The International Cricket Thread

[Steve67]

What an absolute mess.  The sooner this Key/Bazball crap ends, the better.  I appreciate they aren't directly responsible for Stokes and Atkinson doing what they did but they are in charge of what's been a very ordinary last few years and clearly, the players lack respect for their authority.  We've gone backwards with them in charge and, yes, we have no natural progression for the captaincy.   

[PaulWinch again]

I think they’ve made mistakes but if you look at their time in totality we definitely have not gone backwards. We’re better than we were when they took over. What they haven’t managed to do is get over the line to win the really big series when opportunities have arisen.

[Steve67]

I couldn't agree with you less PWA.  We have an ageing side, our selectors have only just started watching county cricket, we don't beat the really good sides. There is so much about this set up that is poor. We are further behind Australia than we have been for years.  The problems may lie with Rob Key and his lack of experience, which may or may not get better, but we are a poor side.

[paul_e]

I do think people are getting carried away with a narrative on Brook. Yes he makes some decisions that don’t pan out, but to call his Test career underwhelming is a setting a very high bar. 36 Tests, 10 hundreds and 16 fifties at an average of 54. He’s one of the best around.

He's been set as the face of all the bad things about Bazball so any failure from him get pounced on by some people (not anyone on here, I mean journalists, ex-players, etc) and it creates this myth that he's somehow on thin ice or undeserving of his place, which is objectively wrong, especially when he's played during a period where the top 3 have repeatedly failed to see of the new ball and him and Root have been exposed.

[PaulWinch again]

I couldn't agree with you less PWA.  We have an ageing side, our selectors have only just started watching county cricket, we don't beat the really good sides. There is so much about this set up that is poor. We are further behind Australia than we have been for years.  The problems may lie with Rob Key and his lack of experience, which may or may not get better, but we are a poor side.

I just don’t think that’s true. Look at where we were when they took over. We were evidently worse than we are now. We are also trying to move past two of the greatest bowlers in English history and one of the best performing all rounders. We’re not really that far off Australia, I suspect we’ll see that next summer. In Brook, Bethell, Smith we have batters who can be at the top of the game for years - both Rew’s might join that list two. There are lots of good bowlers, and some really exciting ones coming through.

Now don’t get me wrong there are some obvious issues and they have made lots of mistakes. Most notably of late, misreading what they needed in their bowling group in Australia. But also an issue with spotting the key moments in games. There is much they could do better, but it’s also not the car crash ruin it’s being presented as.

[paul_e]

Aging side is just straight up wrong, the first test had 4 players in their 30s, that's a pretty youthful team by England standards. Dealing with what was an aging side is behind most of the difficulties and they've done a decent job of it.

[Steve67]

Do your research chaps, we started well but have stagnated, other than against New Zealand curiously! I want us to be so much better. 

[Villan For Life]

Brook flatters to deceive, he has the skills to be a top international batsman but time and time again his temperament lets him down. Whether that’s in a nightclub or out in the middle, he can be well set and then plays an incredibly poor shot to get out. I’ve said before that he needs to study Joe Root, a guy whose professionalism shines through. Root rarely plays a rash shot, Brook is only a brain fart away from getting out after a sudden rush to slog. He doesn’t read the red ball game well, test cricket is about nuances of play and reading the situation; getting through the next five overs to the interval or to stumps. He plays for the moment not for the game situation.

[PaulWinch again]

You’re arguing a different point - no one is disputing there areas to improve, getting over the line in big series being the obvious one. But Stokes has one of the highest win ratios as an English Test captain. Clearly that’s influenced by the start, but it’s not solely that.

The idea it’s in ruin just isn’t accurate, but they do need to improve.

[paul_e]

Do your research chaps, we started well but have stagnated, other than against New Zealand curiously! I want us to be so much better. 

Not sure if that's meant for me but if so literally all I was pointing out is that the 'aging squad' bit is just not the case, the average age of the team now is lower than the one they took over.

We have stagnated a little but, for me, that was a result of 2things:

1. We were too patient with Crawley and Pope who had been failing for 2 years before the ashes and then completely fell apart in Australia. This seems to have been addressed and I have high hopes that Gay and Bethell will be significantly less flaky is those spots.
2. We had been too reliant on Broad and Anderson (and Woakes to a lesser extent) and have had to almost start from scratch finding a new bowling attack without them.

Neither of those problems are due to bazball but rather a lack of options in the county game because the championship has been marginalised in favour of ever shorter formats that encourage a very different skill set.

[Steve67]

I agree Paul, but this falls to the hierarchy to have a plan in place to combat such issues. We started well with Baz but he needs to be supported by the ECB to remodel the county format so of the game to assist us finding the quality coming through.

[Villan For Life]

I agree Paul, but this falls to the hierarchy to have a plan in place to combat such issues. We started well with Baz but he needs to be supported by the ECB to remodel the county format so of the game to assist us finding the quality coming through.

That’s like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas, the counties won’t do anything about the format of the domestic game as it potentially impacts on their revenues.