Possible way of dealing with dead matches.

[Richard]

Oh okay, I think the thread starter was talking about ways to prevent dead rubbers.

Yes - my point, essentially, is that I don't really care about it. To me, there's no need to prevent dead-rubber ODIs, because they're no less worthy than those where a series is at stake - because I don't really care about the series result that much.

That's bizarre to think all ODIs are in preparation for the World Cup.

Not really - it just doesn't tend to be the way Australians view it. Cricket watchers from many other countries, and England especially, view them precisely that way.

What about Champions Trophy matches

My ideal situation - as I wrote about ~18 months ago - is that the Champions Trophy becomes a competition worth wanting to win, a prize not a million miles short of the World Cup. As things currently stand, it's little more than a waste of everyone's time which would be better not being played at all.

But hopefully someday there'll come a time when my previous post could have "World Cup or Champions Trophy" substituted for "World Cup".

and what about ODI matches immediately after a World Cup?

Preparation for the next Cup. I've always said that immediately a World Cup finishes, I'm happiest seeing players who won't be playing the next one retire even if they could keep going for another 2 years or so.

 

[NUFAN]

Yes - my point, essentially, is that I don't really care about it. To me, there's no need to prevent dead-rubber ODIs, because they're no less worthy than those where a series is at stake - because I don't really care about the series result that much.

Not really - it just doesn't tend to be the way Australians view it. Cricket watchers from many other countries, and England especially, view them precisely that way.

My ideal situation - as I wrote about ~18 months ago - is that the Champions Trophy becomes a competition worth wanting to win, a prize not a million miles short of the World Cup. As things currently stand, it's little more than a waste of everyone's time which would be better not being played at all.

But hopefully someday there'll come a time when my previous post could have "World Cup or Champions Trophy" substituted for "World Cup".

Preparation for the next Cup. I've always said that immediately a World Cup finishes, I'm happiest seeing players who won't be playing the next one retire even if they could keep going for another 2 years or so.

Wow. I can't believe that you consider 98% or so ODIs as glorified selections trials/preparation for the World Cup.

 

[slippyslip]

I'm actually not remotely bothered about "dead rubber" ODI games because, a bit like Cribb, I don't actually consider the result of a bilateral ODI series very important, really. It's never meant much to me. All ODIs, to me, are preparation for World Cups, and the only ODIs where I'm actually especially concerned with the results are World Cup games.

Because you dont find dead rubbers boring thats it?

Simply put Australian cricket cannot suffer many more summers like it did this year. Cricket is the national sport, and one of the 3 main sports (other 2 being Aussie Rules and Rugby League) by de facto. We're not India. Cricket is where it is because its played throughout the whole country and has an international aspect to it. But that doesn't mean its place is guaranteed forever.

People aren't terribly worried about this years terrible ratings/crowd attendance because the upcoming Ashes tour. There will be over 80,000, and if the series is half decent, 90,000 for boxing day. Same with the Twenty20 and good crowds for the ODI's largely due to tickets sales starting in July.

But if England perform like they did last tour, besides the last two matches of the tri-angular series where Collingwood and Flintoff fired up, they were no different to Pakistan or West Indies this year. Difference was that Australia wanted revenge for 2005 and people viewed this as the last hurrah of one of the best test sides ever. If Australia win 5-0 next season then not even the legacy of the Ashes will guard against a backlash. While most believe this current team is good, no one believes it is great like the 2006/07 team.

Also, if you look at Australian cricket we love to have trophies and titles for tournaments against other countries. Of course the Ashes isn't technically a trophy it is an important symbol. Besides the Ashes theres the Frank Worrell Trophy, Border-Gavaskar trophy, Trans-Tasman Trophy, Warne-Muralidaran Trophy, Chappell-Hadlee Trophy, the defunct triangular World Series Cup etc. We want meaning, even if its a cheap trophy whacked together like the Frank Worrell trophy.

At the moment theres probably more interest in the ODI series in NZ right now than there was for the Pakistan and W.I. series because it looks competitive.

Of course there is cultural attitudes too. Australians would not just accept the oligarchies that exist in European football. I dont need to look at the tables to know that Man Utd and Chelsea are at the top of the EPL, Real Madrid or Barcelona in the La Liga, Inter or A.C. Milan in the Serie A or Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga or the farce that is Scottish football - two teams competing to see who can beat the minnows better.

Australia has a very competitive and volatile sporting market. Look at the explosion of basketball in the late 80's, early 90's and its spectacular decline. For example rugby is suffering at the moment for many reasons. One of those is the increase of interest of soccer. For years rugby fans taunted Aussie Rules and League fans that it was an international sport and they weren't. Bit hard to do that to football.

Australians find lop sided, unequal contests an anathema and will simply switch off.

 

[Furball]

As I said, the way an Australian summer is scheduled needs altering as well.

What was the point in scrapping the CB series to replace it with 10 ODIs in a row?

 

[slugger]

I wonder if it would be worth considering a tri nations type cup like the rugby. NZ/Aust/SA
each country host one country for 3 mach series. the leading team on table host the final which is a 3 match final. the followering year the away games switch over.

year one;
In NZ
NZ vs Aust.
In Aust.
Aust vs SA
In SA
SA vs NZ

year two
In NZ
NZ vs SA
In Aust
Aust vs NZ
In SA
SA vs Aust

back to year one and repeat.

 

[Richard]

Wow. I can't believe that you consider 98% or so ODIs as glorified selections trials/preparation for the World Cup.

It isn't just me. That attitude is very prevalent throughout cricket followers where I come from, and is not that unusual anywhere outside Australia in my experience.

Only in Australia is the next ODI series the most important thing - in most countries, that only applies to Test series'.

 

[Richard]

Because you dont find dead rubbers boring thats it?

I can't say I care greatly whether a series is at stake in a ODI - I enjoy (or, as the case may be, don't enjoy) them equally, by-and-large. In a Test match, I find a dead-rubber match less interesting than a live game where the series\trophy is still at stake, but even there, the difference isn't enormous. A Test is a Test for me. It's only player performances I tend to rate a little bit lower in dead vs live matches - the entertainment factor on a personal level is not tremendously different.

Simply put Australian cricket cannot suffer many more summers like it did this year... Australians find lop sided, unequal contests an anathema and will simply switch off.

And that, I think, is all that matters. What has made last Australian summer so boring has been not dead games, but lack of competition throughout. There is nothing Australians can do to control that - well, short, obviously, of deliberately picking weakened teams in order to make games more watchable, which would rather make a mockery of what Test cricket is supposed to be about.

 

[social]

It isn't just me. That attitude is very prevalent throughout cricket followers where I come from, and is not that unusual anywhere outside Australia in my experience.

Only in Australia is the next ODI series the most important thing - in most countries, that only applies to Test series'.

Since when?

If anything, Australia cares less about the result of random odi series than anybody else and uses virtually every series as preparation for WCs e.g. Bevan being dropped almost straight after the 2003 WC as it wasnt considered that he'd be in line for 2007 selection

 

[slugger]

he should have moved to NZ straight away after 3 years with us we would have used him in the 2007 wc.

 

[Richard]

Since when?

If anything, Australia cares less about the result of random odi series than anybody else and uses virtually every series as preparation for WCs e.g. Bevan being dropped almost straight after the 2003 WC as it wasnt considered that he'd be in line for 2007 selection

Australians in my experience almost certainly have less taste for "prepare for the next World Cup" than those of any other country.

Hayden and Gilchrist were both maintained, at their own will, for a while after the 2007 WC - in most if not all other countries they'd have retired after the Cup.

 

[GIMH]

I do agree in a sense with Richard in that teams should always be building towards the next tournament. I don't think players should be immediately discarded though, as I think it's important to transition your team. Sure, a player might not be around for the next WC, but their experience can help others who are brought into a team whilst their replacement is sought after.

 

[Richard]

If their experience can help, enlist them in a mentoring\coaching role. I don't, personally, see any use in a player actually playing - ie, helping to influence results - if they're only going to be doing it in the short-term. And I certainly don't see any sense in a player continuing to play after they can no longer perform to the requisite standard just to pass on advice.

I've never believed in a player being "discarded", in the sense of just going straight from in to out, of a side. If their presence around the dressing-room can continue to be a positive, it should be maintained. But my approach to selection is that the XI on the field should, in a Test, be the best available; and in a ODI, the best available XI drawn from players who have a realistic prospect of playing in the next World Cup, whenever that may be.

 

[GIMH]

With that approach you're also ignoring the effect that results can have on confidence, which is obviously an important part of buiding a team.

 

[Richard]

Hmm, perhaps again it's my "I really don't care what the results are now as long as they're good in the World Cup" mindset impacting there.

It'd not affect my morale at all to be in a team that was losing ATT, if I thought I was doing a good job of building for the next WC. It might, of course, affect that of any given pereson depending on their mindset.

TBH, it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy - if your team has good players, it's going to win matches. If it doesn't, it won't. And you won't turn bad players into good ones just by giving them matches - they have to work at their own games, and the vast majority of that work will be done off the field. Ideally, of course, you don't want a player to be playing ODI cricket before he's good enough.

 

[GIMH]

But what if you believe he will be good enough in the next WC? Would it not make a much sense to include them as to exclude those who won't be around?

 

[Richard]

As I said - ideally selection will involve as little guesswork as possible, so instead of picking someone because you hope they'll be good enough by the next Cup you'll pick them because they're good enough "now" and have prospects of being so for said next Cup. But if someone shows some promise and has prospects for said next Cup, they're preferable to someone who clearly has negligable chance of still being ODI-class by that time.

Sadly, sometimes there is no way to achieve both of these objectives. Sometimes it is not possible to pick eleven players with prospects for the next Cup with a particularly convincing case as of whenever "now" is.

 

[Furball]

Hmm, perhaps again it's my "I really don't care what the results are now as long as they're good in the World Cup" mindset impacting there.

It'd not affect my morale at all to be in a team that was losing ATT, if I thought I was doing a good job of building for the next WC. It might, of course, affect that of any given pereson depending on their mindset.

TBH, it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy - if your team has good players, it's going to win matches. If it doesn't, it won't. And you won't turn bad players into good ones just by giving them matches - they have to work at their own games, and the vast majority of that work will be done off the field. Ideally, of course, you don't want a player to be playing ODI cricket before he's good enough.

Have to say, I think the bolded part is rubbish.

It would take a seriously mentally tough person to not let constant defeats affect their mindset, regardless of how they're performing as individuals.

 

[Richard]

Nah, it'd just take someone - like me - who realised the result wasn't of very much importance.

I play weekday friendlies with great regularity and I almost never give a damn about the result, if we lose 6 in a row it doesn't bother me. But even just losing a couple in a row in the Saturday\Sunday league is something of a downer for me. And just so much as a poor over on a personal level is a real downer - I'll often have to kick my hat down to fine-leg or throw my wristband somewhere to take the anger out. I take cricket matches very seriously, if there's (to my mind) something at stake. If there isn't, I don't take it remotely seriously and all I really care about is performing to my own best.

 

[NUFAN]

Yeah I'm pretty sure Richard that Cricketers take playing International matches seriously.

Your weekday friendlies would be more like a training session, your weekend matches like an ODI.

Also, if you keep losing their is no way everyone is going to retain their position come World Cup time. That is obvious for any country that has hopes of doing well in the Cup.

 

[Richard]

Of course it is - which is why, as I say, it's something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If your players are looking like they're going to be good in the near-ish future (>4 years isn't really all that long) then it's a given that they've got to be doing something right here and now.

The point, I suppose, is simply that I honestly don't mind if my side is losing ODIs if I think they're learning. Learning that Vikram Solanki is not ODI-class is as important as learning that Kevin Pietersen is.

Unfortunate thing for England is that their selectors have generally been simply unable to learn the lessons they're trying to.