Anyone else bored of white ball cricket yet? I certainly feel that I’ve had my fill. Yet here we have the token T20 part of this tour, just to make sure you get Empty Suit’s vision of the future, with a bolted on series that I doubt anyone else but the punters can get excited about.
In a way I hope England use this series to blood new talent, as we know the pro’s and con’s of the normal group. I’d definitely like to see Livingstone & Malan given a chance up the order and whilst I think they’ve picked the wrong Curran, I hope Tom gets a chance to bowl as England’s attack is far from potent. It seems like Mason Crane has been inked in to play the series, which I’m excited to see as it’s clear the guy has talent, though how many games he gets to play without being labelled fragile or too expensive by Pringle, Newman et al, will be interesting.
We’ll try to post as many reports as we can, but it’s holiday season combined with the fact that we’re all busy and a bit bored of not being able to see Test Match Cricket.
Anyway thoughts on the game below…
Being Outside Cricket 
I love white ball cricket, and particularly 50-over cricket. ODIs are my favorite format of the game. However, I feel bilateral international T20Is are completely pointless. Teams are always experimenting, and it’s they don’t care about this format at all. Even the WT20 is only taken seriously by very few teams.
My suggestion is to keep T20 strictly for domestic cricket. That’s where it works best. International cricket should be all about ODIs and Tests.
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Hi Adam, I certainly don’t want to denigrate those who enjoy the white ball game, just feeling a sense of overkill at the moment.
I’ve always been a traditional red ball cricket fan, though that may be down to being a Middx fan, as you probably know we’ve generally been rubbish at the white ball stuff since the 90’s….
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“Even the WT20 is only taken seriously by very few teams”.
Please try to prove that unsupported assertion, Adam. I can’t think of any evidence to support it.
Personally, I find the T20 WC a well-designed tournament (except the treatment of the associates) and would like to see it taking place every two years. Bilateral T20Is I’d happily agree could be kept to a minimum.
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Well, you can compare teams’ preparation in the months leading up to the World Cup vs the WT20 to see how seriously they treat each. Teams by design play more ODIs in months before the World Cup, whereas I have never noticed any extra preparation specifically for the WT20. Before the 2016 WT20, Australia even rested their top players from the 3 match T20I series against India, showing where their priorities lie.
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My guess would be that teams feel their top players have enough T20 experieince from franchise tournaments and don’t need any extra games. I suspect it’s a rather English obsession to look at lots of extra preparatory matches as a particularly good idea. Cardiff may have shown some limits in Stokes’ skills but he also wasn’t by any means fully fit.
There might be some idea that Australia don’t take it that seriously after the 2015 T20I WC when they picked players like Hogg and Hodge. However they’d said they would pick top BBL performers and those two had been. I suspect we’ll be seeing Australia taking the next T20I WC very seriously when they are the hosts!
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Scrapping the CT on the ICC agenda again:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci-icc/content/story/1104976.html
I wouldn’t miss the CT but Richardson’s argument that the CT resembles the WC is complete tosh, of course. The two have come to resemble each other because Richardson and Clarke have pushed this ridiculous ten-team WC format. The CT lasted 15 matches – I think that wouldn’t be halfway through the qualifying round in 2019. Sick of white-ball cricket? Look forward to 2019….
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Can I have my money back for the tickets I just bought to attend your ICC run CT Mr Richardson? Now you tell me the ICC want rid of it. I feel I’ve been ripped off.
I’m dreading the 2019 WC. It’s going to be the longest snail race in history.
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We are amost at the end off June, Wimbledon will be starting soon, and yet still no Test cricket. This may have been the best our summer with the current heatwave. It’s almost as if Test cricket does not exist anymore. (Cough cough)
And now we are told a 50 over tri series of India, Aus, Eng will be rammed in in for next year. Never mind, the day/night test & county matches with a pink ball start soon. In all the excitement about the White ball you may have forgotten the pink ball.cForgotten the pink ball? It’s like pick and mix in Woolworths. White ball, pink ball, red ball,
I was sitting in my garden last night, and to get any effect from night cricket you will have to be playing at 10pm. It’s almost as if the people running the game are just making it up as they go along. But I’m just a dinosaur according to 39 that needs to be ignored for the new dawn of shite.
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“Anyone else bored of white ball cricket yet”.
When Tests do restart, we’ll be switching from famine to ridiculous overkill. I don’t have time to look up the precise figures now but I think England play something like 19 Tests in the 13 months after the start of July. Still, it should be good business for physios and lead to lots of records involving volumes being broken (“hey, has anyone noticed Bloggs has scored most runs from July to July ever, wow, these guys have so much talent….. “).
I posted this at the end of the last thread but it’s worth re-posting that there is a potentially crucial ICC meeting this week and only one of the English press has even noticed:
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/icc-set-to-introduce-new-nine-team-test-schedule-a7799201.html
(I understand people may be cynical about “crucial” ICC meetings that kick everything further down the road but this may very well really be the one. The revenue and governance proposals agreed at the ICC board are up for ratification by the full meeting).
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Are India on board with this? Because if they aren’t then the ICC meeting is pointless!
I’m not a great fan of a test championship as I have said before. But test match cricket is dying so if this helps I guess you can give it a go. I still think there are other things you can do, but the ptb don’t seem interested in them.
I predict a lot of pitch doctoring for the test matches that count towards test points. But then I’m an old cynic. And as usual the elite grounds like Lords will be given the final. Another set piece event for the elites to wallow in. What’s the point of the test rankings now? And would you like to be test champions or just beat the Aussies again?
I’m a dinosaur, I see the merit of a test series in its own context. The ebb and flow of a test series, the 3 or 5 different grounds and pitches. A one off test final proves nothing to me. But as I say, I’m an old curmudgeon. If you love test cricket you are already interested in how other teams get on. I watched Brian Lara get WI home with 9 wickets down against Australia years ago as if I was watching my own team. But hey, it’s all about the kids and a new customer base. It’s the new Coke!
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Hi Mark, I know we disagree about a Test championship and don’t want to go over all that again now, but one thing seems obvious to me – if you create a league, every team in it must play every other team. Is there any example in world sport of a laegue where they don’t?
This idea of playing six teams in two years is a nonsense. Hey, we’re Test Champions without playing, say, India and SA! Even some of the greatest lackeys would have difficulty taking that seriously. It’s such nonsense I’m leaning towards thinking it’s designed to kill the idea of a Test championship off. It obviously has to be over a longer cycle (or fewer teams – but then we know they can’t get any agreement on creating, say, two divisions of six).
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Simon, I will be delighted for you to prove me wrong because it will mean that it’s brought test cricket back to life. That has to be a good thing.
I’m just not convinced it will pull in new people. Are the YOOF of today all sitting on Facebook waiting for a league of test matches? Maybe it will reignite existing and laxed test match fans which is not a bad thing.
I still suspect it’s just re arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic though.
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I forgot to say about India – the point of this meeting is that we’re going to find out!
Last time, India had some support from SL. As I understand it, they need to win over two other FMs with Zimbabwe, WI and Bangladesh their best options one would think. There was also the issue that Manohar seemed to have discovered a huge amount of money down the back of the sofa that might be added to India’s revenue-share.
All that was about revenue. There was also an argument the BCCI had focussed too much on revenue and had not given enough thought to the governance changes. There may be some surprises in store there.
One good point from the Richardson interview is that the idea of one Test series seems to have been shelved. And what’s happening about 4-day Tests?
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Counties want some of the bribe they were promised shock:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/1105033.html
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Ha ha ha
They sold themselves to cheaply. Too late. The ECB have your vote now. Counties are run my morons. They could have organised their own 20/20 and told the ECB to but out. But they couldn’t orgainse a piss up in a brewery.
Now they will have to watch like Dickensian children looking through the toy shop window at all the glitter and gold. We may even get IPL owners buying the franchises. Some of these county grounds will be car parks or posh new flats in 25 years time.
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Absolutely, they sold out too soon. On one hand, the ECB are claiming that they’ll get £180m extra a year from the new TV deal, on the other hand they offer the counties around £20m to basically vote themselves out of existence. I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t have waited until after the TV deal was sorted this summer.
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I expect the change in schedule for this year has affected cash flow for Counties. In the last few years they would have had a few T20’s by now and are missing the ticket sales and even more likely the beer sales.
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Two “pieces of our Ashes jigsaw” not looking in the greatest of shape:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2017/06/20/haseeb-hameed-keaton-jennings-need-lions-runs-battle-england/
Never mind, they’re off to the Lions and you-know-who will sort them out….
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Not feeling at all vindicated in exercising caution over HH. Not. At. All.
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So there are four openers playing in the Lions match, “all chasing a possible two places in the Test team.”
Two places?
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The former skipper is inked in at #1, it’s positions 2 and 3 that are up for grabs. If the former skipper continues to bat like he did in India, there might be another place available!
With the insane schedule coming up, this is just what you need!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2017/06/22/england-sweating-stuart-broad-fitness-scan-reveals-heel-injury/
All looking solid and stable with the Ashes on the horizon
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Root and Bairstow will I imagine also be automatic selections, as is Stokes. There might be less certainty about Moeen (as much to do with the spin bowling issue) but I’d be surprised if he didn’t also play a part. So while I wouldn’t say, “there are no vacancies,” I was a bit surprised by the notion that there might immediately be two slots available in (say) the top six.
As for AC, I’m afraid I think he’d have to have an absolutely cataclysmic summer to get dropped, let alone not go to Australia. To be clear, by “cataclysmic” I mean literally forgetting which end of the bat to hold while giggling uncontrollably and soiling himself on the pitch in every single innings. (Now there’s an image you probably won’t thank me for conjuring…)
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TBF that would be far more entertaining than watching Cook normally..
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All right, I think it’s time to look into the fact that these T20 players (Dawson, Crane, Roy, Hales & Bairstow especially) should either quit cricket or be put in charge of the whole ICC because frankly when they’re playing they bring a genuine joy to the sport.
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So it was only players who declared the IPL would be a benefit? Who said in 2015,
“The great thing about going to those tournaments is that you go as an overseas player, so you’re under pressure to perform and win games of cricket. That’s exactly what we want our players to do. Thirty-eight of the 44 players involved in the semi-finals of the World Cup had IPL experience. We should seek further opportunities to get our guys in there,”
Elsewhere, Broad may be out of the First Test with injury and, in one of those decisions that makes me loathe the ICC, the current Netherlands/Zimbabwe match does not have ODI status (which must be a relief to Solomon Mire who managed to concede 18 runs off 1 legal delivery!).
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New revenue-sharing model just agreed:
https://sports.ndtv.com/cricket/bcci-to-get-usd-405-million-from-icc-england-next-at-139-million-1715716
India receive over USD 100m more than was agreed previously…..
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This makes me sad. Once again, India has threatened to take it’s ball and go home and once again the ICC members have unanimously folded. Looking forward to the same outcome in 18 months time when India decides it wants more money
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Cricinfo are saying they’ve brokered peace. Here’s Giles Clarke’s press conference:
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Don’t suppose you fancy writing a quick piece on it?
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I could on Sunday if nobody else has but I can’t before then.
The other big decision:
It’s good news of course and they’ve also been granted FM status which hadn’t been certain. However, this being the ICC, there has to be some bullshit in the small print. Firstly, Ireland and Afghanistan are still regarded, for funding purposes, as AMs and will thus receive considerably less money than the other FMs (about 50% of what that model of good governance Zimbabwe get). Secondly, it seems almost certain that Ireland and Afghanistan’s Tests are going to be almose exclusively against each other with the odd token match against anyone else thrown in occasionally.
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Sunday could work. You’ve got a better grasp than most on ICC affairs…
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Anyone got a billion or so quid spare??
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2017/06/22/ecb-expect-1bn-bt-sport-sky-prepare-tv-rights-bidding-war/
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Which only goes to show why the county chairman are the worst business men in England.
The amounts of money are staggering considering how few people watch. Somebody is going to have to pay for all of this. And if BT wins out it will be telephone and broadband users. And if Sky wins out it will be their loyal football fans who will be forced to cough up some more wonga. (On top of the extra they have to pay for the latest Premiership deal.) How long before a Sky sports subscription will be £100 per month? Watch out if you subscibe to the non sports options. Don’t be surprised to see the family packages going up to help pay for it.
Alo this may be why The Aussie administrators may want to end the revenue sharing model for their players. Not of course that this is about Aus. But if cricket is going to get massive windfalls from tv it’s not hard to see why the administrators don’t want to keep the same % going to the players.
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Those cigars and whiskeys for the administrators have to be paid for …
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