***Official** West Indies in England***

[Richard]

If you go through history, won't you always find sides that have been weak? I don't want to offend anyone here, but examples may well be:

NZ in their early days (pre-War, and for a time pre-Hadlee)
SA in the really early days.
SL in their early days.

Also, most if not all of the top sides have had really bad patches through the years (Aus in the 80s, WI now). Do we subjectively exclude certain records & milestones because certain innings were made vs weak teams? An example would be Hammond's 336 vs NZ in 1932-33 which was, with respect to the opposition, scored vs a fairly moderate attack, and he also scored a double in the 1st test of that series.

Does this mean that his record should be adjusted because the attack may not have been "test" class by the standards of the day? The truth is, you can't do that - test runs are test runs in the record books, as are wickets. Once a match has been given test status, the records must be acepted by everyone. You can comment on the worth of the runs/ wickets in subjectively analysing a player's record, but you cannot remove them from the records per se. Principally because people will disagree as to which scores should be disregarded, and which ones shouldn't.

Nah. People can decide for themselves what is and isn't acceptible to class as Test\ODI IMO. We don't have to swallow the nonsense from the govorning bodies.

NZ before 1960 weren't Test-class and I don't recognise such games as such, and SA weren't Test-class before the four-wristspin attack, but I've always been hugely reluctant to treat 19th-century cricket as the same as 20th-and-after stuff anyway.

Other than that, all teams when given Test status deserved it... until Bangladesh.

And also - only one team has ever become so poor as to cease to merit international status. Zimbabwe in 2003. Teams' fortunes fluctuate, but never before has someone ceased to become international standard.

 

[Richard]

I rather cheekily removed his performances in SL

Not a word I've heard tec use before.

 

[Richard]

AFAIK he doesn't have an attitude problem. Most likely had one up to a few years ago but he seems to have corrected that. He's early to training and does what's asked of him from reports. Can't get away from his past it seems as there was a newspaper report recently where it was written that he was absent from training yet he was there. Rubbed some people the wrong way int the past and people aren't forgetting it and he doesn't know how to react i.e if he's serious he's not a team player, too happy he's a joker, etc. At the least that's what I've gotten from all the angles I've heard.

If Runako Morton can be forgiven surely Samuels can?

 

[Richard]

Eh?

Yes. Thank you for translating.

Haha. Dave out of touch with The World Of Murphy.

 

[simmy]

Do not have test matches north of Edgbaston. Let this be a lesson.

 

[stumpski]

BBC2 currently showing a documentary on the '76 series. Been on before but well worth a look.

 

[Richard]

Ooooohhh, when did it start?

 

[stumpski]

7.30, only 10 minutes left i'm afraid. Look out for it on BBC4, it often gets repeated.

 

[Richard]

****. Will do, though.

 

[stumpski]

I was wondering what Sky would show on the highlights - and at the moment they're showing KP's Lord's 100. Great stuff.

 

[PY]

Absolute monsoon here today, took me 2 hours to get to work as the River Don burst it's banks and flooded half a dozen roads about 8 feet deep.

Still sheet rain now though if the Rain Watch thing on the Met Office is right, then it's quite isolated. I was particularly amused by the BBC saying that the weather was going to improve tomorrow for the cricket to just heavy rain.

 

[Richard]

I was wondering what Sky would show on the highlights - and at the moment they're showing KP's Lord's 100. Great stuff.

Really frustrates me, that sort of thing - they've got a massive archive of fascinating footage - why not show some stuff from West Indies in 1990? Or South Africa in 1995\96? Or even, as it'd make particularly interesting viewing in hindsight, the subcontinent in 1992\93.

Or heck, even some stuff like South Africa in 2004\05 or Sri Lanka in 2000\01. But something a few weeks ago? What's the point? Who the blazes wants to watch that? I'd happily watch anything from a couple of years ago and further back.

Better still, of course, they'd show some stuff from the early or mid 1970s - but that might require some more contractual wrangling than is doable.

 

[roseboy64]

If Runako Morton can be forgiven surely Samuels can?

Samuels is more talented and is a bit flashy so he gets it stuck to him more.

 

[FBU]

All other countries call their 2nd team the A team eg Pakistan A team, Australia A team, why on earth are we calling ours England Lions. It sounds more like a rugby team.

 

[Richard]

Haha, WTF? Serious?

 

[roseboy64]

Yep. One of the recommendations of that report/commission.

 

[Richard]

Jeeys, you'd think they'd have more pressing matters than the name given to the second-team.

 

[pskov]

Jeeys, you'd think they'd have more pressing matters than the name given to the second-team.

Part of the rebranding & reorganisation of the Academy and England A into one entity. Presumably the commite just came up with a name for it in five minutes after the important parts of the recommendation were hammered out.

 

[Perm]

There's much I don't recognise I$C$C on, and definition of Test and ODI teams is one of them.

I recognise what I$C$C's classifications are, but I don't have to accept or swallow them.

You don't have to agree with them, as long as you reconigse that these matches are Test match cricket, regardless of the strength of the opposition. You can still exclude these games when looking at stats because they quite often twist the numbers, but they are still Test matches.

 

[Perm]

If Runako Morton can be forgiven surely Samuels can?

Samuels has more talent than Morton and is likely to receive more stick than him until he becomes a success at international level, which he has the ability to do, until then I think people will still criticise him fairly heavily for his attitude.