The Cricket Thread 2017

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The Ashes is the pinnacle of English Test cricket.

Why is it a surprise to us that we cannot take 20 wickets and put the Aussies under pressure when you have medium pace bowlers trying to swing a ball in conditions where it wont move. Once that Kookaburra ball gets 10-15 overs old you get no assistance from it. You need real pace on their flat pitches to put them under the kosh as they do with us.

Part of it is the conditions. You dont need spin or raw pace as you will take wickets in England at 83mph with the movement you get. We should be packing players off to play down under in the winter before the Ashes to give them a feel for Sheffield Shield cricket and flat pitches where you toil unless you can make one zip through.

We'd have been better off with Mills and his back injury bowling 4 overs a day than Broad. His form is rank and he's become a coward with the bat.

[Chris Jameson]

Hopefully the focus will turn to proper cricket instead of the smash it out of the park version and we'll start to produce more four and five day specialists.

[dcdavecollett]

I doubt it, with two T20 tournaments in prospect!

[PaulWinch again]

Broad's batting is infuriating. His talent far exceeds his application.

His bowling is a bigger worry though, he's been rubbish this year and that is including his time playing in favourable English conditions.

Woakes has been really poor this tour as well, either bowled too short or too full.

[Nev]

Oh well. I'm looking on the bright side, no more Ashes Lag at work, BT's viewing figures plummeting and not having to listen to that fuckin' pratt on TMS.

[Risso]

The Ashes is the pinnacle of English Test cricket.

Why is it a surprise to us that we cannot take 20 wickets and put the Aussies under pressure when you have medium pace bowlers trying to swing a ball in conditions where it wont move. Once that Kookaburra ball gets 10-15 overs old you get no assistance from it. You need real pace on their flat pitches to put them under the kosh as they do with us.

Part of it is the conditions. You dont need spin or raw pace as you will take wickets in England at 83mph with the movement you get. We should be packing players off to play down under in the winter before the Ashes to give them a feel for Sheffield Shield cricket and flat pitches where you toil unless you can make one zip through.

We'd have been better off with Mills and his back injury bowling 4 overs a day than Broad. His form is rank and he's become a coward with the bat.

The authorities need to look at test cricket and ask themselves what they need to do to make the game competitive at test level again. It’s absolutely pointless if every single series ends in a walloping, I want to see well fought, close games. Not drubbings because nobody can deal with Aussie pace, Indian spinners or English swing. It all feels a bit broken at the moment.

[PaulWinch again]

In fairness most teams have competed in England lately, but I take your point. I'll say one thing to Aus they produce true pitches and let their skills do the talking. All the other countries try to doctor the pitch to favour them. That's part of the problem.

[paul_e]

In fairness most teams have competed in England lately, but I take your point. I'll say one thing to Aus they produce true pitches and let their skills do the talking. All the other countries try to doctor the pitch to favour them. That's part of the problem.

The Aussies don't need to doctor their pitches against most sides, the ball alone pushes you to the point where only top end pace (or spinners who aren't trying to get much spin) is effective.  Some sort of standardisation there would be a big improvement straight away.

[olaftab]

Absolutely not in favour of any sort of "standardisation". Aussies "doctor" their pitches just as much as the English, the Indians and anyone does. To be the best you have to do it away from your natural environment. That is the true test of a cricketer so rather than talking about pitches prepare properly. No one moaned about pitches when West Indies and England were winning Tests in Australia and almost every top Country turned up in England and won the series.

[olaftab]

We should be packing players off to play down under in the winter before the Ashes to give them a feel for Sheffield Shield cricket and flat pitches where you toil unless you can make one zip through

This.

[PaulWinch again]

The Australian pitches aren’t doctored, they play well to bat on but if you’re a very good bowler you’ll be rewarded. That’s what you want from a Test pitch.

You can have some local nuance, like in England you’ll nearly always get movement in the air. But fundamentally all pitches should offer a chance with bat and ball across 5 days.

[paul_e]

I agree that the ECB/Counties failing to prepare players is the main issue and that extends to familiarity with the ball as much as the conditions.

Standardisation probably isn't a good idea, I was just responding to the idea that the aussies don't doctor their pitches, as I say they've created a ball which they all grow up with and that is perfectly suited to the bowlers they produce so they don't need to do anything different with the pitches, the home advantage is baked in from the very beginning.  That's sort of true for all countries but the Duke ball does offer something to all types of bowlers and the English county game is much happier to bring international players in so 'our' home advantage is greatly lessened.

[PaulWinch again]

That's fine and I don't disagree, but there needs to be a standard quality created across pitch and ball. Wherever Test cricket is played it should be a fair contest between bat and ball and the very best players should rise to the top.

Lyon is a good example, the pitches in Australia don't favour conventional spinners, but he's made himself into an outstanding bowler and he's been critical this series.

[olaftab]

You can have some local nuance, like in England you’ll nearly always get movement in the air. But fundamentally all pitches should offer a chance with bat and ball across 5 days.

All pitches around the world do give the same chance with ball and bat  providing you have the players with required skill and talent.

[PaulWinch again]

To an extent, but I think for instance if you're a batsman in Abu Dhabi you'll get a massive amount of runs and if you're a spin bowler in India you'll get a lot of wickets. That's not reflecting immense skill, more that people don't experience those conditions often. You absolutely want variation across the world, but it should be within a reasonable range of variation. That will promote compelling contests and drive the very best to the top of the game.