Greyhound
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Most of our batsmen seem keen to get away on their holidays.Somerset's season ending in a whimper at Canterbury. Now 84 for 7 and still needing another couple of hundred runs to avoid an innings defeat.
Cricket 2022
- Thread starter Greyhound
- Start date
Colesman Ballz
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- Dec 28, 2014
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In a nail-biting finish at Edgbaston, Warks win by 5 runs to avoid the drop !
Alistair20000
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Shocking batting from Hampshire in the last two games but the high quality of the bowling has been covering up the flakiness of the top order batting all season. The makeshift openers in particular have had a poor season.
Amazing 9 fer and 13 in the match for Liam
Yaaarkshire are not going to be very happy tonight.
Boring this red ball cricket after the Hundred innit
Alistair20000
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Lancashire end up runners up in all three competitions.
Greyhound
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No doubt some hard words were being said in Yorksheer yesterday about the Hants batting.
Dom Bess may want to come back to Somerset to play a higher standard of cricket!
Alistair20000
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An excellent interview on the wireless yesterday with cricket writer George Dobell and BBC's Kevin Howells as I was driving to Britain's Ocean City.
It concerned the Strauss "high performance review" which is of course no such thing as it ignores the adverse impact on red ball cricket of The Hundred and no proper review could be undertaken with The Hundred ignored.
The ECB is therefore being dishonest in describing the exercise as a high performance review.
He also thought the proposal to cut the Blast group stage from 14 to 10 games is a deliberate bargaining ploy. The ECB will agree 14 as long as the counties accept the proposed "reforms" (emasculation ?) to/of red ball cricket.
The proposal to play only 10 red ball games in the elite division will not improve red ball cricket skills despite the ECB saying it will. Nor will it develop enough young players for the Test squad. The ECB are lying when they say their central objective is to protect red ball cricket and Test cricket.
Several of the 12 counties in the second division will cease to be first class cricket counties.
The most surprising thing he said was that the ECB is losing money at present on The Hundred but see this as an "investment" for the future. I am not sure if this is right.
Sir Geoffrey saying much the same in the Torygraph today and criticising the over dominant influence of the suits who know nothing about cricket.
At least no changes to the 2023 structure.
It concerned the Strauss "high performance review" which is of course no such thing as it ignores the adverse impact on red ball cricket of The Hundred and no proper review could be undertaken with The Hundred ignored.
The ECB is therefore being dishonest in describing the exercise as a high performance review.
He also thought the proposal to cut the Blast group stage from 14 to 10 games is a deliberate bargaining ploy. The ECB will agree 14 as long as the counties accept the proposed "reforms" (emasculation ?) to/of red ball cricket.
The proposal to play only 10 red ball games in the elite division will not improve red ball cricket skills despite the ECB saying it will. Nor will it develop enough young players for the Test squad. The ECB are lying when they say their central objective is to protect red ball cricket and Test cricket.
Several of the 12 counties in the second division will cease to be first class cricket counties.
The most surprising thing he said was that the ECB is losing money at present on The Hundred but see this as an "investment" for the future. I am not sure if this is right.
Sir Geoffrey saying much the same in the Torygraph today and criticising the over dominant influence of the suits who know nothing about cricket.
At least no changes to the 2023 structure.
Greyhound
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Given the English weather, the 10 red ball games could easily become 6 or 7.
Alistair20000
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Sir Geoffrey made exactly that point especially as the games are played early and late season. Also he refereed to poor pitches and so many games ending early so that 10 matches is not 40 days cricket; especially if Chelmsford comes into it.
Antony Moxey
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How can playing less games improve players? TBH Strauss always comes across as a bit of a berk to me.
Rosencrantz
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Less quantity leads to more time to prepare and train leads to higher quality games. Especially as part of the "vision" will be that the better players will gravitate towards the top division. The dearth of Sheffield Shield games have rarely hampered Australia in providing high quality Test players.
Whether it works, if passed, will remain to be seen. Whatever the county scene has looked like for the last god knows how many years has not produced a top ranked England Test team for most of history. There was a blip in 2010-2011 most recently. Otherwise, The 50's?
Unfortunately for some, The (wretched) Hundred and T20 Blast along with all the franchised competitions around the world are not going away. It is a cash cow as much for the counties as the players and ECB. That will always then lead to a compromise in scheduling and availability. The ECB doesn't help itself by insisting on a 7 Test summer as well as interminable white ball series. It is all but impossible for an England player to consistently play across all three formats. Especially when a lot will be in demand for the IPL. Easy for anyone else to say they should turn down hundreds of thousands for a months work.
As it has always been, it is a battle between the County game and what is best for the England team, for fans as well as administrators. "Tradition" v "Progress". They all want their slice of the pie to be bigger. Eventually money will talk and when that happens it might not be good for the non test match ground counties. They will have to battle to stay in or reach the top division. But you can see the direction of travel that some at the top will want. A top division comprising of a combination of the big hitters. Surrey, Middlesex, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Hampshire, Warwickshire, Notts, Durham.