The cricket thread

guitars4you

sev112 said:

Ok gurus - batting line up for next test ?

I think there is no good pedigree behind any of the options - Can't remember the latest on Dan Lawrence and as to why he was in, then out 

Try something and if it comes off then more of a fluke rather than progress  - Someone might come in and score a double hundred like Crawley did against Pakistan and we think alleluia - Yet 3/4/5 matches later they are dumped

No consistency from the selectors down and the batsman up  

Heartfeltdawn

scrumhalf said:

The strap line above the report on yesterday's play in The Times this morning was seomthing like "England hold the upper hand..."

Good job we weren't up against it or we might have been shat on today. Oh, hang on a minute.

The ECB are no doubt indifferent to this because we won the ODI world cup and are in with a shout for the T20 one. The 100 abomination is apparently pulling the crowds in as well. The cynic in me thinks that it is a step along the path to the abolition of the counties and a shift to eiothgt-team franchise cricket for almost everything.

The Aussies must be pissing themselves at the thought of a competitive Ashes series, if it goes ahead.

It's pulling in crowds because ticket prices are rock bottom and there's definitely a few freebies going out there (remember that first 100 game for the women: two thirds of the ticket sales were giveaways). 

The cynic in me agrees and it also says it's not cynical. This has been the plan for some time, to reduce the counties. 

crunchman

Heartfeltdawn said:

scrumhalf said:

The strap line above the report on yesterday's play in The Times this morning was seomthing like "England hold the upper hand..."

Good job we weren't up against it or we might have been shat on today. Oh, hang on a minute.

The ECB are no doubt indifferent to this because we won the ODI world cup and are in with a shout for the T20 one. The 100 abomination is apparently pulling the crowds in as well. The cynic in me thinks that it is a step along the path to the abolition of the counties and a shift to eiothgt-team franchise cricket for almost everything.

The Aussies must be pissing themselves at the thought of a competitive Ashes series, if it goes ahead.

It's pulling in crowds because ticket prices are rock bottom and there's definitely a few freebies going out there (remember that first 100 game for the women: two thirds of the ticket sales were giveaways). 

The cynic in me agrees and it also says it's not cynical. This has been the plan for some time, to reduce the counties. 

Even if that is the plan, then introduce a franchise based T20 tournament, rather than this abomination that does away with fundamentals of the game like overs.

Heartfeltdawn

guitars4you said:

Try something and if it comes off then more of a fluke rather than progress  - Someone might come in and score a double hundred like Crawley did against Pakistan and we think alleluia - Yet 3/4/5 matches later they are dumped

No consistency from the selectors down and the batsman up  

Give the selectors some credit. they haven't gone for the in and out selections that us oldies can remember from the 80s (that bloody awful 1989 Ashes comes to mind). Crawley's had 15 Tests since November 2019, Sibley's played 22 Tests since November 2019, Burns has had 27 since November 2018. Lawrence has been in and out for a number of reasons (team balance and some indifferent form), Pope's had injury problems and would have played more without them. 

So the top three have had chances and they have been backed prior to the Test just completed. There's not a single batsman out there who can say that they've been dropped whilst performing well. Bit of a different situation for both sides when you consider that the top 3 wicket takers from the winter series are all on the sidelines (Ashwin, Patel, Leach) and may not feature all series. 

If we're genuinely going to change tactics, then we start by picking more experienced batsmen. We've thrown the kids in, most have had chances, they haven't worked. We dropped Joe Denly for scoring too slowly and not progressing as well as we wanted and replaced him with younger people who average less than Denly and occupy the crease less than Denly did. As I noted earlier in the week, we seem to be happy to debut bowlers later in life: why are we in a fixation with young blood batsmen? 

basically: it's time to give James Hildreth the international chance he deserves 

crunchman

Heartfeltdawn said:

guitars4you said:

Try something and if it comes off then more of a fluke rather than progress  - Someone might come in and score a double hundred like Crawley did against Pakistan and we think alleluia - Yet 3/4/5 matches later they are dumped

No consistency from the selectors down and the batsman up  

Give the selectors some credit. they haven't gone for the in and out selections that us oldies can remember from the 80s (that bloody awful 1989 Ashes comes to mind). Crawley's had 15 Tests since November 2019, Sibley's played 22 Tests since November 2019, Burns has had 27 since November 2018. Lawrence has been in and out for a number of reasons (team balance and some indifferent form), Pope's had injury problems and would have played more without them. 

So the top three have had chances and they have been backed prior to the Test just completed. There's not a single batsman out there who can say that they've been dropped whilst performing well. Bit of a different situation for both sides when you consider that the top 3 wicket takers from the winter series are all on the sidelines (Ashwin, Patel, Leach) and may not feature all series. 

If we're genuinely going to change tactics, then we start by picking more experienced batsmen. We've thrown the kids in, most have had chances, they haven't worked. We dropped Joe Denly for scoring too slowly and not progressing as well as we wanted and replaced him with younger people who average less than Denly and occupy the crease less than Denly did. As I noted earlier in the week, we seem to be happy to debut bowlers later in life: why are we in a fixation with young blood batsmen? 

basically: it's time to give James Hildreth the international chance he deserves 

Hildreth should definitely have been given a chance a few years ago, but he's 37 in a few weeks, and doesn't seem to be quite what he was.

The fundamental problem is what you have been saying about our development of young players.  They don't have the fundamentals, and are having to learn on the job at test level.

In the short term, bringing back Malan might be our least bad option.   He's made a test century in Australia, and seems to be a better player now than he was when he was in the team.  Send Lawrence and Crawley away to work on their games.

It's worth remembering that James Taylor was lost to the team as a player when he seemed to be getting it all together.  He's still only 31 and would be right in his prime now.

Stuckfast

Heartfeltdawn said:

basically: it's time to give James Hildreth the international chance he deserves 

We could put out an entire team of grizzled county veterans. Stoneman, Lyth, Lees, Hildreth, Ballance, Rossington, Stevens, Berg, Rushworth, Batty, Rikki Clarke...

Heartfeltdawn

Stuckfast said:

We could put out an entire team of grizzled county veterans. Stoneman, Lyth, Lees, Hildreth, Ballance, Rossington, Stevens, Berg, Rushworth, Batty, Rikki Clarke...

I'm well up for that but it has to be people previously uncapped. We'll treat it like those scratch Windies teams popped out during contractual issues with the A side. 

I'm going for Jack Brooks and Rushworth to open. The headband cometh!

Stuckfast

Hell yeah. With Ben Sanderson and Luke Fletcher as change bowlers.

Heartfeltdawn

crunchman said:

Hildreth should definitely have been given a chance a few years ago, but he's 37 in a few weeks, and doesn't seem to be quite what he was.

The fundamental problem is what you have been saying about our development of young players.  They don't have the fundamentals, and are having to learn on the job at test level.

In the short term, bringing back Malan might be our least bad option.   He's made a test century in Australia, and seems to be a better player now than he was when he was in the team.  Send Lawrence and Crawley away to work on their games.

It's worth remembering that James Taylor was lost to the team as a player when he seemed to be getting it all together.  He's still only 31 and would be right in his prime now.

I'd pick him for sentimentality reasons and because why not (sic). The first side I drafted out for the next Test was actually quite balanced but then I started getting silly and fell upon picking oldies for the hell of it. Stuckfast brought that plan back to mind!

Young player development is shot. It beggars belief that you can have a guy like Devon Conway come into NZ colours in all formats and play for Somerset and be a huge success and yet you'd get folk in this country who would say that we shouldn't be picking new players of his age. 

Bringing Malan back has been touted and I'd support it. The figures don't support it. It's very close to dropping Sibley and replacing him with a guy whose figures are actually worse. That's not meant as a slight of Malan as I think he's been horribly mismanaged.

One aspect that has changed: a number of players in the Fletcher era came into the international side via ODI cricket first. Tresco, Strauss, KP, Collingwood would be obvious examples of players who went this route. Fletcher in some cases treated the ODI side as a 2nd XI: perform in 50 overs, you'd get a chance at Test cricket. For someone like Malan, this would have been a good route to take but his opportunities at ODI level have been very limited. He has taken it at T20 level but the jump from twenty over slap to Test cricket is a large one. Graeme Swann also played ODI cricket before he made his Test debut. 

You look at all the young 'uns: Crawley, Sibley. Hameed, Lawrence, Ollie Pope as well. Crawley's the only one to have played ODI cricket, a grand total of 3 games. Cumulatively those five have 66 Tests between them. think of other people tried and dumped: Lyth, Stoneman, Sam Robson: all played Tests, none played ODI games. So when people say that the jump from county cricket to Test cricket is a bigger one now than in the past, I'd be inclined to agree with them because we used ODI cricket as a stepping stone in a number of cases. 

I fully accept that some players just make it without needing the step (Cook, Bell, Root as examples of Test first, ODI second). But I do think the pathway to Tests has changed since 2005 and that's another aspect as to why the young players are finding it harder. 

EDIT: Have a gander at the Indian team as well. Those who played T20 or ODI before they played Tests.

Rohit Sharma, Kohli, Shami, Siraj, Bumrah, Pant, Jadeja, Rahane. 

Tests first before other forms: Pujara, Rahul, Ishant Sharma. 

In the case of Siraj, he played T20s in 2017, a lone ODI in 2019 in Australia... when he comes to his Test debut in December 2020 in Australia, he's not an outright rookie. 

For England, those who played ODI or T20 cricket before Tests:

Anderson, Buttler, Moeen, Wood, Bairstow. 

Tests first: Burns, Sibley, Hameed, Root, Robinson, Curran. 

Heartfeltdawn

Stuckfast said:

Hell yeah. With Ben Sanderson and Luke Fletcher as change bowlers.

Rushy's putting his hand up and absolute yes for Fletch. 

https://twitter.com/DurhamCricket/status/1427577321670811651

guitars4you

crunchman said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

guitars4you said:

Try something and if it comes off then more of a fluke rather than progress  - Someone might come in and score a double hundred like Crawley did against Pakistan and we think alleluia - Yet 3/4/5 matches later they are dumped

No consistency from the selectors down and the batsman up  

Give the selectors some credit. they haven't gone for the in and out selections that us oldies can remember from the 80s (that bloody awful 1989 Ashes comes to mind). Crawley's had 15 Tests since November 2019, Sibley's played 22 Tests since November 2019, Burns has had 27 since November 2018. Lawrence has been in and out for a number of reasons (team balance and some indifferent form), Pope's had injury problems and would have played more without them. 

So the top three have had chances and they have been backed prior to the Test just completed. There's not a single batsman out there who can say that they've been dropped whilst performing well. Bit of a different situation for both sides when you consider that the top 3 wicket takers from the winter series are all on the sidelines (Ashwin, Patel, Leach) and may not feature all series. 

If we're genuinely going to change tactics, then we start by picking more experienced batsmen. We've thrown the kids in, most have had chances, they haven't worked. We dropped Joe Denly for scoring too slowly and not progressing as well as we wanted and replaced him with younger people who average less than Denly and occupy the crease less than Denly did. As I noted earlier in the week, we seem to be happy to debut bowlers later in life: why are we in a fixation with young blood batsmen? 

basically: it's time to give James Hildreth the international chance he deserves 

Hildreth should definitely have been given a chance a few years ago, but he's 37 in a few weeks, and doesn't seem to be quite what he was.

The fundamental problem is what you have been saying about our development of young players.  They don't have the fundamentals, and are having to learn on the job at test level.

In the short term, bringing back Malan might be our least bad option.   He's made a test century in Australia, and seems to be a better player now than he was when he was in the team.  Send Lawrence and Crawley away to work on their games.

It's worth remembering that James Taylor was lost to the team as a player when he seemed to be getting it all together.  He's still only 31 and would be right in his prime now.

The problem with sending them away to work on their game, is where do they do this - Nets is one thing - But the county program is not back until Sept - Can't see to many matches getting 4 days played, knowing our weather 

For most/all July/Aug they will have had no chance to play a 4 day red ball game - The whole program needs attention if we want to produce a test team as well as one day teams

scrumhalf

Send for Darren Stevens!

One of the things about the old days of county cricket was that you played against a mixture of county trundlers and world-class bowlers. There wasn't much other decnt cricket going on in the world during an English summer and each county had some quite marvellous overseas players who stayed for years. That's all gone, county bowling attacks these days aren't good enough to examine the technique of up-and-coming batsmen.

crunchman

guitars4you said:

crunchman said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

Hildreth should definitely have been given a chance a few years ago, but he's 37 in a few weeks, and doesn't seem to be quite what he was.

The fundamental problem is what you have been saying about our development of young players.  They don't have the fundamentals, and are having to learn on the job at test level.

In the short term, bringing back Malan might be our least bad option.   He's made a test century in Australia, and seems to be a better player now than he was when he was in the team.  Send Lawrence and Crawley away to work on their games.

It's worth remembering that James Taylor was lost to the team as a player when he seemed to be getting it all together.  He's still only 31 and would be right in his prime now.

The problem with sending them away to work on their game, is where do they do this - Nets is one thing - But the county program is not back until Sept - Can't see to many matches getting 4 days played, knowing our weather 

For most/all July/Aug they will have had no chance to play a 4 day red ball game - The whole program needs attention if we want to produce a test team as well as one day teams

They aren't going to fix it in 3 or 4 weeks of first class cricket.  Ingraining new habits will take a lot of repetition.  The best bet is to get them in the nets at the end of the season and then send them on an A Tour (England Lions, or whatever the latest name is) over the winter.  Tell them that they have the whole winter to fix things, and the first couple of months of next season.  If they resolve the issues with their games, then they will get a chance next summer.  In the meantime, go with the likes of Malan and Denly for the next 10 months.

Long term, we do need to fix the structure of the county game.  That might mean 3 divisions of 6 in the County Championship, with the lowest division becoming semi-pro.  Maybe teams in the top division could loan young players to division 3 sides to get them some experience rather than rotting in the second XI.

Heartfeltdawn

scrumhalf said:

Send for Darren Stevens!

One of the things about the old days of county cricket was that you played against a mixture of county trundlers and world-class bowlers. There wasn't much other decnt cricket going on in the world during an English summer and each county had some quite marvellous overseas players who stayed for years. That's all gone, county bowling attacks these days aren't good enough to examine the technique of up-and-coming batsmen.

There is truth to that on the bowling front but you have to factor in the pitches too. 

If you play a lot of games early season and late season, then you'll end up on wickets predominantly helping seamers and not spinners that also don't have a lot of pace and bounce. if you play on those wickets then average bowlers can succeed and the top bowlers aren't needed. You then end up on a shirtfront batting track (rare this year with the weather: quite mad to think that the driest wickets I've seen have all been league wickets in bloody April) and your batsmen who have grown up and developed on April-September seamers can't play a long innings because they're not used to it, they can't face the spinners in the second innings because they're not used to it, and the young bowlers used to darting the ball about on greentops find it hard to cope with a tougher wicket and their development stalls.

Compare that to the Indians who have grown up with wickets where you can bat all day. The batsmen learn how to play the long innings from a physical and mental standpoint. The bowlers have to learn other tricks like the wobble seam, reverse swing. the spinners learn how to bowl in a containing manner for the first innings and then how to attack in the second. 

When I played, I went to a higher league club around the age of 15 whose wicket was a shirtfront. it was located on an area with a lot of chalk in the soil, it had some pace and bounce, and one of the county sides who came there for the old limited overs competition that featured Minor County sides said it was the best wicket they'd batted on outside of the professional game. A few colleagues in my county age group asked me why I went to a club with a wicket that didn't give me much assistance when I bowled leggies. Simple: if I could bowl them well there, then dump me on a wicket that did help me and I'll do absolutely fine. Any spinner can bowl on a shite track and get wickets as the like of Michael Clarke and Joe Root have shown against India, and we have some of that in the CC because we play at times when wickets and climate aren't always at their best. 

sev112

Maybe give Liam Livingstone a go?  

Stuckfast

scrumhalf said:

Send for Darren Stevens!

One of the things about the old days of county cricket was that you played against a mixture of county trundlers and world-class bowlers. There wasn't much other decnt cricket going on in the world during an English summer and each county had some quite marvellous overseas players who stayed for years. That's all gone, county bowling attacks these days aren't good enough to examine the technique of up-and-coming batsmen.

I'm not 100 percent convinced that county attacks were better back in the day. Yes on the one had you were likely to face a Test quality bowler or two wherever you went. But on the other hand the teams simply played so much cricket there was no way any of them could operate at full intensity all the time. One of the main reasons we now have central contracts is that the county system placed an unsustainable workload on bowlers and wore them out.

And although we don't have the likes of Malcolm Marshall or Curtly Ambrose terrorising county sides now, there have been plenty of high-quality former Test players still operating in recent years: Kyle Abbott, Fidel Edwards, Morne Morkel, Duanne Olivier, Michael Hogan, etc. Simon Harmer and Jeetan Patel are two of the best spinners in the world and play(ed) day in day out for their counties.

Heartfeltdawn

Stuckfast said:

I'm not 100 percent convinced that county attacks were better back in the day. Yes on the one had you were likely to face a Test quality bowler or two wherever you went. But on the other hand the teams simply played so much cricket there was no way any of them could operate at full intensity all the time. One of the main reasons we now have central contracts is that the county system placed an unsustainable workload on bowlers and wore them out.

And although we don't have the likes of Malcolm Marshall or Curtly Ambrose terrorising county sides now, there have been plenty of high-quality former Test players still operating in recent years: Kyle Abbott, Fidel Edwards, Morne Morkel, Duanne Olivier, Michael Hogan, etc. Simon Harmer and Jeetan Patel are two of the best spinners in the world and play(ed) day in day out for their counties.

We do have some good performers out there, no question. But it's nowhere near as strong as it was in 2000.Take someone like Hampshire in 2000. Mullally played half of the CC games. They had Warne, Udal, and Mascarenhas. Alex Morris was never close to international selection but ended with a solid average and SR. Leicestershire had Kumble for most of the season, Ormond, Vince Wells, DeFreitas (amusing when you look who finished bottom of the Leics bowling averages that season). You look at Lancashire and it's quite ridiculous. Over the season they had Ian Austin, Chapple, Keedy, Joe Scuderi, Chris Schofield, the perennially underrated Peter Martin, Gary Yates was very handy in the one day game, and they had some dude called Flintoff... perhaps not full top notch internationals but 

Just look at the Surrey FC averages for 2000 when they won Div 1. 

https://i.imgur.com/n1cs2aw.png

You had McGrath and Warne both playing county cricket that year. Not one or two games but double figure numbers (and McGrath was astounding). 


Now the first central contracts were announced March 2001. All 12 of them! Yorkshire were hamstrung by White, Gough, and Hoggard being on the list and their availability was limited (CC games that season Gough played twice, White 9 games, Hoggard 7). So who else did they have? Chris Silverwood, Steve Kirby, Gavin Hamilton, Ryan Sidebottom, Richard Dawson... 

Squads had better first class quality depth back then and this was helped by the Kolpak situation. When you look at the list of folk we had come over, there's some damn good cricketers on there who were also proven at international level (Murray Goodwin would have gotten into any country's 1st XI when he Kolpak'd over). 

Strip the first class game of quality pros like that and quality overseas players, arse about with the schedule, it's going to suffer and when the first class game suffers then so will the Test side. We saw that in the overworked days and we're seeing it again. 

crunchman

Going back in time, there were all the WIndies fast bowlers for county batsmen to cope with.  The list is incredible:

Malcolm Marshall at Hampshire

Michael Holding at Derbyshire

Joel Garner at Somerset

Curtley Ambrose at Northants

Wayne Daniel at Middlesex

Colin Croft at Lancashire

Andy Roberts at Hampshire then Leicestershire

Courtney Walsh at Gloucestershire

Ian Bishop at Derbyshire

Sylvester Clarke at Surrey

George Ferris at Leicestershire - he didn't play test cricket but was a very good bowler and would have walked into the England team in that era, or the current WIndies team.  Being around at the same time as Holding, Marshall, Curtley, and Courtney meant a lot of competition for places.

As well as the West Indians you had all time greats in Hadlee, Imran, Waqar, Wasim, and Donald, plus other very good bowlers like Garth Le Roux from South Africa.

Young batsmen coming through now are just not tested against that quality of bowling.  It makes the jump to test level a lot harder.

Stuckfast

Obviously Shane Warne was a one-off genius, but was the rest of that 2000 Hampshire attack really better than their current line up? This season they've fielded Kyle Abbott, Mohammed Abbas and Fidel Edwards alongside Brad Wheal, who is properly quick, and Keith Barker who is having a bit of a golden summer.

Maybe it's close between Mullally and Barker, who are both skilful left-arm medium-pace bowlers, but Mullally was a notorious rabbit and Barker is close to being an all-rounder. Not sure who else from the 2000 side makes it into your team ahead of Abbott, Abbas and the others though.

Same with Lancs. Glen Chapple was genuinely a great bowler who should have played for England, but would you seriously pick Chris Schofield ahead of Matt Parkinson?

crunchman

Stuckfast said:

Obviously Shane Warne was a one-off genius, but was the rest of that 2000 Hampshire attack really better than their current line up? This season they've fielded Kyle Abbott, Mohammed Abbas and Fidel Edwards alongside Brad Wheal, who is properly quick, and Keith Barker who is having a bit of a golden summer.

Maybe it's close between Mullally and Barker, who are both skilful left-arm medium-pace bowlers, but Mullally was a notorious rabbit and Barker is close to being an all-rounder. Not sure who else from the 2000 side makes it into your team ahead of Abbott, Abbas and the others though.

Same with Lancs. Glen Chapple was genuinely a great bowler who should have played for England, but would you seriously pick Chris Schofield ahead of Matt Parkinson?

Kyle Abbot is 34 and Fidel Edwards is 39.  It's hardly Hadlee, Marshall, Holding, Donald, Wasim, Waqar, Curtly, Courtney in their prime like you used to see 30 odd years ago.  I know they weren't all at one county, but they were on different level to Abbot and Edwards, even if Abbot and Edwards were in their prime.  County batsmen just don't see that quality of bowling anymore.