Another week has past in Australia where winter is supposed
to be coming, but like an annoying party guest, it arrived too early and is now
making itself at home while you busily try and clean the house.
The early cold has never made cricket seem so far away and
looking at matches proceeding in the West Indies and Bangladesh does little to
cheer me up. There have been a few other
issues in the Cricket World this week, but they’ve been pretty well covered
here, here, here, here and here.
I’m just dealing with the cold, man.
To help me deal with it, I’ve broken out the limited
addition Cricket Australia Monopoly set.
 |
| Almost as good as the real thing |
This triumph of marketing follows the guidelines of the
original game of Monopoly, but changes the street names to cricketers and the
Chance and Community Chest cards (renamed to ‘Test’ and ‘One Day’) etc to something
cricket related.
While entertaining, the game does raise a number of
questions, such as:
What is Dan Cullen
doing in there?
I’ve got nothing against Dan Cullen personally, but for a
representation of the best Cricketers of the era that the game was made, I
don’t think he is an appropriate inclusion.
 |
| 1 Test wicket? You're on there! |
Valuing him at $100, or on par with Shaun Tait (a large part
of Australia winning the 2007 World Cup) and Stuart Clark (fiercely underrated)
is also bizarre.
The Avenue of Legends
Having Don Bradman and Steve Waugh as the most expensive
properties (replacing Mayfair and Boardwalk) does make some sense, though The
Don is the only player on the board to pre-date Australia moving changing
currency to the Dollar.
Why exclude others like Warwick “The Big Ship” Armstrong,
Neil Harvey, Keith “Nugget” Miller or even the late Richie Benaud?
As for Steve Waughs inclusion, that should be a no-brainer,
but is his place in Australian cricket as entrenched as Don Bradman? Surely it would make more sense to do a
straight swap with Alan Border (of Alan Border Medal fame) as a Legendary
Captain (which replaced the Train stations)?
Value
I touched on this earlier, but the value put on players
seems to be whole heartedly out of touch with their value.
As mentioned, the asking price for Dan Cullen is $100,
whereas Stuart MacGill (208 Test wickets) and Brad Hogg (17 Test wickets, 156
ODI wickets & another big part of the 2007 World Cup winning team) is a
combined $120.
Michael Kasprowisz, who served Australia gallantly bowling
long overs in India and/or into the wind when Glenn McGrath didn’t want to, is
valued at $140 – which is parity with Jason Gillespie (199 Test Wickets and a
Test double century).
Suggestions
So, how to make my cold winter weekends less consternating
while playing the game? Well, I could
just talk to my family or do absolutely anything else, or I could dwell on this
like someone with too much time on their hands and try to work out a solution.
The solution I have come up with is to change the streets
from one era into many to create talking points and more interest, while also
dividing the streets into skillsets and specialists from different forms of the
game.
And here are my suggestions:
Go: Rename to
“Play”. It’s how the game starts.
Brown Streets:
The most useless and annoying. Should definitely be Shaun Marsh and Xavier
Doherty.
Light Blue: The
streets you end up saving your $200 for passing Go for once the game is in full
swing. Can sting you early. This should be the opening bowlers; DK
Lillee, Glenn McGrath and Ray Lindwall.
Jail: Should be
called The Long Room. You spend your
time in their waiting around to die after all.
Pink: A bright
colour should be represented by the best of the cricketers who wear colour, the
ODI representatives. In this instance we
go with Adam Gilchrist, Brett Lee and Dean Jones
Orange: One of
the better value streets on the board, which can ultimately win you the game
and fittingly represented by the Batsmen, being; Ricky Ponting, Steve Waugh and
Alan Border
Red: These
streets can really hurt you if you’ve already been punished by the batsman in
the Orange streets, so these are the middle-order bats, being Ian Harvey, Doug
Walters and Mike Hussey.
Yellow: The last
street you hit before you enter the finishing line and often one of the
costliest, this is represented by the spinners in Stuart MacGill, Bill “Tiger”
O’Reilly and Nathan Lyon (he does have 138 Test wickets)
Green: These are the second most expensive
Dark Blue: The
ritziest and most expensive properties on the street, these are represented by
equally flash cricketers or characters in Keith Miller and Kerry Packer
Train Stations:
Are a notable part of the game, so should be represented by notable characters
of the game. In this case, Warwick
Armstrong, Don Bradman, Richie Benaud and Shane Warne
The Utilities:
These enable the place to run, so are best represented by the Test and ODI
formats
Taxes: Simply
change them to Match fines.
Chance: The great
risk taker, Ian Chappel
Community Chest:
I was going to suggest Kerry Packer again here, but given the hit and miss
nature of these cards; lets go with T20 Cricket.
No comments:
Post a Comment