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County cricket to blame???


:lol:


There’s too many stereotypes like, most wickets aren’t green tops like.

The ball moves in England more due to the weather.
Aye, but more in the moist times of year.
ECB needs to get a grip. A batting technique fit for T20 or the Hundred is not fit for Test cricket, especially for the Ashes.
 
Well that’s another embarrassing series defeat from the Aussies.

Time to look at the foundation of the county game.

Playing against 70/80 mph green top bowlers in the county championship is just not good enough preparation to play away series against top class fast bowling. Playing county cricket in April may and September will never get us competing against quick bowling.

Need to forget all this one day stuff 100,t20 stuff and focus on the basic game again.
Yes deffo to blame there was around 6 weeks in the middle of the summer when there was no 4 day cricket played.
The 100 seems to be more important to the ECB, they had no interest in The Ashes and making sure we sent the best prepared squad down as possible.
 
Yes deffo to blame there was around 6 weeks in the middle of the summer when there was no 4 day cricket played.
The 100 seems to be more important to the ECB, they had no interest in The Ashes and making sure we sent the best prepared squad down as possible.
Don't forget the resting and rotating of players when they weren't playing any red ball to begin with :lol:
 
Not passing judgement on this Twitter thread, but an interesting counter on this topic by Dan Weston, who is a T20 cricket data analyst at Leicester/ various other franchise cricket teams

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The biggest problem with county cricket not just now but over the decades is that it produces cricketers to be effective county cricketers . That means they have to be durable and slog it out for 6 months playing up to 18 championship matches in a summer and one day cricket in top.
As a result young quick bowlers very quickly revert to bowling medium pace and because of the amount of cricket played the "bits and pieces" all rounders who can play all forms of the game are invaluable.
Having said all that the ECB have made a Horlicks of the schedule and the counties have sadly gone along with it all for a few quid in the coffers.
 
How come Australia can compete then especially with the big bash so popular????

Sheffield Shield cricket to warm up. They tend to take it a bit more serious and prepare better than us. We didn't even have a warm up game ffs.
Axe the Hundred, keep it as a women's tournament, or shift the men's tournament to the UAE in winter.

I was absolutely gobsmacked to see over two dozen England players playing in the Abu Dhabi T10 last week. A few of them recently retired from test cricket anarl.
 
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It would like

Smith and root together would make such a difference

I’m torn over these arguments

People now talking like England have been bad for years and years

Well we’ve been bad this year

Before this we’ve been pretty good. Not the best in the world but outside the top couple

I remember when we used to regularly beat the Aussies they’d hold these big reviews about what they could learn to improve English team and what they could take from English cricket

The pitches thing has some merits but it’s a myth to say the majority of pitches in England are all green

I’d say a big problem rather than all that is that ambition of the best young batting talents in the country is to be white ball players, that’s where the money is. That’s not just the ECB’s fault, the IPL exists, white ball is the most popular format in the world, of course they want to be part of it

Problem for us is that test cricket is by far the most popular format in this country
The thing about saying it's only been bad this year is that we've seen it coming for so long. We still haven't replaced Strauss nevermind Cook. Since the retirement/dropping of those two, Trott, Pietersen, Bell etc there has been a steady decline in quality of the batting line up. Over the last few years we've become more and more reliant on exceptional performances from individuals rather than good team performances and that's papered over the cracks to an extent. We started carrying more and more players and this year the ratio has gone too far. For sure the hundred has exacerbated things but I think this reckoning was set in motion long before it became a thing.
 
They play at lot less cricket in general. No first class Sheffield shield cricket in Australia from the end of November to the end of February. The big bash takes priority over there.
I can't imagine their wickets change that much across the course of the season when you compare it to over here. So the wickets/conditions you play in at the start of the season will be similar to the tests. April at Chester-le-St Vs the Oval in August is a very different proposition
 
I can't imagine their wickets change that much across the course of the season when you compare it to over here. So the wickets/conditions you play in at the start of the season will be similar to the tests. April at Chester-le-St Vs the Oval in August is a very different proposition
Agree but it's not just our domestic cricket that is making the shortest forms of the game a priority. During this Ashes series no Australian state cricketers are playing 1st class cricket.
 
Agree but it's not just our domestic cricket that is making the shortest forms of the game a priority. During this Ashes series no Australian state cricketers are playing 1st class cricket.
Yeah, I get that, I just meant that I think other nations can schedule things more easily than us as our climate changes more significantly across the season, NZ excepted. They aren't as disadvantaged in breaking up the season.
 
Well that’s another embarrassing series defeat from the Aussies.

Time to look at the foundation of the county game.

Playing against 70/80 mph green top bowlers in the county championship is just not good enough preparation to play away series against top class fast bowling. Playing county cricket in April may and September will never get us competing against quick bowling.

Need to forget all this one day stuff 100,t20 stuff and focus on the basic game again.
County Cricket has been destroyed by the ECB and the desperation to make everything revolve around a white ball, except for forms sake in the test series'. There is plenty wrong in County Cricket, look at Yorkshire for starters, but they are treated with contempt by the people who run the game, County Cricket gets moved for everything.

The Ashes was lost long before they left England. As early as August players were in two minds about going


Test cricket is a relentless treadmill now and the difficulties caused by coronavirus will have taken their toll on the players, aside from any other failings of selection and performance

Root's preparation was derailed by his responses to the Yorkshire CCC debacle.
 
It would like

Smith and root together would make such a difference

I’m torn over these arguments

People now talking like England have been bad for years and years

Well we’ve been bad this year

Before this we’ve been pretty good. Not the best in the world but outside the top couple

I remember when we used to regularly beat the Aussies they’d hold these big reviews about what they could learn to improve English team and what they could take from English cricket

The pitches thing has some merits but it’s a myth to say the majority of pitches in England are all green

I’d say a big problem rather than all that is that ambition of the best young batting talents in the country is to be white ball players, that’s where the money is. That’s not just the ECB’s fault, the IPL exists, white ball is the most popular format in the world, of course they want to be part of it

Problem for us is that test cricket is by far the most popular format in this country

The top 3 positions have been an issue since Strauss retired then turned into a crisis since cook called it a day

That burns wicket to the first ball was massive all hope and expectation went, inside and out of the camp it was probably precarious anyway with the preparation they had and the fact they were still deciding whether to tour or not a few months before hand!

Think we have a potentially decent middle order but the top 3 is terminal at the minute can’t see options for a top 3 who could get us to lunch 100-1 anytime soon.
 
The top 3 positions have been an issue since Strauss retired then turned into a crisis since cook called it a day

That burns wicket to the first ball was massive all hope and expectation went, inside and out of the camp it was probably precarious anyway with the preparation they had and the fact they were still deciding whether to tour or not a few months before hand!

Think we have a potentially decent middle order but the top 3 is terminal at the minute can’t see options for a top 3 who could get us to lunch 100-1 anytime soon.

totally agree

our middle order is an issue but potentially could b OK if our top 3 could just score any runs at all
 
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