New Sky Sports Low

good write up in last weeks mail about broadcasters trying to convince the public that womens football,rugby,cricket etc is highly skilled nearly equal of the mens,when in reality most of it is absolute shoite,he equated the cricket to a very ,.very good club cricketer facing a test match fast bowler and not even seeing the ball flash by never mind putting a bat on it

how fast do women bowl in Cricket compared to the men's? can they bowl up to 90mph?

One of the Saffers managed to get over the 70 mph mark, but most of the seamers bowl at the same sort of pace Michael Yardy used to send down his off breaks.

To be fair, Anya Shrubsole's hooping inswingers would be a bigger threat to any batsman than Michael Yardy.

You really have to go to one of these women's cricket internationals to appreciate just how bad the standard is in general though. I went to the Eng vs Pak ODI at Taunton a year or two ago, and simply had to leave, because it felt so embarrassing to watch. Where do you look when yet another Pak fielder "runs" after the ball like a ... well, like a girl, then refuses not just to dive, but even bend over enough to pick the ball up before it trickles to the boundary?

The only relief is that the boundary rope is brought in so far, she can't see or hear the spectators groaning and laughing.

I know all this looks bad on the box, but in real life, where you have the whole scene as context, it looks way worse.

I went to the Aus vs WI one at Taunton this year to see whether it was just me being prejudiced prejudiced, and it was no better. Elysse Perry is a truly awful bowler. I mean, any bloke, cricketer or not, who couldn't score off that sort of 60 mph filth must have a physical problem. And the general attitude of the W Indians was a disgrace. Morose, thoughtless and generally unable to appreciate why they should be making an effort.

The only men's team I've ever seen at Taunton as comparably bad in attitude was India in 2011.

the power differential in women's cricket seems to provide a very convenient smokescreen for the low skill levels.

there are some talented players on the international circuit but the depth is very shallow. A poster on the cricket forum shared the story of how last year an U-15 (presumably county) side destroyed a women's KIA Super league (t20 women's league side) in a warm up match. The U-15 boys side weren't even taking it seriously (players retiring, everyone having a bowl).

I'd like to know what a keen 14 year old talented girl cricketer thought of the WWC coverage. Because there's a bit of me that thinks that pretending it's good or elite standard, when it's visibly not, is ultimately exceedingly patronising and a little bit sexist......

I can only imagine the crowds are quite poor as well as TV audience figures. It does seem to tough a sell along with women's Rugby.

Womens's tennis is probably the flag bearer for women's sports in terms of marketability, audience share and recognised stars amongst the general public, but even then there are only about 2-3 max worldwide. Serena/Venus/Sharapova.  There's only so much sport you can watch and the men's sports saturates coverage for women's sport to ever really compete.

Having said that, there is a way to circumnavigate that in some instances...I do think that it is possible that women could compete alongside men in certain sports...F1 and Snooker for one.

There were quite a few watching at Taunton, but a lot seemed to be related to the players or officials in some way, or were schoolchildren and teachers bussed in on freebies. I suspect the paying spectators comprised literally one man and his dog (i.e. me and the pet hound). A poor show, when you consider that even 4-day matches attract an average gate of a couple of thousand there.

I suspect the women's game will take off though, on account of India reaching the Final. All the Indian spectator seems to ask for is to appear on a big screen jumping up and down holding a piece of cardboard. As for the sport in the background, as long as enough matches can be fixed for India to obtain some occasional silverware, then they seem to enjoy themselves regardless of what's actually going on.

Different world now with X-Box football games, gone are the days of hanging around the arcades in Blackpool playing dodge the paedo.

2 men and a dog watching the winner of the womens british open coming home

the head of BBC sport is a strident feminist so no wonder she has an agenda to inflict more & more of this garbage on us,even trivial stuff like reading the womens football results as the first item on R5 sports bulletin.i Actually like womens tennis because the rallies can be better,less serve dominated,but mccenro was dead right when he said serena wouldnt be in top 700 in mens tennis,completely different game

I think it was Kim clusters who took a year out from tennis had a baby and came back to win the us open I think, says it all really.

Clusters ffs

Clusters even

Ffs clusters need to put my fingers on a diet

Clijsters

Yes Kim clijsters won 2009 us open on only her third tournament start after a two year break, enough said.

Easy for you to say !

Bit of a clijsterfijk really.

I've just seen that Sky Sports will be using Alan Pardew as one of their Premiership pundits.

How low can they go?