The Cricket Thread

[Paddingtonwolf]

Maybe it actually is relevant but for a different reason. The IPL is the money tempter for the world stars and they don’t come to the county game now. Which is a shame as they could be a bit of a leveller between the county sides.

That genie is out of the bottle though.

We do need all the counties to be competitive with each other ideally across all formats.

Obviously that isn’t possible in one format as half aren’t allowed to play. And yet must give their players to it so they are weakened in the other formats too.

I really really hate franchise cricket.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

All this massively pre-dates the IPL and worldwide franchising though (let alone The Hundred).

Looking at your list of names and when they last played county cricket:

Joel Garner - 1986
Viv Richards - 1993
Sachin Tendulkar - 1992
Richard Hadlee - 1987
Wasim Akram - 2003 (very briefly for Hampshire - realistically he's associated with Lancashire and finished with them in 1998)
Shane Warne - 2007

It's just a completely different era, you wouldn't expect players of comparable standard to come over here to play a full season of domestic cricket any more than you'd expect Chris Woakes to play all the England games and also bowl hundreds of overs for Warwickshire like say, Darren Gough or Angus Fraser did in the 1990s for their counties, the landscape isn't the same. There's more international cricket than in the 80s/90s, let alone any other distractions.

Then you have someone like Moeen who is off to play in the CPL now. Of course he's going to do that rather than play 4 day cricket for Warwickshire, when he's retired from Test cricket. Where's the value in him staying here?

If we were talking about the current footballing landscape and someone started banging on about Howard Kendall's Everton...well, it's two different worlds entirely, isn't it.

The County Championship doesn't really rely on overseas stars, I actually don't think it's in too bad health although there is a very definite gap now between teams who are perennially in D2 and those who are largely in D1 - whether that matters or not, I don't know (I mean no-one cares too much that Man Utd are better off than Stockport, do they). It's predominantly there to be a breeding ground for the national team and that has been the case since central contracts were introduced a quarter of a century ago and you could easily argue with how quickly the likes of Brook, Smith, Atkinson, Hartley and Bashir have taken to international cricket in the last two years alone, it's actually working in that sense.

Scheduling will forever be a problem because there are only so many days when you can play cricket in England, and The Hundred doesn't help, having two T20 (basically) tournaments is unnecessary but equally you can't shut off a whole revenue stream for a host of counties who don't have a franchise. But you can't uninvent it, it's howling at the moon to suppose you can. I'm not keen on the 50 over competition being shovelled to the margins but arguably The Blast had long since pushed it into a distant third place on the rostrum anyway. I guarantee you that there were complaints about the domestic calendar in the mid 1980s, they'd just be different complaints.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

As I remember the complaints were that both the 60 and 50 over tournaments were pretty much all season with the finals at Lords in September, so you were at the mercy of early Autumn. Ideally, one final should have been in August really, but that impinged on the England test season. At least that is how I remember it.

I don't mind the two division county championship. At least the divisions operate in a round robin format so you get home and away against everyone in your division in a season. I don't think that was the case in the era I am getting misty eyed about. But I do think it is a bit short sighted to fire the four day game into the sun for the best six weeks of conditions. Spinners bowling at Taunton in August improves them and also the batsmen facing them, which would help the test team a bit. As it stands, you might as well put cows on Taunton for half of the season.

I also agree that you can't uninvent the Hundred now. However, the words from the ECB about changing the format suggests to me (at least) that there is some recognition that the concept just is flawed. I think it will probably end up being a T20 competition in a couple of seasons. It's what, 25 minutes longer per innings, so I don't think the time constraints are an issue. With the blast not really being pushed as it once was by Sky, then maybe a revised Hundred replaces the Blast, although that would really only annoy the counties on the outside more as they would as you say lose massive chunks of their income.

For me, among its myriad other faults, the big issue with the Hundred was randomly disenfranchising half of the counties and assuming that fans would switch. Am I going to cheer for Welsh fire as a Somerset substitute? Am I fuck.

If the Hundred stays, which surely it will, it needs to involve ALL of the counties. And you can bin off this draft nonsense as well. Counties can use their contracted players in it. Of course, that's my hope and desire, and it won't happen.

 

[Tony Towner]

As I remember the complaints were that both the 60 and 50 over tournaments were pretty much all season with the finals at Lords in September, so you were at the mercy of early Autumn. Ideally, one final should have been in August really, but that impinged on the England test season. At least that is how I remember it.

I don't mind the two division county championship. At least the divisions operate in a round robin format so you get home and away against everyone in your division in a season.

You don't. 10 sides in Division 1, playing 14 games.
Before The Hundred the 50 over final had been ruined by playing it at Lords in September. Win the toss, bowl first and win the game.

 

[Tredman]

Interesting few posts, doesn't seem like there is an easy solution.

 

[Carrotdude]

The thing I don’t get is that even if we ignore the 50 over competition surely there’s a way to get the blast played and finished in a block of time and the hundred in a second block of time. Having a 2 months gap after the groups before the quarters is so bloody stupid. And putting finals day in the middle of an ODI series is even more so.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Interesting few posts, doesn't seem like there is an easy solution.

I agree with you. Solutions aren't obvious. I do think finishing the blast with a finals weekend before the hundred rather than having the hiatus seems a bit of a no brainer. Make it an early season competition - I don't think that would do it much harm. And the overseas players counties sign could be available for the whole competition in most cases.

Of course, that still leaves the big chunk of the season where the hundred must now take precedence because the ECB need it to be that way. My views on that don't really add anything as my skin in the game is hating it up front, so I hold my hands up to it. I think the 50 over competition probably will have to be pitched into the long grass and the calendar continues with two short formats maybe? The blast gives all the counties funding and the 50 over really doesn't now, especially as a 2nd XI competition because of the Hundred draft requirements. I like 50 over cricket, a lot, but I do sort of have to be realistic that it is the likely casualty of trying to make the summer calendar work.

I fervently wish the Hundred hadn't been created. But it has, and it won't be leaving the calendar. Therefore, the calendar has to be worked to make the best of the situation, both for the counties and the international teams. One thought is that the evening format and short timescale of the Hundred actually lends itself to the end of the season rather than the middle. It doesn't need the light in the early evenings in the same way as the four day game or 50 over could benefit. But September it is competing with football. All rather a muddle.

We now the fifty over is the poor relation, so perhaps that could be an early season affair, with games fitting around the early season of the county championship, and an early final at Lords say in late June, and then the late season is blast, hundred, and the conclusion of the county championship?

Dan has it right though - there is a fairly short weather window, and now the ECB are trying to fit four competitions in a space where there were previously three.

 

[Tony Towner]

The ECB is committed to The Hundred being during the kids holidays. That's not changing. The Big Bash seems to coexist with Test cricket in Australia, the stars play the odd game and they have a reasonable but not elite selection of overseas players. The ECB won't do that because of the notion that Test players need to be available for it. Seems contradictory to me as if your target audience is kids then they aren't interested in whether Joe Root is playing in a format that doesn't really suit his skills or not, they are there for the spectacle and the razzmatazz. Because cricket has been behind a paywall for so long the average 10 year old won't even know who he is and if they do they'd go to a T20 game anyway so that's not the new audience you are looking to attract.

They need to stop deluding themselves on that, the way I think it'll go is as a UK based IPL in a T20 format, with the Oval Knight Riders and the Southern Superchargers etc with no Tests concurrently as that's what the new Indian based franchise owners will stipulate.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

The stars play more than the odd game in the big bash. Last season Warner and Smith were helicoptered from their Sydney teams to join Convict CC and then flew back to both play big bash semi finals before returning to Australia duty the next morning. Hazlewood did similar to get back to the Heat in Brisbane for the semi final.

I hate it, but I agree with your second paragraph. The BCCI and the money brokers behind the IPL teams are fucking satan for cricket worldwide, but they won't give a shit as long as their crap competition is in precedence with Ravi Shastri commentary making the rest of us scromit in the background.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

290/4 -> 325 all out. Bit careless but you would fancy our attack to do well in these conditions.

 

[Dinowolf]

You would fancy our attack in these conditions, trouble is no-one told the bowlers.
All very average.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Not that he was likely to get picked again anyway but Mo has retired from international duty.

Did us a good job as a bowler (especially as it was very much his second suit when he first got picked) and his batting was a joy to watch in his first 4-5 years in the team when he was on song.

Goes without saying but an incredible guy too.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Lead of 62. Work to do but handy enough after throwing away wickets yesterday, not being able to bowl seam for a portion of the innings and Atkinson not taking the field today.

 

[Squeak]

Back to throwing wickets away mode by the look of it. Let's hope Root and Brook get this lead to 250 otherwise we're in great danger of throwing this game away as well.

 

[Squeak]

70-6 lead of 132.... good bowling from Sri Lanka after lunch. England need another 100 from somewhere....at least.

 

[jd1981]

70-6 lead of 132.... good bowling from Sri Lanka after lunch. England need another 100 from somewhere....at least.

Anything over 180 chase would put England well in the game.

 

[Squeak]

Anything over 180 chase would put England well in the game.

Not sure about that with Atkinson's groin strain effectively knocking him out of the bowling attack. Let's hope he can score some runs to give us more to play with.

 

[Squeak]

Fantastic from Smith to hammer a crucial 67 but c'mon man, you have to use your brain one ball before tea. 202 lead now.

 

[Squeak]

156 all out. Michael Vaughan warned not to "take the mickey out of the game" and you can certainly understand his sentiment watching that innings. Thankfully Smith put some crucial runs on the board and that should make it a very tight game. Seems Atkinson is warming up so hopefully that is a good sign.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

It's a patchwork team, no proper captain, Lawrence opening, very inexperienced attack bar Woakes

But we've not applied ourselves well in this game and it shouldn't be written off