The International Cricket Thread 2018

[Villan For Life]

I think that there’s been a significant reduction in the quality of test players across all countries. In the winter we made a pretty average Australian team look good due to injuries and poor the poor squad that we selected to start with. The same Aussie team are struggling against South Africa at the moment.

I think white ball Cricket is partly responsible but bowlers are in the ascendency in test cricket. Each test side has a couple of match winning bowlers and quality batsman are few and far between. There’s no dominant side in test cricket at the moment and on their day most teams can beat everyone else particularly in home conditions.

[PaulWinch again]

Yes although NZ's home conditions are very similar to English conditions, so there's much less of an excuse from an England perspective on this tour.

I agree the quality of batsmen has really diminished on the whole.

[paul_e]

Yes although NZ's home conditions are very similar to English conditions, so there's much less of an excuse from an England perspective on this tour.

I agree the quality of batsmen has really diminished on the whole.

At a guess I'd say the excuse right now is that a lot of these players have been on tour for 4 months already, that's ridiculous and unsustainable.

[Villan For Life]

Yes although NZ's home conditions are very similar to English conditions, so there's much less of an excuse from an England perspective on this tour.

I agree the quality of batsmen has really diminished on the whole.

At a guess I'd say the excuse right now is that a lot of these players have been on tour for 4 months already, that's ridiculous and unsustainable.

I’m not sure. There’s so little cross over between the test and ODI squads and even less between the test, ODI & T20 squads. Yes some players like Root and Bairstow play three formats but the majority don’t. Root was rested from the One Day series too and Bairstow isn’t an automatic selection in the one day team.

[paul_e]

Yes although NZ's home conditions are very similar to English conditions, so there's much less of an excuse from an England perspective on this tour.

I agree the quality of batsmen has really diminished on the whole.

At a guess I'd say the excuse right now is that a lot of these players have been on tour for 4 months already, that's ridiculous and unsustainable.

I’m not sure. There’s so little cross over between the test and ODI squads and even less between the test, ODI & T20 squads. Yes some players like Root and Bairstow play three formats but the majority don’t. Root was rested from the One Day series too and Bairstow isn’t an automatic selection in the one day team.

A fair few of them stayed, Woakes, Bairstow, Root, Curran and Ali were all in there for the entire tour and Stokes would've been as well.  Then Malan, Vince and Crane were in test and ewither ODI or T20 squads.  I used excuse on purpose but I think living out of a string of hotels on and off for 4 months would drag.  I don't think it is anything like the limit of the problem and if the ashes had gone better I think it wouldn't feel so bad but I'd bet plenty of the players are, at least secretly, a bit fed up of the whole thing.  The problem for me is that these players are with the England team far too much in the year, we're in a series of some sort for for 8-9 months of the tyear rigfht now and that's just unsustainable.  Root in particular looks like someone who's been asked to play far too many games for 3-4 years.

[Monty]

There's no excuse. For some it's not enough preparation, for others it's too much, the conditions are too similar to England or too unlike Australia, I've seen them all on twitter etc.

It's simple. They had an absolute collective shocker, they had no concentration, once they got on a bad roll they showed no spine and no calm under pressure, they each looked totally defeatist when they went out there, like they'd rather be anywhere else. So as far as what they could do to remedy the situation, my first recommendation would be they become vertebrate.

[paul_e]

Of course there are excuses, the question is how valid they are as explanations.

Is it down to the players?  If so is it due to how they've developed or due to a mentality issue? Are there technical flaws to address? Have we worked too hard on technique and suppressed natural talent?
Is it the coaches? If so is it the England coaching team that's the blame or the counties? Is the focus on T20 too high?
Is it the scheduling? Should the players have more time together out of series? Should series be shorter?
Did the press saying we were fucked before we left for Australia have any impact?
Does the ball used in the matches make a difference?

There plenty of questions (and I purposely added a few that I think are silly) and all of them will have a bunch of answers/explanations/excuses depending on who you ask and in truth most of them will have had an impact.  The big questions though are how do we improve for next winter and what do we do from now to ensure we win the ashes back?  We can only answer those by looking at the array of answers given to the previous questions.

For me the key bits are that our bowlers need to spend more time bowling out of English conditions and our batsmen need to learn patience as a defence.  On top of that we need to look at how we schedule the season and ensure we're not putting too much pressure on people.  Finally the ECB need to work better with the counties to identify a broader range of skills to bring through.  That bit will take time because it should be looking at the 10-14 year olds who are in the system now rather than trying to fix/change players who've already broken through, that rarely works.

[Villan For Life]

There’s a fundamental issue with the batting that’s been apparent for several seasons. We are only ever a ball away from a mini-collapse.

Thinking back over the last few years, how many times have the top order failed and been bailed out by runs from the lower middle order and the tail? Opposition attacks will target Cook and Root. If they fail then in the main the whole top order fails. It’s fortunate that we bat so deep.

We have lost Strauss, Bell, Trott and Pietersen from our line up in the last few seasons and their runs have not been replaced. Of the players that have come into the side in that time only Root offers any sense of permanence but he is just short of world class. No other current batsman really offers anything close to being an established test player for several seasons to come.

Now I do think that the first innings of this test should be viewed in isolation as a one-off but in reality the problems go much deeper than that.

Our selection of batsmen is going back to the cab rank principle of years gone by but the quality of players coming out of county cricket is not all that good. I fear that we are in for a few years of average performances from our test team.

[PaulWinch again]

Yes I’d say there is a long term issue with batting collapses and that’s home and away.

[UK Redsox]

The Aussies lost 5 for 25 during their inning against SA.

Collapses happen

[PaulWinch again]

They happen a hell of a lot more frequently in the England team.

[Villan For Life]

The schedule is pretty daft. Almost two days play have been lost to rain so why schedule a series in what is the start of autumn in New Zealand? It’s the equivalent of staging a test series in September here.

[JD]

The schedule is pretty daft. Almost two days play have been lost to rain so why schedule a series in what is the start of autumn in New Zealand? It’s the equivalent of staging a test series in September here.

Yes it is stupid. They should have played the test matches first. Some rain due down here next week for the Christchurch test.

[Woofles The Wonder Dog]

Bancroft caught ball tampering, and then tries to hide the evidence in his jock strap (if it was sand paper a brave action). Looks like they’ve fessed up.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/cameron-bancroft-ball-tampering-video-south-africa-vs-australia-a8272051.html

[TopDeck113]

Unlike the Aussies to push the boundaries of gamesmanship...

Jim Maxwell has just summed it up neatly. Unlucky for them (Bancroft and Smith), but lucky for the game of cricket that there are so many TV cameras covering every aspect of the action.