English cricket thread

Skills said:
Broad's a horrible scrote and an awful influence to have around an upcoming generation of young players. Need to keep them away from his influence.

Anderson's far more level headed and a much better leader and example for players coming through.
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What's all this about?!
 
Skills said:
Wasn't Broad one of the main culprits behind the KP episodes (dropped catches, Twitter account etc)?
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I'd say KP himself was one of the main culprits of that too.

I watched the KP documentary on sky and it seemed a pretty complex situation. Neither side come out of it looking great.

Certainly not enough to label Broad a "scrote" anyway.
 
Skills said:
Broad's a horrible scrote and an awful influence to have around an upcoming generation of young players. Need to keep them away from his influence.

Anderson's far more level headed and a much better leader and example for players coming through.
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Broad didn't cover himself in glory over the Pietersen twitter thing but Anderson doesn't come across any better. Plus, as the recent history of English cricket has shown, we can't be binning off quality players because of concerns about their character!
 
I don't know what came out of this trash thing Pietersen did for Sky but I feel people should remember that it was a trash thing Pietersen did for Sky money.

If anything in it is actually reliable, okay, but I suspect a lot of it is things Kevin Pietersen would like us to think.

Not that Broad and Anderson aren't pretty dislikable at times.
 




A bit off topic but this is just disgusting. The fact that stokes had to come out in open and give an explanation is sad.
 
Hadn't seen the Stokes story before. That's fecking vile. It's hard to imagine anything less our business but more personal. Sun is scum.
 
I'm surprised they didn't publish it the day he hit the match winning century at Headingley. It's typical English gutter press that no matter what anyone does, they will always be waiting with a story to bring them back down.

It genuinely feels like they don't want us to have any success of for anyone to be happy. Who even needs to know this all these years later? I really hope this has the opposite effect to what they were hoping and more readers turn away in their droves.
 
The Sun are fecking disgusting cnuts.

BTW this is the cnut who wrote this 'story'
 
Typical Sun really but they know the story is going to get read. They don’t care about the fallout only readership. Neither do they care if people are hurt.
Sadly we all know there are gossip junkies who will read the rag so they feed into it with more sordid and salacious stories.

I remember Bob Monkhouse begging Lynda Lee Potter not to publish a story about his son being an addict,at least not until they’d all spoken together. She didn’t accept his plea.
Monkhouse’s son couldn’t deal with it and took his own life.
When Stokes talks about repercussions he’s not overstating the impact.

These journos are absolute scum
 
A spokesperson for the Sun said: "The Sun has the utmost sympathy for Ben Stokes and his mother but it is only right to point out the story was told with the co-operation of a family member who supplied details, provided photographs and posed for pictures.
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Get fecked.
 
AshRK said:




A bit off topic but this is just disgusting. The fact that stokes had to come out in open and give an explanation is sad.
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Love the fact they talk about trolls invading someone's personal life and then run that story directly below.
 
KM said:
The Sun are fecking disgusting cnuts.

BTW this is the cnut who wrote this 'story'
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He looks like the sort of man who'd work for the Sun doesn't he (the reporter I mean).
 
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ChrisNelson said:
Interesting article on the BBC website today with the thoughts of Michael Vaughan.

And he makes some very valid points about the future of the England team.

We are changing coach now and it's very important that there is a change of vision as well.

We have spent the last few years gearing up to the World Cup and we won it, which was fantastic. I think to a great extent our team in this format will more or less look after itself for the next 4 years.

As Vaughan says, as soon as the Oval test finished the clock started counting down to the next Ashes down under, with the greatest respect to the teams we play between now and then starting with New Zealand this winter.

Broad will be 35 by winter 2021/22 and Anderson is 5 years older. We've done well to unearth Archer but we really need to find another.

In terms of the batting there are some cabs on the rank but it seems so long ago that we found a genuine batting talent that took to Test cricket like a duck to water.

The general consensus seems to be shove Roy down the order and push Bairstow up and take the gloves off him. I would agree with this as I think it would help both players and allow Buttler to remain where he is in the order.
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That would be a serious mistake to make. Morgan is unlikely to make it through to the next World Cup and my impression is a lot of the success is down to his leadership. It is important England focus on preparing a team for India in 2023 and one of the key objectives for English cricket should be defending the World Cup.

I do not think it is necessary for England to singularly prioritise a format over a given period of time in order to achieve success in that format. England should have separate coaches to reduce the workload and put more emphasis on developing pools of players that are specialists in their format. Only Root, Stokes and Archer are nailed on for me to play both tests and ODIs and even then I would tend towards resting them where I could.
 
So Bayliss has given an exit interview to espn and I think a lot will agree with his take on some of the problems with county cricket:

"You have to ask whether the county game is producing the players we need," Bayliss said. "Is the competition underneath [the England team] doing the job it should be? There's a huge gap between county and international cricket. Huge.

"Again and again, we've picked the best players in the county game. And again and again, they've found the gap too large to bridge. Our top players come back from county cricket and they're not complimentary about the standard. They don't think it helps prepare them for international cricket.

"The pitches are soft and damp. So bowlers get far too much assistance and batsmen don't get into the habit of building long innings. Those same bowlers then come into Test cricket and they find the pitches do almost nothing and the ball won't swing round corners. And the batsmen find the pace of the Test bowlers a shock.

"If you had better pitches - pitches that offered less to bowlers - you might start to see some fast bowlers developing. You might see more spinners developing. You might even see some better slip catchers because I think the big problem in English cricket is concentration. Players have forgotten how to concentrate for long periods of time. They just don't have to do it at county level.

"I'm not criticising groundsmen. They have a tough job, because there's too much cricket and the Championship starts in early April.

"But no one seems to want to get their head down and guts out a score. The attitude seems to be, 'I'd best get on with it before an impossible ball comes along.' But maybe that's partly because society has changed. Everything is quicker now.

"The ECB and the counties have to pull in the same direction. There has to be a collaborative approach ensuring that England is at the heart of it. Ultimately, a successful England team, across all formats, will naturally benefit the game at county level and even have a positive impact on grassroots.

"I think there are too many teams. If you had fewer - maybe ten - the best players would be in competition against each other more often and the standard would rise. I think you'd see tougher cricketers develop. Cricketers who are better prepared for the Test game.
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I imagine the focus will be on the suggestion to reduce the number of counties which will rightly go down like a led balloon, but there can't be much disagreement with the rest.
 
NinjaFletch said:
So Bayliss has given an exit interview to espn and I think a lot will agree with his take on some of the problems with county cricket:



I imagine the focus will be on the suggestion to reduce the number of counties which will rightly go down like a led balloon, but there can't be much disagreement with the rest.
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Agree with everything he said.

Personally I'd rip up the entire first-class competition and replace the counties with a maximum of eight regional teams (North West, Yorkshire, Midlands, London and SE, South Coast, South West, Wales and Ireland).

Each of the teams would be run by the ECB. They'd choose the coaches, the squads and groundsmen. Each match would effectively be an audition for England places (similar to the 'Hick v Haddin' match the Aussies had recently).

As Bayliss says, the best players would come up against each other more often and the pitches would be curated to the ECB's specifications.

The counties might be kick up a fuss, but their competition isn't achieving anything at the moment. It's neither producing test players, attracting interest nor making money. They could keep the one-day tournaments (which actually make money), so their finances would actually improve without the burden of championship matches.
 
JohnnyKills said:
Agree with everything he said.

Personally I'd rip up the entire first-class competition and replace the counties with a maximum of eight regional teams (North West, Yorkshire, Midlands, London and SE, South Coast, South West, Wales and Ireland).

Each of the teams would be run by the ECB. They'd choose the coaches, the squads and groundsmen. Each match would effectively be an audition for England places (similar to the 'Hick v Haddin' match the Aussies had recently).

As Bayliss says, the best players would come up against each other more often and the pitches would be curated to the ECB's specifications.

The counties might be kick up a fuss, but their competition isn't achieving anything at the moment. It's neither producing test players, attracting interest nor making money. They could keep the one-day tournaments (which actually make money), so their finances would actually improve without the burden of championship matches.
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I think the counties argument is a red herring tbh. There are far more obvious failings (which Bayliss has addressed most of) which need to be sorted out first. If we're playing CC cricket on good pitches at a sensible time of the year and we're still struggling to produce good players then you need to perhaps take more drastic measure, but until you're going that your jumping to extreme solutions before you try anything else.
 
NinjaFletch said:
I think the counties argument is a red herring tbh. There are far more obvious failings (which Bayliss has addressed most of) which need to be sorted out first. If we're playing CC cricket on good pitches at a sensible time of the year and we're still struggling to produce good players then you need to perhaps take more drastic measure, but until you're going that your jumping to extreme solutions before you try anything else.
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Disagree. As Bayliss says, it can't be helpful for players coming out of test cricket to be smashing it everywhere or taking five-fers without trying, or for emerging hopefuls to be gaining a false sense of security.

It can't be right that people like Darren Stevens (whose name has almost become a proverbial trope in itself) keep taking wickets at the age of 45. That just shows the system is completely wrong.

The most important thing, in my eyes at least, is that the ECB takes control of first-class cricket. They're the ones paying the bills, after all, so it's in their gift. The counties have shown themselves to be incapable of producing a decent first-class system and they've had 150 years to do so.
 
It's the scheduling of the competitions that is the problem, not the competitions themselves.

England got to number 1 in the world and have won multiple Test series' over the last few years with the current setup.

Australia haven't won a series here since 2001 for example so we're doing something right.

But you can't book end the county cricket calendar with Championship matches, pack all the limited overs stuff in the middle and expect to build a quality Test side. The ECB are becoming increasingly greedy and arrogant towards the smaller counties such as mine, Derbyshire.

The suggestion of just replacing the 18 counties with 8 regions is an absolute disgrace but if it lines their pockets I'm sure the ECB will do it. Most of them are absolutely clueless about running the game in this country.

You only have to read the Cricketer magazine and see the flurry of letters they receive every month from proper cricket fans who go week in, week out and are all saying the same thing about how to rescue the county game whilst improving the England team but the ECB just won't listen.

Look at the Hundred - what an absolute farce. T20 crowds have been increasing for several seasons at a decent rate. Finals Day continues to sell out months in advance but no, it needs re-jigging anyway.

Ignore the small counties and stick a brand new team in each Test ground - like Trent Bridge and just expect Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Northants fans to flock and support them.

In my opinion the ECB couldn't organise a pi$$ up in a brewery - it's not the first class competition in England that needs ripping up, it's their entire leadership.
 
ChrisNelson said:
It's the scheduling of the competitions that is the problem, not the competitions themselves.

England got to number 1 in the world and have won multiple Test series' over the last few years with the current setup.

Australia haven't won a series here since 2001 for example so we're doing something right.

But you can't book end the county cricket calendar with Championship matches, pack all the limited overs stuff in the middle and expect to build a quality Test side. The ECB are becoming increasingly greedy and arrogant towards the smaller counties such as mine, Derbyshire.

The suggestion of just replacing the 18 counties with 8 regions is an absolute disgrace but if it lines their pockets I'm sure the ECB will do it. Most of them are absolutely clueless about running the game in this country.

You only have to read the Cricketer magazine and see the flurry of letters they receive every month from proper cricket fans who go week in, week out and are all saying the same thing about how to rescue the county game whilst improving the England team but the ECB just won't listen.

Look at the Hundred - what an absolute farce. T20 crowds have been increasing for several seasons at a decent rate. Finals Day continues to sell out months in advance but no, it needs re-jigging anyway.

Ignore the small counties and stick a brand new team in each Test ground - like Trent Bridge and just expect Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Northants fans to flock and support them.

In my opinion the ECB couldn't organise a pi$$ up in a brewery - it's not the first class competition in England that needs ripping up, it's their entire leadership.
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Quick question, as I'm genuinely interested: how many days of Derbyshire championship cricket have you attended this season?
 
JohnnyKills said:
Quick question, as I'm genuinely interested: how many days of Derbyshire championship cricket have you attended this season?
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Around 10 but I have a full time job so I've had to book a day off work for virtually all of them.

If I was retired I would have been at every minute of every match, possibly away too.

I've also been to all the home T20 matches plus some of the away ones including the QF at Bristol and I'm going to Edgbaston for Finals Day.

My biggest concern out of everything is that by the time I retire there won't be any Championship cricket at Derby to watch and I think that would be a real shame and kick in the teeth to a county that's 5 times older than anyone who works for the ECB.

I'm not denying limited overs cricket has been good for the game, I'd be foolish to but there is space for 3 formats, it just needs arranging better.

Is there space - or any need - for a 4th format? I think there are a thousand arguments to say no and only £$£$£$ to say yes.
 
ChrisNelson said:
Around 10 but I have a full time job so I've had to book a day off work for virtually all of them.

If I was retired I would have been at every minute of every match, possibly away too.

I've also been to all the home T20 matches plus some of the away ones including the QF at Bristol and I'm going to Edgbaston for Finals Day.

My biggest concern out of everything is that by the time I retire there won't be any Championship cricket at Derby to watch and I think that would be a real shame and kick in the teeth to a county that's 5 times older than anyone who works for the ECB.

I'm not denying limited overs cricket has been good for the game, I'd be foolish to but there is space for 3 formats, it just needs arranging better.

Is there space - or any need - for a 4th format? I think there are a thousand arguments to say no and only £$£$£$ to say yes.
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Ok, and what sort of crowd do you see when you go?

Before moving away from the UK I tried to watch at least one day of Lancs whenever they were at The Oval, as I was living there at the time. Reckon the crowd never got beyond 500. Went to the Saturday of the Roses match in 2016 and it was about the same. Surrey-Middlesex was no better.

Sad as it is, that's not sustainable is it (and I'm speaking as a big Lancs supporter who follows the championship games regularly on the BBC website).

If we did move to a regional comp, ideally the games would be shared around each region. So if, say, Derby and Lancs played together (as would seem geographically logical) the games could be split between Old Trafford, Derby and the counties' existing outgrounds. There'd be no reason for any community to lose the privilege of watching cricket.

It's just about finding a solution that works for the national team and I don't see how the championship is doing that at the moment.

(and btw I agree with you on The Hundred. It's a complete joke. The counties have done a great job with the T20 and there's no reason to change it).
 
JohnnyKills said:
Ok, and what sort of crowd do you see when you go?

Before moving away from the UK I tried to watch at least one day of Lancs whenever they were at The Oval, as I was living there at the time. Reckon the crowd never got beyond 500. Went to the Saturday of the Roses match in 2016 and it was about the same. Surrey-Middlesex was no better.

Sad as it is, that's not sustainable is it (and I'm speaking as a big Lancs supporter who follows the championship games regularly on the BBC website).

If we did move to a regional comp, ideally the games would be shared around each region. So if, say, Derby and Lancs played together (as would seem geographically logical) the games could be split between Old Trafford, Derby and the counties' existing outgrounds. There'd be no reason for any community to lose the privilege of watching cricket.

It's just about finding a solution that works for the national team and I don't see how the championship is doing that at the moment.

(and btw I agree with you on The Hundred. It's a complete joke. The counties have done a great job with the T20 and there's no reason to change it).
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The crowds for Championship games have never been big though, that's been the case for 150 years so I don't see why it's all of a sudden a big deal in 2019. The first class game should be left exactly as it is, the majority of multi-day cricket in this country is played during midweek so crowds will naturally be down. If you played a T20 match at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon you'd have the same problem.

There's no reason to split things even further and make us share a team with another county like Lancashire, their fans would say the same. Why should the Derbyshire members accept even less cricket? We already get only 8 home matches per season and then there's weather affected matches to consider as well.

You say that the Championship isn't working for the England team but as I've eluded to it's the timing of it that isn't right. You're asking our cricketers to play Championship matches in thoroughly unsuitable conditions at the start and end of the season, with hardly any red ball cricket in between. Then wondering why so many, particularly batsmen are failing when put under the spotlight at the height of the summer. It's because they aren't able to get any time at the crease in the domestic matches they are playing so are totally unprepared.

As I've also said the England team have had plenty of success in their recent history. It was only 2011 we were the number 1 Test team in the world and at that time the Championship was played in exactly the same format it is now so there has to be other reasons why we aren't quite as good 8 years later. One of them is we've spent the last 4 years aiming to win the World Cup which we have now done.
 
Sibley scoring a double hundred today. Needs to be given a chance in the next test.
 
ChrisNelson said:
The crowds for Championship games have never been big though, that's been the case for 150 years so I don't see why it's all of a sudden a big deal in 2019. The first class game should be left exactly as it is, the majority of multi-day cricket in this country is played during midweek so crowds will naturally be down. If you played a T20 match at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon you'd have the same problem.

There's no reason to split things even further and make us share a team with another county like Lancashire, their fans would say the same. Why should the Derbyshire members accept even less cricket? We already get only 8 home matches per season and then there's weather affected matches to consider as well.

You say that the Championship isn't working for the England team but as I've eluded to it's the timing of it that isn't right. You're asking our cricketers to play Championship matches in thoroughly unsuitable conditions at the start and end of the season, with hardly any red ball cricket in between. Then wondering why so many, particularly batsmen are failing when put under the spotlight at the height of the summer. It's because they aren't able to get any time at the crease in the domestic matches they are playing so are totally unprepared.

As I've also said the England team have had plenty of success in their recent history. It was only 2011 we were the number 1 Test team in the world and at that time the Championship was played in exactly the same format it is now so there has to be other reasons why we aren't quite as good 8 years later. One of them is we've spent the last 4 years aiming to win the World Cup which we have now done.
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1. Just because a problem's been around for a while doesn't mean you shouldn't fix it.
2. How many members do Derbyshire (or any other county) have? Should the game be structured to suit them?
3. Yes the scheduling is a problem, but so is the declining standard of the competition (as Derbyshire has proved by taking Luis Reece, a batsman released by Lancashire, and turning him into the opening bowler).
4. We were number one in the world for how long, six months? When else have we been the best test team in the world during our lifetimes? I can't think of any other period.

Not coming here to start an argument, just to put my side across. Good on you for watching so much county cricket - sounds like Derbyshire have got some good young players (Qadri particularly).
 
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Inigo Montoya said:
Typical Sun really but they know the story is going to get read. They don’t care about the fallout only readership. Neither do they care if people are hurt.
Sadly we all know there are gossip junkies who will read the rag so they feed into it with more sordid and salacious stories.

I remember Bob Monkhouse begging Lynda Lee Potter not to publish a story about his son being an addict,at least not until they’d all spoken together. She didn’t accept his plea.
Monkhouse’s son couldn’t deal with it and took his own life.
When Stokes talks about repercussions he’s not overstating the impact.

These journos are absolute scum
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I haven't bought The Sun since my student days in 1990's. But I have clicked on their web pages occasionally over the years.

I'm taking an oath never to click on their pages again.

Would love it if Redcafe also banned any links to The Sun from now on! @Niall @Wibble @Raoul @Sultan @Snowle Gunnar Solskjær @Damien
 
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Luis Reece is the 6th highest wicket taker in the division this season, with 48 wickets at 20.02 so I think bringing him in to the equation is a little harsh!

Derbyshire have some very good young players but more bowlers than batsmen and the biggest worry is Madsen isn't getting any younger and other counties will continue to try and persuade him to spend his twilight years elsewhere - same with Godleman. I don't even want to think about what would happen if those 2 went.

That's mainly because batting wise we don't seem to unearth many gems, we just seem to poach from other counties.

I don't think there is a huge problem with the competition as it is, average attendances are probably the same if not slightly better than they were 20 years ago, and we've been the best team in the world in the intervening period so again you have to look at where in the calendar they are putting it. Things will continue to get worse too because the Hundred is the ECB's new baby and everything is geared around making it a success.

They are that backwards they will schedule Championship games for Christmas Day and call it a failure because no one turned up and the pitch should have been covered better. That's what will happen with T20 - they will start putting matches on Tuesday/ Wednesday nights so crowds will drop by 10/20% maybe a bit more - purely because of the inconvenience of the time and not because people are going off T20 - and then BOOM the ECB can justify their amazing new toy.

The holy grail of Test cricket at the moment seems to be winning a series away, because this has become so rare.

The Sheffield Shield in Australia, as you will know has far fewer teams yet England have won an away Ashes series far more recently than they have so there's not really any evidence to suggest halving the number of teams would have such a positive effect.
 
ChrisNelson said:
Luis Reece is the 6th highest wicket taker in the division this season, with 48 wickets at 20.02 so I think bringing him in to the equation is a little harsh!

Derbyshire have some very good young players but more bowlers than batsmen and the biggest worry is Madsen isn't getting any younger and other counties will continue to try and persuade him to spend his twilight years elsewhere - same with Godleman. I don't even want to think about what would happen if those 2 went.

That's mainly because batting wise we don't seem to unearth many gems, we just seem to poach from other counties.

I don't think there is a huge problem with the competition as it is, average attendances are probably the same if not slightly better than they were 20 years ago, and we've been the best team in the world in the intervening period so again you have to look at where in the calendar they are putting it. Things will continue to get worse too because the Hundred is the ECB's new baby and everything is geared around making it a success.

They are that backwards they will schedule Championship games for Christmas Day and call it a failure because no one turned up and the pitch should have been covered better. That's what will happen with T20 - they will start putting matches on Tuesday/ Wednesday nights so crowds will drop by 10/20% maybe a bit more - purely because of the inconvenience of the time and not because people are going off T20 - and then BOOM the ECB can justify their amazing new toy.

The holy grail of Test cricket at the moment seems to be winning a series away, because this has become so rare.

The Sheffield Shield in Australia, as you will know has far fewer teams yet England have won an away Ashes series far more recently than they have so there's not really any evidence to suggest halving the number of teams would have such a positive effect.
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Think that Luis Reece stat kind of backs up my argument Chris. He bowls at what, 75mph tops? Yet he's taking wickets in Div 2 every week. You could say the same about Stevens and Jesse Ryder when he played for Essex. That wouldn't happen on proper wickets.

As you say, the scheduling is a massive issue but it's a hard one to solve isn't it. We've only got a 10-week window in mid-summer and even without the Hundred you've got to squeeze loads of white-ball cricket in, because thats what makes the money.

The only real solution is to somehow play the first-class and T20 comps at the same time, another reason for splitting off the four-day game and creating a new comp under the ECB's direction. You could put the aspiring test players in one and allow the white-ball stars to play in the other.

Get your point about England and Australia but it's a bit reductive isn't it. If you look at it another way, you could say the Aussies are always competitive here (and everywhere they play really) while England get battered every time they go Down Under, apart from that one series in 2011. If you take that series out, we've won one game in Australia in the last 20 years.

Anyway, think I've taken up enough of this thread's time with my opinions on county cricket. If you want to continue the chat, feel free to send me a Pm mate.
 
NinjaFletch said:
So Bayliss has given an exit interview to espn and I think a lot will agree with his take on some of the problems with county cricket:



I imagine the focus will be on the suggestion to reduce the number of counties which will rightly go down like a led balloon, but there can't be much disagreement with the rest.
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This is a double edged sword. In India, previously, pitches were flat and it rarely prepared us for away tours. More recently, we've pushed for a change towards greener pitches back home and theres been a vast improvement in our performances in away tours to Australia, SA and England.

If England push for flatter wickets, it may weaken them in other aspects.
 
Di Maria's angel said:
This is a double edged sword. In India, previously, pitches were flat and it rarely prepared us for away tours. More recently, we've pushed for a change towards greener pitches back home and theres been a vast improvement in our performances in away tours to Australia, SA and England.

If England push for flatter wickets, it may weaken them in other aspects.
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Think the rationale is that you need bowlers who can take wickets in all conditions (i.e. More Archers and fewer Woakes) and flat pitches are most likely to achieve that.

England will always produce bowler-friendly conditions, given the climate and soil conditions. But the balance definitely needs to be moved in favour of the batsman a bit.
 
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