England batsmen, with the exception of Cook, play five day Tests like they do in limited over games. Throw their bat at everything. In one of the innings against Pakistan, Stokes stats were: balls received 10, runs 9, strike rate 90%. He was out caught next ball going for a boundary.
Cricket
- Thread starter summerisle
- Start date
Badge1878
Player Valuation: £8m
Lose at Headingley in the Test starting Friday - a ground we don’t have any great record at in recent years - England fall to sixth in the Test rankings. We are frail at batting department, too many changes in the top order....relied on Anderson & Broad for too long to take strike wickets, lack spinners who can apply pressure with any consistency, looked for the one off match winning performances from the likes of Stokes, now Butler for too long.
Test cricket has its place, played at the highest level, it’s an absorbing sport but too rarely do we see a match complete it’s fifth day unless weather has had its say. Central contracts, the riches on offer in the shorter format and dwindling interest in the County Championship has caught up with England. Long road back.
Test cricket has its place, played at the highest level, it’s an absorbing sport but too rarely do we see a match complete it’s fifth day unless weather has had its say. Central contracts, the riches on offer in the shorter format and dwindling interest in the County Championship has caught up with England. Long road back.
Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
The structural issues with county cricket are the largest obstacle to any improvement in the longer form of the game, 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.
Trevor Bayliss brought in to help both attitudes and results in the more popular forms of the game where England were truly dire and had been languishing for decades, has done this job admirably and we're now ranked number one in the World for ODIs.
The problem is he hasn't got his message across in the longer form of the game.
Why then this structure? Well financially it makes sense to a lot of counties...
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.
The vast majority of county players are now available for England, while there are no kolpak players and 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.
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, 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.
Trevor Bayliss brought in to help both attitudes and results in the more popular forms of the game where England were truly dire and had been languishing for decades, has done this job admirably and we're now ranked number one in the World for ODIs.
The problem is he hasn't got his message across in the longer form of the game.
Why then this structure? Well financially it makes sense to a lot of counties...
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.
The vast majority of county players are now available for England, while there are no kolpak players and 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.
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, 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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Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
Exactly and while we've been falling in the test rankings we've been making huge strides right to the top of the ODI rankings ahead of everyone.
This says everything about how the county game as it is currently constituted atm with the championship blocks of fixtures at each extreme end of the cricketing summer, is likely to produce cricketers far more suited to the shorter forms of the game.
There are compelling financial reasons for why the county game is so structured atm which I tried to explain in my post above.
Although i'm very much a traditionalist 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.
Premium test series may well survive although even that small crumb is perhaps doubtful, most players would be geared up for one-day cricket if their livelihoods depended on it, so it may well just wither away.
Perhaps I am envisaging a dystopian future and painting a bleak picture but I'm not at all optimistic and can't pretend to be.
Cricket will never match already established 'American' sports, of course it won't rival them, that's just not even on the most rose-tinted future agendas. It can though in such a large country have a niche following in a much smaller way, perhaps one day rivalling men's soccer. The American market is so vast and so diverse that a substantial and sustained breakthrough that makes money for cricket can still be minute in comparison to their major sports.
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Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
In my post above the short paragraph
'Although i'm very much a traditionalist i'm afraid i see it as rather the reverse.'
Should read
'Although i'm very much a traditionalist i'm afraid i see test cricket's future as severely limited.'
The ten minute rule prevented changes inline.
'Although i'm very much a traditionalist i'm afraid i see it as rather the reverse.'
Should read
'Although i'm very much a traditionalist i'm afraid i see test cricket's future as severely limited.'
The ten minute rule prevented changes inline.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Lancashire have two Kolpak players : Chanderpaul and Vilas.
Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
Yes thanks summerisle - of course, I blame the late hour I posted last night for that slip.
Should have read...
'While there are Kolpak players there is no predominance of current big overseas test stars as in decades past.'
It's a pretty depressing picture for our test prospects and the long term future of test cricket though imo.
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summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Going to miss him when he's gone.
Take the Times video Umpire test. I did crap, 3 out of 5 at county standard.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cricket-umpire-lbw-game-tg06rcv7s
Take the Times video Umpire test. I did crap, 3 out of 5 at county standard.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cricket-umpire-lbw-game-tg06rcv7s
He bowled pretty much on his own in oz, in a better side those figures would look more impressive I'm sure, still needs a captain to tell him to stop going short of a length in may
..Lancashire cruising to victory over Leicester. Qualification probably requires them winning their remaining games but they do have a very decent batting average.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Now have the best run rate in their group.
Three pleasing aspects today : Hameed, after a very poor start to the season, made an unbeaten 55 (101 balls ) which should do him the world of good; the Lancashire captain Liam Livingstone, who also has had a poor season, scored an unbeaten 90 ( 61 balls ) with 6 fours and 7 sixes ; the legspinner, Matt Parkinson, continued his good form with 4-30 off 10 overs, ripping out the Leicestershire middle order. Might have a big influence later in the season.
Lancashire's final two matches are against teams above them in the table : Derbyshire, and last game is a tasty Roses match at Old Trafford.
Got 14 out 14 before getting the last one wrong.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Club or test standard ?
Club 5/5, County 5/5, International 4/5.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Hawk-Eye's rubbish. lol