he Monaco Plage hotel in Dakar, Hooper and the c | Forum

A year and a half ago, Death Of A Gentleman, a cricket film that I co-wrote with Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber, was screened at the Sheffield Documentary Festival. New Balance 574 Rosse e Blu . It was the first time that anyone outside of the makers had seen it, and it was an amazing moment when, at the end, where Sam had inserted little updates on what had happened to the protagonists since filming finished, the last appearances of Giles Clarke and N Srinivasan were booed by the audience. Sam and Jarrod had pulled off a remarkable trick: theyd made a film about cricket administration - not a subject for which Hollywood or even Bollywood regularly came calling - and turned it into a story with heroes and villains, jeopardy and all of the other tropes that make movies watchable and fun.As the film was shown through the summer, it seemed almost too prescient. The Big Three takeover that it had caught on camera floundered as the tectonic plates of cricketing realpolitik shifted beneath it. From nowhere, Srini was out and Clarke changed roles and things went in a new and different direction. The rows were different and the people having them were different, but somehow cricket administration remained broadly the same, an old game struggling to find its place in the pixellated, digitalised 21st-century world.If Death Of A Gentleman had a broader point, this was it. Cricket administrators did what they did for their own reasons. They all (probably) began with a love of the game, but that was one of the only common factors. Their power to affect the game always seems somehow disproportionate to who they are.That Sheffield screening was only 18 months ago, but it might as well have been 18 years. The BCCI is involved in another schism. The ECB has just relegated one of its counties, Durham, while bailing it out financially. Another county, Kent, may sue because it has not been invited to replace them. Rod Bransgrove, the chairman of Hampshire, the county that did benefit from Durhams relegation, issued a remarkable statement about the future of the game in England. And on Friday in Dhaka, Englands players, nurtured by this financially tortured system, produced more evidence that we may be entering a golden age of on-field talent.You know all of this, of course. George Dobell has written magnificently and passionately about Durhams relegation. Its fair to say he captured the national mood, in as far as there is a national mood about county cricket, a mood that had been heightened by the wonderful end to the Championship season at Lords. Yet Bransgroves statement, and the exposure of the parlous financial condition of many counties, made a persuasive case that city-based T20 cricket could be the only way to get people that arent interested in the game interested in the game. This isnt a blog about the rights and wrongs of those arguments. Its about how hard it is to navigate a path through them. Cricket has a deep respect for its past and its history, a respect perhaps unmatched anywhere else in sport. Football, for example, established its clubs and leagues around the same time, but its most important and obsessed-over competitions are new: the Premier League and the Champions League began in 1992. Theyd think little of ripping them up if something even more lucrative came along. In fact, financial power has become a part of the storyline that keeps everyone hooked.Cricket has been gifted its futuristic format. The ECB even thought it up. But the sheer variety of interests in the English game makes it hard to know how to best use it. The most successful piece of sports administration in recent years has come in an arena - the cage - that was barely considered sporting when it arrived. The Ultimate Fighting Championship has legitimised its offer to the point that it has moved from a Wild West of barely sanctioned ultra-violence to a one-stop entertainment industry that was this year sold by its owners for $4 billion. Thats billion. They had bought it in the year 2000 for $2 million. It succeeded because it did something that its direct competitor, boxing, with its internecine politics and lack of structure or governance, did not: it made the fights that the fans really wanted to see. It did that because all of the fighters were contracted to the same organisation. As that organisation grew in power, so everyone benefited.The UFCs administration had one crucial point in its favour. The fans and the sport all agreed on the direction of travel. Equally crucially, its a luxury that cricket does not have.A couple of weeks ago, I blogged here on the finale of the County Championship. It was obvious from the reaction to Middlesexs win that lots more people than the few who attend the matches want the competition to survive, and see city-based cricket as a threat.Its easy to sit back and write about problems, especially intractable ones, without offering a solution. Well, heres an idea, and its called One Day. Everyone that followed the County Championship last year on social media and live blogs commits to attending one day of live cricket next season. Doesnt matter which team or match, just that a ticket is purchased at the gate for a Championship game, and a days cricket is enjoyed. Lets see if it makes a difference to the health of counties.All administrations will fail if they cannot connect to the fans, or if the fans do not connect back. There is a constituency in cricket that wants the County Championship. It is not currently large enough to sustain it without significant subsidies. The deal at the moment is that the Championship develops international players, whose marketability in the international game creates the finance for those subsidies. Its a delicate ecosystem, and like a coral reef it is dying, because the core group of fans is not being replenished. Thats why a city-based franchise to bring in newer supporters is needed. We dont hear their voices yet because they have not arrived. Instead we have the voices of existing fans and of administrators.In Death Of A Gentleman, the great Gideon Haigh makes the point that cricket is the only sport that is actually contracting in terms of the countries and the people that participate in it. In part, that is due to failures of vision in administration. But as the IPL and Big Bash have suggested, a new audience is there, waiting. India and Australias Test and domestic cricket have not perished as a result.What sports like football and the UFC prove is that the market decides. As fans, if what you want is in the marketplace, then you have to buy it or lose it. The common truth about all administrations is that they will usually chase the money.If you follow the Championship, why not commit to One Day next season. Then it may continue to exist as the future hurtles towards it. http://www.nbalancescarpe.it/new-balance-1600.html .  Aside from the trilogy main event title fight, there are a number of intriguing matchups in the heavyweight, welterweight and lightweight divisions. New Balance 996 Uomo . -- Matt Kuchar and Harris English ran away with the Franklin Templeton Shootout, shooting a 14-under 58 on Sunday in the final-round scramble to break the tournament course record. http://www.nbalancescarpe.it/new-balance-990-italia.html .C. -- Glenn Howard needed an extra end to move into the Masters Grand Slam of Curling final. DAKAR, Senegal -- Former British police officer Ben Hooper hopes to make history by swimming every mile of the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to South America. After more than three years of preparation, he set off on Sunday.The 38-year-old walked down a beach in Dakar and into the Atlantic Ocean, launching a swim for 1,635 nautical miles, or nearly 2,000 land miles (3,200 kilometers), from Senegal to Brazil.This is for my daughter, said Hooper, who filled a water bottle with sand to keep for the 8-year-old who he said inspired the swim. Its been a long time coming.Flanked by two boats and a crew of less than a dozen, Hooper aims to be the first person to swim every mile of the Atlantic Ocean from continent to continent, stepping on land again in March.He says he trained three years as he gathered a crew for the Big Blue, the main boat on which he will eat and sleep when he is not swimming for about eight hours each day through waters infested with sharks and jellyfish.Water has loomed large in his life.I nearly drowned when I was 5 in a swimming pool in Belgium, Hooper told The Associated Press. Ever since ... Ive had this affinity with water. It was the calmest Ive ever felt.Hooper said he had a bout of depression about 3 1/2 years ago and decided to turn his life around for his daughter. So he looked to water.Nobody had swum a full ocean. More people have landed on the moon than have tried this, so at that point I thought maybe this is my calling, said Hooper. If I can inspire myself, other people and raise mooney for charity, why not do it?Inspired by British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Hooper said he hopes to motivate others, especially children, to swim. New Balance Prezzi Bassi. Funding for the expedition has taken time, and the launch was set back several times as various crew members dropped out and the boats faced mechanical issues.This will be a major achievement overall, said Nigel Taylor-Schofield, the captain of Big Blue. If anybody can accomplish this, it would be Ben. He is very determined.The crew, including a paramedic, will track the miles, and Hooper has said if he gets to Brazil with the help of currents, he will swim until he fulfills the full Atlantic mileage.The challenges, be it marine life, dehydration, and more, will be vast, but Hooper says his biggest fear is letting the team and his daughter down. Hell listen to a playlist on customized earphones that he said will include eurotrash music, Eminem and The Scripts Hall of Fame. Hooper will also wear various gear that helps camouflage him from sharks, and a tracking device so supporters can follow his nearly five-month swim online.Around 10:30 a.m. on the beach outside the Monaco Plage hotel in Dakar, Hooper and the crew were ready.See you in Brazil, he said, before eventually swimming off into the sunlit waters toward his goal.---http://www.swimthebigblue.com/--Follow Carley Petesch on Twitter at www.twitter.com/carleypetesch Cheap NFL Jerseys ' ' '