4th Test England v Pakistan, The Oval, Aug 11-15

[Dr Cricket]

Cricket is an extremely expensive sport to play tbh. Typical gear will cost you 300-400. Then you've got pay a club membership then pay for games etc. If it's not played at your school, it's difficult to see how those people would get into it.

agree went to some club while I was in year 6 till year 10 only stopped because parents couldn't afford it at a time even if they say it is because of studies but in reality most asian stop because of the cost when they start doing GCSE.
think it cost my mum 200 pound a term plus games cost which wasn't much but was silly to pay 10-20 pounds for a friendly.
the club took place in a private school in harrow and they had 6 cricket pitches a proper nets and a bowling machine.
they even had a pavilion in two of the grounds.
not sure if the grounds were shared with harrow private schools since it was in harrow on the hill so could be since I doubt john lyons was a big private school to have that many sport facilities.

[Dr Cricket]

Cricket is an extremely expensive sport to play tbh. Typical gear will cost you 300-400. Then you've got pay a club membership then pay for games etc. If it's not played at your school, it's difficult to see how those people would get into it.

more could be done in State school though.
A lot of the PE teachers are lazy since 2 or 3 hours of PE is mandatory yet most schools only play football since teachers don't know how to teach or play other sports and Football is so easy to set up.

when I went to high school for a year or two the government was trialling some sport thing probably because of the olympics in 2012 but anyway everyone had to play 2 hours of sport after school and most of the sport was olympics style stuff IE athletics, hockey,fencing etc and every kid had to do it and the sport rotates every 2 months.
stopped in my 2nd years and they scrapped most of the expensive olympics sports and was scrapped all together in my third year.
even in pe first year we played 4 or 5 sports with some having proper teaching but during my later years was all football or table tennis and a lot of kids didn't even bother with PE most didn't bring kit and just sat in the canteen or just bunk all together no one really wanted to play football 2 or 3 times a week.

Sports budgets and teachings are awful in state schools.

I be surprised if england will ever get a white or black kid from state school playing for england in cricket.
Few asians will come up but a lot of them will play cricket for clubs so it really doesn't count considering they probably liked cricket from home, can't see many coming through if they don't have any cricketing background.

Also it says something out of the England team that only Moeen Ali talks about his difficulties of playing cricket.
all the rest had cricket spoon fed to them.

[Arthur Crabtree]

It's recent thing. The 2005 Ashes team had a lot of state players (Anderson is that generation). Whereas by the Flower side, only Anderson, Bresnan and Swann had only been to state schools.

[Dr Cricket]

Recession and awful facilities in most state schools played a part.
biggest regret I have is going to a state school not because of the education but the sport facilities.

[hopeforthebest]

I expect they might be kind to Moeen in this 40 run chase so that he gets picked for the ODI games.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Woakes' first run out (the batting equivalent of having your catches dropped?). Of his previous twelve dismissals, eleven have been caught.

Younis will be POTM I suppose?

Was going to say it's good to see Finn and Woakes get the new ball, except Finn has gone off injured.

[Dr Cricket]

feel sorry for finn the guy was visibly upset.

[hopeforthebest]

Poor Finn just getting going again and it seems a hamstring has gone.

[hopeforthebest]

Woakes' first run out (the batting equivalent of having your catches dropped?). Of his previous twelve dismissals, eleven have been caught.

Younis will be POTM I suppose?

Was going to say it's good to see Finn and Woakes get the new ball, except Finn has gone off injured.

Cook believes his two senior bowlers are too valuable to risk in a lost cause. Wonder if he still believes batting first was a good decision????

[hopeforthebest]

If anyone from the England camp says there are positives to take from this series please shoot them, or shoot me.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Turned out not to be. England talked up this feat of having the most recent win against all sides, so they will have been motivated. Bit of a thumping though. Well done to Pakistan for coming back, and the good spirit they've played the games in. Any potential aggro surrounding Amir's return has been subdued.

[Arthur Crabtree]

If anyone from the England camp says there are positives to take from this series please shoot them, or shoot me.

Woakes. Mo's batting. Another decent series for Bairstow. Some overdue runs for Cook.

[hopeforthebest]

Turned out not to be. England talked up this feat of having the most recent win against all sides, so they will have been motivated. Bit of a thumping though. Well done to Pakistan for coming back, and the good spirit they've played the games in. Any potential aggro surrounding Amir's return has been subdued.

A few days ago Jimmy Anderson was talking up this team in a big way.

[Dr Cricket]

Turned out not to be. England talked up this feat of having the most recent win against all sides, so they will have been motivated. Bit of a thumping though. Well done to Pakistan for coming back, and the good spirit they've played the games in. Any potential aggro surrounding Amir's return has been subdued.

well they were told by the management to make friend with the england press, board and players and if they didn't anything wrong they were never going to play again for pakistan and in general the board, players and nation were still hurt from 2010 so made the biggest effort to make this tour a success.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Most of the kudos to Pakistan for a most unexpected away draw. A pretty consistent team performance.