World Cup and Test Cricket 2019

[DracoM]

And what will the HUNDRED do to red-ball batting skills next season?
I simply shudder to think that the ECB has manoeuvred English cricket onto a scary cliff-top.
ECB bank balance improves, whoopee, but on-field skills disintegrate, esp batting?

So, how is that looking after cricket's future?

[LMcD]

And what will the HUNDRED do to red-ball batting skills next season?
I simply shudder to think that the ECB has manoeuvred English cricket onto a scary cliff-top.
ECB bank balance improves, whoopee, but on-field skills disintegrate, esp batting?

So, how is that looking after cricket's future?

Quite!

[antongould]

And what will the HUNDRED do to red-ball batting skills next season?
I simply shudder to think that the ECB has manoeuvred English cricket onto a scary cliff-top.
ECB bank balance improves, whoopee, but on-field skills disintegrate, esp batting?

So, how is that looking after cricket's future?

Exactly Draco .........

[Belgrove]

Goodness me, Archer is fast - one can only see the ball if behind the bowler- he's a game/series changer without a doubt. Despite losing some 5-1/2 sessions due to rain, England could have won the match had not Root been so cautious in declaring on the last day. Stokes (having first saved the match and then advancing it to match winning potential) was signalling to the dressing room for the declaration once the lead exceeded 220. And why did Root not use Woakes more - is Broad pulling his strings? A brave and important debut performance by Labuschagne, the replacement for Smith, who also received a head hit from one of Archer's missiles. Round three commences tomorrow with a prospect for better weather throughout the match. Recent history favours Australia to win at Headingley, but that was before Archer!

[burning dog]

ECB bank balance improves,

Will it?

They now, for the first time in a long while, have 2 products in competition with each other, though not at the same time, the HUNDRED and the still running T20. Do they really think the latter will attract a different audience from the former?

T20 has been pretty successful but the new audience they were hoping to attract at first didn't materialise..

When T20 started they had a concert by a popular girl band at the opening match at the Rose Bowl, surely their worst attended gig, as the crowd consisted of the usual "one day" types, albiet in greater numbers.

The authorites seem obsessed with the feeling that cricket does not appeal to a wide enogh demograhic, but I think it suffers less from this than other sports eg.Golf.

Top Football doesn't worry that it's mainly attended by lower middle class white men - and it still is whatever they try and tell us - (poor people can't afford it any more), as they attend in such large numbers. I sometimes attend "bottom" football and that's more or less the audience there as well, though the less well off can afford to go.

Of course you will get a lot of retired men watching County Championship cricket as, apart from the occassional last day on a Saturday (crazy in itself), it's played on a weekday during working hours.

[DracoM]

Totally agree about ticket prices to attend matches.
BUT
if you want to get families / kids etc to watch the day-only matches, then do NOT put them midweek!

My real concern is red-ball skills which seem to have been put on the back burner for such a huge segment of the season. AND in the 100, the virtual disintegration of county loyalties. Inexplicable: imagine telling footie-lovers in Manchester that City and United should come together with Liverpool and Everton as the 'Northern Lights' or something? Ahem!!!

[burning dog]

Totally agree about ticket prices to attend matches.
BUT
if you want to get families / kids etc to watch the day-only matches, then do NOT put them midweek!

My real concern is red-ball skills which seem to have been put on the back burner for such a huge segment of the season. AND in the 100, the virtual disintegration of county loyalties. Inexplicable: imagine telling footie-lovers in Manchester that City and United should come together with Liverpool and Everton as the 'Northern Lights' or something? Ahem!!!

Another reason I think it may fail. People were scepital about T20 but it did allow those who haven't much time a chance to see an entire match. I can't see that the 100 adds anything new in that respect.

At least they seemed to have stopped the daft idea of having the last day of a four day game on a Saturday, as in "Lets go to cricket tomorrow!" "Oh! don't bother, Hampshire are 150-7 chasing 250. Home before lunch". I think the theory was they didn't get any corporate attendance for CC cricket on a Saturday, but financially it stopped them putting on a one-day game attracting real fans.

Ideally four day games should be in the middle of the season in "Test match" conditions.

[teamsaint]

Another reason I think it may fail. People were scepital about T20 but it did allow those who haven't much time a chance to see an entire match. I can't see that the 100 adds anything new in that respect.

At least they seemed to have stopped the daft idea of having the last day of a four day game on a Saturday, as in "Lets go to cricket tomorrow!" "Oh! don't bother, Hampshire are 150-7 chasing 250. Home before lunch". I think the theory was they didn't get any corporate attendance for CC cricket on a Saturday, but financially it stopped them putting on a one-day game attracting real fans.

I would think there must be a case for reintroducing some 3 day cricket ?

[burning dog]

I would think there must be a case for reintroducing some 3 day cricket ?

Kept the players busy. Played a Sunday league game on the day off, sometimes against the same team...

[teamsaint]

Kept the players busy. Played a Sunday league game on the day off, sometimes against the same team...

Oh yes, happy days for schoolboys and pensioners. Sat/mon/tues, JPL on Sunday, wed/ thurs / fri.

Bit of a treadmill for the pros though.

[Historian]

Round three commences tomorrow with a prospect for better weather throughout the match. Recent history favours Australia to win at Headingley, but that was before Archer!

Yes, but he can't open the battting as well. The unfortunate (temporary) loss of Smith evens things up but doesn't solve all of England's problems. The idea of putting Roy at the top of the order was that he could score rapidly, however so far he hasn't survived long enough against Australia to see what he can do. Denly looks more solid but has yet to make a big score. Root looks ill-at-ease and his captaincy decisions can be questionable. England's bowlers have been getting less lateral movement with this year's Duke ball and so the attack looked toothless at times in the first Test. Leach is a good player but relatively inexperienced at this level.

However, that said, Australia's batting record is also mixed and the advent of Archer (the Age of Sagittarius?) gives England much more of a cutting edge (but don't bowl him for too long or he'll burn out or go down with a stress fracture).

I will try to be optimistic, but having followed English cricket for 35 years, you learn not to pitch your hopes too high...

[cloughie]

Oh yes, happy days for schoolboys and pensioners. Sat/mon/tues, JPL on Sunday, wed/ thurs / fri.

Bit of a treadmill for the pros though.

Never bothered the likes of Freddie or Closey, nowadays they’re sheltered from county cricket all season - at least George Davis shouldn’t stop the match this time!

[antongould]

Oh yes, happy days for schoolboys and pensioners. Sat/mon/tues, JPL on Sunday, wed/ thurs / fri.

Bit of a treadmill for the pros though.

Bowled themselves fit in those days ts .......

[DracoM]

.....but if they get any play TODAY, I'll eat my hat. Just looking outside, and.............etc?!!!

[Historian]

Bowled themselves fit in those days ts .......

Old story, but maybe worth retelling. In 1962 England sailed to Australia on the liner Canberra and Ted Dexter engaged the long-distance runner Gordon Pirie (an Olympian who was travelling to the Commonwealth Games) as a fitness trainer. Pirie told Truman that he needed to strengthen his leg muscles... Truman pointed out, forcibly, that his legs had carried him through over 1,000 overs that season.