Query failed: connection to localhost:9312 failed (errno=111, msg=Connection refused). The cricket thread - Off Topic Discussions on The Fretboard
UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45

The cricket thread

What's Hot
1120121123125126174

Comments

  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    edited June 2021

    Press a month ago: are Robinson and Overton quick enough for Test cricket?

    And now we're being pasted by fast-medium seamers.

    Really pleased Bracey got off the mark. 





    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • sev112sev112 Frets: 2457
    edited June 2021
    I must say  it’s really pleasing to see pope and Crawley top scoring for England, I knew they would come good again …

    edit :
    oh and that chap Wood, we should let him have a go at opening i say
    2reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • guitars4youguitars4you Frets: 12794
    tFB Trader
    Very sad to see such a poor effort today with the bat - I dare say 1/2/3 of the batting players will survive and grow into a test career - But this is a poor effort

    Yes we can  look at issues with the balance of the team and no spinner - But a question for you - Central contracts are awarded so we can ensure the key players are available in tip top order to perform as and when required - They are paid for such work - Yet they can swan off to earn additional personal via Big Bash and/or IPL which is fine - But the IPL was cut short, and yet players under a central contract are still not available - Yet many are now playing for their county - Appears to be might silly

    Plus shows lack of respect to NZ in that we'll field a 2nd team and hopefully win 

    A lot to be looked at IMO off the pitch as well


    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 10838
    Is Woody now to be considered as a bataman who can bowl?

    There has been some brain-dead batting this innings. Someone needs to get Boycott in to show them how to defend. 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    Very sad to see such a poor effort today with the bat - I dare say 1/2/3 of the batting players will survive and grow into a test career - But this is a poor effort

    Yes we can  look at issues with the balance of the team and no spinner - But a question for you - Central contracts are awarded so we can ensure the key players are available in tip top order to perform as and when required - They are paid for such work - Yet they can swan off to earn additional personal via Big Bash and/or IPL which is fine - But the IPL was cut short, and yet players under a central contract are still not available - Yet many are now playing for their county - Appears to be might silly

    Plus shows lack of respect to NZ in that we'll field a 2nd team and hopefully win 

    A lot to be looked at IMO off the pitch as well




    Remember that two people who would have played aren't doing so because of injury, namely Foakes (slippyovertime) and Stokes (bust his finger in India). Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler, Chris Woakes, Jason Roy, Sam Billings and Sam and Tom Curran were the first batch back from the IPL. Morgan, Malan, and Chris Jordan were the other three. With the no spinner policy, Moeen was not going to play Tests, and most of the others aren't Test players either or were dropped for shit form. Realistically, Woakes, Sam Curran, and Buttler were the only three who might have played. 

    Buttler for Bracey would have strengthened the side. Woakes in for Broad? Curran for Robinson in the First Test? Far less convincing that swapping them over would have done much.  

    In fairness to the allegation of us playing a 2nd team, NZ have made major changes for this Test. They've fielded a rookie in Conway, Young is making his way. Patel isn't an established spinner, Matt Henry's a bit like Woakes in that he is good but finds it hard to cement that spot with Southeee and Boult. Kane isn't playing, Watling is missing, Colin the Mullet was out for a long time with injury, Daryll Mitchell isn't into double figures in the Test stakes...

    Actually between them in terms of completed Tests: Conway - 1, Young - 2, Patel - 8, Blundell - 10, Patel - 8   Mitchell - 4 = 33 Tests.

    Sibley and Crawley have 32 Tests between them. So in Test experience terms, I don't think we've got a 2nd XI compared to a prime NZ first XI even when making allowances for the lower number of Tests that NZ play. 

    Outside of Stokes, we aren't missing any batsmen in this side today through IPL or injury problems. That top six is the best top six in the country according to the selectors excluding Stokes. It's been threatened in the first Test on a pretty placid wicket and it's been absolutely dismantled here on a wicket that isn't quick or loaded with excessive or uneven bounce. For fear of sounding boring, the England management asked for more placid wickets this summer to help the batsmen. If this is what we do on more placid Lords and Edgbaston wickets, then fuck knows what we'll do on a helpful Gabba track. 

    It also makes you wonder what the management will ask for regarding the India series. A few years back we beat them on some turning home tracks with Moeen taking a hatload. We've proven how shit we are against spin (should be noted how Patel thus far has taken 4 of the 17 English wickets to fall. Always a role for spin here) so turning decks against Virat and Ko (sic) would be mad. Seaming tracks would allow Bumrah, Siraj et al to bum us (double sic). If we go with tracks that last, then they've got the ability to bat us out of the game: we've barely got the ability to bat out a day. 

    All of this is happening because our entire domestic structure is so utterly fucked. We've being pasted by a country that knows how to maximise talent.   








    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 10838
    Hussain is getting quite agitated on Sky, and rightly so. He points out that there is some sort of new orthodoxy in county championship batting that runs counter to everything that has come before. Well, if that's so then it needs to be ditched, quickly.

    But who cares when we've got the Hundred to look forward to. Sod orthodoxy, to hell with tradition and technique. Never mind the Ashes, here's a load of bollocks. 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • sev112sev112 Frets: 2457
    I feel quite depressed today, but I am old and I have seen England collapse many times before.  
    But I don’t quite get today why we collapsed against a good attach but what seems to be a docile pitch with a little bit of seam and swing.

    personally (grumpy old man) I don’t like waggling unorthodox batting styles, although I do like both Burns and Sibley, I think because I think they are mentally strong.  they both show signs of good stuff

    id be interested in peoples’ thoughts on who might be better batting at the moment. Personally I would drop Pope and Crawley and say go back to wherever and get your form back.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 10961
    I'm not sure there are any other better batsmen out there at the moment.

    As @Heartfeltdawn said, we need to fix the domestic structure to develop the players.  The Hundred is the total opposite of fixing it.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    edited June 2021
    scrumhalf said:
    Hussain is getting quite agitated on Sky, and rightly so. He points out that there is some sort of new orthodoxy in county championship batting that runs counter to everything that has come before. Well, if that's so then it needs to be ditched, quickly.

    But who cares when we've got the Hundred to look forward to. Sod orthodoxy, to hell with tradition and technique. Never mind the Ashes, here's a load of bollocks. 

    Agree with Nas on the batting but that also has a knock-on effect with the bowling. Any old sod can take wickets on seamy or spin heavy tracks. Just as batters have to learn how to play the long innings on a track that is against them, so bowlers have to learn how to bowl on tracks that aren't helping them. With our Championship schedule generally loaded at times of the year where you don't get shirtfront batting decks (New Road excluded which is a turgid deck thanks to the proximity of the Severn and the regular floods), you end up with batsmen who aren't used to batting a whole day and bowlers who aren't used to having to bowl in a good containing manner on a deck that doesn't suit them. 

    Developing bowlers doesn't mean giving them tracks that suit them. About mid-2010s, there was a change made to more result-orientated wickets in the Indian Ranji Trophy first class competition. End result: shit spinners took loads of wickets. The West Indies had this happen as well. The seamers were given a few overs and then the spinners would come on and snaffle the wickets. Poor wickets help neither discipline. 

    Playing short form cricket doesn't seem to help either discipline in the long format too. Much is said about why we can't seem to play the long innings but the same is true for bowling too. The influence of limited overs cricket on bowling has seen captains rotate bowlers and chop and change to a near-ridiculous level in my view. I was having a browse through some of the youth age groups for my old county earlier today. Because everything's online now, you can see a player's record through the ranks. Seeing the two lead bowlers and their record floors me. Between them, there's under 500 overs over 2013 to 2019. At U-17 level, I bowled 20% of that in 4 days, and I certainly didn't go on overseas tours like they do now. Also very apparent that there is a massive increase in private school players within my old side compared to my day, suggesting that the look at public schools for talent in the West Country is not just restricted to Somerset. 

    Change I'd make for the short form game? Easy: restrict the number of bowlers you can use and increase the number of overs they can bowl. Make it 15. Absolutely gets the balance right in my view. I'm sure Gassage might remember league games in the past with unrestricted overs where some sides would bowl the pro for 25 or 30 overs or more depending on format played. A return to that would be shit and completely no-go but offering longer spells in exchange for fewer bowlers used means this:

    -the best bowlers bowl more. The best of the younger developing bowlers also bowl and don't have to worry that their day will be four overs and then hauled off so some twunt middle-order tosser can bingle up some crap off-spin because of restrictions on number of bowlers used. 

    -the batters face the best bowlers more often and either develop and cope with them or they fail.

    Right now, the model is fucking up batting and bowling at the highest level. 



    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 10838
    edited June 2021
    Prediction for tomorrow:

    Stone and Jimmy add another 150 for the last wicket, Jimmy getting his maiden test ton.

    We then bowl the Kiwis out for under 130, Woody taking 8-43.

    Well, lightning might strike twice. 
    2reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • TeetonetalTeetonetal Frets: 7708
    The thing that bothers me is that you never seem to see progression in the team or batters develop.

    The same faults come series after series.

    Something amis with the coaching or lack of application or just players not good enough?
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    The thing that bothers me is that you never seem to see progression in the team or batters develop.

    The same faults come series after series.

    Something amis with the coaching or lack of application or just players not good enough?

    If you go through many of the best Australians of my lifetime, most got dropped at some point. Hayden, Mark Waugh, even Ponting, Martyn. Faults were worked on or form regained in the domestic game either in England or in Australia, they came back as better players. I'm struggling to think of many players in the last few years who started well, lost form, got dropped, and then came back. I know Burns got dropped in the winter and came back but it's not a Martyn-style explusion from the Test side and return some years later as a better player. Take Matt Hayden as a perfect example: dropped in March 1997 after some success in 7 Tests along with some failures. He carried on playing with Hampshire and points to this county stint as being vital to changing his technique:

    "At 21, Hayden toured England and made 1000 runs without playing a Test. It was 1993 and Michael Slater was just establishing himself as Mark Taylor’s opening partner. The next year, Hayden made his Test debut when Taylor was ill on the morning of the Johannesburg match. Early in the second innings, Allan Donald broke his thumb. In the next six years, he played only six Tests, all in the southern summer of 1996/97. So it was that all his first seven Tests were played against the powerful seam attacks of either South Africa or West Indies. It was hardly surprising that his performances were uneven and he could not make a permanent place for himself. He saw this period not as exile, but preparation. “The thing is, you’d have it no other way. Within myself, I knew I was gathering momentum,” he said. “I knew I was good enough, but I couldn’t get the opportunity.” He said he felt frustration, but never despair.

    He admitted to quirks in his technique, but no more than any other left-hander. “Even today, if a guy is swinging the ball into your pads, and you’re trying to play straight, it’s really hard to make the adjustment.” Three seasons of county cricket, batting day in day out for Hampshire and Northants, helped refine his method. “The guys were bowling straight at my pads. It’s the way the English bowl: at the pads and stumps and look for the LBs,” he said. “Gradually, it became a strength, to the point now where, if I was to say what was my favourite shot, it would be through mid-wicket, forcing off the back foot. To get anywhere, you have to face your weaknesses.”


    That summer of 1997 saw Hayden top the Hampshire averages in 17 FC games and 30 innings. Hampshire site says he scored almost 2,500 that summer. He came back to Tests after three years out and formed one of the greatest Test opening partnerships in history, playing over 90 more Tests after that first stint. Michael Hussey was undoubtedly helped by the long period that he played county cricket. Closer to today, look at Marnus Labuschagne and his time at Glamorgan. 

    A guy like Dominic Sibley doesn't get that sort of opportunity to hone technique. If you drop him from the Test squad now, he's not going to get the same opportunity that Hayden did to work on flaws and to overcome them. With the Test schedule as it is and with county opportunities limited, he needs to work on technique in the nets rather than the first-class game, even more so now we're into T20 mode. He then isn't going to go to an overseas place and play the equivalent of an 18-match first-class season as Hayden and many Aussies did. Really he's trying to change on the job. 

    So if you look at some of those great Aussie players and see how they got dropped and returned, and then you look at players over the last decade for England, you don't see the same pattern. Someone like Sam Robson comes to mind. Perhaps the pointer is Dawid Malan. Test ton in Oz, gets dropped... comes back as the world's best T20 batsman. 

    So I wouldn't point the finger at the coaching per se for England. It's more that the avenues for development, which is the first-class domestic game, are much reduced for the modern player. 



    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2124
    At least there are lots of good players knocking at the door in county cricket. I'd like to see Alex Davies given a go. Saqib Mahmood is bowling beautifully. Tom Haines and Jordan Cox are having good seasons opening. Not sure if Ricardo Vasconcelos is qualified to play for England yet but he's really good. Lewis Hill is having a great season despite playing for Leics. Hameed looks back to good form. Question is, would any of them do better than the current lot?

    Meanwhile, in village cricket... I've been playing since 1986 and never scored a half-century. Came in at number 8 and batted for about 30 overs today and we almost saved the game, til the number 11 got out with four balls to spare. I walked off to discover I was on 49 not out. Bugger.
    0reaction image LOL 2reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 10838
    You can only build the knowledge to play a long innings by playing a longer form of the game, They barely do this now. The County Championship is a minor competition which is played in unrealistic conditions at the start and end of the season. How many innings do county players get to play on fast, bouncy wickets?

    We are a one-day cricketing nation.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    scrumhalf said:
    You can only build the knowledge to play a long innings by playing a longer form of the game, They barely do this now. The County Championship is a minor competition which is played in unrealistic conditions at the start and end of the season. How many innings do county players get to play on fast, bouncy wickets?

    We are a one-day cricketing nation.
    You could say the same for international players. When they do get a fast bouncy wicket, they're all at sea, as the just concluded in three days game in the West Indies featuring South Africa has shown. 

    One aspect is that our international schedule is packed, thus impacting on player development outside of international matches. NZ play fewer Tests and it gives the players a gap for recovery and development. Ross Taylor versus Root is a perfect example of this. Taylor has played 106 Tests. Root is two behind Taylor despite making his Test debut over five years later than Taylor. 






    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    edited June 2021
    Stuckfast said:
    At least there are lots of good players knocking at the door in county cricket. I'd like to see Alex Davies given a go. Saqib Mahmood is bowling beautifully. Tom Haines and Jordan Cox are having good seasons opening. Not sure if Ricardo Vasconcelos is qualified to play for England yet but he's really good. Lewis Hill is having a great season despite playing for Leics. Hameed looks back to good form. Question is, would any of them do better than the current lot?

    Meanwhile, in village cricket... I've been playing since 1986 and never scored a half-century. Came in at number 8 and batted for about 30 overs today and we almost saved the game, til the number 11 got out with four balls to spare. I walked off to discover I was on 49 not out. Bugger.
    And then the question is: what happens if they lose form after doing well? Its just conveyor belt cricket. 

    Hard luck on the half ton. I was never a batsman, a childhood featuring a brother who always demanded I bowl to him and then who would run off when the roles were going to be reversed sorted that out. 



    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 10838
    One ball.

    ONE FUCKING BALL!!!!!

    Make them wear their spikes on the inside of their boots. 
    1reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    scrumhalf said:
    One ball.

    ONE FUCKING BALL!!!!!

    Make them wear their spikes on the inside of their boots. 
    Spikes on the inside of the box.



    3reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    sev112 said:
    I feel quite depressed today, but I am old and I have seen England collapse many times before.  
    But I don’t quite get today why we collapsed against a good attach but what seems to be a docile pitch with a little bit of seam and swing.

    personally (grumpy old man) I don’t like waggling unorthodox batting styles, although I do like both Burns and Sibley, I think because I think they are mentally strong.  they both show signs of good stuff

    id be interested in peoples’ thoughts on who might be better batting at the moment. Personally I would drop Pope and Crawley and say go back to wherever and get your form back.

    We're at such a low level right now with the openers that even moderate success is translated into something more. After his dreadful fifty at Lords in a dead match and scratching around in the first innings here, you had articles coming out calling Sibley a cult hero. Mentally strong, the right stuff for Tests, that kind of thing... and yet he's averaging 31. You sometimes get this thing with some players that they stay around not because of what they do on the pitch but how they do it. They're perceived as being the right stuff for Tests, having the right mental approach. So Sibbers scores his rubbish 50, he gets his 35, and then back to failing but he's secured a little spot as being the right kind of chaps for the trenches in people's minds. It happened in the winter, his half century against Sri Lanka erased the abject failures of the previous innings, and his 87 on an absolute Indian road in the First Test gives him a bit of credit in the bank that glosses over the big failures. I'd say Dominic Bess was another like this because he's a busy fielder, offers something with the bat, and this approach makes some favour him over Leach. It's different for Crawley because he's been dismissed on the drive more than the defensive snick. Getting out on the attack is perceived as being worse than the defensive snick. I remember that attitude in the days pre-Fletcher being about and it's odd to see it coming back in again in these times.

    The runup to this series made a lot of a previous Eng-NZ series where we did attack and it set the template for how things would be. In this one, we've gone the other way. We've opted for conservative pitches because our batting is shit. We've gone for conservative selection (tons of batting, unbalance the bowlers). We're out of ideas and Root's innings yesterday really sums it up. 

    If you look at the Championship averages as a form guide for who might come in, I wouldn't bother. You've got Pope, Burns, and Lawrence in the top 15. So the choice is whether you drop them and continue the merry-go-round or whether you stick with them probably through to the end of the Ashes. There's no point having a wholesale clearout now. You may as well do it after we've been destroyed this winter. 







    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • GassageGassage Frets: 30192
    WTC Match:

    Considering New Zealand's tiny cricket resource versus the behemoth powerhouse of India and the biggest player base and financial support in the world, NZ are champs already in my eyes.

    Absolute respect to the greatest sporting nation on the planet. India have c. 3000 times the player participation that NZ have.

    That is staggering.

    *An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.

    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2124
    Yes this NZ team punches so far above their weight it's unbelievable. If they've used these two tests as an audition for selection for the WTC final, pretty much everyone has put their hand up.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • sev112sev112 Frets: 2457
    sev112 said:
    I feel quite depressed today, but I am old and I have seen England collapse many times before.  
    But I don’t quite get today why we collapsed against a good attach but what seems to be a docile pitch with a little bit of seam and swing.

    personally (grumpy old man) I don’t like waggling unorthodox batting styles, although I do like both Burns and Sibley, I think because I think they are mentally strong.  they both show signs of good stuff

    id be interested in peoples’ thoughts on who might be better batting at the moment. Personally I would drop Pope and Crawley and say go back to wherever and get your form back.

    We're at such a low level right now with the openers that even moderate success is translated into something more. After his dreadful fifty at Lords in a dead match and scratching around in the first innings here, you had articles coming out calling Sibley a cult hero. Mentally strong, the right stuff for Tests, that kind of thing... and yet he's averaging 31. You sometimes get this thing with some players that they stay around not because of what they do on the pitch but how they do it. They're perceived as being the right stuff for Tests, having the right mental approach. So Sibbers scores his rubbish 50, he gets his 35, and then back to failing but he's secured a little spot as being the right kind of chaps for the trenches in people's minds. It happened in the winter, his half century against Sri Lanka erased the abject failures of the previous innings, and his 87 on an absolute Indian road in the First Test gives him a bit of credit in the bank that glosses over the big failures. I'd say Dominic Bess was another like this because he's a busy fielder, offers something with the bat, and this approach makes some favour him over Leach. It's different for Crawley because he's been dismissed on the drive more than the defensive snick. Getting out on the attack is perceived as being worse than the defensive snick. I remember that attitude in the days pre-Fletcher being about and it's odd to see it coming back in again in these times.

    The runup to this series made a lot of a previous Eng-NZ series where we did attack and it set the template for how things would be. In this one, we've gone the other way. We've opted for conservative pitches because our batting is shit. We've gone for conservative selection (tons of batting, unbalance the bowlers). We're out of ideas and Root's innings yesterday really sums it up. 

    If you look at the Championship averages as a form guide for who might come in, I wouldn't bother. You've got Pope, Burns, and Lawrence in the top 15. So the choice is whether you drop them and continue the merry-go-round or whether you stick with them probably through to the end of the Ashes. There's no point having a wholesale clearout now. You may as well do it after we've been destroyed this winter. 




    Interesting, thanks for your thoughts .




    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    Gassage said:
    WTC Match:

    Considering New Zealand's tiny cricket resource versus the behemoth powerhouse of India and the biggest player base and financial support in the world, NZ are champs already in my eyes.

    Absolute respect to the greatest sporting nation on the planet. India have c. 3000 times the player participation that NZ have.

    That is staggering.


    What NZ keeps doing is very impressive and going by Twitter today there's loads of commentary about why we can't do it.

    One aspect is that the NZ schedule is so much better for the players than the English one. Consider the three big batters with England, NZ, and India and when they debuted and how many they've played. All three have had absences at times for injuries and births but none to my recollection have missed major periods through injury (a year or so for instance) 
     

    KW      November 2010 = 10 years, 7 months        84 Tests (roughly 7.8 Tests per year)
    VK       June 2011 = 10 years                               91 Tests (9.1 Tests per year)
    JR       December 2012 = 8 years six months        105 Tests (12.3 Tests per year)

    Readers may be interested to read this from the past:

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/sep/26/four-tests-in-18-months-new-zealands-schedule-a-harbinger-of-what-is-to-come

    If NZ had our schedule, it would test them in the same way that a side doing well in the Premier League then gets stuffed the next season and loses league form because it hasn't got the squad to cope with more matches like the Europa League.   Conversely, India might be able to cope with our schedule because they have got the squad as they ably demonstrated in Australia. That financial power has been turned into a squad base that has backup/reserve seamers the selectors couldn't have dreamt of in 1990. 

    So we've got the nuttiest schedule around, we're playing two five match series, and our squad depth is, having seen the inexperienced Kiwis play so well in the Second Test, lower than NZ, lower than India, and lower than our winter opponents. 



    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 10961
    edited June 2021
    For me the big problem isn't the number of tests though.  It's the amount of utterly meaningless one day fixtures.  Alastair Cook played 161 tests in thirteen and half years.  That's around 12 a year.   Maybe that's slightly too many, but for me it's not the big problem.  It is the number of one day games that is the problem, and going off around the world to play in domestic T20 leagues.

    Edit: got my sums wrong.  Cook played his tests in 12 and half years not 13 and a half.  That works out at 12.9 per year.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    crunchman said:
    For me the big problem isn't the number of tests though.  It's the amount of utterly meaningless one day fixtures.  Alastair Cook played 161 tests in thirteen and half years.  That's around 12 a year.   Maybe that's slightly too many, but for me it's not the big problem.  It is the number of one day games that is the problem, and going off around the world to play in domestic T20 leagues.

    Edit: got my sums wrong.  Cook played his tests in 12 and half years not 13 and a half.  That works out at 12.9 per year.


    12.9 Tests is manageable if you're not a regular three-format player which Cook wasn't (4 T20s and he left ODI cricket four years before he finished at Test level). The three I focused on are or were in Root's case. You think the ODI games are useless: the management would argue our diet of meaningless ODI games helped us become the best in the world so perhaps not so meaningless. 

    The domestic T20 leagues: the Kiwis can do it and folk like Williamson and Kohli can do it and play three-formats because their international schedule allows for it. If an English player does it, then they're up against it. So the number of Tests we play is a problem if you're going to have other commitments and it's also a problem if you have a ruling body who are introducing another bloody format this summer. So we could argue as to which format demands more love and which should be kicked in the arse. The bottom line across both of our arguments is a schedule too packed in, and that is where looking at Williamson and Kohli's workload compared to Root's is important. 

    Our Test performances are showing that something has to give. The international and IPL calendar is fucking domestic FC cricket with an obvious effect on the Test side. The move to focus on short-form cricket has had a corresponding uplift with the World Cup win and the likelihood of doing well in the World T20. So perhaps it's not even a question of schedule but a question of priorities. The ECB chose to prioritise short-form cricket whilst introducing another short form. 






    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 10838
    The ECB were clear about prioritising one day cricket but you have to wonder why those not involved in the biff-bang internationally cannot play a decent defensive stroke.

    Is there something in the coaching that prevents them from thinking "oh, it's a red ball, I can hang around for a bit and choose which strokes to play?
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    edited June 2021
    scrumhalf said:
    The ECB were clear about prioritising one day cricket but you have to wonder why those not involved in the biff-bang internationally cannot play a decent defensive stroke.

    Is there something in the coaching that prevents them from thinking "oh, it's a red ball, I can hang around for a bit and choose which strokes to play?

    I'd suggest that some players end up not so much with bad habits but a combination of techniques. The person to look at is Jonny Bairstow. He started off as a kid learning a traditional technique. In order to get better at white ball cricket, a batsman generally learns how to open up the body in order to facilitate the more powerful higher scoring strokes. This he did incredibly well and his white ball form has been astounding. His ODI stats and from 2017 it's absolute dynamite. 

    https://i.imgur.com/J0Updrj.png

    His best Test year was 2016. After that, there is a corresponding slide in returns. 

    https://i.imgur.com/4fz8t2d.png

    So ODI form = great, Test form starts to sink. That's the change of technique and approach. In his Test career from 2017 onwards, the stats show what supporters saw: more vulnerable to the pitched up moving ball, bowled more, LBW more. For all the talk of spin over the winter, since 2017 he has rarely been bowled by a spinner. Quicker guys pitching it up, yes. 

    Tests to the end of 2016: 38 Tests, 2435 runs, 65 innings (6 NO), average of 41.27, SR of 55.04, 3 centuries. 

    Tests from 2017 onwards: 36 Tests, 1762 runs 66 innings (2 NO), average of 27.53, SR of 54.43, 3 centuries. Last Test ton was November 2018. 

    A shift in technique and approach and the end result is that YJB found it harder to keep the good balls out. 



    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 10838
    One good season apart, his test record is nothng to write home about, never averaging above 35.

    Here's Nasser, in a bit of a Chris Waddle moment:



    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • HeartfeltdawnHeartfeltdawn Frets: 21788
    scrumhalf said:
    One good season apart, his test record is nothng to write home about, never averaging above 35.

    Untrue as his cumulative average shows

    His record from debut to the end of 2016 In Test cricket when playing as a batsman only or as designated wicketkeeper:

    38 Tests, 2435 runs at 41.27. 

    His record from his debut to the end of 2016 when playing as a wicketkeeper only:

    21 Tests, 1682 runs, average of 50.96

    His overall record when playing as designated keeper:

    48 Tests, 3028 runs, average of 37.85. 

    Some comparisons with other wicketkeepers:

    http://www.howstat.com/cricket/statistics/WicketKeeping/WicketKeepingMostRuns.asp

    So it does reinforce that we actually had someone performing well in Test cricket up to the end of 2016. When 2017 comes around, his ODI figures absolutely took off whilst his Test figures started to slump badly. 



    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 10961
    He might have been batting well to that point, but he was never a good keeper.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom · Share on Twitter
Sign In or Register to comment.