Funkerstation » y. LSU also would lose its open date that we

And just like that, the lights came on for English cricket. For months it had been mooted, only to fade from likelihood as the season turned to autumn and the opportunity to fine-tune a radical concept came and went.But now, at the eleventh hour, with tickets for the 2017 season due to go on sale in two working days time, the ECB has taken the plunge on the strength of a three-day 2nd-XI fixture between Warwickshire and Worcestershire, some pioneering work from the MCCs World Cricket Committee and with Cricket Australias enthusiasm for the format rather forcing their hand ahead of the 2017-18 Ashes.A floodlit Test match at the height of the English summer holidays in the nations second most populous urban area will now take place at Edgbaston next summer against a team, West Indies, that might once have been considered the biggest drawcard in the sport.If you thought the ECB had made enough agenda-seizing announcements for one close season, you thought wrong. But following hot on the heels of last months fast-tracking of the city-based T20 format, and with Durham still cowering after their horse-whipping earlier this week, you scarcely needed to analyse the tone of Tom Harrisons ECB statement to recognise this move as the final panel of a very modern triptych.Its a great opportunity to attract more fans to the game and see how staging Test cricket in the afternoon and evening fits with working patterns and modern lifestyles, said Harrison. We think it can help attract different fans and families to Test cricket.Retrenchment on the one hand, re-evaluation on the other, the boards every move at present has, at its heart, the battle for crickets soul. It will be coming up on the 40th anniversary of Kerry Packers World Series Cricket when England and West Indies take the field at Edgbaston on August 17, and like children of the revolution, it is as if Packers most famous utterance, may the devil take the hindmost, has become the motto of the sports current rulers.That doesnt have to be taken as a criticism, by the way, although Durham in particular may be reluctant to see it in any other light right now. Packer, after all, was reviled for his rampant anti-establishmentarianism, but it barely needs pointing out how many of his innovations remain market-leading norms to this day, not least the notion of playing cricket under lights. The wonder is that it has taken half a lifetime to persuade the sports marquee format to countenance the same direction of travel.Reaction is destined to be mixed, for opinions and predilections have rarely been so fragmented in the modern game. For the record, there is no doubt in my mind that floodlit Test cricket has to be embraced, for the sake of a sport so defiantly behind the times that it sometimes seems to be volunteering itself for redundancy.But equally, it would be blasé to ignore the doubts that many of the worlds best players harbour when it comes to messing with the sports oldest and purest format. Alastair Cook, to name but one significant naysayer, is not enamoured, although his reservations stemmed specifically from the prospect of a pink-ball Ashes Test.A lot of the games have really good attendances, he said of the prospect of facing Australia under lights next winter. Its probably not a series where you need to do it.But therein, with apologies for taking Cooks words somewhat out of context, lies the point. The health of the Ashes is no barometer for the overall well-being of Test cricket, and that means it cannot be the rivalry by which to judge the merits of floodlit cricket either.And nor is the health of Test cricket in London - as evidenced by regular sellout crowds at Lords and The Oval, and referenced recently by MCCs president, Roger Knight, at the clubs AGM - any reason to extrapolate the sports rude health elsewhere in England.In fact, in 2012, Glamorgan - an Ashes host three years earlier - found the following years tourists, West Indies, such a hard sell that the club instead offloaded its fixture to Lords. The crowd for that rescheduled Test, Knight pointed out, ended up being larger than those at the other two grounds for the three-Test series - Trent Bridge and, yes, Edgbaston - added together.With that in mind, you can understand Harrisons enthusiasm for using a non-London venue as his day-night guinea pig. Cricket may be faring better in this country than in many other Test-playing nations, but that is all the more reason to shore up the sport while its strongest markets are still viable.But unfortunately not all non-London venues are equal in the current climate, and panel two of the ECBs triptych - their brutal and punitive treatment of one of the best cricket-playing clubs in the land - reveals the realpolitik at play in their recent chain of decisions. If the dangers of relying too heavily on one big payday were scrawled in red lettering across Durhams finances, then the reasons why the ECB chose to make an example of their struggles were tucked more subtly into the small print.Durhams inability to diversify - in particular to attract non-cricket activities, such as conferences and concerts, to supplement their income in the long winter months - was cited as the biggest reason why their debts became so unmanageable. But it also signed the Riversides death warrant as a venue of any merit in the ECBs brave new world. Whereas Birmingham City Council felt it worthwhile to offer Warwickshire a repayment holiday on debts in the region of ￡20 million - no doubt recognising the benefits to the local economy from major match-day tourism, among other perks - Durham County Council had no similar reasons to offer leniency on debts a fraction of the size.Notwithstanding the huge value that Durham retains as a production line for emerging talent, and as a first-class team of rare pedigree - and for all the beauty of the Riverside as a venue - it has failed the one test that no amount of revision could have enabled it to pass. Namely, it lacks the ability to attract passing trade. To be at the centre of an epoch-seizing buzz. To be relevant to more people than the 990,000 who currently attend cricket matches in England and Wales.In other words, it is not a city - let alone one with a population of 1.1 million that is about to host Englands first floodlit Test match in the height of the English summer, let alone one that has already preemptively rebranded its T20 team in the anticipation of future upheavals to the sport.Whether you accept or abhor the direction of travel, this particular gravy train is just pulling out of Birmingham New Street. There seems little option but to get on board. Yeezy Boost 350 Fake .ca looks back at the stories and moments that made the year memorable. Adidas Stan Smith Schweiz . -- 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.yeezyschweizkaufen.com/lite-racer-schweiz-outlet.html . 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SEC commissioner Greg Sankey defended the decision to postpone Saturdays matchup between LSU and Florida but reinforced that its important to play that game at a later date.Sankey spoke by phone with broadcasters Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson during CBS airing of the Tennessee-Texas A&M game and said that the conference is still working to find an acceptable makeup date after postponing the game on Thursday as Hurricane Matthew approached the Florida coast.The game needs to be played, and we need to work to find a way to do that, Sankey said. This conference often describes itself as a family. A family has points of tension. I certainly understand the angst and frustration. I have my own level of angst, but we need to come together to play a football game and find the best way to do that.Sankey said postponing the game was the right call -- even while Georgia and South Carolina simply moved their game in Columbia, South Carolina, back one day to Sunday -- for a number of reasons. It would have been difficult to assemble the necessary security and emergency personnel, for one thing, and the Gainesville area also had been designated as an evacuation zone for coastal Florida residents.A number of those things are different from what we saw with Georgia-South Carolina where there was bus travel involved, we could secure space for the team to stay without displacing evacuees, local emergency personnel were still available to staff the game, Sankey said. You have to understand those differences.An SEC official told the Baton Rouge Advocate on Friday that two dates are on the table for a makeup game: Oct.dddddddddddd 29 and Nov. 19.Asked about playing it on Nov. 19, Sankey said, I want to be careful because there are a number of options so it doesnt narrow to just one and a number of factors to consider.Playing Oct. 29 would require Florida to sacrifice its open date on Oct. 22 and instead play Georgia a week early and LSU the next Saturday. LSU also would lose its open date that weekend prior to the Alabama game the following Saturday.A Nov. 19 makeup date would require both teams to buy out existing non-conference games: Florida against Presbyterian and LSU against South Alabama. Playing that day in Gainesville would require LSU to lose a home game, which is a point of contention in a Baton Rouge area whose economy was hammered by Augusts historic floods.Both teams remain among the contenders in their respective division races, and as SEC rules dictate, the winner in each will be determined by in-conference winning percentage even if LSU and Florida fail to reschedule the game.Sankey acknowledged that a cancellation would impact the integrity of the division races, although he did not offer a timetable on when a makeup decision will be made.We want to make sure we evaluate it, Sankey said. I would like to move this along as efficiently as possible, but Id be careful not to put a point in time where we can provide a definitive answer because there are a number of issues that have to be considered. But my desire is to see us play that game. ' ' '