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England test cricket

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Re: England test cricket

Post by blahblah »

baganboy wrote: 30 Aug 2017, 12:11 PS: Comment from an acquaintance on my facebook feed:

Ashes 2017/18 ~ Where the losers of Tests against West Indies & Bangladesh will square off.
I posted similar above :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Re: England test cricket

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I guess that too

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Re: England test cricket

Post by forestfan »

It's one thing to say we're unbalanced with "batting" all-rounders, but do we really have specialist bowlers who are significantly better?

No point dropping Moeen for a spinner who can't bat, just for the sake of balancing the side... said player might not contribute anything more with the ball and it would cost us a lot of runs. Likewise Stokes, whose batting dominates at the moment but he might yet go the way of Flintoff and see that pattern reverse as his career goes on. And again, is there a seamer who could replace him who would be worth more with ball alone to outweigh his batting (and fielding)? Also those two and Bairstow are impact players who can change a game in an hour, you can't easily replace that.

The fact we bat down to number 9 is our biggest strength, and allows us the flexibility to perhaps play six bowlers (and lose an ineffective top order batsman) if the situation allows.

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Re: England test cricket

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forestfan wrote: 30 Aug 2017, 19:38 The fact we bat down to number 9 is our biggest strength, and allows us the flexibility to perhaps play six bowlers (and lose an ineffective top order batsman) if the situation allows.
Isn't this the point? We are one off having a Raffle for bods from the crowd to bat at 2, 3 and 5?

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Re: England test cricket

Post by baganboy »

forestfan wrote: 30 Aug 2017, 19:38 It's one thing to say we're unbalanced with "batting" all-rounders, but do we really have specialist bowlers who are significantly better?

No point dropping Moeen for a spinner who can't bat, just for the sake of balancing the side... said player might not contribute anything more with the ball and it would cost us a lot of runs. Likewise Stokes, whose batting dominates at the moment but he might yet go the way of Flintoff and see that pattern reverse as his career goes on. And again, is there a seamer who could replace him who would be worth more with ball alone to outweigh his batting (and fielding)? Also those two and Bairstow are impact players who can change a game in an hour, you can't easily replace that.
My friend, that is Gerrard + Lampard thinking. You do not pick your XI best players, you pick the best team that you can make with XI players.
Moeen, Bairstow and Stokes are all impact players, who can all change a match in an hour, but wit the bat only! And three batting allrounders are too too too many.And then three batting allrounders and another bits and pieces bowling all rounder at 9 is just way way too many. Two bowlers, and four change bowlers?

forestfan wrote: 30 Aug 2017, 19:38 The fact we bat down to number 9 is our biggest strength, and allows us the flexibility to perhaps play six bowlers (and lose an ineffective top order batsman) if the situation allows.
Honestly, I don't think it is. The 40-average bowlers are not really bowlers - they are rest bowlers (primary job being to provide rest to the main bowlers). When your two excellent, but aging bowlers are not firing, or when one of your ~40 average rest-bowlers are not having a freak good day, you are not bowling teams out. Moeen and Stokes and Bairstow are batsmen - that they can turn their arms over well (and YJB keep), is a good thing. But their job is to bat. And that is what they will train on and get better at. Stokes - citing a simple example, can be a proper match-winning bowler, sure. But he is not one yet, and will not be one either if he continues to target becoming Jacques Kallis rather than Richard Hadlee.
Today's England set-up would have turned Stuart Broad into Woakes - a competent bowler, who hits 50+ scores ever so often - in effect a bits and pieces cricketer; instead of a bona-fide tail-ender who had been a genuine match winner for England for a decade - and however much I dislike him, an all-time great. There seems to be almost a demand on Woakes to become a better batsman, unlike for Starc and Jadeja, two people who are born with about the same level of natural batting skills as Woakes. Ask me who I would rather have in my team.
Wriddhiman Saha is the best wicketkeeper at Test level in the world. He would never get into the England squad. A similarly good keeper that you've got - Ben Foakes, is how far away from a test cap? not that India does not have good batsmen keepers (and even excluding the all time great that is Dhoni) - Dinesh Karthik is one of the highest run scorers in the domestic tournament. Parthiv Patel is a better bat than Saha and a solid keeper, and young Rishabh Pant is ... remember that name.
I am not saying that we are doing anything great. Or that Australia is doing anything great. I am just highlighting that England, indeed, has more talent that either India or Australia. Three quality allrounders - and you have not figured out how to use them. The answer is not them batting at 6, 7 and 8. And another bits and pieces allrounder at 9. You have too many rest-bowlers, and too few match winners with the ball.


The best recent English bowling attack had four bowlers and one bowling allrounder. Harmison, Hoggard, Flintoff, Jones and Giles.
Test cricket is won by taking 20 wickets. Tests are saved by having batsmen up to no 9.
India is playing Ashwin, a bowling allrounder at no.6 to fit in 5 test-quality bowlers to be a more aggressive test playing unit. Australia is playing their wicketkeeper at no. 6 to fit in 5 test quality bowlers.
And England, the most blessed in terms of pure talent of the three, who has three all - time greats in their team and one who would soon be one - is playing a batsman at no 9. Much is the sorrow.

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Re: England test cricket

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Said too much perhaps. very passionate about test cricket.

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Re: England test cricket

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baganboy wrote: 30 Aug 2017, 21:02 Said too much perhaps. very passionate about test cricket.
Passionate about Test cricket as it was played in the 1980s :wink:

Specialist wicketkeepers are history, it's just a fielding position that one of your batsmen has to be able to do competently.

Name an England qualified spinner who would average substantially less than 40? There isn't one. If we didn't have Moeen I'd advocate not playing a spinner at all at home.

And Woakes, well he looked like a bits and pieces player at first, but the past year or two he's looked a genuine Test bowler. He bowled crap in the last match because he didn't have the match fitness and rhythm having missed most of the season. The fact he has an FC batting average of 36.5 with 9 centuries and we can bat him at 9 is just a bonus!

If all these were replaced with one-dimensional players we would be the weakest of the Test nations right now. Remember the tail we had in the late 90s - Read, Caddick, Mullally, Giddins, Tufnell. 5 down, effectively all out. No coincidence we dropped to last in the rankings.

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Re: England test cricket

Post by baganboy »

forestfan wrote: 30 Aug 2017, 21:09 Specialist wicketkeepers are history, it's just a fielding position that one of your batsmen has to be able to do competently.
A complete myth, that.
Wriddhiman Saha averages 30 with the bat. Marc Boucher averaged 29. They would never play test cicket as batsmen. They play(ed) for absolute crack teams.
The three great batsmen/wicketkeepers - Gilchrist, Dhoni and Sangakkara, were all wicketkeepers right from their school days - and either have pristine keeping technique ( Sangakkara), or are very innovative keepers and didn't drop many (Gilchrist, Dhoni), due to them having honed their unorthodox keeping skills through their careers as specialist keepers.
The team which had replaced their proper keeper, one of the best of all time, with a glorified long stop, was one of the worst English teams in one of the worst English cricketing decades. Here's to the quaint excellence of Jack Russell.
forestfan wrote: 30 Aug 2017, 21:09 Name an England qualified spinner who would average substantially less than 40? There isn't one. If we didn't have Moeen I'd advocate not playing a spinner at all at home.
I think you are again looking at it from the wrong angle. Swann had decent batting technique, but did not focus on his batting, but instead only on his bowling. This gave England its best spinner since Jim Laker. If he were an Aussie, Adil Rashid would bat at no.11, and always play and not be replaced by Moeen, and become Nathan Lyon. If he were an Aussie, Mason Crane would, too. If he were an Englishman, Nathan Lyon not play, and be replaced by Ashton Agar - who would score 20 more runs than Lyon, and would provide welcome relief to Starc and Hazlewood when they tire.
forestfan wrote: 30 Aug 2017, 21:09 If all these were replaced with one-dimensional players we would be the weakest of the Test nations right now. Remember the tail we had in the late 90s - Read, Caddick, Mullally, Giddins, Tufnell. 5 down, effectively all out. No coincidence we dropped to last in the rankings.
YOu got it wrong again, my friend. Read should have been persisted with. Caddick won you matches at a time when the English team had zero batsmen who averaged 40. Mullally being a poor batsman did not matter, that he was not a Test Quality bowler did. Ditto Giddins. Tufnell was over-rated as a bowler, but he too won you matches. You had poor batsmen then. nobody in your top 6 batsmen averaged 40 - right now, you have one who averages 46, and one who averages 53. You had decent bowlers then. Gough and Caddick. They won you matches. You have far better bowlers now - Anderson and Broad are all-time greats.
YOu had much, much less talent in the 80s and 90s. YOu won matches because your specialists (who are weaker than your current specialists) performed to get you such wins. Caddick won you matches. Thorpe won you matches. Tufnell won you matches. Another off spinner who was brought into the team for his batting, Emburey, also won you nothing.

In the dream Australia team of the 90s and 2000s, who batted at no.8? Shane Warne, with a batting average of 17.
In the invincible WI team of the 70s and 80s, who batted at no 8? Malcolm Marshall, with a batting average of 18.
In the best ever India team, 1995-2010 - which went toe to toe with the vaunted Aussies, who batted at no 8? Harbhajan singh, batting average of 18 (or) Anil Kumble, batting average of 17.

Tell me this. What is the cause and what is the effect? Is it because Woakes focuses a heck of a lot on his test batting average of 32 (and there is a limited amount of training hours yada yada yada), that his test bowling levels seem to have plateaued. Or is there such a dearth of good bowlers in the english team that the third best bowler in the whole country (and Ireland and Scotland) is Chris Woakes? Even in the 90s, the third best bowler you had was either Devon Malcolm or Angus Fraser. Just in the last decade and a half, you had Harmison, Hoggard, Jones, Anderson, Swann, Panesar, Flintoff, Broad, even Ryan Sidebottom. Pure bowlers. Good bowlers. What happened?

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Re: England test cricket

Post by forestfan »

Well, a rather crappy looking Ashes squad overshadowed by the Stokes incident.

Video of the fight just released, doesn't look good, though rumours of strong provocation. But he (and his team-mates, Hales possibly not the only one there) shouldn't have got into that sort of situation, and in the middle of an international series as well.

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Re: England test cricket

Post by foxinthebox2001 »

Got a bit of a temper, those gingers.
Its their celtic roots.
If he does go on the Ashes trip, he will become the no.1 target for what passes for sledging these days.

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Re: England test cricket

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On the basis of that video I would hope Stokes is locked up all the way through the Ashes and beyond.

Whatever had gone on before those two guys were backing away and he has smashed one to the deck.

Absolute idiot.

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Re: England test cricket

Post by forestfan »

Yeah, he's ruined everything for us... just as it looked like we might finally get Stokes, Woakes and Foakes in the same team :wink:

We were going to lose the Ashes anyway with that heap of shite top order, now the selectors will have a convenient excuse.

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Re: England test cricket

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6. Bairstow
7. Ali
8. Woakes

Then play another bowler alongside Broad & Anderson who will suit conditions.

May as well chuck Crane in to start with and see how he goes.

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Re: England test cricket

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Edmondson wrote: 28 Sep 2017, 20:09 6. Bairstow
7. Ali
8. Woakes

Then play another bowler alongside Broad & Anderson who will suit conditions.

May as well chuck Crane in to start with and see how he goes.
Expect that's what they will go with... in terms of the 6, 7, 8 anyway.

Can't see them going with Crane though, two spinners in Australia? He's there to get experience and carry the drinks. They're risking a Kerrigan scenario if they throw him in for the sake of it. Expect they will go with either Ball or Overton depending on who goes best in the warm-up matches, but extra batsman is an option if they don't feel they need four seamers in a particular match.

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Re: England test cricket

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Latest warm up game, Ball off injured, Overton (who was possibly Plan A) not pulling up any trees and 3 wickets for Crane.

With Finn out of the tour, maybe Curran an option, but I would honestly think Crane will cause more problems than an inexperienced seamer coming on first or second change, who could just go around the park.

1. Cook
2. Stoneman
3. Vince
4. Root c
5. Malan
6. Bairstow wk
7. Ali
8. Woakes
9. Broad
10. Crane
11. Anderson

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Re: England test cricket

Post by baganboy »

Fine team you got there. As a neutral, that team will get me to marginally support England over Australia. Leggie, Offie, two all-time great bowlers, and a workhorse. That's fine by me.

Hoping for, and looking forward to a competitive Ashes. Winter early mornings, a hot cup of coffee, and the Ashes on the telly. Wonderful.

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Re: England test cricket

Post by foxinthebox2001 »

The BT sport commentary team look a bit bland compared to the Sky crew.
Apart from Lord Boycott.
Shame they couldn't tempt Bumble to cross channels, Swanny, Vaughn and Ponting are dull as dishwater.

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Re: England test cricket

Post by liquidfootball2 »

Trouble is that without Stokes, England are like a table with a length sawn off a single leg: no matter how you work on the other legs, the table will never be quite stable again. All the drinking bouts and vagrant headbutts in the world won't in the end obscure that.

Gideon Haigh, respected Australian journalist

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Re: England test cricket

Post by baganboy »

Brag alert. Gideon Haigh was in India a couple of weeks ago, BTW, and I got a chance to take a 15-min interview of him.

Good to see you around liquidfootball

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Re: England test cricket

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liquidfootball2 wrote: 28 Nov 2017, 12:20 Trouble is that without Stokes, England are like a table with a length sawn off a single leg: no matter how you work on the other legs, the table will never be quite stable again. All the drinking bouts and vagrant headbutts in the world won't in the end obscure that.

Gideon Haigh, respected Australian journalist
And that is without mentioning the tail :?

If Cook doesn't get runs it could be very, very bad. I saw all days, but either first or last sessionish: and it was only the flatness of the pitch (initially) that made it close, imho. Admittedly without the Cummins innings it wouldn't have been so bad, but it would still have been a defeat, imho.

Any chance in Adelaide, where (allegedly) it will seam about a bit - plus whatever happens when dusk drops over there?

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Re: England test cricket

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Well, the popular view has always been that it’s our best chance of winning one.

I think the worst part of the performance was effectively throwing in the towel and losing by 10 wickets, when for three days it was an even contest. And the England players need to give as good as they get in terms of sledging, intimidatory bowling etc. even if it ends up with a Michael Crabtree/Aqib Talib scenario...

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Re: England test cricket

Post by blahblah »

re Adelaide: but why? Swing or seam? Or both?

The pitch got harder\bouncier and the batsmen couldn't cope from what I saw.

Cook+Root vs Warner+Smith went badly wrong; the bowlers similarly once it hardened; and the Aussie tail stuffed ours with the bat. I can't see how enough of that is going to change, without an English style strip (I mean wicket\pitch :lol: )

the big plus was Root selecting good (Ie unorthodox) fields but that seemed to evaporate? (I didn't watch every ball....)

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Re: England test cricket

Post by liquidfootball2 »

I've already posted this in fantasy cricket's 'Rootin' for Joe' thread, but i'm not entirely sure which is the main thread for English test cricket now. Maybe the other thread is more of a fantasy cricket game thread, i have therefore posted it here also. Apologies for such repetition, perhaps test match posts go here, the two be amalgamated or one archived?

............



England used to treat white ball cricket as very much an afterthought, five day tests were the truest form of the game and England soared.

Andy Flower was the coach, Andrew Strauss the captain when England won 3-1 in Australia in 2010-11, England's first success down under since 1987. Strauss also led England to number one in the Test rankings later in same year.

Arguably Alastair Cook was an even more successful test captain than Strauss, even if the team were never ever quite able to reach their number one ranking again. Surprise series victories in India and South Africa, plus two Ashes series wins were notable highpoints.

But while the test team largely prospered the one-day team was largely woeful, white ball cricket was a second or fourth best, a very poor relation.

His playing days behind him, Andrew Strauss took over the reigns of the top managerial post at the EWCB and almost immediately began addressing the steps needed to rebalance the focus.

With the popularity of the shorter forms of the game and cricket's almost complete dependency on them for both it's commercial, and at least from a global perspective it's financial future, England had to do something to improve both their attitude and their results..

Enter the coach perfectly suited to turning it all around. Trevor Bayliss came with a huge and largely deserved reputation as a world class one-day specialist having been truly outstanding with Sri Lanka.

Today Bayliss has indeed turned it around, England have really made very substantial progress and their team is certainly exciting and competitive, even at the very highest level.

England today sit right at the top of the ODI rankings but has there been a cost and a too heavy price to pay?

Of course there doesn't have to be any reason at all why a team can't prosper in all versions of the game, other teams have done exactly that. Is it however just a remarkable coincidence that under Bayliss' watch, England have made such giant strides in the shorter forms just as their fortunes in the longer test match arena have gone into an alarming and rapid decline?

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Re: England test cricket

Post by forestfan »

Well, the focus on one-day cricket is one problem, but no reason why we shouldn’t be good at both. Different coaches would be a start.

The problems are deeper rooted though (no pun intended!) In particular the marginalisation of the County Chanpionship into spring and autumn and the watering down of the quality, meaning it no longer produces Test-ready players. Also the paywalling of televised cricket over a decade ago means there’s a smaller pool of interested youngsters. There’s no quick solutions, and Test cricket can’t survive a weak England (or Australia) for any length of time in this day and age, as they’re the only countries where it is commercially viable.

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Re: England test cricket

Post by liquidfootball2 »

forestfan wrote: 27 May 2018, 20:55 .....the paywalling of televised cricket over a decade ago means there’s a smaller pool of interested youngsters. .

Yes there may be a smaller pool of interested youngsters, although even that's arguable as a reason for our decline in test cricket.

Historically in this country most of our really talented cricketing youngsters, as opposed to just youngsters interested in the game, come from families already interested even steeped in the game, either through public schools and then University cricket or the leagues and clubs in areas they've traditionally been strong, and then eventually through the counties themselves. Unlike football, cricket has never really had that same mass appeal in this country and was for decades burdened with a version of our class system right up to the sixties officially, but in effect beyond.

It was never a sport of mass appeal in this country as far as participation went.

Obviously in Lancashire Yorkshire and other counties where League cricket thrived the game did reach all social classes and was far more widely popular. Nottinghamshire too and other counties were similar, but the Gentlemen vs Players was still an annual fixture played at Lord's right up until the mid sixties and amateur captains were still extremely common.

Far more recently England's test resurgence coincided with the paywalling of cricket (it wasn't imo directly either dramatically helped or hindered by it) and a lot of their most successful periods and peaks came arguably a long long time afterwards.

Their resurgence in the more popular forms of the game and their rise to the number one ranking is extremely recent, in fact they've only just been the number one ranked nation since the start of this very month.

If television viewing of only the test version of the game was under a paywall while the white ball versions were not, then there might be something in this but imo there are just far too many holes for it to be so considered.

Some of England's really low periods, and i mean as low as they come in the 90s, were when cricket was televised on free to air and an awful lot their best periods and moments, and more of them, since it hasn't been.

The money has poured into grassroots cricket and increased substantially, and while some forms of the game prosper and others don't then it's the other areas and reasons you've mentioned in your post which are far more likely to have merit imo, for me this seems a red herring.

One day white ball cricket in most countries is the lifeblood of the game and while I'm a traditionalist and prefer the longer game, I'm very much in the minority.

Test cricket is popular in only selected countries, and then more often than not only particular series. County cricket has been chopped and changed, reformatted and moved about far too often but still only attracts negligible crowds and virtually no TV coverage at all. The game needs one day cricket to survive, the four day game suffers as a result domestically and the longer version internationally likewise.

We may not be that many decades away from the abandonment of test cricket for all but a few series, and being proficient at the white ball game may be all that's needed in the future, if so then maybe England are heading in the right direction :D , but that's all for another day.

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Re: England test cricket

Post by forestfan »

The paywall situation takes a decade or more to feed through - those who don’t see it on TV in childhood will lead to a thinning of the talent pool 10 or 15 years later, and I think we’ve now hit that.

The structural issues with county cricket are the biggest thing for the current Test side though, playing in April and September means mediocre medium pace swing bowling will dominate, there’s no incentive for developing pace and spin, and batsmen are stuck in the “I must score some runs quickly as there will soon be a ball with my name on it” mentality. None of which helps develop Test players. Add to that the clampdown on Kolpakkers and older players, well it might have increased the number of England qualified players but has watered down the quality and made the game much softer.

I’m still not sure the shorter formats would survive for long on their own, even if they are now cricket’s financial goldmine... it can be entertaining but 99% of it is just so instantly forgettable.

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Re: England test cricket

Post by blahblah »

Three players not named by Al Jazerah(sp) tonight as well as 2 Aussies for betting offences.

I think it was Tuffnell who said "maybe they are not as good as they\we think". How long has it been since "England" has had a top 5 or 6? Broad and Anderson are great, but only in the right conditions. When did they have back up or replacements when conditions don't suit them?

How many care as it's on Sky\BT? It seems that the batsmen don't care about their wickets....

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Re: England test cricket

Post by liquidfootball2 »

forestfan wrote: 28 May 2018, 00:39 The paywall situation takes a decade or more to feed through - those who don’t see it on TV in childhood will lead to a thinning of the talent pool 10 or 15 years later, and I think we’ve now hit that.

The structural issues with county cricket are the biggest thing for the current Test side though, playing in April and September means mediocre medium pace swing bowling will dominate, there’s no incentive for developing pace and spin, and batsmen are stuck in the “I must score some runs quickly as there will soon be a ball with my name on it” mentality. None of which helps develop Test players. Add to that the clampdown on Kolpakkers and older players, well it might have increased the number of England qualified players but has watered down the quality and made the game much softer.

I’m still not sure the shorter formats would survive for long on their own, even if they are now cricket’s financial goldmine... it can be entertaining but 99% of it is just so instantly forgettable.

There have always been richer and poorer counties in the game, with eighteen counties of very different sizes thats perhaps inevitable. Accompanying this however there has also always been a large disparity in their ability to generate income and hence remain viable.

A few counties these days are literally on life support and dependent for their very existence on central handouts and milking the cash cow that is one day cricket.

The handouts from the EWCB are largely dependent on the financial well being of the game and consequently the most lucrative forms of the game as well as the huge television and commercial revenue without which the county structure would completely collapse.

Whether we like it or not, one day cricket is prominent and it's these versions which are likely to stay the preeminent forms of the game for raising revenue throughout the cricketing world. Inevitably domestically that entails coping with knock on effects for a championship which still comprises eighteen counties, albeit in two divisions. Whether we should even try to maintain as many as eighteen counties when some have been almost permanently on the breadline for decades is another question.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the paywall being anything other than a small effect at the margins.

Yes, it does take time to work through but even that hardly stands up. We are now right at the top in the more popular forms of the game while struggling in the longer version, and some of our very worst sides and times in test cricket (in the 90's) predated sky's exclusive coverage by some distance.

The one day game has not been an exception it has not alone been televised free to air. However i did point out at length why this for me is a total red herring.

The vast majority of county players are now available for England, while there are kolpak players there is no predominance of current big overseas test stars as in decades past. The county game is poorer for it but the IPL, Big Bash and other twenty20 tournaments throughout the year claim most of these, undoubtedly another consequence of the now dominant forms of the game.

You were exactly right in a previous post, there are in effect no easy fixes or 'cure alls' to be had. Any attempt to move the County Championship away from its current split fixtures will meet with stiff opposition from those very same counties. The primary objective and priority for some will always be accommodating the one day versions and maximising the potential revenue from them. Until the voting structure to enforce change is radically altered, change will be slow and probably opposed at every turn, to use a tired old cliché, turkeys won't vote for Christmas.

Changing the players radically isn't much of an option, as you yourself have pointed out - the four day county game as it is currently constituted when played in two blocks - one so early and the other so late in the season, is just not suited for purpose at the current time and is highly unlikely to turn out much better.

We are left with the inevitable and only possible immediate step, namely to have two separate coaches and coaching staffs. Let Trevor Bayliss continue the remarkable progress he's made with our white ball cricket but recognize he's not getting his message across at all at test level, he has no record to speak of in the longer version and is proving wanting, so get someone who has.

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forestfan
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Re: England test cricket

Post by forestfan »

The trouble with prioritising one-day cricket is that if we don’t win the World Cup it will all have been a waste. Nobody remembers who won bilateral one-day series, they’re just a sideshow really. That’s why I’m not sure cricket without the longer game would have much future, outside of India at least. The international game would fizzle out without Tests at the pinnacle, and it would be just a tiresome circus of sloggers-for-rent travelling the world playing for whatever artificial franchise threw money at them for a couple of months’ work.

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Re: England test cricket

Post by liquidfootball2 »

forestfan wrote:
........That’s why I’m not sure cricket without the longer game would have much future, outside of India at least. The international game would fizzle out without Tests at the pinnacle, and it would be just a tiresome circus of sloggers-for-rent travelling the world playing for whatever artificial franchise threw money at them for a couple of months’ work.
Although i'm very much a traditionalist and i suspect in total sympathy with your views, i'm afraid i see it as rather the reverse.

The future for me of world cricket and therefore our own, looks very much the shorter formats, and again much to my obvious regret, test cricket i suspect is a dying form of the game.

India is very much the dynamo and driving force on which the game depends. There it's virtually universally popular, has mass appeal and the people follow every twist and turn, it's tournament's provide most of the cash and are followed almost fanatically by millions.

North America is the great untapped market, and with so many ex pat West Indians plus a large Asian population, it's exactly those forms of the game so popular 'at home' which seem far better suited to any eventual breakthrough.

For me test cricket is very much dependent on one-day cricket for any future at all, but I think that future is likely to be very limited indeed.

A future filled with one-day cricket at both franchise and international level is for me a nightmare scenario, but unfortunately one I can forsee as the most realistic and in relative terms, sooner rather than later.
Last edited by liquidfootball2 on 28 May 2018, 20:07, edited 3 times in total.

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