Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Making_Splinters wrote:It's daft to pick players who are clearly out of form

Well exactly. We have just picked 11 players who are basically out of sorts, and many of them have long slumps or have never had a peak to slump from. It comes back to the point I made earlier..... do you want to pick the same people and fail the same way, or do you want to at least try something new and try to force a change?

The ECB and the selectors have disregarded too many form touch points for a long time now, so its understandable people who have worked hard to come onto the radar will give up when continually ignored. You might find picking 5 or 6 newbies will spark something in a few of them.

I mean, look at something like the South Africa 1999/00 First test. Team was in a terrible state, we gave 3 new caps and picked another one cap youngster, two of those high risk players who at the time were not favoured went on to become consistent top performers for England (Vaughan and Flintoff) and would be joined the following series by Trescothick. None of these players were on the radar or considered that worthy. Think actually Hoggard was another who got thrown in sometime around that winter.

So when we found ourselves in a similar state and time, Fletcher realised he had to go find players... sticking with the old guard of failure was asking to fail over and over.

In short, what are we really asking a new cap to do?

a new opener has to average more than a mid 20s.....
A new middle order has to average late 20s, or low to mid 30s, which would rank them comfortably within the 4 we have.
A new bowler would have to play ten tests without having the worst career average after that time ever
A spinner would have had to take a wicket in his debut test, and carry form of having taken more than 1 wicket in 3 whole FC matches in the season
A keeper that can maybe catch

I mean we arent asking new caps to reinvent the wheel are we. The bar they have to beat to justify their selection is very low, arguably historically low.

We seem to be ignoring a high risk strategy to sit back on a status quo that is pretty much a worst case scenario..... no sense

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Going to be a long slump.

Some might be compensated by the emergence of a good ODI side. The game is beset by:

A shrinking of public interest and participation (see Sky deal, sales of playing fields)
Cuts to the successful second tier Lions project.
Failures of coaching and player interest in the long form.
The sidelining of the historic county championship.

I remember at the time of the Sky deal that many people said it would have a negative effect on cricket in the UK. Those people were ignored for a quick buck, but it seems to have come to pass.

A failing team for many years will also shrink the sport.

I think international cricket has just gone behind a paywall in Aus.

Arthur Crabtree wrote:I think international cricket has just gone behind a paywall in Aus.

That it has. And again such short term thinking. Its not like CA were not already rolling in money. And where will this extra money go, to the people who decided that people should pay to watch cricket.

Maybe there will be some bonuses!

Arthur Crabtree wrote:I think international cricket has just gone behind a paywall in Aus.

Partially but not entirely. Home tests and some World Cup matches (any involving Australia, plus the knockouts) remain on FTA. International limited overs have gone behind the paywall. So have non-Ashes away tests, but that was already the case.

sussexpob wrote:In short, what are we really asking a new cap to do?

a new opener has to average more than a mid 20s.....
A new middle order has to average late 20s, or low to mid 30s, which would rank them comfortably within the 4 we have.
A new bowler would have to play ten tests without having the worst career average after that time ever
A spinner would have had to take a wicket in his debut test, and carry form of having taken more than 1 wicket in 3 whole FC matches in the season
A keeper that can maybe catch

I mean we arent asking new caps to reinvent the wheel are we. The bar they have to beat to justify their selection is very low, arguably historically low.

We seem to be ignoring a high risk strategy to sit back on a status quo that is pretty much a worst case scenario..... no sense

Well quite (although does Wood have the worst average ever? Or is it just among quicks? There's a few spinners and allrounders I could name who have worse).

But we're into all-time worst selections here. We haven't had such lengthy periods of selectorial folly since the days we were picking Ian Salisbury and Mark Ramprakash (and at least he got a test match hundred, and averaged over 50 at county level, so you can see why the selectors kept trying him).

My team wasn't necessarily who should play, just a conversation starter, to point out that the 'there isn't anyone else' is clearly rubbish. Would Livingstone do worse than Vince? Would Hildreth do worse than Malan? Would Coad do worse than Wood? Livingstone may not be in great form, but he's still young and has shown sufficient quality in previous seasons and for the Lions to make most of us think he has an England future. And bugger Hildreth's age. If he's one of the best six bats in the country, he plays. With 15000 first class runs at an average of 43 in a 15 year career, he's been proven to be consistent and able to score against all comers. Australia picked the likes of Mike Hussey and Chris Rogers the wrong side of 30 - he's easily got 3 years or so left in him. What's the point of picking young players 'for the future' if they're crap? We did that three years ago, the future is now, and guess what, they haven't developed.

This team does need a shake-up. The same players keep getting picked, and we keep getting the same result. Who said that madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? As sussex points out, we made wholesale changes in 2000 when the team was at a low ebb. It was a long road back, but the core of that team became the 04/05 squad. Australia reached a low ebb of seven losses in a row towards the end of 2016, they dropped several established players, picked a bunch of youngsters, and won the Ashes back a year later. Not all the selections panned out (anyone remember Nic Maddinson?), but the team was shaken up. Shame they didn't change their attitude at the same time, but still. Pakistan have had wholesale changes forced upon them by retirements and injury, but have come here with a young squad plus a couple of experienced hands, and look what they've achieved.

Time to kick out some of the complacent ones who keep failing to perform. Give them some motivation to step up a gear and earn it back.

bigfluffylemon wrote:Well quite (although does Wood have the worst average ever? Or is it just among quicks? There's a few spinners and allrounders I could name who have worse).

Among pace bowlers. As I mentioned before, only David Capel has a worse average and he was an all rounder. No other pace bowling allrounder though has a higher average (I'm not including Colly because he was in as a specialist bat).

Arthur Crabtree wrote:

bigfluffylemon wrote:Well quite (although does Wood have the worst average ever? Or is it just among quicks? There's a few spinners and allrounders I could name who have worse).

Among pace bowlers. As I mentioned before, only David Capel has a worse average and he was an all rounder. No other pace bowling allrounder though has a higher average (I'm not including Colly because he was in as a specialist bat).

Picked in the ODI squad today and his average in that is 45.59.

Anyway I can't see this team winning ANY Test. Most of them are batting out of place. Root coming in at the 4th and 2nd overs.

Another thought - Could it be that the opposition drop catches that some of our batsmen have benefited from but I can't remember Pakistan dropping any. We dropped 6.

Just seen on the Saturday highlights that Cook and Stoneman have the worst partnership out of any England openers to have played ten Tests together.

Remember Mike Brearley used to open for England.

Remember what batting was like in the nineteenth century.

Hildreth sounds to me like a ‘Chris Rodgers’ type pick - which, in hindsight, wasn’t a bad move as I recall.

Anyone remember David Steele from back in 1975 - the Aussies had a giggle as the bank clerk lookalike strode to the wicket, but he brought some much needed backbone to the side. Also scored a ton against Marshall, Holding and co.

Anybody like him around in county cricket now?

He was 33 when he played in that series. He looked a bit older.

The bank clerk who went to war as John Arlott memorably said.

IIRC it was his inability to resist the hook shot that did for him in the end

Scary attacks though.