The cricket thread

scrumhalf · July 2015

Sadly, the county championship has been sacrificed on the altar of one-day cricket. I can't help but think that there is a slow slide towards franchise cricket, where instead of 18 counties we will have ten, maybe 12, regional teams.

We're heading that way, it's no co-incidence that many of the counties with test-match grounds have the dosh to spend on overseas players whilst the rest scramble around for leftovers. I support Kent, and whilst the decision to do without overseas players this season is admirable from the point of view of producing home-grown talent, it's been forced on us due to lack of home-generated income. Our county championship form is at best erratic and although we have reached the latter stages of the T20 we seem at times to be scoring higher in T20 than in CC.

When I started being really interested in cricket you knew where you were. B&H at the start of the season, intermittent rounds of the Gillette Cup and 7 days a week comprising a couple of three-day county championship games and a Sunday League 40-over game.

There seems to be no structure to the season nowadays, and there are vast gaps where teams don't play at all.

By all means make the national team the focus, but if you hack away at the longer form of the game you end up with players unable to structure an innings, to bat all day if necessary and whose diet consists of smashing it all over the place for a quick bash.

Heartfeltdawn · July 2015

@crunchman The counties won't want to cut the one-day games because most of them can't afford to do so. In 2005 the county with the highest average salary was Durham at £52,000. The Sky contract started in 2006. Dominic Cork's final contract with Hampshire for the 2011 season was approaching six figures. As he said in the Telegraph:

"Cricket was always a sport that was never going to be as popular as football and the money that goes with that, reflects that popularity so I think that’s fair enough. When I was coming into the England team I felt that perhaps players were being underpaid but with the advent of centralised contracts and the involvement of Sky that has all changed. Sky really transformed cricket and also cricket players’ wages because money now is being invested into the England cricket team but also county cricket and that has allowed current England players to be earning good amounts of money that they deserve."

So this huge cash injection helped England, undoubtedly helped to modernise the England women's game, and did bring up wages for the more experienced pros. This is apparent when you consider the PCA recommended minimum wages. £23k for a 24 year old whereas the like of Graeme Smith were apparently on a salary of £150,000 at Surrey. Central contracts became very lucrative.

Some clubs put a lot into becoming or maintaining international venue status. Cardiff tried and had to get a council bailout. This year the council wrote off 70% of it. Hampshire got Eastleigh Council involved. Trafford Council stumped up cash for Lancashire. Kent were allowed to defer repayment of a loan this year. It's pretty apparent how much money juggling has had to go on. When clubs are like that, income from spectators becomes even more vital so really there's no option to reduce fixtures.

Heartfeltdawn · July 2015

scrumhalf said:

Sadly, the county championship has been sacrificed on the altar of one-day cricket. I can't help but think that there is a slow slide towards franchise cricket, where instead of 18 counties we will have ten, maybe 12, regional teams.

We're heading that way, it's no co-incidence that many of the counties with test-match grounds have the dosh to spend on overseas players whilst the rest scramble around for leftovers. I support Kent, and whilst the decision to do without overseas players this season is admirable from the point of view of producing home-grown talent, it's been forced on us due to lack of home-generated income. Our county championship form is at best erratic and although we have reached the latter stages of the T20 we seem at times to be scoring higher in T20 than in CC.

When I started being really interested in cricket you knew where you were. B&H at the start of the season, intermittent rounds of the Gillette Cup and 7 days a week comprising a couple of three-day county championship games and a Sunday League 40-over game.

There seems to be no structure to the season nowadays, and there are vast gaps where teams don't play at all.

By all means make the national team the focus, but if you hack away at the longer form of the game you end up with players unable to structure an innings, to bat all day if necessary and whose diet consists of smashing it all over the place for a quick bash.

I agree. As much as I want to keep the old county system, I don't think it's feasible in terms of fixture demands against quality of cricket played.

I do think too much focus has been put on Team England and not even on where the players for Team England will come from.

Consider minor counties as well. When I played for a minor county at youth level in the 1990's, we had to pay for our jumpers. A week long county cricket festival would cost me £100. That minor county now has ECB money and has enough to send the Academy side on a tour of the UAE. No, they don't pay for their sweater. Or their coloured kit.

So lots of Sky cash but has it all been used well? When you see that the final day of the Cardiff Test got fewer viewers on Sky than an old Columbo film on ITV3, when the participation rate in cricket is down, and when you see the county game looking so fucked up at the minute, then no. We had a system that was working in 2005. The Sky deal, the IPL, the recession, some poor investments, and some poor decision making regarding fixtures have all contributed to a really big mess.

crunchman · July 2015

If England don't field a competitive international team then eventually Sky TV money will decrease.

There might be short term money in loads of one day fixtures but they would be better cutting a few games for the long term good. If you could cut 4 group games per team in the 50 over one day tournament, and 4 in the T20 it would make the fixture list a lot more manageable. You might even be able to finish early enough in September to make Champions League T20 participation feasible and bring some money in that way.

If you cut to 10 Championship games the test team will probably suffer. One option I saw mooted was to add one more county - possibly a combined Devon/Cornwall team, and add Ireland and Scotland and go to a 3 division Championship with 7 teams per division. That would give you 14 Championship fixtures with home and away matches against the rest of your division.

I would agree with the comment above that restricting the Kolpaks has backfired by reducing the standard. Have they still got the financial benefits for fielding lots of under 25 England qualified players as well? That reduced the standard even more because you got rid of too many of the grizzled old English veterans at the same time they got rid of lots of Kolpaks.

Heartfeltdawn · July 2015

We were competitive in Cardiff and look at those audience figures on Sky. If the figures are that bad when we win (albeit with Wimbledon on at the same time)...

The financial benefits for young players and England qualified players are a bit of a mishmash. You also have the issue of the salary cap which Pietersen railed against with his lousy comments about "muppets" who earned 18k a year (amusingly coming at the same time that the hairdressing business his wife and he own closed up, with reports in the Evening Standard about staff being given one day's notice. Yes, it's terrible when your bosses just dump you...). As Surrey had Sangakkara signed up, they couldn't get Pietersen. Him playing for Surrey for no salary but accepting a donation to his charity was a neat bit of PR management.

With the focus on professional cricket, it's important to not forget that grassroots cricket is in serious strife. I packed up in 2005 with a broken knee. Back then, the premier league in the area had gone to the pyramid structure. Some of the travel time was ridiculous, two hours and more to get to some venues. For 50 over innings, we almost spent as much time driving as we did on the actual pitch. The idea was that a pyramid structure would build amateurs toward the professional game and give them a clear structure of progression. It simply didn't work for the most part. That league was supposed to feed up to Somerset and Gloucestershire. Many young players have been and gone in that time. Few have really made it. Craig Miles at Gloucestershire is one of the few and looks a really good prospect.

One change my league made was to regulate bowling overs. When I retired, it was 50 over cricket with no restrictions. Bringing it down to 10 overs per bowler made the competition poorer in my eyes. What also happened is that T20 blew up. If a bowler has a bad over, they get hauled off. That attitude has come down to club level and consequently you will see clubs using 7 or 8 bowlers for a 50 over competition. The young seamers already have restrictions placed on the length of spell they can have with the fast bowling directives which means a captain can't have full flexibility as to how to use that bowler. The end result is that a lot of young seamers around here bowl one short spell on a Saturday league game and that's it. Who the hell wants to travel for two hours on a Saturday, set off about 11am, get home around 9pm, and all for the fun of bowling six measly overs? During a couple of women's internationals last year I got to talk to some coaches who worked in clubs and they were saying the same thing that I saw in my region, that a lot of young bowlers were moving to playing midweek 20 over cricket on the basis that they got to bowl four overs there, only two less than a Saturday, and they didn't give up half their weekend. T20 has brought about the rise of the dibbly-dobbly bowlers and a reduction in decent bowlers.

It is the standard of bowling which worries me about cricket's direction.

crunchman · July 2015

Ballance dropped, Bairstow in.

Bell to move up to 3 and Root 4.

Teetonetal · July 2015

Not really immersed in cricket these days, but I do love a test match, as such not sure how much of this is nonsense but:

The sad thing is it doesn't seem to me that long ago that England's Batting and Bowling future seemed bright:

Batting in 2012/2013 Morgan was considered to still have the potential, then Taylor, Balance, Bairstow were in and out or in reserve but fighting for 1 spot , Hayles, Compton and Butler seemingly on the cusp, all pushing for places... Now apart from Butler the confidence of the selectors doesn't really seem to be with any of them. Really hoping Bairstow does well as that will give selectors the chance to give Balance time in the league to regain form (he looks horrible right now).

and in the bowling there was Finn, Tremlett, Onions, Bresnan, Plunkett all pushing for places 3&4, all but Finn seem to have disappeared with no one coming through..

Now there seems to be almost no competition and lets not even talk about a spinner.... Moeen is a good all rounder, but not yet high class at either.

Since 2013 I do feel that Swann is the biggest miss in the team, he gave the seamers breathing space, created pressure at the non bowling end and was dangerous himself. I think he is by some distance the keystone of the team that has not been replaced.

Bell has always been a really patchy cricketer whose form seems to come and go at the drop of a hat.. and I wonder if he doesn't feel comfortable in this team, they keep moving him around, but his clearly better at 5 or 6... I wonder if he should be moved on now, he's had a good career, was the sole reason we won the last home ashes, but now something seems missing,

hmm

scrumhalf · July 2015

Interesting start, Aussies 3 down at drinks.

Finn bowling very well, poor Mark Wood must be cursing his luck.

crunchman · July 2015

Might not have been a bad toss to lose. Overcast conditions and a bit of juice in the pitch on the first morning.

scrumhalf · July 2015

For the first time since the fourth Test against West Indies in Antigua in 2004, 139 matches ago, England take the field in a Test match without a player born in southern Africa.

Hmmm... interesting.

Heartfeltdawn · July 2015

We made up for the lack of Saffers by picking more gingers.

I was sat in the waiting room of a private hospital in Bristol when the coin went up. It's fair to say that the other occupants of the waiting room know precisely what I thought of Clarke's decision to bat first.

scrumhalf · July 2015

Well, that was a surprise, I'll take that for a first-day performance.

Heartfeltdawn · July 2015

I'm staggered that Australia chose to bat first. If the idea was to prevent having to bat last on that wicket, then it shows a lack of confidence in the batting lineup, somewhat odd after racking up the runs at Lords (although it could say a lot about Clarke's personal confidence with the bat). But why focus on events three or four days down the line? It was always going to be difficult batting on that wicket. England got stuffed the last time they batted. There was an opportunity to throw England in on a tough wicket and to hammer them some more. I'm amazed Australia didn't take that chance.

Very good to hear some of the old Aussies whining about Haddin being dropped.

crunchman · July 2015

Someone on Sky did point out that the Aussies put England in at Edgbaston 10 years ago. That didn't turn out great for them. They suggested that may have been in the back of Clarke's mind.

iseverynamegone · July 2015

great day , nice to see Jimmy back amongst it. Get to 350 tomorrow and game is won.

Heartfeltdawn · July 2015

crunchman said:

Someone on Sky did point out that the Aussies put England in at Edgbaston 10 years ago. That didn't turn out great for them. They suggested that may have been in the back of Clarke's mind.

Australia also won the toss in 2001, took the field, and won by an innings despite England scoring nearly 300 in the first innings. And they were only 2 runs shy of victory in 2005. That pitch didn't break up or become a minefield. It seems looking around that the opinion of everyone from Aggers to Vaughan to the Sky box to everyone at TMS was that you win the toss and bat first yesterday. It's good to know that I'm the bucker of opinion as per usual! It just seemed like a huge opportunity missed for Australia. Take a nervous England batting lineup, put them in on a damp seaming wicket, and put the pressure right back on them. Roll them out cheaply and then you pressurise the England bowlers as well.

scrumhalf · July 2015

Just looked at the scorecard from 2001, that's a not-atypical England collapse.

In the same way that we didn't become the best team in the world after Cardiff, or the worst after Lords, I don't think that this game is anywhere near as clear-cut as some seem to think. We could easily be fielding by lunchtime with a lead of 50, especially if we have another not-atypical England collapse.

Mind you, I prefer this sort of cricket to 500-plays-500.

lloyd · July 2015

Not a great morning so far (for England).

axisus · July 2015

We have some good individuals right now but we are a crap team. Disappointing England as usual.

rsvmark · July 2015

Enjoying this thread - some interesting insight.

Can @heartfeltdawn elaborate on earlier comments about the bat (size and shape etc) for me as a non cricketer please. Tennis, golf, in fact all sports 'benefit' from advances in design and technology. The style and tactics of the game develop over time, an obvious example is the falling away of the serve and volley game in tennis, in particular at Wimbledon.

edit: whether the 'change in the game' is a good thing or not is another matter! Not getting drawn into that one

lloyd · July 2015

Decent fight back from Broad and in particular Ali, played some nice shots, some scruffy ones and had a bit of luck along the way.

Heartfeltdawn · July 2015

@rsvmark the issue of bat design is still one that is argued over. The edges have gotten thicker and the sweet spot has increased hugely. Coupled with quick outfields and greater player strength, more runs are being scored. Mishits with old bats would have found fielders; now they often clear the boundary rope for six. It's no coincidence that tailenders are scoring more runs as bats have improved. Yes, they take batting more seriously than they did 20 years ago but to ignore the technological improvement of the willow they wield is wrong.

I look at my former league. Some crazy records broken this year. The amateur batsmen don't have the fitness programme the pros do so it's not down to a huge increase in strength. I was a shit tailender before I retired. Knocking up in the nets now, the modern bats are astounding. Modern bats versus bats from 20 years ago is like comparing bladed irons in golf to cavity back clubs.

rsvmark · July 2015

Thanks @heartfeltdawn. When you say edges are thicker do you mean the edge is 'sharper' ie the arris is more pronounced and less 'rolled'? Also how is the sweetspot bigger? Are bats limited at all in their width? I am guessing they are so how are they achieving this increase in sweetspot? (Again,I am guessing that they are placing more mass behind the lower half of the bat?) Your analogy of the golf clubs is a good one but generally the club face area increased in cavity back clubs as well resulting in the bigger sweet-spot. This is the same as the tennis racquets where the head size increased in the 80's with the introduction of metal, fibreglass, and composite materials.

Heartfeltdawn · July 2015

Have a gander at this:

http://www.news.com.au/sport/cricket/the-evolution-of-cricket-bats-mean-now-batsmen-are-carrying-a-weapon-to-the-crease/story-fndpt0dy-1226542405236

scrumhalf · July 2015

Another dull, boring day of test cricket.

I fear that we may lose Jimmy for the rest of the series, and if Wood isn't fit there's an interesting selection conundrum.

Heartfeltdawn · July 2015

If Jimmy is out for the series, then it's a big loss. Trent Bridge is a good venue for him (8 matches, 53 wickets at 19) and he ended up with ten wickets in the last home Ashes. Spin shouldn't be a huge factor at Trent Bridge. Swann didn't have a great record there in Tests so it's unlikely that Moeen will rip through them there or that Adil Rashid will come into the side. If Wood isn't fully fit, he should be ruled out. It would be decidedly risky to chance a bowler with a niggle in a back to back Test, even with this one likely to finish on the third day.

I'd go for Chris Woakes. He's had overs with Warwickshire since returning from injury, he showed in the winter that he has added a bit of pace to his game, and he is the sort of guy who can nip the ball about. There's also his batting which reinforces the tail a bit more.

Interesting seeing the Twitter yap about Stokes. He's been quite a superfluous figure in this game but it'd be ludicrous to drop him as a batsman when he's scored decent runs. He got a snorter today, no batsman would look daft getting out to that.

Australia were very poor with the bat. I still think that, whatever the writers say about the decision to bat first, it was the wrong decision. It reeked of a lack of belief in his side to play in those conditions and didn't give his trump card, the bowling attack, first use of that wicket. It started a chain reaction that has handed a huge amount of momentum to England.

iseverynamegone · July 2015

@heartfeltdawn you have cursed Buttler....

Heartfeltdawn · July 2015

Playing for England is cursing Buttler. Since the start of May he's had one game for Lancashire. Every other innings has been for England. Everything I said in the thread earlier comparing Root and Buttler stands when it comes to first class experience. There's a likelihood that he won't play a single game for Lancashire in the County Championship this season as England will want him for the post-Ashes T20/ODI lark which won't finish until mid September, leaving one CC game left. Even if England allowed him to play (they won't), Lancashire might not pick him as Alex Davies has done a good job for them this year.

The CC is where Finn found his rhythm and got his confidence back. It's where Bairstow has worked on his technique and looks a lot less awkward at the crease (another one to get a quality delivery today). Broad got some good overs into him earlier in the season and has looked so much better than he did at the World Cup. If Buttler keeps on going like this, then it is wasting a real batting talent. In the week that Clive Rice passed away, it's pertinent to remember that it was he who told everyone's favourite off spinning Saffer that he'd be batting at 6 for Notts and that he wanted 1000 runs out of him. One hopes a different coach will be just as bold with Buttler.

scrumhalf · July 2015

If Jimmy is crocked I worry about Stokes as the fourth seamer in a weakened attack, especially as you'd expect the Aussies to be steaming at the next Test.

Your comments about playng in the CC take me back to the days when Tests weren't played back-to-back and international playewrs played for their counties as a matter of course in the week-and-a-half we used to have betwen Tests. It was possible to go back to your county and get a bit of rhythm back in your game.

rsvmark · July 2015

Heartfeltdawn said:

Have a gander at this:

http://www.news.com.au/sport/cricket/the-evolution-of-cricket-bats-mean-now-batsmen-are-carrying-a-weapon-to-the-crease/story-fndpt0dy-1226542405236

Thanks. Interesting

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