Cricket (None Leicestershire County Cricket Club)

[Voll Blau]

11 hours ago, goody2028 said:

If nothing else this series, made up for Hartley and Bashir. 

The problem now is how they maintain the momentum into the English summer. Be a struggle to get a gig for their own counties given when Championship games are played.

[Tommy Fresh]

6 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

The problem now is how they maintain the momentum into the English summer. Be a struggle to get a gig for their own counties given when Championship games are played.

Let's be honest, unless we're touring India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, likely only one of them will get a game anyway and perhaps we'll take two on tours elsewhere to compete for one spot. But yeah no massive chance for them to develop, good for Hartley to be around Lyon but he's also probably taking his spot.

[Voll Blau]

2 minutes ago, Tommy Fresh said:

Let's be honest, unless we're touring India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, likely only one of them will get a game anyway and perhaps we'll take two on tours elsewhere to compete for one spot. But yeah no massive chance for them to develop, good for Hartley to be around Lyon but he's also probably taking his spot.

There's already talk of both of them going out on loan.

 

As you allude it, it's imperative they (Rehan too) get the right opportunities in winters to come. Grade cricket (or - and it's a rarity - State) in Australia would be a must for 2024/25 I'd say.

[Super_horns]

Thank goodness it’s almost all over!

We seemed to get worse as the series went or they improved.

[Stinkenzo]

Are you not entertained

[David Hankey]

England facing another crushing defeat.

 

It seems to me this is just another foreign junket disguised as a professional cricketing tournament.

[leicsmac]

Disappointing to not at least have made a better fist of it.

 

But then touring India is a task very few teams, even the truly great ones, win at. This team isn't good enough for that, especially in the spin department.

 

Onto the summer and time to prove they can excel in every other circumstance before the trip to Oz.

[Lionator]

15 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Disappointing to not at least have made a better fist of it.

 

But then touring India is a task very few teams, even the truly great ones, win at. This team isn't good enough for that, especially in the spin department.

 

Onto the summer and time to prove they can excel in every other circumstance before the trip to Oz.

The only teams to win there this century were the great Ponting led Australia side and England in 2012 (perhaps our greatest ever test team). No disgrace in losing to them.

 

Now the target should be to make Sri Lanka and West Indies feel the backlash in the summer and reassert ourselves as a top 3 test side as we build towards the ashes. 

Edited 9 March by Lionator

[STEVIE B]

No doubt we will hear more gushing positive vibes after another crushing defeat.

 

I know it's a tough tour & we had an inexperienced attack that did ok, but the batters just didn't perform often enough. They continue to play with arrogance & don't read the match situation.

 

We had big chances to win at least one other test, possibly two, but messed up.

 

[leicsmac]

14 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Disappointing to not at least have made a better fist of it.

 

But then touring India is a task very few teams, even the truly great ones, win at. This team isn't good enough for that, especially in the spin department.

 

Onto the summer and time to prove they can excel in every other circumstance before the trip to Oz.

Further to this, it's been pretty rare in recent times that any one of India, Oz or England have actually lost a Test series with four or more Tests at home. India beat Oz there last time out and we've drawn against both at home not long ago, but an actual won series is rare.

[StanSP]

What's England's record under McCullum? 

[leicsmac]

9 minutes ago, StanSP said:

What's England's record under McCullum? 

Fourteen wins,  eight losses (six of those against Aus and India in the last year) and one draw.

 

Four won series, three drawn series, one lost (this one).

 

It's clearly not perfect, but it is a marked improvement on what came before that needs fine tuning, rather than the wholesale overhaul the "purists" are calling for.

Edited 9 March by leicsmac

[RowlattsFox]

Pretty similar to the last tour, but maybe slightly more competitive. A couple of individual performances here and there but rarely backed up by anyone else. 

Bowlers did their best but not yet good enough to offer the control needed. 

But far too often let down by inconsistent batsmen hiding behind 'style' of play. 

We got hammered playing the traditional way too, and I do think positive is the way to go, today one of the few times we haven't gone past 50 for the opening partnership which is a big improvement. But once they were out wickets followed. 

A few key periods during the series where we needed to just hang in bit we didn't. 

 

These things generally work un away ashes cycles so stokes and McCullum get til next winter I guess to see how it goes. 

[izzymuzzet]

The reality is most the players in this England team aren't that good. Bazball is a (so far reasonably successful) attempt to make the team more than the sum of its parts through good vibes and putting the opposition on the back foot. How many England players would get in the India or Australia teams? Only Root would be a definite. You'd say Stokes before this series but he's had a poor few weeks. No shame coming unstuck in India as most teams do but the last two tests have been disappointingly limp.

[StanSP]

44 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Fourteen wins,  eight losses (six of those against Aus and India in the last year) and one draw.

 

Four won series, three drawn series, one lost (this one).

 

It's clearly not perfect, but it is a marked improvement on what came before that needs fine tuning, rather than the wholesale overhaul the "purists" are calling for.

Didn't realise this was the first series loss. 

 

Definite improvement, and I suspect some of those wins were as resounding as some of the losses. Bazball in a nutshell. Could be quite epic but also disastrous at times. 

[leicsmac]

19 minutes ago, StanSP said:

Didn't realise this was the first series loss. 

 

Definite improvement, and I suspect some of those wins were as resounding as some of the losses. Bazball in a nutshell. Could be quite epic but also disastrous at times. 

Scoring over 500 in a day at the fastest rate ever and winning as many Tests in one series as all the other series put together in Pakistan stands out.

[Corky]

That Test Championship table is superb. Our ten matches have been against Australia and India yet New Zealand are top because they played South Africa's fourth choice side.

[trabuch]

1 hour ago, StanSP said:

Didn't realise this was the first series loss. 

 

Definite improvement, and I suspect some of those wins were as resounding as some of the losses. Bazball in a nutshell. Could be quite epic but also disastrous at times. 

Definitely disastrous for day 5 ticket sales.

[Voll Blau]

11 hours ago, Corky said:

That Test Championship table is superb. Our ten matches have been against Australia and India yet New Zealand are top because they played South Africa's fourth choice side.

Needs a revamp. Should be played over the course of 7/8 years and require you to play every other Test nation home and away for a league "season" to be completed.

 

Either that or you do a Test World Cup every few years. You could do 4 groups of 3, played with County Championship-style bonus points available.

 

Group winners would then play each other to decide the winners, and 2nd/3rd placed teams go on to play each other- so everyone gets to play the equivalent of a 5 Test series over the course of the tournament 

[Super_horns]

Will New Zealand ever beat the Aussies again ?!

[StanSP]

9 minutes ago, Super_horns said:

Will New Zealand ever beat the Aussies again ?!

Bloody hell. Thought they had it wrapped up with Aus at 77-4!

[leicsmac]

44 minutes ago, StanSP said:

Bloody hell. Thought they had it wrapped up with Aus at 77-4!

They had them 80-5, too.

 

In home conditions and with a decent pace attack, when you're defending 281 you really should be getting the job done there.

[Tommy Fresh]

On 09/03/2024 at 22:21, Voll Blau said:

Needs a revamp. Should be played over the course of 7/8 years and require you to play every other Test nation home and away for a league "season" to be completed.

 

Either that or you do a Test World Cup every few years. You could do 4 groups of 3, played with County Championship-style bonus points available.

 

Group winners would then play each other to decide the winners, and 2nd/3rd placed teams go on to play each other- so everyone gets to play the equivalent of a 5 Test series over the course of the tournament 

Makes too much sense, to make it some kind of level of daft, they should play your planned series at that ground where they do that European cricket league. 

[Voll Blau]

1 hour ago, Tommy Fresh said:

Makes too much sense, to make it some kind of level of daft, they should play your planned series at that ground where they do that European cricket league. 

Well if you want a daft idea, I actually think a European XI (based at that ground and other suitable venues like Ansterdam) should enter our domestic white ball tournaments.

 

There's been talk of a Minor Counties XI doing so, why not make it a nice round 20 teams involved?

[Sir Steve Howard]

On 09/03/2024 at 22:21, Voll Blau said:

Needs a revamp. Should be played over the course of 7/8 years and require you to play every other Test nation home and away for a league "season" to be completed.

 

Either that or you do a Test World Cup every few years. You could do 4 groups of 3, played with County Championship-style bonus points available.

 

Group winners would then play each other to decide the winners, and 2nd/3rd placed teams go on to play each other- so everyone gets to play the equivalent of a 5 Test series over the course of the tournament 

I like the fact it's over a shorter time scale. The two one off finals we've had so far have been very close contests between good teams. If it was 7-8 years we'd still be waiting for the first winner to be crowned.

Test world cup sounds great but how would it work logistically? Would it be held in one location? If yes, it would be massively skewed depending on host.

The current format isn't perfect by any stretch but is better than no test championship at all, plus I'll never tire of seeing India lose in a final.