stone for Associate Member teams that currently compete

NEW YORK -- It was on a US Open practice court where, if you were especially intuitive, there were signs last year that Serena Williams was headed for an unhappy ending to her quest of completing the seventh calendar-year Grand Slam in the history of the game.It wasnt necessarily what she did that day, tossing and serving for well over an hour -- first from the deuce court, then from the ad and over to a different court for more of the same.It was more of what drove her there and the purposefulness with which she marched over directly after her match. Williams would later admit to being nervous during her eventual second-round victory against the 110th-ranked player in the world, a match in which she would squeak out a first-set tiebreaker 7-5, after committing eight double faults and 26 unforced errors in the opening set.She would close the match out 6-3 in the second; the match point was not accompanied by anything close to the shrieks heard that afternoon but rather utter silence, a disgusted look and an eye roll. She later characterized it as not one of my happiest moments.At that point, Williams was already tired of the questions and seemingly tired of the grind. Tired of being tired. She even all but demanded that any inquiries with the words Grand Slam in them cease. And when she lost in a semifinal shocker to Roberta Vinci, the 43rd-ranked player in the world playing her first career Slam semi, Serena blew through a four-minute news conference and left the grounds.You could hardly blame her. But back in the second round here Thursday against 27-year-old American Vania King, Williams mood was decidedly different.I think Im more relaxed, for sure, Williams said this earlier this week.While not exactly operating under the proverbial radar, Serena is trying to win just her second Slam in a row after prevailing at Wimbledon and only trying to surpass Steffi Grafs record of 22 career majors.And while King is an 87th-ranked wildcard who succumbed to Serena in their only previous meeting, 6-1, 6-0 in 56 minutes in the 2014 US Open, you suspect Williams opponent, as always, has very little to do with the outcome.While Serena is still dealing with a shoulder issue that had her going for placement rather than speed on her serves in her 6-3, 6-3 first-round win over Ekaterina Makarova, there is considerably less emotional weight on both shoulders this year.In 2015, Williams played 17 three-setters going into the Open in 10 tournaments, plus two rounds of Fed Cup; she won 16 of those three-set matches. This year, there have been five three-setters in seven tournaments, including the Olympics. She lost that third-round encounter to 20th-ranked Elina Svitolina in straight sets on Aug. 9, her last match before New York.Even with the shoulder concerns, Williams was asked, is this US Open already a more pleasant experience?I was going for something that no one has done in a really long time, she said of last year. Yeah, it didnt end wonderful for me or the way I wanted it to end. But it was all I could do. Thats all I could do.While the three-set victories were a testament to her competitive toughness, the off-court battle turned out to be a considerably tougher one. After the 2015 Open, she cited a broken heart from her loss to Vinci in addition to other injuries and subsequently announced she was withdrawing from three tournaments, including the WTA Finals.Williams coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, said the motivation just wasnt there, and it was the only sensible decision. And this year, while Serena, who is weeks short of her 35th birthday, said she would have preferred to play more coming into the final Grand Slam of the year, she is trying to be optimistic.There is nothing we can do about it, she said. You just have to make the best of every single opportunity. Thats all I can do now.Usually, thats more than enough. Cheap Nike React Ireland . The showiest items on Calgarys lot were forwards Mike Cammalleri and Lee Stempniak. Both will be unrestricted free agents this summer. Nike React Ireland .875,000, avoiding arbitration. Clippards deal Monday means all eight Nationals players who filed for arbitration wound up settling before a hearing. http://www.cheapnikereactireland.com/ . Dusautoir, the former World Player of the Year, sustained a torn bicep playing for Toulouse in the Heineken Cup on Saturday. The flanker, who has played 65 times for France, is expected to be out for up to four months. Nike React Running Shoes Ireland . A knee to the thigh might have stung him the most, but his sixth straight double-double made up for the brief burst of pain. Nike React For Sale Ireland . At a news conference Tuesday where it was thought that the fiery Schallibaum may be shown the door after a dismal finish to the Major League Soccer season, team president Joey Saputo said no decision has been made on whether the Swiss Volcano will be back in 2014. The ICC recently set aside a proposal to divide Test cricket into two tiers.The idea of dividing Test-playing nations into two leagues is often accompanied by a proposal to turn bilateral Test tours into components of a larger league. It is not clear why spectators would be more likely to watch a Test match today because it is part of a Test championship where the title will be awarded three years from now. The argument about context seems to be little more than a rhetorical device for justifying the shrinking of the highest level of cricket to a competition among seven teams. Though the proposal has been shelved for now, the actions of crickets administrators in recent years suggest that under the guise of making the game more competitive, Test cricket will eventually be reduced to a smaller competition.In the 21st century, as cricket has become a lucrative commodity for television broadcasters, no board has been able to resist the temptation to shape things in a way that suits the interests of broadcasters. This is especially true about T20, the most lucrative format, one made for TV.Since the first T20 game was played in 2003, the number of matches played each year has grown. This growth spurt peaked in 2013, when 731 T20 matches were played globally. In January 2016, 180 T20 matches were played, the most in a single month to date. Further increases in T20 cricket are proposed. In June 2016, the BCCI announced plans for a mini-IPL. A new city-based T20 league is also planned in England. This will probably be in addition to the existing 133-match domestic T20 tournament that features county teams.T20 started out as a seasonal game. From 2003 to 2009, about 60% of all T20 games were played in the four months from April through July. This pattern changed in the period from 2010 to 2015, when T20 games were distributed more evenly through the year.This has had an effect on Test and ODI cricket. A total of 1009 ODIs were played from 2003 to 2009 (144 per year), and 781 were played in 2010-15 (130 per year). Both periods included two World Cup tournaments. If we consider ODI matches featuring only the top eight Test-playing nations (setting aside matches involving Bangladesh for the sake of even comparison), 84 matches per year were played from 2003 to 09, 75 in 2010-15.Test cricket has been similarly affected. A total of 309 Tests were played in 2003-09 (44 per year), 252 in 2010-15 (42 per year). If you consider only matches featuring Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies, New Zealand and South Africa, 69 were played in 2003-09 (about ten per year), 54 in 2010-15 (nine per year). Considering matches involving only India, Australia and England, 40 Tests were played in 2003-09 (5.7 per year), 47 were played in 2010-15 (7.8 per year). Since his Test debut in November 2010, Kane Williamson has played 52 Tests. In the same period Alastair Cook has played 73.While the five smaller established nations - South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and West Indies, have played less Test cricket among themselves in 2010-15 compared to 2003-09, the record is the opposite in ODI cricket. From 2003 to 2009, they averaged 24 ODIs per year. In 2010-15, this increased to 26 ODIs per year.International cricket has been mauled by the pressure of T20 into featuring the more lucrative short-form games. It is important to remember that this does not mean Test cricket does not generate revenue. However, given the existence of highly lucrative shorter forms, the incentive to play less lucrative forms is reduced.If Test cricket is divided into two tiers, and if the top tier is designed to include seven teams, it will effectively mean shrinking Test cricket from a ten-team sport to a seven-team sport. This will codify and accelerate a process that, as the data shows, began early this decade. The Big Three - India, Australia and England - have played a larger share of Tests than before.dddddddddddd They also host the biggest T20 leagues. The star players from the five second-tier Test-playing nations will be easily lured away by various T20 franchises. Most crucially, whereas T20 leagues today have to compete with a ten-team Test match sport, they will effectively have to compete with only a seven-team sport. Imagine being one of top eight established nations relegated to the second-tier Test league. It effectively means being banned from quality Test match competition for one league cycle. For many players, it could mean the end of their Test careers.If a tier system has to be created, it should not depend on splitting the existing set of Test teams. At worst, perhaps Zimbabwe could be the lead team of the second tier, which could involve teams ranked 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 in the world, with the possibility of one team moving up or down following a play-off. That would genuinely expand the game. It would give at least three to four teams in this second tier a realistic chance for promotion. It will also protect the established Test nations from the danger of relegation, which could prove catastrophic to their prospects as a Test-playing power. Existing Test nations must be protected from the vicious cycle of not getting games, becoming worse as a result, and then not getting games because they are worse than they used to be.It is not clear how the purpose of growing the game will be served if the highest, most difficult level is practised by fewer teams than before. It is true that Bangladesh v England at Lords is likely to be one-sided in the short term (or even in the medium term), but Bangladesh will benefit from the experience, just as India, Pakistan and New Zealand did from the many tours they undertook in the years after World War II.Conventional wisdom has it that T20 is a gateway drug to cricket. It is a method to introduce the game to new audiences and potential playing populations. The evidence suggests that it has played out the other way. Cricket has been the gateway drug to T20. T20 leagues came into being because all the ingredients for making profits were already in place thanks to decades of cricket.Cricket did not develop in India because it was a popular sport for the masses. It developed because there was a critical mass of organised clubs in the big cities of British India (and later independent India). These clubs were organised into a board, which in turn organised bigger tournaments and put together a representative team whose exploits made the sport popular in other parts of the country. The possibility of playing tier-two Test cricket would be an ideal stepping stone for Associate Member teams that currently compete in tournaments like the Intercontinental Cup. Just like with clubs in Mumbai or Colombo, given the opportunity, clubs in Associate member countries could learn to produce competitive representative teams. If these teams are successful, it is possible that they will be popular. This will eventually invite private investors. Private enterprise typically takes root only in conditions where the likelihood of success is already reasonably high.A two-tier system along the lines of the proposal that has been shelved for now will probably serve the short-term interests of the established boards. A greater concentration of highly competitive games will mean more money in TV contracts the next time these are negotiated. Does the reduction of the games highest form to a competition between seven teams serve any purpose beyond gaining a few extra percentage points in revenue in the next TV contract negotiations? Administrators ought to keep one eye on where they would like cricket to be in, say, 2050 and weigh that against the benefits of a few extra dollars in 2019. ' ' '