English cricket thread

harshad said:
Comment on cricinfo: "This Test match lasted 1084 balls, the shortest completed Test match hosted by Australia in 70 years."

Wow. Thats some stat, considering Australia have hosted Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in the last 20 years.
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:lol:
 
TwoSheds said:
Obvious answer would be to televise the county games on terrestrial. If you want people to get into it you have to make it more easily available. Once they're into county they'd be much more likely to pay to watch Sky or whatever for Tests so it's got to be a good financial move as well as good for the game. They could also invite schools to bring kids along and that kind of thing if they wanted to get numbers up in the crowds for some days.
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Agree, the county game needs more exposure, you can't make commercial TV companies broadcast loss-leading events though can you.
 
"Unfortunately, where the game is at in our country right now, the only place you can really learn that is in the hardest environment," he added. "For what is quite a young batting group, they're having to learn out here. The environment that they're coming from, it's not readying them well enough for Test cricket.

Agree with Root here. I'd rip the county game up and create a regional comp but doubt they'll go that far sadly.
 
I've been following test cricket since '97 and the England batting is as shocking as I can remember.
 
Interesting piece in Cricbuzz with a lot of comments from Paul Fabrace who was in the England setup between 2015-2019.

https://m.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news...atting-at-rock-bottom-with-deep-rooted-issues

I’ve pulled out his comments:

"I think we've got too many batsmen in county cricket that have got techniques that are flawed," says Paul Farbrace, Director of Cricket at Warwickshire and former England assistant coach. "There's too many quirky techniques in English cricket. people have got too quirky and too funky. You know this idea of batting on off-stump, bats coming down from gully with three or four movements before the ball is bowled. And there's too many people that haven't got the temperament to want to bat for long periods of time."

On the technical deficiencies that have too often been evident in players coming into England's Test team, Farbrace says a lack of specific coaching at junior levels means batters enter the professional games with deep-rooted technical problems. They may get away with those issues at county level. They won't get away with them in the Test arena. "I think our coaching has got lazy in the last few years," he says. "Coaching in England has gone away from instilling basics in young players to actually saying, 'Play your game, play the way you want to play'.

"It's a cop out because coaches are not being strong enough. They're not working hard enough to instil the basics in our young players, and as I say, there are too many players at the age of 15, 16, the techniques ingrained into them are not good enough. Coaches have let them get away with it because they want to be their friend, they want to be nice to them and they want to encourage them to hit the ball well."

Temperament is much harder to improve than technique but Farbrace thinks there is a dearth of batters in the English game with the right mental attributes to be a success at Test level, batters who want to bat all day to make a hundred and not simply be happy to score a quick 30 or 40. He believes the discourse around the quality of pitches is indicative of that sort of lazy attitude. "Are players actually good enough, have good enough techniques and have the mental capacity to bat for long periods of time?" Farbrace asks.

"They just blame pitches and they say it's a sh*t heap or it's a result pitch. There are a lot of good pitches in county cricket. It's too easy to blame pitches. Testing your technique, it's a test of your character. If the ball does a little bit. Rather than this attitude of thinking, 'I'm going to get 20 before the ball gets me'. Actually let the ball come play under your nose. Play defensively, leave the ball outside off stump, let them bowl to your channel, let them bowl to where you want them to."

Generally, Farbrace thinks batters in England do not think enough about how to approach their innings, how to prepare, how to combat opposition bowlers. During his time with England, he would often get frustrated after batters got out easily after being set-up by the opposition. "It's like, did you not think that they're setting you up to get you out that way? 'I never thought about that. Oh yeah, that's a good point.' I just don't think batters think enough. I just think they don't understand the concept of what does my team need for me at the moment? Do they need me to bat for a 40 minute spell to get through and then when they change the bowling or this bowler gets a bit tired, I'll get a few runs off him and I know where I'm going to score? They practice. But they do 20 minutes and then they just hit the ball. It's not focused enough."

Addressing the technical and temperamental challenges facing English long-form batting will not be easy. Unfortunately, Farbrace doesn't think there are many current county players with the right combination of technique and mental fortitude to make a success at Test level. He namechecks Josh Bohanon at Lancashire, Harry Brook at Yorkshire and Rob Yates at Warwickshire as three potential candidates. He also believes Dom Sibley is one of the few players in the English game with the right mindset for Test batting although Farbrace admits there are technical issues for Sibley to solve.
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Longshanks said:
Surely silverwood will be sacked, i suspect root was planning on resigning his captaincy anyway. And I think broad and Anderson should retire i think there days are done.

The team needs stripping out with only stokes, root and archer (if fit) as gaurentees for the next test series. New captain (stokes probably) and new coach and then after that who knows? Crawley and pope have bags of potential hopefully they both play the last two tests for experience if nothing else. Can't make my mind up about hameed just seems to find ways of getting out neither buttler or bairstow for me should be taking the gloves in test matches. What a mess.
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Wouldn't be surprised if stokes bows out of test cricket. No way he takes capitancy anyway, he's just had a mental health break, why burden yourself with this shit show?
 
groovyalbert said:
All relative. We've posted incredibly low batting totals, so teams haven't had to chase/draw out their innings too much. What's the use in taking wickets at 24.13 if the opposition is chasing 150?
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You've read that the wrong way around.

That's the batting average
 
JohnnyKills said:
"Unfortunately, where the game is at in our country right now, the only place you can really learn that is in the hardest environment," he added. "For what is quite a young batting group, they're having to learn out here. The environment that they're coming from, it's not readying them well enough for Test cricket.

Agree with Root here. I'd rip the county game up and create a regional comp but doubt they'll go that far sadly.
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Disagree with that, we had Malan, Root, Stokes Barstow and Butter playing who are all 30+, Burns played the first two tests who is 31.

Might be time to ditch the Duke ball in England and use the Kookaburra, and at grass roots level need to teach young fast bowlers to bowl fast rather than line and length at the start. If Robinson was born in Australia you would bet your bottom dollar he would be clocking 88+ MPH regularly.
 
I think with t20 being that popular and all the franchise available around the world that we should do away with 50 over cricket. Do we really need 2 one day format? Don't even get me started on the 100.

Should just be t20 and 4 day/5day cricket that way there should be plenty of time in the calender for all formats to be taken seriously.

Players prefer the shorter formats because of the money and whatever happens they will be fielding for a maximum of 20 overs bowling only 4 and then get to play with almost complete freedom with the bat.

Test match cricket is still the pinnacle only the very best players with the best techniques and mental abilities succeed. But its a hard slog for the players could be fielding for two days in extreme heat, bowlers could bowl 20 overs in a day and then come back and bowl another 20 and coming out to bat just to survive for a session takes alot of guts and determination you can't just throw your bat around after watching one ball hoping to get a few runs, you might have to soak up 100 balls for the good of the team.

If we want to save test cricket we have to get rid of one of the white ball formats otherwise test cricket will turn into a laughing stock and eventually fail.
 
I think a lot of the English players just seem to get weighed down by the moment. The players at the top come in and only have survival in their mind - they don't look to score runs. It's so easy to bowl to them, because you know you're not going to get put away. Even the players who's natural games are to play shots seem to get weighed down by the occasion or the scorecard - which doesn't help at all. You've got to look to play your natural game, whatever it is.

If you look at the way India batted last winter - the players generally played their game. Pujara batted like he does (he struggles to break a 40 SR on a flat deck at home), but everyone else was playing their natural games. Looking to survive does nothing, you need to actually put runs on the board. I don't mean keep swinging, but you can't get too weighed by the scoreboard if you've had a bad start or if you're opening just look to survive.
 
Skills said:
I think a lot of the English players just seem to get weighed down by the moment. The players at the top come in and only have survival in their mind - they don't look to score runs. It's so easy to bowl to them, because you know you're not going to get put away. Even the players who's natural games are to play shots seem to get weighed down by the occasion or the scorecard - which doesn't help at all. You've got to look to play your natural game, whatever it is.

If you look at the way India batted last winter - the players generally played their game. Pujara batted like he does (he struggles to break a 40 SR on a flat deck at home), but everyone else was playing their natural games. Looking to survive does nothing, you need to actually put runs on the board. I don't mean keep swinging, but you can't get too weighed by the scoreboard if you've had a bad start or if you're opening just look to survive.
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I think this is theoretical. To do all this, you have to be decent at batting to begin with. England arent.
 
Silverwood's self isolating so won't be around for the next test. Not sure who takes charge, if anyone, but it's not like they could do any worse.
 
I think some of the comments coming from the playing and coaching staff are almost as embarrassing as the actual performances themselves!

If anyone genuinely thinks we’re within a light year of Australia right now, their head needs a wobble!
 
DOTA said:
Silverwood's self isolating so won't be around for the next test. Not sure who takes charge, if anyone, but it's not like they could do any worse.
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Thorpe?
 
Interesting to hear Kirsten declare interest in the job according to SSN earlier
 
Kirsten would be a good appointment, but the ECB need to address a wider issue of lack of Test quality players coming through.
 
Sounds like Kirsten is only interested in the Test side and wouldn't want the job of coaching all formats. I guess Collingwood would perhaps step up to the ODI/T20 side if that happened.

I think last time he turned up to the interview thinking the ECB had already decided to offer him the job so it ended up not going too well! Not a great look to be declaring interest when Silverwood is still there either.
 
Is Morgan really going to be captain of the white ball sides much longer? He'll be 37 by the time of the next 50 over World Cup, I can't see him making that. I fear his departure will be a massive setback.
 
Trequarista10 said:
Is Morgan really going to be captain of the white ball sides much longer? He'll be 37 by the time of the next 50 over World Cup, I can't see him making that. I fear his departure will be a massive setback.
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Think his value as a captain is huge. It's basically like having a coach on the field with you.
 
Trequarista10 said:
Is Morgan really going to be captain of the white ball sides much longer? He'll be 37 by the time of the next 50 over World Cup, I can't see him making that. I fear his departure will be a massive setback.
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reckon he would have quit if we won the T20, and will do if we win the next one. I’m not too bothered on the one day captaincy because I fully expect Jos to step into that with very little drop off. Who would be around to step up after Jos would probably be a more pertinent question but that’s a few years off.

That being said, 37 isn’t insurmountable for a batter who is barely judged on his batting any more. A specialist captain can definitely do a role (very easy to argue Morgan has already essentially been that since the World Cup win anyway, on form he shouldn’t have been in the side for the T20’s)
 
Looks like we won't see much cricket over the 5 days.

Bookies with the draw as a huge favourite. Which tells you how bad the forecast is as Austalia only need 2 and a half.
 
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