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Test Match

Well played India. More passion, more committment and more ability.

I'm afraid - as captain - Joe Root will have to take full responsibility for this defeat.
And huge congratulations to coaching staff for this morning's masterplan to get those last two wickets.
 
Apparently dismissing the top order by bowling properly is doomed to failure against a very dodgy tail. It's also much more important to get drawn into a sledging match rather than keeping a cool, calm head. Thoroughly deserved victory for a very good and disciplined Indian team.

I watch the county game. I assure you unless some truly precocious hitherto unseen teenagers break through immediately, or some of our tried and failed current crop swallow a coaching manual, our test prospects do not look good for at least several years.

I fear though it is a systemic problem based around the influence of the shorter formats of the game, and not entirely the fault of individual players.
 
Both teams have bad blood between them, started out there and getting to the point IMHO were both captains and the main instigators need fining and telling anymore and it's bans.
No need for it IMHO.
 
It’s interesting we blame short form game fir our failings. India seemed to play okay in a country where the IPL is all dominant .
 
It’s interesting we blame short form game fir our failings. India seemed to play okay in a country where the IPL is all dominant .
The game certainly culminates in the IPL but the players that make it have usually been on an incredible journey and have had to fight off incredible odds in order to shine and stand out from the crowd to get there.

The Indians truly are the fanatics of the sport and they have thousands upon thousands of youngsters that play public (street cricket) matches that can last days. It is taken very seriously and is a chance to get noticed at some of the bigger public areas that can have many matches taking place over several acres simultaneously. If a batsman needs to stay in and score several hundred runs to get noticed he will move heaven and earth to do so. He will not want to give his wicket away as it can be the difference between poverty or stardom - literally life changing.

By the time they are slogging a ball in the IPL it's child's play after batting days on end as kids.
 
It’s interesting we blame short form game fir our failings. India seemed to play okay in a country where the IPL is all dominant .

I definitely have a theory that the test batters just aren't that good whereas the white ball ones are. It's not a mentality issue just a quality one.
 
I don't really know how the game is organised, these days, and I'd be interested to hear from someone who does.

Where do test batsmen get their experience? It used to be county cricket, of course. How do we develop them?

We seemed to adopt the Aussie model in the early 2000s and that paid dividends, it seems, from about 2005 to 2015. Since then, we seem to have gone backwards.
 
Good question. It always seems like these things are super complicated - clearly we were able to produce Alastair Cook and Joe Root who are/were both outstanding, but at the moment no other seemingly decent test batsmen.

Maybe they're in spite of the system as opposed to because of it I guess!
 
India haven’t marginalised the Ranji Trophy in favour of the IPL, which has clearly been a roaring success. Plus there is simply the size and popularity of the game over there, probably the National sport?

By comparison the opportunity to become a top cricketer in this country often depends upon if you’re lucky enough to go to a private school. There are a few exceptions but look at the number of players Surrey/Middlesex/Kent produce for the national side. Sadly cricket in this country has become more and more of an elitist sport, especially at youth level.

You could argue that a short format game goes some way to redressing this, making it easier for people of all ages and backgrounds to get into the game. But as ever it’s being carried out in an utterly cackhanded way by the ECB. And of course, if cricket had been kept on free to air then it potentially wouldn’t be a problem they needed to solve.
 
I don't really know how the game is organised, these days, and I'd be interested to hear from someone who does.

Where do test batsmen get their experience? It used to be county cricket, of course. How do we develop them?

We seemed to adopt the Aussie model in the early 2000s and that paid dividends, it seems, from about 2005 to 2015. Since then, we seem to have gone backwards.

Young test prospects probably get their experience on the Lions tours.
https://www.ecb.co.uk/england/women...tralia-alongside-mens-and-womens-senior-teams
 
India haven’t marginalised the Ranji Trophy in favour of the IPL, which has clearly been a roaring success. Plus there is simply the size and popularity of the game over there, probably the National sport?

By comparison the opportunity to become a top cricketer in this country often depends upon if you’re lucky enough to go to a private school. There are a few exceptions but look at the number of players Surrey/Middlesex/Kent produce for the national side. Sadly cricket in this country has become more and more of an elitist sport, especially at youth level.

You could argue that a short format game goes some way to redressing this, making it easier for people of all ages and backgrounds to get into the game. But as ever it’s being carried out in an utterly cackhanded way by the ECB. And of course, if cricket had been kept on free to air then it potentially wouldn’t be a problem they needed to solve.
Ian Botham is one of few non private school captains.
Can't be many more.
 
Ian Botham is one of few non private school captains.
Can't be many more.

And wasnt he punished for his temerity! I’m not saying that’s the only issue, but there seems to be more equality of opportunity in places like Australia and India to progress in the game - although climate clearly has a hand in that.
 
And wasnt he punished for his temerity! I’m not saying that’s the only issue, but there seems to be more equality of opportunity in places like Australia and India to progress in the game - although climate clearly has a hand in that.

Not strictly true. Alex Davis, Parkinson twins, Habeeb Hameed, Jordan Clark, Steve Livingstone, Saqib Mahmood are all good players that have come through the Lancs. Academy in recent years to name but a few (there are plenty of others that play for Lancs or moved on to other counties); not one of those is anything other than a working class lad - several of them are from deepest Cumbria.

Many of them benefitted from a private education though - because Lancs recognised their potential, invested in these working class lads, scooped them up and paid for them to go to the Bolton School.

I can't think of a single traditional private middle class boy at Lancs. since possibly Atherton. Perhaps I have missed one amongst the dozens of working class kids given their chance.

It may be the case that posh kids are getting better opportunities in the home counties (I haven't checked the socio/economic backgrounds, so maybe not either) but by that token you could argue they are being under represented in the Northern counties.

Also last time I checked all forms of the England teams had a very healthy smattering of Lancs., Yorks. and other non Home Counties players in their ranks.

Thinking about it, it's actually got bugger all to do with class, or inequality. Perhaps we should be more successful at producing players from minority backgrounds given the potential there, but even so Lancs are doing their bit and I know for a fact that Middlesex invest very heavily in programs for the under privileged and BME communities. Yorkshire may benefit from having a word with themselves in this area.

Overall though, it overwhelmingly has everything to do with cricket being in decline (hundreds of small clubs have gone) whereas cricket remains disproportionately more popular in some countries, whilst other countries, particularly India have significantly more participants than the UK.
 
Currently not enough importance has been given to county cricket,which will have a knock on effect on the England test team. For instance only 8 days of county championship cricket have been scheduled between June 6th and August 30th.
 
Ian Botham is one of few non private school captains.
Can't be many more.
Not accurate really. Since Botham the following test captains are from state funded school backgrounds - Fletcher, Gatting, Gooch, Stewart, Lamb, Vaughan, Trecothick, Flintoff and Root.

Definitely from a private background are Gower, Cowdrey (Chris), Cook, Pietersen and Butcher. The latter of those is mixed race and wouldn't appear to have been discriminated against through snobbery or worse.

Possibly having a private education are Willis, Embury and Atherton.

Off all those on the lists, I would say that only Gower, Cowdrey and Cook fit the bill for an archetypal stuffy MCC stereotype and with the exception of the short lived Cowdrey, you can see why they deservedly got the gig.

It would appear that so far as appointing the England test captain goes, the snobbery pretty much went out with the old notion of gentlemen and players; in other words long before our day.
 
Not accurate really. Since Botham the following test captains are from state funded school backgrounds - Fletcher, Gatting, Gooch, Stewart, Lamb, Vaughan, Trecothick, Flintoff and Root.

Definitely from a private background are Gower, Cowdrey (Chris), Cook, Pietersen and Butcher. The latter of those is mixed race and wouldn't appear to have been discriminated against through snobbery or worse.

Possibly having a private education are Willis, Embury and Atherton.

Off all those on the lists, I would say that only Gower, Cowdrey and Cook fit the bill for an archetypal stuffy MCC stereotype and with the exception of the short lived Cowdrey, you can see why they deservedly got the gig.

It would appear that so far as appointing the England test captain goes, the snobbery pretty much went out with the old notion of gentlemen and players; in other words long before our day.
Strauss probably our most successful captain in the last 20 years went to Radley.
That school Vaughan and Root went in Sheffield isn't private, good wasn't sure.