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The Post-Ashes Inquest Thread

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Silly Point

Silly Point

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Was going to wait until the end of the series but now seems as good a time as any to start the discussion.

As ever after a heavy defeat, particularly in an Ashes series, there will be much soul searching and head scratching at FTECB Towers as to what they can possibly do to turn things around. No doubt county cricket will get the blame, and tbh they might have a point this time but only through their own making and relegating the CC to the third most important domestic comp.

So what changes would you make? Who should stay? Who should go?

Obviously the biggest change I would make, which won't happen, is returning the County Championship to the showpiece event of the domestic season.

More realistically I'd give Bayliss responsibility for one day stuff only. Farbrace for the Test side. Wouldn't want Anderson or Cook to go yet. Jimmy is still our best bowler and is invaluable at home, and there's no obvious replacement for Cook. The only one I'd think about dropping or encouraging to call it a day would be Broad, but again where are the alternatives? The lack of competition from below is really worrying.

Not familiar with the selectors, apart from that Whittaker bloke, but I'd sack the lot of them.
 

Silly Point said:
Was going to wait until the end of the series but now seems as good a time as any to start the discussion.

As ever after a heavy defeat, particularly in an Ashes series, there will be much soul searching and head scratching at FTECB Towers as to what they can possibly do to turn things around. No doubt county cricket will get the blame, and tbh they might have a point this time but only through their own making and relegating the CC to the third most important domestic comp.

So what changes would you make? Who should stay? Who should go?

Obviously the biggest change I would make, which won't happen, is returning the County Championship to the showpiece event of the domestic season.

More realistically I'd give Bayliss responsibility for one day stuff only. Farbrace for the Test side. Wouldn't want Anderson or Cook to go yet. Jimmy is still our best bowler and is invaluable at home, and there's no obvious replacement for Cook. The only one I'd think about dropping or encouraging to call it a day would be Broad, but again where are the alternatives? The lack of competition from below is really worrying.

Not familiar with the selectors, apart from that Whittaker bloke, but I'd sack the lot of them.
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Maybe it's time to do something different so the CC and go down the route Rugby League has gone down to put more players in high pressure scenarios more often and reduce the amount of dead games. Here's how it could work in County Cricket.....

-2 divisions of 9 where everyone plays once.

-After everyone's played 8 games the 2 divisions are split into 3.

-The top 6 from Div.1 play for the County Championship

-Bottom 3 from Div.1 and the top 3 from Div.2 play for qualification between the 2 leagues.

-Bottom 6 from Div.2 play for 'Best of the rest' honours.
 
An interesting thread which raises some interesting points. My views:

- you aren’t suddenly going to find a mystery spinner or 90mph bowler
- the world is going T20. We have to react to that in a way, as if not our good cricketers will just play that globally, the West Indies show this perfectly, domestic cricket is dead
- selection has been poor. And it seems utterly random. Vince ffs.
- arrange worthwhile warm up games, not against cack, fly in the new test nations like Afghanistan or Ireland and play 4 day matches not 2 day 13 a side nonsense
 
I agree with the OP.

I think the problem this series has highlighted is a lack of real pace and spinners.

County cricket seems to encourage fast-medium. Why? I suppose four reasons 1) number of games may mean fast bowlers are over-bowled and either can't sustain the pace or get injured. 2) The English climate means the ball seams and swings more therefore extreme pace isn't required to take 20 wickets in 4 days so why bowl fast if fast-medium or even medium is enough. 3) the Duke ball helps lateral movement even more 4) the trend is to banish County Cricket to the extremes of the season to the disadvantage of spinners in particular.

Obviously I'd prefer a return to a traditional schedule and I can't see anything but bad coming out of the proposed new T20 competition so first think I'd do is to knock that on it's head - but that's just me, others would disagree. Even so I can't see that being enough.

In an ideal world Australia would play with a Duke and England with a Kookaburra.

This echoes a lot of what I said
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The ECB should tour the schools of England in search of new talent, with whichever fuckwit was behind Vince’s recall being tied up and kids encouraged to take turns bowling as hard as possible at them
 
chunkylover53 said:
I don’t think either are good enough
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Most of this board would beg to differ re: Wood and - whether long term solution or not - either would have been a better strategic option at the WACA than Broad in his current form.

All very well Farbrace crying about lack of quicks, but they've never given the likes of J Overton, Meaker and Footitt a spin when they have been fit and in form.
 
smoker said:
Most of this board would beg to differ re: Wood and - whether long term solution or not - either would have been a better strategic option at the WACA than Broad in his current form.

All very well Farbrace crying about lack of quicks, but they've never given the likes of J Overton, Meaker and Footitt a spin when they have been fit and in form.
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That’s fine. But both have very average test records

J Overton and Meaker have never ever been fit

I realise that Pattison and Cummins are the counter to this argument
 
Mark Butcher
Geoff Boycott
Phil Tufnell
Michael Vaughan
Matt Prior
Several members of the current Ashes squad (according to the Evening Standard last week)

...would all have had Plunkett in the squad.

The lad himself said he wanted to play, so clearly didn't have any fitness concerns.

There really was nothing to lose by taking him and seeing how his fitness held up and he performed in a couple of warm ups.
 
smoker said:
Mark Butcher
Geoff Boycott
Phil Tufnell
Michael Vaughan
Matt Prior
Several members of the current Ashes squad (according to the Evening Standard last week)

...would all have had Plunkett in the squad.

The lad himself said he wanted to play, so clearly didn't have any fitness concerns.

There really was nothing to lose by taking him and seeing how his fitness held up and he performed in a couple of warm ups.
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That’s pretty selective tho isn’t it

Michael Vaughan would have had James Vince
 
England stopped picking the test side on sporting ability in 2015. I don’t know why we are still pretending to be surprised in 2017.
 
Re. pace bowlers. The
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is worth a listen. We do apparently have programs at Loughborough to identify and develop a crop of quicks with genuine pace, one of whom can bowl at 94mph iirc.
 
Someone on TMS made a good point about how we continually produce players that are good/excellent in English conditions only, and how this won't change simply because the home games is where all the money comes from.
 
1 Have a domestic schedule that values all formats. Play 1 day games on a Friday and start the CC on a Saturday.
2 Go back to 2 divisions of 9 in the CC.
3 Take 'England B' squads on tour all winter and play meaningful cricket around the world v other countries B sides.
4 Prepare properly for overseas tours and don't rely on host countries to do this. Offer Ireland/MCC select side to play England for a month before overseas tests (or play neighbouring Associates, i.e. Papua New Guinea when we go to Australia/NZ).
5 All selectors/coaches/captain should attend CC games as much as possible.
6 Stop looking at the BBL/IPL as if it is the solution. English cricketers are well paid.
 
Ageing trundler said:
1 Have a domestic schedule that values all formats. Play 1 day games on a Friday and start the CC on a Saturday.
2 Go back to 2 divisions of 9 in the CC.
3 Take 'England B' squads on tour all winter and play meaningful cricket around the world v other countries B sides.
4 Prepare properly for overseas tours and don't rely on host countries to do this. Offer Ireland/MCC select side to play England for a month before overseas tests (or play neighbouring Associates, i.e. Papua New Guinea when we go to Australia/NZ).
5 All selectors/coaches/captain should attend CC games as much as possible.
6 Stop looking at the BBL/IPL as if it is the solution. English cricketers are well paid.
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Agree with all except 4.

No chance PNG (for example) are better than Grade sides in Australia. The Sheffield Shield is the best domestic competition in the world, and the standard players proves this. Simply play a proper, first class 4 day game against these rather than 2 day, 13 a side rubbish.
 
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The thing this series has shown is we are desparate for variety in our bowling.

Jimmy and Broady are fantastic bowlers but they struggle in Australian conditions. Mitchell Starc is a fantastic fast bowler and we need some one of his ilk. Equally as much Nathan Lyon has taken some crucial wickets. How many has Moeen Ali taken? For me, he isn’t skilled enough nor does he have the character to play in Australia.

Solutions are tough but making CC more competitive and allowing England players to play is a priority. T20 might be lucrative but County Cricket is the bread and butter of the game and should be prioritised.
 
Sweeper said:
England stopped picking the test side on sporting ability in 2015. I don’t know why we are still pretending to be surprised in 2017.
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Yeah, pretty much seems like keeping a group together is more important than picking the best player. There’s a lot to be said for letting a group mature but it has to be balanced with picking players to win you a test series.
 
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