. It's literally catch in body armour.
It's not that hard to hit it when they throw it towards you. Plus you stand in front of the stumps, so stopping it from hitting them is easy.
If anything surely bowling is the more impressive discipline? Hitting something really hard with a stick is one of our oldest, crudest abilities surely? But someone like Warne who can aim a perfect leg spin to trick the whopping great person standing in front of the tiny little stumps, or even 'bend' it around them is quite an impressive, and fairly unique skill set. Evidence by how few peers he seems to have compared to the long list of great batsmen.
It's still pretty much the only thing he's expected to do of a game though. As opposed to the constant running, decision making and multiple disciplines of other team sports, or tennis.
It's still pretty much the only thing he's expected to do of a game though. As opposed to the constant running, decision making and multiple disciplines of other team sports, or tennis.
And the fielders, they have to like, stand around and stuff. Waiting for the off chance that someone hits a ball towards them, despite us establishing exactly how hard that is to do.
Then they get a nice lunch.
Hardly anyone's a specialist fielder though, it's the equivalent of a striker having to spend some time defending.
Interesting point Mockers about there being less great spinners. But I don't think it's fair to compare 'leg-spinners' to 'batsmen' as classes. A leg-spinner is a specific type of bowler, and few teams want more than one specialist leg-spinner in a side, so you'd expect there to be less great ones than great members of the whole class of batsmen.
And if anything it's even more impressive that they can perform at a top sporting level after eating a whole bunch of cucumber sandwiches.
Interesting point Mockers about there being less great spinners. But I don't think it's fair to compare 'leg-spinners' to 'batsmen' as classes. A leg-spinner is a specific type of bowler, and few teams want more than one specialist leg-spinner in a side, so you'd expect there to be less great ones than great members of the whole class of batsmen.
And if anything it's even more impressive that they can perform at a top sporting level after eating a whole bunch of cucumber sandwiches.
What about a spinner in a Handball team?
He'd run riot. He could literally just throw it into the goal.
You seem to be think they all sit down together and have a nice three course meal. Footballers need a break after 45 minutes, surely players who play for hours in sometimes very humid, hot conditions deserve a bit of a break too?
It's the only sport with lunch breaks because it's the only sport that requires you to be on the field for so long.
Footballers need a break after 45 minutes, surely players who play for hours in sometimes very humid, hot conditions deserve a bit of a break too?
It's the only sport with lunch breaks because it's the only sport that requires you to be on the field for so long.
They mainly stand around for hours. They don't really play for anything.
I can understand the sport might be a little difficult to grasp for simple minds, but the contempt just makes your idiocy all the more apparent.Instead of throwing it at a small collection of little sticks, unopposed, over and over again until you hit them?
It's not unopposed. That guy in the silly leg-pads plays for the other team.
You're right... throw ball, hit ball, try and catch ball is a little difficult to grasp. The complexities of the aforementioned actions just boggle the mind.
But he's not stopping you throw it. Like (presumably?) they try and do in handball? The silly leg-pads man merely acts as a goalkeeper. It's like a mini-game where you take endless penalties at a children's garden sized goal guarded by a really fat man.
Couldnt they sneak in a sarnie on the pitch in between the bit were the guy is throwing the ball?
Well they do come on with drinks from time to time. Kind of elevensies.
But look, he is stopping you throw it. He's just stopping you twenty yards down the pitch. No he's not grabbing it out your hand like in rugby, but if you define 'throw it' as the whole action of throwing it at the stumps, he's stopping you - in way that involves great skill and artistry (well, when it doesn't involve just sticking your leg in the way to take advantage of a daft loophole in the rules).
I feel this post from that Greatest Enemies thread needs to be quoted:
Please don't associate two of my sporting heroes with cricket. It makes me want to kill people.
I think you're being hugely patronising and disrespectful to Handball, an ancient cultured sport that literally loads of people play in places like Finland.
I fail to see how your desperate defence of Cricket "stopping the bowler throwing" doesn't also apply to Handball, which actually has goalkeepers, as well as people ACTUALLY stopping the person throwing.
Handball is a proud, noble sport that's actually taken off on it's own steam in loads of places (like places like Finland) whereas Cricket is such a monumentally stupid and dull game it's still not played anywhere we didn't invande and subjugate and force them to play it when we still did that.
The only thing propping it up is the huge reproductive rate of the Indian sub continent and the fact Australia haven't got quite good enough at football yet, without which it would've died a rightful evolutionary death years ago.
You also definitely can't set a montage of it to late 90s era Belgian Trance.
Hence Handball > Cricket.
Easily. And I think a poll would comfortably prove this.
My Secondary School PE teacher invented this game that was a sort of cross between handball and cricket.
It was called "deathball".
Basically you hit the ball with your hand, and then ran towards the other end of the pitch, or hall in this instance. The other team got you out by picking up the ball and throwing it at you (usually aiming for your head).
It was great fun, although I don't think anyone ever scored a point, and it was basically an excuse for the "hard" kids to throw balls at the nerds faces, sometimes causing them to cry.
Unsure which jail my PE teacher is currently in.
It was called "deathball".
Basically you hit the ball with your hand, and then ran towards the other end of the pitch, or hall in this instance. The other team got you out by picking up the ball and throwing it at you (usually aiming for your head).
It was great fun, although I don't think anyone ever scored a point, and it was basically an excuse for the "hard" kids to throw balls at the nerds faces, sometimes causing them to cry.
Unsure which jail my PE teacher is currently in.
That sounds like what I used to play as a kid. It was like baseball, except we played it in our basement so we just used a soft little ball and our hands instead of a baseball and a bat.
The ball was surprisingly unsoft
British Bulldodgeball?
Cricket doesn't require you to be athletic -- that much all of us know, but Mockney and a few others seem to be reveling in their ignorance in this thread.
Unless you actually watch/play cricket, you wouldn't understand the skill and technique that goes into driving a ball that's swinging or moving off the deck at 150kmph. That's just one facet of batsmanship and there is so much more to it.
It's funny how seemingly intelligent people can be so simplistic. When I don't know about a subject, I don't talk about it.
Unless you actually watch/play cricket, you wouldn't understand the skill and technique that goes into driving a ball that's swinging or moving off the deck at 150kmph. That's just one facet of batsmanship and there is so much more to it.
It's funny how seemingly intelligent people can be so simplistic. When I don't know about a subject, I don't talk about it.
Possibly.
I think it was originally derived from some kind of war time prisoner torture. Yet it still managed to be more entertaining than being forced to play cricket.
I'm pretty sure I played it. Only with one of those really nice big fluffy yellow footballs you played indoor 5 aside with.
I liked those. I want to buy several of them for no apparent reason.
I liked those. I want to buy several of them for no apparent reason.
SAF, Giggs, Tendulkar
would make an interesting sitcom.
would make an interesting sitcom.
Reading some of the comments in this thread makes me wonder if people are being sarcastic or are just down right stupid.
Saying that cricket is much easier to play than football, just shows your ignorance of the sport.
Someone also mentioned something about how there is a lunch break, more than 4 days, etc. so it cant be a sport.
Well, football (which it seems is the greatest sport ever) has just one guy who can touch the ball with his hands while the other 10 cant unless the ball goes out of the playing area and than anyone can use their hands unless the ball goes behind and than no one can use their hand.
Saying that cricket is much easier to play than football, just shows your ignorance of the sport.
Someone also mentioned something about how there is a lunch break, more than 4 days, etc. so it cant be a sport.
Well, football (which it seems is the greatest sport ever) has just one guy who can touch the ball with his hands while the other 10 cant unless the ball goes out of the playing area and than anyone can use their hands unless the ball goes behind and than no one can use their hand.
Its not easy if you are going to compare the best of each sport.
How would you chose between Federer, Messi, Schumacher, Micheal Phelps, Tendulkar & Tiger Woods?
Messi comfortably. Just look at the numbers, almost every country in the world has a professional football league. Being the best in the world at football, especially in the manner of Messi, is a ridiculous human achievement.
I get where your coming from when you talk about numbers but your basing your answer solely on the fact that he is currently the best at the most popular sport.
The likes of Tendulkar, Tiger, Schumacher, Jordon did it for much much longer in less popular sport.
Bottomline, IMO there are too many variables involved so its very hard to compare athletes from 2 very different sports.
I agree. Its so lazy to claim Messi is the best sportsman ever. If he can do what he is doing for 15+ years (and win a world cup!), then one can make the claim without doubt.
Right now however Tendulkar, Tiger, Schumacher, Jordon and perhaps a few others are superior.
Cricket is proven to remove one's sense of humor, and can encourage its sufferers to think that others should give a shit.
Sure I read that somewhere.
Sure I read that somewhere.
SAF, Giggs, Tendulkar?
Dessie, of course!
Dessie, of course!
I dunno, but it's moderately fun trying! It's not as if anything actually hinges on our decisions.
Football draws on a much wider and more scrutinised pool than something like golf, for example. Everyone in the world plays it and there are more systems in place for kids to get noticed than for any other sport.
It's also interesting to look at the fact that the two best players in the world couldn't be further apart in terms of physique if they tried. Talent can overcome physical shortcomings to a degree that wouldn't be possible for a sport like basketball, where everyone kind of has to have the same build. And don't even get me started on the money required to get your kid into motor racing...
The only thing that comes close to football in any of these areas is athletics. The way that Bolt or Gebrselassie dominated their respective fields is/was astonishing.
It's also interesting to look at the fact that the two best players in the world couldn't be further apart in terms of physique if they tried. Talent can overcome physical shortcomings to a degree that wouldn't be possible for a sport like basketball, where everyone kind of has to have the same build. And don't even get me started on the money required to get your kid into motor racing...
The only thing that comes close to football in any of these areas is athletics. The way that Bolt or Gebrselassie dominated their respective fields is/was astonishing.
I think you have to take each sport as it is, not look at the competition required to succeed in it. Yes it's probably true that if 6 billion people played golf we'd have better golfers, but for the purposes of comparison it's going a bridge too far. It's like comparing the success of football teams with different resources, at some point you just have to ignore the inequalities of opportunity and assess who's better here and now.
It's not about who has more raw talent in the abstract, it's about who's best looking at their field as it really is.
Also, athletics shouldn't be part of the discussion. It's not a game. It's impressive that Bolt can run 100 metres incredibly fast, but he can't be compared to a great sportsman like Messi or Tendulkar.
It's not about who has more raw talent in the abstract, it's about who's best looking at their field as it really is.
Also, athletics shouldn't be part of the discussion. It's not a game. It's impressive that Bolt can run 100 metres incredibly fast, but he can't be compared to a great sportsman like Messi or Tendulkar.